What’s to Become of Vicious&Delicious

As much as we’re hyped for the finals, it feels really sad to think that we won’t see, Vicious&Delicious in this MPL-PH season. We witnessed this team’s journey from their time during the grueling qualifiers to the heated final weeks of the regular season. We would have wanted to see how much more V&D would be able to grow but we only have room for the best of the best in the finals. That’s why we wanted to end things with V&D right by letting everyone hear the story they didn’t have the chance to tell. We interviewed VD Kevv just for this occasion.

Where did you guys all meet?

We were formerly known as ACE squad. We got to know each other through rank games. After a bunch of scrims and squad events, the best players joined forces and that’s how V&D was born.

What made you decide to enter the MPL-PH competition?

We became one of the top global teams and we recruited even more members. After we felt like we got more experience, we wanted to see how we would fare against other Philippine teams.

What was your game plan going in to the competition?

We actually didn’t have a game plan in mind. We just wanted to test out are skills against really good players and established teams. Gaining the experience of playing against them was more than enough motivation for us to try out hardest.

What were some difficulties V&D faced that you felt resulted in your elimination?

Most of the difficulties were in real life rather than in-game. The availability of most members to practice together was very difficult to work around. That led us to be less in-sync compared to other games.

If you were to change anything about your performance in the regular season, what would that be?

Commitment. I felt like I could have given more time and contributed more to the team. If we really want to be known as a competitive team, we have to really dedicate time and effort to work as a team.

Can we expect to see V&D participate in future competitions?

I would really like to grow together as a team. It hurts to be eliminated so we need to get over the slump for now but once we get back on our feet I feel like we still have more to show in the future.

No miracles this season

Since AEther Main’s perfect record was tarnished a few weeks back, everyone’s attention shifted to which teams were going to be eliminated. OBS Raven and Vicious&Delicious have been in the bottom two spots of the league for a couple of weeks now but with how the mechanics of MPL-PH regular seasons is, all teams actually still had a chance to make it to the finals. Unfortunately for these two teams, there were no upsets that happened in the final week. Despite this, we’d still like to give the spotlight to these two teams since without them; MPL-PH Regular Season 2018 wouldn’t have been as entertaining.

OBS Raven vs Invictus Godz 1-1

OR Burning surprised everyone with his very brave Leslie pick in the first game. Everyone knew that OR had to make it to late game or at least snowball early to even have a chance against the Chou, Grock, and Alpha early game composition IG had. Everything was pretty even with things slightly favoring IG, but because of a sneaky Lord and a failed late-game team fight OR Burning’s Leslie and OR Mae’s Kagura deleted half of IG’s members. Even though IG Vladimir and IG Helena were having a pretty good game, they still couldn’t defend against the whole OR team. This win got OBS Raven’s fans estatic and hopeful that OBS Raven could actually qualify for the finals, unfortunately for them, they got a bit over confident in the next game.

OR actually was winning very early in the game but a few forced plays like early unnecessary tower dives cost them to fall behind ever so slowly. By mid game, IG Kirito’s Cyclops and IG Vmpire’s Karina were already very fed and could combo down any of the OR members including the tanks. This left their damage dealers vulnerable to be bursted or CC’d down without them being able to influence team fights. Late game was pretty much covered by IG Vhen’s Argus, which was tower-diving the OR members who were trying to defend. Apart from the early game, it was a pretty one-sided match and an anti-climatic end to OBS Raven’s run in this season.

Vicious&Delicious vs OBS Gaming

V&D desperately needed a sweep this week but their odds didn’t seem that promising considering they were going against one of the top teams in the competition, OBS Gaming. Everyone knew that V&D had to do something drastic if they were going to have a chance winning. This was why everyone was closely looking into why V&D chose the unorthodox triple retribution strategy against OBS Gaming. Things weren’t looking good at the start of the game with VD Jep getting caught out and killed but things seemed to stabilize after a while with VD Pau’s Kagura getting a score of 3/0/2 thanks to a few well-played skirmishes. Though, while all of this was happening, OG JeffQt4ever! was actually farming behind the scenes and because of a few picks by OG Z4pnu’s Jawhead, got a lot of free damage during teamfights. OG then forced team fights with their pick potential and tower-pushing late game and secured their first win against V&D.

