Omega Esports prevailed in another chapter of epic rivalry with Blacklist International, completing a huge 2-1 reverse sweep to split their regular season matchup in the MPL Philippines Season 10 at the ICITE Auditorium in Libis, Quezon City on Saturday, Sept. 10.
In a clash that saw the mechanically gifted players grind it out with clutch plays after another, it was the perfect initiation of Duane “Kelra” Pillas and the follow up from Joshua “Ch4knu” Mangilog and Renz “Renzio” Cadua that saved the day for Omega to pick up their fifth win through nine games.
Fighting for position in the final Lord dance in the winner-take-all Game 3, Kelra engaged with the Blazing Duet ultimate of his Claude against Jonmar “OhmyV33nus” Villaluna’s Faramis and Kiel “Oheb” Soriano’s Beatrix.
V33us managed to activate her Cult Altar ultimate to try and survive the initial damage but Renzio and Ch4knu followed up with the Falling Starmoon ultimate of the Esmeralda and the Noumenon Blast of Lolita to secure the kills.
The rest of Blacklist fell one by one from that point as Omega secured the series-clinching win with a 19-6 triumph in Game 3.
Christian “Raizen” Sumagui unloaded an 8-3-10 KDA on Julian while Kelra and Ch4knu added 3-0-9 and 3-1-14 lines to erase the bitter taste of its sorry loss in Game 1.
It was Omega who took control of the opening game of the series behind Raizen's Balmond and Kelra's Claude. The Season 9 second placers took a gold lead that went to as high as 6k but couldn't get the final push to break through Blacklist's base defense.
Omega, after three Lord sieges, collapsed in their last attempt to take down Blacklist’s base as OhmyV33nus popped the Cult Altar ultimate just in time to give Oheb's Beatrix extra HP and dish out an AoE damage against four Omega players.
Oheb scored a triple kill, allowing Blacklist to go for the counter to draw the series first blood with a 20-23 comeback win
Although the Codebreakers held the lead for the majority of the contest, the game remained a nip-and-tuck affair in Game 2.
The aggression brought by Wise's Akai and OhmyV33nus' Mathilda along with the damage from the Hadji's Cecilion kept Omega at bay especially team fights for major objectives.
Looking to get an advantage in the clash for the 20-minute Luminous Lord, Blacklist tried to gank Raizen's Julian at the bottom lane with a three-man rotation.
Raizen, though, managed to survive the initial engagement with the sustain of his Julian and bought enough time for the rest of Omega to initiate a counter-punish that took out three Blacklist heroes.
Omega went on for the death push against Wise's Akai, the lone player left to defend the base, to score a 15-9 Game 2 equalizer.