By Reynald Magallon
Onic Philippines and Bren Esports dispatched their respective foes to start the Week 5 of MPL Philippines Season 8 on a winning note on Friday, September 24.
Coming off a tough 2-1 loss against ECHO last week, Onic bounced back with a huge 2-1 victory over MSC champions Omega Esports in the first match.
Kairi “Kairi” Rayosdelsol shone the brightest on his jungler Aulus in the opening game with a 6-1-5 KDA to take the MVP honors. He then put up a clean stat line of seven kills and nine assists without a death on the same hero in the deciding Game 3.
The coach Denver “Yeb” Mirando-mentored squad had the chance to end the series in Game 2 but Omega retaliated with a one sided 21-7 win behind Patrick “E2Max” Caidic’s Yve and Kielvj “Kielvj” Hernandez’s jungle Bane who finished with 4-1-11 and 5-0-6 KDAs respectively.
Despite an hour delay due to technical difficulties before Game 3, Onic kept its focus and completed a 16-21 comeback win in the final game led by MVP Ian “Beemo” Sergio who finished with 12 assists against six deaths on his tank Jawhead.
Meanwhile, Bren reasserted its mastery over NXPE with a come-from-behind victory in the second match of the evening.
After dropping Game 1 to a double-mage line up from NXPE, Karl “Karltzy” Nepomuceno came alive on his jungler Natan with nine kills and nine assists against three deaths to power BREN to a late game comeback, 19-18, in 21 minutes in Game 2. The other half of the Tzy brothers, David “Flaptzy” Canon was named MVP with a 4-1-8 KDA on his offlane Baxia.
Bren steamrolled from that point as they easily dictated the jungle control to starve NXPE off their resources and pad the lead by as much as 12k gold in Game 3. Karltzy was in his MVP form with a 5-1-5 KDA on Natan while CJ “Ribo” Ribo’s Chou and Allan “Lusty” Castromayor’s Khufra provided the clutch initiations to end the series.
With the win, Onic improved to a 6-3 record good for the second spot with 19 points while Bren notched their only third win in nine outings for nine points and the seventh spot in the standings.