MLBB M5 World Championship

The 2023 Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship, commonly referred to as the M5 World Championships and M5, was the fifth edition of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship, an esports tournament for the mobile phone MOBA game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The world championship lasted from November 23 until December 17, 2023.

This edition of the world series foresaw an increase in regional and team participation with new entries including South Asia, Mekong, Mongolia and China. Meanwhile, team qualifications for Latin America increased from one representative to two for this edition. This world championship featured the first wild card event where eight (8) teams from the aforementioned regions including Malaysia, Europe, MENA, and LATAM were able to compete for two wildcard slots. It also featured then, the highest prize pool for any international MLBB competition at $900,000, and the highest number of team participation in all of its editions.

In the Grand Finals, AP Bren won the M5 World Championship title in seven games, defeating Indonesia's ONIC Esports making them the only organization thus far to win two-world championship titles. This was the second-time that an Indonesian and Filipino representative faced each other in the Grand Finals of a major MLBB tournament, the first being Blacklist International and ONIC Esports during MSC 2023.

The Grand Finals match also broke the M4 World Championship’s Grand Finals viewership record—recording 5,067,107 peak live viewers during the match, making it the most-watched MLBB game in history and the second-most watched game in 2023, just behind the 2023 League of Legends World Championship between T1 and Weibo Gaming.

Background

Following M4, the MLBB M5 World Championships is the fifth Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship and the first edition of the games to be held in the Philippines. Malaysia was later announced to be the host of the wildcard round.

Previously, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia held the first four editions of the games, M1 in Kuala Lumpur; M2 and M3 in Singapore; and M4 in Jakarta.

M5 featured teams from Asia, North America, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe and Latin America. Teams qualified through their region's qualification method, whether it be an MPL Region or a Moonton-approved qualification tournament.

Venue

The M5 World Championship was announced to be held in Metro Manila.

Alongside Moonton, the country's Department of Tourism organized the event. EVM Convention Center (located in Quezon City) hosted the group stage and first knockouts stage of M5. On the other hand, the latter knockout stages and grand finals was held at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum in Manila. The selling of tickets for the event started on October 25.

Qualified teams

Qualifying for the M5 World Championship comes from the competing nation's Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League or commonly known as "MPL." However, regional qualifiers in the North America, Turkey, Myanmar, and Latin American regions were also held to broaden the reach of the Championship's teams. Two teams shall also qualify from the M5 Wildcards.

M5 will feature the European region for the fourth time since its absence in the last M4 World Championship. The number of natural qualifiers for MPL Malaysia have also been reduced to one. Instead of having its own slot, Brazil is now included in the Latin America region for a chance in the two regional teams participating for the world championship.

The defending World Champions in ECHO Philippines would not be completing their back-to-back championship titles due to them being eliminated by Blacklist International in the Lower Grand Finals of MPL Philippines Season 12.

• Group Stage: December 2 to 7, 2023 16 teams will be divided into 2 groups. Single Round Robin, all matches are played in a Bo3. Top 2 teams from each groups will advance to Knockout Stage. Bottom 2 teams from each groups will be eliminated from the tournament.
• Knockout Stage: December 9 to 17, 2023 8 teams from Group Stage will play in a double-elimination bracket. All Matches will be played in a Bo5 except Grand Final. Grand Finals will be played in a Bo7.

Notable teams including ONIC Esports, SeeYouSoon, RRQ Akira and Team SMG returns to the world stage from their previous World Championship campaigns. Notably, ONIC Esports and RRQ Akira returns after M4 and Team SMG and SeeYouSoon returns after M3.

Amid the new format of the MLBB World Championship, two notable teams in AP Bren and Burmese Ghouls makes a remarkable return after their M2 campaign. AP Bren, were the MLBB M2 World Champions, defeating Burmese Ghouls in the process. Formerly known as Bren Esports, the M2 World Champions boasted popular players such as Carlito "Ribo" Ribo Jr., Allan "Lusty" Jr., Ralph "Coco" Sampang, and ECHO superstar and two-time world champion Karl "KarlTzy" Nepomuceno. After their victory over Blacklist International, the likes of M2 World Champions Angelo Kyle "Pheww" Arcangel and Charles "FlapTzy" Canon make a return to the international stage alongside M2 World Champion Coach Francis "Ducky" Glindro.

Meanwhile, Burmese Ghouls returns with a new roster with new faces than the M2 squad.

