The Formula Behind TLPH’s Dominance | MLBB Esport Analysis

Analysis of Liquid Philippines' unique chaotic playstyle and massive hero pool driving their dominance in MLBB esports.

Key Takeaways

LPH's chaotic playstyle is a deliberate strategy that consistently outperforms opponents.
A large and versatile hero pool is the foundation of LPH’s dominance, enabling flexible drafting and counterplay.
Respect banning is ineffective against LPH due to their adaptability and power picks.
Dynamic formations and mind games during fights make LPH unpredictable and hard to counter.
Controlling the mid lane early is the most effective way to counter LPH.

What the video covers

Liquid Philippines (LPH) stands out due to their chaotic yet effective playstyle, blending defense and offense unpredictably.
Their massive hero pool filled with power picks allows extreme flexibility in drafting and gameplay strategies.
LPH adapts to core strategies like split push, pick off, and group up by selecting heroes that counter opponents effectively.
Players like JP can switch roles with the same hero, enabling multiple playstyles such as diver, initiator, or covert roles.
Unlike disciplined teams like Onyx, LPH confuses opponents by stacking surprise picks and flexible hero roles.
Their drafting strategy usually involves two flexible heroes and one meta hero early, followed by counter picks to exploit enemy weaknesses.
Respect banning key players or heroes is ineffective against LPH due to their vast hero pool and power picks.
LPH’s formations, mainly variations of 3-2 and 4-1, are fluid and can change dynamically during crucial fights.
They maintain consistent pressure across all lanes and dominate the map through zoning, poking, and mind games.
Early mid-lane control by LPH is critical to their success, making it the main counter-strategy for opponents.

Chapters

What makes Liquid Philippines' playstyle unique?

Liquid Philippines employs a chaotic playstyle that blends defense and offense unpredictably, confusing opponents and enabling them to dominate consistently.

Why is Liquid Philippines' hero pool important?

Their massive hero pool filled with power picks allows them to be extremely flexible in drafting and gameplay, adapting to any opponent's strategy effectively.

How do teams try to counter Liquid Philippines?

Teams often try to respect ban key heroes or players, but this is largely ineffective due to LPH's adaptability and vast hero pool. The best counter is to control the mid lane early.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

There's one thing that separates the LPH from every other team: chaos. Their play style makes no sense, yet it works every single time. They defend like they're attacking. They flip pressure back in your face, and somehow they always get away with it. So, how is this possible? No matter who they face, they always look dominant. Unlike, yeah, we're not going to talk about it.

Speaker A

They've barely ever been knocked out in playoffs. Upper bracket versus Falcon, 3 to 1. Then they faced the so-called strongest team in the Philippines, 3 to zero.

Speaker A

I mean sure, they dropped once to the lower bracket in the semi-final, but they came back and won 4 to 1. And when they met Aurora again in the grand finals, they gave them a donut clean wipe. At this point, there's nothing to argue. This team is crazy strong. So why are Liquid Philippines so strong right now? Let's just go straight to the root. Yeah, because they have a massive hero pool filled with nothing but power picks. And this makes them insanely flexible. All right, hold up. Before we go in-game,

Speaker A

look at the draft first. Liquid Philippines' hero pool is massive, and they're not stuck in the meta like other teams. Meanwhile, other teams, they only use meta heroes. And if not meta, they just pick comfort heroes. And those

Speaker A

comfort picks don't always fit the strategy the team wants to run. So, they're not as versatile as LPH. And why is having a big hero pool so important?

Speaker A

Because when you can play so many heroes, you can run any strat you want.

Speaker A

You can play kite-back comps, counter-pick and counter-play comps, even stuff you barely see in the current meta like triple carry. Fully flexible. But this time, let's use the core threats I always mentioned: split push, pick off,

Speaker A

and group up. You all know these three counter each other, right? So, if your hero pool is big like the LPH, you can just adapt your gameplay depending on the enemy. For example, look at JP as the ROR. He can play backline diver,

Speaker A

initiator, and covert type RORs. And those three roles all have different play styles. Want to play pick off? Use diver. Want to group up? Use initiator.

Speaker A

Want to split push? Use cover. And each one counters a strategy too. Cover counters pick off. Diver counters split push because they can instantly jump the guy pushing. Initiator counters pick off because you either force a fight or

Speaker A

scatter them before they're ready. So just from the ROR alone, they already handle these three core strategies. They can just pick whatever counters the enemy team. And that's only for the ROR.

