ESL SPS Mobile Masters: Another PH vs PH Grand Finals in Tendor Senayan, Indonesia?

Do you remember the time Blacklist International and ECHO were competing in the Grand Finals of M4 back in January 2023? That was held in the same venue of the upcoming tournament, ESL Snapdragon Pro Series Mobile Masters 2025, in Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan, Indonesia. The exact same thing is likely to happen again that Indonesian fans get to see another PH vs PH Grand Finals happening in the exact same venue. Here’s why I believe ONIC Philippines and Team Falcons will meet in the Grand Finals.

A lot of haters would say I’m just biased since I’m from that country but let’s take a look at some historical facts and current standings of the teams participating in the ESL SPS Mobile Masters event.

History repeats itself

Let us take a look first through past offline international events held in Indonesia for MLBB. Correct me if I’m wrong but there have onlybeen 2 international events that were held offline in Jakarta, Indonesia after the pandemic happened.

The the first one was in January 2023, M4 World Championships in Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan. It was finally time for the world championship of MLBB to be held in front of the biggest audience in MLBB history after experiencing the pandemic back in M2 and M3, where we had 0-100 audiences only allowed to watch live.

The grand finals however was bittersweet to the Indonesian crowd as their hometown hero, RRQ Hoshi, did not move on to grand finals, as they were defeated by that tournament’s champion, ECHO. Despite the PH vs PH finals, a lot of audiences still attended as it was still a celebration of MLBB excellence by the two greatest teams in that era.

The next offline event held in Jakarta, Indonesia was in GBK Basketball Hall and it was the ONE Esports MPL Invitational 2023. This was then held in November 2023, before the next installation of MLBB World Championships, M5. The best MLBB players were in attendance – Indonesia had 6 participants in this event, while Philippines had 4. We already knew from the lower brackets that there will already be a PH vs PH Grand Finals as the Top 3 teams that competed in this event were from the Philippines, namely RSG Philippines, ECHO, and AP.Bren. 

Call it a pattern or a curse but offline events held in Jakarta, Indonesia seem to always have a PH vs PH Grand Finals. ESL SPS Mobile Masters is next on the list.

MPL PH & ID S15 standings and challenger APAC finals

Judging from the current standings of MPL PH, ONIC Philippines and Team Falcons may be taking the 3rd and 4th spots of the regular season standings but they have been performing well from the past few weeks they had. They have the momentum going to Mobile Masters tournament proper.

As for MPL ID standings, RRQ Hoshi is still undefeated currently in the top spot while the other 3 are exactly in the middle of the pack. ONIC is currently rebuilding their roster so this will be another test for their rebuild, Bigetron Esports is still looking for that foothold after Super Kenn declaring inactive status, and Team Liquid ID is not doing well for their past few games.

RRQ has a chance to break the curse of the PH vs PH Grand Finals in Indonesia but they need to beat Team Falcons or ONIC Philippines to make it happen. As it stands, both PH teams beat RRQ Hoshi in Snapdragon Pro Series Season 6 APAC Challengers Finals.

How about the other teams?

As for the other teams participating, let’s face it, they still need more experience and a miracle to beat the current top teams of the world. We’re talking about a former and the current world champion here by the name of Team Falcons and ONIC Philippines respectively.

Only Malaysia’s Selangor Red Giants and EECA’s Team Spirit came close to the champions but they’re not here in this upcoming tournament. All I can say for the other teams is: Surprise me.

ESL SPS Mobile Masters 2025 details

The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series Mobile Masters 2025 will start tomorrow, April 7, 2025, 12:30 PM GMT+7 with Group A kicking us off with 3 simultaneous games followed by Group B afterwards at 2:30 PM GMT+7.

Only 3 teams from each group will advance to the playoffs while the other 3 is immediately eliminated. The top seeds of each group will also have a BYE round during the playoffs, which sends them immediately to the Semi-Finals. Remember that the format of the playoffs is Single Eliminations so one loss is done for the tournament. Since ONIC Philippines and Team Falcons are not in the same group, if they are both the top seeds of their group, the PH vs PH Grand Finals will already be likely to happen. They just need to beat one team each and the Curse of PH vs PH in Indonesia continues..