PUBG FACEIT Global Summit Recap: and the winner is OP Gaming

For an entire week it was everyone’s best guess, which was the top PUBG team in the world. It came down to the last three minutes of the final map on the final day to give us the answer. We wanted amazing play, we wanted tension and uncertainty. The first PUBG Classic of this season delivered.

The Champion came in the form of Korea’s OP Gaming Rangers by the narrowest of margin. It literally took the game admins a few minutes to even confirm OP Rangers won the trophy after re-tallying the final scores.

Although the OP Rangers were considered a serious contender for the trophy before the event, their performance in the first few days was not ironed out and shiny as the in the last few. It took twelve matches for the Rangers to find their groove and get to the trophy. The tempered and measured play and tendency to stand their ground eventually paid off.

What about all the other teams we considered in contention for the trophy?

It was down to runner up Team Liquid to pick up the mantle for Europe, as champion ENCE had a lukewarm event and failed to even get to the Final 16. Those few minutes in the last match that gave the OP Rangers the trophy were detrimental for Liquid. North American champions Tempo Storm followed ENCE’s example and barely managed to scrape by to 10th place in the final standings. However, the most pain for NA came from Shoot to Kill as they climbed to be the leader of the scoreboard in the last game and only lost the trophy by a 4-point margin.

We wrote off the Chinese teams entirely before the event and it seemed we were correct. The Chinese champion OMG managed to finish last in the standings at 24th. Runner-ups 4AM and 17 Gaming did not fare too well either, with the former securing China’s best placement at a mere 7th. Yet, it was 4AM and 17 Gaming that delivered the best highlight play of the event.

CPT from Four Angry Men is rewarded for his patience with an incredible 4-man grenade to wipe Team 17! ?Tune in: https://t.co/SZlPBr3kHI#pubg #FACEITGlobalSummit #godnade pic.twitter.com/nCEZhFqAIi — PUBG (@PUBG) April 21, 2019

The shining beacon from the “smaller” regions came from South East Asia’s Armory Gaming in 5th place. Veterans Katanyu “Duckmanz” Chinsorranan and Thanakorn “General” Pechthong made insane individual plays in several games and gave AG a chance to contend for the trophy in the final game.

The biggest “loser” in the finals were the Ninjas in Pyjamas. The NiP squad came into the Finals as the absolute leader in points. In 8 out of 12 matches of the Finals they had the unluckiest of circle placements and hard rotations to execute which ultimately costed them a great run at the PUBG Classic and an opportunity to cement themselves as a real powerhouse. In the end they shared a 12th place finish with Cloud9.

The conclusion of the event secures one additional slot for Korea thanks to the #1 OP Rangers, #2 Shoot to Kill gets an additional slot for North America while #3 Team Liquid gets the same for Europe. Regional competition will continue when Phase 2 kicks off globally in May.