As frontliners battle the COVID-19 pandemic, the ordinary Malaysian folks stay home to hinder the spread of the virus whilst maintaining their sanity. Fortunately, our #stayathome initiative was recently rewarded with the thrill of the Selangor Cyber Games Stay-at-Home Cup 2020, with Team Bosskurr and N.E.D Brotherhood bagging the win in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG Mobile.
The MLBB leg of the two-day online tournament concluded first, as Team Bosskurr won 2-1 in a final rematch against Geek Fam, having previously lost 0-2 to the Geeks in the upper bracket finals. But, they were given a second chance to reclaim their glory by getting lowered to the lower bracket finals against Todak. This time, they were more determined than ever for a retaliation, and dominated the match 2-0 before being granted a second round against Geek Fam. The comeback is real for Team Bosskurr, returning home with RM8,000 in prize money.
The PUBG Mobile leg may have ended later, but the action remains explosive until the end. Despite not having the highest kills in the game (runner-up Resurgence MY took the cake home for this), N.E.D Brotherhood managed to clutch two Winner Winner Chicken Dinners (WWCDs) and a still impressive number of 49 kills. It's no wonder that they won the motherlode of the prize pool, which is also RM8,000.
The Selangor Cyber Games Stay-at-Home Cup 2020 was held in an online format from 8 - 9 Apr, featuring a mix of amateur competitive players - who progressed from the Online Qualifiers - and the invited teams of the MPL MY/SG Season 5 and PMPL MY/SG 2020, alongside a whopping RM40,000 prize pool to be won. A RM10 minimum registration fee was imposed to be donated to a COVID-19 charity fund, along with viewers of the tournament donating Facebook Stars on-stream to be added into the cash bag.
With the imminent rise of more online tournaments to combat the COVID-19 esports drought, Selangor Cyber Games has also looked to contribute to the mix. Dubbed as the “Stay-at-Home Cup”, the tournament will go live from 8 to 9 April. The tournament will be held online, featuring Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile (PUBG Mobile) alongside a whopping RM40,000 prize pool up for grabs. There is also a minimum RM10 registration fee imposed that will be donated to a COVID-19 charity fund in light of the present situation.
Participants can register for MLBB and PUBG Mobile from today onwards. Please note that there are only 512 slots available for each game.
For more info, check out www.selangorcybergames.net
ONE Esports and Battlefy have worked together to bring fans another platform for teams to flex their esports prowesses. Eager Singaporean Mobile Legends: Bang Bang competitors can register for the ONE Esports Community Cup that sports a prize pool of SGD$225. The tournament will be held online on 16 April at 7:00 p.m. (GMT+8) onwards. Teams are required to to register through this link.
Don’t worry if you can’t make it for this 16 April, there are other upcoming tournaments on 21 April and 27 April for teams to participate in as well.
We wish all participants the best of luck and to have a great time amid these trying times. Please remember to keep washing those hands during those intense tournament moments!
Related
Register for the ONE Esports MLBB Community Tournament - Malaysia
Meta Matters is a series where we take a deeper look into the esports metagame. We’ll explore strategies used by the best teams and supplement that with our own research and statistics. Esports isn’t just a random group of people playing video games – the meta truly matters!
As an off lane Mobile Legends player, I revel at the sight of successfully pulling the enemies’ attention to myself from across the map. However, the 1v2’s I have performed, the clutch 1v3 Thamuz and Terizla plays (before they were nerfed), are gone to the gutter. Why bother with flashy plays or unforgettable X.Borg ultimates when the off lane has often been reduced to just Uranus.
No, I am not kidding, neither am I happy about this. Over the first three weeks of MPL-MY/SG Season 5, I have been hoping this trend would not catch on. However, the Malaysian and Singaporean professional teams have caught on to the strength of Uranus.
Related: Flameshot is an issue.
Why has Uranus become so prominent in the off lane role? Let’s look at previous meta off lane picks from the end of 2019 till now.
Jawhead is the most-picked hero in MPL-MY/SG after three weeks of matches.
Thamuz has an impressive 58% win rate out of 31 games played.
Out of these five picks, only two stand out as the rest have either been badly nerfed or cannot survive the current meta abuse of four-men tower dives. This is where Uranus fits in. His kit allows him to clear waves effectively whilst dealing with the abuse most off laners suffer thanks to his strong base stats. To take it a step further, he can absorb even more pressure when he builds tank items and stacks his passive. This means that teams have been struggling to cope with the amount of time taken to kill him, which in all honesty, is a bit of a bummer.
