Omega Esports halted Nexplay Evos' win streak with a hard-earned 2-1 victory to claim its second straight win in the MPL Philippines Season 9 on Saturday, March 5.
After starting the tournament with three straight losses, Omega finally found its groove for its first win streak of the season at the expense of nemesis NXPE.
It was Omega which drew the series first blood as it banked on its vision game with the help of Duane “Kelra” Pillas’ Popol and Kupa and Patrick "E2max" Caidic’s Selena to take control of the map in the early game. OMG looked one step ahead of NXPE as a 4-0 start set the tone for Omega's 11-4 rout of NXPE in the opening game.
Omega never looked back from that point as Raizen spearheaded the attack with a 5-1-4 KDA while E2max added a 2-1-6 line on the Selena.
Nexplay returned the favor in Game 2 as it steamrolled to a 15-5 victory to force the winner take all. Renejay on the tank Ruby and Sagitnu on the Gloo dictated the tempo as they provided the sustain and the zoning for NXPE, giving its carry heroes in H2wo’s Hayabusa and Donut’s Beatrix the space to quickly reach their power spikes.
Omega tried to close the gap but Renejay simply had the answers to every initiation from Ch4knu’s Franco and E2max’s Selena to force the deciding Game 3.
Donut was untouchable on the Beatrix, dishing out the damage from afar to finish with a 4-0-5 score line. Sagitnu and Renejay provided support with 2-1-10 and 1-1-10 KDAs respectively.
After doing most of the damage in Game 2, Omega put on a conscious effort to pressure Donut in the gold lane. Ch4knu's initiations to pick off key heroes from NXPE, none bigger than his kick on H2wo during his late contest for Omega’s lord take at the 10-min mark.
As Omega took the early game lead, Raizen on the Aulus went uncontested on his farm to quickly snowball and dominate the team fight for Omega in the latter part of the match. He finished with a 9-0-2 KDA while Cha4knu dictated the pace with a 2-2-9 score line.