BEFORE their hard-fought victory in today's series versus old foes Onic Esports, Blacklist International knew they had a lot to catch up with after two recent defeats.
In the MPL: Invitational, many consider Blacklist International to be the most dominant team, only for them to encounter a surprise from Gilang "SANZ" Yi Sun Shin.
In a Spin.ph Zoom In episode, the Codebreakers' head coach Kristoffer "BON CHAN" Ricaplaza said that he was surprised by Calvin "CW" Winata's hero pool. But in a press conference today in the ongoing M3 world championships, he revisited his assessment of the team's MPLI foes.
“In MPLI we didn’t have any preparations against Onic Indonesia because it’s a two-game scenario," he said. "We faced RRQ and then [had] an hour break, then we immediately [went] to the grand finals. There [was] a lack of preparation so they defeated us."
And after months of preparing for the M3 World Championships, BON CHAN finally exacted his revenge.
“It’s so satisfying. Very satisfying like unang-una mas major tournament ito kaysa MPLI. Yung MPLI parang side quest lang siya," he mused. "Ito main quest, so very satisfying na dito pa namin sa world stage nagantihan."
BON CHAN explains what went wrong with BTK
Their second defeat happened just a few days ago, when Blacklist suffered a massive setback against the North American underdogs BTK.
During that series, the resilient North American squad unleashed their own version of the 'UBE' strategy, centered on burst damage and capitalizing on positional flaws from the Codebreakers.
Ricaplaza recounted why his team lost.
"Syempre nawala yung identity namin yung sa BTK eh. Naging kill-oriented kami instead na objectives oriented team na dati naming ginagawa. Yun yung nawala na ibinalik namin ngayon," he said.
Learning from their mishaps, Coach BON CHAN was confident that his team is ready to once again clash with the M3 darkhorse.
"Yes 100% sure, we can face them right now, today, even tomorrow. Let’s go!"
Just don't expect any more surprises in the tactical front.
"Nope! We’re just going to use the same," revealed Blacklist's head coach.
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