PMPL SEA Finals - Yoodo Gank Declared as Champions of SEA as BTR Mount Last Day Comeback

Cover and thumbnail via @Yoodo Esports

• Yoodo Gank Win PMPL SEA Finals. 
• RRQ are eliminated from the competition after finishing in 4th place. 
• KoG and Yoodo Gank will join the regional PMPL winners at the World League. 

Wild scenes at the PMPL SEA Finals as a bunch of last day surprises threw in a few twists and turns into what was ultimately a roller coaster of a finish. While the fact that a Malaysian team beat out Thai and Indonesian teams itself is stunning, what's more of a shocker is that defending champions, RRQ Athena have been eliminated from the competition after they failed to hold on to their lead on the final day. Meanwhile, world champions, Bigetron Red Aliens made a steady comeback to finish in second place, after struggling for the first two days of the competition. 

Yoodo Gank Show Heart With Incredible Win

One of the biggest story lines from the SEA Finals has to be Yoodo Gank's win. Going into the competition, teams from Thailand and Indonesia were obviously favored as those regions have already established themselves on a global scale. However, Yoodo Gank surprised everyone with a fantastic performance. Finishing with a whopping 93 point lead, YG picked up 5 chicken dinners over 15 maps, an impressive tally. The team have been relentless across all three days and really upped their ante on the final day, averaging a mind blowing 11 kills per map on day 3. While Yoodo Gank are one of Malaysia's most experienced teams and have represented the region internationally before, this has to be their biggest achievement. The win nets them $ 30,000 in prize money and a spot in the World League. 

Bigetron Make Last Day Comeback Like True Champions

While the SEA Finals have been a bit of an outlier for Bigetron, who are known to straight up dominate every competition they take part in, the team still staged a last day fight back to finish in second place. The final day saw the team jump from 6th place to second and the highlight of their performance include a whopping 22 kill chicken dinner on Miramar. The team are the current world champions and although they have secure a spot in the World League by winning PMPL Indonesia already, the team still showed up to play when it mattered. A second place finish nets the team $20,000 in prize money. 

RRQ Athena Unable to Hold Onto their Lead

It's been a weird season for Thailand's RRQ Athena who started off their campaign brilliantly with a dominating performance to win the PMPL Thailand League stage. The team then had bit of a dip on form and couldn't do too well in the Thailand finals, finishing in 12th place. However, they still made it to the SEA Finals courtesy of being the defending champions, knowing that they need a top two finish to advance further in the competition. In the opening two days, the team cemented their place in the top 2 and had a very good shot of qualifying going into the final day. However it just wasn't meant to be as RRQ had a terrible showing in the final 5 maps, as they let their lead slip, eventually dropping to 4th place behind BTR and KoG. 

Meanwhile, Thailand's King of Gamer's Cluvb have secured their spot in the World League, thanks to a third place finish in the SEA Finals. While the top two teams were supposed to qualify originally, the fact that  Bigetron, a team with a confirmed slot at the World League finished second means that KoG were automatically given the opportunity because they were the next best team. They also earned a hefty $15,000 paycheck for their third place finish. 

This marks the end of the SEA Finals with all the regional PMPLs and SEA Finals finally being played out. Here are all the teams from SEA who have qualified for the World League: 

Illuminate the Murder - PMPL Thailand #1 Seed

Team Secret - PMPL MYSG #1 Seed 

Bigetron Red Aliens - PMPL Indonesia #1 Seed 

BOX Gaming - PMPL Vietnam #1 Seed 

Yoodo Gank - SEA Finals #1 Seed 

King of Gamer's Club - SEA Finals #2 Seed