MANILA -- The 11th season of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL) will start on February 17, the game's developers Moonton Games announced Monday evening, while the inaugural PH ML:BB Development League (MDL) will start on Feb 15.

Defending MPL Philippines champion Blacklist International, reigning world champion Echo Philippines, MSC champion RSG Philippines, Omega Esports, TNC Pro Team, Nexplay EVOS, Onic Philippines, and Bren Esports will duke it out for the local championship.

Season 10 marked the return of the league in an offline setting after 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was the qualification tournament to the M4 World Championship held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Blacklist International defeated Echo Philippines in the MPL Season 10 grand finals held at the Blue Leaf Cosmopolitan last October, with Echo Philippines avenging itself at the much bigger stage in the M4 World Championships when it swept the M3 world champions for the biggest ML:BB title in the Indonesian capital.

Season 11 is expected to be the qualification tournament for the Philippines for the ML:BB Southeast Asia Cup, which will be held in June.

MDL to begin Feb. 15

Meanwhile, MDL will feature 8 amateur teams from the 8 franchise leagues of the professional ML:BB scene.

In a post Tuesday, MDL unveiled that the teams will include:

• Blacklist Academy
• Echo Philippines
• Nexplay Tiger Cubs
• Smart Omega Neos
• Bren Esports x Euphoria
• Onic Arsenals
• Gamelab
• RSG Philippines
• TNC Neo
• ZOL Esports

MDL is Moonton’s official grassroots league, with amateur teams heralded as the spark-plug to a professional player’s eventual success.

MDL has been long in the works, with Indonesia already getting its own iteration of the tournament in 2019.

Before this, the Philippines’ professional ML:BB players started mostly in squads of the Juicy Legends Tournament, among other mainstream grassroots tournaments in the country.