TWO Pinoy teams are heading for M2, Mobile Legend: Bang Bang’s world championship tournament, which will kick off on January 18 in Singapore.
Shoutcasters Wolf Casts (Caisam Yvez Nopueto), Butters (Adrian Jison), and Leo (Dan Cubangay) sat down with hosts Carla Lizardo and Apple David of the Beyond the Meta podcast to discuss the chances of both Bren Esports and OMEGA Esports in the ML’s biggest stage.
They will face off against 10 other teams from around the world, with four groups of three duking it out among themselves before the top placers match up in the playoffs.
For now, many eyes are trained on Bren Esports, who, coming from an impressive string of accomplishments in the past year, were slotted into a so-called “group of death” with some of the most storied international teams in the business.
“[K]nowing the coach ng Bren, na-interview namin siya sa live draw, and sabi niya ayaw niya makatapat [ang] Alter Ego. Alter Ego is like best in the scene right?” recalled Wolf. “And Frost. They’re the dark horses kasi sobrang lason sila e. So parang mas maganda sana kung later into the tournament pa sila makakatapat. [But] lo and behold, nandito tayo sa same group.”
Still, both Wolf and Leo point to one important factor that will tilt the tide in Bren’s favor: the unfortunate no-show of Ahmad from the Indonesian team, due to a positive COVID-19 test. For M2, Alter Ego has replaced their star player with relative unknown Yam.
“[A]ng daming nagtatanong nito over social media, lalaro ba si Ahmad? The answer is, he’s not there. He’s not playing. And it’s that big factor just leads to the easy answer: Bren is gonna be the winner of this bracket,” confidently proclaimed Leo.
Leo added: “If Ahmad is here it’s gonna be closer. If he is around, sobrang neck and neck.”
Meanwhile, OMEGA Esports is matching up against MPL-MYSG champs Todak, as well as Cambodian team Impunity KH, in Group B.
While the casters gave due props to OMEGA’s rivals, they solidly put their money on an OMEGA victory.
“Parang yung Todak yung siga ng barangay niyo, tapos parang pag nilabas mo yung siga ng barangay nila sa ibang barangay, parang hindi nila kayang makipagsabayan,” explained Butters in a colorful metaphor.
He continued: “Impunity hindi ko sila tine-take out of the equation, pero kailangan talaga nilang manggulat, kasi yun yung pinakalamang nila dito: [yung] surprise factor talaga yung madadala nila.”
For Butters, though, the stats lean towards a clear OMEGA victory in Group B. Leo agrees.
“I feel like Todak is gonna set a good blockage but feeling ko, walang bias, Laban Pinas, I think Omega is gonna get out of here straight up to the upper bracket,” he said.
We’ll see how true their predictions shake out when the Mobile Legends action starts next week!
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