NXP Evos’ previous match against the season 7 champions Blacklist International showed us that we are no longer seeing the same NXPE as the one we’ve known for the previous seasons. Apart from the new flavors brought to us by the addition of the veteran, Yellyhaze, including the promising Hesa--here’s been so much room for growth for this team throughout the off-season. Remaining unshaken by these thoughts, however, TNC seemingly went into this series confident enough that despite all of that they are still able to take down NXPE once more, just like how they previously used to do, which they successfully did as they gave us a clean sweep for this series. TNC proceeded to start the first game strong with so much aggression coming in especially from 3MarTzy on the Lapu-Lapu, with successful attempts in disrupting the positioning of NXPE every single time during a teamfight. H2Wo does not disappoint with his successful objective takes each time, but it’s not enough to answer the aggression of TNC. 3MarTzy aggression influenced the rest of the members as well, and it worked in their favor most especially when it was Light’s turn to shine. Light on the Khufra was able to set up numerous opportunities for TNC to burst down crucial members of NXPE, even catching H2wo a number of times and preventing the members of NXPE to hold that game a little longer for Hesa on that Alice to go online, ending the game before it even reached the 15-minute mark.

TNC proceeds with the exact same disruptive tactic in game number 2, only that this time it was Light on that Martis who went in and began the early aggression. It is precisely through these types of plays that we are able to see the importance of establishing your early rotation and successfully pulling it off, as TNC remained consistent from this point onwards, maintaining their lead as well as their confidence. 3MarTzy and his team were even spamming their recalls and emotes towards the end of the game to back up their superior gameplay, including 3MarTzy’s assumption that this would be an easy game as mentioned in his pre-game interview. There were certain (however, minimal) loopholes coming in from TNC and glimmers of hope for the side of NXPE during this game, but there was an evident lack of coordination coming in from the players during today’s match paired with TNC’s carefully executed counter engages, making NXPE unable to secure the conditions for a potential comeback against them. Hence, NXPE losing the series to last season’s super rookies.

TNC gave the viewers a brilliant performance for today’s matchup, immediately recovering from their previous loss against Blacklist International during day one. NXPE, on the other hand, was seemingly lacking for today’s performance, and we’re yet to see how they’ll make it up in the next couple of weeks.

GAME 1:

Duration: 14:09

Score: 14-6 in favor of TNC

Match MVP: Light

GAME 2:

Duration: 15:49

Score: 16-9 in favor of TNC

Match MVP: 3MarTzy