MPL Philippines (esports)

''Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League Philippines'' (MPL-PH) is a professional Esports league for the game '' Mobile Legends: Bang Bang'' in the Philippines. MPL Philippines is the direct route of qualified teams to both the '' Mobile Legends World Championships'' and '' Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Mid Season Cup''. MPL Philippines currently follows a franchise-based system, wherein eight teams are currently competing as and officially removing local team qualifiers, previously evident during MPL Philippines Season 7.

Established in 2018, there have been six teams that have won the championship title of MPL Philippines, with two teams being back-to-back champions in Sunsparks and Blacklist International. Three of the eight teams from MPL-PH have as well won the Mobile Legends World Championship title: AP Bren in M2 and M5, Blacklist International for M3 and ECHO Philippines for M4. MPL Philippines has a "split" season system wherein a year is split into two seasons.

MPL Philippines has been considered as the strongest Mobile Legends region and it had produced four world champions, winning four consecutive world championship titles in 2023.Runner-up for MSC 2023. Furthermore, the Philippines' AP Bren is the only two-time organization world champion after winning M2 and recently M5.

History

The first MPL Philippines playoffs tournament was held in SM Mall of Asia Music Hall from June 30 to July 1, 2018. The number of esports teams were reduced to eight to fight for the $50,000 cash prize. In the end, Aether Main became the first team to win the inaugural championship of MPL Philippines.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Philippines. It marked the fifth season of MPL Philippines as the first offline MPL-PH tournament that was unable to have a live audience due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in the country. In the same season, the team Sunsparks made history for becoming the first team in MPL Philippines history to win back-to-back championship titles, defeating ONIC Philippines in two-consecutive seasons.

Season 1 (2018)

MPL Philippines was established in 2018 with a qualifying stage for competing teams from the entire country rather than having the franchise-based system that MPL Philippines Season 8 and onwards will be following. The very first season of MPL Philippines was won by the team Aether Main, overseen by the leader, AkoSiDogie.

In the same year, Aether Main was acquired by Bren Esports and would play as the name Aether Main in MSC 2018, where they would eventually win the title.

Season 2 (2018)

MPL Philippines Season 2 was the first and so-far only MPL Philippines Season to have been held in two different years from October 2018 and finishing in January 2019. MPL Philippines Season 2 would see a new Champion to take the title from Aether Main, Cignal Ultra esports, defeating Bren Esports in the Grand Finals.

Season 3 (2019)

MPL Philippines Season 3 would as well be held on 2019, a few months after MPL Philippines Season 2. Bren Esports would regain a spot in the Grand Finals, yet was ultimately defeated by the darkhorse team in Arkangel.

Season 4 (2019)

MPL Philippines Season 4 was seen to be the beginning of the imminent rivalries between specific teams. MPL Philippines Season 4 saw ONIC Philippines play in the Grand Finals against Sunsparks. With a 2–1 series lead in the Finals, it was seen that ONIC was favoured to win the Championship, however, at a clutch defense on the base of Sunsparks by Rafflesia, sent the series into Game 5 after a minion wave would ultimately end the Game in favour of Sunsparks. The team would immediately win the Championship title after winning Game 5.

Season 5 (2020)

MPL Philippines Season 5 became the first edition of the league to be held online without a live audience due to COVID-19 pandemic that had hit the country on the same year. MPL Philippines Season 5 would ultimately see a rematch between ONIC Philippines and the defending champions of Sunsparks however, Sunsparks would ultimately win the Finals in a 3–1 series, making them the first team in MPL PH History to win back-to-back championship titles.

Season 6 (2020)

MPL Philippines Season 6 would become the second edition of the league to have its tournaments held online. The sixth season saw the teams of MPL Philippines that we are currently having in the upcoming MPL Philippines Season 9. Ultimately, Bren Esports would win their first MPL Philippines title, defeating Omega Esports in 6 games, making MPL Philippines Season 6 the first edition to introduce a best-of-seven matchup.

