After a grueling match on LAN by these illustrious list of ESports teams, fans of DOTA 2 and Valorant were treated to a lovely finals at Robinsons Galleria in Cebu for the Predator League 2025 Philippine Finals. Despite the hectic schedule and some inexperience of some teams in a faster environment, they managed to play with high level teams and win 250,000 pesos as champions of the Asia Pacific Predator League 2025 Grand Finals. They've got a 1 Million peso pot to share after all.
DOTA 2 was quite exciting for teams Execration and Ivory, but in the end, the experience that Execration had made it an overwhelming affair on the map. Kill rates were at 7.5, and assists were at 10.5, so imagine how much time they spent in it. For Valorant, DLSU's Valorant Esports tried to take a jab at ZOL ESports, but they got swept 2 games. This means Execration, Ivory and ZOL Esports will fly for the championships in KL next year. Team Secret will also be there to play for the country, something like an honorary invite for a top tier team that plays on the world stage.
If you want more updates about these ESports teams, make sure you follow their social channels because they'll be posting more of these in the coming months. January will be very busy.
From a gamer spectator such as me, I always knew the Philippines would fare well in the recent regional competition, Acer's Predator League 2024. At the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City Philippines, fans flocked to this venue to watch DOTA 2 and Valorant country representatives (in Asia Pacific) as they battle it out to see who's best in this region.
There were over 26 world class teams who were raring to do their best in the 2 day event. The prelims was fun albeit being a bit uneasy for some teams because they had only one match to qualify for the next round. It certainly wasn't easy to adjust that fast but those who did took advantage of the format and won their respective rounds. It was also fun to also talk to the eSports athletes before they went into the actual match, here's some of them on video!
The international eSports teams also talked about their experience doing the tournament here in Manila. They did expect matches would be hard since some of them are Tier 1 franchise teams, and a lot of them wanted to experience what it feels like being in a match with them. Although some of them lost their matches, they learned a lot in the process and promise to be back with an even greater team soon.
Aside from that, executives from different regions went on to tell us how it's been actually very beneficial to run these events in their respective countries. To say the least, business has been good and they are planning to do the regional Predator League in Malaysia next year. They also want to do it bigger and better in the coming years as they find big value in knowing how name recall plays in the gaming industry and that's exactly why they're number 1 in the market!
PABLO was super good!
The Asia Pacific Predator League was also the best in entertainment. World class Filipino performers showed up and got us partying at the start, between games and in the finale. On day 1 alone, I got my dose of Valorant fare as Ylona Garcia who sang "Entertain Me" when NEON was launched as a character, oh how I love her! Aside from that, Urbanddub, Al James and Donny Pangilinan joined in the fun plus a full Valorant game with SB19 and other Acer influencers made the evening extra epic! Asia's Popstar Royalty Sarah Geronimo also ended the day with her performance, people were at awe!
Day 2 had Josh Cullen, bands Sandwich and Spongecola, Pablo (who did a new single on stage) and KZ Tandingan give us the absolute best in Philippine talents, it was like a full blown concert with the games on the finale day.
And in the end, it was a sweet day for the Philippines as Team Secret won the Valorant championship and Blacklist International Rivalry won the DOTA2 championship. Both teams from the Philippines won 65,000 dollars and their own Predator Shield. Initially, BOOM Esports was actually favored to challenge Team Secret, but Japan's FAV Gaming surprised them all. They got 20,000 dollars together with Execration (for DOTA2), and BOOM Esports + Team Flash got 3rd Place with a 7,500 pot each. Team Aster and IHC Esports got the same for DOTA2. Intel MVP awards went to Jeremy “Jremy” Cabrera (for Valorant) and Marc Polo “Raven”Fausto (for DOTA2), getting a prize of 10,000 dollars too.
If you're up to it, some of the performances are already up on my TikTok account so just search @kumagcow there, and some of the country interviews were done live on my FB page (just search kumagcow) as it's all there!
We've been covering the Predator League for years now and for a while, they've been gone because of the pandemic. This year, they're really raring to go and even extending the whole thing into lands unchartered and putting out a whopping Php 1 Million prize plus the coveted Predator Shield in games of Dota 2 and Valorant. Who will win this remains to be seen.
Young and undiscovered talents have been benefiting from this, imagine 15,000 teams battling it out to represent the country in the Asia Pacific Predator League. From the Qualifiers, to the Group stage and the Finals, this is going to be one tough year. In the country alone, they will have one in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, plus another one in the NCR. That spot certainly will be something that they'd wish to have especially with the prizes at state for them. These important matches will be livestreamed too so you all will be able to cheer for your favorite teams. Once the champion of DOTA 2 and Valorant gets crowned, they get the prize and the shield, including the runner ups, and will be able to represent the Philippines in the big league. That's an honor any team would love right?
The Grand Finals will be early 2024 so stay tuned for more announcements soon. Follow PredatorGamingPhilippines on Facebook or their website predator-league.com because it will all be there!
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