Antipolo City’s celebrated Esports gamer Johnmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna powered the Sibol Mobile Legends: Bang Bang to the gold medal in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The Philippines thus remained second to none in Mobile Legends.
Sibol beat rival Indonesia in the best-of-five grand finals, 3-1 to retain the gold they won against the same Indonesia team in 2019, when the Philippines was host of the inaugural Esports event.
Villaluna helped his team dominate in the much-anticipated showdown against powerhouse rival Indonesia.
Power duo Villaluna and Danerie James “Wise” Del Rosario returned to professional play after sitting out the ML:BB Professional League Philippines-Season 9.
They were joined by Salic Imam, Howard “Owl” Gonzales, Dominic Soto and Aaron “Eyon” Usi in the Philippine team.
Both teams split the first two matches in the tightly contested battle.
Indonesia’s Dyrroth and Dyrroth pushed Sibol to the limit especially during team clashes in the second game.
But Sibol regained its composure in the third and fourth match to easily take care of business to secure the country’s second straight gold in the biennial sports meet.
Blacklist International first beat Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar and Singapore before the gold medal match against Indonesia. They blanked Malaysia, 2-0; and Laos, 2-0; before scrambling past Myanmar, 2-1 and Singapore, 3-1.
The Philippines grabbed its second Esports gold in this edition of the biennial meet after Sibol reigned in the women’s League of Legends: Wild Rift behind GrindSky Eris.