Luminosity Gaming dominated the Grand Final and won the PUBG Americas Series Phase 1 (PAS1), the first 2023 PUBG regional championship of the 2023 season. The North American team won 6 of the 15 matches played from March 24 to 26 and scored 166 points, of which 88 were earned from kills and the remaining 78 from placement.
With the title, Luminosity qualified for the PUBG Global Series 1 (PGS1), the first global championship in 2023, as well as Soniqs, the runner-up, Shoot To Kill (STK), the 3rd placed, and Third Eye, the 4th. All of them are North American. Soniqs already had a guaranteed spot for being a PUBG Global Partner Team.
The Grand Final featured the top 8 from the North American Regional Playoff and the top 8 from the Latin American Regional Playoff.
The best Latin American team was Decimate (formerly BiluBilu), which placed 6th and was four points behind Third Eye, the 4th place. 00NATION (formerly A CRECHE) also fought to qualify for PGS1, but ended in 8th place, as the second best team in Latin America.
Luminosity had good performances to kick off the event, winning two games on the first day. Soniqs, who also took home two Chicken Dinners on Day 1, ended the initial five matches in the lead of the general leaderboard.
On the second day, Luminosity won another two games and jumped to the leaderboard’s top, leaving Soniqs in 2nd position, 22 points behind them.
On the third and decisive day, LG maintained consistency by taking two more Chicken Dinners and expanding the points difference over Soniqs, who tried, in the last five matches, to score as many points as possible by going on the attack against the opponents.
With the top 3 teams settled, the third day of the Grand Final had an intense dispute for the fourth spot for PGS1, with seven teams having a chance to qualify. Third Eye qualified for the international event in a tight final stretch of the 15th game, finishing with 1 point more than 5th place Elevate.
PAS1 distributed more than US$ 100,000 in prize money, with US$ 95,000 in the Grand Final, and qualification points for the 2023 PUBG Global Championship (PGC).
Final Leaderboard
Check out the final leaderboard for the PAS1 Grand Final:
Prize Pool
See how the prize pool of US$ 95,000 was distributed in the PAS1 Grand Final:
Qualified Teams
These are the four Americas teams qualified for PGS1 – Soniqs, as a PUBG partner team, already had a guaranteed spot.
Road to PGC
Check out the distribution of the 1,200 qualifying points for the PGC 2023 in the PAS1 Grand Final:
Game by game
Check out the summary of each of the 15 matches in the PAS1 Grand Final:
Day 1
Match 1 (Erangel): Soniqs
Soniqs looted in Pochinki and stayed around that area for the entire match, taking advantage of safe closures, favorable to the point that the team didn’t have to rotate. It was the other teams that needed to get closer and, in the exchanges, they got the worst of it. Soniqs got the Chicken Dinner, with six kills. STK, although falling in 3rd place in the match, managed to get the same 16 points as Soniqs as they had 11 kills. Luminosity, the second team to go down, totaled 14 points with eight kills.
Match 2 (Erangel): Luminosity
If they didn’t need to move in the previous match, Soniqs ended up being punished by Luminosity precisely in a rotation in the second match, when they were trying to enter the safe. Luminosity had already taken advantage of another exchange, earlier in the game, when Soniqs started on Trogloditas and Matt “Kickstart” Smith’s team eliminated STK. FIUMBA, who had a great moment with Facundo “Capitan” Solsona eliminating three players from Synergy Esports, reached the match’s ending against Luminosity, but ended up losing Chicken Dinner to the North Americans, who added 21 points due to the 11 kills they collected. FIUMBA scored 14 points, while TROGLODITAS, who fell in 5th place, had the third highest score – 12 points – due to the nine kills they got.
Match 3 (Erangel): Luminosity
If in the two initial matches, Soniqs stayed away from the kills, in the last match in Erangel of the initial day, the North American team went early for the clashes. Out of the 12 kills that happened until the 15th minute, seven were made by Soniqs. The team continued to have the highest kill amount throughout the game, reaching 16 kills, eight by James “TGLTN” Giezen and eight by Hunter “hwinn” Winn, before being eliminated in 3rd place. Luminosity, with absolute control of the compound, punished the teams that approached and got Chicken Dinner, with nine kills.
Match 4 (Miramar): Third Eye
Spam performed well in this match, having been decisive for the fate of the teams that were fighting for top places on the leaderboard. The Brazilian team eliminated fellow countrymen from 00 Nation and took advantage of the Soniqs siege to bring down the North Americans. Spam fell in 6th place, but with 12 kills, what made them move closer to the top 4 of the general leaderboard. In the match’s ending, Third Eye won a 4v2 against Funny Business INC and won the match with eight kills, totaling 18 points. Even falling in 6th place, Spam had the second best score in thet match, with 14 points.
Match 5 (Miramar): Soniqs
Luminosity started the last match of the first day with 9 points ahead of Soniqs in the general leaderboard and even opened 13 points of advantage during the game in Miramar. However, the North American team fell in 7th place and opened space for Soniqs to climb in the table. 00 Nation, who had underperformed in previous matches, managed to get 11 kills – more than they had in all four matches – and fell in the 6th place after being eliminated by Decimate. It was the first game of the day that Luminosity did not reach the top 4, and that cost the overall leadership, because Soniqs stood out in the decisive striking against STK, won the Chicken Dinner with 11 kills and took the leadeboard’s top.
