Ahead of the M7 World Championship next year, MOONTON Games has revealed more details for various incentives and events taking place.

Fans can celebrate Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) esports by earning in-game rewards via the M7 Pass. Moreover, fans will be able to attend the M7 Carnival, with MOONTON also announcing a few interesting partnerships for the crowning event.

The M7 World Championship is the final international event in the MLBB competitive season. Scheduled to take place from January 3rd to 25th, 2026, in Jakarta, Indonesia, the top 22 teams compete for the lion’s share of its $1m (~£748,300) prize pool.

The M7 Carnival will take place in Stadium Madya Jakarta, Indonesia, from January 23rd to 25th, 2026.

The event will include six interactive zones and feature MLBB’s first pop-up store, where attendees can purchase limited-edition merchandise. According to a release, 15,000 prizes will be available to earn, consisting of M7 merchandise, limited-time in-game skins, partner giveaways and more.

The carnival will also be attended by MPL Indonesia stars and MLBB content creators, with fans able to meet teams participating in the M7 World Championship.

Tickets for the M7 Carnival in Jakarta are available to purchase through the official MPL webpage.

Fans online will also be able to enjoy a variety of esports rewards in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang through the M7 Pass, which will be available from January 1st to 25th, 2026.

A selection of cosmetics can be obtained for some of MLBB heros, including the free Gatotkaca ‘Solar Spark’ skin. Moreover, the M7 Pass includes the Granger ‘Thunder Ascendant’ skin, M7 Lottery Coins, Battle Effects, Avatar Borders, and other in-game items.

M7 Lottery Coins can be spent in the MLBB event shop, and can be redeemed for a selection of skins themed after the M Series. These skins are for Yu Zhong, and include M5’s ‘Dragon Shade’, ‘Cosmic Dragon’ and the new ‘Dragon Shroud’ skin.

Furthermore, past M series skins, including M1 Aldous ‘King of Supremacy’, M2 Clint ‘Shadow Omen’, and M3 Roger ‘Phantom Ranger’, will return with new effects and looks.

The most dedicated players who grind to level 150 of the M7 Pass will earn the M7 Granger Figurine. Additionally, the Granger ‘Cosmic Finality’ Painted skin can be unlocked through the M7 Pass Plus.

MOONTON Games has also been involved in various partnerships to promote and support the M7 World Championship.

Back in November, digital payment provider Visa was named the official payment partner to the M7 World Championship. The collaboration introduced the Mythic VIP experience, offering premium seating, a behind-the-scenes look, exclusive merchandise, and a 20% discount on tickets.

MOONTON Games also named Chinese smartphone brand realme the official smartphone of the M7 World Championship, with all teams using the realme 15 Pro.

The MLBB developer has also announced that it is working with 1Play to launch the M Series trading card collection, offering physical collectables highlighting teams, players, and moments.

Alongside the 1Play partnership, MOONTON Games will also work with luxury accessory brand Fairrie. Finally, gaming chair brand Secretlab celebrates its fifth consecutive year providing seating to M Series players.

Moonton Games announced that the M7 Opening Ceremony will take place on January 9th, 2026, at 19:30 PM UTC+7 as the first grand opening in the history of the M Series.

Attendees will be able to experience music, performances, and ‘visual storytelling’ in Jakarta. Furthermore, MOONTON Games shared that the ceremony will see appearances from M7 Main Stage teams, MLBB esports icons, alongside other surprise guests.

In a press release, Tiger Xu, Global Head of MLBB Esports at MOONTON Games, said: “The M7 Opening Ceremony will celebrate MLBB Esports’ rise as an integral part of Indonesia’s sporting landscape.

“With its growing influence, the Opening Ceremony will highlight MLBB Esports’ journey as a national sporting phenomenon by honouring its past and present, while looking to its future.”

Magic Chess: Go Go, which released globally just last May, has made its debut at the SEA Games 2025 in Thailand, a multi-sport event sanctioned by the Southeast Asian Games Federation (SEAGF).

While MCGG’s tournament was not a medal event, the game put on a showmatch featuring four countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

This was the first time an auto-chess title was featured at the SEA Games, which first included esports as a discipline in 2019.

Each of the four participating countries were represented by two players each. They competed across five matches, with the average standings of all teams determining the winner. Eventually, it was Malaysia who took first place, which was cemented by a match victory from Muhamad Arif Bin Baharun.

