Blacklist International fail to make MPL PH S9 playoffs after Omega loss

M3 World Champions Blacklist International (BLCK) have been eliminated from playoff contention in the Mobile Legends Professional League (MPL) Philippines Season 9 after a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Omega Esports (OMG) on Saturday (9 April).

This disappointing finish notably comes after Blacklist International’s assistant coach, Aniel “Master the Basics” Jiandani, boldly declared that the team could still make the playoffs back in late March.

“For me, there is still a 99.9% chance we can make it to the playoffs because of how the team is growing every week”, the assistant coach had said then.

However, their opponents on Saturday had other ideas. Looking to cement their spot in the MPL PH Season 9 playoffs with just one more point, OMG fought through a large gold deficit to come back and win game one, which secured them at least a 6th place finish in the standings.

With their season on the line in game two, BLCK showed the heart of a champion, holding their ground for almost 30 minutes against OMG.

Unfortunately for the World Champs, it wasn’t enough as they lost 2-0 and finished the season in 7th-place.

Here’s how BLCK’s final stand went down:

In game one, BLCK drafted Kent “KEVIER” Lopez’s Ling as a comfort pick and OMG immediately countered with Dean “Raizen” Sumagui’s Karina.

As the draft progressed, BLCK opted toward burst-oriented heroes such as Edward “EDWARD” Dapadap’s Dyrroth and Kiel “Oheb” Soriano’s Lunox to counter OMG’s tanky and sustain heroes such as Joshua “Ch4knu” Mangilog’s Lolita and Renz “Renzio” Cadua’s Phoveus.

The early game saw controlled aggression between both teams as they secured farm, with a few pickoffs in between. However, by the 7-minute mark, OMG’s gold lead started to expand after a turtle kill, followed by a pickoff of Mark “ESON” Gerardo’s Valir in the middle lane.

The tide started to turn for BLCK in the midgame as the burst potential of Popol and Kupa with Dyrroth and Lunox went on full display.

After a pickoff of Ch4knu’s Lolita, BLCK took the first lord of the game and racked up four kills in the span of two minutes afterward. They pushed most of OMG’s outer towers by the 12th minute and ballooned their gold lead to 4,000. During the second lord fight, BLCK bursted down Renzio’s Karina and allowed Kevier’s Ling to secure the lord again, doubling their gold lead to 8,000.

Unfortunately for BLCK, their lead evaporated in an instant.

OMG took three heroes to the top lane and secured a kill on Kevier’s split pushing Ling just before the third lord spawned. With BLCK’s core on the sidelines, OMG handily claimed the third lord, picking off three heroes for the price of a Lolita, and marched down the middle lane to end the game.

OMG secured their spot in the MPL PH Season 9 playoffs with this first win. Ch4knu on Lolita won the MVP award for game one with a 1/2/9 performance.

Game two saw the return of Patrick “E2MAX” Caidic’s Xavier. E2MAX debuted Xavier in MPL PH with an MVP performance in OMG's first game of Week 9 against BREN Esports.

OMG also drafted heavy front liners in Chou, Baxia, and Masha to protect the Xavier.

Meanwhile, BLCK picked up the Karina for Kevier this time. They also picked up ESON’s Valir and Oheb’s Popol and Kupa, the duo that gave them some success in the first game.

Game two saw controlled aggression from both teams once again, though this time around, BLCK secured more objectives and kills. They grabbed two of OMG’s outer towers, killed four heroes, and had a 3,000 gold lead by the 8-minute mark.

Just a minute after, the early signs of what became a very back-and-forth game showed.

At the 9-minute mark as E2MAX’s Xavier used his Dawning Light effectively to zone out BLCK’s heroes, resulting in a pickoff of Oheb’s Popol and Kupa and allowing OMG to take the first lord of game two.

With the momentum seemingly shifting towards OMG, they pushed both of the outer towers in the top lane. BLCK immediately tried to punish OMG, but the prolonged teamfight resulted in a two-for-two trade-off, and the game was dead-even.

As the late game approached and with the third lord in sight, the Xavier pick shone once again.

Using Dawning Light, Xavier whittled down the Popol and Kupa to 40% before immediately bursting them down with a Mystic Field + Infinite Extension combo.

With the kill, the third lord was OMG’s for the taking. EDWARD’s Benedetta attempted to steal the lord kill, but paid for it with his life as another Dawning Light finished him off.

BLCK certainly didn’t go down without a fight.

Seeing the third lord barreling down their top lane didn’t faze the World Champs as they held onto their base, getting a two-for-one tradeoff and pushing OMG back to their own inhibitor towers.

Even as OMG secured the fourth lord and destroyed BLCK’s final inhibitor tower in the bottom lane, BLCK mounted two successful defenses of their base, including a three-on-five without Karina and Benedetta.

It took until the clash for the sixth(!) lord for BLCK’s ironclad defense to finally crack as Renzio’s Masha ripped through Popol and Kupa, forcing BLCK to fall back and allowing OMG to clean up the retreating heroes up one by one.

OMG then marched down the middle lane after a four-to-one exchange, taking the win and crushing BLCK’s hopes of getting into the playoffs.

E2MAX delivered another MVP performance with his Xavier, finishing with 7/4/6 and a whopping 205,000 hero damage dealt.

After a first-place finish in the regular season MPL PH Season 8, BLCK bows out of Season 9, finishing in seventh place with a 3-11 match record.

Meanwhile, OMG currently sit in 5th place in the standings with a 6-8 record. They await the results of the final day of regular season competition on Sunday (10 April) to find out who they will face in the first round of the playoffs.

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