Tharnder Gaming

24/11/2024

Fellow KOL tiktoker

During draft pick, he didn’t show any stats of his Joy except for last match results. Meanwhile I showed my cecilion 500 games 67%+ win rate.

So naturally, the random teammate swapped me instead of his Joy. He wasn’t happy, complaining and being toxic throughout the draft pick and gameplay.

He last almost all of his retri battles and turtles, and of course blamed the tank instead of his slow hands.

He then kept repeating “swap ceci and lose” that sort of nonsense.

If you don’t show any hero win rates, nobody know whether you can or cannot play that hero. No point taking a META hero when you can’t play, meanwhile I have proven statistics that at least I am somewhat decent with the cecilion.

Sighs, I have to deal with these clowns and their antics every game when I play solo.

Against Joy, instead of winter crown, I built radiant armour. I also made sure to save my ultimate and sprint when Joy runs at me. The radiant armour provides me with a layer of defence against the magic attack, ultimate is to slow Joy and to regenerate health, sprint is to get out of range and run into my own tower.

24/11/2024

Wow

So a bug actually happened, it was confirmed by the referee. It’s not even a lag, but actual pop-up notification that completely disabled his game.

I feel sorry for the Chinese team, they didn’t deserve this. This was the final game when they were attacking the base at a crucial point of time 5 vs 4.

Could they have ended? We don’t know because we were not given the chance to witness that moment.

I personally believe it met the criteria for a remake :

Was it a crucial gameplay which could significantly alter the gameplay?
- Yes
- It was a 5 vs 4 numerical advantage
- Minions moving into ULF’s base
- ULF’s gold laner Harith already used his ultimate meaning he doesn’t have the ultimate for base defence for at least the next 18 seconds assuming 40% CD. Hylos also didn’t have ultimate. Two heroes without ultimate.
- ULF had 0 towers left to defend

I have to say ULF is one lucky team here.

23/11/2024

Turkey vs China

First 2 games were one-sided, action-packed, full of very aggressive gameplays. Bruno was the dominant mm of the series, whichever team had Bruno seemed to have an advantage. Pharsa was used as well which is a refreshing mage pick. It has been several years since we last seen Pharsa in global tournaments.

Game 3 was the same, both teams swinging back and forth at each other bases. China’s Jungler walked into the tower with what we believe to be lag or some sort of connection issues. Some may argue that it was a game-defining moment that shifted the momentum to the Turkish team.

Whatever the outcome of this appeal, the Chinese representative improved a lot compared to their first global tournament and this improvement is clearly noticeable within a year.

I would be surprised if the appeal is actually successful. It would be a first in history for such an outcome. Let’s see.

⚠ OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! ⚠

Dear MLBB Esports Community,

DIANFENGYAOGUAI (DFYG) have submitted an appeal regarding their match against ULFHEDNAR (Match 12), which took place yesterday (23 November). We have opened an official investigation and will announce our findings imminently.

The M6 Committee

22/11/2024

New granger is not an improvement, two glaring aspects :

1. Ultimate
Granger’s ult used to be a finisher, now it barely does any damage. He no longer has that killer instinct as a result. Sure, he can spam his ultimate every few seconds, but the old ultimate could spam 3x in a row every 30-35 seconds.

His new ultimate can now function as a way to check bushes conveniently, which is a good feature but I believe it is a poor replacement for his previous high damage ult.

His previous ult dealt more damage according to enemy’s lost HP. 1 or 2 ult against a 30-40% hero, and you find yourself eliminating them. Now as long they build 1 physical defence you can no longer burst them.

I find it very frustrating using his ultimate. There was a scenario whereby enemy khufra was 15% health with dreadnaught armour and 3 of my ultra land, he still survived. This was early game lv4-5.

2. No longer a burst hero
He is now a skill spamming hero that does minimal damage each time. His early game is worse than before, making him even more prone to buff invades.

I find it challenging using him in the higher rank games. At first I was winning using him in mythical honour but now in my MG and above, he doesn’t work very well.

M6 is soon, I have strong doubts over pro teams picking him and pulling off granger with success.
- weaker early game
- ultimate doesn’t deal any damage even in late game with full damage

The only possible way to make granger work is if they play him in gold lane but I can’t see the pros using granger over Beatrix, Harith, Bruno, Wanwan, Lunox, etc. Hopefully they can prove me wrong and provide a framework/blueprint as to make this hero work.

21/11/2024

I only played few games with DFYG’s Pxiu in EU server 1-2 years ago.

Little did I know that he was actually recruited to be a pro player in China. Now, he’s in M6 Wild Card.

I first noticed his first season he became immortal, then over the course of the next 2 seasons, he easily broke 1000*. Before I know it, he is now on the M6 Wild Card stage.

