Esports Awards 2026 Nominees Revealed, Faker, donk and Peyz Among Finalists

Dimas Ibnu01/10/2026Updated 02/10/20266 min read

Image Credit: Esports Awards

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, Kim “Peyz” Soo-hwan and chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen are all finalists for the Esports Awards 2026, which names its winners at a ceremony in Miami on 17 November. Public voting is open on the official Esports Awards website until 10 November, and the winners are decided by a mix of community votes and an industry panel.

The Esports Awards account on X revealed the nominees in two waves. The first covered the game, personality, streamer, content and industry categories. The second added the player, team, coach and broadcast talent awards, which is where T1’s Peyz and Team Spirit’s donk turned up in PC Player of the Year, and League of Legends host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere landed a Host of the Year nod.

Esports Game of the Year and Mobile Game of the Year Finalists

Twelve games made the main Game of the Year shortlist. Three of them, Honor of Kings, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG Mobile, also appear among the six Mobile Game of the Year finalists, so each of those three has two separate chances at a trophy.

Esports Game of the Year

Apex Legends
Call of Duty
Counter-Strike 2
Dota 2
Fortnite
Honor of Kings
League of Legends
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
PUBG Mobile
Rainbow Six Siege
Rocket League
Valorant

Esports Mobile Game of the Year

Brawl Stars
Free Fire
Honor of Kings
Identity V
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
PUBG Mobile

Player, Team, and Coach of the Year Finalists

Khawaja “M. Zubair” Muhammad Zubair is the only player on two individual shortlists, with nominations for both Breakthrough Player of the Year and Controller Player of the Year. In PC Player of the Year, donk and Peyz share the list with Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk.

Esports Breakthrough Player of the Year

Jaime “Craime” Bustos
Bruno “Neon” Rodríguez
Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin
Danil “Molodoy” Golubenko
Oltean “shxrk” Rareș Ștefan
Khawaja “M. Zubair” Muhammad Zubair
Jeremiah “Nium” Harrison
Alexey “not me” Kosmynin
Sin “Smash” Guem-jae
Ștefan “Sayonara” Mîtcu

Esports PC Player of the Year

Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk
Danil “donk” Kryshkovets
Kim “Peyz” Soo-hwan
Chen “Bin” Zebin
Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk
Taylor-Petrik “vic0” Gatschelhofer
Miguel “Blinkzr” Quiles
Jaime “Cyber” Pereira Ramos
Marschal “Terra” Weaver

Esports Controller Player of the Year

Saul “MenaRD” Leonardo Mena II
Brandon “Dashy” Otell
Chris “Simp” Lehr
Saleh “Rw9” Abdullah Bakhashwin
Nassim “Nass” Bali
Axel “Vatira” Touret
Arslan “Arslan Ash” Siddique
Khawaja “M. Zubair” Muhammad Zubair

Esports Team of the Year

Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and Rocket League each have two entries in Team of the Year. Team Spirit take up two of the 10 spots, one for their Counter-Strike 2 roster and one for their Dota 2 roster.

Team	Game
Team Vitality	Counter-Strike 2
OpTic Texas	Call of Duty
PARIVISION	Dota 2
Bilibili Gaming	League of Legends
Team Spirit	Counter-Strike 2
100 Thieves	Valorant
Team Spirit	Dota 2
Gentle Mates	Rocket League
FaZe Clan	Rainbow Six Siege
Team Falcons	Rocket League

Esports Coach of the Year

Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam
Damon “Karma” Barlow
Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov
Clement “Puppey” Ivanov
Kim “cvMax” Dae-ho
Nikita “Coldstar” Morozov
Yoon “Homme” Sung-young
Rafael “RafadeLL” Batista de Oliveira
Dennis “sycrone” Benthin Nielsen

Organisation, Personality, Streamer, and Content Finalists

Magnus Carlsen is the outlier on the Personality of the Year shortlist. The chess grandmaster sits alongside pro players, streamers and broadcasters such as Faker, Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart and Sjokz, and he is the only nominee listed without a gaming handle.