Official rosters

Returning teams from the previous MLBB World Championships include Blacklist International, ONIC Esports and RRQ Akira while newer teams such as Geek Fam Indonesia, Bigetron Sons, HomeBois, Team Flash, Triple Esports, Fire Flux Esports, TheOhioBrothers and most of the wildcard teams will be part of their first world championships.

AP Bren marks a return as the M2 World Champions alongside Burmese Ghouls who were their finals opponents on the aforementioned series, Blacklist International are returning for their third-consecutive Worlds after winning M3 and runners-up for M4. SeeYouSoon and Team SMG returns since M3 and Deus Vult returns since M1.

M5 Wild Card

The M5 Wild Card tournament is a qualifying tournament for the MLBB M5 World Championship, an esports tournament for the Mobile Game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

The M5 World Championship was the first edition to include a wild card round. The top two teams will qualify for the main tournament.

• Wildcard Groups: November 23 to 25, 2023 8 teams will be randomly drawn into 2 groups. Single Round Robin, all matches are played in a Bo1. Top 2 teams from each groups will play in Crossover Match. Bottom 2 teams from each groups will be eliminated from the tournament.
• Crossover Match: November 26, 2023 First place will compete in a Bo5 against the second placer from the other group. Winner of each matches will advance to Group Stage. Loser will be eliminated.

Wild Card roster

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Crossover match

Main Stage

Draw

On November 3, the mechanics of the Group Draw was announced for the M5 Tournament proper, not the Wild Card tournament. There were three pool of teams: Pool 1, Pool 2 and Pool 3. Pool 1 contained the champions and runners-up of MPL Philippines and MPL Indonesia Season 12 in AP Bren, ONIC Esports, Blacklist International and Geek Fam. Pool 2 contained eight champions from different regions including Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Turkey. Pool 3 showcased Deus Vult, Bigetron Sons, and two of the qualifying wildcard teams.

The Group Draw followed three outlying principles:

• Principle A: All Teams from the same region can no be drawn into the same group;
• Principle B: All Teams from Pool 1 will not be drawn into the same group; All Teams from Pool 3 will not be drawn into the same group;
• Principle C: The Serpentine Order of Drawing will be followed: ABCD-ABCD-ABCD-ABCD.

The Group Draw was accompanied with a Press Conference on November 4, 2023. Special Guests Gerald "Dlar" Trinchera and Jonard "Demonkite" Caranto were invited as Guest Stars for the said event.

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Knockout Stage

The series between See You Soon and Deus Vult in the Lower Bracket Quarterfinals was a first in the world stage as Deus Vult were able to reverse sweep See You Soon after falling in a 2–0 deficit. It was Malaysia's Todak who was able to pull off a reverse sweep during the knockout stage in an MLBB World Championships, reverse sweeping CIS representative Natus Vincere 3–2 in M3.

ONIC Esports denied AP Bren its Grand Finals spot in the Upper Bracket Final after a 3–0 sweep over the Philippine champions. The Grand Final match would be the first Philippines vs. Indonesian Final in the M-Series and the first Indonesian appearance since M1. AP Bren defeated Blacklist International 3–0 in the Lower Bracket Finals to face a rematch against ONIC. After holding a 3–1 lead, ONIC won two straight games to force Game 7 which AP Bren won through a crucial pickoff on Kairi "Kairi" Rayosdelsol while traversing the bush in the middle lane.

Final standings

AP Bren recorded a .704 win rate during the entirety of the competition, tying ONIC with a 6–0 record in the Group Stage. AP Bren defeated See You Soon (3-1) and Geek Fam Indonesia (3-1) in the Knockout stage but fell to the lower-bracket to ONIC Esports in 0-3. They recorded a 13–11 record for the entirety of the knockout stage with the Grand Finals included. ONIC Esports has the highest winning rate of .750 among all teams in M5 followed by Team Lilgun (.615) and Team SMG (.600).