Today, China managed to get their first series victory over Cambodia.

17/11/2024

MobaZane vs Malaysia

The plot thickens!

First he called Malaysia ez server, now he posted the word ‘Noob’ on top of the Jalur Gemilang flag.

We all know MobaZane was referring to players as a ‘noob’ and not that the flag but this is Malaysia who is hosting the tournament now, you got to know your place.

Not the first time MobaZane has been in controversies, remember the assassin dave issue?

SRG owner Simon Lim wants Malaysian authorities to investigate further to avoid potential violence and the post from Malaysian Esport Federations demands Moonton to act within 7 days. There are even talks of possible police reports! Knowing Malaysians, I will NOT be surprised if a police report is lodged against MobaZane. If Moonton does ban Zane, he only has himself to blame.

The plots thickens. First, he called Malaysia ez server, now he put an insta story with the word noob on top of the flag. This guy is always going against Malaysia in every chance he can find.

No Malaysian teams have defeated MobaZane in playoffs, only Team Haq who managed to get a 1-0 vs the Valley in m4 group stage.

Should he be banned?

For me, no. Why ban him?

M6 is in Malaysia territory, I am sure they would clash vs Malaysian teams at some stage of the tournament. Let’s allow the opportunity for the two Malaysian teams to show him who’s the ‘ez server’ and the ‘noob’.

Any game of BTK vs SRG or Vamos is going to be 10x more interesting now.

05/11/2024

Tomorrow Granger will be revamped. I remembered I first used Granger during the 1-3-1 hypercarry META 3-4 years ago.

I have never played hypercarry before and was mostly roamer as I was new to the game. One of my friends suggested I go hypercarry during a 5 man rank. I wasn’t sure which hero to take but I knew Granger was fun to play so I took Granger.

Since then, Granger has been my comfort pick as a jungler. Tomorrow his skill set will be different. His ultimate used to be a finisher but from what I seen from YouTube videos, his new ultimate doesn’t seem to do much damage. Not really sure how this revamp will turn out to be but I guess change is necessary after some time.

02/11/2024

An exiciting encounter between Todak vs SRG

Todak used to be champions for MPL Malaysia and even during the combined MPL MY/SG. However, have always fallen rather short in their recent global tournaments.

This time round, they have been really impressive. And of course there’s SRG who are known as the PH slayers, one of the few teams in the world that can actually take on the best of PH teams.

All 4 game were action-packed. There was always 1 big clash but a few mini teamfights happening at the same time. It’s like a teamfight inside a teamfight.

Chou was picked throughout all 4 games ! There’s just something about Chou in MPL, this hero makes the gameplay more interesting due to its unique pick-off ability.

Lots of high tempo teamfights especially during Game 3. I do think Malaysian teams are getting better at ‘tower juggling’ (teamfights under turret). They fight without any fear under any tower. It’s like towers don’t exist at all. This happens more frequently due to many exp laners and roamers using revitalise as their main spell now. I never would have imagined revitalise being this useful.

Mastering this key skill will be important in future clashes especially against the top teams.

By the way, Innocent on Natan is very aggressive and borderline reckless at times, always engaging in 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 4 😅.

21/10/2024

This is very good statistics to collect for MLBB.

It allows us to understand better the contribution of players.

Crowd control is a key winning factor for easily 95% of games. I wish there were more statistics on games regarding crowd control duration.

*I am not sure whether should it be minutes or seconds for the units.

21/10/2024

BTK vs C9

Old BTK or new BTK?
This is was the old BTK of M3. Four of the members were the same, only difference is that there’s no Victor/Carti now and Hoon is in the team.

C9 - new additions
This C9 was considerably strong and the best team during regular season.

They have bestplayer1 who can play assassins, they also had a major upgrade, MPL PH top explaner and previous MSC champion, Nathzz. Any team in the world would welcome Nathzz. Theres MarQT who was dominating the midlane for the whole season, Coleworld and lastly retri god Basic.

Background information on BTK
Then there’s BTK. If you need an introduction to BTK, the 2021/M3 version of them defeated the best team/MPL PH Champions at that time, Blacklist. VeeWise in a previous interview mentioned they are most difficult team to deal with. But hey, these are all history as 3 years have passed since M3.

Zane’s previous team (C9)
Mobazane’s main problem with C9 during the last tournament was that it had 4 PH players continuously using Tagalog instead of a common language like English, so miscommunication was clearly evident during MSC.

Zane’s heropool
There’s also lots of people who had issues with Zane due to his inability to use assassin junglers. Zane cannot use Ling, F***y, Haya. So his heropool has frequently been questioned.

