Blacklist Rivalry delivered the biggest surprise in Group A in the Play-in stage at Riyadh Masters 2024.
Four teams from each of the groups will make it further in the tournament. Blacklist Rivalry was not on anyone’s radar for his event, because they arrived at Riyadh Masters 2024 after a disastrous first half of the year. The team fell short in almost all qualifiers possible, they missed the train to all LANs and The International 2024.
However, they did manage to place second in the Southeast Asia qualifiers for Riyadh Masters 2024 and snatched one of the two tickets up for grabs in their region to the inaugural edition of Esports World Cup. Given their competitive track record up to this event, Blacklist Rivalry are at most a dark horse in Group A, given that out of the six teams in this group, four are qualified to compete at TI13 as well.
Ahead of Riyadh Masters 2024, Blacklists’ only international competition this year was Elite League Season 1, where they placed 15th-16th. Thus, for their rather stacked Filipino line-up, Esports World Cup is their only chance at redemption.
At the end of Day 1 matches, Blacklist Rivalry is the only team from Group A to have landed a clean 2-0 victory in the single round-robin format. They stand at the top of the group with just three more matchups left on their schedule.
Riyadh Masters 2024 Play-in stage Group A
BLR opened the day with a draw score against beastcoast, a team that they didn’t have the chance to play against this year, and moving into the next series they took a dominant 2-0 win against G2 x iG. The Chinese powerhouse was able to secure just eight kills in each of the games, while overall the entire series was an Abed Yusop show.
He finished the two-game series without a single death. Game one wasn’t particularly exceptional for the Blacklists’ star mid-laner, as he closed game one with 1-0-6 KDA on Templar Assassin. But he was by far the MVP of the second game where he chased down G2 x iG on Timbersaw to seal the deal with a 14-0-8 KDA.
Day 2 in the Riyadh Masters 2024 play-ins will pit Blacklist Rivalry against LGD Gaming and Virtus.pro. Another clean win would most likely secure them a spot in the stage of the tournament and pave their way to a possible redemption story at the Esports World Cup.
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