Speaker A

We haven't talked about the jungler, gold laner, mid, or XP yet. Basically, this team's composition options are just perfect. It's different from other teams like Onyx, for example. They lean more into the group-up style, right, with their super disciplined play style,

Speaker A

always maximizing tiny openings from the enemy. But Liquid isn't like that. They have way more play style options, and automatically that makes their opponents confused on how to counter their draft and counter their gameplay. Especially because Liquid loves stacking surprise

Speaker A

picks. Like seriously, who the hell picks Ster is like in a fast-paced meta like this? So, you get confused, right?

Speaker A

Because yeah, their hero pool is just that big. And that's also why they always win the draft so often. You see, Liquid's first three picks 90% of the time are two flexible heroes and one meta hero or the other way around. And

Speaker A

the rest are just counter picks like here. Liquid's first three picks were Zusin, Arlot, and Basha. Two of those heroes are extremely flexible. Arlot can be XP or roam. Basha can be roam, XP, or jungle depending on the situation,

Speaker A

right? And Zusin is a S-tier meta hero. Then later when the last two picks come and when the enemy heroes are already shown and from this draft they have slow heroes, slow rotation, and no hyperactive hero. So Liquid picks Moskov and

Speaker A

Matilda. One hero forces slow heroes to overthink about their lane. One makes slow heroes struggle to even reach anyone, and the rest is just adjusting.

Speaker A

If you have Matilda, obviously Arlot can't be roaming. So he stays XP, and obviously Basha won't be roaming or XP either because you don't have a jungler, so you put him in jungle. Or another example here: first pick Gatot, flexible

Speaker A

hero, can roam, can XP; second pick Yan Shin, meta hero; and Arlot also flexible, can roam or XP. But because there's a Gatot, 90% of the time Gatot will stay roam and Arlot will go XP. But they can

Speaker A

still switch it up if the enemy picks an XP laner that counters Arlot because Arlot and Gatot are a different kind of XP laner, and the way you counter Arlot and Gatot in lane are different too. And then Aurora picks heroes that are easy to

Speaker A

get gangbang and literally can't do anything once targeted, and their cover hero is a part initiator. So in long team fights, Aurora has no real cover hero because Hyos is going to run forward regardless. So Liquid just picks

Speaker A

backline diver to counter both. They don't even need to pick a late game hero anymore because their jungler already scales mid to late game. And they already secured the early game with Selena and Arlot. So yeah, their first

Speaker A

picks are always meta picks or flexible picks, and the last two are for countering the enemy heroes and making the comp work. And then they won the draft. And you can truly respect ban one or two players against them. Like if you

Speaker A

try to ban Sanford and JP's heroes, for example, when you give them objective control heroes like in game two versus Oni, dudes are terrifying, right? So yeah, when they fought TNC, TNC respected the signature heroes of those two to make the objective fights

Speaker A

easier. But what happened? The top-tier laner heroes are open because of that. Ruby and Ellis went through. Now it's even harder for TNC's jungler because not only Lens slot Tra is cracked, plus Ruby and Ellis are a pain in the ass to

Speaker A

kill, and they're a zoning machine in general. Or even before that, in the regular season, TNC was like, "Yeah, nah, we can't respect ban Dom. So let's just pick a hero that's super strong in objective fights so our draft stays flexible." So

Speaker A

TNC took Cece, Zusin, then Kufra and Glue later on to make it hard for Liquid to contest objectives if Liquid runs assassins. They also picked heroes that are annoying in objective fights too. So Liquid can't annoy them at all. You know

Speaker A

what happened next? Liquid doesn't even use assassins. They go Basha jungle plus heroes that have a really long range, and suddenly TNC loses in range advantage because they cannot touch Liquid heroes easily anymore. So yeah, respect ban or

Speaker A

respect pick doesn't really work on Liquid because their hero pool is gigantic and all their picks are power picks, unlike other teams that can still get shut down with respect bans or counter picks. Like take Onyx again, for

Speaker A

example, in the regular season they were insanely strong with objective control strats using Zusin. So in playoffs, TNC just keeps banning Zusin. Like literally in game one to five they spam banned that hero, and that helped TNC beat Onyx

Speaker A

because they removed one of Onyx's core and essential heroes to run their style. But with Liquid, you can't do that to them.

