IT WAS A roller-coaster season for Blacklist’s Dota 2 squad, Blacklist Rivalry. The star-studded roster failed to qualify for the first two majors, qualified to the Bali Major but ultimately failed to make it out of groups.
A coaching change saw Blacklist go with two coaches for the TI qualifiers where they went on a tear in the Upper Bracket but were sadly dominated by Team SMG in the grand finals.
Despite the tough loss, Blacklist and Tier One Entertainment CEO had no regrets and accepted the loss.
“I think they were generally just the better team in my opinion. I think it’s not about what we didn’t do it’s what they did more. I fully accept the defeat just because if you lose on that level, you know you didn’t even get a single game. It’s really knowing that their team was better than your team.”
“At least for that moment and for that specific time. Maybe tomorrow, yesterday, or some other day we were better, but during that time they were clearly the better team. So no excuses, we lost,” he further explained.
For Tryke the loss is a reflection of the reality of esports, where despite having the best team, best coaches, and all available resources, you still have to perform when the time comes.
“I think it was really unfortunate that we only had one slot for Southeast Asia, obviously if we had two we were in, but you can never ever complain against the format eh,” he reflected.
“All you can really do is prepare as a management for your team to have a chance. And we really did, we got two coaches, we had the best players available and yet we fell short. I guess that’s the reality of esports where despite all your preparation, despite all the resources you poured in you still have to win the games and we didn’t.“

Future plans
With their season over Blacklist and Tier One Entertainment CEO, Tryke Gutierrez talks to SPIN.ph about the roster’s future plans.
Gutierrez bared that he wants to continue fielding a Dota 2 squad for the coming year, however, they are still unsure of everything because things will depend on the available players and bringing in partners as their contract with Rivalry is set to expire at the end of the season.
“This is a personal dream of mine, this is something we really wanted as a company as well because DOTA is a big, big part of the community and a big, big part of my personal journey,” said Gutierrez.
“But at the end of the day, we will depend our decision on two things: One is who are the players available who will commit to the next season, and second is who will be the partner who can support us for the next season—because Rivalry’s contract is going to end this season so whether they are going to support us or not we’ll see,” he added.
“But hopefully they do, hopefully, we can get to try this a second time around.”
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