Armel "Armel" Tabios' Puck and Kim "Gabbi" Villafuerte's Terrorblade wreaked havoc in the decisive Game 3 to lift TNC Predator to a 2-1 victorious start over Team SMG and into the upper bracket semifinals of the The International 10 (TI10) Southeast Asia Qualifier on Wednesday, June 30.
Armel's sneaky Puck was on-point with his Dream Coil initiations and Gabbi's TB armed with Daedalus ripped through ex-Team Secret and OG carry Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng's Medusa in the winning clashes en route to a dominant 30-12 triumph in 36 minutes.
TNC got behind after a disastrous contest on SMG's Roshan take but the all-Filipino squad snatched back the momentum with a 4-for-2 exchange plus a dieback on the enemy Tusk in the 31st minute.
A successful smoke gank saw TNC wipe out SMG in their jungle triangle plus another five-man massacre inside their base punctuated the victory over ex-TNC offlaner Damien "kpii" Chok and the former team of coach Chai "Mushi" Yee Fung.
Armel dictated the tempo with pickoffs all around the map as he racked up 13 kills and 12 assists against two deaths even as Gabbi hit eight kills and 11 assists against a lone death.
TNC barged into the next round of the upper bracket where it will face the winner between Execration and Boom Esports which are battling at posting time.
SMG, which forced a rubber match behind MidOne's Medusa in Game 2, dropped to the lower bracket to take on Lilgun in a do-or-die best-of-three series.
Only the winner of the brutal 15-team SEA qualifier will get to join Carlo "Kuku" Palad's T1 in TI10 which features a prize pool of over $40 million (nearly P2 billion), the highest in esports history.