Aurora Gaming Win MPL Philippines Season 18 for a First Title

Aurora Gaming PH won MPL Philippines Season 18, beating Team Falcons PH in the Grand Final, according to Esports Charts, a firm that tracks esports audiences, which reported on October 26 that it is the first MPL Philippines title for Aurora, which had failed twice before in the Grand Final. Pinoygamer, in an undated report, gave the same winner. Both finalists go on to the M8 World Championship, according to Esports Charts and Pinoygamer. Esports Charts said the M8 World Championship is scheduled for January 2027, with Thailand and Turkey as hosts.

Winner and score from Esports Charts, October 26, 2026, and Pinoygamer, in an undated report; viewership from Esports Charts.

A double-elimination road to the title

Pinoygamer, in an undated report, said the Season 18 playoffs used a double-elimination bracket. In that kind of bracket, a team that loses in the upper bracket is not out. It drops to the lower bracket, where the next loss ends its run, and the survivor of each bracket meets in the Grand Final.

According to Pinoygamer, in an undated report, the playoffs started with a play-in format between the teams seeded third to sixth. Aurora Gaming, which the outlet abbreviates as RORA, entered the double-elimination bracket after beating Smart Omega. The outlet wrote that Team Liquid Philippines fell to the lower bracket in Round 1, and that Team Falcons won against ONIC Philippines in the same round.

Esports Charts added the setting. The season was held across multiple Philippine cities over two months, it said, with the playoffs at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City. Eight partner teams competed in the league.

The upper bracket final that decided the first finalist

Philstar reported that the upper bracket final was played on Friday, October 23, at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City. The series went to a deciding fifth game. According to Philstar, Aurora took a 2-1 lead, and Falcons answered with a stunning comeback from a 13,000-gold deficit in game four. The outlet said Falcons then won the clincher, game five, 17-3 in kills.

Tribune described the same fourth game in its own figures. According to Tribune, Falcons overturned a 16-11 kill deficit and a nearly 9,000-gold disadvantage against Aurora. The two outlets give different gold figures for that game, so the size of the deficit depends on which report is used. Both agree on the shape of the series: Falcons trailed, recovered in game four and took game five.

Philstar named two Falcons players in its account of the final games. KyleTzy posted a 3-2-7 line on Nolan in game four and a 9-1-7 line on Hirara in the clincher, according to Philstar, where the three numbers are kills, deaths and assists. Hadji posted a combined 7-2-17 across the final two games. Tribune reported that Hadji is newly added to the roster and listed the Falcons five as Flap, Kyle (KyleTzy in Philstar), Owgwen, Super Marco and Hadji, all of whom it said have played in the M-series before. It said Flap stands out as a two-time champion alongside KarlTzy, now with Team Liquid PH, Pheww, now a coach for ONIC, and Edward.

Tribune also reported that Falcons finished the regular season as the No. 2 seed. For Falcons, the win meant a place in the Grand Final. Philstar wrote that the team became the first Philippine representative to qualify for the M8 World Championship, and Tribune likewise said it secured its ticket to the event.

The lower bracket: Liquid, ONIC and Aurora

On the other side of the playoffs, Philstar reported that the defending champions, Team Liquid Philippines, dispatched ONIC Philippines in three straight games, with scores of 9-4, 8-3 and 8-2 as Philstar printed them. Winning every game of a series is called a sweep. Philstar wrote that KarlTzy powered Liquid throughout the series and that Teddy shone with deathless performances in the first two games, meaning he finished them without a death. That result ended ONIC's season.

Philstar's report was written before the next series. It said that Aurora Gaming PH and Team Liquid PH would meet in the lower bracket finals on Saturday at 5 p.m. in a best-of-seven, and that the series would determine the country's second representative at the M8 World Championship. Tribune had made the same point after Falcons' win, noting that Aurora, which it called the defending M-series champion, must win the lower bracket finals against top-seeded Team Liquid PH to keep its back-to-back title hopes alive.

Pinoygamer, in an undated report, said Liquid was eliminated by Aurora in the lower bracket finals. Aurora then took the second Grand Final place. In the same undated report, the outlet listed the final placings behind the two finalists: Team Liquid Philippines third and ONIC Philippines fourth.

Season awards

Philstar also listed the season's honors, the Alamat Awards. According to its article, Liquid's Jaypee claimed the Regular Season MVP award, Domeng was named Most Improved Player of the Season, and Nathzz took home the Comeback Player of the Season award, both of them for Aurora. The Falcons coaching staff was named Coaching Team of the Season after steering the team to another Grand Final appearance, in Philstar's words.

Philstar also reported that the league's All-Star Team 2 featured Domeng alongside four Falcons players. A separate Infinix All-Star Team 1 was also named, and Philstar listed Super Marco of Falcons among its members together with KarlTzy, Sanford, Sanji and Jaypee. The Smart Fans' Choice All-Stars, a fan-selected squad, was made up of ONIC's entire starting lineup. Philstar added that ONIC topped the regular season standings, while Tribune called Liquid top-seeded and Falcons the regular season's No. 2 seed, and Pinoygamer, in an undated report, called Liquid the regular season top seed. The outlets differ on who finished first in the regular season. For the Falcons organization, which Philstar said had settled for runner-up honors last season, the season ended with the coaching award and the M8 ticket, though not the title.

Two places at M8

Both finalists qualified for the M8 World Championship. Pinoygamer wrote that Aurora and Falcons will represent MPL Philippines at M8 in Turkey, and that the schedule and other details will be announced through the game's social media accounts. Esports Charts gave the wider picture: M8 is scheduled for January 2027 and will be held in Thailand and Turkey. Turkey will host the Knockout Stage and the Finals, and, according to Esports Charts, will become the first non-Southeast Asian country to host an M-series event.

Esports Charts wrote that both sides booked their tickets to the latest edition of the world championship, and called Aurora the defending world champion. Tribune used the wording defending M-series champion for the same team.

How many people watched

Esports Charts reported the season's peak audience, shown in the key facts above. The peak is the highest number of people watching at the same moment. The firm wrote that the Grand Final between Aurora Gaming PH and Team Falcons PH was the most popular match of the event, and that its audience was a slight decline from the numbers of Season 17. The average audience, also shown above, is the typical number watching across the broadcast hours.

The peak was 11.8% lower than in the previous split, Season 17, according to Esports Charts, which noted that the series' peak concurrent viewership has remained stable over the past few splits. The average was the second-best in the series' history, behind Season 17. Season 17 also set a new series record for watch time, the total time viewers spent watching, and Esports Charts said Season 18 ran for a couple of hours less.

The firm said that Season 18 set no MPL Philippines viewership records, but that it ranked among the five most-watched and most popular tournaments of the series. Among the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang circuits serving as M8 qualifiers, it was the second most popular.

On platforms, Esports Charts reported a slight decrease in unique broadcasting channels compared with Season 17. Official studio channels continued to attract the bulk of the audience. Community channels, the independent streams run by creators and fans, saw an increase of around 3% in their share of watch time. TikTok put up just over half of the season's watch time.

Language figures moved in opposite directions. English set a new event peak concurrent viewership record on TikTok, with its peak up 18%. The Indonesian-language peak audience declined by 61.66%. Esports Charts linked that decline to the creator set1awanade, who had ended Season 17 as the most popular co-caster but did not cover the matches in Season 18. A co-caster is a creator who streams the match with their own commentary rather than the official broadcast.

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