Blacklist International and Aurora Gaming pulled off stunning upsets against their favored rivals to barge into the last four in the MPL Philippines Season 14 playoffs at the Green Sun Hotel on Wednesday, Oct. 16.

The sixth seeded Codebreakers surprised everyone with a 3-0 sweep of third seed Smart Omega while the Northern Lights shone bright and ousted defending champion Team Liquid PH with a pulsating 3-2 win.

On a roller-coaster ride all-season long, Blacklist achieved new heights and defied expectations by going back to its roots with its Healing META although with John "Perkz" Sumawan anchoring it this time with his Mathilda and Rafaela picks.

With the entirely new flavor of their UBE strat, the Codebreakers pulled the rug from under Omega in the first two games with 14-7 and 19-11 victories.

Blacklist then shrugged off a tough stand from Omega in Game 3, overcoming a gold deficit that reached to as high as 5.9k by surviving three Lord sieges before punishing a costly Diversion play from Jayson "Uk1r" Alupit's Luo Yi late in the contest.

The Codebreakers scored a three-man wipe in that telling clash as they went for the base push to cap the series with a come-from-behind 12-11 win.

Meanwhile, the season newcomer Aurora lived up to its powerhouse billing when it ended the reign of Team Liquid in five grueling games.

It proved to be the steadier team in the winner-take-all Game 5 as it seized control of the contest, beginning on the first turtle fight where Aurora scored a three-man wipe and further padding the lead the rest of the way.

Aurora clinched the series after a see-saw affair in the first four games with it taking Games 1 and 3 and TLPH securing Games 2 and 4 to drag the series to a rubbermatch.

Jan "Domeng" Del Mundo capped a series-long brilliance with a neat 4-0-4 KDA on the Harith pick while Edward "Edward" Dapadap was equally impressive with a 3-0-3 line on the Terizla pick.

With their wins, Blacklist gets the chance to challenge reigning M-series world champion Falcons APBren while Aurora takes on top seed Fnatic Onic which was coming off a stellar regular season that saw it set the record for the longest win streak at 12.