Hello, PUBG Esports Fans!
From PGS 1 to PGS 3, the first circuit of the 2026 PUBG Global Series has come to a close. With a different champion crowned in every series, the competition was anything but predictable — but what choices were the pros making behind the scenes?
In the end, survival and victory come down to the details. Which guns they ran, which items they used, how they played. Find out in the Esports Data Report: PGS Circuit 1, live now!
Gun Play: The AUG Era Continues
The pros made their preference clear. The AUG dominated the AR slot with a 62.5% equip rate — up from 60.2% at PGC 2025, and pulling even further ahead of the pack. With a 44%p gap over the second-place M416 (18.2%), the AUG's place in the pro meta shows no signs of shifting.
In the DMR/SR category, there were signs of change. The MK12 held onto first place at 45.4%, but that's a drop of over 8%p from PGC 2025 (53.6%). The Mini14 stepped into the gap, climbing from 31.5% to 37.5%. SR usage within the DMR/SR category also rose from 4.1% to 5.8% — with DNS_DIEL leading the SR kill charts at 8 kills, followed by AL_Himass and AL_Destroyy tied at 6 kills each. Whether this trend continues into Circuit 2 or gives way to something new remains to be seen.
Tactical Equipment: Throw It, Block It, Hide in It
17Gaming averaged 8.55 grenades per match — by far the highest in the field. Throwing nearly 9 grenades a game isn't just aggression, it's a philosophy. Their Molotov Cocktail usage (1.43 per match) also ranked first. When 17Gaming shows up, expect something to come flying your way.
DN SOOPers took a different approach. Top rankings in both Flashbang (2.96 per match) and Smoke Grenade (11.8 per match) usage tell a clear story: control the vision, control the game. Their playstyle is written right there in the numbers.
Blue Zone Grenade, Emergency Cover Flare — teams across the board found ways to make every piece of tactical equipment count.
Mortar & Panzerfaust: No Longer Optional
New equipment that felt experimental at PGC 2025 has become a staple in Circuit 1.
Mortar usage more than doubled from 249 to 587 total fires, with hit rate climbing from 16.5% to 18.9%. The pros have moved well past the "trying it out" phase — this is tactical integration. The top Mortar kill count belongs to 17Gaming's tiantianhaovo with 7 kills.
The Panzerfaust told an even more dramatic story. Hit rate jumped from 50.7% to 59.5%, a nearly 9% increase. DN SOOPers' DIEL led all players with 4 Panzerfaust kills — proof that this weapon is now a genuine game-changer in the right hands.
PGS Moments: Who Got Got?
11 players were taken out by BRDMs over the course of Circuit 1. 17Gaming's xwudd accounted for two of those — alone. We can only imagine what his teammates were thinking.
Three players were knocked out by Emergency Cover: 17_tiantianhaovo, VIT_QWZYYY, and DNS_Heaven. Survival isn't just about the enemy — sometimes it's what's around you. Always stay alert!
CR_Pio, TE_Clories, TE_TanVuu, PeRo_Cui711, and FUR_zkraken all tied at the top of the Recall leaderboard with 4 each. They kept coming back. Their teammates must have been pretty busy making that happen.
Circuit 1 Final Records
Three series, three champions. Petrichor Road took PGS 1 (95pts), Natus Vincere won PGS 2 (93pts), and Virtus.pro closed out the circuit with a dominant PGS 3 victory (136pts).
One name kept appearing in the individual records: NAVI_Hakatory. Most kills (92) and most damage (19,590) — both. If the data had to pick the most dangerous player of Circuit 1, it wouldn't hesitate.
Most Chicken Dinners went to Natus Vincere with 7. And the longest kill of the circuit belonged to VIT_Lev4nte at 831m — the shot that took down NAVI_boost1k- during Match 5 of the PGS 2 Survival Stage.
What will the meta look like in Circuit 2?
Stay tuned for the next Esports Data Report: PGS Circuit 2!