Fnatic ONIC Philippines sweeps way to M6 World Championship crown

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia — Fnatic ONIC Philippines ran a perfect tournament that it capped off with a 4-1 victory over Team Liquid Indonesia in the grand finals of the M6 World Championship at the Axiata Arena here.

The Super Family recorded a 3-0 run in the Swiss Stages and swept their knockout stage campaign, 4-0, to become the undefeated kings of the world Mobile Legends stage.

In the grand finals against the Indonesian league champion, gold standard Duane “Kelra” Pillas on the hero Bruno schooled Team Liquid Indonesia with a long-range build to deal game-changing damage to both players and objectives, which saw the Filipino champion squad with a 2-0 lead.

But the Indonesian Cavalry was able to take back the driver seat, banning Pillas' Bruno and securing the Joy and Granger for Favian "Faviannn" Putra and Sultan "AeronnShikii" Muhammad to prioritize taking out Pillas and deny the Super Family a clean sweep.

Team Liquid Indonesia continued to target Pillas, banning three of his heroes during the drafting phase, but the Indonesian forgot his signature Bellatrix, which saw a 62% kill-participation to bring the Philippine champions to match point.

An aggressive Indonesia squad wanted to extend the series with strong pick-offs in Game 4. But the Filipino champions pulled off a crucial play, cracking open the Indonesian base, which saw Pillas ending the series as Team Liquid Indonesia was too focused on securing kills that they forgot to protect their base.

"Habang nag ti-team fight, sabi ko [sa teammates ko] tatapusin ko. Hindi na ako naghesitate. Sadyang naubusan lang ako ng creeps [kaya ako umatras] tapos nung nakita ko may creeps na ulet bumalik ako," said Pillas, who was named Finals Most Valuable Player thanks to key plays and damage he dealt throughout the entire series.

This marks the fifth consecutive M-series tournament being won by an all- Filipino team. 

The "Philippine Era”, as many fans have dubbed, it started back in M2, where then Bren Esports outlasted Myanmar's Burmese Ghouls for the world title. M3 saw the first all-Filipino grand final where Blacklist International swept ONIC Philippines; followed by another all-Filipino grand final in M4 with Echo taking down Blacklist International. 

Last year's M5 World Champion held in Manila saw then AP.BREN shatter the host country curse, being the first team from an M-series or an MSC host country to win in front of a home crowd.