ECHO tightens grip of top spot with sweep of Blacklist (Sabong News)
Author
Reynald I. Magallon
Date
MARCH 27 2022
ECHO tightened its grip of the top spot following its rousing 2-0 sweep of Blacklist International in the MPL Philippines Season 9 on Sunday, March 27.
The playoff-bound ECHO was looking to keep its hold of the No. 1 seed until the end of the regular season which will give it a chance to pick its opponent in the playoffs. Following the sweep against the M3 World Champion, the current league leaders upped its total to 25 points on an 8-3 win-loss slate.
ECHO was dominant all-series long as it cruised to an easy 16-4 victory in the series opener. Tristan ‘Yawi” Cabrera on the Masha set the tone in the romp as he joined hands with Jankurt “Kurttzy’ Matira’s Pharsa in disrupting the rotation of Blacklist in the early game.
That ploy gave Karl “Karltzy” Nepomuceno’s jungle Karrie a free space to farm and quickly reach his power spike. He finished with a perfect 4-0-6 showing as his Karrie also proved to be a direct counter to Blacklist’s tanky line up that featured a roaming Grock, jungle Baxia and an EXP lane Esmeralda.
Yawi also added a 4-1-8 KDA while Kurttzy had a 5-2-5 line.
Blacklist stuck to its Game 1 draft as this time, it picked four tank heroes on their draft in a gold lane Ruby, an EXP lane Khufra, a roaming Hilda and a jungle Baxia. The cheesy draft seemed to fire back at the defending champions as they lacked the burst damage during team fights to take out ECHO’s mobile heroes in Karltzy’s Ling and BennyQT’s Benedetta.
BennyQT scattered a 4-0-16 line while Karltzy had a monster showing with a 10-0-10 line in ECHO’s 25-5 domination.
Blacklist fell to a 2-9 record although still holding the No.6 spot in the standings with 11 points.
