After many years of struggle, the Philippines finally gets to participate in the big stage of the professional CS:GO scene.
In another historic moment for the local CS:GO and FPS scene, Philippine-based squad Bren Esports CS:GO books their ticket to the Perfect World Asia League (PAL) Regional Major Ranking (RMR) Summer Tournament 2020 after beating Mongolian side waytochampions (W2C), 2-0, in the grand finals of the Asian Open Qualifier.
Bren Esports: The journey
In the ban phase, W2C removed Overpass, while Bren banned Vertigo. This opened up for the Mongolians to pick Dust 2 as the first map; on the other hand, the Filipinos got Inferno. Waytochampions removed Train in the second ban phase, while Bren Esports avoided Mirage. Nuke remained to become the decider map of the series.
The first map on Dust 2 saw Bren Esports conceding a massive 4-11 lead to their Mongolian rivals. However, in the second half, the Filipino squad displayed round after round of massive plays from Patrick “Derek” Lacson, Deko “Papi Chulo” Evangelista, and most especially, Riley “Witz” Go supplied the necessary firepower for the Filipino squad to prevail against W2C and end the map with a 16-14 scoreline.
On Inferno, Bren Esports had a shaky start on the Counter-Terrorist side; however, they were able to stabilize in order to get a decent 9-6 lead at the end of the first half. Once again, they had some difficulties at the beginning of their offensive half; yet everyone’s contributions towards the tail end of the matchup allowed Bren Esports to take control and close it out at 16-13.
Earlier in the semifinals, they dispatched Middle Eastern side Slick Devils with a convincing 2-0 clean sweep, including a 16-5 rout on Dust 2 and 16-11 win on Inferno, thus giving Bren Esports their ticket to the grand final.
Meanwhile, their Mongolian rivals went the distance against Thailand’s ZIGMA, having to go through three maps (16-13 on Nuke, 4-16 on Overpass and 16-11 on Mirage) in order to reach the championship match.
What’s next for Bren Esports?
The PAL RMR Open Asia Qualifier included dozens of teams from all over the Asia-Pacific region, with teams such as Paper Rex, BTRG, and Huat Zai, among many others.
Considered to be the spiritual successor to the Asia Minor, the PAL RMR Summer Tournament featured eight invites and two qualifier teams.
A total of 12,500 RMR points are for grabs in this tournament. A team needs to be in the top eight in order to gain points; the top team at the end of the RMR season is going to be the Asian representative to the Rio CS:GO Major at the end of the year.
Bren will join nine other teams in the $100,000 tournament, with TIGER, TYLOO, D13, ViCi Gaming, Beyond Esports, Mazaalai, Divine Vendetta, and Lucid Dream being invited to the PAL RMR Summer Tournament based on their results in Road To Rio – Asia, which was organized by ESL.
Invictus Gaming won the Chinese qualifier earlier to complete the cast for the Perfect World tournament.
Bren Esports CS:GO is composed of Johnty “JA” Arone, Chris “Pro” Martir, Patrick “Derek” Lacson, Riley “Witz” Go, and Deko “Papi Chulo” Evangelista.
Bren won the NVIDIA GeForce Pacific Cup earlier this year.
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Further updates will be discussed in later articles. Thank you for staying with us and have a nice evening ahead!