By this point, V&D were already technically eliminated but despite they still managed to provide a very entertaining second game for their fans. The whole OBS Gaming team were playing phenomenally in the second game but OG Pakbet really stood out because of how he used Harley’s mobility to her fullest extent. OG Pakbet constantly baited out skill shots and made V&D over-commit to certain skirmishes, which cost them the game. Despite the game being pretty one-sided, we had to give respect to the V&D members who didn’t give up even while being tower dove by OG Yolo’s Lolita and OG Dian’s Chou.

Now that we’ve gotten a taste of what these teams are capable of, you better not be planning on missing out on the finals on June 30 to July 1 at Mall of Asia . GGWP to all the teams who participated this MPL-PH Season. We hope to see you again next year!

 This is when things get complicated

We have finally arrived at the last leg of the regular season. And with things as heated as they are, we couldn’t help but crunch some numbers in order to figure out the chances of our favorite teams qualifying for the finals. There are five teams, namely White Rascals, Invictus Godz, Digital Devils No Limit, OBS Raven, and Vicious&Delicious that are fighting either to safely qualify for the finals or at least tie with other teams to fight for that elusive 8^th spot. We did all the dirty math for you so all you have to do is sit-back and relish in the headache we’re about to give you guys. Even Mobile Legends can’t escape math!

Invictus Godz vs OBS Raven

This particular match actually affects all the teams mentioned to some extent, which makes this match very important. We’ll go through a few scenarios with you to clear things out because it’s going to be hell of a lot more confusing from here on out.

Scenario 1: If OR wins both
This would automatically eliminate V&D.

Scenario 2: If OR wins both AND ties with WR, IG, DDNL

IG and DDNL will battle for 8^th place because of the results of their previous match ups.

Scenario 3: If OR wins both AND ties with IG and DDNL but WR wins one game

DDNL Gets eliminated based on the results of their previous match ups.

Scenario 4: If OR wins one game AND ties with DDNL and V&D

OR qualifies for the finals and both DDNL and V&D get eliminated based on the results of their previous match ups.

Scenario 5: If OR wins one game AND DDNL wins one/two game(s)

OR and V&D both get eliminated.

Scenario 6: If OR and DDNL lose both games aka the only scenario V&D has a chance to qualify

V&D and DDNL have a match to decide who gets to go through.
 
We told you it was going to be messy. That said, these are only scenarios and numbers. The real fight happens tomorrow and you can bet that all teams, even those who have safely qualified, will be putting in everything they have into their final matches. You guys all better tune in tomorrow because it’s going to be a bloodbath.

Breaking down a few awkward hero picks with IG Kirito and PH Yakou

Even if you haven’t read the patch notes, there has been a very clear change in the atmosphere of MLBB recently. A big nerf on Martis’s first skill Mortal Coil really hurt the hero’s effectivity when in high-level of play. Martis was mainly used as a disruptor who was very threatening because of his high base-damage kit. This made him a staple pick for any almost any team composition, and a favorite of teams in the MPL-PH because of his flexibility. This sudden metashift has caused quite an issue for a lot of teams because priority bans and picks suddenly became easier to play around and manipulate, which could lead to some teams having to use heroes they aren’t really comfortable playing in high-stakes matches like these. We chat with Invictus Gaming’s Kirito and Digital Devil Pro Gaming’s Yakou on how this small change could affect the professional meta in a very big way.

What made you decide on picking two mages?
“All the core assassins were already banned or picked by the opposing team so there wasn’t any point to pick much else. Even though our team mostly had magic dealers, the Argus pick made up for the lack of physical damage. We also made picks with Cyclops and Harley, which snowballed our early lead,” says IG Kirito.

