Filipinos fall short in PUBG Mobile SEA challenger

MANILA, Philippines – Seven Filipino teams missed out on a podium finish in the inaugural Southeast Asia leg of the PUBG Mobile Challengers League (PMCL SEA) over the weekend.

Five Filipino teams qualified after being the top teams during the Philippine leg of the PUBG Mobile National Championships (PMNC), while PlayBook Esports and Enigma had been directly invited to the tournament.

All seven Filipino teams had reached the grand finals of the three-week-long league matches, with Filipino champions Team Harame Bro ranking second overall leading up to the final 18 rounds of the tournament.

Top Filipino PUBG Mobile team PlayBook Esports with Southeast Asian Games medalist Abdul "Monboy" Barode and SIBOL teammate Reimon "Rymon" Casido, started the grand finals strong with back-to-back chicken dinners in the first two rounds. This, however, painted a huge target on their backs and saw them eliminated early in the succeeding rounds. Though they did see a second place finish in round 15, the number of elimination points couldn't contribute enough to their overall score dropping them to fifth place overall.

Dread Esports also saw two first place finishes in rounds 14 and 16 and finished within the top five of the last few rounds of the tournament, but like their fellow Filipino team, didn't score enough elimination points to climb up the standings, ending the tournament at 7th place.

PMNC champions Team Harame Bro, which was second in rankings leading up to the grand finals, also saw them targeted during the first six rounds of the finals. The Filipino champions were the first to be eliminated in Rounds 2 and 4 but were able to score a chicken dinner in round 9, climbing up the standings to finish at 8th place.

Other Filipino teams that participated are Exquisite Esports (ninth place), Stranger Esports (11th place), 214 Akira (12th place) and Enigma (16th place).