ALGS Split 2 Playoffs Bring 40 Teams and US$2 Million to Las Vegas

The Apex Legends Global Series Split 2 Playoffs begin on Thursday, October 29, at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, and the lineup is complete. Forty teams, split into four groups of ten, will play for a US$2,000,000 prize pool over four days that end on Sunday, November 1 with the Match Point Finals, according to a guide published on October 24 by the gaming site GameRiv. It is the Apex Legends Global Series' first return to North America since 2024, the same guide notes.

GameRiv event guide, published October 24, 2026; US dollar amounts as listed there.

Forty teams, four groups

The Apex Legends Global Series, known as ALGS, is the competitive circuit of the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, and its developer Respawn Entertainment. The season is organized in splits, and this event is the playoff of Split 2, which gathers the teams that qualified through the league season.

GameRiv's guide lists all 40 teams by group. By region, the guide gives the allocation as 15 teams from the Americas, 7 from EMEA, 10 from APAC North and 8 from APAC South, which adds up to the 40. EMEA stands for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and APAC for Asia-Pacific, which the guide splits into a northern and a southern region. The mix means more than a third of the field comes from the Americas alone, while the two APAC regions together send 18 teams.

The groups are used for the Thursday and Friday group stage. A group never plays itself: each one meets the other three in a six-match series, so a team sees 18 matches over the two days. A match here means one game on the map, played by all the squads in the lobby at the same time, and the points a team earns in each are added up. GameRiv says combined points from the two days decide the next step, with the top 20 going to the Winners Round and the bottom 20 to Elimination Round 1. From Saturday the guide describes a bracket stage and then the Match Point Finals.

How the four days are laid out

The schedule has three phases, each on its own days. GameRiv gives the times in Pacific Time (PT).

On Thursday, October 29, and Friday, October 30, group matches start at 10:15 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. PT. On Saturday, October 31, Elimination Round 1 starts at 10:15 a.m., the Winners Round at 2:30 p.m. and Elimination Round 2 at 6:45 p.m. PT. Sunday opens with a showmatch between NiceWigg and Greek at 1 p.m. PT, the opening ceremony follows at 3 p.m. and the Match Point Finals begin at 3:30 p.m., according to the guide.

GameRiv adds a practical note for viewers: daylight saving time changes between the October and November dates, so Sunday's clock times convert differently from the first three days. The guide gives Pacific Daylight Time for October 29 to 31 and Pacific Standard Time on November 1.

How Match Point works

Match Point is the format that decides Sunday's Finals, where the remaining teams share one lobby, the match room in which several squads fight at once. According to GameRiv, a team must first reach 50 points, and then it has to win a later game to become champion. That two-step rule means a team cannot simply pile up points and be crowned. Reaching 50 only puts a team on match point.

The group stage and bracket stage compress the field before that point.

On Saturday the three bracket rounds work like this, according to GameRiv. In Elimination Round 1, the top 10 teams advance to Elimination Round 2 and the bottom 10 are out. In the Winners Round, the top 10 go straight to the Finals and the bottom 10 drop into Elimination Round 2. In Elimination Round 2, the top 10 take the remaining 10 Finals places and the bottom 10 are out. GameRiv also describes the Finals condition with the phrase "Match Point Eligible": a team still has to close out a game while on match point, so reaching 50 does not end the event.

The Year 6 calendar around Las Vegas

Electronic Arts published the Year 6 roadmap in January, and Insider Gaming summarized it. The season opened with the ALGS Online Open, with qualifiers from February 28 to March 23. The Split 1 Pro League ran from April to June, and the Split 2 Pro League, the online league season that feeds this playoff, was scheduled for August 22 to October 4, according to a summary by an esports news site on January 20. The Split 2 Playoffs were set for October 29 to November 1 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, which that summary described as the series' first Las Vegas event. A Last Chance Qualifier follows, and the ALGS Championship is set for January 28 to 31, 2027, at the Daiwa House Premist Dome in Sapporo, Japan.

The roadmap also set the year's money. Insider Gaming reported a global prize pool of US$7 million with US$2 million reserved for each international event, and the January 20 summary said EA had added US$1 million to the previous year's total. The US$2,000,000 in Las Vegas is therefore about 29% of the annual pool. Dot Esports' own Year 6 calendar of January 18 also listed Las Vegas at US$2 million and the Championship at the same Sapporo venue. Dot Esports put the Championship at the Daiwa House Premist Dome in Sapporo from January 28 to 31, 2027, which means the Las Vegas field is competing for places on a calendar that does not end until late January. The Last Chance Qualifier sits in between, so a team that falls short in Las Vegas still has a route onto that Sapporo stage.

The roadmap tightened the rules that decide who reaches a playoff field. Championship Points only count toward a team's total if its players have competed in at least 12 Pro League matches, according to the January 20 summary, which said the change was meant to close loopholes teams had used to qualify. Players can switch teams only after Match Day 6 of each split, which the January 20 summary said is meant to keep rosters stable. Insider Gaming and the January 20 summary both reported that Legend bans, a rule that removes certain characters from selection, now also apply to the semi-professional Challenger Circuit. The January 20 summary said the POI draft, the system through which teams claim the map areas where they land, is unchanged for Year 6.

Insider Gaming added that the roadmap reflects a stronger focus on competitive integrity this season, with stricter roster rules and more control over Championship Points.

The Last Chance Qualifier, which runs from November 20 to 22, remains a route into the Championship, as it was in Year 5, when Oblivion won it, according to the January 20 summary.

Prize money

The prize pool is US$2,000,000, and GameRiv reports that every team receives prize money. The winner takes US$600,000, which is 30% of the pool.

GameRiv lists US$2,500 for 40th place, the lowest payout of the event.

Watching the event

GameRiv lists a Twitch Drops schedule for the four days. Viewers who link their EA account to Twitch earn a cosmetic reward for 60 minutes of eligible viewing, and an Apex Pack after 15 minutes. The daily rewards are the Cashing In weapon charm on October 29, the Respawning holospray on October 30, the Red Eraser Charge Rifle skin on October 31 and the Red Sector Wraith skin on November 1.

What comes next

Once the 20 finalists have played on November 1, the Last Chance Qualifier starts 19 days after the Las Vegas finale. The Championship in Sapporo opens 67 days after the qualifier ends.

GameRiv says the Las Vegas results feed into that Championship, so the placings of the 40 teams matter beyond the prize money.

A Finals place can come from the Winners Round in the afternoon or from Elimination Round 2 in the evening.

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