Speaker A

That's why if you look, most teams fighting Liquid almost never respect ban a single person. Instead, they ban one hero per role like Aurora did in the semi-final. Look, every role on Liquid got targeted. So yeah, you simply cannot

Speaker A

respect ban Liquid. The bottom line is their hero pool is insane. No matter how weird the draft looks, it still works because the foundation of this team is a massive hero pool, power picks everywhere, and can play literally anything. And it's not just the heroes.

Speaker A

Their formations are flexible, too. Especially during crucial moments like on deciding team fights, they can switch formations on the fly. The formations they use most often are variations of three-two and 4-1. Let's get to the basics first before

Speaker A

we go into variation so you all know what I'm talking about. So for one, formation is basically for being grouped up together usually.

Speaker A

Their formations are flexible, too. Especially during crucial moments like on deciding team fights, they can switch formations on the fly. The formations they use most often are variations of three two and 41. Let's get to the basic first before

Speaker A

we go into variation so you all know what I'm talking about. So for one formation is basically for being grouped up together usually at lord or anywhere doesn't matter and one on the other side of the map. And that one guy is always a

Speaker A

hero who can escape, rotate fast, and clear fast so they don't get kidnapped and can instantly rejoin the fight if needed. For gold laners are Moskov and Cloud. XP laners are Esmeralda, Uranus, Pakito, and Benet. Junglers are Fenny

Speaker A

and Ling. Basically, heroes that are hard to kill and can clear kind of fast.

Speaker A

So why use for one? It's basically to win lanes, force someone from the enemy to go home. And because the solo pusher can rotate back fast, Liquid gets number advantage at lord. But if nobody goes home, that guy can just continue pushing

Speaker A

making the enemy overthink like should we defend high ground or contest lord. If they defend, you get easy or even free lord. But if they contest lord, they might lose a turret like in game one upper bracket semi-final. You can

Speaker A

see liquid using for one for at lord and slow pushing the far lane. So Aurora gets confused, defend both or commit to lord. When the enemy is mentally split like this, liquid can take the first move. They can engage, split push or

Speaker A

burst the lord here. Liquid choose to burst the lord because Aurora already sent two people mid. Then JP gets vision from that grass because of Sanji Selena and Sanford is blocking light so he can't enter and get vision. Also the bot

Speaker A

plus midwave are about to crash into turret. So Aurora has to defend. So when Aurora overthinks liquid punishes a perfect advantage. That's the power of 41. You force the enemy to choose between losing turret or losing something crucial or losing the base

Speaker A

entirely. And liquids for one isn't only for split pushing. They can also put four at lord, one flanking, one at lord for pushing, one buying time and the rest lord. They have multiple variations and that's only just four. As for three

Speaker A

to formation, same idea but use when your team doesn't have a fast rotating hero and your wave pusher is squishy or late game carry. If your comp are walkers, slow movement, slow clear, you can't leave that guy solo the lane alone

Speaker A

like in 41 because they're easy to pick off, especially if it's your late game damage dealer. So in 32, this guy helps to cover them. And the strength of 32, if a fight suddenly breaks out, those two can instantly flank after clearing,

Speaker A

turning the fight into a front back sandwich. But if there's no fight, they can just keep pushing, then go Lord.

Speaker A

Simple, safe, and deadly when used right. And that's only just five formations Liquid like to use. The problem Liquid's hero pool is massive.

Speaker A

So the number of formations they can run is insane, almost too many. Even for just the three formations, they have a lot of variations from the gold lane side. Oh can be paired with JP running a cover ror or with Sanji's Luigi for fast

Speaker A

rotation. Juggler side, Carl Tozi can be paired with Sanji using pickoff heroes where Carl Z becomes the bait. XP laner side. Sanford can use a stone hero and combine it with agile gold laner or they run a double teleport mid setup where JP

Speaker A

als with chip after they bait then kill the defender with five people so they can't escape then teleport back to lord with Lui. See just for 32 Liquid has tons of variation almost too many.

