SHENZHEN, CHINA 16 January 2023 – On the evening of January 8, in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the 2022 PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) came to an end. After three days of fierce competition within a total of 18 maps, the three Chinese teams – Four Angry Men (4AM), Nova Esports and Wolves Esports finally ranked 8th, 9th and 11th respectively, and the champion belonged to Turkish S2G Esports.
As the team that won the last two Global Finals of PMGC, Nova Esports was not able to defend its title and failed to retain the championship trophy representing the world’s highest level of the Peacekeeper Elite League (PEL) in the China Division. However, looking at the whole competition, the competitiveness of overseas teams was indeed beyond the expectations of many people, which also provided more focus and topic for the competition at the international level, and lent new vigor into the international pattern of the PUBG Mobile E-sports events.
From the 24 teams participating in the first PMGC in 2020 to a total of 50 teams from the eight major regions of the world, the PMGC has experienced two consecutive expansions.
Speaking of the expansion of the competition, we have to mention the World Cup. As the world’s most high-profile sports event, the Federation international of Football Association (FIFA) officially announced as early as 2017 that it would increase the number of participating teams from 32 to 48 at the 23rd FIFA World Cup in 2026. This will not only bring more income to FIFA, but also further increase the influence of the World Cup in the world and attract more people to participate in football.
For the PMGC, PEL also hopes to enhance the influence and popularity of the event through the expansion of the army.
Let’s talk about the 16 teams that have reached the final. Brazil and China each have three seats. Mongolia, Turkey, Nepal and Thailand have contributed to two teams respectively, and the last two seats belong to the Malaysian GEEK Esports that successfully broke through in the competition and the Indonesian AE Esports which is directly invited.
After entering the finals, the overseas teams have always been in the leading position of the table. Although the Chinese team led by 4AM made a great effort to catch up on the last day, it still could not prevent S2G from winning the championship.
In the deciding game, S2G, who has always been at the top of the table, did not fight steadily, but attacked decisively uncharacteristically. With a wonderful “return shot”, they caught the 4AM team unprepared and discard all thought of achieving three consecutive championships in the PEL. Due to the excellent performance, Player “TOP” of Mongolia was named FMVP after leading Godlike Stalwart to a fourth-place, with 31 knockouts and 10074 total injuries.
In addition, in all four individual honors, 4AM Wwx was awarded the “Eagle Eye”, while the other individual awards of “Field Medic”, “Gunslinger” and “Grenade Master” were awarded by VPE FlukeTH from Thailand, STE Top from Mongolia and T2K Sand3shS from Nepal.
The ownership of individual honors and awards also confirms the overall rise of the overseas power of the PUBG mobile.
For many spectators, people hope to appreciate and learn the skills and tactics of professional teams and players by watching the event representing the highest level. Therefore, at the PMGC representing the highest level of the PUBG Mobile E-sports event, the most expected thing for the audience is the confrontation between the world’s best teams in this event.
Whether this confrontation is at the tactical or technical level, the professional players’ choice of firearms, the grasp of the time of entering the safe circle, the ability of team cooperation, the overall competitive level of the participating teams can improve the viewing of the event.
It is worth mentioning that the PMGC has also optimized its own competition system while expanding the army, so as to ensure the excellence of the competition.
Under the new competition system, those teams that failed to break through the group stage can still win the final five seats in the finals through the survival stage and the last chance stage. At the recent 2022 FIFA World Cup, many spectators who did not know much about football questioned the suspension rules of red and yellow cards.
In fact, at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, FIFA introduced the rule of the yellow card reset in the semi-finals for the first time.
That is to say, if a team that has entered the top four carries a yellow card in the previous competition, it will be reset after entering the semi-finals. Such rules can ensure that famous players will not miss the World Cup finals because of accumulated yellow cards, which will affect the viewing rate, topic popularity and income of the finals.
Therefore, when the PMGC added the survival and breakthrough stages on the basis of the group stage, the update of the competition not only gave the eliminated teams the opportunity to “revive” in the group stage, but also effectively reduced the impact of randomness in the competition process on the viewing of the finals, thus ensuring the fairness of the competition.
