It was a grueling Day 1 that saw every Filipino eSports athlete compete in highly competitive brackets.

But Hearthstone and StarCraft 2 players Richard “Pompi” Castillo and  Caviar Napoleon “EnDerr” Marquises-Acampado bested their groups to secure Top 8 berths in their respective fields.  Both competitors faced opponents who had competitive tournament experiences prior to the 7th International eSports Federation World Championship tournament.

Pompi in particular, felt that he could not let his guard down.

In all honesty I didn’t have any idea about anyone from my group except for for Vietnam’s Crazymaaaage who is also a regular in SEA tournaments. He had been on my friend list for more than a year, so going into it I was thinking that he would be the toughest opponent,” shared Pompi. “But I googled a bit on my opponents and learned that the South African and Swiss players both have a few big stage appearance in their local scenes so I to set my mind to not just let my guard down against anyone.

“Going into the tournament, there were only 2 names that stood out the most which was China’s TiddlerCelestial and Russia’s Pavel from Team Empire. Both are accomplished world class players. Luckily, I wasn’t grouped with either of them,” he added.

The Filipino Hearthstone player will face Pavel today as the first match. The winner advances to the Semi-final while the loser will be eliminated from the tournament.

Filipino Zerg player EnDerr on the other hand is on a hotstreak after finishing 2nd in the Legacy of the Void Southeast Asia invitational tournament and a quarterfinals appearance in Maldives.
EnDerr swept his bracket, ending as the 1st seed to come out of group B. He bested Sweden, Azerbaijan and South Africa.

EnDerr will go up against Romanian player Lazav Silviu in the Quarterfinals.

But not everyone from the Philippines performed well during the tournament. The Philippine League of Legends team Choisted Tyrants failed to exit their group.
The team fell to opponents from Russia and South Korea, both teams being favorites to win the entire tournament. The team ended the day at 0-3, exiting with Indonesia.

Choisted Tyrants faced difficulties even before the tournament began. Their Top laner, Hansel “Kidgart” Hermosissima, arrived later than his team in South Korea following an unfortunate mix-up in immigration.

The battle continues today as the Philippine contingents enter the playoff rounds.

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