Your lineup was very reminiscent of past seasons mage meta
We picked Chou as a mobile tank so he could keep up with our rotations. Our strategy was to get picks with Cyclops and Harley with the help of Chou, which worked out,” says IG Kirito.

DD Pro Gaming’s Lineup was pretty interesting as well. What was your thought process behind the two assassin composition?
“We were really countered by the surprise Argus pick. We had initially intended for the Hayabusa to be the one to split push and gain gold. Unfortunately, Argus is one of the heroes that can handle Hayabusa’s burst because of his skills let him live through them. This delayed our main damage dealers power spikes and become very ineffective for the majority of the game,” says PG Yakou.

We would usually see DDPG utilize a number of different heroes in their previous matches. What seemed to limit your hero pool this time?
“The latest Martis nerfs really shook our strategies up. If a team really wanted to, they could ban all the core assassins right now since Martis isn’t a sought after pick. We wanted to try out new team compositions because we really didn’t have much time to practice new strategies post-nerf and that ended up biting us in the ass,” says PG Yakou.

Yeah, people really noticed how different your DDPG’s play style was in the second game compared to the first.
After our embarrassing defeat, we felt like this wasn’t the time to experiment with new picks because we could easily lose if we weren’t comfortable. We got our desired roles in the second game and got really nice picks with Saber and Jawhead that completely destroyed the anyone we ulted,” says PG Yakou.

It seemed like Invictus Godz were the ones who were the ones forced into uncomfortable picks this time
We didn’t expect DDPG to pick two tanks, which left us with subpar crown-control. He had to settle for a Ruby and Hylos, which could have worked out in theory but was very difficult to pull off because DDPG had really mobile heroes,” says IG Kirito.

These two teams fight for their chance to keep playing

It’s no surprise that people tend to follow the teams that are performing well more than others because they want to see quality gameplay from the best players. But the same could actually said for the teams that aren’t faring too well because it’s really interesting to watch how players play like when everything’s on the line. These do-or-die games almost always have the most weight to them, so it was really a treat to see OBS Raven and Vicious&Delicious go at it with all they had last Sunday.

A lot of people questioned OR Burning’s hero pick, Karina because she hasn’t seen much success in this tournament. She’s considered a subpar assassin because she doesn’t scale as well into the late game as most core picks do, and coupled with her feast-or-famine playstyle, she’s a very risky pick indeed. But considering that everything was on the line in this games, it was expected for the teams to bring out something that would be able to put off their opponents.

OR Burning surprised everyone by snowballing the early game into something really favorable for his team. He consistently got kills and ganked for his team. OBS Raven consistently took disadvantage of the numbers advantage caused by VaD kevv’s split pushing for his team. OBS Raven put on the pressure by getting quick kills all over the map before Vicious&Delicious had the chance to respond. In just ten minutes, the OBS Raven were able to get a convincing win over their adversaries.

In the second game however, everything seemed to be quite even in the early stages of the game. But again, OBS Raven had the clear advantage when it came to small skirmishes because of their superior rotations. Vicious&Delicious always found themselves one member short because of questionable split pushes by various members of Vicious&Delicious when they should have been grouping up to provide support against the slowly growing threats of the OBS Raven assassins.

OR Burning and OR Mae really provided tons of pressure on the map by getting picks together using classic sure kill combos. What really sealed the fate of Vicious&Delicious was the Lord the OBS Ravens suddenly got because of one of these picks. Though, we’d like to commend the tanks VaD Bass and VaD Vino, for their valiant defense despite being outnumbered. But alas, all games must come to an end and this particular one ended in a well-deserved win for OBS Raven.

Unfortunately, both teams are still in the bottom two of the rankings with Vicious&Delicious having a total of 3 points and OBS Raven with 4. For these teams to even have a shot at playing in the finals, they have to sweep their games next week. All eyes are on the bottom half of the scoreboard as these teams fight for their chance for glory in the MPL PH Finals.

