Blacklist International has extended its dominance to the Sibol Qualifiers defeating Nexplay Evos in a convincing 4-1 fashion in the best-of-seven Grand Finals of the 2022 Sibol National Team Selection on Sunday, Jan. 30.
The quintet of Jonmar “OhmyV33nus” Villaluna, Danerie “Wise” Del Rosario, Salic “Hadji” Imam, Lee Howard “Owl” Gonzales and Dominic “Dominic” Soto will be donning the country’s color in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam in May.
Blacklist was methodical in the five-game stretch as it doused the red-hot NXPE which was coming off a blistering run in the lower bracket after eliminating contenders in the likes of Omega Esports, Onic Philippines and RSG Philippines.
Blacklist drew the series first blood after an 18-13 Game 1 win highlighted by an Owl Maniac on the Brody in the final clash of the series opener. Blacklist put on the early work as it quickly built the lead behind the fast farming of Wise on the jungle Aulus pick.
NXPE had their answers with H2wo securing his own triple kill to stop Blacklist’s first Lord push. That, however, was still not enough as Blacklist wiped out NXPE in the last clash.
Owl finished with a 9-5-4 line while Hadji provided support with a 4-1-10 line on the Yve.
Blacklist wrote the same story in the second game as Hadji showed the way for his squad with a 9-3-6 KDA on his midlane Lunox, highlighted by a number of beautifully done ‘Ruby-DD’ plays.
Blacklist’s mastery of the game was in full display with the squad executing perfect counter engages to catch and pick off NXPE’s double-marksman in Donut’s Clint and H2wo’s jungle Karrie.
Blacklist took a commanding 2-0 lead after its 15-12 Game 2 triumph.
Just like in the first two games, Blacklist had the upper hand in terms of the jungle control and skirmishes around the map. NXPE, however, refused to go down without a fight as Yellyhaze on the Kagura led a 4v5 initiation from NXPE to catch a retreating Blacklist after it secured the 20-minute Luminous Lord.
NXPE scored a three-man kill as it went for the GG push and cut the series deficit 2-1 after a 14-13 come-from-behind win. Yellyhaze had a 2-16 KDA in that game while H2wo added a 5-2-3 stat line.
However, that Game 3 hardly disturbed Blacklist as it went on with the finishing touches in Games 4 and 5.
Blacklist took advantage of NXPE’s mistake to build an early lead in Game 4. A two-man pick off in the top lane, a purple buff steal and a quick lord take at the 8-minute mark spelled doom for NXPE as Blacklist wiped out all of its turrets in that one Lord push.
NXPE’s base eventually fell to Blacklist’s hand in the next Lord march, building a commanding 3-1 series lead.
NXPE then ultimately lost steam in Game 5 as Blacklist utterly destroyed the MPL PH fourth placers with a 10-5 win in just 13-minutes of play. Owl and Hadji spearheaded the series clinching games with a 4-2-3 and 3-1-4 performances respectively.