“I was excited to be part of the MCGG at the 33rd SEA Games, as it is the dream of every MCGG player, said Arif Bin Baharun.

“We have been playing this game and training hard to be part of it. This shows that everyone has a chance, and I hope that our participation motivates everyone who watched us.”

Indonesia came in second place, while the home duo of Thailand took the last podium place.

MCGG’s tournament at the SEA Games comes as its developer, MOONTON, has continued to push the auto-chess title’s esports scene. The game, which features characters from Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, also announced its first world championship, which will happen on January 25th at MLBB’s M7 Carnival.

For its 2025 edition, the SEA Games will feature four games across six medal events: Arena of Valour, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Free Fire and FC Online. MLBB and Arena of Valor will have separate tournaments for male and female players, therefore rewarding two gold medals each.

These events are scheduled from December 13th to 19th. The Philippines will be looking to extend its overall esports medal tally from 15, while Indonesia will be looking to snatch the top position as the country currently sits at 13 medals.

GamerLegion has moved Erik ‘ztr‘ Gustafsson to the bench following a disappointing StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 campaign.

The change brings a year-and-a-half stint in the German esports organisation’s starting line-up to an end.

The Swedish in-game leader joined GamerLegion in July 2024, managing to lead the team into the top 10 of the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) in June 2025. Having climbed into the top 10, the team struggled to hold onto its place, falling outside of the top 20 in December’s standings.

Following playoff appearances at IEM Melbourne 2025 and IEM Dallas 2025, GamerLegion looked to continue its upward trajectory into the second half of 2025. A handful of early exits from Tier 1 tournaments, rounded off by crashing out of the Budapest Major in Stage 1, brought a disappointing six months to an end.

“Over the past one and a half years, we’ve been through countless ups and downs together, including the most consecutive playoff appearances in our history. Thank you for everything, Erik,” said GamerLegion on social media.

Ztr’s benching is the second change for GamerLegion’s Counter-Strike 2 roster. On December 10th, the organisation announced Ashley ‘ash’ Battye stood down from his position as Head Coach due to personal reasons.

Currently ranked 21st in the VRS, GamerLegion looks to recruit a new in-game leader in a bid to improve on a lacklustre second half of 2025. With the likes of Ninjas in Pyjamas also making changes, more teams are expected to adjust their respective lineups before the new season begins.

In recent weeks, rumours surrounding 100 Thieves signing GamerLegion players surfaced. The organisation’s CEO, Nicolas Reber, revealed conversations with the North American organisations had taken place, with no discussions regarding the sale of any players or a core.

With GamerLegion seeking a replacement for ztr, it will be interesting to see which direction the team heads next as it looks towards the new year.

CS2 VRS or The Valve Regional Standings has quietly become one of the biggest changes in Counter-Strike esports over the past few years. Designed to replace the historic qualification system, it will eliminate the legend status, keeping teams invited to tournaments when they haven’t fully earned a spot. VRS will now dictate what teams and organisations will be invited to Valve-sponsored events such as the Majors.

While earning spots in CS2 tournaments is the main focus of the VRS system, it has had a knock-on effect on how pro teams operate, including building out their rosters, participating in smaller non-Valve sponsored events or even what region they are based in. While it provides some more stability and fairness for the top tier of pro CS2. It has led lower-tier teams to feel as if breaching into the top tier is an ever-narrowing path as they have removed open qualifiers in favour of their point-based system.

The Valve Regional Standings is now the official framework used for ranking and seeding CS2 teams in Valve-sponsored events such as Majors. This replaces the Open qualifier system and legend status previously used. VRS has created a single point of reference for teams’ competitive performance across all approved tournaments. Teams will now earn points based on their tournament match results, prize pools won, opponent strength, and LAN wins. So over the last six months, the more LANs they play, the better teams they play against, the more prize money they win, the more points they earn, the higher in the standings they’ll be.

The VRS system is divided into different regions. This is split into Europe, the Americas, and Asia. This will affect which region slot they get in the major and how many slots there are per region. Roster stability is crucial in this regard, as only players who consistently appear in a team’s recent matches will be counted against the CS2 rankings. We have seen tournament organisers, who are not part of Valve-sponsored events, also use Valve’s system to invite teams to their closed qualifiers, so it has a much wider impact on every professional team.