Time is Winding Down

Now that we’ve finally reached the latter half of the regular season, you would think that some of the teams would be able to relax considering they have a pretty sizable lead but they won’t. Technically speaking, only Aether Main has safely secured their spot for the finals. All eyes are on the two teams that are currently tied for bottom place. Will these last two weeks of competition seal their fate or will they finally be able to pull off an upset?

OBS Raven vs Invictus Godz

This will probably be one of the most important matches OBS Ravens have had this season. Their opponents, Invictus Godz, are placed in the lower half of the standings, which might mean their performance hasn’t been much better than OR. IG has yet to beat any of the top teams and haven’t been really making enough noise in the tournament. Are they late-bloomers or will OBS Ravens be able to silence them for good?

Vicious&Delicious vs Digital Devils Demon Kings

The Vicious&Delicious team finally scored some necessary points last week going one for one in a few games. Their opponent this week however have really shown that they can definitely win under pressure seeing how they have defeated one of the lead contenders this tournament, OBS Gaming before. It might be fairly difficult for V&D to score against this team if they don’t pull some sort of hidden power of their own.

OBS Raven vs Vicious&Delicious

Like adding salt to the wounds, fate has decided to put these two up against each other. If either of them sweeps the other, it would almost be next to impossible for the team to come back from that loss. Everything is riding on the results of this match so we will definitely expect to see whole new OBS Ravens and Vicious&Delicious this week.

Aether Main vs White Rascals

After their convincing defeat against OBS Gaming last week, the White Rascals swore that they would have something cooked up for this week’s matches and we don’t doubt that they do, it’s just that going against Aether Main is a whole different story. Aether Main is a team that just seems to be able to prepare for any tactic their enemies think up. It was actually the first time last week that a team, Digital Devils Pro, managed to break their seemingly perfect teamwork. Does this mean White Rascals have also found the weak link in Aether Main’s strategy? Only time will tell as these two teams face off in this week’s regular season.

The tried and tested method of WR kaizoku versus the adaptive playstyle of OG Z4pnu

This article was written by Chise Alcantara.

A lot of people didn’t expect the White Rascals to do this well in the tournament, seeing as they got in due to a disqualification of one of their opponents. That said, they’ve proved a lot of naysayers and haters wrong with their consistently good performance so far, tethering between third and second place. Their simple yet effective split-push playstyle has proved very successful for them in the earlier rounds of the tournament, only actually facing a definitive defeat in week 3 against OBS Gaming. We had a chat with WR kaizoku and OG Z4pnu about their insights on why White Rascals’ strategy wasn’t as effective as they would have hoped in this particular match-up.

OBS Gaming seemed to control the pace of the first game but never seemed to be able to dominate it entirely thanks to your Hayabusa’s constant split-pushing. What exactly was your team’s gameplan?
“My role has always been to split-push and take towers. If you’ve noticed, most White Rascals games seem to revolve around that idea. I would play a split-push hero and my team would take objectives and try to get small wins without me,” says WR kaizoku.

Most teams would rely on split-pushing when the opportunity calls for it but the White Rascals seem to still force it despite being on the back foot\. Why is that so?

“I think it has to do with the trust that we put in each other as teammates. Unless they explicitly say so, I won’t stop split-pushing even if they are losing team fights,” says WR kaizoku.

Won’t your absence in team fights put your team at a glaring disadvantage?
“Typically, when I split-push, they have to send at least two people to stop me. When the enemy does that, my team would capitalize by forcing a 4v3 in our favor or maybe take an objective. My job is to become enough of a threat that I could deal with two opponents at once,” says WR kaizoku.

What allowed OBS Gaming to adapt to White Rascals’ strategy?
“We already played against White Rascals in ranked games and we were accustomed to how they used split-pushing. All we had to do was shutdown the Hayabusa quickly and regroup with our team,” says OG Z4pnu.

Is that why you picked Saber and Kagura?

