Suha-Execration Punishers completely outplayed Cignal Ultra Warriors in the grand finals of The Nationals’ second Dota 2 conference, closing out a best-of-five series in a clean 3-0 sweep last Sunday at the Gariath Concepts Eastwood City, Libis in Quezon City.
What happened in the first conference is now history, as the Punishers have upended the results as Suha proved to be the winning team of the second Dota 2 conference of The Nationals.
The team has done it behind stellar play throughout the conference as it topped the group stage capped by a 2-1 tiebreaker win against the Warriors in the elimination round.
While results between the two teams were always close, the championship was totally different. After an intense back-and-forth in Game 1, Suha capitalized on its momentum and never looked back by winning the grand finals via consecutive games.
The Warriors, who were no strangers to come-from-behind wins, weren’t able to close the gap as they fizzled out towards the end. Earlier, they were able to climb from a 0-1 hole against PLDT-Smart Omega in the semifinals.
With their victory, the Punishers secured the P400,000 cash prize, while the Warriors received P200,000 for their runner-up effort. Omega finished third this conference with P100,000.
Despite having a better record compared to the last conference, both Happy Feet Emperors and Bren Epro failed to make the playoffs again.
Cignal and Suha will face off again this Saturday, with PLDT as wild card in Dota 2’s season finale, which has P600,000 prize pool of its own, with P300,000 going to the winner, P200,000 to second place, and P100,000 to third place.
After winning the first two conferences of Dota 2, the two teams will face off in a best-of-three series with the winner advancing to the finals, while the losing team takes on PLDT in three-game playoff to determine the last finals berth.
The Nationals, headed by its commissioner Ren Vitug, is the country’s premier esports league, and the about-to-end Dota 2 competition is just one of the three games featured in the competition’s first year.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is set to see action in June, and the Tekken 7 stage is scheduled to start in August. More franchises are slated to be introduced once ML:BB starts.
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