Blacklist Rivalry went off to a perfect start to its bid for a spot in the Lima major, scoring twin victories over Bleed Esports and Fnatic in the opening week of the DPC SEA 2023 Tour 1.
The star-studded crew composed of Timothy “Tims” Randrup, Carlo “Kuku” Palad, Marco Polo “Raven” Fausto, Karl “Karl” Baldovino and Nico “eyyou” Barcelon opened up its campaign with a 2-1 reverse sweep against Bleed Esports before scoring another reversal against Fnatic in its second assignment.
Shaking off the jitters in the Game 1 loss against Bleed, the Filipino crew got their bearings going in the last two games with Raven and Karl spearheading Blacklist’s assault.
Raven finished with a 9-1-8 and 9-1-15 KDA on the Nature’s Prophet in Games 2 and 3 respectively while Karl was equally impressive with a perfect 6-0-10 line on Kunkka in the team’s first win before dropping an 11-5-9 tally on the Tiny in the series-clinching win.
It was pretty much the same case in their second game as they also surrendered the series opener against Fnatic before completing their comeback in the last two games.
Still composed of Filipino players that saw action in The International 2022 led by Djardel “Dj” Mampusti and offseason addition Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte, Fnatic drew first blood in the series with a masterful 29-4 win.
Tims and Kuku though spearheaded the huge second game 35-12 fightback with the former unleashing 2-1-27 line on the Mirana while the latter finishing with a perfect 6-0-19 KDA on the Dragon Knight.
Riding the momentum of the Game 2 win, Karl then unleashed an 8-1-10 line on the Tiny while Raven put up a perfect 6-0-8 tally on the Templar Assassin.
Also still undefeated in the opening week was another Filipino team in Execration which defeated Talon Esports and Team SMG via 2-0 sweeps.