ESL India Premiership’s decider event, Masters 2016 is live in the capital city, Delhi. The games have been thus far, more than average. The distinguishing characteristic of this season is the unity of the neighboring country through the medium of culture and unrecognized sports. Alongwith Risky Gaming, the famous UAE team, a team from Bangladesh has also traveled all their way to participate in this Indian gaming festival, which is considered to be India’s largest gaming event to date.
Speeding up the coverage, Dare2Dream, India’s one of those prominent professional athlete organizations whose future seems to be on the right path, yet again strengthen their achievements by defeating Risky Gaming, which is considered to be among the top charted team of Dubai, UAE and SEA.
The games started in the quarter-finals phase where eight teams were drawn in the brackets so as to face in the double-elimination format. The first game was played between Invisible Wings and Evolution Gaming, a Bangladeshi team invited to join the fest. Invisible Wings were on their nerves in the very first game, although were confident enough to close the matchup 16-13 in their favor. Brutality overshadowed Overcome 16-11. Risky Gaming’s scuffle with d5 ended 16-4. And Dare2Dream thrashed Elements 16-9 quite comfortably.
The second set of matches were between the winners. The semi-finals began with Invisible Wings facing Team Brutality in a close contest, the latter though fell two points short of victory thus finishing the game 14-16. The only Delhi player, Simar ‘psy’ Sethi was quick to take charge in the game whenever the team needed. Manan ‘Manan’ Bhatt also joined hands with Akshay ‘Kappa’ Sinkar and Mithil ‘MithilF’ Sawant to steer their organization to success with the Counter Strike veteran, Ritesh ‘RitZ’ Shah.
The second game of the draw, where Dare2Dream faced the mighty Risky Gaming. Progressing against the odds, D2d were able to beat the probable favorites of the tournament with a scoreline of 16-13.
Drawing your attention to the game which followed, Dare2Dream looked so consistently well even with a couple of stand-ins that they indeed seemed decisive to take on the Dubai combatants. With the likes of Karan “Excali” Mhaswadkar and the youngest among the legends Sabyasachi ‘antidote’ Bose, the duo assisted and contributed enough to boost the morale of the rest of their lineup including, Kavish ‘kav1sh’ Chauhan, Bhavin ‘HellRanger’ Kotwani and Shailesh ‘blackhawk’ Dalvi.
The team will now be playing against Invisible Wings in the winner bracket finals on 10th of December.
ESL is scheduled to host ‘Masters’ the final event of ESL India Premiership from 7th to 10th December. It has been an exciting Journey for the participating teams as they made their way to the final Masters Event through a series of 6 starter cups and two challenger cups. This is the first season of ESL India premiership with the second season yet to get an announcement, expected to start from March 2017. The ESL India Premiership season 1 began in May has reached its Final stages after an eight months journey with over 3000 participants and 940 matches being played. The total Prize pool for season 1 was Rs. 42,72,000 INR.
Top 2 participants from each Challenger Cup qualified for the masters. The Participants do not limit to India but Pakistan and Bangladesh as well. They have fought it out over six starter cups and two challenger cups. It was full of Excitement for the participants, and they competed for the final goal to take secure a place in ESL India Premiership Masters to be held at Delhi NSIC grounds inside Comicon and Nodwin studios Gurgaon.
Year-ending finale
All team will be playing with original rooster when they participated in ESL India Premiership Starter Cups and Challenger cups as their rosters were locked when they participated.
The DotA 2 teams follows:
Circle Gaming (Gondy, Mamamicita-, Mage, Khans, Art of feeding)
The winners of CS:GO, DotA 2 and Clash Royale, will take home the lion’s share of the massive prize pool of amounting to INR 19,58,000. We’ll be at the venue covering every bit of it for our readers. Make sure you browse our ESL India Premiership page to find the latest happenings. You can find the stream of both the games LIVE:
SK Gaming has announced that Ricardo “fox” Pacheco will play for the Swedish organization as a replacement for “fnx” following unsolvable tension arising in the squad. In a statement, SK cleared that the reason to sideline fnx was on “difference of opinion on further development and welfare of the team.”
According to the statement made by the Brazilian leader of the lineup, the developing issues within the team held the lineup back at recent events. And that, this move was only officiated after trying to resolve the issue multiple times through.
Practices have already begun with fox. The team is preparing for ECS Season 2 finals, scheduled to begin from Friday.
After the Christmas break, the Portuguese veteran will join up with the rest of the squad in Cologne as they will prepare for the ELEAGUE Major, where the team will try to defend the titles won in Columbus and Cologne.
