Two of our Filipino world champions face off once more in the 9th season of the MPL-PH, but this time, in a dangerous battle for their lives to make it alive to the upcoming playoffs. Several recently buffed heroes immediately make it to the drafting phase, and both teams seem prepared to show off and even take away surprise picks from their opponents and vice versa. Kevier on his Ling was able to take down both purple buffs during the beginning of the first game of the series, though he died in exchange of his attempts to delay. Hadji on the Selena seemed as promising as he could ever be with any hero he decides to play, despite and in the face of highly aggressive early game heroes such as JOY BOY on the Hilda from the side of BREN. A beautiful early game execution comes in from the side of Blacklist International, and not even the Real World Manipulation could provide BREN the advantage during the early teamfights. Saxa and his precise retribution, however, keeps BREN on their feet, and even allows them to regain their aggression and eventually take the lead. As soon as things slowly fall into place for the side of BREN, we see JOY BOY spamming his recall once again. Shortly after this time, BLCK, with the lack of damage and sufficient sustain to take on the immense lead in the hands of BREN, lose and let go of game number 1.

Blacklist International was all fired up to redeem themselves and take back the second game in hopes of winning the series, as they're able to secure Kevier's Masha and Hadji's Chou for their first phase picks. This time, too, ESON decides to surprise us with his use of the pos5 Valir, and as they fight against the extremely tanky composition of BREN Esports. Constant trades and mirror plays took place during the early game, though Pheww on this Angela proved to be a bigger problem than we thought he was. In less than 10 minutes into the game, the real time win rate was at 63-37 in favor of BREN, and we'd definitely presume that victory was slowly making its way to their hands. However, a successful way of the dragon coming in from Edward led to pickoff onto Saxa during the 12-minute mark, and this showed signs of life for BLCK--allowing them to take down the second lord of the game which they immediately converted to a wipeout, and a successful revenge taken onto BREN.

More and more surprises are revealed as we move on to our third game, such as ESON on the Belerick and Pheww on the Cecilion once more. The Filipino Sniper returns for this game as well, and an extremely careful gameplay is shown to us by both of the teams durign the early game. Pheww definitely did not have the best time during the early stages of the game, but his teammates did not disappoint in avenging his death every single time. Edward with his stellar manipulation of the Benedetta is able to provide and accomplish so much for every engage that they decide to partake in, yet another highlight which returned the momentum constantly into the hands of BLCK was Kevier and his accuracy on the execution of the retribution. Even in the most challenging of lord fights, his retribution won his team the fights. Nonetheless, an unfortunate pickoff onto OHEB just before the second lord take did not give any room for Kevier to contest and go near the lord pit, this time providing BREN the chance to go for the lord push. The game went on until the 20-minute mark, where Cecilion was clearly online. Without much left to protect, BLCK leaves ESON alone to defend--and the M2 champs claim their win yet again.

GAME 1 (14:57) - BLCK 13 (L); BREN 21 (W)

GAME 2 (14:00) - BLCK 14 (W); BREN 13 (L)

GAME 3 (22:41) - BLCK 10 (L); BREN 16 (W)

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