CODM Summer Fest 2026 brings back-to-back competition
MANILA, Philippines – The Call of Duty: Mobile (CODM) Summer Fest 2026 brought together esports enthusiasts and gamers inside the SMX Aura Convention Center in Taguig on May 23-24, 2026.
In the two-day event, fans saw their favorite content creators in person, including gamer-actress Myrtle Sarrosa, Sharlene San Pedro, Doc Z Gaming, Tokyo, Patsy, Khenji, Izzy Canillo, and many more.
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Fueling its comeback, CODM repositioned as a powerhouse in the Philippine gaming scene and celebrated its passionate community with tournaments, meet-and-greets, cosplay, and community booths.
The event also witnessed the culmination of tournaments Garena Elite Philippines (GEP) and the Garena Summer Invitational (GSI). The tournaments have a combined prize pool of $100,000.
GEP crowns best Pinoy grassroots teams
GEP showcased rising Filipino teams competing for a $40,000 prize pool across both Multiplayer (MP) and Battle Royale (BR) modes.
Team Skaeri won the MP championship after clamping down on MG Oblivion, 3-1, in the best-of-five grand finals, and cashed in $8,000 in the process.
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Meanwhile, Leap Unbound secured 108 points in the leaderboard to claim the coveted GEP Battle Royale crown to win $7,000.
Rigid TSG took second place with 98 points and $3,000, Team 4Kings finished third with 79 points, while GNR Esports Legacy placed fourth with 74, as both teams earned the $1,500 prize.
Elevate goes back-to-back in GSI
The second day of the event had the GSI 2026, where top teams from Southeast Asia and Taiwan competed for a share of $60,000.
Team Elevate secured back-to-back titles after holding out a 4-3 victory against Alula in the best-of-7 grand finals, making them the first team in tournament history to do so.
Earlier, Elevate lost to the same team in the Upper Bracket Finals, 1-4, before taking down Team Star Magic in the Lower Finals, 4-2.
The finals series opened with a tight, back-and-forth battle as teams traded wins over the first three games.
The fourth game in Hardpoint saw Elevate on a nearly 100-point before the squad mounted a comeback to eventually secure the victory.
The next two games saw Elevate winning Search and Destroy (SnD) in Game 5, 9-5, and Alula taking Game 6 Control, 3-1, to send the series to Game 7.
The decider had SnD as the game mode in the Tunisia map, with the all-Filipino squad securing the title in front of the home crowd, 9-5..
Elevate’s Johnkelly “Yop1” Manalang was named as the Finals MVP, delivering a 17/8/4 KDA statline in the final game to secure back-to-back invitational titles for the all-Filipino squad.
In the post-match press conference, Yop1 pointed to familiarity as the main reason for thriving under pressure despite being down in the game.
“Maybe it’s because we’ve been together for so many years. We’re so close to each other. We know our weaknesses and strengths. So when we’re down, we cheer for each other. It helps us to recover just like how we came back earlier,” Yop1 shared.
Elevate bagged $25,000 as the champions of the Invitationals, and Alula took $13,000 as the runner-up of the event.
Both teams will see action in the Garena Qualifiers of the CODM World Championships in August. (By Clyde Jan Pascual, INQUIRER.net Intern)
