Angelo “Pheww” Arcangel showed the veteran poise, rallying Bren Esports to a 3-2 reverse sweep of Smart Omega in the win-or-go-home first round of the MPL Philippine Season 10 playoffs at the Blue Leaf Cosmopolitan on Thursday, Oct. 20.
Down by 2-0 after absorbing demoralizing defeats at the hands of Omega, Bren leaned on the veteran presence of Pheww who carried the fight for Bren in the last three games to pull off the biggest upset so far of the playoffs and advance to the upper bracket semifinals against top seed Blacklist International.
Pheww claimed the three MVP citations in Bren’s three wins as the M2 champions sent the last season’s runner-up to its worst finish since acquiring the Execration lineup in Season 8.
After Omega rammed through Bren in the first two games, Pheww’s Pharsa proved to be the antidote to Omega’s poison as its damage and range slowed down the aggression of Omega in the early game.
That allowed Bren core heroes on Kyletzy’s Karina and Super Marco’s Claude to finally find their groove with the former running wild with a 4-0-7 line.
Pheww finished with a 4-1-8 KDA as he also connived with Pandora’s Yu Zhong to provide the zoning against Omega heroes during objective take.
In Game 4, it was still Pheww who set the tempo for Bren after utilizing a surprising Gusion midlane pick. The double-assassin lineup anchored on Pheww and Kyletzy’s Lancelot worked wonders for Bren as the M2 champs worked on their early game pick-offs to control the entire map.
Pheww unloaded a 5-1-7 line on the Gusion while Super Marco added a neat 6-0-3 line on the Melissa.
Smelling blood, Bren Esports showed no letup and punished the late-game composition of Omega anchored on the Melissa and Cecilion picks.
Pheww, back on his Pharsa pick, showed way with a 4-2-3 line while Kyletzy and Owgwen finished with 1-0-6 and 0-0-6 KDAs on the Karina and Ruby picks, respectively.
It looked like Omega was on its way to forging a classic matchup against Blacklist after easily taking full control of the map with relentless aggression courtesy of Ch4knu’s initiation on the Atlas pick in Game 1.
The last season runner-up starved Bren of its resources and allowed its core heroes to reach its power spikes with Kelra putting up a clean 4-0-7 line on the Claude while Raizen adding a 5-1-5 KDA on the jungle Karina to draw first blood.
A Lord dance at the 12 minute mark then triggered a huge clash in the midlane that saw Omega split the Bren Esports into two groups. Kelra on the Beatrix then scored on a double kill on one side of the team fight while Raizen notched a triple kill on the other side to complete a five-man wipe.