BIG, K27 Advance to Esports World Cup Main Event

BIG and K27 clinched spots in the Esports World Cup main event after advancing from the open qualifier series. BIG defeated Sashi 2-1 and K27 eliminated fnatic, securing places in the 32-team main event.

BIG advanced by winning a three-map series against Sashi. Belarusian AWPer Gleb ‘gr1ks’ Gazin was the top performer on six of 11 maps and finished the open stage with a 1.58 rating. Benjamin ‘blameF’ Bremer and Johannes ‘tabseN’ Wodarz posted positive numbers for BIG. The team won Cache and Ancient and dropped only the second map of the qualifier.

Sashi entered the qualifier following recent results that included four series wins in Paris, an elimination of Virtus.pro, and first place at CCT 2026 Europe Series 5, moves that placed them inside the top 50 on the VRS rankings. After the series, blameF responded to Sashi’s in-game trash talk, telling them, “Why are you yelling so much when you’re fucking shit?”

K27 secured qualification by edging out fnatic in a close series. Prospects Aleksey ‘xeedo’ Mikulich and Daniil ‘qw1nk1’ Kabilov recorded high impact numbers, each posting about 90 average damage per round on the final map. K27 won the second map 16-13 in overtime and closed the decider 10-4. This marks K27’s second qualification to a big event.

Fnatic entered the qualifier with new additions Volodymyr ‘mazay’ Iorhachov and Artem ‘cairne’ Mushynskyi. Mazay delivered a 1v3 to force a series point on map two and finished the match with solid statistics. Cairne and mazay posted ratings above 1.20 across the series while fnatic’s other starters finished below 1.00; fnatic also lost a 5v3 at 12-11 on map two.

At PGL Astana K27 used stand-in Petr ‘fame’ Bolyshev and finished in last place. BIG and K27 will now prepare for the Esports World Cup main event, where 32 teams will compete.