MANILA, Philippines – A Filipino team will take home the crown from the Mobile Legends M3 World Championships in Singapore.

Blacklist International made sure of that after toppling the BloodThirstyKings in their lower bracket finals on Saturday, December 18, to set up an all-Filipino championship clash with Onic Philippines.

Danerie James “Wise” del Rosario came through when it mattered most to power Blacklist to a 3-1 win over BTK in their best-of-five series as the Filipinos exacted revenge on the North American crew, which relegated them to the lower bracket.

Three deaths by Wise (Aldous) in the first 10 minutes of Game 4 helped BTK gain a slight advantage in gold earned, but the Blacklist star redeemed himself with a clutch Chase Fate that paved way for his side to achieve a wipeout.

After Salic “Hadji” Imam (Grock) removed the Immortality of BTK jungler Michael “MobaZane” Cosgun, Wise popped off his ultimate to eliminate the American and assisted on a kill on FwydChickn (Beatrix).

Wise, who finished with 4 kills and 7 assists against 6 deaths, then completed the wipeout by taking out Victor (Esmeralda) as Blacklist closed out Game 4 in 26 minutes to advance to the grand finals.

Kiel “Oheb” Soriano (Brody) tallied 6 kills and 3 assists against 2 deaths, while Johnmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna (Yve) chalked up 4 kills and 8 assists against 2 deaths for Blacklist in Game 4.

It was sweet payback for Blacklist as its only series loss of the tournament came at the hands of BTK early in the upper bracket.

Relegated to the lower bracket, Blacklist needed to hurdle Indonesian powerhouses Onic Esports and RRQ Hoshi, Brazilian team Vivo Keyd, and Singaporean squad EVOS Singapore to meet BTK again.

This time, though, Blacklist came more prepared as it won the first two games of the lower bracket finals, falling short of a sweep no thanks to an inspired Game 3 performance from MobaZane, who churned out 12 kills and 2 assists against 2 kills on Roger.

BTK will take home $80,000 (around P4 million) for its third-place finish.

The grand finals will be a rematch of the Mobile Legends Professional League Philippine Season 8 finale, which saw Blacklist thwart Onic, 4-1.

But Onic has proven to be a different beast in the M3 World Championships after sweeping all of its playoff assignments in the upper bracket, demolishing Singaporean side RSG SG in the quarterfinals, RRQ in the semifinals, and BTK in the finals.

Onic and Blacklist tangle on Sunday, December 19, in the best-of-seven grand finals as they vie for the top prize of $300,000 (around P15 million). – Rappler.com