Fox will move to Cologne to initiate their preparation for the Valve sponsored ELEAGUE Major.
The statement
“Lincoln was crucial in our success as he was one of the important pieces that led us to achieve the things we did in the last year,” Gabriel “Fallen” Toledo said in a statement.
“Our team can only be successful when all players are working constantly for the same goal. Lately, it didn’t feel like everybody had the same vision for our team going forward.
“A team lives of good and tough moments during which you need special motivation, hard work and full commitment to get back to where you want to be.
“Everyone, including Lincoln, tried extremely hard in the last months to fix that situation, but ultimately we felt a change was a necessary step for now to development as a team.”
SK recently have been seen edging out on their performances, they failed to win even a single title after their Major win at the ESL One Cologne 2016.
ESL India’s final slide of India’s one of the largest gaming events, Premiership is just around the corner. We are roughly a week away to witness ESL Masters 2016, which is scheduled to occur within the Delhi ComicCon festival. The event is held from 9th until 11th of December at NSIC Grounds, Okhla New Delhi.
ESL Masters 2016 will feature eight teams qualified and invited teams from both DotA 2 and CS: GO, excluding eight top players from Clash Royale. The players and teams will battle for the prize pool of over Rs. 1.8 million INR.
Under CS: GO, prominent teams such as Invisible Wings, Brutality, Overcome, SemperX, D2D, and Elements will participate. In DOTA 2, the competition will be fierce as teams such as Beyond Infinity, Invisible Wings, XRG, and Standin 5 will fight for the ultimate prize. A team from Bangladesh who were crowned victors at Challenger 2 will join them. For Clash Royale, Mrin, PP, Devilstwin and Darknite will return to contest the crown. Joining them will be the four winners from online & offline open qualifier playoffs, which will be held on the first two days of the final event.
Alongside the competitive hardcore esport games, ESL Masters 2016 will host a cosplay competition, winner of which will travel to ESL One Genting, happening in Malaysia from 6th to 8th Jan 2017. Just Dance will also have its share of the stage, dancing the antic hay will be seen frequent, out of which the best ones will be deported to the main-stage to break a leg to win cash prizes.
Speaking on occasion, Akshat Rathee, MD, NODWIN Gaming said, ‘I am very excited for this finale that marks an important achievement in the eSports industry. We feel immense pride to say that our continuous efforts have led to the beginning of the eSports boom in India. This platform gives an opportunity to the e-gaming enthusiasts in the country to explore their potential and build a career in gaming.’
CS:GO teams at ESL Masters
DotA 2 teams at ESL Masters
ESL has been conducting top class tournaments in more than 13 regions around the globe. Partnered with an Indian company, NODWIN Gaming, ESL launched as the ESL India Premiership in early 2016. With a large prize pool amounting to more than Rs. 42,00,000 (~$64,000) and an array of gaming events, Premiership has revolutionized the Indian e-Sports scene over the past few months. ESL India has hosted several flagship events in India this year under the banner of Premiership. The games featured were CS: GO, DotA 2 and Clash Royale. Undertaking their scheme of event execution and promotion, NODWIN fragmented the events in three different parts based on distinct professional levels of the game.
ESL India Premiership began with their kick-off event, Starter Cup #1 which was played online and the winner of the cup had an opportunity to play at the Challengers #1. A total of six starter cups were hosted and two challenger cups which determined the teams participating at ESL Masters 2016.
The Challengers have already benchmarked new standards in Indian E-sports, which have been loved by the online and on-ground audience alike proved by the steep rise in online viewership with an extraordinary number of almost 3 Lacs unique viewers throughout the span of the event.
ESL Masters 2016 will mark the end of an immensely successful year for Indian eSports. ESL India Premiership, along with its partners- HYPERX, TWITCH & ASUS (ROG) has set the standards for professionalism and quality required for similar events in the future.
ESL India has recently introduced a new rule to claim your prize money from the Premiership events. According to their new state on the website, the winning team has to attend the succeeding event to get their prize pool handy.
It seems a bit confusing, but ESL India has recently introduced this new regulation wherein if you have won a title in ESL India Premiership Starter, you will only be able to own it if you attend Challengers. The same applies to you if you are a winner of “Challengers” series hosted by them. This new addition has not been categorically marketed, but it has been implemented after their were operational differences noted after Challenger #1.
