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Abhinav Tejan, Tekken’s most prominent athlete, and Ibrahim Gulrez, eFootball’s pro, won the National Esports Championships 2023, organized by the Esports Federation of India. They also secured their berths in the global finals of 15 th World Esports Championships 2023, which will be held in Iasi, Romania, from August 24 – September 4, 2023.
The 15 th World Esports Championship 2023 has a huge prize pool of $500,000 (INR 41.2 crore). It will feature at least 130 countries participating to eFootball and DOTA 2.
Despite starting in the loser bracket Tejan, a well-known name in the Tekken7 community, proved his worth against top athletes from India and will represent India at the WEC for a new record 6 times. Loveneet was defeated by Tejan, a 29-year-old winner of the South Asia regional finals last year.
“I have won many tournaments over the years, but the NESC 2023 win was very important to me. I had lost twice in the event in the past two years. This year, I was determined to win it. I was privileged to be selected for the IESF finals in Romania, which gave me the opportunity to represent India for the sixth time. It is a very proud moment for me. Abhinav Tejan said, “I am looking forward to the finals and will do my best to win my country a medal.”
Gulrez, like Tejan, started his campaign in the loser bracket. However, he displayed tremendous perseverance and high-quality gameplay to become eFootball’s champion. To secure his maiden qualification at WEC, he defeated Pritesh Quinton Dauza (bad_pritt), winning the first round by 2:3 and the second by 3:3.
It is truly amazing. This feat has been my goal for the past couple of years. It feels incredible to finally achieve it. It took hard work and luck to win the competition. Ibrahim Gulrez said that it is possible to feel happiness after working so hard for the past two seasons.
The prestigious national qualifiers for the popular PC titles CS:GO, DOTA 2 and Tekken were also held.
Team Orgless5 won the finals of CS:GO Open by 2-0 over Team Wicked Gaming, the NESC champions twice. The team consisted of Harsh Jain (f1redup), Jaspreet Sing (SpawN), Sadab Kan (SK wow), Piyush Kawania (clouda), Nikhil Kathe, N1kace and Omkar Thube (omkar09), and was dominant throughout the tournament. They produced impressive performances against India’s top CS:GO players.
“Our motto for winning the qualifiers was trusting the process, trusting ourselves and trusting our decisions. We put in a lot of effort to defeat the best CS:GO teams in the country and became champions. Harsh Jain, Team Orgless captain, said that the World Esports Championships were very important to us. Now we will show our worth in regional qualifiers to qualify as global finalist.”
Team Top G, which included skipper Manav Kunte and Vishal Vernekar in HBK, Abhishek Yadav in Abhi-, Shahbaz Hussain in PinkMaN, Krish Gupta in Krish, Jaikishan Malik in KaEL, won the finals of DOTA 2. They defeated Team Mob by a score line of 2-0. Vishal and Abhishek, two of the most prominent players in the squad, were also part the historic DOTA 2 team which won bronze at the Commonwealth Esports Championships 2022.
“We are thrilled to have won the DOTA 2 India Qualifiers. It is an honor to represent India on an international stage. It’s amazing to see the results of all our hard work, which has included hours of practice, analysis, and strategizing each play. We know our team has an unbreakable bond, and that we can accomplish anything together if we work together. We also want to express our deep gratitude to ESFI, who provided us with the amazing opportunity to display our skills on a national stage. We promise to do our best to win the championship ,” ,” Manav Kunte (captain of Team Top G.).
Top G and Team Orgless5 will be competing in the Asia regional qualifiers. This qualifies them for the WEC 2023 global finals. First, the teams will compete in the South Asian qualifiers online and then after qualifying will be playing the regional finals offline. International Federation will soon announce the dates for the regional qualifiers.
Artsmith-Concepts & Visions will continue to support the Esports Federation of India, one of the top Esports communication agencies in the country, as their official communication partner. NESC23 was also supported in part by Upthrust (Event Partner), Inox, Multiplex Partner, and Hama (Training Partner).
The NESC’23 was concluded Monday, March 27, with 275 athletes representing all parts of the country participating.
