Philippine team pockets P18M in US Dota tilt

Philippine team TNC Pro failed to ad­vance further in the International Dota 2 tournament at the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington recently, but still went home with a whopping cash prize of $360,000, or about P18 million.

The Filipino players fin­ished the Professional Dota 2 competition, which offers a top purse of $10 million (about P506 million), in the ninth to 12th places follow­ing a 0-2 defeat at the hands of European giants OG.

TNC was actually on a roll at the onset of the tournament, entering the main phase in the upper bracket with an awesome group stage performance. It eventually lost steam in the battle against Chinese team LGD FY and ended up in the lower brackets.

The team was composed of Theeban “1437” Siva, Carlo “kuku” Palad, Samson “Sam_H” Hidalgo, Timothy “Tims” Randrup and Marc “Raven” Fausto.

Prior to the exit of TNC, an­other Philippine team— Ex­ecration—bowed out of the event and wound up 13th to 16th place. The squad also lost to European team Secret in a single eliminations match after starting the main stage at the lower brackets.

But even if Execration only figured in a lone game in the main stage, it still managed to pocket $120,000, or roughly P6 million in the annual Dota 2 tournament that features 18 of the best teams in the world.

The $24-million prize pool in the competition is so far the largest in any e-sports tournament.

JOHN BRYLLE S. ONG