Blacklist International Victorious in Upper Bracket Thriller Against RRQ Hoshi in M4
Blacklist International was victorious in their upper bracket thriller against Indonesia’s RRQ Hoshi after defeating them 3-2 in their best-of-5 series at the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M4 World Championship.
Indonesia’s might and passion for MLBB is incredible, respect! 👏🇮🇩
But tonight, we are the victors. GGWP @teamrrqofficial, until we meet again 🖤#BackToBLCK | #BreakTheCode #M4 pic.twitter.com/uSzHQJKt0E
— BLACKLIST INTERNATIONAL 👑 (@BLACKLISTINTL) January 11, 2023
Blacklist started the series with a loss as they crumbled against the might of the Indonesian home team. Despite the outcome of Game 1, it was a tight game that initially saw the Agents ahead with small margins as Blacklist would answer back to every play RRQ pulled off. Unfortunately, Rivaldi “R7” Fatah’s Joy and Albert “Alberttt” Iskandar’s Fanny were simply too fast for the Agents, and it was also made more difficult by RRQ Hoshi’s Calvin “VYN” as the veteran took the record of being the first player to achieve 500 total assists in the M-series.
Meanwhile, Game 2 went splendidly well for Blacklist. They tried to make their Game 1 draft work and stuck with the composition of Pharsa (Salic “Hadji” Imam), Gloo ( Edward “EDWARD” Jay Dapadap), Brody (Kiel “OHEB” Soriano), Fredrinn ( Danerie James “Wise” Del Rosario), and Estes (Jonmar “OhMyV33NUS” Villaluna). With the same lineup from Game 1, Blacklist dished out a more dominant performance as they ended the game 19-5 in just twelve minutes of action.
With momentum on their side, Blacklist took Game 3 without many hiccups. Although it lasted more than Game 2, the defending champions were able to crack the code of RRQ Hoshi. They solved the Alberttt Fanny problem by starving the RRQ Hoshi jungler of his purple buffs. Meanwhile, Wise took the game MVP honors with his 8/1/13 KDA to help Blacklist secure a 2-1 lead in the series.
Unfortunately, just like what Alodia said during an interview that jinxed her own team, the game would be destined to go all the way to Game 5 as Blacklist would lose Game 4 for a tied 2-2 series. Blacklist lost the early game that started with a failed early gank on top that resulted in the first blood on EDWARD by RRQ Hoshi’s Deden “Clayyy” Nurhasan. With that, RRQ Hoshi snowballed, controlled the game’s overall tempo, and cast Blacklist aside, therefore extending the series to a fifth game.
In the fifth and final game, Blacklist emerged as the definite victor as they ended the game in exactly twenty-four minutes. Initially, it looked like RRQ Hoshi had the upper hand in the early game but Blacklist soon decoded the problem. Just like in Game 3, they found the key to winning the game was through starving Alberttt of his purple buffs, ensuring that the Ling would pose no problems during team fights.
With that impressive win against the home crowd favorites, Blacklist would proceed to go to the upper bracket finals where they would face the winner of ECHO and ONIC Indonesia’s faceoff.
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