Summary of the best of 7 and game 4 which changed the momentum
First 3 games were won by Cloud9. The Roger jungle just wasn’t working. The YSS gold lane with Aegis is something only epic level players would attempt. BTK were struggling, they didn’t made any significant impact or had any good chances to win those games.

Alpha, Julian and Suryou were always banned. Cloud9 had a clear banning strategy, to starve Mobazane of his heroes. It worked for the first 3 games.

During game 4, they left Julian open for Zane to take. I am not sure why but maybe they were feeling overconfident?

That proved to be a huge mistake as MobaZane is decent on the Julian jungler and they won the game in 14 minutes. They had better map control and Zane was MVP 4-0-4 during that game.

The momentum instantly shifted towards BTK.

Game 5, Akai jungler was used and Chou was picked up by Fwydchicken. I nearly forgotten how good Chicken is on Chou and this game was a good reminder. He was constantly poking the back line, kicking away key players during team fights.

Game 6, again Cloud 9 let Julian go. There was a point whereby Zane’s Julian won a 1 vs 1 against bestplayer1’s Nolan at the sidebush. That was the choking moment of Cloud9, bestplayer’s confidence was fully crushed and never recovered from that 1 vs 1.

Game 6, 16th minute was one of the best teamwork gameplays of the series. Zia’s Moskov threw his spear at bestplayer1. Fwydchicken who was playing Arlott then moved closer to Lord.

Both Moskov and Arlott then went in and focused on the backline. Bestplayer died from Moskov. There were no retri from the side of C9. The whole of C9 collapsed from that gameplay.

It was now 3-3. From 0-3 to 3-3.

Game 7. Cloud9 choked. 7k gold lead, 9 towers 1 tower and lost.

21/10/2024

I don’t know how but BTK is the team that gets beaten up during regular season but somehow will find a way to win the grand finals.

Same happened for the last NACT.

From 0-3 to 4-3 is incredible. The mental fortitude needed is not something that can be forged in a day.

I really thought C9 would be NA’s representative as they got one of MPL PH’s top explaner, Nathzz. Not sure what happened but here we are again. The exact same scenario happening as the last NACT.

20/10/2024

Aurora vs FCAP

Aurora has a very similar identity, almost the same DNA to the previous Blacklist, I would go as far as to call Aurora a Blacklist 2.0.
- Veewise are there to support the team from behind the scenes
- Coach is MasterTheBasics and DexStar
- The team is able to adopt a UBE with support roamer and fighter jungler
- Edward, Yue, Renejay were part of the previous blacklist team

Renejay can play tank roamers if required to, previously ohmyveenus could only use support roamers but not tank roamers. There’s also DemonKite who can play assassins. Wise is known to play fighter jungler, he rarely use any assassin jungler in MPL or M-series. So I would say that Renejay and DemonKite do provide additional versatility in their respective roles.

Game series wise, if we were to look at the picks. FCAP used 3 pure assassins - Nolan, Haya, F***y and lost with all of them. At the same time, FCAP did not ban any assassin heroes. The top 2 junglers now are definitely Suryou and Alpha.

If we examine the mages used, they were not attacking mages. They were mainly mages with heavy CC such as Aurora and Zhu Xin. If you play support mages aggressively, I do think they can achieve a higher potential than playing attacking mages like Pharsa or Cecilion.

Some other fun facts :
- Beatrix was played 12 times in MPL so far and 5 by FNOP, 5/12 = 42%. All 5 times they won. Definitely a hero to watch out for.
- I don’t recommend any teams to use Gatotkaca, his win rate for playoffs had been only 35% from 17 games.
- Vexanna was played 8 times but only won 1. So really poor win rate as well.

I am interested to see tomorrow’s final of Aurora vs FNOP. Aurora adopted a support roamer/fighter jungler UBE-like strategy against Bren. Would they use the same strategy against FNOP?

30/09/2024

BTK’s failure to recognise bot lane was vulnerable to a split push cost them the game.

It was 5 vs 4 situation. BTK had the extra number advantage but they lost to a Beatrix and Chou split push.

Throughout the game, BTK struggled with wave clearing. Phoveus was full tank build, slow to clear lanes, Angela mid is a support hero and cannot clear waves effectively. That only left the jungler and mm to clear lanes.

So the only winning condition for BTK was teamfights.

I do think they need a better team composition strategy of equal balance of all abilities including wave clearing abilities.

29/09/2024

1. CC is King
- 5 of BTK members had CC abilities. Their team composition winning condition was winning teamfights.
- Ruby has 2 strong CC skills including a pot potentially game changing ult.
- Edith has skill 1 and skill 2 but skill 1 has a delay, making it rather predictable, needs to be paired up with flicker for a surprise attack.
- Arlott is Arlott. Low cooldown, high CC abilities, dangerous ult, high mobility with the skill 2, no mana = no restrictions on skill spams. High clearing speed vs most fighters as a result anyone who plays Arlott well will always rotate faster.
- Julian can be played various ways. A good Julian is very slippery, difficult to catch and weave in and out teamfights easily.
- Yve. The shield from the ultimate saved Hoon several times. Skill 1 hurts in the late game, skill 2 is annoying.

