My opinion on eSports - hyping for Valorant Champions.

I don't have to tell you what eSports is. But in case you don't know, just like normal sports, eSports is playing computer games competitively. Anyone can participate in eSports if one's so good at the sport. Various Organizations have been created based on this eSports business and they make millions not just by winning tournaments but also from the side sales by apparels, merchandises, brand deals, etc.

eSports arena, filled with crowd.

eSports is something that is not so popular in India until late 2017 as far as I know. There have been local tournaments conducted by your local internet café manager, game center owner, etc. Games that can be played competitively are mostly played in eSports. Valorant, Counter-strike, DOTA 2, League of Legends, etc are some of the big games in eSports.

Why India is lagging behind in this field?

The answer is simple. You tell me does your parent allow you to play video games 15 to 20 hours a day and compete in a tournament where the win is not guaranteed and let you take a career with the shortest career span? Doctors, engineers, and other educational stuffs are what considered as profession here. Imagine telling your parents I'm gonna be a blogger, vlogger, youtuber, streamer, gamer.

So after a long time, eSports came to India in the form of counter strike. Optic gaming signed an Indian team to compete in Asia-region level tournament. It was then the famous word.exe happened. The entire eSports scene got scrapped. No more gaming professionally. Though later on, mobile game tournaments were conducted and Indian teams showed their talent there, the word.exe left a permanent mark on Indian eSports scene. 

"Forsaken", a former optic India gaming team's professional csgo player cheated on a lan game. He named the cheat files as "word.bak" and 'word.exe". It was since then, cheaters were mocked with word.exe and the meme originated. Following this incident, no big orgs saw India as a market for professional gaming. Until valorant released.

How I started watching eSports?

Its not a big deal. Anyone with a YouTube account or a twitch account can watch the tournament live on the respective channels they are telecasted on. Valorant is my first FPS game. Since we started playing it everyday since December, 2020, me and the bois were interested in watching the pro league as well. 

Valorant themselves conduct official tournament and they have a format for that. So that was the first official tournament me, nexus, trillX, rakavid, thalasanty and atikin watched. It was a fun filled experience because we used to stay up late until 7am 8am sometimes to watch the full game as the timezone and region differs.

A csgo major winning moment for Astralis

I used to watch shroud's stream ever since PUBG pc came out. All I knew back then was that he's a professional cs player and he's so good in pubg. Little I knew how eSports works back then. So it was during the later phase of 2020, I started watching old csgo tournaments. The arena, the crowd, the casters, the banter, the aesthetics, everything about it is worth mentioning.

During this time(later 2020), I started watching old csgo tournaments from 2013 to 2019. ESL, Intel Grand Slam, invitational, etc are some of the tournaments that I watched. It was while watching these I found out Shorud alone is not a big player. There are several big names in eSports than just Shroud. Each player have their own uniqueness and separate fanbase for that. For example, kennyS is known as the person responsible for nerfing the awp sniper, s1mple the best player to ever touch the game, etc. 

About Valorant Champions

But since we were playing valorant and not csgo, me and the gang decided to watch Valorant Masters. So this is how the tournament goes. In a year, Champions is the ultimate event that takes place in December. The team that wins Champions are considered the best team in the world. And the first Valorant Champions event is about to take place on December 1 to December 12. So for teams to qualify for the event, they are supposed to play another event called Masters. teams from different regions show to play on lan and the winner gets a slot for the next major event. For teams to qualify for Masters, they gotta play qualifiers. Also each team will earn circuit points by playing. So there are teams that can qualify by their circuit points as well even if they miss out masters. 

Masters Reykjavik stage, first international lan event for valorant

Now, I'll explain how this tournament takes place. So this event starts on January of a year, and ultimately leads to Champions on December. Masters are second highest tier after Champions. And it takes place thrice a year before champions. And for teams to qualify for masters, they should play a regional level qualifiers from which teams are selected for masters. Winners of each masters are given a guaranteed spot for the next major event, while the winners of the last masters are given a slot for champions. Qualifiers take place for each regions separately, like separate tournament for NA, EMEA, SEA, JPN, LATAM, BR. Each team earns circuit points as well based on their performances. 

Masters will take place with selected teams from each region's qualifiers. Bigger regions like NA, EMEA gets extra slot comparing other regions. So this is how the tournament takes place and teams are selected for Champions. Also for the last slot from each region, the teams will play a last chance qualifier in which, the team that wins, gets a slot in Champions. So only 1 team from each team will qualify via LCQ. Masters -2 was the first lan event of valorant since the first masters took place during the pandemic, they conducted it region-wise. 

The teams and our support

So the first tournament we watched was NA-qualifiers. Me and Nexus were supporting 100Thieves but they sadly didn't make it out. Sentinels, V1 were the teams that represented NA during Masters Reykjavik. Then we supported Fnatic for the team's charisma and performance, and mostly because we hated sentinel fanboys simping for TenZ, as if their team is winning because of him(Though he won them the match against 100T during Qualifiers). But eventually they ended up winning the whole tournament without dropping a single map. 

Sentinels, after winning Masters Reykjavik

So this means that Sentinels are guaranteed a spot in the next masters. So again, next qualifiers after three months, for Masters Berlin. Our favorite 100T got qualified but ultimately lost in the semis. They made a huge show against gambit on group stage and against acend on quarter finals. During both games, they were down bad and won many rounds and gave a comeback to win. But their amazing run came to an end against fellow NA team, Envy. El Diablo popped off on lan and he started clicking heads all the way to the finals. Also during this event, Sentinels faced their first loss since the year beginning and also were kicked out of the tournament. They were not prepared for the tournament like other teams and that can be clearly seen. 

The team that could've potentially won Masters Berlin, 100 Thieves

Now for champions, the last chance for each teams was given via lcq, where 100T failed to win and their 2021 came to an end. I personally like that team because there were 4 csgo veterans, Hiko, nitr0,steel, ethan and the 18 yr old ranked demon Asuna. They proved that they can perform well under pressure and on main stages like lan. Even during the original lcq, they were dominating, But when NA lcq was suspended for a while due to covid outbreak, their energy was off. They play worse when they're not playing on stage. Maybe lan-buff is real?

Team Fnatic, one of my favorite

On the other hand, our EU favorites, Team Liquid and Fnatic are playing on champions. So we're going to watch this whole event and see who wins. All teams look so strong and it's tough to choose a favorite. Let's wait and enjoy the whole show. Me and the bois we watch the whole event via discord watch party. like old tourneys. 

Team Liquid, with the headshot machine Scream in pajama pants

So let the best team win the champions. It is really impressive of riot games and their production for conducting such huge events flawlessly, from promotion to the stage, everything was top-notch. This is really a feat for a game that came just a year and half ago. The Valorant eSports looks good so far. Let's hope it'll be the same in the long run. And let's see if it can overcome csgo. 

The reason I made this post is to let you guys understand what eSports is, why Indians are trolled worldwide for gaming, and to understand Valorant eSports and some of the teams you should look upon if you want to support them or get to know about them. Of course there are other teams from other regions as well but these are my favorites, even though I'm from SEA, I support EU and NA teams. So I hope you got to know something today :) See you guys in the next post. Peace.