Both teams alongside another Aura Philippines (now ECHO Philippines), Blacklist International, Execration and ONIC Philippines would compete in the ONE Esports MPL Invitational 2020, a regional competition in Southeast Asia. Bren Esports would eventually lose in a 0–3 sweep by Indonesia's Alter Ego.

Bren Esports and Omega Esports would then represent the Philippines in the M2 World Championships as both the champions and runner-up for MPL Philippines Season 6. Bren Esports would go on to win the championship title after a close 7-game series against Myanmar's Burmese Ghouls.

Season 7 (2021)

MPL Philippines Season 7 would foresee one of the biggest "win-win" trades for two teams in Blacklist International and ONIC Philippines where ONIC's dynamic duo in "VeeWise" of Johnmar "OhMyV33nus" Villaluna and Danerie James "Wise." Del Rosario would be traded to Blacklist, in return of rookie jungler Kairi "Kairi" Rayodelsol. Blacklist International would then win the Championship against Execration, despite being down 1–3 during Game 5.

Both Blacklist and Execration would represent the Philippines in the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asia Cup in Singapore, commonly known as MSC 2021. Execration would eventually defeat Blacklist in a 1–4 series.

Season 8 (2021)

MPL Philippines Season 8 would become the first season in MPL Philippines to become a franchise-league system, ultimately removing the team qualifying rounds that would begin prior to the season. Having been favoured to win back-to-back titles, Blacklist International would eventually see themselves in the Grand Finals against the Upper-Bracket champions of ONIC Philippines. Blacklist was eliminated during the first round of the Upper-Bracket after a 1–3 series loss against Omega Esports and the absence of Kiel Calvin "OHEB" Soriano after getting suspended.

Blacklist International would make history, becoming the second team in MPL Philippines to win back-to-back titles, after defeating ONIC Philippines in 5 games. Blacklist International would eventually represent the Philippines, alongside ONIC Philippines in the M3 World Championships to be held in Singapore.

Prior to the World Championships, Blacklist International and ONIC Philippines, accompanied by Omega Esports, ECHO Philippines, RSG Philippines and Nexplay EVOS, would compete in ONE Esports MPL Invitational 2021. Blacklist International would eventually secure the Grand Finals position, however, was defeated by ONIC Esports of Indonesia in a 1–3 series.

Blacklist International and ONIC Philippines would begin their M3 World Championship run in dominance however, Blacklist would be eliminated from the upper-bracket contention by the North American team BloodThirstyKings (BTK). ONIC Philippines would go 9–0 in the Upper-Bracket and would secure the Upper-Bracket Grand Finals spot, whereas Blacklist International would defeat BTK in a rematch for the lower-bracket Grand Finals spot in a 3–1 series, ultimately making M3 the second M-Series to be battled by the two teams of a single country, the first being M1 by EVOS Esports and RRQ Hoshi of Indonesia.

Blacklist International would win the M3 World Title in a 4–0 sweep against ONIC Philippines.

Season 9 (2022)

MPL Philippines Season 9 would become the second season in MPL Philippines to have a franchise-based system alongside being the fifth edition of the tournament to be held online due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. MPL Philippines Season 9 would resume with a live-audience during its playoffs and would determine the representatives of the Philippines at MSC 2022 in Kuala Lumpur.

RSG Philippines would win the MPL PH S9 Title, defeating the reigning MSC Champions Smart Omega in a 4–1 Grand Finals. In MSC 2022 RSG Philippines would find themselves facing off their co-country representatives, Smart Omega in the lower bracket finals after losing in a match against The Indonesian Giants, RRQ Hoshi. With a close series of 4–3, RSG Ph would come out as the victors of Game 7 against Smart Omega, they would then eventually win a revenge series against RRQ Hoshi in the Grand finals in a dominating fashion of 4–0.

