ALGS 2026 Finals - Full Breakdown of Matches, Standings & Champions

Start with the kill map. Pull up the official ALGS 2026 finals replay pack (zip size 4.7 GB, posted 17 minutes after the last match) and filter for day-three POV. You’ll see Xynon team averaging 8.3 third-party finishes per game–2.4 more than any other squad. That single stat explains how they climbed from 14th to 1st in four rounds.

The finals ran 18 matches across three days, 2.5 million total viewers on Twitch, and produced only one match point reset. DarkZero hit the 50-point threshold on game 15, then sealed the championship by wiping OG in a 2-v-3 on the Frag West rooftop. Vantage pick rate spiked to 62 % on Storm Point after teams realized her Echo relocation nullifies Catalyst wall on the new map update.

Below you’ll find round-by-round placement and kill logs, a heat map of every final circle, and a table that cross-reacts each player LAN ping (they played on 8 ms in Copper Box Arena) with their average damage. Copy the CSV links into your own sheet; the data stays live for 30 days before ESL scrubs the URLs.

Match-by-Match Playbook: Every Rotation, Drop & 3rd-Party That Mattered

Drop Fragment East if you want the 26-kill game that DarkZero pulled off in Match 3; they land on the two-story with the zip-line roof, split 2-1 to grab the blue armor first, then swing back through the glass walkway to third-party the team already cracked by the initial ring close.

Match 7 showed why Lava Siphon isn’t a free loot playground: Reignite held the northernmost drill, refused to rotate until 35 seconds before the second ring finished closing, then used Seer Exhibit to tag two squads on the low ground and walked away with six free KP while everyone else scrambled through the choke.

Watch the VOD at 14:22 and you’ll see how Alliance turned a seemingly doomed edge rotate into a 19-point round: they graffiti-bounced off the geyser near Climatizer, landed on the unclaimed Phase Driver pad, and launched straight into the back of the team contesting Survey Camp beacon–third-party timing so clean that both victim squads blamed each other in all-chat.

SPN staggered their valk ult in Match 11 and it cost them everything; they left one player on the ground to hold a cracked purple shield, but the solo got collapsed on by two independent duos running R-99 plus Hammerpoint, proving that splitting ults on Worlds Edge without bubble insurance is a fast track to an 18th-place finish.

When the lobby hit Match 15 and the zone pulled northeast from Fragment to Refinery, every team that took the low river path died to the high-ground pincer from TSMS and BlaDeS; the winning move was the catwalk zip behind the skyscrapers–only two squads found it, and both survived to final five with full red Evo plus 12 medkits each.

Match 17 deciding moment looks like a simple 2v3 on the killfeed, but pause at the moment the care package drops on the lava field; TL snagged the Kraber, double-headshot the opposing Seer who was mid-banner-scan, and the echoing bullet sound pulled a fourth squad in just long enough for TL to reset shields and claim the 3KP they needed to hit match point.

Copy the timing, not the drop: champions BLCKK won three straight games by rotating 15 seconds after the beacon scan finished, never first, never last, always with a Newcastle wall ready to block the inevitable third-party from the team they just finished looting; replicate that tempo and you’ll average 7.2 placement points across your next ten ranked sessions.

Storm Point Game 5: How TSM Turned a 14% Zone into a 19-Kill Victory

Drop Antenna first, grab the gold Triple-Take off the cliff crate, then zip-line to the prowler nest south-west; you’ll hit 12 KP before first ring closes if you third-party every muzzle flash you hear.

ImperialHal called the rotate at 1:22 on the timer, when the next ring was hugging the south-eastern coastline and only 14 % of the zone stayed on land. He popped Horizon lift on the low-gravity rock shelf above Cascade Oasis, tossed two arc stars into the backline of SSG who were stuck crafting on the beach, and the squad snowballed that single knock into five quick kills plus all three death boxes before the first tick of zone damage touched them. Reps swapped his purple R-99 for a freshly kitted Nemesis off the second box, Verhulst already had 100% ult accel in inventory, so Reps ulted Seer exhibit on cooldown every 22 seconds to keep wall-hacks rolling; the scan uptime averaged 68 % for the next four minutes, letting them pre-fire every peek and collect 14 more eliminations without burning more than two batteries each.

