Passion fuels Pokemon Unite tilt newcomers

MANILA, Philippines – In the recently concluded Pokemon Unite World Championship, two all-Filipino teams reached the top 16 — seasoned veterans Talon and a fairly new organization, Issen Aumento.

Issen Aumento is just a year or so old, being formed back in May 2023 and brought together by the members' passion and love for Pokemon Unite.

“It’s a passion work for us and my fellow managers. There’s three of us managing the team. It started [out of] passion and we never expected it to become this big. Nabuo lang naman ito dahil sa friendship. We wanted to support players that we know as much as we can. Ganun siya nag start,” team manager Jj “jnamakulit” Zerna told PhilStar.com after returning from their world championship campaign in Hawaii.

The team, composed of Jan Tristan “Jeyti” Corral, Andrei Luis "Dreamt" Mendoza, Charles “Cent” Ontiveros, Dandimar “Dan” Bravo, and Luke Lewis “MXI” Labajo, had been the first to secure their travel documents among other Filipino teams that had qualified for the world stage even though most of the players were first-time travelers abroad.

“Medyo overwhelming sa una kasi first time to travel for most of us [and] Pokemon Unite pa yung dahilan. Inaasam na po namin ito for the past three years, not just the whole team, pero every Pokemon Unite player. Nung nagkaroon po kami ng opportunity to travel this year, sobrang saya kasi after three years, nagkaroon kami ng chance to represent yung Pilipinas tapos napunta pa kami sa ibang bansa, which is a very good experience overall,” said player Mendoza.

With Issen Aumento being a young organization and with an even younger roster that was formed just a month before the local qualifiers, international observers had shrugged off the last-chance qualifier from Asia Pacific East and were not betting on the Filipinos to reach the playoffs. This especially after the team was drawn with last year’s champion, Luminosity Gaming.

But Issen Aumento silenced doubters when it finishing second after sweeping Luminosity Gaming, 2-0, to make it to the playoffs.

Team captain Corral was confident they could get through the group stages as the former champion team had gone through a re-roster, while teammate