PUTRAJAYA: Turkiye's ULFHEDHNAR (ULF) began their Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) M6 World Championships wildcard stage on the right note with victory in their Group A match on Thursday.
ULF registered a dominant 2-0 victory over Saudi Arabia's Geekay Esports at the IOI Grand Exhibition and Convention Centre to top the group with two points.
Despite the good start, ULF had to overcome out-of-game issues before travelling to Malaysia.
Their current ULF roster were competing under the Fire Flux banner previously before separating from the giant Turkish eSports organisation.
"We had some misunderstanding between us and had difficulty agreeing on the same things, this led us to leave them (Fire Flux).
"The disagreements affected us to the point where we could only manage to get second place in the Turkish league," said team analyst Sacit "Badgalseph" Arslan.
Fire Flux won the Turkish league three times in a row before suffering a shock defeat to S2G in Season 4 last month.
Series Most Valuable Player Ahmet Taha "Rosa" Batir said the defeat to S2G was shocking.
"The defeat to S2G was unexpected. We were really surprised by it. After that we had a meeting and put everything on the table.
"We recognised what we could have done better. It worked and we are better now," said the 19-year-old.
ULF are favourites to win the wildcard stage to advance to the Swiss stage and join the main event.
"Being the favourites is a good feeling and give us confidence. We don't feel like it is a burden on our shoulders.
"Maybe our favourite tag has also caused our opponents to feel less confident," added Batir.