If you’ve ever been paired with a teammate who popped a funny dance emote after acing a team fight, or seen an opponent flash a playful taunt after taking your turret, you already know how much emotes add to Mobile Legends’ casual, fun vibe. A lot of new players skip over this feature entirely, assuming it’s only for premium users or hard to set up, but that’s not the case at all. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about how to use emotes in Mobile Legends, from unlocking new ones to using them in a way that keeps matches fun for everyone. I’ve been playing MLBB for four years, and I’ve collected almost 30 emotes so far, so I’m also sharing the little hacks I’ve picked up to get rare emotes without spending a ton of diamonds.
How to Use Emotes in Mobile Legends During Matches: Step-by-Step
First, make sure you’re not in the middle of a team fight or critical objective take before you pause to use an emote — it’s way too easy to get picked off while you’re fumbling with the menu. When you’re ready to use an emote, tap the small smiley face icon located right next to the in-game chat bar on the upper right side of your screen. This will pull up your pre-set emote wheel, which holds up to 8 emotes at a time. Tap the emote you want to use, and it will pop up over your hero’s head for 3 seconds, visible to all players on your team and the enemy team.
If you want to send an emote only to your teammates, you can toggle the “team only” switch at the top of the emote wheel before selecting your emote. A lot of players don’t know this setting exists, and it’s perfect if you want to hype up your team without giving the enemy a reason to target you more. I used to accidentally send salty emotes to the entire lobby after a bad gank, and this setting saved me from so many unnecessary arguments in post-game chat. You can also long-press any emote on the wheel to pin it to your quick access bar, so you don’t have to open the full wheel to use your most frequently used emotes mid-match.
How to Unlock and Customize Your Emote Loadout
To add or change the emotes in your in-match wheel, head to the main menu of Mobile Legends, and tap the “Preparation” tab on the lower left side of the screen. From there, select the “Emote” option to see all the emotes you currently own, plus all available emotes you can unlock. You can have up to 8 emotes in your active loadout at any time, and you can swap them out as often as you want between matches. There are a few different ways to unlock new emotes, and you don’t have to spend real money to get good ones. I’ve unlocked 70% of my emotes for free just by playing regularly, so don’t write off this feature if you’re a free-to-play player.
- Event rewards: Most limited-time events give away free emotes for completing simple tasks like logging in, playing 3 matches a day, or winning games with specific heroes. These are often the rarest, most unique emotes in the game, so check the event tab every time you log in.
- Fragment shop: You can exchange rare or magic fragments for permanent emotes in the in-game shop, with new options added every month. I save all my extra rare fragments for emotes instead of hero skins, since skins don’t give any real competitive advantage anyway.
- Diamond purchases: If you have extra diamonds, you can buy emotes directly from the shop, or get them from lucky draws like the Magic Wheel or Grand Collection. Premium emotes often have special animations or sound effects, but they work exactly the same as free ones in matches.
- Rank season rewards: Every ranked season gives away a free exclusive emote to players who reach Master rank or higher, so if you play ranked regularly, you’ll get a new unique emote every 3 months for free.
When you’re building your loadout, I recommend mixing a few hype emotes, a couple of playful taunts, and at least one “sorry” emote for when you accidentally mess up a gank or steal a buff from your teammate. I always keep the “oops” emote in my loadout, and it’s defused so many tense moments with random teammates that would have turned into toxic arguments otherwise. Once you have your loadout set up, you’re ready to start using emotes in Mobile Legends whenever you want, as long as you follow the basic etiquette rules we’ll cover next.
Best Practices for Using Emotes Without Tipping Off Opponents or Tilting Teammates
Emotes are meant to be fun, but using them the wrong way can make your match way more frustrating for everyone involved, and can even lead to reports if you’re spamming toxic emotes nonstop. The number one rule of using emotes is to never spam them after a teammate makes a mistake. I’ve seen so many teams throw a winnable match because one player kept spamming a laugh emote every time their jungler missed a skill shot, and the whole team stopped communicating entirely. Even if you’re frustrated, taking 10 seconds to type a quick “it’s okay, let’s try again” will go way further than spamming an emote that makes your teammate feel attacked.
It’s fine to use playful taunts against the enemy team, but don’t overdo it. Spamming a “laugh” emote every time you kill an enemy is a surefire way to make them target you for the rest of the match, and they’ll often coordinate ganks specifically to shut you down, even if it’s bad for their own team. I learned this the hard way back when I first started playing: I spammed a dance emote after killing the enemy marksman three times in a row, and their entire jungler and support spent the next 10 minutes camping my lane, even when their own turrets were falling. I lost my lane hard, and we lost the match because I was being unnecessarily petty. Save the enemy taunts for big moments, like after taking the lord or winning a team fight that secures the match, not every single kill. You also shouldn’t use emotes when you’re in a vulnerable position, like when you’re alone pushing a turret or trying to recall back to base. It takes your attention away from the mini map for a split second, and that’s all a good assassin needs to jump you and take you out before you can react. I make a point to only use emotes when I’m back at base, or when my entire team is around me and we’re not at risk of getting ambushed.
Common Emote Issues and How to Fix Them
Even if you have your emotes set up correctly, you might run into a few issues every now and then, especially after a big game update. One of the most common issues is emotes not showing up in your loadout even after you’ve unlocked them. This usually happens if the game hasn’t synced your progress correctly, and the fix is super simple: just close the game completely, restart your phone, and open the game again. Your new emotes should show up in your collection as soon as you log back in. If they still don’t appear, you can submit a ticket to customer support, and they’ll usually add the emote to your account within 24 hours.
Another common issue is accidental emote spam, which happens a lot if you have a small phone screen and keep tapping the emote icon by mistake while you’re trying to type in chat or hit a skill button. You can adjust the size and position of the emote icon in your control settings to move it away from the chat bar or skill buttons if you keep hitting it by accident. I did this last year after I accidentally sent a dance emote right as my team was asking for backup during a lord fight, and it saved me from a lot of future mistakes. If you ever get reported for toxic emote use, don’t panic. The game only penalizes players who spam emotes nonstop for multiple matches, and one or two playful taunts won’t get you banned. If you’re worried about getting reported, or you just find other players’ emotes distracting, you can always turn off enemy emotes in your settings so you don’t see other players’ taunts either, which makes the game a lot less stressful if you run into a lot of toxic players.
Emotes are one of the small, fun features that make Mobile Legends feel way more social than other mobile MOBA games, and they’re super easy to set up and use once you know the basics. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get fun, unique emotes, and using them appropriately can make your matches way more enjoyable for you and your teammates. Next time you log into the game, take five minutes to sort through your emote collection, build a loadout that fits your playstyle, and try out how to use emotes in Mobile Legends during your next match — just don’t spam the laugh emote too much, or you might end up with the entire enemy team camping your lane like I did.