How Korean Teams Swept BMIC 2026
Who won BMIC 2026, how did all 3 podium places go to Korean teams, and how far behind are the Indian BGMI teams? Nongshim RedForce won the title in Mumbai on November 1 with 233 points, 82 clear of DRX, with Dplus in 3rd.
I'd call it a one-team sweep more than a Korean one. Nongshim played a different tournament from everyone else. Behind them, 3 Indian teams finished within 35 points of 2nd place, and Gladiators Esports missed the last PMGC slot by 5 points.
BMIC 2026 Final Standings
The Battlegrounds Mobile India International Cup ran from October 30 to November 1 at The Dome in Mumbai. It had 16 teams: 6 from India, 5 from South Korea and 5 from Japan. They played 18 matches in one lobby with no Smash Rule, so the team with the most points after Match 18 won. The match-by-match record is on Datagrounds' BMIC 2026 page.
Rank | Team | Country | Chicken dinners | Finishes | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Nongshim RedForce | South Korea | 5 | 148 | 233 |
2 | DRX | South Korea | 2 | 99 | 151 |
3 | Dplus | South Korea | 3 | 88 | 149 |
4 | Gladiators Esports | India | 3 | 98 | 144 |
5 | Team Outrage | India | 2 | 83 | 125 |
6 | K9 Esports | India | 2 | 80 | 116 |
7 | Game PT | South Korea | 0 | 87 | 112 |
8 | Kinotrope Gaming | Japan | 0 | 62 | 95 |
9 | 8Bit | India | 0 | 66 | 93 |
10 | Blitz Epigrotive Gaming | India | 0 | 59 | 89 |
11 | Reignite | Japan | 0 | 50 | 88 |
12 | Team SouL | India | 0 | 69 | 87 |
13 | Focus | South Korea | 0 | 55 | 81 |
14 | Making The Road | Japan | 0 | 49 | 75 |
15 | Valor | Japan | 1 | 43 | 64 |
16 | Versus | Japan | 0 | 13 | 23 |
Nongshim took ₹30 lakh of the ₹1 crore prize pool. DRX got ₹15 lakh, Dplus ₹10 lakh and Gladiators ₹7.5 lakh.
How Nongshim RedForce Won
Nongshim led at the end of all 3 days, but for a day and a half it was close. The table shows where it stopped being close.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
Nongshim's points that day | 72 | 56 | 105 |
Nongshim's total | 72 | 128 | 233 |
Lead over 2nd place | 1 | 23 | 82 |
These are the numbers behind that table:
- Match 12 broke it open. Nongshim won it with 18 finishes for 28 points, the highest score of the event. A 1-point lead became 23.
- Matches 12 to 14 were worth 74 points. No other team scored 74 on any full day of 6 matches.
- Day 3 alone was 105 points. That is more than 9 of the other 15 teams scored in all 18 matches.
- 148 finishes, 49 more than any other team. Their finishes alone would have placed 4th.
- They scored in every match. In Match 5 they finished 10th and still took 12 points from finishes.
- 3 of their 4 players beat every Indian player on finishes. XZY had 45, TIZ1 40 and Hyunbin 38. NinjaBoi of Team Outrage was the top Indian with 34.
This was no surprise from them. Nongshim have won both PMPS Korea seasons and the Korean Esports League this year, and they finished 2nd at the PUBG Mobile World Cup in Paris.
Korean Sweep or One Team
The podium says Korea. The spread underneath it says something narrower.
Country | Teams | Chicken dinners | Average points per team |
|---|---|---|---|
South Korea | 5 | 10 | 145.2 |
South Korea without Nongshim | 4 | 5 | 123.3 |
India | 6 | 7 | 109.0 |
Japan | 5 | 1 | 69.0 |
Take Nongshim out and the other 4 Korean teams average 123 points to India's 109. Game PT finished 7th and Focus 13th, both behind 3 Indian teams.
Gladiators' Destro made the same point on a livestream that TalkEsport reported. "One team has clearly gone way ahead," he said, and he rated Game PT and Focus as level with the rest of the lobby.
I agree with half of it. DRX and Dplus still finished above every Indian team, by 7 and 5 points over Gladiators. So, the gap to Korea's 2nd and 3rd best teams is about one match. The gap to Nongshim is 89 points.
Where the Indian Teams Lost It
India won 7 of the 18 matches, so chicken dinners weren't the problem. The matches in between were. A team gets no placement points for finishing 9th or lower, and that column is where the Indian teams fall apart.
