Smart Omega lives to fight another day after a nail-biting Day 2 Garena Regional Qualifiers performance
Last Monday night, the Philippines’ Blacklist Ultimate surprised everyone after beating the likes of WDC Freeslot from Thailand and ABC Esports from Indonesia to secure an upper bracket finals slot in the ongoing Garena Regional Qualifiers playoffs. They did so after displaying a rejuvenated style of gameplay never before seen during their lackluster group stage games.
Yesterday, it was fellow Filipino squad Smart Omega’s turn to prove the doubters wrong as they turned things around against—coincidentally—WDC Freeslot and ABC Esports and defeat them back to back on Day 2 of the Garena Regional Qualifiers playoffs.
They bounced back from a tough loss yesterday against Singaporean side ALMGHTY which saw them drop to the lower bracket by defeating the Thai giants and the Indonesian monsters both 3-2 in separate series.
In the first series against WDC, Smart Omega started off slow as they fell to an early 0-2 deficit as they lost Hardpoint in Slums 245-250 and Search and Destroy at Firing Range 5-7. However, that didn’t keep their spirit down as they used an inspiring win in Control at Raid (3-0) to start an uprising which led to two momentum-backed wins in Hardpoint at Takeoff 250-223 and Search and Destroy at Hacienda 7-2 to complete the reverse sweep.
Screenshot from Garena CODM’s live stream
In the second series, Smart Omega went on a back-and-forth, mano y mano matchup against ABC. The former struck first in Hardpoint at Takeoff 250-241 but the latter immediately followed it up with a 7-3 win of their own in Search and Destroy at Hacienda to tie the series up at 1-1. Smart Omega continued the trend by winning in Control at Firing Range 3-2 while ABC traded punch after punch to win Hardpoint at Slums 250-183 and set up a winner-take-all game 5.
Much like the previous four games, both teams alternated scoring points and showed each of their slaying capabilities at the start of the Search and Destroy game at Raid until Kennedy “iDra” Mondoy’s heroics. iDra broke the deadlock by placing a well-timed grenade into ABC’s camp and then proceeded to kill off two of their players to turn the seesaw affair in their favor to finally win 7-5.
Screenshot from Garena CODM’s live stream
Smart Omega’s win today ensured the Garena Regional Qualifiers’ top 3 teams hail from the MSP (Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines) region. Both Blacklist International Ultimate and ALMGHTY already secured their spots yesterday and will face each other in the upper bracket finals.
Screenshot from Garena CODM’s live stream
Watch who will be crowned as the new kings of Southeast Asian CODM on the final day of the Garena Regional Qualifiers today starting at 4 PM. All matches can be watched live through Garena CODM’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.
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