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BIG's Taylor-Petrik "vic0" Gatschelhofer and Danila "Malibuca" Iakovenko won the inaugural Fortnite Reload Elite Series at the Esports World Cup 2026 on August 22, taking the title with a Victory Royale in the 13th and final match. The win made BIG the first duo in Fortnite competitive history to win back-to-back Tier 1 LAN titles, following the pair's win at the FNCS Major 1 Summit in Düsseldorf in May.
First place at the Riyadh event paid $260,000, and vic0 also won the Sony MVP award for the event, worth an additional $25,000. The win came after the duo started the final day slowly, qualifying for the finals by finishing only second in their group before climbing the standings over the course of the event.
Results reported by Insider Gaming and the Esports World Cup's own press release, Riyadh, August 22, 2026.
A new competitive format for BIG's duo
The Fortnite Reload Elite Series was the first event of its kind run at the Esports World Cup, built around Fortnite's Reload mode rather than the standard Battle Royale ruleset the FNCS season and the Düsseldorf Summit use. For BIG's duo, winning a title in a format separate from the one that produced their Summit win in May meant proving the partnership's strength outside the single ruleset most of the rest of their season had been built around.
How the final day played out
The Fortnite Reload Elite Series finals were decided by a Match Point format: a duo became eligible to win outright once it crossed 350 points, with the overall leader after that point needing only to stay ahead through the rest of the day. Aurora Gaming's Oltean "shxrk" Ștefan and Tin "t3eny" Popovic were the first team to reach the threshold, qualifying by Match 9 after wins in Matches 2 and 7, while Walid "Momsy" B. and Mathéo "Skyjump" L., competing as a French mix without a listed organization, became the second duo to cross 350 after Game 9.
Related readDarkZero Beat Shopify Rebellion to Win the Salt Lake City R6 MajorBIG's duo reached Match Point eligibility only in Game 11, two games after Aurora Gaming and the French pair had already crossed the threshold. From there, BIG closed out the event in Game 13, with vic0 and Malibuca's own Victory Royale in that final match securing the title ahead of both teams that had reached eligibility earlier in the day.
| Place | Duo | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | vic0 and Malibuca (BIG) | Won Game 13 with a Victory Royale |
| 2nd | Momsy and Skyjump | French mix, reached 350 points in Game 9 |
| 3rd | shxrk and t3eny (Aurora Gaming) | First duo to reach 350 points, in Game 9 |
Standings reported by the Esports World Cup's own press release, August 2026.
Aurora Gaming's new Fortnite roster and an old BIG connection
Aurora Gaming signed shxrk and t3eny as its first Fortnite roster on March 28, 2026, entering the game as a new discipline for the organization. Aurora's own announcement described shxrk as one of the youngest and most consistent players in the European scene, pointing to a run of nine wins in his previous ten tournaments, including an earlier Reload Elite Series qualifier final. shxrk had previously competed for BIG before Aurora signed him, meaning the third-place finish in Riyadh came against the organization he had played for before the move, a detail the Esports World Cup result put back in view. t3eny, a Slovenian player who had previously competed for Team Falcons, brought his own LAN experience from the 2024 Esports World Cup and DreamHack Dallas into the pairing.
A tournament pre-event favorites didn't close out
Not every team that led the event's qualification rounds carried that form into the finals. Nikolaj "Sky" Helleskov and Adrian "Scroll" Richelieu, competing as AG.AL and entering the event as one of the pre-tournament favorites after their own strong runs earlier in the season, never reached the 350-point Match Point threshold during the finals, finishing the event without a result matching their reputation heading into Riyadh.
Related readeChampions League 26: the Budapest Final 8 and how it was wonReaching Match Point first does not guarantee the win
Aurora Gaming and the French duo of Momsy and Skyjump both crossed the Fortnite Reload Elite Series' 350-point Match Point threshold before BIG did. The format rewards whichever eligible team is still ahead when the event's final match ends, which is why BIG's later qualification in Game 11 did not stop the duo from winning in Game 13.
