PlayTime Wins Games of the Future 2026
What a turnaround from PlayTime.
A few weeks ago, the whole conversation around this team was not about their Dota. It was about the DarkMago and Vintage integrity investigation at EWC 2026, which forced everyone to talk about “322,” rumors, suspensions, and all the ugly stuff nobody wants near the scene.
Still, for PlayTime, the damage was brutal.
They parted ways with Vintage, DarkMago, and Frank after the controversy, while the remaining core was built around Máximo “Wits” Orozco Alza, Elvis “Scofield” De la Cruz Peña, and Yelstin “Elmisho” Verde. Then they had to go to Games of the Future 2026 with Abed and Jabz stepping in as stand-ins, replacing the mid and offlane slots before a $1 million event in Astana.
And somehow they won the whole thing.
CAMPEONES CARAJO!!! DESPITE ALL THE ISSUES THE PLAYERS FACED (F*CK MATCHFIXING), #PlayTime HAS WON GAMES OF THE FUTURE 2026 WITH A 3-0 SCORE IN THE GRAND FINAL!!! 🤩🏆
— Dota 2 South America (@D2SouthAmerica) August 5, 2026
CONGRATS TO:
🇵🇪 Wits
🇵🇭 @abedyusop
🇹🇭 @Jabzdota_
🇵🇪 @Scofieldota
🇵🇪 Elmisho
🇵🇪 @LuanTomazP (C) pic.twitter.com/HL9Kvi3FOw
PlayTime beat Yakult Brothers 3-0 in the grand final on August 5 to become Games of the Future 2026 champions, taking first place and $350,000 from the $1 million prize pool. The final was not just a stomp from minute one either. PlayTime fell behind early in both Game 1 and Game 3 but showed enough composure to recover, but Game 2 was the clean, dominant one that put the series fully under their control.
That is honestly insane.
Because this roster should not have worked this quickly. Two stand-ins. Different regions. Different languages. No normal preparation window. And yes, the language thing was real. Jabz literally said Wits had to play and translate at the same time, taking Spanish from Scofield or Elmisho into English for him and Abed, then translating English back into Spanish for the others.
Imagine doing that in a professional Dota match.
Now imagine winning a LAN final 3-0 while doing that.
Wits deserves massive credit. Not only did he carry games, he was basically the human Discord server for the team. In the grand final, PlayTime’s lineup was Wits, Abed, Jabz, Scofield, and Elmisho, and they closed the series against Yakult Brothers in three maps: roughly 63 minutes, 38 minutes, and 44 minutes. In Game 1, Wits’ Phantom Lancer went 10/2/6, and Abed’s Ember Spirit posted 8/1/21 with 86.2K hero damage. That is not “stand-in chaos.” That is winning Dota.
And Abed, man. I’m really happy for him.
His season with Virtus.pro was rough from the outside. I called VP “the kings of inconsistency,” noting that Abed could still pop off, but the team never really became stable. Then he joins PlayTime as a stand-in, in a team where he cannot even communicate normally without Wits translating, and he still delivers. In the decider against Execration, Abed had a 12/1/17 standout game to help force the series level, then led again in the deciding game as PlayTime advanced. In the semifinal against Team Resilience, he dropped 18 kills, one death, and eight assists in Game 2 to help send PlayTime to the final.
That is a proper statement.
And let’s not ignore Jabz either. He had to adapt to a South American core, play offlane, handle the travel, and still be part of a championship run. On paper, this whole roster looked like an emergency solution. In practice, it turned into one of the coolest stories of the year.
For South American Dota, this matters A LOT. PlayTime are a Philippines-headquartered organization, but their Dota 2 division is based in South America, and the roster’s core identity is still tied to that region. After all the drama, after all the noise, after people were ready to turn the team into a meme, they came back and won an international trophy.
That is pride. That is resilience. That is exactly the kind of storyline Dota needs.
From "What happened to PlayTime?” to Games of the Future champions in less than a month. What do you want more?