Season 10 (2022)

MPL Philippines Season 10 was the third season of MPL Philippines to have a franchise-based system. It started on August 12 and held offline at the ICite Building Auditorium in Bagumbayan, Quezon City. The tournament makes it as the first MPL Philippines tournament since the start of COVID-19 pandemic to feature audiences for both regular season and playoffs. The tournament determined the representatives of Philippines at the annual M4 World Championships, which eventually led to Blacklist International and ECHO Philippines' qualification to the worlds.

MSC 2022 Champions RSG Philippines were unable to defend their title for this season, as Blacklist International returns for a comeback, winning the MPL Championship 4–2 against ECHO Philippines despite going down to a 2–1 deficit during Game 3.

Season 11 (2023)

MPL Philippines Season 11 will be the fourth season of MPL Philippines to have a franchise-based system. It shall begin on February 17, 2023. The tournament shall determine the country's participants for the upcoming MSC 2023. ECHO Philippines denied Blacklist International their fourth MPL title, sweeping them for the second time in the MPL PH S11 Grand Finals. Previously, ECHO swept the reigning M3 World Champions in the MLBB M4 World Championship grand finals that also denied them the back-to-back world championship titles.

Season 12 (2023)

MPL Philippines Season 12 features the continual eight franchise teams in MPL Philippines. ECHO Philippines marks an achievement after tying Blacklist International's previous record of an 11–0 record in the Regular Season. RSG Philippines would break the winning-streak to give ECHO their first loss in the Regular Season. Regardless, this season will mark as the official route for the Two teams of the Philippines to represent them in the MLBB M5 World Championship held in Manila.

AP Bren returns to the Grand Finals stage after six seasons and will be one of the Philippines' representatives at M5. They defeated Blacklist International 3–0 in the Upper Bracket Finals. AP Bren's return also marked the return of M2 World Champions Duckeyyy, Phewww, and FlapTzy.

Season 13 (2024)

Season 13 was announced to begin by March 15 through a Facebook banner update by MPL Philippines. The league will continue to adhere to the franchise-based system with the same eight teams competing. Several renowned Filipino players including Tristan "YAWI" Cabrera and Eman "Emann" Sangco made headlines after becoming high-profile imports to MPL Indonesia. Cabrera joining AURA Fire, the sister organization of his former team ECHO, and Sangco joining Bigetron Alpha.

Results

By Season

By Team

Teams with ''Italicized'' names indicate teams that have either folded or are no longer participating in MPL Philippines.

Player awards and achievements

Special Awards

Season Team Selection(s)

- Denotes the player won the Regular Season MVP

- Denotes the player won the Finals MVP

- Denotes the player won both the Regular Season MVP and Finals MVP

Reference:

MPL Philippines Hall of Legends

In commemoration of the tenth season of MPL Philippines, on September 5, 2022, MPL Philippines announced that the nominations for the ten new inductees for the Hall of Legends were officially opened. The nominations and voting process lasted for an entire month and two days, ending on October 7, 2022.

On Sunday, October 23, 2022, the official inductees were announced on stage before the introduction of the Grand Finalists for MPL Philippines Season 10. The inductees were announced by the following:

An extra inductee was announced onstage when Manjean Faldas was to become the eleventh member of the Hall of Legends. Faldas has been part of MPL Philippines and has been casting MPL Philippines games since Season 1 and is widely known for his tandem partner "ManjeanBoo" at the time together with Shin boo "Shinboo" Ponferrada .

Reference:

MDL Philippines

On January 25, 2023, Moonton announced the establishment of the Philippines' own ''Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Development League'' or MDL Philippines. MDL Philippines began its first season on February 15 of the same year.

MDL Philippines introduced eight development teams from their professional franchise organizations. Notably, Bren Esports (now known as AP Bren), became the first team to collaborate with Euphoria Esports for MDL Philippines Season 1, the first partnership between two teams in the MDL. Furthermore, MDL Philippines would include two Non-MPL franchise teams in ZOL Esports and GameLab Esports.

