ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022: Wild Rift Kicks Off Qualifiers
The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022: Wild Rift Mobile Open for multiple regions kicked off last Saturday, July 9, 2022, with four participating regions: Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, & MSPB (Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, & Brunei) for a chance to get the lion’s share of the 75,000 USD prize pool. At the end of the first qualifiers, the first four teams that emerged to enter the closed qualifier of MSPB were Team Underground, Grindsky Esports, Nigma Galaxy, and Team Unknown.
The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022: Wild Rift Mobile Open for multiple regions kicked off last Saturday, July 9, 2022, with four participating regions: Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, & MSPB (Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, & Brunei) for a chance to get the lion’s share of the $75,000 USD prize pool. The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022 has four stages: (1) mobile open, (2) mobile open finals, (3) mobile challenge, & (4) mobile challenge finals.
The mobile open serves as the open qualifier across different regions and the top 4 from each single-elimination qualifier will head to the closed qualifier. The closed qualifier is a double-elimination with eight teams from both open qualifiers battling it out to enter the mobile open finals. The mobile open finals pit the top 4 teams from the mobile open and 4 invited professional teams from each region. The top 2 teams of the mobile open finals will move on to the mobile challenge where the top 2 teams of each of the 4 regions will play in a single round-robin format. From 8 teams, the top 5 teams of the mobile challenge group stage will finally enter the mobile challenge finals into a double elimination playoff to determine the champions of the ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022.
Mobile Open League of Legends: Wild Rift Open Cup 1
Over 100 teams signed up from the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. Philippine teams led the qualifiers with over 85 teams in the mix. A lot of old rosters and new teams participated in the first open qualifiers with familiar teams like Team Secret leading the pack. At the end of the first qualifiers, the first four teams that emerged to enter the closed qualifier were Team Underground, Grindsky Esports, Nigma Galaxy, and Team Unknown.
Familiar Faces & Comebacks
Team Unknown is not really unknown but rather they are led by one of League of Legends PC and Wild Rift veteran players, Rebengga. It’s not a surprise that they cruised past the other teams including Bren Esports to enter the next phase of the tournament. On the other hand, one of the strongest teams to ever enter the rift since season 0, Team Underground and its players: Karlll, Don, Sayonara, Xyliath, Lara1, & Orthros are amongst the most feared players in the game. Their bracket was perhaps one of the hardest paths as they had to face Malaysia’s Todak and the Philippines’ OneSnap Genesis, a newly formed powerhouse team.
GrindSky Esports, together with the same roster, Tontey, Chianese, Bambi, Tactical, & Beau faced a massive opponent in their round of 8 matches against Team Secret’s WCS roster, Azar, Trebor, Tatsurii, Chewy, and Raux but GrindSky proved to be Team Secret’s kryptonite when they swept them with a 3-0 victory. Meanwhile, after a year of hiatus, renowned jungler, Juschie is back with a vengeance together with his new team, Nigma Galaxy. His comeback awaited, Juschie now plays together with Chammy, Aaron, Demonkite, and Dr4w.
These four teams will be waiting for the top 4 teams of the second open qualifier to determine who will head to the mobile open finals.
Young Blood & New Teams
A lot of people were anticipating certain matches during the qualifiers because there were a lot of newly formed teams that fans were excited to see play. One of these teams is OneSnap Genesis (1SE Genesis). OneSnap Genesis is part of the four teams under Kaisaya’s OneSnap Esports. 1SE Genesis is composed of veteran professional players such as Speltz (formerly from Liyab Esports), Taymlaps, Dizaster (formerly Nexplay Esports), Pego (formerly Cerebrum Esports), & Renzy (formerly Oasis Gaming & Sibol). They proved themselves to be a strong force on the field but dropped from the first qualifier when they lost a tight match against Team Underground with a 1-2 score. They will be back together with their sister teams, OneSnap Alliance, OneSnap Luna, and OneSnap Amazons in the second qualifier.
Another team on the radar is Bren Esports. Some of their players were from Sunsparks such as Nasjo, Haze, and Konsi. However, their new recruits are the ones currently under the spotlight as Miggie and DoeDoii from Liyab Esports came in to complete their roster. They were also very close to securing the Top 4 in the first qualifier but lost to Rebengga’s Team Unknown. GH Kabod, formerly Raekken Esports, a team that dominated the amateur scene not too long ago is also back in the scene but bowed out early in the first qualifiers when they faced Team Secret in the round of 16 matches.
All of these teams will be given a second chance in the last open qualifier for the ESL Snapdragon Pro Series 2022: Wild Rift. Teams can still register for the tournament until the morning of Saturday, July 16, 2022.