Fnatic ONIC explains surprise Layla pick in M6 battle vs. BTK

Fnatic ONIC Philippines dug deep into its bag of tricks by introducing a Layla pick during its Swiss Stage match against BloodThirstyKings (BTK), 2-1, in the M6 World Championship on Sunday in Malaysia.

That decision eventually paid off for the Filipinos, but not before piquing the interest of the community.

Layla, of course, is often used as a practice hero for those who are new to Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and is tagged as a basic gun-wielding marksman due to its lack of mobility skill and vulnerability, especially to assassins.

Turned out, Duane "Kelra" Pillas picked Layla to pay tribute to fellow gold laner Muhammad "CikuGais" Fuad of Malaysian team TODAK who has been in the competitive scene for five years now, a span that saw him strut his stuff in multiple international events like M1 and M3.

"Being in Malaysia, Kelra did want to give that game to Ciku. He respects Ciku," Tony “YnoT” Senedrin said.

"Ciku has been in the scene for so long, I believe since M1."

Aside from paying homage to CikuGais, Coach Ynot also believed having Layla during Game 1 against BTK was the best option as it allowed them to counter the Bruno pick of the North American bets.

Kelra did turn heads after unleashing a perfect KDA using Layla, grabbing five kills and four assists against no deaths while forcing his counterpart Zia into three deaths in the 20-minute Game 1.

BTK, however, would level the series before Kelra turned to Irithel in the crucial Game 3 and scored an impressive 11/1/5 KDA to seal the victory and advance to the knockout stage.

And for Ynot, having Kelra as the Layla user was enough reason to draft the hero.

"There’s definitely still a lot of conditions attached to it, but yeah, the range and the gun, Malefic Gun, I think that’s the advantage Layla has over Bruno," Ynot added.

"And it’s Kelra using Layla so, you know, it was a good choice."

—JMB, GMA Integrated News