Esports Organisation of the Year

AG.AL
Team Vitality
Team Falcons
Team Spirit
Gentle Mates
Karmine Corp
T1
G2 Esports
NAVI
Team Liquid
Virtus.pro
FaZe Clan

Esports Personality of the Year

Animesh “Thug” Agarwal
Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro
Cody “Clix” Conrod
Corentin “Gotaga” Houssein
Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere
Ibai “Ibai” Llanos Garatea
Jake “Boaster” Howlett
Kamel “Kameto” Kebir
Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
Marc “Caedrel” Robert Lamont
Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart
Magnus Carlsen

Streamer of the Year

Cinna
CaseOh
IShowSpeed
JasonTheWeen
Kai Cenat
Caedrel
OhnePixel
Jynxzi
Snax Gaming
StableRonaldo
Coringa
TheBurntPeanut

Esports Content Group of the Year

100 Thieves
G2 Esports
Gentle Mates
GodLike Esports
Karmine Corp
NRG
OpTic Gaming
Rocket Baguette
S8UL Esports
T1
Team Spirit
Team Vitality

Esports Content Creator of the Year

TacticalRab
Gotaga
TheDonato
NiceWigg
Hungrybox
Caedrel
Jynxzi
mixwell
FNS
ZooMaa
TenZ

Caster, Host, and Analyst of the Year Finalists

The four broadcast talent categories cover the people who call, host and break down matches, from Owen “ODPixel” Davies on play-by-play to Emily Rand on the analyst desk.

Esports Play-by-Play Caster of the Year

Alex “Machine” Richardson
Victoria “VikkiKitty” Perez
Connor “Scrawny” Girvan
Owen “ODPixel” Davies
Brandon Smith
Miles Ross
Mark “Onset” Hatcher
Steven “Tasty Steve” Scott
Mitch “Uber” Leslie
Joey “Jorby” Ahrens
Seth “Achilios” King
Max “Atlus” Anderson

Esports Colour Caster of the Year

Daniel “Gaskin” Gaskin
Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson
Ioannis “Fogged” Loucas
Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill
James “Jamesbot” Villar
Thomas “Chance” Ashworth
Mohan “launders” Govindaswamy
Cameron “CJCJ” Johns
Niclas “Pengu” Mouritzen
Isaac “Azael” Cummings-Bentley
Vicki “GottMoxi” Johnson

Esports Host of the Year

Iain Chambers
Jake “SirActionSlacks” Kanner
Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere
Lauren “GlitterXplosion” Laracuente
Barney Banks
Freya Spiers
Raynday
Salome “Soe” Gschwind-Repp
Sean “Stax” Stackhouse
Chris “Puckett” Puckett

Esports Analyst of the Year

Tyler “TBates” Bates
Anthony “NAMELESS” Wheeler
Quinn “Quinn” Callahan
Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg
Beatriz “kaquka” Alonso
John “Jhawk” Harris
Léo “Alphama” Robine
Emily Rand
Jacob “Pimp” Winneche
Mira “Ephey” Riad
Barento “Raz” Mohammed

Commercial Partner, Tournament Organiser, and Supporting Service Finalists

Riot Games, BLAST and MOONTON Games are among nine Tournament Organiser finalists. On the Commercial Partner list, Chipotle and Coinbase sit next to gaming hardware brands such as Logitech G and Razer.

Esports Tournament Organiser of the Year

Activision Blizzard
BLAST
EFG
Esports Foundation (Esports World Cup and Esports Nations Cup)
EVO
Hero Esports
MOONTON Games
Riot Games
TiMi Studio Group

Esports Supporting Service of the Year

Character Select Agency
ESG Law
Esports Charts
FACEIT
GRID Esports
JAM Management
Liquipedia
Odin Law and Media
Prodigy Agency
Shikenso Analytics
The Story Mob

Who Has the Most Esports Awards 2026 Nominations

Team Spirit lead the field with four nominations. Four other names appear on three shortlists each:

Nominee	Categories	Nominations
Team Spirit	Team of the Year (Counter-Strike 2), Team of the Year (Dota 2), Organisation, Content Group	4
Caedrel	Personality, Streamer, Content Creator	3
Jynxzi	Personality, Streamer, Content Creator	3
Team Vitality	Team of the Year (Counter-Strike 2), Organisation, Content Group	3
Gentle Mates	Team of the Year (Rocket League), Organisation, Content Group	3

Gotaga, Sjokz, M. Zubair, 100 Thieves, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Karmine Corp, T1 and Team Falcons have two nominations each. The OpTic brand also has two, through OpTic Gaming in Content Group and OpTic Texas in Team of the Year.

The standout line in that table is Gentle Mates matching Team Vitality’s three nominations, since the French club only launched in 2023. Count co-founder Gotaga’s two individual nominations and the Gentle Mates camp appears on five shortlists.

Team Spirit’s two Team of the Year entries are competing against each other, though, so the club can win at most three of its four nominations.