Written by: Jan Marcus Montevirgen
THE MSC 2024 will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from June 28 to July 14, 2024, featuring 16 teams worldwide fighting for glory and a lion's share of USD 3,000,000.
Esports teams around the world are in a frenzy to secure the top prize, and the North America Challenger Tournament or NACT representative Cloud9 is one of them.
To better prepare for the tournament, Cloud9 Esports has chosen the Philippines, the world’s most formidable MLBB region, to train for the upcoming Mid Season Cup (MSC) 2024, which is part of the tournaments that comprise the Esports World Cup.
Cloud9 coach and MPL-PH caster Neil "Midnight" De Guzman further explains why the team practiced in the country.
"Cloud9 MLBB is in the Philippines to practice for the upcoming MSC 2024 as the team wants to be able to play and hone their skill in the most competitive region and country in the world in MLBB," Midnight told SPIN.ph.
Cloud9 is mostly Filipinos
Cloud9 mostly consists of Filipino players. Its Filipino members include Peter Bryce “Basic” Lozano, Chris “Mielow” Enobio, Marco “Marqt” Lacson, and Chris “Cole World” Cartagenas. Only Michael “MobaZane” Cosgun is the non-Filipino member of the team. Basic used to play for ONIC Philippines before he moved to the U.S. in 2021.
In Basic’s Instagram story, it was seen that the North American team is on a winning streak in ranked games, showing no signs of difficulties playing in the Philippine server—notorious for being the world’s most difficult server because of the country’s competitiveness.
"As they have said multiple times before, the rank games are quite similar with NA, with some of the games being easy and some being competitive."
Despite having no differences in ranked games in the North American and Philippine servers, Midnight says the only thing that separates them from the two servers is the 'snipes,' a term used to describe unexpected encounters with highly skilled opponents, that usually happen since the Philippine server has more competitive squads than North America.
Since the North America Challenger Tournament Spring 2024 champions are now in the Philippines, they would like to utilize their stay here by having scrimmages and practice matches with different powerhouse teams.
These include local teams like Falcons AP.BREN, Team Liquid Philippines (formerly ECHO), and RSG Philippines have a strong presence in the MLBB scene. For the foreign teams, Cloud9 will be testing their skills against Fnatic ONIC, See You Soon, and Team Spirit, all known for their competitive gameplay.
These scrimmages are crucial for the team to understand and adapt to different playstyles, enhancing their overall performance in the tournament.
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