With the opening round of series over at the M5 World Championship over, four teams now face elimination – while four get closer to the grand finals.
After two days of action from the M5 World Championship, we have seen some amazing moments, as teams progress through the Knockout Stage. With the first set of four series over, four of the eight teams have booked a path into the next round of upper bracket action, leaving four more teams dropping into the lower bracket where they now face possible elimination.
Philippines is split
On day one of the M5 Knockout Stage, the first of two PH challengers, Blacklist International, take to the Land of Dawn, as they attempted to make it three grand finals in a row. Their challengers, however, were none other than ONIC Esports – a team that has been at the top of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang world for much of 2023. In one of the best series we have seen so far, which went the full five games, ONIC came out on top, but that is not for Blacklist not giving them a scare.
On the other side of the PH war was AP.Bren, who went up against See You Soon on Day 2 of proceedings in the Playoff Stage. Although Bren took the early lead, SYS equalised – but that was their final victory, as Bren brought out the Odette pick next and showed their brilliance with it before closing out the series and securing their own path forward in the upper bracket. For SYS, the lower bracket would be their home now, and it would see them facing Burmese Ghouls as their first challenge.
CIS lives on
Deus Vult has cast themselves as a “dark horse” team in the tournament so far, with the CIS team making waves during the Group Stage before playing a magnificent series against Fire Flux Esports. During the Group Stage, DeVu impressed everyone when they took down Malaysia’s best challenger, HomeBois, showing their power early on. When it came to the Knockout Stage, their first battle saw another strong showing against Turkey’s amazing roster, FF. Even when FF acquired the Lylia pick for Rosa, it was not enough to keep them afloat as they went down 3-1 but set up a lower bracket meeting against Blacklist.
Indonesia on the rise
After ONIC took down Blacklist, Geek Fam ID needed to keep ID in the mix for the upper bracket, as they went up against the Burmese Ghouls. In another extremely close series, GFID managed to survive a brutal onslaught by the Myanmar representatives, pushing BG into the lower bracket after a thrilling five-game series. For GFID, this set up a tough meeting with AP.Bren in the next round – but ensured that both ID teams remained in the upper bracket of M5, for now.
Things now begin to heat up even more at the M5 World Championship, as Monday will see the first eliminations of the Knockout Stage. Whether or not Blacklist, BG, FF, and SYS can survive the first round of eliminations remains to be seen as we head towards the grand final and crowning a new M-Series champion.