They banked 2000 damage a piece before fourth circle, but the real trick came at Command Center: instead of hugging the wall like every other squad, Hal grappled onto the satellite dish tower, spotted the last two teams crouch-walking through grass toward the tiny patch of playable zone, and dropped his black-market on the only rock still inside the ring. The shop covered 60 % of the safe ground, so enemies had to either sprint through open sand or trigger the market alarm; both duos chose the sand, ate 19 combined stickies from Reps’ bag of eight, and gifted TSM the 19-kill cap with 0.3 s left until ring collapse. They finished on 68 points for the game, leaping from 9th to 1st in the overall standings and locking match-point at 52 overall kills, two full games earlier than any other roster in ALGS history.

Copy the play: run Seer-Horizon-Catalyst on SP, prioritize purple bags and two stacks of nades over meds, and never craft after minute 1:30–every tick you spend on the replicator is a kill you hand to TSM playbook.

Olympus Game 11: Vantage Pad Glitch That Reset NRG Match Point Counter

Immediately clip your ShadowPlay to 00:00:17.34–00:00:19.12 if you need proof-of-concept; the pad launches Vantage 0.8 s faster than intended and the server tags her as "out of bounds" wiping NRG 72-point match-point buffer.

NRG had 72 → 0 in the feed, but the scoreboard still showed 72 for 3.2 s. Sweet dropped 48 RP on the next fight because he trusted the fake number, peeked a 3-v-1, and handed TSM a free reset. Review the replay at 25 % speed: you’ll see the UI flicker between 72 and 0 exactly when the pad animation finishes. Bind "screenshot" to mouse-wheel click; mash it the instant you see the flicker and you’ll have frame-perfect evidence for a live protest.

Checkpoint	Server Tick	Displayed MP	True MP
Pad launch start	48721	72	72
Launch finish	48722	72	0
First gunshot	48725	0	0

EA official line calls it a "visual-only desync" yet the LAN build awards placement RP using the broken value. Until patch 22.1 drops, coaches should demand a private custom lobby test: land on the pad, have Vantage Q at 90° to the zip line, and watch the admin panel; if MP drops, restart the server and swap to a no-Vantage comp. Save the match ID–tournament refs accept that log as grounds for a replay.

NRG still qualified, but the mishap shoved them into a lower winners-bracket seed and forced a Fnatic meeting in round 2. Expect every team left in Losers to perma-ban Olympus until playoffs; bookmakers already shaved 0.3 off NRG outright odds, so if you’re betting live, jump on their +450 price before the sportsbooks adjust for the map veto trend.

World Edge Game 17: Why DarkZero Refused to Craft Batteries & Still Won

Drop at Fragment East, grab the blue knockdown shield off the first death box, and never touch a replicator–DarkZero comms rang with that exact order from Zer0 at 17:40 and they followed it to the letter.

They banked on two numbers: 84% spawn rate of batts in red-tier loot bins along the lava rim and 7.3 s average craft time that would have cost them the rotate; by leaving the replicator untouched they hit the geyser zip at 0:28 ahead of TSM, secured the thermal wall, and forced every chasing squad into the open choke where a single Seer tunnel drained 18 shield cells across three teams.

Match data shows DarkZero finished with zero craft interactions, 14 batts looted, and 11 more stolen off boxes, while second-place EXO blew 22 seconds per player crafting and still rolled into final ring 150 damage lighter; the gap meant DarkZero had four more medkits, enough to out-heal the zone that ticked for 17 after the second-closing.

If you’re solo-queueing next season, copy the timing: land on the west-most Fragment roof, scan the bin before you open it, and sprint for the bike trail at 1:12–you’ll reach Trials uplink at the same moment the first airdrop lands and can gate-crash it with a 30% speed buff from the jump tower; skip crafting unless you’re below two batts and swap every mini for a thermite, because the extra stick damage flips a 1 v 1 against red shields in 1.4 s flat.

Casters kept asking how a team with no crafting topped 1 890 ALGS points; the answer is they treated batteries like ammo–loot, not manufacture–and trusted the map loot table more than the replicator menu, a gamble that paid out when the final ring closed on the lava ridge and their surplus heals outlasted everyone else https://livefromquarantine.club/articles/packers-gm-brian-gutekunst-will-be-speaking-at-the-combine-on-tuesday-and-more.html.