Special awards

Special awards were distributed during the opening program of the Grand Finale of M5. Spearheaded by Sophie Guo, the Regional Esports Head of Moonton Games, awarded The M5 Fan Choice Award to ONIC Esports' Assistant Coach, Ahmad "Mars" Fakhre.[citation needed]

• M5 Fan Choice Award: ONIC Esports

M-Series 5th Anniversary: Greatest 10 Players Award

The M-Series 5th Anniversary individual awards were released prior to the playoffs of the M5 World Championships. The nomination process went through certain criterions released by Moonton. However, the nominees were plagued into controversies due to the snubbing of the "VEEWISE" duo of Johnmar "OhMyV33Nus" Villaluna and Danerie James "Wise Del Rosario due to their affiliation with the online-betting site Rivalry. Furthermore, M3 World Champion Finals MVP Kiel Calvin "OHEB" Soriano was also snubbed in the nomination process. The controversy led to the withdrawal of Naing Lin "ACE" Swe from being a contender due to his own affiliation with a separate online-betting site which caused outraged from Burmese fans. Swe withdrew from being part of the nomination list and on a shorter notice, Moonton released a public apology for their unseen overview of the situation.

The list of awardees were made up of 6 Filipino players, 3 Indonesian players and 1 Burmese player.

Marketing

Sponsors

The M5 World Championships oversees regional partners from different countries to get the chance to stream the tournament in the participating countries and also worldwide.

M5 Pass

Moonton announced that the Fighter Hero Yu Zhong will be receiving this edition's special M5 Pass Skin. The M5 Pass is a in-game pass that gives players rewards and incentives while doing Daily Tasks and Challenges. The M5 Pass includes custom M5 effects such as Recall Animations, Kill Animations, a Trail Animation for the Hero, Limited Edition Skins and in-game rewards that can be used to unlock more rewards.

Upon purchasing any M5 Pass, Yu Zhong's "Dragon's Shade" Skin would be attained by every person who purchase it while its prime skin "Cosmic Dragon" is able to be attained once the player's M5 pass reaches Level 75. The M5 Pass was officially made to be available on November 20.

Theme song

On November 12, 2023, the song "Better Than Great" was released as the official song of the tournament in Spotify.

Ten days later on November 22, the music video for Better Than Great was released featuring several players participating and players who made a great impact for MLBB worldwide like ONIC Esports' Kairi Rayosdelsol and Nicky "Kiboy" Pontonuwu, Avalon's Jungler Michael "MobaZane" Cosgun, Nicholas "Akashi" Vieira of Bigetron Sons, ECHO Philippines' Karl "KarlTzy" Nepomuceno, Zikry "Moon" Shamsuddin of Todak, and symbolism from Johnmar "OhMyV33Nus" Villaluna's "Queen" Pose. As of December 15, 2023, the Music Video has 2.5 million views on YouTube.

Championship skin

Following AP Bren's victory, news outlets and reports repeatedly asked about the hero that the team will pick in for their championship skin. It was decided that AP Bren has chosen the Marksman hero "Brody" for their championship skin as it was a signature pick for the team when it was open during drafting phases.

On March 20, 2024, Mobile Legends announced through their Facebook Page that Brody will become the official championship skin for the team. However, Finals MVP David "FlapTzy" Canon will be co-designing the very first "Finals MVP Skin" which was the Fighter hero "Paquito" making M5 the first world championship series to have two championship skins: One for the team and One from the Finals MVP.

Controversies

On October 28, the Philippines' MLBB M5 Greatest Players Nominees were unveiled prior to the Grand Finals stage between AP Bren and Blacklist International. The nominees snubbed names such as Johnmar "OhMyV33Nus" Villaluna, Danerie "Wise" Del Rosario and Kiel Calvin "Oheb" Soriano during the announcement. Furthermore, during the MLBB M5 Trailer, little-to-no footage were depicted showing the MLBB M3 World Championships, to which Blacklist International won.

Del Rosario and Villaluna took to YouTube where they address the situation, finding out that one of the nominees, Nainglin "ACE" Swe of Myanmar was a part of a certain brand that was the reason why Del Rosario and Villaluna were snubbed during the nomination. Del Rosario and Villaluna are part of a legal-betting website named "Rivalry". According to the Greatest Players Nominee criteria, the VeeWise tandem looked onto the final criteria, "Not included in illegal activities, including promotion or soliciting." Both Del Rosario and Villaluna addressed the situation with Moonton privately alongside getting Tier One Entertainment, the management of Blacklist International to step in and communicate with Moonton.

On November 9, Swe has officially announced his withdrawal from the nomination from the Greatest Players, citing that he did not match one of the criteria from the nomination. This also ends the rift between Myanmar fans and Filipino fans whom are divided in the situation. The nominations for Soriano, Del Rosario and Villaluna are still not included to negate unintended misunderstandings.

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