Fnatic ONIC PH breaks upper bracket curse to win M6 World Championship (MLBB)

No team in history won the finals of the M World Series (MLBB) coming from the upper bracket except for Fnatic ONIC PH.

Fnatic ONIC winning moment

The Alpha among the rest

The team has conquered the whole tournament starting from multiple nerve-wracking BO1 group stages to secure a playoff spot (upper bracket).

Photo from Mobile Legends Esports

Upon doing so, FNOP proceeded to take down strong teams like SRG, FCON, and TLID in a dominant fashion during the playoffs to take the first finals slot.

Meanwhile, a fellow strong contender TLID took down SRG in the lower bracket finals to have a revenge match with Fnatic ONIC PH.

In the Finals

Games 1 and 2 (FNOP)

These two games have pretty much the same outcome. FNOP took advantage of getting "Bruno" a strong marksman pick for Kelra followed by a Lou Yi" midlane pick for Superfrince. The mage's global presence and positioning enable the team's (Brusko, Kingkong, and Kirk) early-game aggression leading to Kelra's Bruno to scale immediately and give TLID too many problems.

Game 3  (TLID)

TLID learned from their previous drafts and banned the two aforementioned heroes. This is to give their core players enough time to farm. Speaking of which Aran took his signature Hilda pick for that fast yet Tanky meatshield to rotate the map, while Favian scored an early triple kill with his comfort "Joy" pick. A unique yet comfortable Carmila pick for Widy as well as a long artillery mage "Pharsa" pick for Yehezikiel also allowed TLID to hit FNOP's lineup of Cici, Harith, Gatokaca, Cecillon, and Suyou from afar. Also, Aeronshiki's Granger scaled at mid-game and secured a finisher item Sky Piercer to eventually give problems on Fnatic ONIC's composition.

Furthermore, Kirk's Cici had a couple of 1v1 or uneven matchups that led to his consecutive deaths. At the 12:53 mark, Kelra's Harith had a bad position near the river's bush where an enemy was waiting. That was enough time to burst him more than half of his HP eventually getting killed by Aran's Hilda. The whole FNOP crumbled after that play leading to a loss from TLID.

Game 4 (FNOP)

Fnatic ONIC PH went back to their traditional drafting and stopped experimenting. Each member got their signature pick starting with Brusko's Khaleed, Kirk's Edith, Kingkong's Joy, SuperFrince's Valentina, and Kelra's Beatrix. 

This lineup just gave the team an easy run. Despite the fact that TLID was supposed to have an early game advantage with Widy's Chip and Yehezikiel's Lou Yi both of which have a global presence. Meanwhile, Kelra being well-farmed just popped off in the mid-game bursting each TLID's members from afar using Beatrix's sniper. Brusko's Khaleed and Kirk's Edith also gave too much space for the core heroes with their fast rotations.

As usual, Kingkong's Joy hero was styling on TLID's members by going in and out of the backline and then killing off the squishy heroes. Superfrince's Valentina copied Lou Yi's Diversion allowing the ONIC to outrotate their foes to seal the match.

Game 5 (FNOP)

As FNOP secured three matches. This only means one thing: that they are already confident they will win the finals. 

Coach Ynot's masterful draft simply targeted TLID's Jungler Favian with three assassin heroes. Forcing him to pick the remaining viable core "Hayabusa". With TLID, falling into the trap, ONIC took many crowd-control heroes with Khaleed, Edith, Alpha, and Yve. Kelra on the other hand took the Irithel marksman for burst and mobility.

TLID's remaining draft was Zhuxin, Granger, Carmilla, and Hilda. These also look solid with the hopes of turning around the game. The team also tried to answer the back-and-forth aggression from FNOP.

However, there are just too many gold leads from FNOP and Brusko just keeps on surprising the backline with his flicker Sandstorm not giving space to the other team. Kelra smelling the blood from his enemies was also diving into the front line and turret feeling confident about taking them down.

After securing the first evolved lord, FNOP rallied to the base, clearing all lanes and the two inhibitor turrets. 

Kelra failed to take down the last inhibitor turret in the top lane with 1 hp left then a team fight erupted with FNOP's three members falling down.

However, Kelra did not join the team fight and went straight to the bottom lane and targeted the open base. Not having enough minions also forced him to go back a little bit with the base having very low HP (which is impossible to defend). 

Fortunately, there's another wave coming where he simply just ticked the base with a few attacks to win the game.

The team members of FNOP

With numerous brilliant plays, this also made Kelra the Finals MVP of the M6 World Championship. Being the only player to win MVP on MPL PH, MSC 2021 and M6.

Nag finals MVP ako hindi dahil sa sarili ko, kundi dahil  sa teammates ko, said Kelra during his winning moment interview

Fnatic ONIC PH will also take home a lion's share of USD 1 million (around PHP 58.6M) making it the biggest yet for MLBB Esports.

What do you guys think?

Source: Mobile Legends Esports, Fnatic ONIC