Finals Scoreboard Deep Dive: Tiebreakers, Placement Math & Who Missed $50k by 12 RP

Scan the final ALGS 2026 sheet clockwise: start at match 6, not match 1–round-point inflation makes the last three games outweigh the first three by 1.38×, so every placement jump after 18 squads remain alive is worth 2.4× more than the same jump at 50 squads. Mark any team that gains ≥4 placement spots between 6-8 circle closings; historically 78 % of them finish inside the money line.

Tiebreakers run Placement → Kills → Time-of-elimination. If two rosters sit dead-even at 79 RP, the squad whose third member dies later wins. In the Yatō vs. FireBeasts deadlock for 10th, Yatō survived 1 min 14 s longer across seven games, nudging them into the top half of the split and a $15 k bonus that FireBeasts now chase in LCQ2.

Check the "ghost 13th" trap: positions 13-16 pay zero, yet only 12 RP separated 12th-place Nexus (87 RP) from 13th-place Horizon (75 RP). One extra kill in game 5 would have flipped $50 k into Horizon pocket; instead they fly home early. Track your team kill delta after game 4–if they trail 12th by >7 kills, commit full aggro in game 5 while third-partying final circles; passive play from 13th rarely claws back 12 RP.

• Placement multipliers by lobby size (Patch 6.3):
  1. 50–41 squads: ×1.00
  2. 40–31: ×1.15
  3. 30–21: ×1.30
  4. 20–16: ×1.50
  5. 15–11: ×1.75
  6. 10–6: ×2.00
  7. 5–3: ×2.40
  8. 2: ×2.80
  9. 1: ×3.20
• RP per placement tier (Patch 6.3):
  • 1st: 25 RP
  • 2nd: 20 RP
  • 3rd: 16 RP
  • 4th: 13 RP
  • 5th: 11 RP
  • 6th: 9 RP
  • 7th: 7 RP
  • 8th: 5 RP
  • 9th–10th: 3 RP
  • 11th–12th: 2 RP
  • 13th–15th: 1 RP
  • 16th–20th: 0 RP

Color-code the board: green for teams that banked 60 % of RP from placement, yellow for 45–59 %, red for <45 %. Red-zone teams over-rely on kills; if circle 5 center pulls away from their drop spot (Storm Point north pad or Fragment east), expect a 9-RP average drop-off in the next two games–prime window for safer squads to leapfrog them.

Set a live alert at 178 total RP; that the historical cut-line for top 6. Once your roster crosses 165 RP, swap to a 2-1-1 craft economy: two members carry two batteries each, one carries four arc stars, one carries two ult accelerants. The extra throwables secure 1.3 more kills per game on average, enough to push past the 178 barrier and lock a grand-final seat before the last match even starts.

Match Point Threshold Explained: 59 vs. 60 Points That DQ’d XSET on Time-Bank

Lock this in: the ALGS rulebook treats 60 points as the hard gate for Match Point eligibility, not 59. XSET hit 59 at 17:42 UTC, 63 seconds after the lobby clock froze, so their 4-kill, 1,080-damage game on Storm Point never counted toward the Finals bracket. Tournament ops use the in-game timestamp on the final kill feed line; if the scoreboard flips to 60 after that line, the game is logged as "incomplete." Bookmark the overlay URL (https://algs.gg/livefeed) and screenshot your last kill at 144 fps–those two files saved XSET appeal from instant rejection, even though they still missed the cut.

How the math stacks up:

• Storm Point game lasted 15:07; kill #6 (the one that would have pushed them to 60) registered at 15:08.420.
• Observer paused the server at 15:07.997; anything after the pause byte is nullified.
• EA backend logs record a 1.423-second delta, so the point was technically earned but officially void.

Next LAN, run a local NTP sync to within 50 ms of the tournament server and cap your ShadowPlay buffer to three minutes; that combo gives you a 30-second window to export the clip before the observer machine overwrites the demo file. Coaches who hot-export the demo within that window have overturned three denials this season alone.

RP Rounding Rules: How Halved Kill Points Cost Alliance the 7th Seed

Force tournament admins to show you the raw RP spreadsheet before you sign the scoreboard; Alliance skipped this check and bled 0.5 point on every rounded kill, turning what should have been 58 RP into 54.

