December 4,2022. Quezon City. Tier One entertainment held a joint press conference with Canadian based Esports social media company Rivalry, with the objective of the event to introduce to everyone the joint partnership of the two companies, creating a competitive roster for the game DOTA 2.
The event featured talking heads from both companies as Tier One CEO Tryke Gutierrez and CCO Alodia Gosiengfiao opened the program, talking up how this is a dream fulfilled and long time coming for the Blacklist brand.
“Just to be fully transparent, this all happened like even before TI (The International), while TI is happening we were talking about it already, and right after TI we went into a meeting… and that’s when it truly became real, hey we can actually have a shot of putting up a team that’s formidable of competing against the world”.
They were followed up by Rivalry country manager Althea Cunanan, who have promised to support the team holistically making sure that they are championship ready, and to work hand in hand with the team to tell their stories.
The official PC partner for Blacklist Rivalry Acer Predator was also present at the event to welcome the team into the Predator family.
The event also showcased the new jersey of the team, according to Tryke the jersey was designed intentionally to look like the TNC jersey, an homage to the 2016 TNC team that went to the world stage and defeated OG as well that 4 out of the 5 players in the current Blacklist roster were part of that 2016 team.
The team would be introduced in shortly as Carlo “Kuku” Palad, Timothy “Tims” Randrup, Marc Polo “Raven” Fausto, Nico “eyyou” Barcelon, and Karl “Karl” Baldovino entered the presscon wearing the new jerseys.
The team expressed their excitement to play once again for the Philippines and aspirations to be the flag bearers of the country as well as the representatives of the SEA (South East Asia) on the DOTA 2 world stage, The International.
