Blacklist International displayed poise at crunchtime to overcome the hard-fighting Echo, 2-0, and sweep their regular season series for a perfect record through eight games in the MPL Philippines Season 8 on Saturday, September 18.

The defending champions, who won in a tight 2-1 series in their first meeting, had to survive two close games against Echo which utilized double-marksman lineups in the series.

Echo’s plan was actually paying dividends as it dragged both matches past the 20-minute mark. The team also had semblance of resistance to Blacklist’s signature UBE strat, all thanks to the AoE damage from the marksmen.

But the veterans were able to negate the fightback and pulled off clutch plays to secure the series, thanks to Kiel “OHEB” Soriano who starred in Game 1 with a perfect 6-0-8 KDA and a whopping 93 percent kill participation on his Alice.

Jonmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna was also solid on his Estes--efforts that were enough to survive the triple AoE burst coming from MarK “Hadess” Lazaro’s Claude, Rion Manalo “Rk3” Kudo’s midlane Beatrix and Benedict “BennyQT” Gonzales’ gold lane Lunox in the late game.

It was evident in the final clash in Game 1 when a timely Blessing of the Moon Goddess from OhMyV33nus allowed his entire team to withstand the twin ultimates from RK3’s Beatrix and BennyQt’s Lunox. OHEB then reengaged and took down two heroes from ECHO to end the game with a 15-14 tally.

ECHO followed the same draft pattern in Game 2, this time around with Hadess’ on core Harley, RK3 on his Beatrix and BennyQT on the Claude but just like in Game 1, OhMyV33nus’ Estes allowed the main damage dealers of Blacklist in Oheb’s Alice and Danerie “Wise” Del Rosario’s jungle Bruno to survive their ultimates.

Blacklist then took three kills and a free Luminous Lord in a clash near Blacklist’s purple buff pit at the 13-minute mark to end Game 2 with a 11-11 score in 20 minutes of play.

OhMyV33nus was key in both games as he racked up 14 assists against three deaths in Game 1 and three kills and six assists against two deaths in Game 2. Wise took the MVP honors in the second match with a 2-2-8 KDA.

Blacklist is still at the top of the standings holding an 8-0-win loss card, good for 20 points while Echo fell to a 3-5 card with 11 points.

Blacklist will test their mettle against skidding TNC while ECHO will take on RSG, both games on September 25. (RM)