ECHO swept a new-look Onic Philippines to kickstart its MPL Philippines Season 13 campaign while RSG Philippines and Blacklist International survived a pair of close encounters to likewise pick up their first wins at the Shooting Gallery Studios on Saturday, March 16.

The Orcas gave former Omega star Duane “Kelra” Pillas a rude welcome with his new team as Karl “Karltzy” Nepomuceno and Benedict “BennyQT” Gonzales took turns in punishing the Hedgehogs in the dominant 2-0 win.

BennyQT was simply untouchable on his Claude in the opening game as he quickly reached his power spike and dominated the team fights with a neat 7-0-2 KDA in the series opener.

Karltzy then immediately followed suit and ran wild on the jungle with his X-borg pick to finish with an equally impressive 6-0-4 line.

Armed with renewed confidence after adding former TNC jungler King “K1NGKONG” Perez and Kelra in the offseason, Onic suffered the setback right on its first match.

Meanwhile, RSG PH welcomed the return of Jonard “Demonkite” Caranto with a 2-1 win over Smart Omega Esports.

Demonkite reintroduced himself to MPL PH fans with a solid showing in the series opener but needed some crucial plays from rookie Jhondy “Nibor” Ranque to win the match after the team failed to close the series out in Game 2.

Nibor came up huge in the decider, scoring a double kill in a massive team fight at the 14th minute mark which resulted in a five-man wipe of Omega players.

Blacklist, on the other hand, bounced back from an opening day defeat against AP.Bren after surviving Minana EVOS, 2-1.

After a gold lane Ruby pick that shocked the Tigers in the first two games, Kiel “Oheb” Soriano took over in the deciding Game 3 with an impressive 7-0-2 line on the signature Karrie pick.