Honor of Kings to adopt ban&pick format globally, with upcoming Phillipines invitational scheduled

• Honor of Kings is announcing major esports news for 2025
• Off the back of its global release Honor of Kings is bringing an invitational to the Phillipines for the first time
• But the biggest news might be the adoption of the new ban&pick format globally.

With Honor of Kings’ worldwide release, it’s been a red-letter year for them in 2024. As we go into 2025 they’ve got new updates for the coming 12 months, with a new invitational series visiting the Philippines for the very first time (commencing February 21st and concluding March 1st) and more importantly the adoption of global ban&pick for the season three invitational and all upcoming tournaments.

But what’s ban&pick when it’s at home? Well, it’s a lot less confusing than you might think. Ban&pick essentially means that once a hero is used by one team in a match then said hero is not allowed to be used for the remainder of the tourney.  This means once a player on a team makes use of that hero it’s then restricted for the rest of their team (but not their opponents).

It’s a crucial twist on the formula since, as any MOBA fanatic will tell you, many players dedicate themselves to a relatively small pool of characters they work to master. Controversial League of Legends personality Tyler1, for example, is virtually inextricable from his preferred pick of Draven.

The mother of invention

It’s easy to see why ban&pick is such a popular idea for MOBAs. Of course, Honor of Kings is not the first to do it by a mile, and both others in the genre such as League of Legends or outside of it like Rainbow Six Siege have adopted similar rules. But in those cases, the bans are usually made beforehand by team agreement.

So in this case, it’s definitely putting the choice in the hands of an individual player, and stressing team cohesion. Do you pick a character you know is good for a situation but your teammate has mastered? Or do you use your main to secure early wins, or reserve them for later use? I’m sure it’ll make Honor of Kings esports push even more enticing to new viewers.