Filipino champion Amihan Esports put up a gallant but still fell short against Vietnam's SBTC Esports, 3-2, in the quarterfinals and crashed out of the League of Legends: Wild Rift Southeast Asia Icon Series Summer Super Cup on Saturday, June 26.
Amihan looked lethargic at the start coming off a five-day break as it sank to a 2-0 deficit, but eventually regained its fiery form to force a deciding Game 5.
Richard "Demon" Lara's Corki and Beaver-Ed "Orthros" Villanueva's Braum joined forces to power the PH squad's dominant Game 3 win before Jelson "Jelson" Ayon's Jarvan IV, Karl "KARLLL" Bautista's Akali and Miguel "Mitsura" Gavin's Renekton sparked another lopsided victory in Game 4.
However, SBTC secured the Gragas for Nguyễn "TF" Hữu Thuần in Game 5 and he proved to be the kryptonite of Amihan.
The Filipinos showed a glimpse of a comeback when they slayed three enemy champions but their subsequent Baron take turned disastrous as TF still had his Explosive Cask and Phạm "Minas" Minh Phước's heavily-farmed Fiora still alive.
SBTC punished Amihan, taking down four of them with Orthos' Janna left as the lone survivor before the Vietnamese marched straight to demolish the Nexus.
Amihan, which won the Icon Series PH Summer Split, settled for a 5th-8th place finish in the 16-team regional tournament and got a prize of $8,500 (over P412,000).
Team Secret, the other PH representative, is taking on another Vietnamese team in CERBERUS Esports in the quarterfinals as of posting time.