“The ‘E’ in Esports stands for ‘Easy.’”

Editorial

The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang M4 World Championship has just concluded, and people have slowly accepted Esports as an official sport. With a Filipino team winning again for three straight years, it further inspired a lot of aspiring amateur players to take the next step and join the local professional scene in hopes of hoisting the coveted trophy yet again. While it is fulfilling to represent the Philippines, there’s a lot of factors that goes into competing for a professional team. Esports is not as easy as they make it out to be.

Many have doubted the capabilities of an esports player, mostly because their training regimen is much “simpler” in comparison to other sports. Since they are not undergoing intense physical training, they think it allows them to criticize these players for participating in a game that only uses their hands and mind. It is true that esports players are lacking in terms of preparing their physical attributes, but people are quite forgetting that sports have evolved to a point where an athlete also uses his mental capabilities to find weaknesses to exploit against his opponents.

For games such as ‘ML’, Valorant, Call of Duty: Mobile and others, it exemplifies the use of strategies in order to utilize advantages against other teams. These strategies are often orchestrated by coaches who are knowledgeable about the game, resulting in developing their most effective tactic available or simply ‘META’. Their ‘META’ is then practiced by their players, and this endeavor will take countless hours, sometimes even denying them sleep privileges. This is the reason why professional leagues only conduct two seasons in a physical year: to allow teams to practice and make sure that their peak form is shown during the actual games.

In addition to their preparation, players must also be mindful of their academic standing. Most esports athletes that play in the professional scene, especially Mobile Legends, are around the ages of 16-20, with an exception of few players such as Blacklist International star Jonmar ‘OhMyV33nus’ Villaluna, who is 28. It is hard to dismiss the difficulty of balancing professional and academic responsibilities. Teams will not hesitate to release or bench a player when they are underperforming, giving them pressure to train while also staying mentally focused with their studies. These factors

Towards Triumph: Breaking Gender Boundaries in the Land of Dawn

Skills have no gender—deal with that.

The inclusion of electronic sports, especially the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) in the list of contested activities in the different competitive tournaments speaks a lot about how the world of sports has been evolving and has been recognizing the change that the society is offering.

It’s a social change that creates an impact since it breaks boundaries—that sports are not just limited to physical battles, but it can also be brought to the virtual world, like the Land of Dawn—it’s a new era. But there’s always two sides of a coin.

Despite the heated-up brawls that adds up to the competitive air, the progress that this shows also has loopholes that opens different appealing and intriguing questions: does it necessarily have to have gender boundaries that’s patterned to the traditional approach of different sporting events, like how Basketball is still inclusive in both genders since it has men and women divisions being offered? Or is this unnecessary since in the status quo, the mainstream Mobile Legend tournaments, gender boundaries are not recognized combined will make people look at esports differently. anymore, like how the MLBB World Championships opens this to all genders?

For a long time, people have been belittling esports and its conglomerate of players. With computer and mobile games accessible to all people, they are under impression that Esports competitions are easy, while in fact, it takes a lot of self-discipline and mental awareness to contend in the most glamorous events in the esports world. Thus, the same respect shall be given to these players the same way they respect the athletes of the traditional sports.

But at the end of the day, it all boils down to the question: in a game where it’s dominated by men in numbers, does having a woman—and those who identify themselves as that—in the team, affect the overall competence of the team?

I think, gender boundaries should not impede the team’s success. If a team is better off with a woman with it, then be it, if the team is dominated by either men

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Towards Triumph...

or women, then there’s no issue with it. If the core player is a member of the LGBTQIA+ Community, as long as they sufficiently fulfill their role in the team, then so be it. The point is, being in a team does not necessarily have to deal with your gender, it concerns your skill and level of mastery. At the end of the day, skills have no gender.

The two different sides talks about this issue is whether MLBB competitions should follow gender-based approach like how major events (e.g. Basketball, Volleyball, Athletics, etc.) use, or the skills-based approach which major MLBB competitions use—but the latter is a lot more inclusive because it breaks misogyny. Let’s take a look at the different aspects in the status quo that affects this specific issue in sports.

On development of the team; their chances of winning. In skills-based, anyone can compete depending on their skill level, depending on their mastery, depending on their effectiveness in their own roles. On the contrary, if gender-based, there is another requirement for you to consider, your gender and this will affect the competency of the team if it needed to be just men, or just women, to be in that team, because if they only need someone to ‘fill-in’ the role, then the team’s competency is affected, and winning will less likely on their favor.

Whereas the skills-based approach can cater to the best players that a team asks for in order to compete and win, because they are not limiting it to narrower requirements.

Meanwhile, an idea that might oppose this is that the majority of the sporting events are following the traditional gender boundaries, like how Volleyball has Men and Women divisions, how Basketball has Men and Women divisions, like how Chess, Taekwondo, Arnis, Badminton, and Archery have Men and Women divisions, and since the MLBB event is under this, then it should follow this gender boundary.

However, the purpose of this division is that men and women have inherent differences in physical strength, but MLBB is a game of technique and group dynamics, which will concern skills, which will relate to the argument discussed above about skills-based approach. In the status quo, in events like the MLBB World Championships where gender is not a prerequisite in joining and actually winning, is an evident part of the improvement of electronic sports and how it creates its distinction in the society.

Meaning that this improvement should be recognized since it is the one that’s happening in the status quo. This will also allow misogynistic acts to be mitigated, like how MLBB Women division won’t only take an exhibition match, and women will be given equal opportunity in winning the championship title, after all, MLBB is not a physical game, it needs skills and techniques, and skills have no gender.

In a game where men dominate the number of players worldwide, like the Mobile Legends, the number does not equate to the level of skill, and in creating a powerful team, gender is not the basis, it’s how a player plays.