The Nitro Playground 2026 put its brackets on the floor of the George Mann Street venue in Turffontein, Johannesburg, on Saturday 11 July, with 283 entries across the four events listed and the day going out on UGCZA's Twitch channel.
Three of those events played to a finish: EA Sports FC 26 as a 210-entrant single elimination, Tekken 8 as a 50-entrant double elimination, and Street Fighter 6 as a 20-entrant double elimination. A Counter-Strike 2 1v1 was listed alongside them, drew three entries and was not played.
EA Sports FC 26
Two hundred and ten entrants and a single elimination bracket, which means one loss ends the day - and the seeding did not survive it. KK came through from the twelfth seed to win. not_zxhir took second from the tenth and Ice Moloi third from the ninth, and K-Mphaka of NoFocus Gaming was the only one of the bracket's top three seeds to reach the semi-finals, finishing fourth.
The top seed does not appear in the top eight at all, and Phaz of GT, seeded second, went out in joint fifth. The two longest runs of the day started much further down the list: Mdu_Psych of 016 reached joint fifth from the seventieth seed, and Londonprokid_NF did the same from the hundred and ninety-sixth.
- 1st - KK
- 2nd - not_zxhir
- 3rd - Ice Moloi
- 4th - K-Mphaka, NoFocus Gaming
- 5th - TylerMS, Phaz of GT, Mdu_Psych of 016 and Londonprokid_NF
Tekken 8
Fifty entrants, and the one bracket of the three that ran close to form. Carter Mgebisa of KP won it from the second seed, beating the top seed DaXpt of GG in the final, and JJ of TUG took third from the third seed. Weezy_La_Sombra of BAP was the one player to break into the top four from outside it, arriving fourth from the eleventh seed.
BAP put three players in the top eight - Weezy_La_Sombra in fourth, TiiMoney in joint fifth and Shiroyasha in joint seventh - which is the strongest showing by any team in the bracket.
- 1st - Carter Mgebisa, KP
- 2nd - DaXpt, GG
- 3rd - JJ, TUG
- 4th - Weezy_La_Sombra, BAP
- 5th - Jugadour1 of Illusion and TiiMoney of BAP
- 7th - Shiroyasha of BAP and Y2K of TUG
Street Fighter 6
The smallest bracket produced the largest upset. Ren won a twenty-entrant double elimination from the seventeenth seed, juno. of Git Gud Cafe took second from the fourteenth and GOODVIBES third from the twelfth - a podium drawn entirely from the bottom half of the seeding. Sekwele, seeded eighth, was fourth.
Neither of the top two seeds reached the top eight. The highest that did was the third seed, KingHepla, in joint seventh.
- 1st - Ren
- 2nd - juno., Git Gud Cafe
- 3rd - GOODVIBES
- 4th - Sekwele
- 5th - Wayne and Argonaut-JBR of Argo
- 7th - KingHepla and RustyJoe of KP
The full brackets
Every placing, every set and the full seeding for all three completed events is on the tournament page: The Nitro Playground 2026 on start.gg.
