Philippine representative BamJoo has hailed champion of the Snapdragon Pro Series: Legends of Runeterra Season 2 Split 2 Open Finals held last October 21 via broadcast after defeating Thailand’s Tianle 2-1 in the grand finals.
BamJoo, champion of Snapdragon Pro Series S2 Split 2: Legends of Runeterra
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Jan Rein ‘BamJoo’ Gonzales had gone to a long tournament journey and finally crowned as the Asia-Pacific champion of the Riot Games-developed card game Legends of Runeterra. All of his three matches in the Round of 8, including the grand finals, were tight and all resulted to a 2-1 score.
“I just played my heart out,” BamJoo said in a bliss after making it to the grand finals. “The decks of my opponent are more on [control], so I really need to be aggressive even though the third deck of mine is Taric/Poppy, a midrange deck that is much more slower but has a big boom at the mid-game,” he explained his strategy on beating out Thailand’s Seahiter in semi-finals.
“I was really sad when TF (Twisted Fate)/Swain [deck] was banned but as expected,” BamJoo expressed as Swain is his favorite champion who just got buffed in the recent patch of the game.
Snapdragon Pro Series S2 Split 2 Legends Of Runeterra final roster
Despite getting into this tournament, BamJoo admitted that he hasn’t even managed to get onto the Master’s rank yet, the highest rank in LoR. “I didn’t really expect to go this far. As you’ve seen on my Twitter, I just memed on my [deck] lineup… I brought my comfort decks: one midrange, one control, and one aggro deck. And I’m not [on the] master’s rank yet (LoR’s highest rank),” BamJoo said.
BamJoo locked up his favorite deck (Twisted Fate/Swain) among his lineup for this match as the banned deck on his side is the Poppy/Taric. In return, he banned the Norra/Heimerdinger deck of Tianle paving a way for his opponent’s Ezreal/Seraphine deck to be ultimately played for the first time in the entire tournament.
As overpowered as it might be, the Ezreal/Seraphine were no match against BamJoo’s meme aggro deck as he was able to end the first round swiftly. But in the second match, the Ezreal/Seraphine high rolled the crap out of BamJoo’s TF/Swain, outvaluing him with RNG (random number generation) frenzy that evened out the match 1-1.
Philippines’ BamJoo wins against Thailand’s Tianle, grand finals 2-1
Then here comes the very final round of the grand finals, BamJoo’s TF/Swain against Tianle’s Vayne/Pantheon—another strong meta deck of the current patch. Ultimately, BamJoo won in a stunning fashion (literally) as Swain stunned its blockers pushing direct, exact lethal onto Tianle’s nexus, claiming his sweet victory 2-1.
“I was still nervous… I can’t say words right now,” said BamJoo just moments after being crowned as the champion. BamJoo said that a few drinks with his friends who supported him throughout his run will be the way to celebrate his victory.
BamJoo (right) shows his candid reaction as he meets the casters for a second post-game interview as champion
BamJoo takes home a USD 2,000 prize (equivalent to Php 117,000 in today’s conversion), although it isn’t clear yet if the aforementioned esports platform will hold a world championship for LoR in the future where BamJoo is automatically qualified. Their website does say that LoR has USD 7,000 prize pool, thus a world championship may be imminent.
BamJoo comes from the umbrella of Home of the Aces, a Philippine-based Legends of Runeterra clan that occassionally conducts mini-tournaments for the APAC region.
The Snapdragon Pro Series is a global esports platform by ESL (Electronics Sports League) powered by Snapdragon where players have ‘unique opportunity to compete against others in their region across several of the hottest game titles.’ The platform has three competitive tiers that allow players of all skill levels to compete and win.
The Legends of Runeterra is free-to-play card game based on the lore of League of Legends MOBA game—both developed by Riot Games. It is available on PC, iOS, and Android.
You may watch the Runeterra grand finals action below:
