What to Expect from MCC Rookies: New Teams in the Top Regional League

On August 17, the final list of participants in the MLBB Continental Championships Season 8 main regional league was announced—as always, the eight best teams from the EECA region will compete for the title and spots in the World Championship. Compared to last season, there aren’t many changes to the roster, but some of them are quite interesting.

The first matches of the new MCC season kick off this coming weekend, but for now, let’s take a closer look at the league’s newcomers.

Compared to the spring season of the Continental Championship, there are only three familiar team names on the list. However, there are actually only two newcomers—and it’s important not to get confused here. 

Virtus.pro, Verso Time, FORZE, and magic disbanded their MLBB rosters during the offseason. But all four teams have remained in the league in one way or another under different tags. Only the “dragons” have retained their roster from last season: 

That said, True Chads, RAKUZAN, and INVISION are currently playing without clubs but are looking for organizations—so we might see these teams under new names at the MCC.

There will be only two true newcomers at MCC Season 8: the Rune Eaters roster from Kazakhstan and the Omnix roster from the open qualifiers.

In recent MCC seasons, belonging to the EECA region was more of a formality: all participating teams were built around a core of Russian players. Now, however, Central Asia is finally getting its own slot—and what’s more, Kazakhstan’s Rune Eaters received a direct invitation to the season. 

The team is known to a wider audience only through the Games of the Future 2026. The Bumblebees qualified for the home tournament through Kazakhstan’s national qualifiers, received support from the Rune Eaters club, and in the final stage of the Games of the Future, defeated The MongolZ and put up a strong fight against the Selangor Red Giants. For a team that many were seeing for the first time, finishing 9th–12th at a world tournament is already a good start.

At the same time, we hardly noticed Rune Eaters players at other familiar events. The team mostly plays in tournaments in Central Asia and has skipped the major EECA tournaments. The recent Road to BIG OLIMP was an exception: there, Rune Eaters finished 7th–8th out of 10 participants, securing just one victory.

The main problem for Rune Eaters, as well as for other teams from Central Asia, is the high ping to the Moscow servers, where MCC matches are usually held. If the club doesn’t decide to organize a boot camp in Russia, each of the Kazakhstani team’s opponents will have a slight advantage. 

On top of that, all five players are rookies in the main regional league. Mid-laner Salamat “Oolannn” Ulan and jungler Madiyar “Gverb” Aitjan have extensive experience in Tier 3 tournaments, while the others don’t even have that. Even without the ping advantage, Rune Eaters will likely emerge as the “dark horse” at the MCC.

The team faces a major challenge: they need to prove that Central Asia is capable of holding its own at major tournaments and deserves invitations and attention from MOONTON as a whole. If RE remains in the relegation zone, it will be difficult to hope for the rapid development of MLBB esports in this region.

Four slots were up for grabs in the closed qualifiers for MCC Season 8, three of which were secured without much trouble by the favorites: CyberHero (formerly FORZE), RAKUZAN (former Yandex roster), and INVISION (the core of magic from MCC 7) secured them without much trouble. Younger teams, along with the all-female Geltek Cyber Team, competed for the remaining spot in the season.

On that particular day, Omnix proved to be the strongest, defeating their main rivals from Aura Farmers and Aterion Esports. Their victory in the qualifiers was well-deserved—but there simply weren’t any other top-tier teams in the bracket. Once again, a young team with almost no experience at the top level is getting a chance to prove itself in the main league, and it’s best not to set expectations too high for their performance.

The Omnix roster was seen in the second division of BetBoom Rise of Legends Season 10, but back then, the team featured entirely different players. As for this roster, midlaner Egor “Wammu” Chkan has the most experience: a year ago, he competed in MCC Season 6 as part of FORZE and came within a hair’s breadth of making the playoffs.

Like Rune Eaters, this five-man squad will have a very hard time qualifying for M8 or even competing in the middle of the standings. For most of the players, this is their first MCC, and Omnix doesn’t have any tricks up its sleeve: even compared to RAKUZAN and INVISION, the team will be playing catch-up.

Newcomers to leagues like this traditionally find themselves in a very difficult situation. While young teams might still surprise in the short run of a small online tournament, over the course of the two-month MCC, simply getting into the meta and pulling off an unexpected signature play at the right moment will definitely not be enough.

We can only hope that the new teams won’t remain hopeless underdogs and will be able to improve as the season progresses, as Aura Farmers partially did in MCC Season 7. If even that doesn’t work out, let’s hope that at least some individual players will make a name for themselves and grow stronger over time. Our region could definitely use new players like Hiko and zaur egiost.