Mico “Micophobia” Tarala shone bright in his debut as Onic Philippines asserted its mastery over the ‘superteam’ ECHO after sweeping their regular season matchup with another 2-1 reversal in the MPL Philippines Season 9 on Friday, April 8.
Already secured of a spot in the playoffs, Onic played with no pressure as it used its final assignments to finetune the game plan for the playoffs.
Micophobia gave Onic PH the huge lift in its repeat over ECHO which the M3 runner-up also beat in the same fashion in their first meeting in Week 4.
Trailing by one game in the series, Micophobia provided the perfect initiation using the Iron Hooks of his Franco in Game 2 before following it up with accurate Abyssal Arrows of his Selena in the series clinching game.
He finished with a 2-1-7 KDA on the Franco while he unloaded a 4-2-4 line on the Selena.
The initiations from Micophobia worked wonders for Onic in Game 2 as Kairi “Kairi” Rayosdelsol on the Lancelot converted most of the hooks into valuable kills to seize the lead in his jungle matchup against Karl “Karltzy” Nepomuceno’s Paquito.
With the Demon slayer emblem, Kairi also quickly built his core items and reached his power spike early to finish with a 5-1-3 KDA.
Marky “Markyyy” Capacio’s Aldous also went uncontested in his farm and freely gathered his stacks to dominate the team fights in the latter part of the match with a 2-0-5 line as Onic tied the series after a 13-4 Game 2 win.
It was the same story in Game 3 as Micophobia, this time, joined hands with Allen “Baloyskie” Baloy’s Grock to provide the map vision and perfect initiations during team fights.
Micophobia’s crucial arrows which landed on ECHO’s carry heroes in Kurttzy’s Kagura and Karltzy’s Ling made the difference in the tightly contested game which Onic took in a 13-13 tally. Markyyy's Beatrix scattered a 2-3-5 KDA while Kairi's Lancelot and Gerald "Dlarskie" Trinchera's Esmeralda added a 2-1-5 and 4-3-4 score lines respectively
ECHO, which drew the series’ first blood after its 12-10 Game 1 win, now needs to sweep NXPE in its final assignment in the regular season and hope RSG drops its series against Onic on Saturday to still secure the top seed.