The VRS was officially released in October 2023 as a broader shift towards a point-based qualification system. This is the first real overhaul for how Majors are seeded and teams invited since the CS2 release date, notably replacing the RMR system that saw weeks of open qualifiers across all regions.

The first Major we saw this being used in was the Copenhagen 2024 Major, which had used VRS for initial invites alongside regional qualifiers for the wildcard slots. Despite the planning the CS2 developers put into this, this debut of the new system received a very mixed reception, with some calling it a “disaster”. 

This is mainly due to the glaring issues it had initially, which ranged from delays in standing updates; originally, a team’s standings would not update until an entire event had finished. This meant that teams competing in long events were negatively impacted. The “Forfeit loophole” allowed teams to forfeit matches they thought they would lose. 

In these instances, where a forfeit wouldn’t count as a loss (and therefore not impact standings), it would mean these decisions would be decided by the teams and not their geographical location. For example, a North American team with an Australian player could opt into the less competitive Asia-Pacific region to secure a higher standing than where they would otherwise place natively. 

These early missteps with the VRS system instilled doubt in the CS2 esports community, but still showed it had the potential to fix the previous bias and issues with the legend status and RMR system that had been used for years. But it remains clear that it needed significant refinement before being accepted by the CS2 competitive community.

VRS is updated constantly across multiple sites like BLAST and HLTV, but currently, Furia is leading the pack of the top 10 teams listed below:

Since its debut, the VRS has had a significant overhaul, most notably seen in the February Update, which was specifically released on February 24. This CS2 update fixed some of the larger issues we saw in the 2024 Copenhagen Major, such as the “Forfeit loophole”, where teams were able to avoid a loss in points by forfeiting a difficult match-up. 

Alongside the previous issue, tournament data that will contribute to a team’s VRS will not be counted until the last match of the event is played. This has been changed to allow these matches to now count, and not penalise teams for participating in longer leagues or Swiss format tournaments.

Teams will now no longer be able to choose their region based on their players; it is now decided by Valve, who take into account where they are geographically located, players’ nationalities, and other criteria that have not been released as public information. This significantly reduces the region-hopping advantage teams previously took advantage of. Additionally, rosters are now required to maintain a core of three consistent players to retain their accumulated points. Dropping below the core three will trigger point deductions, therefore incentivising roster stability and discouraging last-minute swaps. This should showcase a more stable pro scene as the CS2 player count continues to increase, and more fans flood into the pro scene.

The VRS has significantly reshaped the CS2’s competitive ecosystem. It has fully replaced the RMR qualifier system and legend status with a point-based framework. This rewards teams who are constantly performing, staying consistent and have good roster stability. While its debut was a bit rocky and received a mixed reception at the Copenhagen 2024 Major, it has bounced back by refining the system through the introduction of near real-time updates, stricter roster and regional rules, and counting a forfeit as a loss.

These changes have improved it to a place where it is a working functional system that is miles better than the previous system it replaced. This is better for pro players, tournament organisers, and the fans. While it is not perfect, the CS2 VRS system will continue to evolve as the metas shift and change, keeping the seeding and invitational spots fair for all future tournaments.

Mobile battle royale title PUBG Mobile has revealed its esports roadmap for the 2026 season, featuring a range of adjustments to its competitive format.

Next year will feature two Global Opens in addition to the PUBG Mobile World Cup and the PUBG Mobile Global Championship.

The 2026 PUBG Mobile season is split into two seasons, each consisting of national and regional qualifiers for PUBG Mobile Global Open (PMGO) tournaments. KRAFTON revealed that over 30 PUBG Mobile National Championship events will take place across more than eight regions. Winners of the regional finals earn a place at PMGO events.

The PMGO format has also changed. With two events taking place across the calendar, both tournaments enable teams to earn points that contribute to Global Championship qualification.

Professional teams will receive invitations to national and regional qualifiers based on their performance across the 2025 season.

The first major event of 2026 will be the PUBG Mobile Global Open Season 1. Taking place in an unannounced location in Southeast Asia, teams will compete for a $500,000 (~£373,980) prize pool.

Following the conclusion of Season 1, the PUBG Mobile World Cup returns as part of the Esports World Cup. Taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a $3m (~£2.2m) prize pool is up for grabs. For Season 2, PGMO heads to Pakistan, where another $500,000 prize pool is on the line.

