OB Esports X Neon ended the year with a bang as it ruled the Huya Dota 2 Winter Invitational on Friday, Dec. 31.
The PH based esports made the most out of its short break from the DCP SEA Winter Tour I as it topped the eight-day competition that featured some of the top Chinese squads and the International 10 participants in Team Aster, Vici Gaming and Invictus Gaming.
Filipino Jinn Marrey "Palos" Lamatao carried the load for OB.Neon against Chinese squad Royal Never Give Up in the best-of-five Grand Finals to win the Finals MVP citation.
Palos helped OB.Neon recover from a Game 1 hiccup where it lost 34-21 in just 37 minutes run time.
The Filipino carry took over in the next three games as OB.Neon clobbered RNG 39-16 in Game 2, 18-8 in Game 3 and 33-19 in the title clinching Game 4 to bag an estimate P1.6 million top prize.
Palos was unstoppable in the three-game stretch unloading 12-2-13 on the Luna, 6-1-6 on the Gyrocopter and 11-2-15 on the Razor.
Powerhouse Chinese squads Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming finished third and fourth while OB.Neon’s fellow PH based team TNC Predator got booted out in the group phase after losing in the tie-breaker for the last two spots of the playoffs.
TNC finished tied for the 3rd to 5th places in Group B but went winless in three-way round robin as it ended up dead-last in its group.
The victory should come as huge confidence booster for OB.Neon as it resumes its Winter Tour I campaign against SEA region powerhouse T1 on Wednesday. OB.Neon currently sits seventh in the standings and remains winless in three games.