Esports | Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | Blacklist International — The 4-0 M3 Final at Suntec Singapore

On Sunday, December 19, 2021, Blacklist International and ONIC Philippines took the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M3 World Championship stage at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, turning a 16-team global event into an all-Philippine final. MOONTON ran M3 as the publisher’s third world championship, with the official English broadcast presenting the title match as a best-of-seven series and the independent event record placing its offline final at Suntec (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftIwpTMHQ5c; https://escharts.com/tournaments/mobile-legends/m3-world-championship/schedule). Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a five-versus-five mobile multiplayer online battle arena: each team drafts heroes with distinct abilities, fights across three lanes and a jungle, and wins a game by destroying the opposing base rather than by accumulating kills. Blacklist’s starting five were Danerie James “Wise” Del Rosario, Edward Jay “Edward” Dapadap, Kiel Calvin “OHEB” Soriano, Salic “Hadji” Imam, and Johnmar “OhMyV33nus” Villaluna; ONIC Philippines fielded Kairi Rayosdelsol, Gerald “Dlarskie” Trinchera, Mark Christian “Markyyyy” Etcobanez, Aloy “Baloyskie” Baloy, and Jaylord “Hatred” Gonzales (https://liquipedia.net/mobilelegends/M3_World_Championship). The competition used the global Mobile Legends: Bang Bang mobile client on Patch 1.6.34, whose balance changes shaped M3’s marksman-heavy metagame; no undisclosed handset model, operating system, server build, or tournament-device policy is inferred here (https://liquipedia.net/mobilelegends/Patch_1.6.34; https://www.oneesports.gg/mobile-legends/why-lolita-suddenly-meta-pick-m3/). Blacklist won the opening three games, meaning one more base victory would end the series while ONIC needed four consecutive games to take the championship. In Game 4, Blacklist drafted Chou, Natan, Mathilda, Paquito, and Beatrix against ONIC’s Barats, Natalia, Rafaela, Pharsa, and Yi Sun-shin, then closed the map with fifteen kills to seven and the decisive destruction of ONIC’s base, completing the series 4–0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftIwpTMHQ5c; https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/sports/othersports/815189/blacklist-emerges-from-the-ashes-takes-home-mlbb-m3-world-title-at-the-expense-of-compatriot-onic-ph/story/). The sweep gave Blacklist the M3 title after its lower-bracket run and made the Philippines the winner of consecutive M-series championships, following Bren Esports at M2; OHEB received the Finals MVP award (https://mb.com.ph/2021/12/19/blacklist-international-pounces-on-onic-ph-wins-m3-world-championship-crown). Suntec’s hall was not an inferred city pin: contemporary reporting described spectators watching M3 there during the final three days, and the venue lists its address as 1 Raffles Boulevard (https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/e-sports-m3-world-championship-in-singapore-welcomes-the-return-of-fans; https://www.suntecsingapore.com/). The cover is a later exterior photograph of Suntec’s distinctive roof, cropped to remove commercial advertising; it shows the verified venue, not the match, players, or 2021 stage. Photo: cropped from an image by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.