Aug 16, 2026.
After a nailbiting final day, S2G Esports held on to the top spot after an early elimination in the final game to secure the first place prize during the PUBG MOBILE World Cup grand final
PARIS, France (August 16, 2026) – After an intense nine-day tournament, S2G Esports stood the tallest among the 32 teams competing and won the PUBG MOBILE World Cup at Esports World Cup 2026.
After qualifying for the tournament as Türkiye's third seed, S2G fought their way through the group stage and grand finals to emerge as the victors, taking down both former EWC champions. Last year's winners, Yangon Galacticos, were eliminated during the Survival Stage alongside the 2024 winners in Alpha7 Esports, paving the way for a brand new champion at this year's competition.
The grand finals took place across three days, with Sunday being the last chance for teams to rack up the points and finish atop the standings. With a $3,025,000 prize pool on the line, every point was crucial to the final standings.
S2G locked in their place in the grand final after finishing fifth in their group during the group stage, just narrowly advancing to the grand final and missing having to go through the Survival Stage by a mere two points. In the second half of the group stage, S2G secured three separate second-place finishes to meet the threshold needed to go straight to the grand final.
On the first day of the final, S2G were inconsistent across their first four games, securing 19 points with a victory in game two, but only tallying a combined six points across the other three games. The second day saw S2G start to rise up the standings, winning two more games and securing five top-three placements in total across the day two marathon.
On the third and final day, S2G Esports were the third team to hit match point eligibility, doing so in game 15. Though the team came close to sealing the trophy with a victory, the Turkish roster was unable to get their hands on the trophy until the final game.
Four teams stood at match point in the final game: Nongshim Redforce, eArena, Aurora Gaming, and S2G Esports. With no more games left to play, S2G would either need to secure one more Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, or hold onto their points lead and hope no match point eligible teams passed them. While they were eliminated fairly early on in the final game, no one passed their 154 points mark, and they watched as their closest rivals were eliminated one after another, with Tianba securing a final game victory to give the trophy to S2G.
While Faruk "HamsiG" Hamsici is no stranger to winning a top prize in PUBG MOBILE, having won the 2022 Global Championship with a different S2G roster, for players Erman "Kamikaze" Topal and Berkay "Lost" Yılmaz, their EWC win marks the first trophy in their collections.
Speaking on how the final game played out, Alp "Solkay" Ayyıldız said, "Of course we felt bad once we died, as we knew our biggest rivals were still alive. We also doubted it, but then as we saw our rivals slowly getting eliminated, we started getting hopeful. It's HamsiG's second championship, but our very first."
When asked how the team feels following the win, Faruk "HamsiG" Hamsici said, "All focus all the time. We did it, we are champions, we are so happy now!"
For both their first place finish in the grand final, and their placement in the group stage, S2G Esports take home a total of $555,000.
Meanwhile, Tianba's Zhang "Qzz" Qingbo was named the tournament SONY MVP, racking up 35 eliminations and 32 knockdowns, earning $25,000 in the process. This marks the second MVP award in a row that Qzz has won in PUBG MOBILE Global tournaments, following the PUBG MOBILE Macao Invitational just last month. Tianba finished fifth overall, and were a force to be reckoned with throughout the tournament.
To learn more about the Esports World Cup, visit esportsworldcup.com and follow the Esports Foundation on LinkedIn.
The Esports World Cup (EWC) is a premier annual sporting event and global celebration of competitive excellence and esports fandom. The competition features a unique cross-game format that pits the world's top esports Clubs against one another for the largest prize pool in esports history. Hosted in Paris, France, in the summer of 2026, the EWC will bring gaming and esports communities together again to crown the next Esports World Cup Club Champion. esportsworldcup.com
Esports World Cup media contact:
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