Where are the Mobile Legends Marksmen?

Why meta marksmen in ranked aren’t being being pick nor banned in the MPL Philippines

This article was written by Chise Alcantara.
Special thanks to Kaisaya.

If you’ve tuned in to the past three weeks of MPL qualifier streams, you would have probably noticed several meta heroes that have been very prevalent in the series such as Lancelot, Martis, Johnson, Angela, Guison, and Fanny. This isn’t really surprising because of how equally visible these picks are in amateur rank play, but what’s intriguing is the severe lack of representation of marksmen included in the commonly sought after picks and bans in the competitive scene. Are marksmen underpowered? Short answer, yes. But that doesn’t really explain why they aren’t at all banned in games like other comfort picks of pro-players.

“You would sometimes notice that teams ban heroes that aren’t really meta but because it’s a comfort pick of a particular opponent,” Em “Kaisaya” Dangla, MPL Shoutcaster and Mythic rank player, said. “But marksmen aren’t usually prioritized in bans even though almost all the teams in the qualifiers have at least one MM main player.”

So why aren’t MM’s being prioritized in picks and bans? Because they’re not threatening—at least compared to other stronger meta picks. “Give a really skilled player who knows the inside outs of that hero and the opposing team would most likely be doomed,” says Kaisaya.

Traditionally, marksmen have always played the roles of being glass cannons who deal consistent DPS from a safe range. They also turn into tank-shredding, tower-destroying hyper carries late game and act as fail-safes whenever teammates feed their lane. Though, sadly for marksmen, the MPL PH late game seems to be always beyond reach with the usual pro-match lasting up to 15-20 minutes, just enough time for them to comfortably buy their third or forth item in the comfort of their base while waiting to respawn to make it to the final frame of their base exploding. “Good players can end the game within the first 15 minutes without an MM because of high-impact, early game assassins,” says Kaisaya.

You may be asking, “then why am I wrecking noobs on the rank ladder with my girl, Lesley?” Well, have you noticed how long your games last? Have you ever actually faced against a coordinated team that will focus you so hard that you feel like they had deeply rooted hatred for guys who play female characters online? Marksmen that aren’t Layla, can actually function decently in high rank play and can actually be considered B to A tier but in an environment where a highly coordinated team knows how much of a threat you can be when left alone, good luck not getting deleted within the first 0.5 seconds of the fight by a fed Guison.

So will marksmen ever be part of the meta again like in the early seasons of ML where compositions were actually designed to feed overpowered marksmen like Moskov in order to carry the team with his insane damage? Maybe, considering some of the recent MPL games have been lasting over 20 minutes because of the amount of tanks and off-tanks being picked by MPL teams. In Advici Esports vs Nimbus Gaming, G Alchemist surprised everyone with the Karrie pick, which admittedly did melt the enemy team in the late game because of Karrie’s innate percentage health damage. Though the MM hype was short-lived once she got focused down late game, which caused Nimbus Gaming’s low-damage team composition to crumble.

Marksmen heroes can become viable in the MPL once again if the pros actually make a team composition that can protect their marksmen from the current overpowered assassins in today’s metagame. Till then, marksmen will remain to be the high risk, high reward situational picks that get overshadowed by more consistent and high impact heroes. Consistency is key to securing a spot in the regular season, so we’ll see if we’ll get more adventurous picks from teams now that they’ve tested the playing field.