Season 1

During Season 1, teams were split into two groups: Group A and Group B. Teams in their respective groups will play a Double round robin format of games and with the remainder of the season, will go into a Single round robin tournament to face cross-matches between both groups. The top two teams from both groups received two first-round byes, teams seeded 2nd and 3rd were slated into the first knockout rounds and the remaining two teams were eliminated from playoff contention.

GameLab Esports and ECHO Philippines' MDL team ECHO Proud tied for the best record in MDL Philippines Season 1 with a 10–3 record, and a 22–8, and 23–9 match win-loss record, respectively. Both teams would eventually face each other in the Grand Finals where ECHO Proud won their first MDL title and the first MDL Philippines title, defeating GameLab 3–1.

Season 2

Season 2 would feature many rebranding efforts from the MPL Franchised teams. Blacklist International partnered with Malaysian organization Team Lunatix, the Bren-Euphoria partnership came to an end after AP Esports acquired the rights to the Bren Esports organization, ZOL Esports and TNC Neo partnered to TNCZ4, and RSG Philippines partnering with local amateur team Mistah Esports Pro for the second edition of MDL Philippines.

MDL Philippines would introduced two additional Non-MPL Teams, totaling the number of participants from ten to twelve. These included GameLab Esports, Euphoria Esports, amateur team MHRLK Esports and RRQ Kaito, the first MLBB roster for the Indonesian organization, Rex Regnum Qeon.

Certain scandals plagued some teams of MDL Philippines Season 2, most-notably was the termination of the partnership between Blacklist International and Team Lunatix over a mismanagement situation on the part of Team Lunatix. This prompted the immediate termination of the partnership.

ECHO Proud for the second-consecutive season toped the regular season with a 10–1 game record and a 20–6 match record. Season 2's format would be different from its predecessor, opting for a single-round-robin match due to the number of teams. The Top 8 teams would advance to the playoffs.

Results

By Season

Rivalries

Sunsparks-ONIC Philippines

Sunsparks and ONIC Philippines had one of the most-anticipated Grand Finals during Seasons 4 and 5 and a rivalry between both teams led up to their back-to-back appearances in the Finals. ONIC was led by the "Royal Duo" Johnmar "OhMyV33Nus" Villaluna and Daneire James "Wise" Del Rosario during this time meanwhile Sunsparks had the services of current MPL players Kiel "KielVJ" Cruzem, Christian "Rafflesia" Fajura, Renz "RENZIO" Cadua and ECHO's Jaypee "Jaypee" Cruz. Both ONIC and Sunsparks topped the Season 4 Regular Season standings, each having an 8–1 record. Despite having a higher plus/minus differential for Sunsparks, ONIC was able to top the standings.

In the Season 4 Grand Finals, ONIC Philippines were poised to take Game 3 for their first title. However, Sunsparks would win the game after a counter save by Sunsparks' Rafflesia. This gave the ability for the team's Minions to reach the base while members of ONIC Philippines were pushing the mid-lane, sending the series to Game 5. Sunsparks would ultimately win Game 5 and their first of two organization titles for MPL Philippines.

Season 5 would see a rematch between Sunsparks and ONIC Philippines. Sunsparks had an 8–1 record while ONIC placed third with a 7–2 record. After an altercation in Game 3 in the Upper-Brackets, ONIC would crawl their way back to the Finals from the Lower-Brackets to face a rematch with Sunsparks. It is worth to point out that ONIC Philippines' roamer Allen "Baloyskie" Baloy (formerly known as Greed) switched teams during the offseason and joined Sunsparks. Meanwhile, Sunsparks' former Roamer Cedric "Fuzaken" Pasusani joined ONIC.

Sunsparks would dismantle ONIC Philippines in their last altercation, becoming the first organization in MPL history to win back-to-back titles. Sunsparks would see their roster be acquired by AURA Philippines (now: ECHO Philippines) while ONIC Philippines continued to be one of the eight franchises of MPL Philippines.

