Fortnite Reload Championship at EWC 26 : BIG swipe victory

BIG’s Taylor-Petrik "vic0" Gatschelhofer and Danila "Malibuca" Iakovenko had locked in their spot in the finals with a dominant performance in Group A, but perhaps no one expected how hard fought this Grand Finals would be. 13 intense matches saw BIG reach the 350 point victory late in the series, behind the competition Aurora Gaming.

Steady Start

Aurora, in fact, looked far stronger and more likely to take the victory early in the finals. The team scored a Victory Royale in the second game, and a second place just after. It wasn’t until Match 5, where BIG finally woke up and made it to the final circle with a second place.

Another second place in Match 7 with BIG falling again to Aurora Gaming, who at this point were the definitive leader in score. Two matches later, and Aurora had become the first team to reach Match Point, and likely score the victory.

Ramping up

BIG, however, weren’t about to take things lying down. Some targeted focus on Aurora (with help from plenty of other teams) shut out the would-be victors, and locked in Match Point eligibility for the 11th game.

Things appeared to be falling apart in Game 12, as BIG fell 13th, well outside of a chance to win, and got to see two more teams become Match Point Eligible. With nine teams now eligible in Game 13, BIG had to pull off something big.

A frenetic, eight-kill performance sealed it for BIG. The team concluded the game on 499 points lifting the trophy and claiming $260,000 in prize money.

Back-to-back

With the victory, BIG became the first team in Fortnite history to win major LAN events back-to-back. The pair of vic0 and Malibuca won the FNCS 2026 Major 1 Summit earlier this year, and now raise the trophy at their very next event.

Malibuca praised vic0 after their win: “t just feels amazing to have vic0 on my team. I genuinely think that this game, and many, many other games, but especially this game that we won that led us to win the tournament, if I had anyone else in the world besides vic0 we wouldn’t have won it.”

“He’s the greatest player of all time,” he added. His 32 eliminations and 19 knockdowns across the finals certainly attest to that. Vic0 also earned SONY MVP honors and an additional $25,000 in winnings.