Yo, what’s up, Respawn fam. Rafa here, and if you blinked this week, you missed about six servers worth of drama. MPL regional wars, Free Fire squads fighting for EWC slots, PUBG Mobile finals going offline in Pakistan, and Riot still keeping us on read about Valorant Mobile. Let’s break it all down.
MLBB: MPL Indonesia and MPL Philippines Delivered the Goods
If you love MLBB drama, MPL Indonesia Season 17 kept the heat on this week. ONIC Esports still sits at the top, Alter Ego (aka the El Familia squad) looks scarier every week thanks to their jungler Arfy, and RRQ Hoshi is, uh, let’s just say “rebuilding.” The April 17–19 slate opened with EVOS Esports 1–0 DEWA United on Friday, then Saturday stacked a four-match day featuring TLID vs BTR, RRQ vs EVOS, and GEEK vs AE, before ONIC vs TLID closed out Sunday.
For the season as a whole, the headline stat is still brutal: MPL ID S17 peaked at 2,285,132 total tournament peak viewers on March 29, which keeps it firmly in the top tier of mobile esports leagues by live audience.
The biggest narrative of the week, though, was RRQ Hoshi. Their Harith went viral for the wrong reasons after Kuroky’s summoner spell misfire turned into a meme across Indonesian socials. Coupled with bottom-of-the-table standings, Indonesian media has started calling this an “identity crisis” for the King of Kings. Painful watch.
Quick MPL ID standings vibe check:
| Team | Status going into Week 4 |
| ONIC Esports | Still the wall everyone’s hitting their head on |
| Alter Ego | Arfy popping off, El Familia rising |
| Dewa United Esports | Dolynn is the regen story of the season |
| EVOS | Clawing back toward mid-table |
| RRQ Hoshi | Bottom of the standings, Kuroky meme fuel |
Over in the Philippines, MPL PH Season 17 Week 4 (April 17–19) was the actual weekend window, and the results were spicy:
- Team Falcons PH 2–0 TNC Pro Team (Apr 17)
- ONIC PH 2–0 Smart Omega (Apr 17)
- Twisted Minds PH 2–1 TNC Pro Team (Apr 18)
- Team Falcons PH 2–0 AP.Bren (Apr 18)
- Smart Omega 2–1 Aurora PH (RORA) (Apr 18)
- Team Liquid PH 2–0 ONIC PH (Apr 19)
- Aurora PH 2–0 AP.Bren (Apr 19)
Team Liquid PH stayed unbeaten and extended their top-seed grip, which is exactly what everyone expected after they signed Indonesian import AeronnShikii in Gold Lane. Team Falcons PH had the cleanest weekend with two 2–0 sweeps. ONIC PH finally got cooked by TLPH on Sunday after a strong run — that one stung. Shoutout to Twisted Minds PH for stealing a series from TNC. Mid-table is still a scramble.
🔥 Other MLBB Action You Might’ve Slept On
- MPL Malaysia Season 17 Week 3: Team Bruno (BRU) beat HomeBois Dynasty (HD) 2–0 on April 19. MPL MY keeps producing upsets as the new eight-team partnership system finds its rhythm.
- MSL Thailand Season 1: Regular Season Week 1 kicked off with Team Liquid AQ (TLAQ) smashing UBEX 2–0 on April 19.
- MCT Americas 2026 Split 1 South: Round 1 fired up on April 18 with E7 taking down INF 2–1 and DMX edging out INFI 2–1 (yes, those are two different Brazilian orgs, it’s confusing even for us).
- Athena Cup S2 Group Stage: A7 beat 9z 2–0, and WINX crushed V5 2–0 on April 18–19. Welcome to the grinder, rookies.
Every single match right now is seeding for MSC 2026 (July 1 – August 1 inside Esports World Cup) and the M8 World Championship later this year. Nothing is just friendly anymore.
