For the first time ever, ASUS brought the ROG Masters tournament right to Manila’s doorstep. From November 5 to 8, the SMX Convention Center played host to the APAC Finals of the ROG Masters tournament. The best teams from all over the region duked it out to crown the regional champions in DOTA 2 and Counter Strike: Global Champions.
Throughout the past few months, ROG Masters held qualifiers between 12 teams for each game. The winner of the regional qualifiers earned a guaranteed spot at the APAC Finals. They joined seven invited teams for the four-day long tournament.
Besides the regional leg’s conclusion, the event also opened an ROG Experience Zone where audience members could experience (and purchase) ROG products both old and new. At the Zone, participants could test out games using ROG’s critically-acclaimed roster of gaming notebooks, including the ROG Zephyrus. Fans were also treated to giveaways of premium ROG merchandise.
ROG also showcased special editions of their all new ROG Strix GL503 (15-inch) and GL703 (17-inch) notebooks—the SCAR and the Hero edition. Flaunting an optimal positioning for budget-conscious gamers, both notebooks are armed with 7th-generation Kaby Lake CPUs that top up to the i7-7700HQ. They are paired with bigger NVIDIA 10-series Pascal GPUs compared to their regular counterparts. The special editions also feature a 120Hz display panel. Both are expected to be released in the near future.
At the actual tournament, 5 Power Club took the crown as the APAC champions of CS:GO, edging out Grayhound Gaming. The team was fueled by the efforts of former ROG Masters champions dobu and kabal. Meanwhile, WG.Unity annihilated hometown heroes Execration at the DOTA 2 finals, behind the efforts of Meracle and Feero.
The finals matches only served to bump up the winning team’s bragging rights. Regardless of the result, all four teams have already secured a slot at this December’s ROG Masters Finals in Malaysia where US$500,000 is up for grabs.
