Onic Esports executive Denver “Yeb” Miranda hopes that the current crop of players from FNOP can accomplish what he failed to achieve during his time with the team in the M3 World Championship.

A former head coach of the first Onic Philippine team that made it to the finals of the world stage, Yeb is seeing similarities in the M-series runs of FNOP and his former crew although he is optimistic that the current lineup has what it takes to get over the hump.

Back then, Onic PH went on a perfect upper bracket run behind Kairi “Kairi” Rayosdelsol and Allen “Baloyskie” Baloy and Gerald “Dlarskie” Trinchero but got swept by Blacklist International in the Finals.

Likewise, FNOP went on an impressive run in the upper bracket to reach the grand finals. The only difference, however, was this current lineup actually suffered losses in their series – a factor that Yeb sees as a positive thing.

“First yung path dun sa playoffs (the similarities). Ang pinagkaiba lang nung M3, sweep namin lahat, Grand Finals talo. Nung sa Onic Indo ko, ganon din nung Finals talo, kaya thankful ako na ito ngayon medyo natatalo para alam mo yun may natest kayo, di niyo nailabas lahat ng bala nyo lahat,” said Yeb.

History is also against FNOP in its upper bracket run as since M2, all teams from the lower bracket went on to win the title in the Worlds. But Yeb believed that it only happened because it was a Filipino team that came from the lower bracket finals.

“Oo naman,” said Yeb when asked if FNOP can break that upper bracket curse.

“First, wala si Aurora walang isa pang pinoy eh. So lahat ng M-series run ko ang naglolower bracket PH team so this time kung wala sila I think medyo safe naman tayo,” he added