If you missed the three weeks of high-octane play, you’re likely asking who won the bgmi tournament 2023, and what made this year’s event stand out from every other BGMI competition held so far. This was the first major official BGMI tournament after the game’s full relaunch in India, with 24 top qualifying teams from across South Asia competing for the largest prize pool in the game’s history to date. Viewership hit record numbers across all streaming platforms, with fans tuning in to see their favorite pro players and teams go head to head across Erangel, Miramar, and Sanhok maps. Even casual players who rarely watch esports tuned in to catch the final day action, thanks to viral clips of wild clutches and unexpected upsets circulating on TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Who Won the BGMI Tournament 2023: Official Final Standings
If you’ve been searching for a clear breakdown of who won the bgmi tournament 2023 and the full final standings, we’ve got you covered below. After 18 matches across three days of finals play, Team Soul took first place with a total of 782 points, leading second place by more than 90 points when the final match ended. The team dominated throughout most of the finals, taking four chicken dinners and finishing in the top 5 in 11 of the 18 total matches, a consistency no other team could match.
The ₹1 crore total prize pool was split across the top 10 teams, with Team Soul taking home ₹50 lakh for their first-place finish. Second place went to Team XO with 691 points, who took home ₹25 lakh, and third place went to Godlike Esports with 668 points, who won ₹15 lakh. The rest of the prize pool was split between teams ranked 4th through 10th, with each team earning at least ₹2 lakh for qualifying for the finals.
Jonathan Amaral, the IGL of Team Soul, was named the tournament MVP, finishing with 87 total kills across the 18 final matches, 12 more kills than the second-highest fragging player. He also took home an extra ₹5 lakh prize for his MVP performance, along with a custom gaming laptop from the tournament’s hardware sponsor.
Key Match Moments That Defined the 2023 BGMI Tournament Final
The final three days of play were full of wild moments that had fans screaming at their screens, and a few plays that completely shifted the final standings. I sat through all six hours of the final day stream, and I still can’t believe how clean some of these plays were, even after rewatched the clips a dozen times.
The defining moment of the entire tournament came in the 12th match of the finals, on the Erangel map. Team Soul was down to just two players after a early fight with a mid-table team, and were stuck on the edge of the final circle against three full squads. Jonathan and teammate Clutchgod pulled off a near-impossible 2v9 fight to take the chicken dinner, picking up 12 kills between them in that single match. That win pushed them to a 120-point lead after day 3’s final match, a gap no other team could close even with six matches left to play.
Some of the most talked-about moments from the entire tournament include:
Even small moments went viral, like a pro player from a lower-ranked team pulling off a no-scope sniper kill from 300 meters away, which got shared more than 200,000 times on Twitter in 24 hours. For many fans, these smaller, unscripted moments are what make BGMI tournaments so fun to watch, even if you don’t care about the final standings.
What This Win Means for Team Soul and the Future of BGMI Esports
This win was a huge comeback for Team Soul, who had a rough run of tournaments in 2022 after two of their core roster members left to join other orgs. The team added two new players just six months before the 2023 tournament, and many fans doubted they would even make it to the finals, let alone take first place. The win has already opened up huge opportunities for the team, including two new major brand sponsorships worth a reported ₹30 lakh total, and an invitation to represent South Asia at the global PUBG Mobile championship next year.
The tournament also broke every previous BGMI esports viewership record, with 1.8 million concurrent viewers tuning in for the final match across YouTube, Twitch, and local streaming platforms. That number is more than double the viewership of the last major BGMI tournament held in 2021, and it’s a clear sign that the game’s competitive scene is growing faster than anyone expected after its relaunch.
Many casual players who watched the tournament for the first time have already started joining local scrims and amateur tournaments, which is exactly what the scene needs to grow. Organizers reported a 40% increase in sign-ups for their next amateur qualifying tournament in the week after the 2023 finals ended, which is a great sign for new talent looking to break into the pro scene.
What to Expect From BGMI Competitive Play After the 2023 Tournament
The tournament organizers have already announced their plans for the next year of BGMI esports, and it’s clear they’re investing heavily in growing the scene even more. Three more major official tournaments are scheduled for the next 12 months, with a combined prize pool of ₹3 crore, 3x the total prize pool of the 2023 event. For the first time, these tournaments will also include international teams from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, so fans will get to see how top Indian BGMI teams stack up against the best players from other regions.
Organizers are also launching a dedicated women’s BGMI tournament series next year, with a ₹50 lakh prize pool for the first event. This is a big step for inclusivity in the scene, which has been dominated by male players since the game launched. Many top female BGMI content creators have already announced they’re building teams to compete in the series, so it’s sure to draw just as much viewership as the open tournaments.
If you’re an amateur player who dreams of going pro, now is the perfect time to start preparing for upcoming qualifiers. You don’t need to be a top 100 ranked player to get noticed, either. Many of the teams that qualified for the 2023 tournament were made up of players who only had average ranked stats, but had great team communication and had been playing together for more than a year. Focus on building a consistent team, practicing scrims regularly, and studying pro player VODs to learn new strategies, and you could end up competing in the next major tournament.
If you were scrolling through social media seeing clips of the final and asking who won the bgmi tournament 2023, you now have all the context behind Team Soul’s historic win, the biggest viral moments, and what’s next for the fast-growing BGMI esports scene. If you didn’t catch the matches live, you can find full VODs of every finals match on official streaming platforms, and they’re well worth watching if you love high-level BGMI play. The 2023 tournament set a new bar for what BGMI competitive events can be, and next year’s lineup is already looking even bigger, so make sure you follow official updates so you don’t miss a single match.