Beyond Infinity, winners of ESL India Premiership Challenger #1
The rule reads:
“It is compulsory for teams in DOTA2/CSGO, players in Hearthstone/Clash Royale who have won starter cups to attend the respective Challenger to claim their prize money. If a team does not attend the next event, it will result in forfeit of the team’s/player’s prize of the previous qualification event and the same will be used to financially support the replacement team/player. The same rule is applicable for teams/players who win challenger and qualify for masters. Starter Cups prizes will be paid at Challenger & Challenger prizes will be paid at Masters to the team on its attendance as a participant in that particular tournament.”
This also means, that the teams which stood among the top four in the Challengers can not forfeit their slot at the Masters. They will not be eligible to claim their share of the prize. The Challenger #2 prizes will be handed over to the teams, which are present at the Masters, where they will be felicitated.
If you have won an event through online qualifiers, it is not over then and there. You need to travel along with your team to the next event to obtain your prize. If you fail to attend the event, your share of the money will be exhausted to support the replacement team. This change has been introduced in the system to make sure the teams and players abide by the professional conduct of the events hosted by ESL India on account of Premierships.
What if you are among the top eight and not four?
“The last four teams in challenger do not need to attend masters as they did not qualify for it, their prizes are paid through cheques sent to their postal address.”
Entity Esports, since its inception, has been in the news. Their performance and their structure of the largest workforce in their squad is the composition. Two days ago we reported about Crowley’s departure from Entity Esports could be a reality. And it was a reality.
Now, when we put on a journalistic epaulet, we have certain duties and responsibilities. India’s fraternity of Esports journalism has always been proven to be a mindset of the bunch of ‘fence-sitter.’ It takes courage to rephrase an ‘imperative’ or to investigate into one, being blindfolded on most of the topics because that ‘hurts’ one’s reputation and business are no short of presenting camouflage of journalism.
Unprofessional cold war against us
So and though, people can continue calling them ‘journalistic and esports content portal’ which offer pleasures to a section of the professionals on matters which affects the industry as a whole. That’s their mindset and not mine. You can call even this piece as a biased form of journalism, but that’s how this works. You should learn to dissent.
Anyway, I’ll be fair and loyal to my job.
Off-season
After Crowley’s departure from Entity Esports, it seems that there’ll soon be a potential shuffle of players within. We’ve been getting lots of objective information on how Invisible Wings will be coming to the picture soon yet again.
Or it could be the Brutals splitting? Maybe an Entity Esports Blue and Gold merger? A lot can happen over the short period.
Considering there are no more events except that of ESL India Premiership Masters in the next three months. It can be a season of the shuffle at the Indian Esports companionship.
ESL India has not yet announced their set of the Premiership events for the next year; we haven’t seen any buzz around with different event organizing companies even. DreamHack Masters already laid their results. No IeSC 2017 until February. If teams are rendering into different players to compose their roster powerful than they are, this is the right time to execute it.
Potential swaps
The candidates in here, which have the firepower but are failing to make an accomplishment can fix their flaws by exchanging players from the top-most organization, ethically.
Entity Esports – Gold (EG)
First in the line of swaps, Entity Esports Gold, the team is considered to have some of the best players of Indian CSGO of all time, but even then, their consistency seems to have lost somewhere. The sustainability which one should expect from Entity Esports – Gold (EG), is lacking.
After their assaulter ‘Marzil’ left their current squad to join tMg, EG has been struggling to get back to their level of dominance. Their replacement Sahil ‘pasha’ Pasha has been a right individual with the aim-duels, but it seems that their strategy is flawed at large. They did beat Risky Gaming recently at DreamHack Masters – Asian Qualifiers finals on their map pick, cobblestone, but the strength the team holds has not been visible in its most dominant form, to say the least.
Entity Esports – Blue (EB)
Entity Esports’s second submission to the Esports fraternity of India. They were previously known as Invisible Wings, who got their name highs after winning DewArena, there onwards they merged into Entity Esports, things have been absurd for them from there. They got beaten by JmDGaming at IeSC. They even got beaten to the Pakistan’s favorite Game4Glory in DreamHack Masters.
To maintain their state of being in the top four, EB should workout around their lineup and fix the concern. Along with the likes of Psy and MithilF, if they can’t do wonders with such firepower, there’s something wrong holding them back.
Team Brutality
The team on high-horses since their defeat melodramatic defeat at MountainDew’s DewArena. Brutality won IeSC beating India’s considerably top four teams. People still aren’t comfortable to call Brutality the ‘best’ team in India right now, even though their phaseout winnings from online to lan-festivals.
