NESC 2024: Asian Games athletes dominate DOTA 2 finals; advance to regional qualifiers for 16th World Esports C'ships
Team Whoops, which included members that represented the nation at the Asian Games 2022 as well as won the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Esports Championships 2022.
Representative image (ANI)
NEW DELHI: India's Asian Games 2022 athletes recorded a comprehensive victory in the final of the National Esports Championships (NESC) 2024 organized by the Esports Federation of India (ESFI) to advance to the regional qualifiers for the 16th World Esports Championships (WEC), scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Team Whoops, which included members that represented the nation at the Asian Games 2022 as well as won the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Esports Championships 2022, dominated the DOTA 2 competition which featured a total of seven teams, as per a press release from ESFI.
The squad, led by captain Krish Gupta (Krish'-), along with Ketan Goyal (Evil-Ash), Manav Kunte (Mnz), Vishal Vernekar (HBK), Moin Ejaz (No_Chanc3), and substitutes Darshan Bata (A35) and Dennis Shah (Donniz), were crowned champions after securing a commanding 46-8 win against Rogue Squad in the final.
With this win, Team Whoops has advanced to the regional qualifiers of DOTA 2 that are scheduled to take place online from June 26 to 30.
Reflecting on their performance in the final, Team Whoops' captain Krish Gupta expressed, "We are excited to represent Team India once again at the World Esports Championships. Special thanks to the team at ESFI for making this happen and thank you everyone for the support. We will make our country proud!"
In addition to DOTA 2, NESC 2024 featured qualifiers for other titles such as Counter-Strike 2 (CS:2) across both open and female brackets, as well as eFootball.
The CS:2 Open category experienced intense competition amongst ten highly skilled teams such as Carnival Gaming, Marcos Gaming, and Grayfox. Ultimately, it was team Gods Reign led by skipper Bhavesh Sejwani (Bhavi) and consisting of Aakash Bose (Ph1NNN), Harsh Jain (f1redup), Rahul Banerjee (R2B2), Parijat Banerjee (reV3nnn), and Elvis Eric Soans (ELV1S), who emerged as the champions with a hard-fought 2-1 victory against True Rippers in the final.
Gods Reign, who became the first-ever Indian team to win the Southeast Asian Open Qualifier for the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 earlier this year, will lock horns against other leading teams from Asia in the online regional qualifiers of CS:2 (Open) from July 1 to 4.
"I am exhilarated to share that with sheer determination and teamwork we have become the championships of NESC 2024 CS2 and have earned the opportunity to represent India in the regional qualifiers of IESF WEC 2024! It is fantastic to see the team's efforts paying off, but we do not want to stop here. We will be using this opportunity to put Indian CS on the world map," stated Bhavesh Sejwani, captain of Gods Reign.