By: Paolo R. Trinidad
South Built Esports lived to see another day, beating Oblivion Force in a 2-0 sweep in the Group D elimination match of the VALORANT Champions Tour Asia-Pacific Stage 1: Challengers Playoffs, Saturday night.
The Philippines Challengers champions survived the comeback scare from Oblivion Fore in Game Two at Ascent with a 13-10 victory.
South Built looked confident in the opponent-picked map early in Game Two highlighted by a huge play from Johnty “JA” Arone (Astra), who killed two opponents while only using a Sheriff with one shot. South Built sat comfortably at the half with an 8-4 lead.
The second half is when Oblivion Force tried to slowly cut the deficit, stealing round after round to get into striking distance, 9-10. Unfortunately for the Hong Kong-based squad, South Built shut down the possibility of a comeback and rallied to a 3-1 finish which produced a 13-10 Game Two win.
Azis “azys” Nandang (Jett) and Frederico “PapiChulo” Evangelista (Killjoy) led the way for the champions with 22 and 20 kills respectively.
The gamers from the south took their map pick in Game One at Icebox off a come-from-behind 13-9 victory. It was their balanced scoring effort that helped them seal the comeback from OF with all players reaching the 15-kill mark.
South Built will be facing the loser of the FULL SENSE-Velocity Gaming match in group D on Monday for a slot at the knockout stage.
