Every now and again in esports, a player emerges
in a game to become the hero, to carry his
team onward to victory and send the crowd
to their feet
Even more rarely, the hero emerges in front
of their hometown crowd, with the cheers of
the faithful ringing in their ears
These moments are elevated by the crowd and
their love of the local boy
taking otherwise amazing plays and bringing them to iconic status
Therefore, it’s right that the moment we
look at today, a highlight that caused the
player to go from local favorite to legend
with just one game, happened in the Philippines
This is DJ’s Black Holes from the Manila
Major
When Valve announced its third Major would
be in South-East Asia, it was only fitting
that Manila, the capital of the Philippines,
would receive the honour of hosting
Few places on earth are as dedicated and passionate
about esports as the Philippines, and Dota
2 is among the foremost of their loves
At live events, the crowd is either loud or
outright deafening, and not a decibel lower
And so when one of the sons of the Philippines
pulled off the play of the tournament and
became the hero his team needed, you’d better
believe the crowd and everyone watching would
never forget it
It’s time for the Main Event
On the first day, the Filipino crowd had to
watch as Mineski.Sports5 was eliminated from
the tournament by Alliance
Thankfully, there was one SEA representative
remaining:
Fnatic
While the Fnatic roster was mainly Malaysian,
there was still one Filipino left on which
the crowd could pin their hopes: Djardel Jicko
"DJ" Mampusti
With Mineski out of the picture, the pressure
was on for Fnatic to deliver
Unfortunately, Fnatic was set to take on the
ever-threatening LGD Gaming, who had topped
their group and were looking to knock the
final SEA team into the perilous waters of
the lower bracket
LGD took a confident Game 1 in just over half
an hour
But Fnatic struck back in Game 2 to draw the
series even.
LGD came into the deciding Game 3 hard and
fast, taking the fight right to Fnatic and
pushing the tempo early
But as they looked to take control of the
game, and solidify their grip with a dive
in the mid lane
DJ had something to say about that
Despite Fnatic’s best efforts, LGD continued
to push forward with their mid-game power
spike, turning up the heat on the fan favorites
However, through some fancy maneuvers out
of MidOne and great base holds by the whole team
Fnatic wouldn’t say die
With Fnatic’s late-game carries coming online
and LGD seeking the death blow, it was once
again time for DJ to be the hero
You couldn’t have planned it any better:
as the crowd roared with delight, Fnatic took
the win on the back of DJ’s brilliant plays
It seemed like destiny that not only would
Fnatic put on a sensational performance, DJ
would play the game of his life in front of
his hometown fans
While Fnatic wouldn’t win another game for
the rest of the tournament, swept out by Newbee
and then Team Liquid, in the grand scheme
of things that doesn’t really matter
Why?
Because everyone loves a hero, and on that
day in Manila, the Philippines had theirs,
and his name was DJ