The mud-slinging still continues. The only reason Brutals are on the list is that of their best players who can be a significant reform of any organizations who picks them. Impale has been playing amazingly throughout in the last couple of tournaments. V3nom, RiX, and Kundya, on the other hand, are friends in real life as well; it will be a tough decision for any of those to switch over even if they are offered better. And Astarrr being the ‘best’ well-known assaulter in the country, competitive organizations must be having an eye on him. If these players are offered a better future, they should continue to do what’s best for them.
Dare2Dream (MxB)
Kolkata boy flew high with his experienced teammates
There’s no reason for these youngstars to make a move. But when opportunity strikes, there’s a little less you can do. Just like how Zilkenberg left the squad even after winning the ASUS Rog Masters. Dare2Dream is considered right now to be the youngest team in India.
They just seem completely off the track after their defeat at ESWC Paris. Team Overcome found their true success when they beat Brutality and EB at the ESWC India finals. They got defeated at Paris and from thereon, the players were disgorged after their rollercoaster ride.
Convincingly enough for the players to have made their name into the list of some of the best players in the country, Overcome can try out potential players in the meantime when there are no more calendered events until next quarter.
These are opinionated points which could be true considering the state of professionals in India right now. The dissent should be respected till its fair enough for the affected parties. The time has come for Indians to do the fair trade of players through their organizations, with whatever is in place.
Intel Extreme Masters returned to the Bay Area for the third year in a row. After two significant events in San Jose, IEM returns to the Oracle Arena in Oakland.
The format was round robin group stage with two groups of six teams each. First placed teams in both groups advanced to the semi-finals of the playoffs. Second and third placed teams in both groups advanced to the quarterfinals of the playoffs. Quarter and Semi-finals were best-of-three. Finals were also best-of-three.
The first leg of semi-finals – SK vs Astralis
Map 1 was played de_train which was SK’s home ground as they are the strongest team on de_train. SK won the pistol round on Terrorist side and managed to secure four more rounds after that, but Astralis managed a comeback and managed to secure eight straight shots by locking down SK on the map of their choice. The first half ended with a scoreline of 8-7 for Astralis. Astralis further managed five rounds on Terrorist side. Astralis seemed in control of the game, but SK managed to secure the match with a solid comeback and secure the match 16-14 to win the map.
Map 2 was played on de_mirage SK won the pistol round and won 4 rounds till Astralis managed to get round on scoreboard and then managed to level the score. SK then secured a total of 11 shots with the help of some impressive flank kills by Fer and great clutch by Coldzera and Taco both of who were top of their form as the destroyed Astralis. Astralis managed to win eight rounds after losing the pistol round, and the game seems to be going back and forth between 2 teams, but SK secured the map with the score of 16-12 with a game ending with an unbelievable clutch from Taco.
The second semi-final FaZe vs NiP
Map 1 was played on de_train where FaZe managed to secure the pistol round, and the rounds seem to go back and forth between 2 teams where the first round closed with the score with a 10-5 score for NiP. The match was extremely close with the map going to overtime where NiP managed to secure four straight rounds to ensure the Map. Karrigan, teamAllu from FaZe and GeT_RighT and Xizt from NiP were top performers for teams.
Map 2 was played on de _train where FaZe managed to secure the pistol round on Counter Terrorist side and five more rounds to secure the first half 10-5 finally. But Frieberg and Forest FaZe dominated the map, and as they shut down the NiP aggression, FaZe obtained the map 16-6.
Map 3 was played on de_overpass where the both the teams traded rounds to and fro and NiP managed to ensure the first half with the score of 9-6. The second half was also full of excitement as both teams won and lost rounds, but finally, Nip managed to secure the map 16-13.
The final battle – NiP vs SK
Map 1: Map 1 of IEM were played on de_train which SK dominated after winning the Pistol round and dominated the first half to secure 11-4 with the 15th round had hearts pounding as it would go either way. But ‘Coldzera’ got a frag on the ‘f0rest’ who was defusing the bomb and NiP lost the round because they couldn’t defuse the Bomb on time. The Map ended with SK winning the map as NiP could only secure only one round in second half and SK won 16-5.
Map 2: NiP caused chaos in SK defense on Cache and managed to secure ten rounds on the Terrorist side but SK managed to level up the score to 14-14, and the map could have gone either way. But Nip managed to secure the round 16-14 to win the map.
Map 3: Map 3 was played on de_cbble by NiP and SK was a close affair, and NiP obtains the map 16-14 on a close match where the score was tired 11-11 and 14-14. But NiP held their positions and managed to secure the map thanks to ‘GeT_RighT’ and ‘f0rest.’