Geek Fam vs Siren Clan Game 1. Geek Fam took the series 2-0.
Have a look at Geek Fam versus Siren Clan during the 3rd minute of game. Artz took advantage of his wave clear and durability to proxy the wave from Siren Clan. This posed no immediate threat to Siren Clan until Artz decided to proxy another wave when the Turtle spawned. This would enable Geek Fam’s minions to crash into Siren’s top land tier 1 tower, which was already at 50% of its HP. Sirens quickly cleared their waves to respond en masse to Artz, who was trying to clear another wave. This wasted a total of 12 seconds of Siren players walking to him and running him down. Within these 12 precious seconds, Siren Clan’s bottom tier 1 tower fell to Geek Fam and the Season 3 champions could have claimed the Turtle. Nevertheless, they opted for a less-greedy play.
Related: MPL Indonesia’s RRQ.Hoshi counters Uranus.
Notorious Villains vs Axis Esports Game 2. NV won the series 2-1.
Pix 5 caption: Notorious Villains vs Axis Esports Game 2. NV won the series 2-1.
Look at KaizerX in Game 2 of Notorious Villains vs Axis Esports. Most would say that it is odd that at 2:15, KaiserX decided to hop over the wall into the enemy base especially after dying in the first minute of the game. Take note that at this point of the game, all five members of NV have shown themselves on the map. Four at the top lane and Thamuz holding the mid lane. Considering this, KaiserX made a smart move to proxy both mid and bottom lane minions in one fell swoop before getting out.
Although Axis lost the game eventually, these two examples show that Uranus can be utilised to effectively brick wall other a team’s off lane and buy time for teammates to secure bigger objectives across the map.
MPL-MY/SG S5 Hero Spotlight: Uranus.
Uranus is a quite a popular pick in competitive games. It is the joint 10th most-picked hero in MPL-MY/SG and is the fourth most-picked off laner behind Jawhead, Thamuz and Chou. Surprisingly, Uranus has an overall low win rate. Only EVOS SG has found consistent success on the hero.
Do I like seeing him being this effective in professional play? Certainly not, but I acknowledge that there is value in playing with such a defensive hero for a good early game start. However, players have become smarter and teams who pick Uranus will need to find a way to properly transition him to the late game.
Related: MPL-MY/SG resumes on 9 April 2020.
This is a guest post and the views expressed here are the author's own. GideonQ is a caster and analyst for MPL-MY/SG Season 5.
eGG Network is the organiser of MPL-MY/SG Season 5, which will resume on 9 April 2020.
Whether it's the start or end of a Mobile Legends season, players will be in a mad scramble to reach the top of the rank ladder. The climb to Mythic is never easy, but we’ve compiled some handy advice for you from two streamers who've been there and done that: Flare Gaming, and Laphel.
Flare Gaming (Facebook/Instagram) is a streamer who plays a variety of games on various platforms, from PC to mobile to consoles. Although he mainly plays MLBB for fun and enjoys experimenting with unconventional builds and picks, he's consistently reached Mythic rank, and is proof that you can enjoy climbing the rank ladder.
Flare Gaming.
Laphel is a streamer and MPL–MY/SG caster. Previously, he was a coach/analyst for Shopee Bosskurr, as well as Team Malaysia’s coach during the 2019 Philippines SEA games. He currently serves as Axis Esports' manager.
Laphel.
Not every hero in MLBB is equal in terms of strengths and weaknesses, with some being more useful than others in climbing.
They both agree that Granger is extremely powerful because he has plenty of early game power - which is usually a Marksman's (MM) weakness. His long-range burst and critical damage creates a lot of pressure, and Granger also transitions well into the late game instead of falling off.
Speaking of Marksmen, there's also Bruno. Like Granger, he has strong burst (although not as high) early on and can fight at mid-range. He has better crowd control (cc) than Granger because he can slow enemies, providing a different utility to early game teamfights.
Kimmy also features in Flare’s list of strong heroes in the current meta.
The bane of many players, Kimmy's passive allows her to attack while moving, which means good players will be incredibly hard to catch while constantly dealing damage. It's also harder to itemise versus her hybrid damage as she can build to focus on magic or physical damage.
