Honorable mentions go to Butuan’s Armor LOKO, Execration.Reborn, and Cebu’s MATTJESS
Pacific.Macta has once again come out on top as the Philippines’ best CrossFire team after winning the CrossFire Stars 2017 PH Finals last October 15, 2017.
The event, which was held in High Grounds Cafe in Quezon City, Metro Manila, saw the country’s best 16 teams duking it out for a piece of the $20,000 prize pool and the chance to represent the country in the upcoming World Finals. That honor now goes to Pacific.Macta who will fly out to China in December.
Macta Is A World-Class Team
Pacific.Macta was already a heavy favorite coming into the competition. They have been the Philippine CFS Champions twice in a row before in 2014 and 2015, both times reaching as far as 3rd place in the global championships. Last year they were also worthy of an invite to the first-ever CrossFire Stars Invitational: Manila where they proved their worth against representative teams from Brazil, China, and Vietnam.
Pacific.Macta was also in China in August earlier this year for the CrossFire Global Invitational 2017, finishing at a solid 3rd-4th place. Suffice it to say that Pacific.Macta is an international-level team, easily even among the top 5 CrossFire teams in the world.
Expect this roster of John Kenneth “ZYK” Alde, Aldrin Borabon, Judan “Kart” Cruz, Dennis “ZDD” Ramos, and Christian “Revenge” Amores to do their Philippine fans proud in this year’s World Finals.
Butuan Numbah Wan
Despite Pacific.Macta’s clear experience advantage, the team did admit that the local competition this year has been exceptionally fierce. Every team that Pacific.Macta faced since day 1 of the competition gave them a hard time.
Notable among these is overall second-placer team Armor LOKO, comprised of Ryan Miguel “OWMNG” Cassion, Mark Anthony “Ykram” Fernandez, Keith “CoolDad” Pace, Jeffrey Parrocho, and Christian “Ztrooop” Fortun. These Boys from Butuan represent their far-flung city and are the best of the best from Mindanao.
Though not a new name to local and online CrossFire tournaments, this would be the first time Armor LOKO has made it so far in a national-level event. They were initially dropped to the loser’s bracket by Pacific.Macta before they eventually faced off again in the grand finals but despite the final 3-0, the Boys from Butuan had an exceptionally good run at the tournament.
With captain CoolDad taking a break from CrossFire and some of the members already being considered by other teams, it’s unlikely we’ll see this exact same roster of players in future events but for the meantime they’ll be returning to the south as hometown heroes.
Execration.Reborn Heartbroken
The story of third place is a different story altogether. Though Execration.Reborn–with players Jeffrey Adena, Justine Jamero, Aries “Arsvv” Alde, Justine Perez,and Guillermo “Charlito” Garcia–was one of the likely candidates to face off against Macta since the start of the tournament, they played the second half of the lower bracket finals with a heavy and unexpected disadvantage.
It was during a break between rounds that supporting player Jeff received news that his grandfather had passed away. Despite this, he and the team decided to finish the match in what would turn out to be the closest and most intense series of the entire tournament, ending in a one-point-difference overtime round against Armor LOKO.
Though Execration.Reborn lost, through the pain and tears they ended their run with gratefulness to their sponsor and families, pride in their advancing CrossFire friends and contemporaries, and a promise to themselves to continue to improve.
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