The Regular Season of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) Professional League Season 5 (MPL-MY/SG S5), with Yoodo as its official digital telco, began last weekend. Fans were treated to quite a few interesting matches and unexpected outcomes, with some teams performing well, while others failing to live up to expectations.

Lacklustre Debuts

Orange Esports Reborn 2-1 Axis Esports 

Orange Esports Reborn, an MPL debuting team led by the veteran player Silo (formerly Saiyan Reborn), made their debut in the Regular Season this week. Appropriately enough, their first win was against Silo’s old team. It wasn’t a perfect sweep, but a win’s a win.

Starting off strong, Eren’s Hayabusa enabled Orange to win Game 1. Axis then made a comeback in Game 2, but game 3 devolved into a long stalemate, with Orange ultimately winning after baiting Axis into taking a bad teamfight.

Team SMG 2-1 Orange Esports Reborn

Unfortunately, the shine of Orange’s debut was somewhat dulled by their loss against Team SMG. While Orange did manage to win one game, it’s undeniable that SMG had better drafting and gameplay skills in general. With Marksman Smooth on their side, a player to watch out for, SMG easily dismantled Orange.

Siren Clan 0-2 Resurgence

Siren Clan is the youngest MPL team with an average age of 20.5 years. Facing their fellow Singaporean team Resurgence, Siren could barely hold up under the pressure. In both games, Resurgence barely took any losses at all (zero towers lost in G1, zero deaths in G2). 

Siren Clan 0-2 Axis Esports

Siren didn’t fare well in Day 2 either. Despite their valiant efforts against Axis (even dragging out Game 1 to 25 minutes!), Siren was unable to move the needle on their score. 

Unpredictable Outcomes

EVOS SG 2-0 Todak

The week started off badly for Todak, last season’s rising star. Despite making it into the main stage of 2019’s M1 world championship, they seemed to be struggling to find their rhythm in both matches this week.

Against EVOS, Todak lost Game 1 in only 8 minutes! EVOS carried this momentum into Game 2, running their signature hyper-aggressive gameplay style, to which Todak failed to react appropriately.

Todak 1-2 Notorious Villains

Todak suffered the same issues against Notorious Villains (NV), losing a one-sided Game 1. To Todak’s credit, Cikuuuuuu turned Game 2 around, but Game 3 fell back into NV’s hands after Todak made various mistakes. It’s only week 1 though, so they still have time to review their game plan. 

Geek Fam 2-1 Team Bosskurr

Season 3 champions Geek Fam seemed to have regained their form. Defeating both Bosskurr and EVOS this week, their performance showed a marked improvement from last season, where they were struggling to stay afloat.

While Bosskurr did take Game 1, Geek Fam substituted Ozoraveki in to replace Rumpel and showed no mercy in Games 2 and 3. Turning up the aggression, they easily swept Bosskurr away. Team Bosskurr losing now isn’t an indictment against their overall performance, so we’re bound to see them push back in subsequent weeks.

EVOS SG 0-2 Geek Fam

In another shocking turn of events, Geek Fam managed to cleanly sweep Season 4’s champions, EVOS SG in a repeat of the Season 3 grand finals. Often hailed as the ‘Singapore Slayers’, Geek Fam was a good match for EVOS as they have a similar aggressive playstyle.

Showing an ability to adapt, Geek Fam countered EVOS’ strategies, which was apparent in both games, where they out-drafted and out-played EVOS. While EVOS tried their best to defend the base in Game 1, the snowballing loss of their early advantage was too great to overcome. EVOS did manage to close the gap in Game 2, but even then, Geek Fam was able to adapt. Winning a single late-game fight, Geek Fam sealed their match victory.

Stay tuned to week 2 of the MPL-MY/SG Regular Season which takes place on 7 and 8 March.

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