In addition to the upgrading of the competition system, the bonus of 2022 PMGC has also been further improved compared with the previous ones. According to the statistics of the website of Esports Charts, the total bonus of PUBG Mobile ranked second in all the e-sports events in 2022, and the 2022 PMGC contributed up to $4 million in total bonus.
In the end, S2G Esports from Turkey became the big winner of the 2022 PMGC. This team not only won the championship trophy with a total score of 190 points, but also took 12.75% of the total prize pool, and pocketed the championship bonus of $510000.
For a global event, the high bonus, the increase of overseas teams and the improvement of their strength would certainly attract more attention from the world. On overseas social platforms, discussions about the progress of the game and the performance of the team were endless.
Standing on the stage of the World Competition, they not only represent the teams and individuals, but also bear the honor of the country and the region.
During the group match of Yellow Group, overseas players even said that “the 4AM is as strong as the dawn soldiers who always get up early”, but at the same time, he did not forget to cheer on the GEEK Esports he supports. “Their struggle was fiercely sniped by uHigh of GEEK, and the title of Malaysian champion seems to be their great motivation.”
For the teams and players, the field is the stage for their battle, while under the field, the fierce discussion between the audience and the supporters of the team is also a different “battlefield”. However, whether it is a battle on the field or off the field, it will ultimately push the influence of the event on the international scale to a higher level.
For the Global Finals of PMGC, the positive impact of its international voice increasing is not only on the event itself, but also on the PEL, which has continuously promoted the overseas layout in the past few years.
On March 7, 2022, on the PEL Media Open Day, the league announced that it would replace FPP (first-person mode) with TPP (third-person mode) in the new season.
In addition, the four seasons will also be officially adjusted to spring season and summer season. Each season is divided into four stages, namely: pre-season qualifying, regular season, playoffs, and finals. After the regular season of each season is over, there will be a two-week playoff, and 15 teams will enter the finals to win the championship.
The adjustment of the competition system before the start of the spring competition in 2022 also means that PEL is officially in line with the international competition.
At the same time, PEL has also attracted the attention of international traditional sports clubs through its growing popularity.
On December 21, 2022, Fosun Sports, where Wolves Esports is located, officially announced its entry into PEL and will compete in the 2022 PMGC in the name of Wolves. As a club with traditional sports experience, the joining of the Premier League giants Wolves Esports will help the PEL further enhance its influence in the world.
During the global finals, Xu Zhuoer, the head of the E-sports business of Peacekeeper Elite, was interviewed by the media. He said: “The experience of these three years has proved that the E-sports event of Peacekeeper Elite is an independent and influential event at home and abroad.
After many cross-border combinations, we will also focus on the improvement of the content. Whether it is our own internationalization system which will attract more attention to the global finals, or we will make more content specific to the mobile tactical competitive category in the exchange stories of domestic and foreign team players in the future, which will be our continuous goal.”
At the opening ceremony of the finals, after the countdown of 10 seconds, as the cabin door slowly opened, the camera jumped down from the sky, and the perspective also came to the center of the stage, and the Slogan of “Who Will Be The # 1” slowly appeared in front of the audience.
From the opening of the first PEL preliminaries in September 2019 to the successful conclusion of the 2022 PMGC, as Xu Zhuoer mentioned in the interview, one thing PEL has always been doing in the past three years is to open up the international system and let the Peacekeeper Elite E-sports move towards the goal of “The # 1” of mobile tactical and competitive games.
For this year’s PMGC, although the victory of Turkish S2G broke the monopoly of the Chinese team on the championship in the past two years, the regret of losing the championship will certainly become the driving force for the Chinese team to move forward.
In 2023, the Chinese team will face more severe challenges, whether it is the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 nine months later or the PMGC after that. I believe that those who have tasted the bitterness of losing will show more convincing performance and achievements, and help the Peacekeeper Elite E-sports to take a more solid step towards the goal of the global E-sports project. In this way, they will not fail PEL’s efforts and efforts in overseas layout for three years.
