PUBG Global Series 2026 roster rules: phases, substitutes and deadlines

A team's results in the PUBG Global Series start with a list of names. Before a single match of the 2026 season is played, every one of the 24 teams in the field has to tell the organizer who may play for it, who coaches it and who speaks for it, and that list then decides what the team can and cannot do for months. A squad that loses a player to illness, a visa refusal or a contract dispute does not simply call up someone new: the rules decide when a change is possible.

PUBG: Battlegrounds is the battle royale published by Krafton, a genre in which many squads of four drop onto the same map and fight until one is left. The PUBG Global Series, known as PGS, is Krafton's international series of these events. On March 12, 2026, six days before the first series of the year, Krafton published the tournament rulebook of the 2026 PGS. This guide explains, from that rulebook and from the general ruleset it sits under, who can be registered, how a roster is fixed for each part of the season, how the daily line-up is set, what happens when a team is short of players, and the rules on names, owners and bans that sit around the roster.

Krafton, 2026 PUBG Global Series Tournament Rulebook, March 12, 2026.

Two texts, one order of priority

The PGS is run under two documents read together. The first is the tournament rulebook of March 12, written for these twelve series alone. It sets the schedule, the format, the prize money and the roster policy of the season. The second is the Standard and Universal PUBG Esports Ruleset, which Krafton shortens to SUPER. It is the base text for PUBG: Battlegrounds competitions in general, and the version in force when the PGS rulebook was published was 6.0.0, last updated on February 2, 2026.

The rulebook settles which one wins. Its introduction says that SUPER applies in addition to the PGS rules and supersedes them when the two conflict, and that the latest version of SUPER is the one published on Krafton's esports site. The Administration, the term both texts use for the officials who run the competition, may also amend the rules and make judgment calls where the text is silent. Much of what follows depends on that discretion, and the outcome of a particular case depends on how the officials read it.

The rulebook places the roster rules inside a large structure. It lists 24 participating teams, the field Krafton's roadmap of February 9 gives each series, and a total prize pool of US$2,000,000 for the year, US$500,000 per circuit, split into US$100,000 for Series 1, US$100,000 for Series 2 and US$300,000 for the Series Final. The twelve series run in four circuits of three consecutive weeks: PGS 1 to 3 from March 18 to April 5, PGS 4 to 6 from May 20 to June 7, PGS 7 to 9 from August 5 to 23, and PGS 10 to 12 from October 14 to November 1.

Who may play

Eligibility starts with SUPER. Its age rule is plain: players must have reached the age of majority and be at least 18 to take part. The age is measured on the first day of the competition, and SUPER allows only two exceptions, a rule written into the specific rules of a competition or the Administration's prior written approval. The PGS rulebook adds no exception of its own and states no age rule beyond SUPER's.

SUPER also stops a player from spreading across teams. A player may not compete for more than one team, or in more than one region, during the same competition. Once a player registers with a team for a regional qualifier, the player cannot register with another team, or for another region's qualifier, in that same competition.

A third rule concerns the people who run the game. SUPER bars employees, directors and officers of Krafton or of the Administration from competing. The PGS rulebook, for its part, leaves the final word on any player's eligibility to the Administration, and it ties the check-in to an eligible roster: a name on the list is not enough if the player does not meet the conditions.

Six seats on the roster

A PGS roster is small. The rulebook allows each team to register six members in total, made of four or five players plus the staff. Its section on roles defines three of them, with a ceiling for each.

The six-seat ceiling forces a choice. A team with five players, one coach and one manager is full. A team that wants a second manager has to give something up, and SUPER says what: a team that registers two managers cannot register a coach, and with the coach it loses the option of using one as a substitute player.

SUPER also asks every team to name a Team Representative when it registers. That person is responsible for all of the team's communications with the officials, and the Administration may treat what the representative says as said on behalf of the owners and the players. A team may not change its representative during a competition without the Administration's prior written approval.

The half-local rule

SUPER ties every team to the region it registers to compete in. At least half of the players on a roster must be legal citizens or permanent residents of that region. SUPER gives the arithmetic itself: two such players on a roster of four, three on a roster of five.

The rule is a floor, not a quota on the field. A team of five with three local players may field any four of them on a given day, as long as the registered roster meets the requirement. The PGS rulebook adds no nationality rule of its own, and neither text defines how a team's region is set beyond the region it registers for.

One roster per cycle

Under the 2026 rules, a roster is no longer submitted event by event. SUPER version 6.0.0 lets the Administration set up what it calls Integrated Roster Cycles, which group several competitions under a single roster submission; the example it gives is a Regional Series and a Global Series together. Unless the tournament rules of a competition say otherwise, the roster submitted for a cycle stays fixed for every competition within it.

The Regional Series are the competitions Krafton runs region by region. Its season roadmap of February 9, 2026 announced two of them for the year: Regional Series 1 in April and Regional Series 2 in September, with detailed schedules to come. The PGS rulebook uses those two submissions to divide the year into three roster phases.

Read with the calendar, the phases cover very different lengths of time. Phase 1 is the first circuit alone, three series between March 18 and April 5. Phase 2 spans two circuits, from May 20 to August 23, with a gap in the middle of the year. Phase 3 is the last circuit, from October 14 to November 1.

How each phase is set

The first circuit is played before Regional Series 1 has taken place, so there is no regional submission to build on. The rulebook handles this with a single sentence: "Exceptional provision of a dedicated roster is permitted exclusively for this phase."

The rulebook does not define what a dedicated roster contains, beyond the general limits of six members and four or five players. What the sentence does settle is its reach. The provision is exceptional and limited to PGS 1, 2 and 3. From PGS 4 onward, the roster a team plays with in the global series is tied to the one it submitted for its region.