Speaker A

They're insanely flexible unlike most teams. I mean other team lean towards objective control, pick off or momentum play style, right? But none of them are as flexible as Liquid. Why? Because Liquid's jungler can play damage or tank. Their mid can play damage or

Speaker A

utility mages. And their ror can shift play style any time. So Liquid's formation and mind games are free flowing. That's what makes them unpredictable. Like other teams won't leave their jungler alone when their lord is upright, especially on a walking

Speaker A

jungler like Alpha because it's risky as hell. But Liquid, they don't care because they exactly know how to play it. Look here. On has perfect lord setup. Group together with clean and good position. Meanwhile, Liquid, only Alpha is seen and no one is seen on the

Speaker A

map for the last 30 seconds. So, this makes Onyx hesitates. Sons even start searching for vision because they don't want to rush. They know if one of them get kidnapped here ends the game. And that hesitation, that's the trap. Liquid

Speaker A

runs 113 here. Their three are heroes that are monsters in the enemy high ground. Heroes that make defending hell.

Speaker A

And they're patient. They wait until Onyx wave dies so they won't appear on the map. Then they walk up. Almost ended the game right there. That's Liquid.

Speaker A

They're always disciplined, always patient, always waiting for the crack, then finding their winning condition and striking. And that's only three formations. We haven't even touched 212, 311, 221, and many more. And because of their formation flexibility, it automatically makes their laning always

Speaker A

good. And another thing that makes Liquid insanely strong is their consistent pressure in every lane and map domination.

Speaker A

Seriously, I'm sure you already know because if you watch Liquid closely, every time Liquid loses, it's because their early game pressure and zoning doesn't land. That's it. That's the formula. You saw it yourself in playoffs when Aurora picked early aggressive

Speaker A

heroes and shut down Liquid Mids trio. Liquid went Hayabusa plus Lunox. Snowball heroes need items to function.

Speaker A

But Aurora, they don't even need items. They're already strong just by spawning in. So, what happens? Liquid can't get early pressure, can't move the map, and suddenly they're the ones getting choked out. Sanji couldn't even hit level four

Speaker A

because he was zone the entire time. So mid laner with no alt equals no tempo.

Speaker A

No tempo equals no snowball. And Liquid without snowball isn't the Liquid we know. So Aurora wins in level, wins vision, wins the map. All they have to do is just play clean and don't troll and boom, they win. That's literally the

Speaker A

only real counter to Liquid Philippines. Don't let their mid duo win early. Because if Liquid ever gets early mid control, you're finished. But it's not that easy to do it because not every team can play aggressive early. Not

Speaker A

every team has early game power picks. So most teams simply can't replicate what Aurora did. Like here versus Oni.

Speaker A

Onik goes late game comp with his Sunshin plus Moskov while Liquid draft to fighters who are strong since level two. The result, Liquid dominates early again. So even if you know this strategy to beat them, actually doing it is a

Speaker A

whole different story. Because like I said earlier, their hero pool is massive. They aren't locked to the meta, so you can't counter them using the meta. And you can't just wait for Liquid to sleep either because they rarely

Speaker A

blunder. Even during the regular season, they almost never made mistakes from the start to finish. Their only real team blunder was early on in the season when teams are still experimenting here. Both teams setting up Lord. Sanford gets

Speaker A

poked by UA, tries to reset, but Edward forces him again. Then Edward accidentally gets dragged into the backline by Cartoy and that lights Aurora attacks from two angles. So Liquid starts retreating because they're in a bad position. But Sanford suddenly

Speaker A

flickers forward. Miscommunication happened. Because of that Liquid has to commit even if they don't want to. But OAP gets hit by UA second skill. So he can't return to his clone. And suddenly Aurora sees the opening. Liquid use all

Speaker A

their skills. The annoying hero died. So Aurora wins the fight and the game. And that's like the only real liquid blunder in all of season 16. Not because they played bad. No, but because there was an unexpected moment plus micro misiming.

Speaker A

And even that almost never happens. So the reason Liquid's pressure always pops off is because they always win the mid dual control. That's why their mid duo often uses comfort power pick so they can maximize the impact. And that's why

Speaker A

you still see them pick stuff like Selena, Lui, Chip, Kagura, even if those heroes aren't the top tier meta anymore.

Speaker A

But for Liquid, they still force value out of them. Honestly, this whole pressure plus map control concept is a basic part of macro. I'm sure you all already know what poking and zoning looks like. Like, if you want to take

Speaker A

the lord, you don't hard commit unless your whole team is ready, right? So, you do a lord dance first. Check position, zoning, and wait for timing, right? But what makes Liquid different is they do all of that in a different dimension.

