The recent advancement of Blacklist International into the Semi-Finals has put Echo Philippines under a lot of pressure from the Filipino crowd. In addition to this pressure, they are also facing another tournament favorite, Onic Indonesia, who is considered one of their greatest threats in the M4 World Championship. Will Onic Indonesia be able to continue their stellar performance against the House of Highlights, or will Echo be able to bring them down to the lower bracket?

In the draft phase, both teams respected their opponent's signature heroes by banning their meta first picks. Echo was forced to pick Kaja instead of their signature Chou pick. Onic made an unusual draft by defying the caster's predictions of both teams drafting assassins. However, Onic picked up a Granger jungle, while Echo went for a Fredrinn and a debut Melissa in the M4 for Bennyqt.

Both teams were toe-to-toe transitioninng, they couldn't defend their base as the five members of Echo and a Lord crash their base.g from early to middle game despite the huge turtle clashes. By the time the first lord spawned, Onic had the positioning advantage that translated into a quick Lord take. However, a great play from Echo quickly turned Onic's Lord take into a mistake, taking out four of their members. Back-to-back highlight plays from the House of Highlights snowballed both Sanji's Xavier and Bennyqt's Melissa to scale faster. By the time Echo got the fourth Lord of the game, Onic's draft collapsed, having no means for wave cleari

With the result of game number one, Onic had a different draft this time. Abiding to the casters' prediction, Onic drafted a Hayabusa jungle for Kairi and a surprising second Moskov of M4 to answer Echo's Karrie pick. Just when we thought we can see another Chou gameplay from Yawi, it was stolen by Karltzy and Yawi went for a Khufra. 

In contrast to the first game, the second game had a clear winner in the early stages. Onic Indonesia secured multiple pickoffs around the map. The second Moskov pick of the M4 tournament worked in favor of Onic. Just before the first Lord fight, a great Black Dragon Transformation from SanFord caught CW off guard, shutting down the scaling Moskov. The first Lord was taken down 14 minutes into the game after an engage from Yawi that killed two members of Onic. Despite the manpower disadvantage, Onic was able to turn the clash around. The second Lord was secured easily by Echo but was defended easily by Onic. By the 19th minute, Kiboy used Divine Judgment on Yawi, but Yawi survived long enough to cast his Tyrant's Revenge on both CW and Kiboy. Despite this, a quick immortality purchase by CW allowed him to survive and get a retaliation play onto Echo, killing four of its members. Onic wiped out Echo, and the series was brought to a best-of-three.

For the third game, Echo banned out every possible assassin. Echo had a very comfortable draft with Karltzy securing his Fredrinn and Yawi securing his signature pick, Chou. With Kairi's assassins banned out, Onic was forced to use Barats, while Echo answered with Dyroth to shred Barat's armor.

This time, Echo made sure that Onic won’t have time to breath in the early game. They claimed all three turtle and made sure CW is having a hard time laning against Bennyqt. Just before the first Lord spawned, they had 2 massive clashes that went in favor of Echo. With this, Echo took the Lord freely and march bottom lane. while Onic was defending the 1st tier middle tower Yawi had a huge conceal + 3rd Jeet Kune Do + Flicker on four members of Onic and at the same time, casting a Way of the Dragon on CW. With CW, SANZ, and butsss down, Onic had no damage dealer, Echo took the lead in the series in just under 12 minutes. 

For game number four, Echo went for the same strategy to focus on banning Kairi’s assassin heroes and prioritize the Fredrinn pick. This time, Onic went for Joy jungle as it has the same mechanics as Kairi’s heroes. Onic had the confidence to let go of Yawi’s Chou again while they try another set of heroes.

Game 4 was an even early game for both teams, trading back-and-forth. 9 minutes into the game just before the first Lord, Echo made a huge mistake in the bot lane. They had a very long audition rally against 5 members of Onic Indonesia almost wipe them out only for Yawi to re-respawn and stop the fight using the Way of the Dragon. With Onic on the lead, they manage to take down the Lord, and took down the middle lane inner turret. Yawi in control of his Chou and perfect engages, they managed to shrink the lead and extend the game through pickoffs. By 17th minute mark, Yawi had a conceal play on butsss’ Gloo and Echo managed to take him down before SANZ’ Cult Altar could save him. With man down and Cult Altar out of the way, Echo had the confidence to continue the fight and Lord dance. The Lord was reset several times until Echo managed to punish CW on his misplay. With Claude down, Echo marched middle lane looking to end the game but miraculously, Onic defended their base. Echo took down the Lord and marched middle lane again. This time Yawi has a flicker and butsss was caught again and instantly bursted by Bennyqt. Bennyqt with SMG dealt massive damage and took down the base. Closing the series 3-1, and dropping one of the crowd’s favorite down the lower bracket of M4 World Championship and securing 1 Filipino team into the Grand Finals.

Drafts:

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Game 4:

Post Game Results:

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Game 4:

Game MVPs:

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Game 4: