Team Liquid Echo, Falcons AP. Bren pitted against dark horses in MSC knockout playoffs

Philippine teams Team Liquid Echo and Falcons AP.Bren will put their unbeaten slates on the line when they face a couple of underdogs in the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Mid-Season Cup knockout playoff round starting on July 10 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Team Liquid Echo will slug it out against Falcon Esports of Myanmar while Falcons AP. Bren will square off with See You Soon of Cambodia in the best-of-five quarterfinals round, where the winners will move on to the semifinals while the losers will pack their things and bid goodbye.

The other two quarterfinal matches will see the Selangor Red Giants and wildcard winner HomeBois of Malaysia duking it out against Fire Flux Esports of Turkey and NIP Flash of Singapore, respectively.

Falcons Esports was phenomenal in the group stage, dealing clean 2-0 sweep losses to North America's Cloud9 and China's Xianyou Gaming with their only defeat coming at the hands of Bren.

See You Soon, on the other hand, swept a powerhouse team in reigning MSC champion Fnatic ONIC Indonesia, which eventually bowed out of contention following a 1-1 draw against Selangor to formally end their title defense bid.

Filipinos on other squads

But the Cavalry and the Beehive are not the only ones representing the Philippines in the knockout stage as five other teams have Filipinos in either their player roster or coaching staff.

See You Soon is led by Pinoy jungler Michael "MP The King" Endino, who did an impressive job shotcalling and coaching during their 2-0 sweep of Onic in the absence of their coach.

MPL Malaysia Season 13 champion Selangor, meanwhile, is parading a Filipino coach in Michael "Arcadia" Bocado alongside two Pinoy imports in John Vincent "Innocent" Banal and Mark "Kramm" Rusiana.

NIP Flash is being bolstered by two Filipino players in midlaner Jankurt "KurTzy" Matira and jungler Jaymark "Hadess" Lazaro while HomeBois has gold laner Kenneth "Nets" Barro in its roster. Lastly, tactician Rodel "Ar Sy" Cruz is currently part of Falcon Esports' coaching staff.

—JMB, GMA Integrated News