It is the quarter-finals of the CrossFire Stars Philippine National Finals (NF) 2015 and up-and-coming TNC FPS Team went up against grizzled veterans in the form of Pacific.Wara on Mexico.

TNC Pro Team’s rise to the upper echelons of the Philippine CrossFire (CF) scene in 2015 was interesting in the sense that all of its members have never participated in a national tournament in the past. As a matter of fact, Keith Pace, the captain of the team, once mentioned in an interview with the author during his stint as an FPS analyst with eSports by INQUIRER that “they needed to travel for several hours away from their hometown in order to participate in the CFS qualifiers.”

Sure enough, they rose above the rest to become one of the best non-Manila based CF teams out there.
But then, TNC forced Pacific.Macta, who was considered to be the best Filipino team and non-Chinese team in the world, to play until the last round of normal time, reaching a scoreline of 10-8. Still, many in the scene considered it to be a simple fluke.

It was just one map, but it completely changed Philippine CF history, placing them as modern “royal road” legends in a scene otherwise dominated by well-established titles such as Pacific, Execration and HASLeft, among others.

Mexico: The Map That Changed It All

TNC did not actually have to do anything extraordinary in order to win their match against the veterans. Knowing very well that Aries “RAMSEVIENNE” Alde and Victor “mpoyisonfire” Fulache, two of the deadliest attackers in the Philippine scene, are on that team – and that Wara has a lot of strats and counter-tactics on their sleeves, TNC played Crossfire in a very fundamental way, making sure that they trade kills and rotate onto sites efficiently while at the same time maintaining dynamic map control and awareness in order to prevent flanks and pick-offs by Wara.

Sure enough, Wara had some highlight-worthy rounds, but at the end of the day, TNC aimed decently and played their game plan well enough to take a 10-7 win against Wara on Mexico.

No one expected that.

But then, TNC was also hungry to prove that their impressive performances against “better” teams on paper were not mere coincidences.

And Mexico allowed them to do just that.
 
Aftermath

In the end, Wara was able to exact its vengeance by winning against TNC 10-6 on another map, but TNC was already happy with the things that it did, even as they reached third place by ousti many favorites to take the podium.
They are strong.

It just took them one game to prove that.

And that game will stay forever in people’s minds as long as the Philippine CrossFire scene exists.