MPL Indonesia and Philippines Season 18 Run Into November as the Road to M8 in Turkiye Opens
MPL PH started on 21 August with two direct M8 slots on the line, MPL ID runs to 18 October, and the World Championship moves to Europe for the first time in January 2027.
Two of the three biggest Mobile Legends leagues are running at once, and both feed the M8 World Championship, which moves to Turkiye for a January 2027 final - the first M-series held in Europe, with a Wild Card stage in Bangkok.
MPL Philippines Season 18
Started 21 August. Eight franchise teams: Team Liquid PH, Falcons PH, ONIC PH, Omega, Aurora PH, Twisted Minds PH, AP.Bren and TNC. Prize pool $150,000.
Format is a double round-robin in best-of-three, top six into playoffs. The important detail is at the top: the champion and the runner-up both take direct M8 slots. Seven matches a week - two on Friday, three on Saturday, two on Sunday - with week eight starting on 8 October.
MPL Indonesia Season 18
Regular season 14 August to 18 October at XO Hall in Jakarta, with nine teams and a pool of IDR 4.86 billion, around $272,000, of which IDR 1.28 billion goes to the champion.
Double round-robin in best-of-three again, top six to playoffs, which are scheduled for November with dates still to be announced. Playoff series are best-of-five apart from the lower-bracket final and grand final, which are best-of-seven. Circulating October playoff dates are projections, not confirmations.
Why the international picture shifted
Aurora Gaming PH won M7 in Jakarta in January, beating Alter Ego 4-0 in a $1 million event with 22 teams, with Dylan "Light" Catipon taking Finals MVP. It peaked at 5.68 million concurrent viewers, the most-watched mobile esports event on record.
Then Team Spirit won MSC 2026 inside the Esports World Cup in Paris on 1 August, beating Yangon Galacticos 4-3 in a best-of-seven final. That made them the first team from outside Southeast Asia to win an international MLBB major, and it is the single most useful data point for anyone pricing M8: the SEA monopoly on this title is no longer a safe assumption.
MOONTON has restructured the scene into five regions - SEA, EECA, EMEA, EA and AMER - with a new Championship Tour piloting in AMER, EA and SEA. MLBB is also a medal event at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games from 19 September.
Following it on Playdash
Playdash covers MPL with match winner, map handicap and correct-score markets on every series, plus total maps and first-map winner. Regular-season markets on the top-six cut and the minor placements run through the season, and M8 outright and qualification markets open as each region confirms its slots.
League schedules, prize pools, formats and international results as published on 21 August 2026; MPL playoff dates and the M8 prize pool, team count and exact dates had not been announced at the time of writing.