It doesn’t have a prize pool amounting in the millions, but the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) is still one of the most important annual esports tournaments in Southeast Asia. This is because it provides an opportunity for players and teams from smaller countries to compete and make themselves known at an international level.
This year’s WESG consisted of 4 different competitions: Dota 2, StarCraft 2, CS:GO, and a CS:GO women’s division, with multiple regional tournaments being held en route to the global finals. The WESG SEA regional finals which took place in Kuala Lumpur last weekend featured teams and players from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
As the event was taking place on our home soil, hopes were high for the Malaysian representatives. However, the competition proved to be extremely fierce as every country participating in the SEA regional finals are well represented by top-notch esports talents.
For starters, the Dota 2 group stage had one of the most notable upsets of the competition. Prior to the start of the group stage, Dotahero from Malaysia and Resurgence from Singapore seemed like the 2 strongest teams in Group A.
However, they were defeated at the hands of Aggressive Slayer from Laos, and Team Cyanide from Myanmar, who put on superb performances to emerge as the top 2 teams in group A and qualify for the final stage.
In CS:GO’s group stage, the Malaysian representatives, team Darkhorse fared better than their Dota 2 counterpart as they came 2nd place in group B behind Lucid Dream from Thailand to qualify for the final stage.
As for the CS:GO Women division, the Malaysian representative Orange.Fe fought well but unfortunately fell just one match short of qualifying for the finals, as their 2-2 record in the group stage relegated them to 3rd place in Group A.
Malaysia’s StarCraft 2 player, Ranger which came from team M8HEXA also qualified for the final stage by coming 2nd place in his group, beating out competitors from Singapore and Indonesia. He did, however, lost one of his matches to EnDerr, the representative from the Philippines.
Moving on to Sunday, the semi-finals of each game did not play out as hoped for the Malaysian representatives. As both Darkhorse and Ranger lost their first match of the day, they had to settle for trying to win bronze in the 3rd place match for their respective games.
However, Darkhorse was unable to take revenge against Lucid Dream from the group stage and has to be content with 3rd runner up placing. In the StarCraft 2 division, Ranger managed to overcome StriKE from Thailand with a score of 2-0 in order to secure the 2nd runner up spot and Malaysia’s sole top 3 finish at WESG SEA Finals 2019.
In the end, the Philippines emerged as the overall champion of WESG SEA 2019, as their representatives earned top 3 finishes in 3 different games – the most out of all the countries competing in the finals. The biggest winner out of the bunch was TNC Predator, who had cemented themselves as back to back Dota 2 champions at WESG SEA.
For the results and replay footages from WESG SEA, head on to its official Facebook page right here.
(Source: WESG SEA // Additional Images: Darkhorse, M8HEXA.)
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