The 2026 season concludes with the PUBG Mobile Global Championship taking place in Turkey. Similar to the World Cup, another $3m is on the line, taking next year’s total prize pool across the four events to $7m (~£5.2m).

Elsewhere, the 2026 PUBG Mobile season will include an upgrade to its in-game tournament participation system alongside improved offline event entertainment experiences. Additionally, KRAFTON plans to upgrade its third-party tournament support to ensure smooth event operations across its ecosystem.

The upgrade to third-party tournament support follows the unveiling of a dedicated platform designed to streamline the application process for third-party event organisers to host tournaments.

Before attention turns to what 2026 has in store, the Grand Finals of the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2025 are taking place this weekend in Bangkok, Thailand.

The remaining 16 teams will compete across three days (December 12th – 14th) for the chance to become world champions. Defending champion Dplus is still in contention to lift the trophy for a second time.

Fans can tune into the action across PUBG Mobile’s Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok channels.

Invincible VS, AN FGC title based on the popular Amazon show and comic series, has revealed that it will launch on April 30th, 2026.

The game will launch next year with 18 fighters in its roster, which includes an original character called Ella Mental.

The original character, voiced by American rapper and singer Tierra Whack, made her debut in the one-minute trailer that broadcast during The Game Awards 2025. According to the video’s description, she is a character made by Invincible co-creators Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker.

The trailer showcases some of her moves in Invincible VS, including her Ultimate Attack, which focuses on the four elements at her disposal: air, water, earth and fire.

Ella Mental will launch with Invincible VS on various platforms, including PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5. Pre-orders are currently open for the game, including the standard edition ($49.99), and the deluxe edition ($69.99), which features deluxe cosmetics and the year-one character pass.

Invincible VS is a 3v3 tag fighting game featuring iconic characters from the series, including Omni-Man, Atom Eve, Cecil and more. The game was first announced on June 8th, 2025, during the Xbox Game Showcase.

Invincible VS has already made a splash in the FGC scene following a closed alpha that was held back in November. Additionally, the tag team fighting game has made esports plans for the next year, including tournaments after its global launch.

Invincible VS is set to feature at the Evolution Champions Series (Evo) 2026 festival as one of the 12 featured FGC tournaments. Evo 2026 is scheduled to take place from June 26th to 28th in Las Vegas, US.

The FGC ecosystem has welcomed various new stars to its competitive scene, including Invincible VS.

Titles such as 2XKO by Riot Games have already held multiple competitions this year, and the community can look forward to other games such as Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls.

Esports tournament organiser ESL has announced that a Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) event will return to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2026.

In addition to the return of IEM Rio 2026, the tournament organiser has announced a partnership with the State of Rio de Janeiro and the Rio de Janeiro Esports Federation (FERJEE).

Taking place from April 13th to 19th, IEM Rio 2026 marks the first time in two years that a Tier 1 Counter-Strike 2 event has taken place in Brazil. The last edition of IEM Rio took place in 2022, with NAVI emerging victorious.

16 teams from across the world will compete in the Brazilian city for a chance to win a share of $1m (~£747,410) in winnings. IEM Rio 2026 will also progress in the ESL Grand Slam race and Valve Regional Standings (VRS) points.

“Brazil has always held a special place in the hearts of our community, and we are incredibly excited to bring IEM back to this passionate audience,” said Marc Winther, Director of Esports – Counter Strike at ESL FACEIT Group.

“The atmosphere in Rio is truly unmatched, and together with the State of Rio de Janeiro and FERJEE, we’re committed to delivering a high-stakes competition that celebrates the best of Counter-Strike culture.”

Rio de Janeiro is the latest city announced for the 2026 ESL Pro Tour season. In addition to Brazil, the circuit will host events in Kraków, Poland, the United States, and China. ESL has yet to reveal the locations of its US and Chinese events, taking place in May and November. Moreover, ESL previously announced that IEM Cologne in 2026 will be a Valve-sanctioned CS2 Major.

As part of the collaboration with the State of Rio de Janeiro and FERJEE, the parties will collaborate to create a range of ‘unique experiences’ during IEM Rio 2026. FERJEE will assist with a range of on-site activities and other elements of the event.

“Fostering esports is a strategy that goes beyond entertainment: it generates jobs, drives the economy, and offers new perspectives for thousands of people,” added Rafael Picciani, Secretary of Sports and Leisure for the State of Rio de Janeiro.