MANILA - Video streaming platform TikTok is collaborating with telco company SMART as it launches a new reality show to help amateur Mobile Legends: Bang Bang players climb into the pros.

In "The Greatest Gamer," amateur teams will be given the opportunity to try out for its Mobile Legends: Bang Bang team, Smart Omega, in an unconventional way: a survival show where 10 contestants will compete in various real world and gaming challenges while being confined into a villa for three weeks.

"Certainly, we will bring the perspective of a pro team, the psychological, nutritional aspects. So we [Smart] will be a full participant in 'The Greatest Gamer.' The perspective of a pro team is part of it," John Michael Turcuato, PLDT-Smart Head of Sports said in a press conference Wednesday.

On top of a contract with Smart Omega, which will give them a chance to be included in its professional Mobile Legends roster, the winner will receive a P250,000 cash prize.

Smart Omega placed fifth to sixth in MPL Season 11. Last year, they qualified for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asia Cup, where they placed third. Its roster was the MSC 2021 champions, when most of its core was still with squad Execration.

TikTok first launched the reality show in Indonesia, where a chance to become part of EVOS Legends became the prize.

Vanessa Brown, TikTok's Asia-Pacific director for Business Development, said the gaming community will benefit as the show seeks to entertain and inform them of the realities that amateur teams will undergo

"There's a good market here and a very passionate, engaged and big esports and gaming community. We were seeing that come through via TikTok. It was a pretty easy decision to bring 'The Greatest Gamer' to the Philippines," she explained.

Auditions will kick off from May 24 on TikTok.