Veteran Billy "Z4pnu" Alfonso finally played this season, helping Execration thrash Laos' Nightmare Esports, 2-0, and zoom to the playoffs upper bracket of the Mobile Legends Southeast Asia Cup (MSC) 2021 on Tuesday, June 8.
Z4pnu on his position-4 Chou joined forces with longtime teammate Joshua "Ch4knu" Mangilog's Kaja to stymie the Diggie feeding strategy of Nightmare en route to an easy 29-6 victory in just 11 minutes in Game 1.
With Z4pnu-Ch4knu connection making the plays, Kiel VJ "Kielvj" Hernandez's Yi Sun-Shin was able to freely farm his core items and went on to put up 10 kills and 10 assists against a lone death.
But it was Ch4knu with his Divine Judgment initiations that shone brightly as he finished with 15 assists and two kills against one death while Z4pnu tallied 9-2-8 kill-death-assist.
Nightmare opted to imitate Blacklist's "UBE" (ultimate bonding experience) tactic in Game 2 but Ch4knu and Execration proved that they were geared up for that after facing Blacklist itself in the grueling MPL Philippines Season 7 grand finals recently.
Ch4knu's Akai came up with well-time Thousand Pounder into Hurricane Dance combos to disrupt Nightmare's strategy and allow Duane "Kelra" Pillas' Claude and Kielvj's Lancelot to unload their physical burst.
Z4pnu's Yve and Renz "Renzio" Cadua's Gloo were also instrumental in head-on team fights as the MPL-PH runners-up scored a 16-7 romp in 14 minutes.
Execration swept its two matches in Group D to become the first team to book a spot in the upper bracket of MSC 2021 which stakes a total prize pool of $150,000 (over P7 million).
Nightmare will fight it out for tournament life against inaugural MPL Singapore champion EVOS SG, which Exe also crushed 2-0.