Speaker A

The way they zone without getting picked off, the way they poke without getting poked back. the way they control objectives, it's just next level. And that happens because they always win the early game first because if you win

Speaker A

early, you win level. We win position, you win gold. Simple math. And also because their hero picks are outside the meta, they always combine that with completely unpredictable movements, too.

Speaker A

And this makes it really hard to counter Liquid's play style. For example, in week eight, Liquid pick Akai jungler plus two heroes that are really strong in objective fights and also team fights. Bren already kind of figured out

Speaker A

how to counter strategies that stick to objectives like Lord or Turtle. Basically, they needed heroes to make the enemy overthink so they wouldn't just sit there fiveman camping at Lord.

Speaker A

So yeah, they pick Moskov. I mean, Moskov is horny for turrets, right? So like it or not, you'll have to send at least one person to defend. And once someone rotates to defend, Moskov can just teleport back to Lord and win the

Speaker A

numbers game. This can make the enemy overthink if done correctly. But because Liquid Zero pool is ridiculously huge, they don't mess around when it comes to countering. They counterpick using the teleport duo just to handle Moskov. It also works against Farsa too since Lui

Speaker A

can flank Farsa, but this one's mostly to deal with Moskov in the late game. So basically, if Moskov is pushing the lane when they're about to take the Lord, for example, Chip can guard the lane and if Moskov goes too far forward, he can also

Speaker A

summon his teammates. And once Moskov is taken care of, they can instantly teleport back to Lord using Lu's ultimate. And if Moskov doesn't move up, Chip can still quickly teleport to Lord using his passive after clearing the wave. So Liquid's laning doesn't fall

Speaker A

apart at all. Now that's just the draft. If you look at their gameplay, they always poke and chip away at enemies in the mid area. They doesn't even bother touching the minions. And this isn't just in this match. They always do the

Speaker A

same thing in other games, too. These kinds of early game things really messes with the enemy's mindset because when they keep getting poked, their HP slowly drops and it creates this mental image that they have to move carefully

Speaker A

anywhere they go because every step equals damage. Even though the damage looks really small, it can add up if it happen often. So Farsa and Matilda, who are supposed to be really strong at poking, end up being forced to play

Speaker A

passive instead. Meanwhile, Liquid gets to move more freely since the enemy is scared of getting poked all the time.

Speaker A

And the way they control the map isn't just through zoning or poking either. They also play mind games. Like here, the mid lane wants to sandwich the gold laner with OAB. Now, usually when a mid goes for a sandwich play, the ror will

Speaker A

follow the mid laner, right? But JP doesn't once he sees Lanclot going in bot. He just stays in his grasp because he knows Lenslot already saw him. That alone makes Lenslot hesitate to go in since Yanhin has been missing on the map

Speaker A

for the last 30 seconds. So Lenslot has no idea where Yanshin is. So if Lenslot decides to dive here, he could literally get lifted and fed to Yizanshin, who might just be camping in one of these bushes. So yeah, Liquid basically owns

Speaker A

the entire map here. Bran, who's running Dowhead, Uranus, and Valentina, heroes that should be controlling the map, becomes the one getting controlled instead. Even Oab's choke can move freely everywhere, and Bran's core heroes are struggling to farm because

Speaker A

they're constantly being followed by Liquid's mid duo. And that's what we call pressure. Not just zoning, but mind games, too. The point is the constant pressure from Liquid's mid duo creates massive farming space for O'Hip and Carl since the enemy's focus is entirely on

Speaker A

that mid duo. So Carli and Oh barely got touched. Like come on, how can you focus when you're just trying to take a cockroach and JP keeps harassing you non-stop. And it doesn't stop there. The pressure continues all the way until the

Speaker A

end. Look at Sanford JP and Sanji. They keep zoning right inside the enemy's base. That's why Liquid's map pressure is terrifying. No other team so far can match this level of map control from early to late game. So yeah, man. I'm

Speaker A

just going to say it. I fully believe Liquid is taking M7.

Topics:Liquid PhilippinesMLBBMobile LegendsEsports analysisHero poolDrafting strategyPlaystyleTeam formationsCounter picksMap control

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