The grand final of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Pro League Philippines Season 11 (MPL PH) yesterday marked the end of MPL competitions across Southeast Asia for the half of 2023, leaving the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asia Cup 2023 (MSC 2023) as the final MLBB tournament for the upcoming June. And for the first time ever, Moonton has officially announced that they will be adding the winners of competitions in the Middle East, Turkey, and North America to participate in the MSC 2023.
This announcement led to heated discussion among the community and some MLBB pundits, particularly in Southeast Asia. As the title suggests, the MSC was conducted as a special competition for the SEA region in which only the top teams from the MPL competition in SEA participated.
Despite the controversial nature of the decision, some have viewed the participation of teams from outside Southeast Asia as an attractive possibility to sell the MSC 2023 competition to new audiences. Eugene “Abstract” Eu, a professional caster of the Singapore MLBB competitive scene, talked to Ulti.Asia that he can’t wait to see how non-SEA teams adapt to SEA meta in the upcoming MSC.
“At first, I’m rather surprised MENA, NACT and Turkey are going to MSC due to the name and nature of MSC.” Abstract remarked. “Regardless, it’s essentially the same as the M-Series, which sets a really high stake for teams to prepare for the next M-Series in Philippines.”
Eugene, however, added while these three regions are not currently at the same level of competition as SEA, their players’ ability to learn the meta quickly is impressive. Therefore, they should not be overlooked in the future competition.
“I’d say that MENA, NACT and Turkey are at their infancy stage and have a lot of prospect ahead of them. They’re gaining traction and learning really fast. They would 100 per cent be a force to be reckoned with in the coming future.”
And talking about his favorite team in MSC 2023, Abstract, who has been crowned as MPL SG Season 5 Best Caster, told us that he picked Onic Esports from Indonesia as one of his favorites in MSC 2023. He believes that Onic is one of the best as they have performed exceptionally this season.
“I mostly have my eye on Indonesia’s Onic! They’re still one of the massive giants out there. But they have some ways to go to beat the Philippines teams.”
Abstract’s concern is not without a good reason. Even though Onic Esports achieved a historic back-to-back wins in MPL Indonesia and have a world-class jungler like Kairi “Kairi” Rayosdelsol in their team, they still need to improve their game if they don’t want to lose to the Philippines again like they did in M4 in Jakarta last January.
