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| Alter Ego took down two champions in one night to enter the M7 finals. Moonton |
MANILA--The gate to open the "Golden Road" remains too tough to deliberately break open as Team Liquid's quest for lower bracket domination came to an end on Saturday following Alter Ego's 3-2 come-from-behind win in the M7 lower bracket semifinals at the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan in Jakarta.
Liquid blew two chances to seal the deal against Alter Ego after going 2-1 up in the best-of-five showdown.
Scoring a break point of sorts in Game 3 after beating Alter Ego despite playing at the red side, Liquid took the risk by staying red for Game 4.
It turned out to be too risky as Alter Ego went on a quick assault and called game after nearly 12 and a half minutes with only one Lord taken.
In Game 5, it was Alter Ego's turn to play red instead of going blue by default.
However, the team pulled a draft surprise when EXP laner Syauki "Nino" Sumarno picked Cici last when the club already drafted Uranus, and it was immediately deduced that Muhammad "Yazukee" Wahyudi would play the tank hero in the jungle.
Liquid thought it could achieve its game plan of punishing Alter Ego in the early game after going 3-0 on kills and Karl "KarlTzy" Nepomuceno securing all three turtles.
However, Arifudin "Arfy" Dingarai completed the needed items for his Claude to scale in damage, and he provided a huge impact in the crucial battle for the first Lord, which Alter Ego won after ending Nepomuceno's "Godlike" streak.
While Liquid was successful in defending its base against the first two Lords, Alter Ego finally broke through when it successfully zoned out the Filipinos from going for the evolved Lord.
With the wipeout secured, Alter Ego finally threw away the key Liquid needed to open the Golden Road and eliminated them.
Alter Ego looked more inspired instead of tired in the lower bracket finals when it raced to a 2-0 lead against Selangor.
Selangor tried to mount a reverse sweep after taking Game 3, but Alter Ego closed out Game 4 to complete the 2-0 sweep of the Saturday gauntlet.
Alter Ego will play a well-rested Aurora Gaming Philippines side in the grand finals on Sunday night.
Aurora PH handed Alter Ego its first loss of M7 after relegating them to the lower bracket through a 3-1 win in the upper bracket semifinals.
Both Alter Ego's Saturday matches became the two most-watched matches in M-Series history, as confirmed by Esports Charts and Moonton.
The lower bracket semifinals against Liquid were seen by 5,367,368 viewers on all streaming platforms, easily breaking the 5,067,107 live viewers during the M5 grand finals between AP Bren and Onic Indonesia in 2023.
The record was reset after just a few hours when Alter Ego vs. Selangor, despite only ending in four games, drew 5,594,138 live viewers.
With Indonesia and the Philippines, the only two countries to rule the M-Series, represented in the grand finals again for the third straight edition, the peak viewership record is expected to be broken again.