The last Marksman is Wanwan, who comes with high recommendations from Laphel, especially if you’re facing teams with heavy crowd controls, since her 2nd skill provides CC immunity. Wanwan also has high Area of Effect (AoE) damage which is a big contribution in teamfights.
Aside from Marksmen, Flare also rates Gusion, an Assassin, rather highly.
With mobility and burst, Gusion can easily pick off priority targets (like opponent Marksmen). If able to secure the Blue Buff, Gusion becomes an even bigger threat, since it allows him to cast spells more often and reduces his ultimate cooldown, which again reduces skill cooldowns when cast.
Khufra can also be a game-changer. His high mobility and CC allows players to set up teamfights. Notably, all his skills have a CC effect: an AoE knock-up stun, an AoE knock-back CC, and an anti-mobility skill which prevents dashes. Mobility is a vital component of some of the game's strongest heroes, disabling that gives you a better chance of neutralising them.
In a similar vein, Laphel regards Lolita as a strong Tank hero. She’s a good meta counter, making her way into his books thanks to her shield ability which completely negates all projectile damage (including Marksman auto-attacks) for a few seconds. She comes with a well-rounded CC package, boasting a single-target stun and a large AoE stun.
And then there’s Pharsa.
Based on historical data, she's a rather odd choice, since she hasn't been in the meta for ages, but Laphel’s argument for picking her makes sense: she’s an extremely long-range poke Mage. Enemy Marksmen will have a hard time getting to her before she pokes them to death, or they'll be low enough on hit points (HP) for her team to mop them up.
Picking strong heroes isn't enough to win games, of course, since you'll need gameplay skills too.
Learn from the masters.
Awareness of team compositions and the meta plays a big role in climbing the rank ladder. For example, during the pick/ban phase, Flare recommends picking the highly banned heroes whenever possible - that's because they are generally stronger!
These heroes are banned for a reason, which is usually their utility, mobility, or damage, which have the potential to carry games. “The enemy can't kill you if you kill them first, or if you're faster than them," says Flare.
However, he warns that players shouldn't blindly pick a hero just because they’re strong. "Be adaptable to your team’s picks" is his advice.
Flare is a Tank player himself, so it’s pretty good advice. It’s a handy battle spell, especially when the enemy starts split pushing (a common strategy). "Arrival" allows you to teleport to a lane under threat, thus protecting towers.
The spell also enables the top lane player to make early ganking rotations if your team has an active mid lane playmaker. MLBB rewards teams who build early gold and experience leads and "Arrival" complements this kind of strategy.
"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Yoda.
This is a point on which both Flare and Laphel agree. MLBB isn’t a 1v1 game, it’s team-based, so it’s vital to stay positive (even in bad matches), be less stubborn, and curb your ego, so you can work well with your team. Good skills without teamwork are pointless if you're busy fighting your own team instead of the enemy.
Spreading a message of positivity, Flare says that “even if your teammate disconnects or feeds, it's okay, there's always the next game.”
This is something many of us have probably done. Please be careful whenever you’re helping teammates. Some buffs are vital for specific heroes (Red for Marksmen, Blue for Mages), so stealing them can be detrimental to your team's chances of winning. IF you do steal the buffs, don’t start arguing, just apologise.
Pay attention to what?
Well, some important things to keep track of during games include momentum swings, objectives, positioning, spell availability, and the map. In short, you need to constantly be aware of the game’s state, which also affects where you and your team should be, and what you should be doing. For instance, the enemy team just got wiped out, and Lord is open, so you should try and take it.
BUT if you're already in the enemy base, just end the game!
Be like Luffy.
Inflexibility basically refers to an inability to adapt to the situation at hand. You won’t always have a perfect team comp, players, or games where everything goes well, so it’s important for you to be flexible. For example, if your team is constantly losing fights, maybe it’d be better to try split-pushing and taking objectives, instead of forcing it and falling further behind.
Sometimes you can't control a game's circumstances, but you can control how you respond to those. Both Laphel and Flare agree that focusing on where you can improve is better than blaming everyone else. That way, you continue to learn, and that elusive Mythic rank need not be just a pipe dream.
So there you have it, some useful advice from Flare Gaming and Laphel on how to ease your grind to Mythic. Hopefully, it’ll be useful for you. At the same time, do remember to have fun while playing. No point stressing yourself out unnecessarily over a game, right?
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