“Yes, they can easily lock down the Hayabusa since chaining their skills won’t allow him the opportunity to switch with his shadows, We also picked Kagura and Lancelot to dominate in teamfights so that even though their Hayabusa could get towers, we could still wipeout most of their team,” says OG Z4pnu.

Why didn’t White Rascals ban Hayabusa counters if they were planning to continue their strategy in the second game?

“We already banned the opponent’s Akai because he really destroyed us in teamfights. It was a respect ban more than anything else,” says WR kaizoku.

Can we expect a new strategy for the White Rascals next week’s match against Aether Main?

“You can expect it though as of now, we’re still thinking of what will most likely be most effective. We will definitely try expanding our hero pool because we might have become a bit too predictable,” says WR kaizoku.

There’s only a little under two weeks to go before the regular season of the MPL PH comes to a close. Which teams will make it all the way through the knockout stage? Catch them live on Saturday and Sunday to support your favorite Mobile Legends teams!

The long awaited clash has finally happened

This article was written by Chise Alcantara.

A match between the first and second placers of a tournament will always be hype but this match’s history goes far deeper than that. AE Pein and DD Dee were teammates in a National Tournament before. There was a slight argument between the two about hero choices and things seem to escalate from there. As the faithful match between Aether Main and DD Professional drew nearer nearer, they’re rivalry only seemed to become more personal as they would start negatively commenting on each other’s live streams and even make memes of one another. Fans of both players, as well as both franchises were extremely excited for these two titans to finally settle their dispute once and for all.

That said, things were looking heavily favored in the odds of Aether Main, considering they were leagues above any other team when it came to the point system. Still, that didn’t scare the DD Pro team at all. In the first game, DD Pro even went for a rather “greedy” line up, picking two meta assassins DD Yakou’s Lancelot and DD Pheww’s Guison as their main damage dealers in the game. Everyone who’s played Mobile Legends: Bang Bang knows that these two need a lot of gold to go online and actually make a difference in the game.

While the first game was relatively even for the first few minutes, when team fights started happening you could see the how much influence the early game heroes the Aether Main team’s lineup had. Ae Pein’s Saber and Ae Yuji could easily pick off the damage dealers of DD in team fights despite having a very strong front line in the form of Hylos and Lolita, and a defensive support like Lolita. It wouldn’t be an AE game without some teleport spams as they were taking DD Pro’s base—a signature move of the Aether Main team to rally on their opponents to fight them.

In the second game however, we saw a whole new DD Pro team. Their earlier loss might have woken up something in them because they were making great rotations all over the map and winning minor skirmishes. They pulled in a sizable lead of 6K during the mid game but hadn’t really won any definitive team fights until one really convincing bait by DD Tets’ Akai caused AE Main to have a lapse in judgement and tunnel vision to focus on killing a tank who even had Immortality equipped. DD Tets’ wasted enough of AE Main’s time for the rest of his team to get the Lord and decimate the enemy team with their gold lead and superior fighting power… of course not before they could flash a few teleport spams of their own in AE Main’s base.

We know that the only thing that the people who watched this match will remember more than the showmanship and playful banter the two teams were showing was the top quality gameplay both teams displayed that match. And with AE Main’s spotless record finally tarnished with a loss (from a rival team no less) who’s to say what could happen next? You guys better stay tuned to the last few weeks of regular season because things are only bound to get even crazier.

Digital Devils Do-or-Die games

This article was written by Chise Alcantara.

After two weeks of regular season, the pressure is already getting intense for a few teams, while Aether Main is sitting comfortably in first place with their 8-win record. Here are a few match-ups to pay close attention to as they can definitely shake up the scoreboard with their results.

Digital Devils Kings vs Digital Devils No Limits

Despite being sister teams, both teams cannot take this game lightly because both of them are in the bottom half of the scoreboard as of week 2. DD Kings are ahead of DD No Limits by one point. If DD No Limits doesn’t win any of their matches this week, they’ll be in danger of getting eliminated. It’s truly do or die this week for both of these teams.