ALGS 2026 uses bankers’ rounding–halves go to the nearest even number. Alliance dropped a combined 7 kills across six games that landed exactly on the 0.5 line. Instead of 3.5 → 4, the sheet recorded 3.5 → 3. Four of those phantom deficits came in the 13-kill game on Storm Point, erasing a full placement jump.

• Game 3: 13 kills × 0.5 = 6.5 → rounded to 6 instead of 7 (-1 RP)
• Game 5: 11 kills × 0.5 = 5.5 → rounded to 5 instead of 6 (-1 RP)
• Games 2, 4, 7, 9: 9 kills each → 4.5 → 4 (-0.5 RP each, total -2 RP)
• Cumulative stealth loss: 4 RP

Those four missing RP slid them from 7th to 10th, because Fire Beasts and Horizon United both finished on 55. The tie-breaker is total squad kills; Alliance had 94, the others 96 and 97. One extra rounded point in any single game flips the order.

Coach Yixn post-match tweet–"We had 58, spreadsheet says 54, somebody explain?"–got 12 k likes but zero RP back. Tournament rule 7.4.2 states that once the scoreboard is locked (90 seconds after last match), "clerical rounding errors shall stand."

1. Demand a CSV export immediately after every matchday.
2. Run =MROUND(kills*0.5,1) with ">0.5 away from zero" mode in your own Excel copy; if the total differs from the official file, file a protest before the lock timer expires.
3. Stack odd-numbered kill games whenever possible–11 kills rounds to 6, 13 to 7–so halves tip upward.
4. Keep a running screenshot of the on-screen tally; admins accept timestamped PNGs as evidence, not verbal claims.

Alliance now enters the last-chance qualifier as the 10th seed, facing XSET and DarkZero in the same lobby. Their analyst built a Monte Carlo sim: with the old 58 RP they would have had a 71 % chance of auto-qualifying; with 54 RP it drops to 38 %. The model spits out 0.7 expected LAN appearances, meaning the rounding rule more than halved their Worlds ticket equity.

Next LAN in São Paulo uses the same scoring, so every pro team is adding a "rounding sentinel"–a second coach who does nothing but watch the export folder and smash F5. If you’re scrimming tonight, replicate the exact ALGS rounding script in your private server: half-kills still round, so practice finishing with 7, 9, 11 or 13 kills and verify the sheet matches your manual count. One click every game beats a three-week LCQ grind.

Q&A:

Which teams punched their tickets to the 2026 ALGS finals and how did they qualify?

The 40 squads that showed up in Stockholm earned their spots through three paths. Twenty came from the year-long Pro League circuit top five from each region (NA, EMEA, APAC-N, APAC-S). Ten more arrived via the Last-Chance Qualifier held the week before the finals; that single-elimination bloodbath took the best two from each region. The final ten were the winners of the four regional playoffs plus the six highest cumulative points earners who hadn’t already qualified. EA published the full list with match IDs on the ALGS site the day tickets went on sale, so you can still trace every roster road if you want to rewatch the VODs.

What was the biggest surprise in the group stage and how did it shape the bracket?

Fan-favorite DarkZero went 3-15 in fights and landed 19th in Group B, missing the winner bracket entirely. That opened the door for the Japanese roster "Fennel" to snag the second seed; they rolled through with 83 kills, the highest anyone posted in groups. Because Fennel dodged the lower-bracket chaos, they entered match-point Sunday with only two squads on equal points, giving them the inside lane to the title. Without DarkZero meltdown, the bracket would have looked very different most simulations had them finishing top-four.

How does the match-point format actually work and why did it end so fast this year?

Once a team reaches 50 total points, they "activate" match point. From that moment on, they must win a game to clinch the championship; placement or kills no longer add to their score. In 2026 three teams Fennel, TL, and EXO hit the threshold by game eight of the finals. Game nine looked like a throw-away for TL until they wiped the last duo with a triple-kraber barrage on broken moon. The whole tournament wrapped in 9 games instead of the 13–14 we saw in 2024 and 2025 because lobbies played hyper-aggressively once the 50-point line was crossed, cranking the average lobby KP from 48 to 71.

Who took home individual stat awards and what guns dominated the killfeed?

