Sibol bags silver in first Asian Esports Games womens' Mobile Legends

MANILA, Philippines — The country's national esports team Sibol took home the silver medal in the Mobile Legends Bang Bang event in the first Asian Esports Games (AEG) held offline in Bangkok, Thailand.

The inaugural event was a new regional tournament created by the Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) for AESF countries and was organized by the Thailand Esports Federation with AESF as the sanctioning body. The tournament featured three titles: MLBB, eFootball and Arena of Valor.

A total of 20 teams across Asia competed in the MLBB event, with the Philippines and fierce rival Indonesia drawn in Group D.

The best-of-one group stages saw the Philippines drop a game against Indonesia, but the team was quick to defeat Nepal, Brunei and Sri Lanka to secure a spot in the playoffs.

Against China in the first round of the playoffs, Sibol took a quick 2-0 victory to finally meet Cambodia, which the former has been holding a torch against since losing to the country during the World Esports Championship (WEC) Asian qualifiers.

Sibol exacted payback with a quick 12-minute Game 1 win. But Cambodia managed to stay alive, forcing a decider after a late Game 2 win to equalize. Sibol then secured a bronze medal after an almost 16th-minute Game 3 to move on to the upper bracket finals against Indonesia.

Fresh from their WEC win, the Indonesian squad swept the Filipinos to drop to the lower bracket against China. But Sibol was not deterred, managing to stop the Chinese team's win streak (2-1) to once again take on Indonesia for the gold medal.

In the best-of-seven gold medal match, the 33-minute Game 1 saw Sibol turn the tides and take the opener, only for Indonesia to answer back with a quick Game 2 win in under 12 minutes. Game 3 saw Sibol with better plays to take a series lead at 2-1, but the Indonesians were fueled by their loss to the same players during the Esports World Cup and dominated Sibol in the next three games to secure the gold medal, 2-4.

Sibol thus adds another silver medal to its collection as it closes out the 2024 season. All eyes will be on how the team prepares for the tournaments next year, especially for the esports event at the Southeast Asian Games in Thailand in December 2025.