BGMI Showdown qualifiers: Orangutan Drop, SouL Rise

The defending champions are out of the direct race

The BGMI Showdown qualifiers have flipped the script in week two. Orangutan, the defending champions who lifted the trophy and the ₹30 lakh first prize last year, finished 13th in Group A with just 25 points and no chicken dinners. That relegates them to Group B for the final week, and it kills any chance of a direct Grand Finals spot.

They go down alongside Team Outrage, Rapid Chaos, Wyld Fangs, Vasista, Blue Army, Reckoning and White Walkers, since the bottom eight in Group A are relegated after week two.

What the drop actually costs Orangutan

Week 3 runs from 28 to 30 September, and only the top four teams in Group A book direct tickets to the LAN event at the Savaaya Convention in Hyderabad from 16 to 18 October. From Group B, the best Orangutan can manage now is a top-four finish and a semi-final berth.

It has not been a one-off bad week either. Orangutan were fifth in Group A after week one on 45 points, but across 12 qualifier matches they still have zero match wins. On Sunday, only 20 of their 25 points came from finishes. That is a rough start to a title defence.

Vasista were the other big casualty. They sat second in Group A after week one on 54 points, added only 32 this week and went down with them.

8Bit top Group A without winning a match

8Bit finished week two on top of Group A with 65 points, and not one of those points came from a chicken dinner. They made up for it with 43 finishes, the second-highest in the group behind Gladiator Esports, who had 45 finishes and finished second on 63 points. Gladiator also led Group A after week one, making them the most consistent side in the top half.

Madkings were third on 48 points and GodLike fourth on 46. GodLike, the BMPS 2026 champions who won it in Jaipur in June, took two of the six matches on Sunday, more than anyone else in the group. Meta Ninza, 7Gods, Welt and Epigrotive filled out the rest of the safe spots in Group A.

SouL and K9 climb back up

Group B played on Saturday, and eight teams from it replace the relegated sides in Group A:

• Elite Nova led with 79 points and Revenant XSpark had 72, both winning three matches each.
• Apex Gaming, Genesis Esports and Team Tamilas also moved up.
• Team SouL, K9 Esports and Myth completed the promoted pack.

SouL's promotion flips the story from week one, when they missed the top group by a single point. They closed Group A on 39 points, one behind GodLike, with 27 finishes and 12 placement points, and that gap pushed them into Group B along with Revenant XSpark on 36, Myth on 28 and Nebula on 27.

Nebula had only won the BGMI Masters Series on 6 September, so two of this year's big trophy winners, Nebula and SouL, had dropped into Group B together. One of them is now back up. K9 and SouL finished second and third in the 2025 Showdown, so their promotion adds real weight to the Group A fight in week three.

How the qualifiers work

The qualifiers run for nine straight days from 22 to 30 September, split into three weeks of six matches per team. Groups are reshuffled after weeks one and two, then frozen, and where a team sits at the end of week three decides the next stage:

• The top four at the end of the qualifiers go straight to the Grand Finals from 16 to 18 October.
• Fifth to 12th drop into the semi-finals.
• The bottom four fall into Upper Bracket Survival.

With only the top four in Group A booking direct Grand Finals slots, week three is a straight shootout for the teams that stayed up. Orangutan have to climb the hard way, through Group B and then the semi-finals. Fans following the qualifiers can keep an eye on the official BGMI site for schedule updates.