GO1 World Championship hits 290K peak viewers, putting Magic Chess: Go Go among top auto battlers

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The first-ever world championship for MOONTON Games' newest title, Magic Chess: Go Go, concluded on January 26. With over 290,000 Peak Viewers (PV), the GO1 World Championship ended the first season of the multiplayer strategy auto battler's competitive segment on a satisfactory note, putting it among the eight most popular mobile esports games for the 2025 season.

Magic Chess: Go Go is derived from the massively popular Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, where it was initially an auto-battler game mode called Magic Chess. It eventually garnered enough players for the developer, MOONTON, to create a separate game for the game mode's players.

MCGG's biggest event, the GO1 World Championship, was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, with the Grand Final held at the Stadion Madya. Held as part of the M7 World Championship Carnival, it brought together the world's 22 best players as they battled for the title of the inaugural Magic Chess: Go Go world champion and a prize pool of $25,000.

  GO1 World Championship –viewership stats and most popular matches   

After around two weeks of action, Floxy emerged as the maiden MCGG world champion. Round 6 of the Grand Final, when the Russian confirmed his historic victory, was when this coveted Magic Chess: Go Go tournament reached a peak of 290,543 viewers.

As is the case with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Indonesian fans were the strongest driving factors behind the viewership success of the GO1 World Championship. contributing almost 57% to the above PV number. The language also made up over 60% of the event's total watch time.

  Russia's Floxy (center) emerged as the inaugural MCGG world champion (Image via MCGG on Facebook)   

What's interesting is that the competition's viewership averaged between 10,000 and 12,000 viewers during the first two stages: Group Stage and Semifinals. The audience only came alive during the Grand Final, which hit a more appropriate 182,463 Average Viewers (AV).

A main reason is the fact that the GO1 World Championship ran in parallel with the M7 World Championship, which broke quite a few records during its run. Only the finals received their own dedicated time slot, held before the summit clash of the MLBB's biggest tournament.

Among platforms, YouTube and TikTok emerged as the most preferred options among fans, reflecting the choices of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang fans. Together, these two platforms contributed around 96.5% to the cumulative watch time of Magic Chess: Go Go's world championship.

Most popular mobile esports tournaments of the 2025/2026 season (one per game)

When looking at the livestreaming performance of mobile esports titles for the 2025 season, MCGG took up a pretty respectable eighth spot. The 278,121 PV it reached puts it above more established competitive titles such as Brawl Stars and eFootball.

Compared to other auto battlers as well, Magic Chess: Go Go stacks up pretty well. In fact, the peak viewership numbers of one of the most popular and oldest esports games in the genre, Teamfight Tactics, are not that far off from what the GO1 World Championship achieved.

  Most popular esports events in the auto-battler genre   

The most popular Teamfight Tactics competition is the Twitch Rivals Teamfight Tactics Showdown, peaking at just over 300,000 viewers. Readers must note that the TFT Showdown is an influencer event part of the popular Twitch Rivals series. Hence, if we look at only esports events, the GO1 World Championship has already surpassed anything that Teamfight Tactics — which ironically is the spinoff of League of Legends, Riot Games' legendary MOBA and MLBB's top viewership rival — has achieved.

It's been a pretty solid introduction to life as an esports entity for Magic Chess: Go Go, having taken advantage of its connection to MLBB to attract fans of the popular mobile MOBA. What happens in the future and how MOONTON Games handles its competitive segment will decide whether it can continue finding a place in a genre that is already packed with top games.