Team Liquid PH add three players, one on loan, for MPL PH Season 17

Seven players for five places on the map: that is the squad Team Liquid PH will take into the new season of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The organization revealed its 2026 line-up on its X account, Esports Insider reported on February 25, 2026. Two players are signed, a third arrives on loan from Team Liquid Indonesia, one leaves and one is set aside.

The changes concern the team that holds the Philippine title. Team Liquid PH won the last two seasons of MPL Philippines, the country's professional league, and the mid-season international tournament of 2025. The one event of the past twelve months that escaped it was the M7 World Championship in January, where it finished fourth while its domestic rival, Aurora Gaming PH, took the trophy.

Team Liquid PH line-up and record as reported by Esports Insider on February 25, 2026.

Who arrives, who leaves

The arrivals are Daikiqt and Santi Sucre, both signed to the roster, and AeronnShikii, who joins on loan from Team Liquid Indonesia, the same organization's team in Indonesia. A loan means the player stays attached to his original team and plays for another for a time. Esports Insider's report gives no length for it, and no fee or contract term for the two signings. It does not name the teams Daikiqt and Santi Sucre played for before.

Two names go the other way. Perkz, a roamer, has left the organization. Oheb, a gold laner, has been moved to an inactive position: he is no longer part of the playing line-up, and the report does not say he has left.

The coaching staff is listed with the players. Aeon is the head coach and SN4P his assistant.

Two positions change, three stay

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is played five against five on a phone, and each of the five players of a team holds one position. The table shows where Team Liquid PH has moved and where it has not.

Three positions keep their only holder. Sanford remains the EXP laner, KarlTzy the jungler and Sanji the mid laner. No second name is listed behind any of them.

The two other positions are the ones the announcement rebuilds. At gold lane, Oheb is inactive, and two newcomers are listed: Daikiqt and AeronnShikii. At roam, Perkz is gone, Jaypee stays and Santi Sucre is added. The squad therefore counts two gold laners and two roamers for one place each, which is how seven players fit a five-player game.

Esports Insider's report does not say which of the two starts in either position. What it establishes is narrower and still significant: every one of the three arrivals plays in one of those two positions, and both of the players who step out came from them. The champion has kept three fifths of its structure and opened competition for the rest.

The loan adds a detail of its own. AeronnShikii does not come from another club: he moves between two teams of the same organization, from Indonesia to the Philippines.

A champion that changes anyway

The squad that has just been reshaped is not one that had stopped winning. Team Liquid PH's record over the previous twelve months holds two titles and one fourth place.

The Mid Season Cup is the game's international tournament of the middle of the year. The 2025 edition was held at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh and ended on August 2, with a prize pool of US$3 million, Esports Insider reported at the time. Team Liquid PH took the largest share of it.

The domestic title followed. Season 16 of MPL Philippines ran from August 22 to October 26, 2025, with eight teams and a prize pool of US$150,000, according to Esports Insider's report of October 27. Team Liquid PH did not dominate the regular season: it finished third, with nine wins and five losses.

It won the title in the playoffs, which used a double-elimination bracket, a format in which a team is out only after its second defeat. Team Liquid PH beat Team Falcons 3-1 and ONIC 3-0, then lost the upper bracket final 1-3 to Aurora Gaming. Sent to the lower bracket, it beat TNC Pro Team 4-1, met Aurora Gaming again in the grand final and won 4-0. The final peaked at 1.53 million viewers, the same report says.

With the Season 15 title before it and the Season 13 title earlier still, that made three league championships, plus the Mid Season Cup.

The fourth place in Jakarta

The two finalists of Season 16, Team Liquid PH and Aurora Gaming PH, were the Philippine teams qualified for the M7 World Championship, the game's main event of the year. It was played in Jakarta from January 3 to 25, 2026, with 22 teams and a prize pool of US$1 million, Esports Insider wrote in its preview of January 2.

That preview presented Team Liquid PH as one of the teams to watch, on the strength of its two consecutive league titles and its Mid Season Cup. The random draw of the first round set it against Aurora Gaming PH straight away.

The tournament ended differently for the two Philippine teams. Team Liquid PH placed fourth, losing 2-3 to Alter Ego, an Indonesian team. Aurora Gaming PH went on to the grand final and beat the same Alter Ego 4-0 at the Tennis Indoor Stadium Senayan, Esports Insider reported on January 26. The winner received US$320,000.

A 2-3 defeat is the narrowest there is in a best-of-five, a series won by the first team to take three games. One game separated Team Liquid PH from a longer run in Jakarta. One month later, it has changed two of its five positions.

Esports Insider's report on the line-up does not link the two, and the organization's reasons are not given in it.

Aurora, the rival that stands still

The same report covers Aurora Gaming PH, which announced its own squad on X, and the contrast is complete. The world champion's playing roster is unchanged from 2025: Light at roam, Domeng at gold lane, Yue in the mid lane, Demonkite in the jungle and Edward in the EXP lane.

Its only moves since the start of 2026, Esports Insider writes, are the departures of OhMyV33NUS and Wise, whom the outlet describes as content creators.

Aurora Gaming PH is the younger project. The organization was established in 2024 and has not yet won the Philippine league: it was runner-up in Seasons 14 and 16 and fourth in Season 15. Its world title made up for that. On February 3, the Senate of the Philippines adopted Resolution No. 276 to congratulate the team, which visited the chamber that day, Esports Insider reported.

The two clubs have traded the big results between them. Aurora won their upper bracket final in Season 16; Team Liquid PH won the grand final that followed; Aurora won the world title three months later. One of them now returns with the same five, the other with three new faces.

Why the Philippine league weighs so much

A domestic roster change in Mobile Legends matters beyond its country when that country is the Philippines. Aurora Gaming PH's win was the sixth world championship in a row for a Philippine team, according to Esports Insider. The outlet names FNATIC ONIC PH, AP.Bren and ECHO among the earlier winners.

The audience follows. The M7 grand final peaked at 5.6 million viewers, Esports Insider reported on January 26, quoting the data firm Esports Charts. That is the highest figure for a Mobile Legends world championship, above the 5.06 million of M5, and the highest for any mobile esports tournament, ahead of the 5.4 million of the Free Fire World Series held in Singapore in 2021.

Moonton, the game's publisher, used that final to present its plans for 2026. According to Esports Insider's account of the announcement, the game moves to a structure of five regions, with Southeast Asia as one of them. The national leagues such as MPL Philippines continue alongside a new intercontinental tournament called the Championship Tour, tried first in three of the regions.

What is on the calendar

The first test is close. Team Liquid PH and Aurora Gaming PH will play Season 17 of MPL Philippines offline, in March, alongside five other organizations, Esports Insider writes. That makes seven organizations, one fewer than the eight teams of Season 16.

Two international dates are already known from Moonton's plans for the year. The Mid Season Cup, the title Team Liquid PH holds, will again take place during the Esports World Cup, in the summer. The season then ends with the finals of the M8 World Championship in Turkey, by January 2027. Esports Insider describes it as the first tournament of the game based in Europe.

Team Liquid PH begins that year as the defending champion of both its league and the Mid Season Cup, with a squad two players larger than a starting five and a choice to make at gold lane and at roam.

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