Phase 2 covers PGS 4 to 9. Its rosters are based on the Regional Series 1 submission, which means that the list a team gives its region in April is the list it uses in the global series in May, June and August. A player who is not on that April list cannot simply be added for the summer.

The rulebook writes one exception into this phase, and only for its second half. For PGS 7, 8 and 9, replacement players may be allowed for verified visa issues alone. Two conditions frame it. The replacement needs the strict approval of Krafton, and it must follow the local transfer regulations of the team's region. The rulebook does not list those regional regulations, so what a team may do depends on the rules of its own region as well as on Krafton's decision.

Phase 3 covers PGS 10 to 12. Its rosters are based on the Regional Series 2 submission of September, and the rulebook states that they remain fixed for the remainder of the year. It writes no visa or other exception into this phase.

The match-day roster and the 11:00 AM cut-off

Inside a phase, the registered roster is the pool. Each day, a team chooses from it the four players who will compete, and the rulebook sets a precise routine for doing so. Its section on daily roster operations reads like a timetable.

The cut-off is strict. After 11:00 AM, the rulebook allows no roster change except in exceptional circumstances, which it does not list. The reference to a rehearsal day covers the first match day of a series: a team that sends no change carries forward the roster it used in rehearsal.

The last step is where the rules bite hardest. The rulebook puts it in one sentence: "Once the first official match of the day has commenced, no substitutions shall be allowed." SUPER says the same in other words, requiring a team to play with the same roster for the rest of the day once its first match begins. A PGS day is made of several matches, five per day in the Winners, Survival and Final Stages its map tables list, so a player who falls ill after the first drop cannot be replaced until the next day.

The coach as a substitute

A substitute is a registered player who does not start but may come in. In the PGS, the rules let a team turn its coach into one. The rulebook allows teams to register the coach as a substitute player, and leaves it to the team to decide each day whether to use that substitute. Its check-in section adds that a coach may play as a player if qualified, which means the coach must meet the same eligibility conditions as any other player.

SUPER frames the same option. Before the first match of each day, a team may decide to use its coach as a substitute player for that day. The decision is daily, and it is made before play, consistent with the rule that the line-up is fixed once the first match starts. Managers cannot fill this role: SUPER says plainly that they cannot be used as substitute players.

The rule leaves room for a lean roster. With four players and a coach who is eligible to play, a team still has a fifth name it can field on a given day, and it keeps a seat free for a manager. The trade-off is the one the six-seat ceiling sets: a second manager rules out the coach, and with the coach goes the spare player.

Playing short-handed

The rules separate two moments: registration and the match itself. At registration, SUPER requires at least four players, counting a coach registered as a substitute, by the deadline the officials set. A team that does not meet that minimum may be disqualified.

After the deadline, SUPER leaves room for emergencies. The Administration may allow a team in an emergency to compete with at least three players, again counting the coach as a substitute, until the emergency is resolved; the Administration decides what counts as one. Falling below three players for any reason may lead to disqualification from a match or from the competition. The PGS rulebook matches this floor: a team may play with a minimum of three squad members.

The day itself has its own checks. The rulebook says that a team that fails to field a full and eligible roster five minutes before the start of a match may be penalized. Only the four players competing that day may enter the stage and the tournament area. During play, the competition runs through Discord channels set up by the organizer, which teams must use for all communication. Each team may connect up to two extra members besides its players, and from the start of a match until the team is eliminated, only the four players may speak. The organizers mute everyone else.

Names, tags and owners

A roster is also a set of names, and SUPER fixes their form. A Team Tag, the short code shown in the game, must be two to four characters long, unique across all the teams of a competition and approved by the Administration. A team name is chosen at registration and cannot be changed during a competition without the Administration's prior written approval.

Player names follow the same logic. A player alias may be up to 12 characters, using letters, digits, underscores or hyphens, with no spaces, and it cannot be changed during a competition unless the Administration requires it. The in-game nickname may not exceed 16 characters and must take the form of the tag, an underscore, then the alias. The PGS rulebook adds a dress rule for the stage: players must wear their professional team jerseys there and during media activities, and long pants and closed-toe shoes on stage.

Ownership rules guard the roster from the top. SUPER states that no individual, entity or group may own or operate more than one team worldwide, or take part in the financing, operation, marketing or management of more than one. Two teams may not operate under the same brand or team name. A team's slot belongs to the team, or to the company that owns it; for a team owned by its players, the Team Representative is treated as the owner. Selling or transferring a slot is void without Krafton's prior written consent, the sale or transfer of a team, or a change of its ownership, is prohibited during the tournament period, and a roster must keep meeting the roster rules whatever change of ownership takes place.

Bans, penalties and withdrawals

The last link between a roster and the rulebook is discipline. The rulebook's section on cheating ends with a rule aimed at the team sheet: a team that uses a player with an active ban from PUBG will be disqualified from the tournament. The check falls on the team, not only on the player.

The rulebook's scale of penalties runs from verbal guidance to warnings, fines or deductions of prize money, forfeited matches, disqualification, and suspensions or bans. Two cautions add up to one warning, and each warning costs the team 2 points in the standings. A referee may issue a warning at once, without prior cautions. SUPER leaves penalties to the Administration's sole discretion, allows harsher ones for repeated offenses, and makes its decisions final and binding.

A roster also commits a team to the end. The rulebook says that a team may not ask to withdraw from the competition before all official tournament dates are over. The exception is participation made impossible by unavoidable circumstances, such as a natural disaster or health issues, and even then the team needs the Administration's prior approval and official documents. Refusing to take part without a valid reason may bring penalties.

In the 2026 PGS, the list a team sends its region in April is the list it lives with until the end of August.

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