Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M5 World Championship: Everything you need to know

This year's Mobile Legend: Bang Bang world championship tournament will see 22 teams fighting to become the game's new world champions and claim the lion's share of a US$900,000 prize pool.

Kurt Lozano
·Contributing Editor
·4 min read
The M5 World Championship, this year's world championship tournament for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, will be held from 23 November to 17 December in Malaysia and the Philippines. (Photo: MOONTON Games)
The M5 World Championship, this year's world championship tournament for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, will be held from 23 November to 17 December in Malaysia and the Philippines. (Photo: MOONTON Games)

The 2023 Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) competitive season is reaching its climax with the M5 World Championship, where 22 of the best MLBB teams in the world will be fighting to become the game's new world champions and claim the lion's share of a US$900,000 prize pool.

The M5 World Championship will take place from 23 November to 17 December in Malaysia and the Philippines. Here's everything you need to know about this year's MLBB world championship tournament:

Format

The M5 World Championship will be split into two main phases, the first being the Wildcard Stage and the second being the M5 World Championship proper.

Wildcard Stage

The Wildcard Stage will be held in Jio Space in Selangor, Malaysia from 23 to 26 November, where eight Wildcard teams will be fighting for two spots in the main event.

The M5 World Championship Wildcard Stage will begin with a group stage, where the eight Wildcard teams have been split into two groups of four teams each and pit into a single round robin with best-of-three matches.

The Top 2 teams from each group will advance to the Wildcard Crossover Matches while the bottom two teams will be eliminated.

The Wildcard Crossover Match will then take place on 26 November, where the top seed of each group will face the second seed of the other group in a best-of-five match. The two winning teams will then advance to the M5 World Championship proper.

M5 Group Stage

The M5 World Championship will then move to Philippines for the Group Stage, which will take place from 2 to 7 December at the EVM Convention Center in Metro Manila.

The Group Stage will see the 16 teams divided into four groups of four teams each, where they will compete in a single round robin with best-of-three matches. The Top 2 teams from each group will advance to the Knockout Stage while the bottom two teams will be eliminated.

M5 Knockout Stage

The M5 World Championship's Knockout Stage will follow a double elimination format with all matches being a best-of-five except for the Grand Finals, which will be a full best-of-seven series.

The Knockout Stage will also be held in two phases. The first phase will be held in the EMV Convention Center from 9 to 12 December and includes the upper bracket quarterfinals (9 to 10 December), the first round of the lower bracket (11 December), and the upper bracket semifinals (12 December).

The second phase of the Knockout Stage will be held in the Rizal Memorial Coliseum from 15 to 17 December. It will include the lower bracket quarterfinals (15 December), the lower bracket semifinals and upper bracket finals (16 December), as well as the lower bracket finals and Grand Finals (17 December).

Teams

The teams competing in the M5 World Championship the top two teams from the latest season of the various MLBB Professional Leagues (MPL) in Southeast Asia as well as the winners of other affiliate leagues and qualifiers in China, Mongolia, South Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), Middle-East and North Africa (MENA), Turkey, North America, and Latin America.

Here's the full list of teams competing in the M5 World Championship, classified according to their groups in the Wildcard Stage and the Group Stage:

Wildcard teams

Group A

  • 4Merical Esports (Nepal)

  • Niightmare Esports (Laos)

  • Team Falcons (MENA)

  • Team SMG (Malaysia)*

Group B

  • Imperio (Argentina)

  • KeepBest Gaming (China)

  • Team Lilgun (Mongolia)*

  • Umbrella Squad (EECA)

* - Wildcard Stage winners

Group Stage teams

Group A

  • Bigetron Sons (Brazil)

  • ONIC Esports (Indonesia)

  • See You Soon (Cambodia)

  • Triple Esports (MENA)

Group B

  • Blacklist International (Philippines)

  • Fire Flux Esports (Turkey)

  • RRQ Akira (Brazil)

  • Team SMG (Malaysia)

Group C

  • AP.Bren (Philippines)

  • Burmese Ghouls (Myanmar)

  • Team Flash (Singapore)

  • Team Lilgun (Mongolia)

Group D

  • Deus Vult (EECA)

  • Geek Fam ID (Indonesia)

  • HomeBois (Malaysia)

  • TheOhioBrothers (North America)

Prize pool

The M5 World Championship will have a US$900,000 prize pool, which is a bigger pot compared to the tournament's last two editions, which had US$800,000 prize pools.

Here's the full prize pool breakdown for the M5 World Championship:

  • Champion: US$300,000

  • 2nd place: US$120,000

  • 3rd place: US$80,000

  • 4th place: US$55,000

  • 5th-6th place: US$40,000

  • 7th-8th place: US$30,000

  • 9th-12th place: US$20,000

  • 13th-16th place: US$15,000

  • 17th-22nd place: US$10,000

There will also be an additional US$5,000 prize for the player that wins the M5 World Championship MVP award.

How to watch

The M5 World Championship will be broadcasted live in English on the official MLBB esports YouTube channel and Facebook page. There will also be official broadcasts for the region in their respective official league YouTube channels and Facebook pages.

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page and Twitter, as well as our Gaming channel on YouTube.