Remaining Filipinos exit Dota 2’s most prestigious international tourney

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Filipinos Carlo “Kuku” Palad and Karl “Karl” Baldovino are already out of Dota 2’s The International 10 tournament after their team T1 crashed out of the third round of the lower bracket.

After the other co-Filipinos Abed “Abed” Yusop of Evil Geniuses, Djardel “DJ” Mamapusti and Marco Polo “Raven” Fausto of Fnatic faced an early exit in TI10, the PH Dota 2 community immediately turned their heads to support Kuku and Karl with hopes of raising the coveted Aegis trophy and a scintillating prize pool of $18,208,300 (around P923 million).

However, T1 lost to a more-determined Vici Gaming squad from China who just out-drafted and outsmarted them in the next two games.

T1 actually had a decent start in the series after taking the first game when Karl’s Lina dominated the middle lane and the whole game with his 20 kills and 11 assists.

Kuku’s Magnus was also formidable for T1 after providing them the sets they needed to initiate the action against VG’s Mars and Ursa who just seemed untouchable in the early laning phase.

Unfortunately, after their 1-0 lead, Karl and Kuku’s T1 squad fumbled in the next two games and received a reverse sweep from the Chinese Dota players.

Despite the exit, Kuku, Karl, and the whole T1 squad will still take home $1,000,500 (around $50.7 million) as third-round qualifiers.