NiP were the winners of the Intel Extreme Master: Oakland after the defeated SK 2-1 in Best of 3. The prize pool was massive, 300,000 USD for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive wherein NiP were able to grab the lion’s share – $125,000.
Guinness World Records confirmed that the Canadian StarCraft II esports player Sasha ‘Scarlett’ Hostyn has won the maximum amount of earnings ever made by a female esports professionals. The earnings totaled to $144,414 as on October.
Scarlett beats the previous record-holder — Katherine “Mystik” Gunn — by more than $20,000. Team Liquid took the greetings to Twitter to wish the 22-year-old record-holder. Among StarCraft II players, Scarlett’s all-time earnings rank her at #32, according to Aligulac. The StarCraft II-focused stats site also notes a winnings total of $149,564, slightly higher than the figure Guinness reported in October.
For comparison, the top-earning male StarCraft II pro of all time is South Korea’s Jang “MC” Min Chul, with $495,029. The 25-year-old player started competing professionally in 2010 — compared to 2012 for Scarlett — and has more matches played overall.
Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn is a Canadian StarCraft II player who plays Zerg. She started to play StarCraft II in April 2011. She made her first steps in the competitive scene by participating in an online female-only league – the NESL Iron Lady – and winning the tournaments twice in a row in Autumn 2011.
In March 2012, Scarlett won the Playhem “Sponsor Me!” The tournament, an online event reserved for amateur players without a team or a sponsor. Winning that tournament awarded her an all-expenses paid trip to IPL 4 in Las Vegas, where she had a breakthrough performance in the open qualifiers.
Scarlett attended the 2012 StarCraft II World Championship Series Canada, making her way through the winner’s bracket and defeating the likes of HuK, Ostojiy, Drewbie and DdoRo to reach the Grand Finals. She eventually overwhelmed Ostojiy once again in this last series, becoming Canada’s national champion with a 12-1 record and securing a seed in the 2012 WCS North American Championship.
At the 2012 WCS North American Championship, Scarlett once again tore through the winner’s bracket, going through Theognis, Mystik, HuK, Insur, and defeating ViBE twice to win the tournament with another 12-1 record.
In a facebook post addressed to fans, TheMongolz have announced that Zilkenberg is leaving their roster and they will soon announce the replacement. The MongolZ thanked Zilk for his contribution and achievements they collectively procured. The reason for the departure was however, not clear.
Temuulen “Zilkenberg” Battulga performed standard at ASUS Rog Masters 2016 wherein they conquered victory. They beat dream[S]cape 3-0 to win the $200,000 event which was destined at Kuala Lumpur.
Zilkenberg is leaving The MongolZ .Good luck and thanks to him for the great time ! We will be announcing our replacement sometime in the near future.
The next best replacement for Zilk practically could be Machinegun, who is a former Mongolz player and was recently released from his roster Splyce following they reported extensive communication hindrance.
Crowley, India’s supposedly one of the best DotA 2 players is planning to quit his professional team Entity Esports amidst arising differences within.
Entity Esports, which came into existence only a couple of months ago has CS:GO, DotA 2 and Overwatch squads which apparently are best in their fields. Our sources close to the team revealed that the time has come for Raunak ‘Crowley’ Sen who is now sidelined from the active roster following misconduct. is planning to quit the lineup and anchor more on himself as a player rather than the team itself.
We got official words from the management at Entity Esports, where Sid Joshi quoted:
“It was more due to his behavior and attitude than his performance. Also, it’s not a roster change. We always had a six-man roster and actively switched NO_Chanc3 and Evil-ash.”
Raunak, who’s performance was not at his best in ASUS Rog Masters in Malaysia now plans to tweak his gameplay staying away from the team. Although the decision to set Sen aside from the team isn’t a reflection of his performance, rather the decision has been taken due to misconduct and ill-behavior.
Apparently, Crowley was also seen missing in the active lineup of Entity Esports game yesterday in the ESL One Genting 2017 qualifiers where they lost two best of one’s against EVOS.
Entity Esports were playing with:
Crowley
NO_Chanc3
Evil-Ash
BlizzarD
Swifty
A35
It has indeed happened. The ousted of Crowley has been confirmed by Entity Esport’s manager, Sid Joshi, who calls this incident rather ‘kicking him’ instead of him leaving the team on his personal consent.
If the sources and the speculations do turn out to be true. It will be a big blow to the powerful squad considering the collective experience and skill they hold. It is also important to note that if the rumor is indeed the fortune, this will mark another roster change for the players in less than three months.
