The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) World Championship or the M5 World Championship is set to take place in November and December 2023. Featuring a much wider format with a high prize pool this year, as many as 24 teams are set to battle it out for the title of champions.
The M5 World Championship, just like in past years, will happen as an offline event. While the newly introduced Wildcard Stage will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the main event will happen in the Philippines. Thus, this will be the first M World Championship to happen across two different countries. Additionally, the prize pool for the event this year is $900,000. Here’s everything you need to know about the competition.
Image Credits: MOONTON
The M5 World Championship has been split into three stages with the competition kicking off with the Wildcard Stage. The top two teams from here will then make it to the Group Stage followed by the Playoffs.
Wildcard
Group Stage
Playoffs
Image Credits: MOONTON
Wildcard Stage
The eight teams in the Wildcard Stage are listed below. There are two new regions in the competition as China and South Asia will now send teams to the M5 World Championship.
Group Stage
So far, the following teams have been confirmed in the M5 World Championship Group Stage:
The M5 World Championship features a total prize pool of $800,000, up $100,000 since the last edition. The prize pool split, however, hasn’t been announced yet.
All matches will be live-streamed on the MLBB Esports YouTube channel. Additionally, the offline event will be open to a live audience and MOONTON will announce ticketing information closer to the event.
As per tradition, the M4 World Championship will share a similar tournament format with previous iterations. A standard Group Stage for all qualified teams will play out, leading into a Playoffs Bracket.
The group stage is split into 4 groups of 4 teams. Matches are single round-robin best-of-one matches, where every group’s top two seeds will advance to Upper Bracket. However, it’s not the end for the bottom two as they will play in the Playoffs’ lower bracket.
Since all teams survive the group stage, the Playoffs are truly a testament to every team’s perseverance and open up opportunities for a flawless lower bracket run. A marvelous scenario, which many fans consider as the holy grail of tournaments. Playoffs are double elimination best-of-five rounds, except the first two rounds of the lower bracket as best-of-three. Of course, a full-fledged best-of-seven is reserved for the grand finals.
The teams will be known once all regional leagues conclude their seasons. We will update this section part accordingly.
The World Championship has had a history of exponential growth since its first iteration back in 2019. Since then, the prize pool tripled, and we can plausibly expect M4 World Championship to feature a larger prize pool, past $800,000.
As stakes grew with every world championship, so did the teams, which many as fan bases that call them powerhouses. First off, a tribute to the defending champions, Blacklist International, who won M3. Although Blacklist is the most accomplished MLBB team in the scene, their recent performance paints a different picture. Their last tournament, the MPL Philippines Season 9 only recorded their participation effort as they went out in last place.
Instead, RRQ Hoshi, hailing from Indonesia is arguably the most consistent World Championship participant. They qualified for every iteration, dominated the regional MPL ID Seasons, and are still going strong in the MLBB Southeast Asia Cup 2022.
North America isn’t the biggest region for MLBB players, but the BloodThirstyKings has garnered quite the fanbase recently. They placed third at the M3 World Championship, marking NA’s first achievement in placing top three in World Championship. As such, fans are excited to see the return of BTK as the optimistic wild card.
Catch the action live on the MLBB Twitch channel, or stay updated with the championship’s latest details by following their Twitter page.
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