MCC vs. MPL: Analyzing the Meta of the Major Regional Leagues

The MCC Season 8 regular season has come to an end, and now is the perfect time to analyze the meta in the EECA region. Although character balances were adjusted by a patch at the start of MLBB Season 42, and map changes are still ahead for the teams, it’s still possible to get a general picture—and for clarity, we’ll compare it with the most popular regional leagues in the MPL series.

We’ve analyzed all the nuances of the meta in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and EECA to highlight common trends and unique insights from each region. Below, we’ll explain how the MCC is similar to and different from the MPL.

This season, the MCC delighted viewers with a variety of strategies—85 different heroes were used in regular-season matches. Only MPL ID ranks ahead of our regional league, and by just one point (86).

This is partly due to the new challenge system, which led to Cyclops appearing twice in the MCC Season 8 picks, and we can also recall Rakuzan’s Argus in the final round. But even so, the champion pool still looks very broad—especially considering that the EECA League has the fewest matches and the fewest teams.

MCC Season 8 can also be described as a tournament with an aggressive and dynamic playstyle—our league has 25.2% more kills than the current MPL Philippines season. Given that it’s the same game, this is a fairly significant difference: here, the EECA League is much closer to other Western leagues (MTC — 1.56, MCT AMER — 1.46) than to the MPL and other Asian tournaments.

At the same time, matches in the MCC end slightly faster than in the MPL—averaging 15.5 minutes per map. However, this small difference (MPL ID leads with an average of 16.7 minutes) can be explained by the difference in team skill levels. The “regular season” champions, Team Spirit, still hold a massive advantage over the underdogs, whereas in the Philippines, the field is more evenly matched: there are almost no maps lasting 9–10 minutes there.

On average, the meta in the three leading regions and EECA is almost identical, but there are some nuances even here. For example, Freya ranks first in all MPL leagues (in the Philippines and Malaysia, not a single draft goes by without her, while in the MCC she ranks only 9th with a win rate of 40%).

Hirara also ranks in the top 3 across all regions, but the new jungler shows the highest effectiveness specifically in our region—with a win rate above 60%. Much of the credit for this goes to Zaur “zaur egoist” Magomadov and Eduard “Magistor” Rukosuev, but overall, no one has yet figured out how to counter Scarlet Death on the MCC.

The same applies to Marcel: despite all the nerfs, he still dominates the EECA region’s pro meta. In MPL Philippines Season 18, the Soul Photographer even fell out of the top 10 in popularity, with a ban/pick rate of just 62%. In MPL ID and MPL MY, the hero ranks higher, but even that’s far from Marcel’s level of popularity in our league.

Barts also made it into the top ten at the MCC, while Melissa didn’t make the cut (likely because the Asian leagues started earlier, and her nerf didn’t affect the overall meta as much). However, the difference is negligible: in the three MPL leagues, Barts never drops below 12th place, while Melissa ranks 11th in the EECA.

However, the list of the most effective heroes in each of the four regional championships varies significantly. Even if we consider only meta heroes who were picked 10 or more times, there will be almost no overlap in the lists. 

For example, in MCC Season 8, Kalea had the highest win rate (76.9% over 13 games), while in the MPL PH, this hero was picked only four times (2 wins and 2 losses). Conversely, Clint is very effective in the Philippines (70% win rate) and in Malaysia (58%), while here the character doesn’t even reach 50%.

The only overlap is Raphael, who has proven to be a solid situational pick across all leagues. She ranks in the top 5 by win rate in three regions, and even in Indonesia, she boasts a fairly high 58.9% win rate over 34 games.

As for MCC, in addition to the previously mentioned Marcel and Kalei, the leaders include Gatotkaca and Kimmy. The former is relatively popular in the MPL but has a low win rate (PH—38.7%, ID — 44.4%, MY — 35.3%), while the latter is rarely picked—in Malaysia, Kimmy hasn’t appeared in the picks at all.

For the most part, the current pro meta in Asia and the CIS is indeed very similar—67 heroes were picked across all four leagues this season. However, each region had its own niche picks and underdog heroes.

For example, Ranger didn’t appear even once in Malaysia; in MPL ID and PH, the hero had just one pick each, but in the MCC, he was picked a total of 29 times. Another telling example is Kimmy: 0 picks in MPL Malaysia Season 18 (and 0 bans—the hero was completely forgotten!), but in the other three leagues, he had 33 picks with a solid win rate of 54.5%. The Malaysians also ignored Lucas, Lo Yi, and Cyber, even though they appeared at least once in the other championships.

There are similar cases in our league as well, but these heroes have very few picks in the MPL—this can be chalked up to random variation, and we might even see some of them in the MCC Season 8 playoffs. Here are the heroes we haven’t seen yet in our region:

Another 17 heroes appeared in only one league. Most often, these were “one-off” experimental picks or attempts to complete a challenge, such as Cyclops and Argus in the MCC. But there are exceptions: in MPL Indonesia Season 18, Chip entered the meta—he was picked 7 times and used in 22% of drafts. Alpha was also picked six times there, while at our MCC, Tamuz or Balmond were picked three times.

The most unique heroes were seen in MPL Indonesia (7) and at the MCC (6), while the Filipinos demonstrated the most consistent meta—among heroes that didn’t appear in other leagues, Lolita was picked only once there (TNC vs. ONIC). This is likely justified: out of 17 such heroes, only 8 managed to win. Although in Malaysia, all the unusual picks were successful.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, three characters were picked four times each, but they still couldn’t win—Kaya, Harit, and Lee Sun-Shin still have a 0% win rate. Lunox has the same stats in MPL ID. Only Chu on MCC performed worse: 5 games, 5 losses. 

Among the most effective picks, Kaleya on MPL MY S18 stands out: 4 wins in 4 matches. There are no such heroes in other regions yet—they’ve either been picked fewer than 4 times or have already lost. 

And although the key matches with the new modifiers are still ahead, the meta is unlikely to change too much: experience shows that unexpected picks rarely work in decisive matches. It’s unlikely anyone will take risks in the playoffs for a spot at M8—though we’d be more than happy to be proven wrong and see yet another new champion in the picks.