Free Fire: FFWS USA Spring Concludes and SEA Is Next
Free Fire fans, this was one of THE weeks. FFWS USA 2026 Spring ran its Grand Finals on April 19, using the Champion Rush format with an 80-point threshold. The prize: $10,000 for the champion, a share of the $30,000 prize pool, AND a direct ticket to EWC 2026 in Riyadh. For North American Free Fire orgs, this was LITERALLY the only door to the World Championship stage.
Heading into the Grand Finals, Gaviota Squad were the clear favorites after leading the Group Stage with a monster 429 points and 5 Booyahs. The top 12 knockout finishers all threw down for that EWC seat on Sunday.
Meanwhile across the globe:
- FFWS SEA 2026 Spring is locked and loaded to kick off April 24, running through May 31. It features 18 teams fighting for a $300,000 prize pool, including returning EVOS Esports as the EWC 2025 defending champs.
- FFWS Brazil 2026 Split 1 kept grinding through its 90-match round-robin. Top 12 advance to Grand Finals.
- FFWS LATAM 2026 EWC Qualifier continued its 64-match round-robin. 9z Team is still recovering from losing Acrohard to a one-year ban for account sharing back in March.
- Free Fire MAX India Cup 2026 Spring is heading into its Champion Rush offline finals on April 26 in Ahmedabad. This week was the final push before that.
The vibe everywhere: EWC 2026 (July 15–18, Riyadh) is the promised land with a $1 million prize pool, and FFWS Global Finals return to Bangkok across four weekends in November. Global events now feature 24 teams instead of 18, so more regions, more storylines, more Booyahs.
PUBG Mobile: PMNC Pakistan Went Offline and PMCL SEA Launched
PMNC Pakistan 2026 Spring Grand Finals went fully offline on April 18 and 19, which is a massive deal for a region that’s been hungry for LAN energy. Top 16 teams scrapped for the Pakistani title and seeding into PMGO Season 1 — the new top-tier international circuit that, together with the PMPL (SEA only) and PMNC system, is replacing the discontinued PMSL format for 2026.
Over in South Asia, PMNC South Asia 2026 Spring Playoffs ran April 16–19 with 24 teams from Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Afghanistan. Nepal brought the biggest chunk (12 teams), and the rest scrapped over the remaining spots. Top 16 advance to Grand Finals.
Other PUBG Mobile moves this week:
- PMCL SEA 2026 Spring officially kicked off April 15 and runs through May 3. 20 teams, $30,000 prize pool, with a direct route into PMGO S1 SEA Finals. Skull Collector picked up the 4 Pirates roster going into the season, which is a spicy storyline.
- PMPL Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand wrapped their Spring finals in late March, so this week was transition and qualification prep for PMGO.
Big picture: less confusing tournament ecosystem than 2025, but every region now runs its own qualifier path to global events. Good for regional fans, a lot to track for global viewers.
Valorant Mobile: Still No Global Release Date
Trust me on this one — I check every single morning. As of April 19, 2026, Riot has still NOT confirmed a global release date for Valorant Mobile. The game’s been live in China since August 19, 2025, running at 50+ million monthly active users there, and industry chatter still points to a Q1 or early Q2 2026 global beta or soft launch. The rumored “Global Launch Showcase” in February came and went with no firm date. A May 10 date floating around on Facebook is NOT from Riot’s official channels, so take it with a salt mine.
Moving on. When we get real news, you’ll hear it here first.
📋 TL;DR: What Actually Mattered This Week
- MLBB: MPL ID S17 kept the viewership crown, RRQ’s Kuroky gave us the meme of the week, and MPL PH Week 4 saw Team Liquid PH stay undefeated.
- Free Fire: FFWS USA Spring Grand Finals went down April 19 for a direct EWC 2026 seat; FFWS SEA Spring kicks off April 24.
- PUBG Mobile: PMNC Pakistan Grand Finals went offline April 18–19, and PMCL SEA 2026 Spring officially launched April 15.
- Valorant Mobile: Still no global release date. Still waiting. Still copium.
- Next week: FFWS SEA Spring fires up with $300K on the line, and MPL ID + MPL PH head deeper into regular-season chaos.
See you on ranked. 🫡
