Filipino squads Team Secret and Blacklist International defended their turf as they emerged victorious in the Asia Pacific Predator League 2024 last Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Team Secret, a European Esports organization composed of an all-Filipino roster headed by Jessie Cristy “Jessie Vash” Cuyco, Jim Albert “BORKUM” Timbreza, Jeremy “Jremy” Cabrera, Adrian Jiggs “invy” Reyes and Noel “NDG” de Guia, trampled the competition en route to the finals match against Japanese squad FAV gaming.
A competitor at the Valorant Champions Tour: Pacific League, Team Secret skipper JessieVash expressed his confidence in winning the tournament before their best-of-one semifinal match against Team Flash.
“We just need to play our game because we have had good results in our past scrimms. We play against better teams in VCT teams. We just have to remind ourselves of possible scenarios,” JessieVash, whose squad took home a prize money of P3.6 million, said in an interview with Daily Tribune.
JessieVash was not mistaken.
Against Team Flash, Team Secret won in the BO1 semis, 13-4. Team Secret then brought its groove to the grand finals against FAV gaming, bulldozing it at Haven, 13-3, and Breeze, 13-3.
With the Asia Pacific Predator League 2024 out of the way, Team Secret sets its sights at VCT 2024: Pacific Kick-Off set on 17 February at the Sangam Colosseum in Seoul, South Korea for a chance to qualify to the VCT Masters Madrid in March.
Blacklist International, meanwhile, was just as dominant in DOTA 2.
Composed of Marc Polo “Raven” Fausto, Abed “Abed” Yusop, Kim “Gabbi” Santos, Timothy “TIMS” Randrup, and Juan Carlo “Carlo” Manalo, the squad hardly broke a sweat when it defeated IHC Esports in the semis in just 29 minutes of action.
The victory over the Mongolian squad had set up an all-Filipino showdown against Execration in the grand finals which Blacklist also dominated en route to a 2-0 sweep to win the championship.
