Melee Creeps joins Mo & Krill Cup on Chinese Server

Facing teams from Russia, Australia, Japan and Korea - MLC will play with ~150 ping.

Melee Creeps is heading east, way east. North America's most dominant squad has accepted an invitation to the Mo & Krill Cup, a Chinese tournament that will test more than just their mechanical prowess. Playing from the United States on Chinese servers means the team will be battling latency alongside their opponents.

The numbers speak for themselves: Melee Creeps currently boasts an 80.6% series win rate across 36 series played, with a 71.8% match win rate. Their 4.60 team KDA ranks among the elite in competitive Deadlock. But can those stats hold up across the Pacific Ocean?

Tournament Structure

The Mo & Krill Cup runs in two phases. The Qualifier takes place March 21-22 (Beijing Time), featuring a Swiss system format with five BO1 rounds. The top three teams advance to join five directly invited squads.

The Main Event on March 28-29 brings eight teams into a double-elimination bracket. Winner's bracket matches are BO1 until the finals (BO3), while the loser's bracket features BO3 from round two onward. The grand final is a full BO5.

The Competition

Melee Creeps joins four other invited teams:

Never Bench 14.0
Hungry4Healbane
GG Bond
OT (星宇翼)

The three remaining spots remain up for grabs through the qualifer, with registration closing March 18 at 22:00 Beijing Time. Teams like Korean Pulsar Pulsar, Krusty Krab and more have already signed up in the qualifier who have experience in the recent APAC Pro League.

Prize Pool

The tournament offers a minimum prize pool of 10,000 RMB (~$1,500 USD), distributed as:

1st Place: 60%
2nd Place: 30%
3rd Place: 10%

The Ping Question

The real storyline here isn't the prize money it's the experiment. JonJon, Saiah, Scout, and the rest of the Melee Creeps roster have built their success on crisp execution and team coordination. How much of that translates when you're playing with 150+ ms latency against opponents on home servers?

This could be a statement win for NA Deadlock, or another example of ping being king. We saw Abrahams and Leviathan try their hand at playing in Deathy's Death Slam Invitational NA #2. The two teams went a combined 10 map wins to 11 map losses in the tournament. No matter the outcome, it's appointment viewing.