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Mammoth and Order faced off in the Oceanic Pro League semifinals on Aug. 24 for a chance to take on Chiefs Esports Club in the region’s finals. It was a much more one-sided affair than many pundits predicted—the series was over after three short games.
Mid laner Stephen “Triple” Li put an exclamation point on this matchup with a quadra kill in the final moments of the final game, securing a grand finals appearance for Mammoth.
Triple is one of the most celebrated players in OPL history, so most fans weren’t surprised that he was the one to cement his team’s spot in the grand finals. During the regular season, Triple maintained a 100-percent win rate on Vladimir and looked as confident in this match as that statistic would suggest. Already up 7,000 gold at the 24-minute mark, Triple took that confidence and decided to set up a flank play from the opponent’s base. With immaculate timing of abilities and health management, Triple secured one of the most-satisfying Hemoplague triple kills of the season.
Although Mitchell “Destiny” Shaw stole Triple’s Penta kill, the teamfight ultimately began with Destiny’s clean support play. Despite losing a teammate early on in this fight, the Mammoth support kept a calm head and didn’t blow his ultimate unnecessarily early. He kited an enemy away from his team and threatened to engage with his ultimate. This gave some time for his Vladimir to loop around and engage the opposition in a pincer maneuver. As the Vlad moved into the back of the fight, Destiny hit a four-man knock up with his Alistar ultimate, setting up the ace and win.
With this victory, Mammoth went on to face the No. 1 seeded Chiefs at the Melbourne Esports Open OPL grand final.