2. Double fighter sidelane, reminds me of the very old META 4-5 years ago.
- The goldlaner playing marksman and fighters like Ruby needs to have two different mindsets, Ruby is an initiator and backline occupier. Meanwhile a normal MM is more of waiting for an opportunity to pounce.
- Picking ruby first was a versatile pick, can be played as exp, gold, roamer. However, C9 predicted that Ruby would be gold lane, as they banned Tigreal for their 5th ban.

I do think this current arc of NA is interesting for a few reasons - MobaZane is back with almost all of his M3 BTK original team with the exception of Hoon. Nathzz, a prominent MPL PH players is now in C9, definitely an upgrade for the team.

12/09/2024

Eye opening season for me.

It’s the first time I attempted 95% solo/duo and only 5% of trio/5 man.

Results?
My lowest rank in 4 years. Based on my season archive, I have always reached mythic 40*/mythic ll (old rank system) at least 12xsince 2020.

However, for this solo rank season, my current highest is 16 stars.

Before season started, I collected all the advice given by players who “managed to reach immortal solo rank” from Reddit, Discord and Facebook.

There were four main advice “to reach immortal solo” :

1. Grind as much as possible in early season
2. Fulfill roles that your randoms teammates cannot play, basically adjust for them
3. Show your win rate/MMR to inform the randoms how good you are in that role, so that you can play that role and carry the game
4. Learn marco knowledge, sync waves, expand hero pool, use meta heroes

All of these advice were from SEA server. So far I have not seen any success stories of solo queue to immortal from EU players. I can 100% understand reasons for that.

So I applied the following advice from the SEA players.

Advice 1
Grind as much as possible in early season ❌
- I did not apply this advice as I was busy during early season and only played few classic games here and there.
- This got me thinking would I be able to reach MG or Immortal if I grind very early season? Not sure.

Advice 2
Fulfil roles that randoms teammates cannot play ✅
- I applied this advice to my rank games
- I am normally a main jungler/mage player. However for this season, I adjusted and played a lot of roam and exp
- Outcome - randoms always first pick Layla or Miya, goes 1 vs 4, ends the game with lowest teamfight participation and highest death

Advice 3
Show your win rate/MMR to inform the randoms how good you are in that role, so that you can play that role ✅
- I managed to apply this advice but was not successful
- I showed my >65% win rate of few mages, jungler and marksman heroes
- The randoms insists they want to play their 1300 games, 51% win rate Miya or Odette 15/10/10

Advice 4
Learn marco knowledge, sync waves, expand hero pool, use meta heroes ✅

- In terms of marco knowledge, I realised when I played “tactical” , it was worse for the team. Main reason is due to the randoms have absolutely game sense. All they want to do is solo fight 1 vs 4 or team fight at the wrong time. So if you don’t join them in their team fight, you will find yourself the only person left to defend base. This always happen when defending lord.

- Sync waves? Unfortunately, they don’t have the slightest understanding of wave management. So unable to apply this.

- Expand hero pool and meta heroes. I have been practising Ixia, Ling, Zhu Xin but as they are mm, assassin and mage, I was unable to play these roles.

So I applied 3 out of the 4 advice given my “success stories of solo to immortal” by SEA Players.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for me.

The main factor for these advice not working :
EU MLBB random players have zero drive and motivation to win. Meanwhile, SEA players are more competitive and care more about win rates and rank.

It is easy to see why. SEA server is the strongest server in professional MLBB gameplay, the influence of MPL is strong in rank games. On the other hand, very very few in EU knows about the existence of MPL. All they care is playing their 1400 games, 48-52% win rate hero.

Conclusion :
- SEA players advice for solo to immortal cannot be applied in EU server
- Different server different mentality, clearly EU sever has a more inferior winning mentality that is barely existent.

25/08/2024

8 out of 12 of my rank games had randoms taking mm.

This is the result.

A lot love to use Miya and 1 vs 5. The 3 Miya players had at least 10 deaths.

Unplayable.

03/08/2024

SRG lost their 120+ days winning streak to Echo in a tight 2-3.

I believe that instead of viewing this as a defeat, this should be seen as an outstanding achievement. Not many modern ML teams can manage even 60 days winning streak, let alone 120+ days.

As of now, SRG has set the record for 126 days unbeaten streak. It’s up to other ML teams to match or exceed this record.

There’s still tomorrow left to fight for a chance in a potential grand finals. Not over yet.