A New Era

The Launch of 5v5

The MOBA genre launched in early 2000s with the original DotA. The titles that followed, League of Legends and Dota 2, have been consumers go to. MOBA’s have been dominating the market, with players flooding it because of the depth each game has to offer. In 2014, Super Evil Megacorp launched their new 3v3 mobile MOBA, Vainglory. Their main goal was to bring that great experience on PC, to users’ pockets everywhere. SEMC quickly gained one of the most loyal communities that started to demand for bigger and better things. It started with the competitive scene and quickly led to 5v5 talk. Players loved 3v3, but wanted the strategic play that traditional 5v5 MOBAs offer. Fast forward to 2018, SEMC has been working hard for the last years to bring us that 5v5 competitive game to phones and iPads everywhere.

Crude (left) and Endless (right) (Vainglory’s Facebook)

The week of February 12, 2018 was the complete launch of Vainglory’s new 5v5 game mode. The week before, they hosted the 5v5 Pre Launch Party at Folsom Street Foundry in San Francisco. My brother (CrudeSloth) and I were fortunate enough to travel out there and experience it first hand! We also got to experience what goes on at the Lair. The secrets were real and made the future look even brighter for Vainglory. The announcements made at the Foundry were huge for the future of Vainglory and specifically its esports. Let’s review them and what they mean for us as a fan base.

Partnerships are a crucial part of success when it comes to a company like SEMC. They need the best people by their side with similar visions going forward into 2018. Officially partnering up with Razer is such a big step for the mobile industry as a whole. Why not have the best technology paired up with the greatest game? While the partnership with Razer is awesome, I am more excited about the partnerships with the new production company, ESP.

I am really excited to see what ESP will have to offer SEMC and Vainglory. Production of streams is a crucial part of esports. I have been a fan of Vainglory esports since the beginning and we have all seen a terrible stream at some point (MyStream123). As they mentioned on the stream, ESP has worked on big productions like the Olympics and Poker! The one thing that I am most excited about with ESP, is them bringing a full studio in Las Vegas. This will be on a smaller scale of what Overwatch is doing with their competitive league, which is located at the Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles. Being able to bring in the community to watch matches during season ending tournaments will be awesome! Here is what President of ESP, Jeff had to say.

So what will the new seasons of Vainglory be called and more importantly when will it start? All these things were covered by Foojee on stage. Vainglory8, formerly known as Evil8, is finally dropping the number restriction. Vainglory Premiere League will be the future name of competitive, with season one starting in June. JUNE!?! Yes June, I know a lot of people were surprised with the decision to not start the official season in spring, but it is the right one. This will give time for teams and organizations to make decisions on what they want to do going forward in 2018. Whether good or bad, it will allow the competitive scene to be stable at the start. Also, this gives the brand new game mode time to settle in and shake off the rust. Anything that is not working will be sorted out before teams are officially competing. What will you do until June you ask? The Pre-season will kick off in April to start show casing what 2018 will look like.

Image taken from Vainglory’s stream

Now we wait for official announcements of what the league will look like. The format of the league will be a big announcement. Vainglory8 was three seasons separated into different splits. I would like to see a change so the weekends are not as long when it comes to watching Vainglory as a fan. The new schedule will also depend on how many teams will be in the VPL going forward. When it comes to players and team announcements, we are starting to see players releasing their current contract status.

The issue with players in Vainglory is they like to be funny and tweet out they are free agents, but actually aren’t. It makes my job a lot more frustrating, so I appreciate the ones who do no troll. I saw TetnoJJ tweet out he was a free agent, but he did not change his handle to indicate that he had left FNATIC. I do believe VONC’s tweet is real, but we will have to wait and see. Also, to add more speculation, FlashX’s Twitter did change a bit where he states he is now a team manager. It does not say a manager for Vainglory specifically, which I thought was really interesting.

More announcements like these are expected heading into March. I would assume teams will start locking in rosters around March to allow the team time to prepare for April pre-season. A lot will be happening now that announcements about the Vainglory Premiere League will be rolling out. Make sure you are following me to keep up with all my Endless Opinions.

I also teamed up with Mobile E-Sports to showcase the Sovereign's Rise! Check out the video!