What the Match Point format rewards
The Fortnite Reload Elite Series' 350-point threshold is designed to let a strong early day set up a late-event sprint: once a duo crosses the line, it is eligible to win outright in any later match where no other eligible team finishes ahead of it, rather than needing to keep winning games outright to stay in contention. That design is why Aurora Gaming's early qualification in Game 9 did not guarantee anything beyond eligibility, and why BIG's later qualification in Game 11, with two fewer eligible games to work with, still left the duo enough room to close out the title in Game 13.
The overall field for the Finals numbered 20 teams, drawn from the event's earlier group stage, with BIG's second-place group finish setting up a finals run that started slowly before the pair's late push through the Match Point window. Nineteen other duos shared the Finals bracket with BIG, each with its own path to the 350-point threshold that ultimately decided the event.
Why the back-to-back result stands out
BIG's win in Riyadh came roughly three months after the Düsseldorf Summit, during which span the competitive Fortnite calendar had moved through its regional Major qualifiers and other events without any other duo managing the same feat: winning two separate Tier 1 LAN titles in the same season. The Esports World Cup's own reporting on the result specifically flagged it as the first time any team had done so in the game's competitive history, underlining how rare back-to-back LAN wins have been across Fortnite's various competitive formats.
Related readEsports World Cup 2026 leaves Riyadh and moves to ParisThe result also arrived at a different tournament than Düsseldorf: where the Summit ran under the FNCS banner and the standard Battle Royale ruleset, the Fortnite Reload Elite Series was built around Fortnite's Reload mode, a separate competitive format introduced within the game. BIG's win across two different rulesets within the same season added weight to the "first ever" framing used in post-event coverage.
Club Championship points were also on the line
Beyond the individual payouts, the Esports World Cup ties every event's finishing placements into its season-long Club Championship standings, which track how each participating organization performs across every game on the Esports World Cup calendar rather than any single title. BIG's win in the Fortnite Reload Elite Series added to the organization's Club Championship points total for 2026, giving the result value to BIG beyond the Fortnite-specific prize money and MVP bonus, in a competition that runs in parallel across the entire multi-game event.
Why the Elite Series carried extra weight this year
The inaugural running of the Fortnite Reload Elite Series gave the Esports World Cup its first dedicated Reload-mode event, adding a second competitive ruleset to the Fortnite program the tournament already ran under the standard Battle Royale format. That expansion meant BIG's win carried the distinction of being the new format's first-ever champion at the event, on top of the back-to-back LAN achievement that made up most of the post-event coverage.
What it means for the rest of the season
The Esports World Cup's Fortnite Reload Elite Series was a one-off event rather than part of the FNCS season's direct qualification path to the Fortnite Global Championship, so the win did not change BIG's qualification status for that event, which the duo had already secured through its Düsseldorf result in May. The $260,000 payout and the Sony MVP award for vic0 nonetheless added to the pair's season earnings and reputation heading into the competitive calendar's remaining events.
The MVP award and what it recognized
vic0's Sony MVP award, worth $25,000 on top of BIG's team prize, was decided separately from the team placement itself, recognizing individual performance across the event rather than simply going to a member of the winning duo by default. The award added to a season in which vic0 had already been the standout individual performer at the Düsseldorf Summit months earlier, where he posted the highest damage output of any player across that event's three competitive days. Taken together, the two results gave vic0 individual recognition at both of BIG's LAN wins in 2026, rather than the MVP attention falling only on one half of the season's two-event run.
What comes next
BIG's back-to-back LAN titles close out a stretch of the 2026 season in which the duo established itself as the format's most consistent team across two different competitive rulesets, Battle Royale in Düsseldorf and Reload in Riyadh. With the Fortnite Global Championship still ahead on the calendar, BIG arrives as one of the event's highest-profile entrants, while Aurora Gaming, the French duo of Momsy and Skyjump, and AG.AL all carry their own Riyadh results into the rest of the season looking to match the standard BIG has set across its two LAN wins this year.
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