Rookie "Siru" from Fennel led everyone with 42 knocks and a 7.9 K/D. MVP vote went to TL "n4fu" for 38 knocks plus 12 revives and the game-winning call in game nine. Weapon-wise the Nemesis and Peacekeeper combined for 34 % of all kills, but the real sleeper was the 30-30 Repeater its tempo buff in Season 22 pushed it to 11 % usage, triple what it saw at the 2025 champs. Pick-rate graphs are still up on apexlegendsstatus if you want the round-by-round breakdown.

When does the next ALGS season start and will the finals stay in Stockholm?

EA already locked in a February 14, 2027 kickoff for Pro League Split 1, with regional finals in May and the championship weekend set for early July. The venue isn’t announced yet; Stockholm was only booked for one year. Rumors point toward Singapore or São Paulo because both regions smashed viewership records this cycle, but the official reveal won’t drop until the December publisher stream. If you plan to attend, budget for a passport either way next year finals will leave Europe for the first time since 2024.

Which patch was locked for the ALGS 2026 Finals, and how did it affect the meta we saw on-stream?

Patch 4.82 went live two weeks before playoffs, so pros had very little wiggle-room. The big shake-up was Seer tactical interrupt getting a 5 m range nerf and the Nemesis burst delay shaved by 80 ms. Most coaches immediately dropped Seer for Catalyst on Storm Point, while the Nemesis tweak made the 3x-Ranger the new floor loot god. You could see it in the killfeed: every other knock came from mid-range beam wars instead of the old 3-2-1 bubble burst. TSM leaned hardest into the change; they ran double-Catalyst on SP and crafted three Nemesis rifles by round 3, which let them gatekeep teams rotating through Antenna. That single pivot gave them 18 extra placement points across the two SP games and basically locked them top-3 before Worlds Edge even started.

How did DarkZero go from 14th place after Day 1 to lifting the trophy 36 hours later?

They stopped chasing kills and started playing circle math. Zer0 pulled up a heat-map of where teams land on WE based on bus path, so they pre-called the uncontested Thermal South spot for every match on Day 2. That gave them three free crafters and enough mats to put a red Evo on every teammate before first zone closed. Once they had the armor advantage, they sat on the Thermal cliff and gatekept Frag East rotates; every time a team grappled or pad-ed up, they got beamed by 100-damage longbows. The real swing round was game 5: they were 7th overall with 34 points, then got a perfect east pull. They rotated early, set up in Sorting Factory back tower, and farmed 11 kills off the four teams that had to come through the choke. That single game gave them 20 points and catapulted them to 2nd. On match point they only needed placement; they played edge, let NRG and TSM punch each other in Harvester, and third-partied the last knock for the 17-kill lobby win.

Reviews

Lucas Hawthorne

Oof, my coffee went cold while I watched Hal drop thirty on Storm Point kid wrist is a curling iron. I thought I understood circles until that last zone pinched us into a two-door shack and suddenly three teams were spooning like socks in my dryer. My Mrs shouted from the kitchen, "Who winning?" I yelled back, "Anyone who still has a bullet and a dream, babe!" Then ImperialGuard clutched the 1v3 and I did that little victory dance usually reserved for when the casserole doesn’t stick. My cat judged me. Worth it.

IronRift

How did you trace every micro-rotation that turned 5th-place underdogs into overtime kings without drowning us in numbers?

VelvetSky

so, darling, did you rig the bracket or just sniff the winners’ sheets?

Abigail

why do i bother staying up till 3am for these finals if the casters keep mispronouncing loba name and the observer keeps missing the third parties? my goldfish could track rotations better. i counted seven squads phasing through the same rock on world edge seven! and the overlay glitched so hard i thought darkzero were at match point when they were actually eighth. my daughter asked why the champions skin looked like a melted popsicle and i had no answer. fix the servers, fix the audio, fix my sleep schedule.

Emily Johnson

Ugh, another ALGS recap? Felt like watching paint dry. Half the "breakdowns" were just copy-paste killfeeds, and the standings graphic looked like it was rendered on a toaster. I sat through 47 minutes of caster gossip waiting for the actual final, only to get a thirty-second montage and a blurry handshake. Congrats, you spoiled who won in the thumbnail no spoiler tags, nothing. My goldfish could’ve predicted the meta they gushed over; every squad ran the same comp since split two. Save your bandwidth, ladies.