RSG Slate Philippines punched their ticket to the playoffs after blanking Nexplay Evos, 2-0, in in the final week of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL) Philippines Season 11 at the Shooting Gallery Studios on Saturday.
The win also relegated NXPE into the danger zone who are now in a must-win match against Blacklist International and hope Smart Omega loses via sweep later today to have a shot at securing their playoff ticket.
Coming off consecutive losses at the hands of league-leading Bren Esports and defending champions Blacklist International, RSG head coach Brian “Panda” Lim decided to bench John Paul “H2wo” Salonga in favor of John Darry “Irrad” Abarquez in an effort to change the team’s complexion and gameplay.
“What we felt is that medyo kulang pa sa aggressiveness sa games nila kasi if you think about Season Nine games nila, we were really strong sa mga team fights tsaka sa aggressiveness. Parang we are the ones always chasing yung enemy and the enemies parang backing down. That is our game style,” Panda explained.
“Pero coming into this Season 11, bago pa lang kami. Parang the players is, naguguguluhan pa sila. Ano ang dapat gawin. Ano ang dapat icommunicate dito. That is why it really showed sa Blacklist and sa Bren na lose streak [namin]. So coming into this what we did is that, number one, we changed our jungler to see if we can pair [yung] bagong jungle gamestyle,” he added.
Game 1 boiled down to a 35th-minute lord fight where Eman “EMANN” Sangco (Beatrix) secured the lord followed by a three-man Noumenon Blast set-up from Dylan “Light” Catipon (Lolita) that touched off a 3-1 exchange.
With the evolved lord on their side, RSG finally put away the Neon Tigers with the debuting Irrad (Lancelot) nabbing the MVP honors with a 5-3-10 KDA on the Lancelot pick.
It looked like an equalizer was on the way when Danver “DingDR” Canja (Arlott) scored a double kill in the 11th minute but RSG responded with a 5-2 wipeout after the 13th-minute lord fight, spearheaded by Irrad’s (Joy) double kill.
EMANN (Brody) highlighted his stellar play with a double kill in the 19th minute that capped off a 3-2 exchange, taking down Jan Domenic “DomengDR“ Del Mundo (Claude) in the process to easily mount the game-winning push.
