eSports Team Profile: MVP

Team MVP, better known as MVP, is a South Korean eSports organization that consists of multiple professional gaming teams, which used to compete in Dota 2, and still compete in League of Legends and StarCraft II. The team was originally based in Incheon, where they owned a team house in Seoul. The first team was created for StarCraft 2, consisting mostly of other players from the MVP organization. There was also another B-team that consisted of Project Supreme players, but ultimately this team was disbanded in early 2012 to make way for the creation of the League of Legends division.

The organization formed its first team around StarCraft 2 in late 2010, when the Global StarCraft 2 League (GSL) began. They entered their first Dota 2 tournament in September 2013, coinciding with their StarCraft 2 team leaving the eSports Federation in order to join KeSPA.

MVP Team History

Dota 2

Although they had their initial start with its StarCraft 2 team in 2010, officially the team started their professional competitive gaming in Dota 2 when the Korea StarCraft 2 Association recognized Team MVP as full-fledged team. The team partnered up with compLexity Gaming and were collectively known as coL.MVP from August 23, 2011 to April 17, 2012.

In March 2012, Razer was announced as the team’s sponsor, and later, after the conclusion of their partnership with compLexity Gaming and the end of coL.MVP, they subsequently partnered up with Meet Your Makers in April. This had the result of all MVP and Meet Your Makers players playing under the moniker MYM.MVP.

In September 2013, the top South Korean StarCraft 2 teams Incredible Miracle, Prime, along with MVP, decided to leave the eSports Federation, joined KeSPA and entered the 2014 Proleague. MVP announced their Dota 2 team on the same day, singing Team Ashu. The team competed under the name MVP HOT6ix. Another 2 months later, they organization announced they had formed a second Dota 2 team, which would compete under the moniker MVP Phoenix.

Rise of the Phoenix

MVP Phoenix was the first South Korean team that successfully advanced to an International, qualifying for Playoff Phase One at The International 4, defeating Virtus.pro, but losing to Team Liquid. It was a fortunate year when both MVP teams made it to the Main Event, and even more fortunate when MVP Phoenix defeated the defending champions Newbee, and ultimately Team Empire, finishing in the Top 8 of the tournaments. At The International 6, the MVP Phoenix team was able to repeat their success and finish in the Top 8 again.

At the beginning of 2017, it was announced that Team MVP was disbanding their Dota 2 team MVP Phoenix after their players departed for Team Onyx and Fnatic’s new roster. MVP decided to combine its other two teams, MVP HOT6ix and MVP Aegis, into one new team.

League of Legends

In May 2012, the organization created its League of Legends squad. Initially, they formed three teams: MVP White, MVP Blue, and MVP Red. After a little while, MVP Red disbanded, with MVP White and MVP Blue continuing to compete in several Champions’ seasons.

In February 2013, the MVP organization changed the structure of the teams, with White becoming the main flagship within the organization, under the name Ozone. The team consisted of, DanDy, Dade, Homme, Mata, and imp, and subsequently won the Olympus Champions Spring 2013, defeating CJ Blaze with a clear 3-0 in the finals. Samsung Electronics acquired both MVP teams, and formed the Samsung Blue and Samsung Ozone teams.

Return and Rearrange

After nearly 2 years away from professional competition, in late 2015, MPV’s came back to the LoL tournaments. New roster was announced in December, featuring some relatively unknown players, including: ChaResh, ADD, MaHa, Beyond, and Ian.

When 2016 had finally arrived, it was announced that ChaResh would be leaving the team, with Max, a former CJ Entus team member, joining the team. MVP had a successful run and performed at the top of their game during the Challengers Korea 2016 Spring Season. They had an impressive 85% winrate over the regular course of the season, which secured them the first place and 34 points. This paved the way for them to directly advance into the Challengers Spring Playoffs, where their success came to an end, with ESC Ever upsetting MVP with a 3-2 in the end. But this was not the end for the team. This result earned them a place in the 2016 LCK Summer Promotion. They went on to beat team Kongdoo Monster with 3-1 and ultimately qualified for the 2016 LCK Summer Season.

In the 2016 LCK Summer Split, MVP went a surprising 7-11 in the series, which eventually awarded them the 6^th place in the overall rankings. This, unfortunately meant they missed the 2016 LCK Summer Playoffs by a slight margin, with their 2016 LCK Spring Split points not being enough for them to qualify for the 2016 Season Korea Regional Finals.

Strong Resurgence in 2017

Early in 2017, the team managed to pull off a shocking 2-0 victory against the previously undefeated KT Rolster team, which was a surprise to everybody. The team complained about a short preparation time for the tournament, but in the end it turned out better than even their coach Kwon Jae-han had expected. The team moved to 4^th place with a 4-3 standing in the League Champions Korea Spring Split after the win over KT Rolster.

During March of 2017, they managed to pull off another win over KT Rolster, with an almost dramatic 2-1 win, and the team running in second place in League Champions Korea. It was indeed a superb performance of the team and one of their greatest victories since their performance at the promotional tournament that led them into the regular season.

Current roster for MVP consists of:

• Kang ‘ADD’ Gun-mo
• Kim ‘Beyond’ Kyu-suk
• Ahn ‘Ian’ Joon-hyung
• Oh ‘MaHa’ Hyun-sik
• Jeong ‘Max’ Jong-bin

MVP Trivia

With the growing popularity of eSports in South Korea and their ever-loyal fan bases, MVP is still to date the only South Korean team to win Premier team championships in StarCraft 2, League of Legends and Dota 2, giving other Korean teams a lot to catch up to. While MVP Phoenix was the only South Korean team to compete at The International 4 in Seattle, their presence was reason enough for a live SpoTV broadcast that had an entire studio audience.

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