Blacklist International-Smart Omega

Dubbed as the "El Clasico" rivalry, Blacklist International and Smart Omega's rivalry starts when the Omega roster was still under Execration.

In Season 7, Blacklist dominated the group stage, going 12–1 while Execration was tied for second with a 6–7 record. Both teams have competed against each other since Season 6, however, their prevalent rivalry was more detailed during Season 7.

Blacklist International was able to secure a Grand Finals position and an MSC appearance after a 3–2 victory over AP Bren and a 3–1 victory over AURA. Execration meanwhile, had to start from the Lower Bracket Eliminations before crawling their way to the Grand Finals. Execration led the series 3–1 in the build up to Game 5. However, Blacklist would upset Execration and would win their first of three organization title in history.

Execration and Blacklist International set up a PH vs. PH Finals in MSC 2021. Execration would maintain their momentum in a 3–1 lead and would eventually win their final international title as an Organization under the brand Execration when they defeated Blacklist.

In Season 8, Execration left the MPL Philippines scene and the roster was eventually relinquished. Smart Omega eSports relinquished its own members and the organization would acquire the Execration roster leading up to MPL Philippines Season 8. Meanwhile, Salic "Hadji" Imam, Omega's Jungler would join Blacklist International during the offseason. This would compete the eventual "MV3" trio which included Edward "Edward" Dapadap and Kiel Calvin "OHEB" Soriano. Both teams would be caught in different situations regarding their players, most notably was Soriano lifting his middle finger after the conclusion of the second leg of Blacklist vs. Omega in the regular season, in which Soriano was penalized and subsequently suspended for the team's first series in the playoffs.

Blacklist would still cruise with a 13–1 record while Omega settled for fourth with a 5–9 record. After a 3–1 victory over ECHO, Omega would surprise the defending champions after they defeated them 3 games to 1. However, Blacklist would rebound and defeat Omega in a 3–1 series in the Lower-Bracket Finals which eventually led to Blacklist winning both MPL Philippines Season 8 and the MLBB M3 World Championships.

Omega would dismantle Blacklist during the proceeding season, defying them a playoff spot and subsequently ending their playoff-run. Omega would still rank sixth overall, but would dominate the playoffs, sweeping ECHO's super team in the Quarterfinals. Despite dropping to the lower-brackets after a 3–1 defeat to TNC, Omega would sweep the Kairi-led ONIC Philippines squad and sweep their rematch game against TNC Pro Team to clinch a Grand Finals spot for the first time since Season 6. Unfortunately, Omega would lose 4–1 to RSG in the Finals.

Bren Esports-Cignal Ultra

Two of the oldest teams in the league prior to Season 8, AP Bren (formerly known as Bren Esports and Aether Main) and Cignal Ultra (formerly known as Digital Devil Pro Team) were the original teams who've longed dominated MPL Philippines prior to the introduction of Blacklist, RSG and ECHO. Their rivalry extends to Season 2 where Bren and CG met for the first and last time in the Grand Finals stage. Bren Esports topped the Regular Season with a 7–2; 15–5 record while Cignal Ultra tied for second with a 6–3; 13–10 record.

Bren Esports initially 2–0 Cignal Ultra in the Upper-Bracket Finals and gave them a shot for the MPL Title, however, Cignal Ultra would rematch Bren in the Finals and won in four games. Both teams rematched in the playoffs once again, but Bren would advance to the Finals against Arkangel after dismantling the defending champions.

Execration-Nexplay EVOS

Members of both Execration and Nexplay EVOS were not shy when it comes to taunting the other team's players. Both teams have their heated share of taunts from one series to the other. This stretched all the way to Season 1 because of how Setsuna "AkoSiDogie" Ignacio and Billy "Z4PNU" Alfonso perceived their roster of players and how any of them could surpass the other to greatness. Ignacio's belt includes an MPL title for Season 1 and a MSC 2018 title while Alfonso holds an MSC title of his own from his players.

References

{{MLBBesports

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang competitions
Esports competitions in the Philippines