The Philippines now has the full set of international trophies.
Redemption has come for RSG Philippines as they are the MPLI 2023 champions. They defeated fellow Pinoy team ECHO 3-1, avenging their heartbreaking loss to them in the MPL PH S12 playoffs.
With this win, RSG has won their second international tournament after taking the 2022 MLBB Southeast Asia Cup. This also means that the Philippines has now won each of the big international Mobile Legends tournaments, which only proves that the Philippine era of Mobile Legends is not yet over.
The Filipino teams in particular were playing above and beyond their usual for this tournament. All four Filipino representatives, AP.Bren, Blacklist International, ECHO, and RSG made it to the playoffs. Meanwhile, the host country Indonesia, who had six representatives in MPLI, was only able to have one team advance. Blacklist in particular was impressive as they sent their second-string team to play in the tournament. Even though they fell to Malaysia’s HomeBois, the fact they could keep up in an international tournament speaks well of the team’s talent.
Leading the charge for RSG was their Jungler Jonard “Demonkite” Caranto, who earned the title of Finals MVP. Demonkite was part of RSG’s 2022 Southeast Asia Cup champions lineup but was moved to their Malaysian roster in 2023.
His return clearly reinvigorated the team as RSG were playing like true champions for the entirety of MPLI. After going 3-0 in the group stage, they would suffer a loss to AP.Bren at the upper bracket semifinals. From the lower brackets, RSG Philippines would tear through their competition, later getting revenge on AP.Bren, then finally defeated ECHO to become the first Filipino MPLI champions.
Banner images from the MLBB eSports livestream.
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