Bren Esports pulled off the biggest upset so far in the MPL Philippines Season 9 as it shackled league leading ECHO with a dominant 2-0 sweep on Saturday, March 19.
After struggling in the first round of the eliminations, Bren played like a different team against ECHO as its lineup, which went winless in its first few matches in Season 9, dealt the powerhouse ECHO squad its first sweep loss and second overall in the tournament.
Bren didn’t look like a cellar dwelling team in their second meeting this season as it pounced on ECHO from start to finish in Game 1.
Joyboy on the Tank Chou, Saxa on the Ling and Pheww on the Eudora joined hands to put the clamps down on Karltzy’s surprise Fanny pick.
Bren put on a conscious effort to suffocate Karltzy and deny him his purple buff all series long. Saxa took advantage of that evident on the 15 purple buff Bren took in Game 1 against ECHO’s only four. With all of the five ECHO players helping Karltzy to secure his buff, Super Marco had a free space to farm and quickly reach his power spike.
Super Marco had his best game so far in the season with a 6-1-8 KDA while Saxa unloaded a 5-2-8 score line. Joyboy also shone on the Chou with a 3-4-11 showing on top of the crucial kicks that triggered the attack for Bren.
And if that’s not enough, Bren pulled off another rousing performance in the second game proving that its Game 1 win was no fluke.
Bren stood toe-to-toe against the talented ECHO crew during the team fights and even prevailed in the clashes for major objectives to build a gold lead while taking ECHO outer turrets down after the first Lord push.
ECHO tried to climb its way back to the game with Karltzy taking down two heroes from Bren in a clash down bottom lane. Bren had its chance to force the decider after it secured the Lord in the next play but Bren completed the base defense with Super Marco’s Harith dashing his way around ECHO to take three players down.
Bren never looked back from that point as it kept ECHO at bay for the rest of the game to take a 19-12 Game 2 triumph.
The dominant showing was only Bren’s second win in eight games but nonetheless a huge boost to its confidence heading to the second half of the elimination.