Team | Rank | Points | Chicken dinners | Matches outside the top 8 | Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nongshim RedForce | 1 | 233 | 5 | 6 | 72, 56, 105 |
Dplus | 3 | 149 | 3 | 3 | 71, 34, 44 |
Gladiators Esports | 4 | 144 | 3 | 9 | 25, 54, 65 |
Team Outrage | 5 | 125 | 2 | 7 | 47, 36, 42 |
K9 Esports | 6 | 116 | 2 | 12 | 34, 44, 38 |
8Bit | 9 | 93 | 0 | 9 | 32, 38, 23 |
Blitz Epigrotive Gaming | 10 | 89 | 0 | 10 | 37, 9, 43 |
Team SouL | 12 | 87 | 0 | 11 | 24, 48, 15 |
Three things stand out to me:
- Gladiators lost the podium on Day 1. They scored 25 points that day and sat 12th. Over the last 2 days they scored 119, second only to Nongshim's 161 and well ahead of DRX on 95 and Dplus on 78.
- K9 Esports were all or nothing. They won 2 matches, including a 26-point Match 5 with 16 finishes, and finished outside the top 8 in 12 of the other 16.
- Team SouL never got going. The BMSD 2026 champions took 18 placement points from 18 matches and scored 15 points on the final day.
Chicken dinner aate rahe, consistency nahi aayi. Dplus are the team I'd study here, more than Nongshim. They won 3 matches, the same number as Gladiators, but they finished outside the top 8 only 3 times.
PMGC 2026 Slots From BMIC
BMIC carried 2 slots for the PUBG Mobile Global Championship in Istanbul: the champion goes to The Gauntlet and the runner-up to the Group Stage. The way they were handed out confused a lot of people, so this is the chain as Krafton's own release has it:
- Nongshim already held a Group Stage slot from PMPS Korea. By winning BMIC they moved up to The Gauntlet.
- DRX inherited the PMPS slot that Nongshim gave up.
- That left BMIC's Group Stage slot for the next best team without one, which was Dplus in 3rd.
- Gladiators were the next team in line, 5 points behind Dplus.
Before Match 18, Gladiators were 3rd on 142 with Dplus on 141. Dplus scored 8 in the last match and Gladiators scored 2. India goes to PMGC with one team, Team SouL, who qualified by winning BMSD 2026.
BMIC 2025 vs BMIC 2026
Last year an Indian team finished 2nd. This year the best was 4th, and the easy reading is that India went backward. The numbers don't quite say that.
BMIC 2025 | BMIC 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
Venue | Yashobhoomi, Delhi | The Dome, Mumbai |
Field | India 8, Korea 4, Japan 4 | India 6, Korea 5, Japan 5 |
Champion | DRX, 166 points | Nongshim RedForce, 233 points |
Margin over 2nd | 29 | 82 |
Best Indian team | True Rippers, 2nd on 137 | Gladiators Esports, 4th on 144 |
Gap from champion to best Indian team | 29 | 89 |
Indian chicken dinners | 8 from 8 teams | 7 from 6 teams |
Average points per Indian team | 108.3 | 109.0 |
PMGC slots won by India | 1 | 0 |
The average Indian team scored almost exactly what it scored last year, and this year's best Indian team scored 7 more than last year's. What changed is the top of the lobby. The champion's total went up by 67 points.
One more detail explains part of that. Hyunbin was the MVP of BMIC 2025 with DRX, and he moved to Nongshim in January along with Soez, who was named Best IGL this year.
BMIC 2026 Awards
- MVP: XZY, Nongshim RedForce, ₹2.5 lakh
- Best IGL: Soez, Nongshim RedForce, ₹1.25 lakh
- Best Clutch: Taurus06, K9 Esports, ₹1 lakh
FAQs on BMIC 2026
Who won BMIC 2026?
Nongshim RedForce of South Korea won BMIC 2026 with 233 points from 18 matches, including 5 chicken dinners and 148 finishes. DRX finished 2nd on 151 and Dplus 3rd on 149.
Which Indian team finished highest at BMIC 2026?
Gladiators Esports finished 4th with 144 points and 3 chicken dinners. Team Outrage were 5th on 125 and K9 Esports 6th on 116.
Did any Indian team qualify for PMGC 2026 through BMIC?
No. The 2 slots went to Nongshim RedForce and Dplus. Team SouL are India's only team at PMGC 2026, and they qualified earlier by winning BMSD 2026.
Was the Smash Rule used at BMIC 2026?
No. BMIC 2026 was decided on total points after 18 matches, with 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1 placement points for 1st to 8th and 1 point per finish.
Where was BMIC 2026 held?
BMIC 2026 was played at The Dome at the SVP Indoor Stadium (NSCI) in Mumbai from October 30 to November 1, 2026. The 2025 edition was held at Yashobhoomi in Delhi.
What I'd Take From It
I'd stop reading BMIC as India against Korea. All 6 Indian teams finished above Focus, and 3 of them finished above Game PT. The real distance is to one team that won 5 events this year.
The next test is close. Nongshim and Team SouL both start PMGC 2026 in The Gauntlet, so SouL meet them again within weeks. I'd watch SouL's placement points there before their finishes, because 18 from 18 matches is the number that has to change first.
