Cover-Credits:
One of RRQ Hoshi’s star players Yesaya "XINNN" Armando Wowiling, through a podcast, expressed his astonishment at how dominant Blacklist International was during the M3 World Championship. According to the pro player, Blacklist International rarely took its scrim matches seriously against RRQ, which caught his team off guard during the playoffs stage of the M3 World Championship. XINNN also shared his thoughts regarding ONIC Philippines’ (PH) performance during the tournament and compared its iconic split pushing strategy to DOTA 2’s “Rat” strategy. He also discussed unorthodox yet effective strategies that he observed from PH teams that other regions should follow.
RRQ Xinnn Comments on Blacklist International's Performance at the M3 World Championship
Blacklist International’s impressive performance at the M3 World Championship has caught the attention of one of Indonesia’s legendary Mobile Legends pro players. Through a podcast from the YouTube channel Jonathan Liandi, XINNN revealed that his team was caught completely off guard by Blacklist International’s playstyle.
According to XINNN, Blacklist International never won a single scrim match against his team, RRQ Hoshi. This made the team confident that they could easily defeat the Mobile Legends Professional League (MPL) PH Season 8 defending champions.
"They (Blacklist International) never win against us (RRQ) in scrim. The scores like 4-0, 4-1. But in the tournament, they smashed us 3-0," stated XINNN.
The pro player added that Blacklist International may have been analyzing its enemies’ strategy during scrims and did not take it seriously.
"In scrim, there are matches with nothing really serious, maybe (teams) just want to analyze the strat or there are teams who like to show their power to smash their opponents in scrim," stated XINNN.
RRQ Xinnn admits that ONIC PH’s “Banana Split” strategy is hard to counter
Xinnn stated that ONIC PH is a much tougher opponent in comparison to Blacklist International. He added that his team suffered a very hard time due to ONIC PH’s split pushing strategy.
“For me personally, the match between RRQ (Hoshi) against Onic PH is tougher than against Blacklist International," stated Xinnn. “I think because Blacklist International did not use split push strategy but Onic PH did.”
ONIC PH is widely known for its “Banana Split” strategy. The team excels at pressuring the enemy team by constantly dividing its forces efficiently to push lanes all the while denying the enemies any breathing room.
Xinnn further elaborated how he struggled against ONIC PH as the PH team never showed its trump card during scrim matches.
“To be honest, I was struggling against ONIC PH's split push strategy. We were shocked, because before season 8 when doing scrim sessions with Onic PH, we have never seen this strategy before,” stated Xinnn.
Given that Blacklist International and ONIC PH are currently the strongest teams in the world, all eyes will be on the two PH powerhouse teams as a new competitive season opens up in the Mobile Legends esports scene.
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