Hardships prepare ordinary people to extraordinary destiny.

Members of the Omega Esports CODM team management, coaches and player (Photo from Smart Omega)

Two years of tears, sweat and blood had finally come to fruition for Smart Omega Esports as it finally got the chance to carve its own fate and fly the country’s colors in the biggest and brightest stage of the Call of Duty Mobile World Championships 2022 in December in Raleigh, USA.

The all-Filipino crew booked a ticket to the crowning tournament of professional CODM after dethroning arch rival and Worlds East Champions Blacklist Ultimate in the lower bracket finals of the CODM Worlds Garena Finals – a victory which also came extra sweeter especially after the memories of its bitter losses last year against the same team.

The quintet of Jerrold “Woopiiee” Regay, Kennedy “iDra” Mondoy, Kenneth “KenDy” Pimentel, Ronan “Rage” ELeria and Jonnel “R1sky” Buemio finally got over the hump against Blacklist, coming away with a pulsating 3-2 victory with the Worlds ticket on the line

“Definitely when we finally came out of the slump and we beat Blacklist nagstart na rin manalo ng tournament, it’s definitely a relief. Nung nagqualify kami sa Worlds, it was a mix of emotions, mix of happy, excited at the same time kinakabahan,” shared coach Bruce “Dev1ce” Cruz during a press conference on Thursday, Oct. 14, at the Omega Esports bootcamp in Marikina City.

The triumph didn’t come easy, however, for Omega as Blacklist showed great poise and forced a winner-take-all Search and Destroy showdown where the World Champions took a commanding 5-1 lead over Omega.

The faith of team captain Woopiiee towards the team didn’t waver as they managed to recover and eventually pull off a stunning comeback to take an 8-6 decision in the final map.

“Siguro nakuha po namin yung confidence namin since nung GM2, tinalo na po namin sila, GM2 and GM3 so yung GM4 po di na kami sobrang kabado di katulad last year, mas confident po kami lahat na kaya namin sila talunin kahit anong manyari,” recalled Woopiiee.

For the veteran sniper, Omega’s upcoming World stint was already a long time coming especially after he and the rest of the team, back when they were still part of NRX Jeremiah 29:11, already managed to qualify for the global showpiece during its supposed very first iteration in 2020, only to be canceled when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

“Sa lahat po kaming players sobrang saya po two years rin po namin hinintay na mag qualify po sa Worlds kasi po ‘yung unang worlds nacancel po tas parang dun po kami nadepress, nagsimula kaming matalo pero nagbounce back kami,” added the Omega skipper.

Omega right now is not letting go of its chances to finally get into the Worlds as it is now hard-pressed with its preparations not just for the games in the tournament but also in securing the necessary documents for the player’s visa to fly to the US.

“We have two months before flying to US, no doubt the team is finding our contacts, ways, resources to push this through, hats off to the management and sana tuloy-tuloy. But again if there are friends right there na would like to help, we are not shy, kung puwede lang,” said Omega’s chief marketing officer Froi Joshua Endaya.

“We’re seeking out our friends out there who would like to help us move this much faster and ‘yun lang. Again this is not just an Omega endeavor. this is a Philippine endeavor.”


Source: Manila Bulletin (https://mb.com.ph/2022/10/15/after-two-years-of-heartbreaks-omega-esports-is-finally-marching-to-codm-worlds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=after-two-years-of-heartbreaks-omega-esports-is-finally-marching-to-codm-worlds)