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| Fourth-seeded Falcons PH knocked out the second-seeded Aurora. MPL Philippines |
MANILA--Team Falcons Philippines lived to fight another day in the MPL Philippines Playoffs after sweeping Aurora out of the postseason with a 3-0 win on Friday night at the Green Sun Ballroom in Makati.
Falcons PH never wavered despite instances of solid early-to-mid game brilliance from Aurora.
Game 1 saw Aurora ahead by more than 5,000 golds while securing the first two Lords of the match, but a huge Spear of Destruction by "Super Marco" Requitiano before the third Lord fight gave Falcons PH a huge opportunity to take the upper hand.
Renejay Bacarse opened an opportunity for Jonard "Demonkite" Caranto to steal the Lord by using Shortcut, but Angelo "Pheww" Arcangel scored the last hit to give Falcons PH the Lord.
Falcons PH then went all in at the middle lane with only two Aurora players to defend the base, and Falcons PH finished Game 1 right as the other Aurora players respawned.
Game 2 appeared to be leaning toward Aurora, this time establishing some middle game advantage, but Falcons PH turned things around by taking the only Lord of the game and downing four opponents, paving the way for an all-in middle lane push that sealed another win for them.
With its back against the wall, Aurora looked poised to extend the best-of-five tie a bit after going 10-2 up on kills with more than 4,000 golds ahead.
However, Michael "KyleTzy" Sayson took advantage of Caranto being short on health points, even if he was using Baxia, as Sayson snapped the hot runs of Dominic "Domengkite" Del Mundo and Kenneth "Yue" Tadeo before taking the Lord.
Sayson then got his Retribution in time to steal the last Lord after a tight team fight that also led to Caranto falling down as Falcons PH completed the comeback in 17 minutes.
Falcons PH set up a rematch against Team Liquid Philippines on Saturday night in the best-of-seven lower bracket finals, with the winner joining Onic Philippines in the grand finals and the MLBB Midseason Cup.
On the other hand, the defeat capped a late-season collapse for Aurora, in which, having been number one in the team standings for a sizable amount of time, they ultimately fell to fourth place.
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