M3 kicked off from the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Center in Singapore today, with Group A seeing six games of epic MLBB action.
The culmination of an amazing year of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang action is finally upon us as the M3 World Championships got underway today. With the Group Stage up first, the teams would be looking to give everything they have in an attempt to reach the Upper Bracket – but without any eliminations until the playoffs, we are set for some epic best-of-one action, with the chance for huge upsets. For Group A, we would see Blacklist International, Red Canids Kalunga, BEDEL Esports, and Malvinas Gaming all looking to grab some solid victories.
Blacklist’s strong start
Blacklist International, easily one of the absolute favourites for M3, were up first, taking on the winners of the very first MPL Brazil, Red Canids. Picking up some of their favoured heroes, such as Harith for OHEB and Mathilda for OhMyV33nus, Blacklist controlled the game from start to finish. Unfortunately for Red Canids, once the Filipino’s got ahead, they were unable to even get into their own Jungle buffs, and although they were able to put up a small defense, Blacklist eventually closed the game – with OhMyV33nus having a 100% kill participation.
Bedel’s fantastic first win
The next game would see two teams which we have not seem a lot from going head-to-head, as the Turkish qualifiers, BEDEL, took on the Latin American qualifiers, Malvinas Gaming. While the first game was rather one-sided, this one was much more highly contested, as both teams fought back-and-forth continuously. However, after the two teams poked at one another around Lord, Bedel found the perfect opening for their lineup to shine, taking down four from Malvinas and claiming the Lord. This was the beginning of the end, as they went on to wipeout their opponents, claiming their first win at M3.
Bedel’s brilliant Blacklist challenge
After their first win, Bedel were in action again, this time having to take on Blacklist International, as the two teams with wins would go head-to-head. With a Fanny pick for Paranoid, Bedel saw a magnificent early game, finding constant pickoffs over the MPL PH champions. However, one mistake from Bedel was all it took for Blacklist to take complete control, as the Turkish squad walked in one-by-one, allowing OHEB’s Beatrix to secure a Maniac. Although Bedel showed some amazing skill and fought back well against Blacklist, it was not enough to decode them just yet.
Malvinas find their first win
Moving on, it was Malvinas and Red Canids back on stage, as both teams went in search of their first victory. Having suffered losses previously, both teams would throw everything that they had into one another – but it was the Peruvians of Malvinas who were able to grab the lead after almost 11-minutes. Although Red Canids were able to keep up constantly, once their opponents found their footing, things went downhill quickly. It took almost 20-minutes, but Malvinas found their first win, dominating the Brazilians and creating history at the same time.
Blacklist blast through Group A
With their first win under their belt, MVG would now have a difficult task ahead of them for their final game, taking on the currently unbeaten Blacklist. While it did seem as though MVG could give Blacklist some issues, once the MPL PH Champions found their stride, there was no stopping them. OHEB found himself on the Beatrix, Blacklist moved around from objective to objective, finding some fantastic kills through great mechanical plays. Before 10-minutes had even passed, Blacklist completed a clean 3-0 sweep through the group stages, leaving MVG at 1-2 overall.
Red Canids capitalise
Closing out the proceedings for Group A would be Bedel and Red Canids. With Red unable to find a win as yet, they will be looking to take down their Turkish opponents and find a single win for the Group Stage. It was another close game to close out Group A, as the teams fought for the remaining upper bracket spot. Neither team were willing to allow the other any objectives without a team-fight. Although Bedel were the team with advantage for much of the game, Red Canids found one perfect fight around Lord to turn everything around and win their first game.
Although Blacklist are quite clearly the first seed, the rest of Group A remains in a three-way tie with a scoreline of 1-2. This means that tiebreakers are coming up to split Malvinas Gaming, Bedel Esports, and Red Canids. For now, we look to tomorrow’s action, which will see the teams in Group B take to the stage for more epic MLBB action from the M3 World Championships.
The tiebreaker battles
The teams were given some time before they took to the stage for the tiebreakers, with Bedel given a bye for the first game, while Red Canids and Malvinas Gaming would need to face off first. Having struggled through their initial games, it was a completely different Red that came out into the Land of Dawn, brutally dismantling MVG in only ten-minutes. The Brazilians only dropped two kills as they pushed their way into a final tiebreaker matchup against Bedel.
Bedel seemed to be able to take the wind out of the Red sails, as the Turkish team were definitely more hungry for the upper bracket of playoffs, it would seem. The Brazilian team were unable to get any sort of early snowball going as they did against MVG, and with that Bedel pushed them into the lower bracket. Bedel join Blacklist in the upper bracket of playoffs, while both Red Canids and MVG will need to fight and survive the lower backet at the M3 World Championships.
