In a valiant Grand Final battle that lasted over two hours, the Philippines’ Expendables Counter-Strike team battled hard against Thailand’s ZIGMA, only to eventually concede to the latter two rounds to one to become the first runners-up of the ROG Masters 2021 – the company’s first online Asia Pacific esports tournament.
Philippines’ Expendables CS Team Fight Their Way to First Runner Up at ROG Masters Asia Pacific 2021
Before being defeated by ZIGMA, the Expendables defeated a formidable group of regional opponents including India’s Headshot Esports in the quarterfinals, and a tournament favorite, Hong Kong’s 100Ping in the semifinals before succumbing two rounds to one, to Thailand’s ZIGMA in one of the most exciting and competitive matches in the tournament.
Championship Final Qualification
Regional Qualifiers: The Expendables qualified for the ROG Masters Asia Pacific finals by first beating 15 other local teams to win the Philippine Regional Qualifiers on April 3, 2021.
APAC Championship Round of 32 & 16: In the early stages of the APAC Championships, the Expendables then defeated Hong Kong’s second runner up team DONOTDISTURBLA two matches to zero; then Cambodia’s Regional Champion AG Esports two to zero and finally, India’s first runner up team Headshot Esports two to zero.
APAC Championship Semifinal: In the group of the final four semifinals, ZIGMA caused an upset by defeating a tournament favorite to win, Singapore’s Huat Zai, two matches to zero to qualify for the grand final.
APAC Championship Grand Final: On the evening of 25 April 2021, the Expendables went up against Thailand’s ZIGMA in the grand final that turned out to be one of the longest but most exciting matches of the tournament which lasted over two hours.
In the first round, ZIGMA won 16 to 10 in the map: Overpass, but in the second round, the Expendables fought back very hard from a five-round disadvantage to win 14:16 in Mirage. ZIGMA then secured its victory with a 16:9 third-round score against the Expendables in the final round in Inferno.
Prowess Proven
Although Expendables lost to ZIGMA in the final match, it proved its prowess in the following ways:
- Besides ZIGMA, the Expendables defeated all its regional tournament opponents convincingly with 2:0 match victories
- Four of five of its team members have the highest average number of kills per match of all the players in the tournament: Azyshala (21.09), –PapiChulo (20.55), Derek9 (20.18), and -micr0 (19.82). Only two players from other teams have higher average kills: CigaretteS_ (21.78) of ZIGMA (Thailand) and nephh -_- (22) of Huat Zai (Singapore)
About the Expendables
The Expendables is one of the Philippines’ top-ranked Counter-Strike teams. The roster that won the first runner-up place in the ROG Masters Asia Pacific 2021 was a relative team consisting of Pro., 32; Papichulo, 24; micr0, 24; Derek, 22 and azyshala, 19.
Re-watch the Finals
Audiences can view the replay of the final match of ZIGMA versus the Expendables on ROG’s official Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/asusrog/videos
Match details are available at the official tournament website. Tournament details are available at the CS Liquipedia ROG Masters 2021 page: https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/ROG_Masters/2021/Asia-Pacific
As the first runner-up of the ROG Masters Asia Pacific 2021 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, The Expendables wins the second prize of US$3,500.
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ASUS ROG congratulates the Expendables and wishes them continued success in future tournaments. For more details, join ASUS Philippines on Facebook and Twitter.
