#PilipinaslangMalakas
All bets are off! ECHO Philippines has stunned the world and the audiences as they managed to sweep defending back-to-back champion holder Blacklist International in a 4-0 score. This marks the third time when the Philippines has consistently won the Final World Championship for Mobile Legends. The first was M2 with Bren E-Sports, the next was M3 with Blacklist, and the third time is M4 with ECHO.
This event also marks several notable firsts. In particular, KarlTzy, ECHO’s jungler wins two World Titles; and BennyQT, the gold laner and the Finals MVP, wins the crown as he is a veteran with no titles prior.
The team also consisted of two skilful rookies: Sanji and Sanford, the former is ECHO’s midlaner and the latter is their EXP laner. Thanks to Sanford’s Lapu-Lapu and Sanji’s consistent spamming of Xavier’s Ultimate, they were able to prevent Blacklist from pushing hard and playing aggressively
BennyQT, Echo’s gold laner, is known for his quick wits and his signature backdoor play where his teammates distract their opponents during a teamfight while he stealthily and quickly cleans off loosely defended lanes. This backdoor play is what secured Echo’s Game 2.
Finally, we have Yawi, known for his constant dives towards enemies ensuring a high-risk, high-reward play, particularly for Chou. He even boasted that he is the “Chou god”.
Of course, let’s not forget Coach TicTac and Coach Trevor for guiding the entire ECHO team to victory, as well as the grand finals.
Aggressive gameplay is ECHO’s key to victory as the team is determined to bring home that crown. And did they fight hard. Constantly stealing the other team’s jungle and probably having the fastest hands in the west, Skadoosh is the only answer here as KarlTzy’s Akai (with the Kung Fu Panda collab skin) not only outpaced Wise’s speed and timing, but also pushed the opponent team back from slaying important objectives thanks to his Ultimate.
ECHO’s final winning game was during the 16-minute mark when Wise’s Barats was trying to secure the Lord in order to push toward’s ECHO’s base. However, this failed as Barats and OHEB’s Beatrix were caught in the intense teamfight. Blacklist, now down by two, yet very important heroes, struggled to defend their base and ECHO took this as an opportunity.
The team’s most notable strategy is countering Blacklist’s famous UBE strategy which involves taking objectives early and securing lanes early while remaining sustainable during a teamfight. ECHO has studied their homework well as they managed to counter this strategy by ending the game as quickly as they could while also securing crucial objectives like the Lord and the Turtle.
Another notable strategy was to weaken Blacklist by banning their main heroes (aka respect banning). Here, OhMyV33nus’ Estes was constantly banned as he was crucial for Blacklist’s teamfight sustains. Crowd Control heroes are also favoured in order to halt the advances of tanks and fighters.
Revenge is sweet, isn’t it ECHO? While Black managed to defeat them in the upper bracket during the semi-finals as well as during MPL Season 10, they finally got back to them and secured a very important historic victory. This event may also have ended Blacklist’s signature UBE strategy and prevented them from winning back-to-back titles.
ECHO will take home a grand prize of USD 300,000 (Php 16,477,500) divided among organization members. Meanwhile, Blacklist which landed in second place will bag USD 120,000 (Php 6,591,000).
MPL Philippines also confirmed that, for M5, Philippines will be the host country. Now, the event is held every December or January since the pandemic began and we’re concerned about issues regarding internet connectivity, traffic, and the Christmas rush. We’re positive these issues will be mitigated before the event is held.
On a related note, it is hinted that Team Secret, a popular DOTA2 E-sports organization, is also joining MLBB.
Source: M4 Grand Finals, Moonton Games, ECHO, One E-Sports
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