Digital Devils Pro vs Aether Main

Even Digital Devil Pro, who are doing quite well for themselves, are in for quite a match against the undefeated Aether Main team. Despite their loss to OBS Gaming last week, Digital Devils Pro are still in the upper half of the scoreboard. Aether Main have dominated every team they’ve come up against including OBS Gaming. Both of these teams are fighting with all they’ve got for first place. If Digital Devils Pro win both of their matches this week (and Aether Main loses both of theirs) they can tie for first place. Everyone’s expecting Aether Main to continue their win-streak because of their all-star lineup, but if anyone’s going to stop their win-streak it’s going to be Digital Devils Pro.

Vicious and Delicious

V&D really needs to step up this week if they have any hopes of trying to qualify for the finals. Right now they have a 0-8 standing. On Saturday they’ll be facing White Rascals who have been doing better than anyone has expected and are now considered to be the dark horse of the tournament. On Sunday, they’ll face Digital Devils No Limits, which hasn’t been doing too well themselves and are tied with OBS Ravens for second to the last place.

 OBS Gaming vs White Rascals

Another highlight match for this week are the crowd favorites, OBS Gaming and the dark horse, White Rascals. Both of these teams are sitting comfortably in the upper-middle of the scoreboard placing. While both teams are doing quite well, this week’s results will tell if they can feel comfortable with their placement and have a sure spot in the finals or if they have to work extra hard in the following weeks.

OG Dian and OG Pakbet show us the importance of being flexible with your playstyle

This article was written by Chise Alcantara.

Most of us go into ranked games with a handful heroes we are comfortable playing. A hero pool as small as five can get you to a high rank but in professional play, we see that the more heroes and roles you can play, the bigger asset you can be to your team. Last Sunday we saw OBS Gaming win against Digital Devils Pro in an exciting series.

To outsiders like us, it would seem like any other match-up but a lot of things were going on behind the curtains. A couple of DD Pro’s members were known as competent Fanny users, which was why OBS Gaming prioritized picking her even though they had to adjust their line-up drastically in order to accommodate the surprise pick. OG Dian, a tank main played Fanny and OG Pakbet had to pick an off-meta mage, Aurora. We inquire with them further to understand their thought process behind the risky strategy that paid off.

How often do you get fo play Fanny?

“I was an assassin player before I even started playing for OBS Gaming. But has actually been a while since I last played. I sometimes play assassins during my free time but never in our practice sessions,” says OG Dian.

Why the surprise pick then?

“We really didn’t want the other team to have Fanny since there were two Fanny users on their team. I’m glad the team trusted me with the role despite never practicing with them while playing an assassin,” says OG Dian.

Were you able to utilize any skills you learned playing as a  tank, now that you were given the opportunity to play an assassin again?

“Not really, ha ha! It’s totally different. When you’re a tank you rely on follow up from your team but when you’re an assassin you rely on the tank to initiate properly,” says Dian

As a tank, especially when playing solo, sometimes it’s hard to convince your team to follow-up on your initiation. How do you gain that trust?

“Just keep signaling and hope they will follow up. All you have to do is make sure the play you’re running is correct so they’ll follow up,” says Dian.

While OG Dian  was playing Fanny, we saw you support him through your plays as a mage. How would you describe your role in the team compared to an assassin?

“Mages and assassins are actually quite similar because they’re both damage dealers that like to pick off enemies but we usually feed the kills to the assassins because they can snowball harder because of the assassin emblem. Mages on the other hand require less gold to be effective so we’re okay with just farming,” says OG Pakbet.

Is there a reason why you chose Aurora instead of other meta mages?

“I picked her because she doesn’t need buffs to lane properly. We already had too many people who needed buffs. She can also function very well as a support for Fanny. It’s important for the members of the team to be able to adjust their playstyle when the situations demand it. That’s how good team play is developed,” says OG Pakbet.

Catch OBS Gaming’s Pakbet and Dian next week as the Mobile Legends Professional League Philippines continues its regular season!