Omega Esports came out victorious in its upper bracket series against rival Blacklist International but head coach Jomie “Pakbet” Abalos was still left in awe with the performance of the defending champions even without gold laner Kiel “Oheb” Soriano.
Although Omega only needed four games to beat Blacklist, the series was far from easy as Coach Pakbet admitted that they were also put to their limits just to stop defending champions on its track.
“Ganun pa rin masaya pa rin kami kapag natatalo namin ang Blacklist kasi sobrang lakas pa rin talaga nila. ‘Di namin alam kung paanong adjust ‘yung gagawin namin sa draft naming. Grabe rin pag prepare namin dito sa Blacklist, talagang sobrang lakas,” said the veteran tactician in the post-game interview.
Omega was actually on the losing end in the last two games of the series but the players were able to pull off some clutch plays to turn things around to the MSC champion’s favor.
Omega survived Blacklist death push in Game 3 that could have changed the complexion of the series, all thanks to Christian “Raizen” Sumagui who stalled the push allowing the rest of OMG players to respawn.
The team then picked off Danerie “Wise” Del Rosario’s jungle Balmond during the Lord dance at the 21-minute mark which allowed OMG to complete a 22-14 come-from-behind win.
It was also the same scenario in Game 4 where OMG needed a clutch play from Kelra who executed a backline dive to zone Blacklist players Jonmar “OhmyV33nus” Villaluna and Edward “Edward” Dapidap away from OMG’s lord take.
Omega ended up taking the Luminous Lord and killing three heroes to the side of Blacklist to seal the series.
Coach Pakbet credited his team’s playoff adjustments and their newly found chemistry in their victory against the team who beat them twice via sweep in the regular season.
“Yung regular season kasi namin parang lahat ng mali naming tinatanggal naming pagdating ng playoffs,” Pakbet explained.
“Ayaw namig ‘yung nag iisa isa kami tapos hindi kami lumalaban ng sabay sabay. Sa ngayon grabe na ‘yung chemistry naming, alam namin kalian kami papasok, alam namin kalian kami mag out,” he added.
Pakbet and his Omega, however, will need more of that chemistry as they try to topple a dominant Onic Philippines squad in the upper bracket finals.