Rejigged Onic Philippines made a huge statement in its opening game as it leaned on a clutch play from captain Ralph “Rapidoot” Adrales to squeeze out a nail-biting 2-1 victory over Bren Esports in the MPL Philippine Season 10 at the ICite Auditorium, Saturday, Aug. 13.
With Bren looking to end the series with a huge siege at the 13-minute mark of Game 3 a clutch Fatal Links ultimate from Rapidoot’s Atlas caught four Bren heroes to turn things around and notch their first win of the tournament.
Bren never recovered from that point as a couple of game errors including a pick-off on Rowgie “Owgwen” Unigo and Jomari “Jowm” Pingol spelled doom as Onic secured the fourth Lord to close out the impressive debut.
After trailing 3-1, Onic wound up winning the series-clincher with a 13-4 tally led by Kennenth “nets” Barros who benefitted from the crucial play from Rapidoot to finish with a neat 8-0-5 line on the Clint while lone Onic holdover Nowee “Ryota” Cabailo had a 1-0-12 line on the EXP lane Paquito.
Onic made a good impression in Game 1 as Frince “Super Frince” Ramirez made the plays for his crew with a 4-1-7 line on his Diggie while providing enough protection to their core hero in net’s Wanwan who had a debut of his own with 4-1-5 line.
It was a lopsided affair as Onic controlled the match from start to finish not giving the new-look Bren any hopes of a comeback to take the first point in the series, 11-5.
Bren, though, returned the favor in Game 2 as it recovered from a five-man wipe at the nine-minute mark using the second Lord siege to its full potential to destroy all of the Onic’s inhibitor turrets.
A messy clash in the ensuing plays then went to Bren’s favor as a pick-off on Super Frince’s Mathilda proved to be enough for Bren to go and complete a base lock and tie the series following a 6-8 come-from-behind win.
Kyle “Kyletzy” Sayson led the way with a 3-1-1 line on the jungle Paquito.