One MPL Philippines team is now assured to reach the Grand Finals of the ONE Esports MPL Invitational 2023 after AP.Bren and ECHO arranged an upper bracket finals showdown after taking down respective foes at the GBK Basketball Hall on Friday, Nov. 17.

AP.Bren sent fellow Filipino team RSG Philippines to the lower bracket with a convincing 2-0 win while ECHO dispatched Malaysian crew Homebois, 2-1 to forge a marquee collision between two Filipino powerhouses.

The Beehive went wild anew with Kyle “Kyletzy” Sayson and Marco “Super Marco” Requitano took turns in punishing the Raiders en route to the commanding sweep.

Even with most of the jungle heroes banned in the opening game, Kyletzy managed to get his hands and shone on the Hayabusa pick with a 4-2-2 line to lead AP.Bren to a 7-2 win.

Marco then put up the finishing touches in the series with a perfect 4-0-2 tally on Bruno to preside over an 11-2 win to send RSG PH to a lower bracket match against See You Soon.

Alston “Sanji” Pabico and Benedict “BennyQt” Gonzales took over in the winner-take-all Game 3 to survive a tough stand from Homebois.

Sanji had an impressive 5-0-15 KDA on the Novaria midlane pick while BennyQt ran wild in the late game to put up a 10-3-5 tally on Bruno to spearhead a 22-15 closeout for ECHO in the series.

It was actually ECHO which drew first blood in the series after taking a 18-4 Game 1 win but the Malaysians held their ground and came back in Game 2 with an 11-4 retaliation to tie the series.

Over at the lower bracket, Blacklist International eliminated the last Indonesian team in the tournament Rebellion Zion with a 2-0 sweep.

The Codebreakers pulled through a 14-7 win in the series opener with Ian Jakob “Rindo” Seguiran leading the way with a 6-0-6 line on the jungle Nolan pick.

Blacklist then came back from a gold deficit in Game 2 thanks to a well-executed Lord dance at the 22-minute mark, disrupting the positioning of the Rebellion. With the Lord on their side, the Codebreakers went on with the final siege closing out the series with a come-from-behind 6-6 win.