There’s a huge reason why teams in the MPL Philippines have not been leaving Mathilda at the hands of Blacklist International captain-support Johnmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna. 

And OhMyV33nus punished Laus Playbook Esports for not banning his signature Mathilda as he powered Blacklist to a 2-0 sweep and lifted the team to the Season 7 Playoffs on Saturday, May 1. 

OhMyV33nus enabled Blacklist to survive LPE’s assault from early to midgame to shut down Danerie James “Wise” Del Rosario’s Granger in Game 1 and allowed Kiel “OHEB” Soriano’s Harith to take charge in the endgame for a 20-17 victory in 23 minutes. 

The two-time MPL runner-up from Onic PH and M1 World Championship attendee finished with a game-high 14 assists on top of five kills including solo snipes on Jay “JAKE THE DOG” Lapitan’s Chang’e. 

OhMyV33nus shone brighter in Game 2 as he powered Blacklist’s 15-4 romp in just 12 minutes with a 100 percent kill participation built on a perfect record of four kills and 11 assists. 

Blacklist, which stuck with the same winning draft, dictated the tempo right from the get-go with V33nus’ ultra-aggressive Mathilda leading the charge while Wise on his Granger bounced back (4-2-7 kill-death-assist) and Jayson “ESON” Gerardo playing Franco (1-0-10) came up with sneaky Iron Hooks. 

With the sweep, Blacklist clinched a spot in the Playoffs with 24 points on a 9-1 series win-loss record on top of Group B, but veteran tank ESON said the team remains focused on its remaining matches in the Regular Season.  

“Excited kami para sa Playoffs pero sa mga natitirang games namin dito sa Regular Season paghahandaan pa rin namin (We’re excited for the Playoffs but we will still prepare hard for our remaining games in the Regular Season),” he said in the post-match interview. 

Coach Brian “Panda” Lim’s LPE suffered its third straight defeat and stayed at the bottom of Group B with eight points on a 3-6 slate.