Filipino star midlaner Abed "Abed" Yusop and his ragtag Team Dog staved off TNC Predator's spirited comeback bid to post a 2-1 victory and barge into the grand finals of the Beyond The Summit (BTS) Pro Series Season 4 Southeast Asia on Saturday night.
After TNC's thrilling come-from-behind win in Game 2, Abed went on a perfect "godlike" streak on his Void Spirit in Game 3 to lift his squad to the best-of-five grand finals of the eight-team regional tourney that stakes a prize pool of $50,000 (P2.4 million), with the champion getting a hefty $21,000 (P1 million) prize.
On the other hand, the Filipino powerhouse team fell to the lower bracket final on Sunday where it will face the winner of the ongoing match between Fnatic and T1.
Veteran Singaporean offlaner Daryl "iceiceice" Koh Pei Xiang, who recently joined Abed in American powerhouse Evil Geniuses, proved to be the key in Game 1 with his Batrider pulling off sneaky catches through Flaming Lasso.
Iceiceice finished with 23 assists to go with four kills against two deaths while Indonesian carry Muhammad "inYourdreaM" Rizky's Morphling hit 17 kills against a lone death and Abed's Storm Spirit scored six kills and 18 assists with zero deaths on top of his crucial disables with Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Electric Vortex.
TNC managed to get an equalizer with a nerve-racking comeback win in the second game which lasted for over 61 minutes.
The PH side executed its hit-and-run tactic led by Armel "Armel" Tabios' Morphling with Aghanim's Scepter and Kim "Gabbi" Villafuerte's Windranger to erase a 20k gold deficit and overcome the deadly duo of Abed's Ember Spirit and inYourdreaM's Anti-Mage.
However, Team Dog did not allow TNC to spark another comeback in the decisive game as Abed on his Void Spirit was simply on a different level, tallying 10 kills and 16 assists without a single death to fuel the 37-8 stomp in just 28 minutes.
Malaysian soft support Tue "ah fu" Soon Chuan also shone on his Leshrac with 10 kills and seven assists against one death while iceiceice's Pangolier had 24 assists and five kills against two deaths.