Day 2
Match 6 (Miramar): 00 Nation
The final clash of the match was at a highest level, with Soniqs, Luminosity and STK, the top 3 teams, surviving among the last five teams, alongside Brazilians 00 Nation and Peak FA. Only STK were with three players – the others had four, which made the decisive dispute exciting and unpredictable. 00 Nation came out of a difficult position, with the safe hitting the back, where they lost one player, and took advantage of an exchange between Soniqs and STK, with only one Luminosity representative in the middle, to advance and wait for STK to eliminate Soniqs to overthrow the North Americans and get Chicken Dinner with nine kills.
Match 7 (Miramar): Luminosity
STK, Luminosity and Soniqs once again dominated the match and reached the ending, with only one representative from Peak FA alive in the top 4. Cornered with its back to the safe, Soniqs fell in 3rd place, leaving the dispute for Chicken Dinner between STK and Luminosity. When they needed to leave their position and move to avoid the safe closing, STK entered Luminosity’s sights, who took the victory with eight kills.
Match 8 (Miramar): Decimate
Third Eye, despite not winning, played a decisive role in the result of the eighth match. The North Americans eliminated 00 Nation, leaving only Pedro “sparkingg” Ribeiro alive, who was shot down minutes later. Afterwards, the remaining Third Eye duo eliminated three Synergy players and fell in 9th place, with Adam “Adam” Didiano, being knocked down, leaving a molotov that knocked out two Soniqs players. Soniqs then became the target of STK, who attacked the opponents while being shot from Friendly Fire. Elevate eliminated Soniqs’ two remaining players and STK went down shortly thereafter. With that, the top 5 had only Elevate as a representative of North America, against four Latin American teams. In the match’s ending, Decimate and TROGLODITAS dueled for Chicken Dinner, with Andrey “and1FPS” Henrique and Alan “rustyzera” Alves, two Latin America veterans, exchanging shots. And1FPS eliminated the Brazilian countryman and gave Chicken Dinner to Decimate, with eight kills. TROGLODITAS got the same 18 points as the winner because, although they fell in 2nd place, they had 12 kills.
Match 9 (Erangel): Friendly Fire
North America’s top teams fell early in the fourth game of Day 2: STK in 13th place, Soniqs in 12th and Luminosity in 11th. TROGLODITAS, which had risen to 4th place in the overall standings after Third Eye’s elimination in the match, lost the chance to consolidate themselves in the PGS1 ranking zone by falling in 9th place to Friendly Fire, a direct opponent in the fight for the top 4. Friendly Fire beat Spam in the match’s ending, with four players from both teams alive, achieved victory with an impressive 16 kills and, with 26 points won, surpassed 00 Nation in 4th place on the general leaderboard.
Match 10 (Erangel): Luminosity
Winner of the previous match, Friendly Fire fell in 12th place, but 00 Nation failed to take advantage and said goodbye to the match in 10th place, with only one kill, being overtaken by Third Eye, Elevate and TROGLODITAS in the course of the match. STK seemed better positioned than the opponents in the match’s ending, because they had two players in the center of the safe and two others on the edge. However, Luminosity, with three players, prevailed and won the Chicken Dinner, with 12 kills.
Day 3
Match 11 (Erangel): Luminosity
Soniqs started the third day of the Grand Finals with 22 points behind Luminosity. So they needed kills in order to reach 1st place. The North American team went on the attack to collect as many kills as possible. It’s a rewarding strategy, but also a risky one. So much so that TGLTN’s team fell in 6th place, with eight kills, in a fight against Elevate, who were fighting for the top 4 in the general leaderboard and survived until the final clash against Luminosity. It was a tough fight that again ended with an advantage and Chicken Dinner for Luminosity.
Match 12 (Erangel): Luminosity
The game started with Luminosity being 30 points ahead of Soniqs on the overall leaderboard. Trying to get kills, Soniqs went after the last Peak FA player, but, in an open field, ended up being punished by the surrounding teams, falling in 13th place. Luminosity again took the victory, taking advantage of a fight between the remaining STK duo and the last surviving Third Eye player.
Match 13 (Erangel): Elevate
Looking for the top, Soniqs already had nine kills at 20 minutes, but were still 33 points away from Luminosity at that moment. The team ended up surrounded again, in the 23rd minute, by 00 Nation and Funny Business INC, and lost four players at once, saying goodbye in 8th place, with 11 kills. Luminosity fell in 6th place, leaving the dispute for Chicken Dinner between the teams fighting for the fourth spot in PGS1 and were from 4th to 7th place in the general leaderboard. Elevate did better than Friendly Fire, 00 Nation and Third Eye, won with nine kills and took 4th place in the leaderboard.
Match 14 (Miramar): Decimate
The penultimate match was marked by an intense exchange of fire from 15 minutes onwards, involving several teams. Three teams battling for the top 4 – TROGLODITAS, Third Eye and 00 Nation – fell into this mess. Survivor, Elevate’s Ethan “Ethan” Comer, made one of the most beautiful plays of the Grand Finals, getting five kills alone, making seven in total, before being eliminated, securing the 3rd position in the game for his team. Ethan was left alone in the 19th minute, when there were 11 teams still alive, and fell in 3rd place, in the 28th minute. In the last match, Decimate moved through walls of smoke and killed Friendly Fire to win the Chicken Dinner.
Match 15 (Miramar): Decimate
With the title already defined for Luminosity and the top 3 consolidated, the dispute for the fourth spot in PGS1 marked the last Grand Final match. Elevate dropped in 12th place, with 103 points in the overall leaderboard, which, at that time, had 90 for Third Eye, 89 for Friendly Fire and 82 for Decimate. Friendly Fire fell in 5th place and saw Third Eye resisting to 2nd place, only losing Chicken Dinner to Decimate. The result made Third Eye conquer the 4th position in the general leaderboard.