Hello.

This time, the keyword is sports day, so with sports festival season around, I wanted to write about MapleStory content that fits that theme.

When people think of a sports day, they usually picture teams being split up and competing against each other. With that in mind, this post looks back at some of the more memorable MapleStory content and events that featured those kinds of competitive, head-to-head elements.

[Grand Battle]

Grand Battle was a very old piece of content, first added in early 2011 and playable until the end of that year, then available again for only about two months in 2012. It was also MapleStory’s very first official PvP content.

Players could enter by choosing either Survival or Team Match, and as the name suggests, it was a mode where users could literally fight each other.

Since it was the first format of its kind, expectations were quite high, and a lot of players reportedly enjoyed it at first. Over time, though, issues with balance, fairness, and later revamps caused the player base to shrink, and before long the mode was shut down.

It did not only feature standard player-versus-player matches, either. There was also a mode where one player transformed into the Ice Knight and fought against everyone else.

Rewards included EXP and Fighter’s Emblems, which could be used in the coin shop. By the end of its run, though, it was said that most people were playing it more out of necessity for the rewards than for the mode itself.

Looking back at the update notes and comments from the time, Grand Battle really does seem like something the developers prepared with a lot of ambition. But even ordinary job balance outside of PvP is hard enough to manage, so having to maintain separate balance patches just for Grand Battle would have effectively doubled the workload. From that perspective, its outcome may simply have been unavoidable.

[Maple One Card]

Maple One Card is exactly what it sounds like: a One Card mini-game. After its official release in 2014, it continued to appear steadily over the years. It was generally well received and served reliably as a straightforward mini-game coin event.

It was also the first game introduced through the Mini-game Booth in the furniture system added with the Maple Home update. If you bought the booth from the Meso Shop for 50억 메소 and installed it in Maple Home, you could play One Card at any time. That said, posts found through searches mention that the homeowner had to be the one to start the game.

[Fight! Return of the Legends]

Commonly called 싸전귀, Fight! Return of the Legends is a mini-game built around the format of an AOS game. It first appeared in 2014 and has continued to return regularly, with its most recent release in June 2025.

Before the match begins, players pick a character, then progress by defeating monsters, leveling up, strengthening skills, and ultimately taking down the opposing side.

Aside from Gunner, which was released as part of a collaboration, every character in the lineup above had already existed beforehand, and that remained consistent throughout. At the end of every season, ranking rewards were always given out in this way as well.

Any mini-game is bound to split opinion to some degree, but 싸전귀 has always felt like one of the more sharply divisive examples. With that in mind, a previous Maple Now mentioned that they were considering whether it could return in a different format, so hopefully it comes back later in a way that satisfies both sides.

[Superpower Yutnori]

Superpower Yutnori is a mini-game that debuted in 2015 and has continued to appear steadily ever since. On top of the usual Yutnori rules, each match gives players two additional superpowers at random.

These superpowers are very important because, when used well, they can completely swing the match. Since they are assigned randomly, they add even more variables to Yutnori, which already has a strong element of luck.

Like Maple One Card, Superpower Yutnori was also released through a Maple Home Mini-game Booth. In the event beginning on May 14, it is scheduled to return in a format that can be played without closing even while hunting. Since this is the first time a matchmaking event has been released in that kind of format, it feels fairly significant in its own way.

The 22nd Anniversary event held with a sports day concept [Victoria Cup]

Lastly, Victoria Cup, the 21st Anniversary event held in 2024, was carried out with a sports day concept that suited this keyword especially well.

During Nexon’s 30th anniversary event period, Maple Soccer, Fight! Return of the Legends, Maple Racing, and Squirrel Extermination Mission were opened, and at the same time a variety of events were run under a sports festival theme.

One detail that left a particularly strong impression was the emblem and cheering uniform assigned to each job. Each one reflected that job’s identity well, and the outfits themselves looked great, so together with the bright event backdrop, they ended up being especially memorable.

Thank you for reading.