ECHO, Arcadia reunite in Jakarta

ECHO has its eyes set on taking down Indonesian powerhouse RRQ Hoshi in the group stage of the M4 Mobile Legends World Championship set from 1 to 15 January in Jakarta.

What makes ECHO's upcoming match against RRQ Hoshi even more exciting is the fact that its former coach, Michael Angelo "Arcadia" Bocado, opted to leave the organization earlier this year to join the Indonesian squad.

Given the group stage's sudden-death, ECHO's Mobile Legends head coach Harold Francis "Tictac" Reyes said they are planning to go all-in in their upcoming matches with the hopes of gaining better position in the Playoffs.

"It is fun that we would face off with coach Arcadia," Tictac quipped.

"It is like a reunion because he used to be with ECHO. Since the group stage would be best-of-one, we need to treat it as do-or-die because it would be huge if we can go to the upper bracket. We have to make sure that the kids are in good condition."

Touted as the grandest stage of competitive Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, the M-Series will pit 16 of the best teams in the world for a generous prize pool of $800,000.

The Philippines is the defending Mobile Legends world champion courtesy of Blacklist International while the M2 World Championship was won by Bren Esports in January 2021 in which ECHO's star jungler Karl "KarlTzy" Nepomuceno was crowned as Most Valuable Player.

The highly-anticipated matchup between ECHO and RRQ Hoshi is a battle that KarlTzy personally looks forward to since it is a rematch of his encounter with the Indonesian squad back in M2.
He said the Indonesians have declined since the last time they played together.

"I am both happy and excited to be back (on the world stage). I feel like they (RRQ Hoshi) got weak," KarlTzy stated.

"My advice to my teammates is not to think about the way they play but think about how we play. I want to prove that I am still the best even though many players are more competitive now. I just allowed them to catch up."