Evolution In Gaming GAMING MAGZINE | Page 7

Players Competing In First Official Dota 2 Tournament Powered By Urban Terran & Nvidia.

The Indian Dota 2 scene paints quite an interesting picture. Although we are presumed to have the lowest average solo mmr in the world, our Esports scene is one of the fastest developing niche scenes in the world. Tournaments such as the SEA Kappa Season 2 and ROG Masters have started organising Indian qualifiers. Meanwhile closer to home, there has been an increase in the number of premier Indian LAN tournaments such as the ESL India Premiership and Mountain Dew India’s Dew Arena 2016.

With the rise of stellar teams like Beyond Infinity and Invisible Wings, we have left our mark in several International tournaments. Both teams have now consolidated into one powerful Entity and if all goes as envisioned Indian Esports may well be on its way toward international glory. Let’s have a look at the past, present and future of tournaments from an Indian Dota 2 perspective.

The year started off with a couple of well organised Indian tournaments,The Kaolin Cup and the ND2C. Both tournaments were highly competitive and the teams were very even, save one - ‘Beyond Infinity’. This team absolutely demolished their opponents on the back of Swifty’s middle lane prowess coupled with No_Chance’s masterful strategies executed with near perfect team chemistry.

They cruised to victory over Team Piece of Cake in the ND2C followed by a 3-0 annihilation of Svaha (Invisible Wings) in the finals of the Kaolin Cup meant that Beyond Infinity had established themselves as the best Dota 2 team

The 1st Challenger Cup on the road to ESL Masters India had arrivedwith two of India’s premier teams - Beyond Infinity and Invisible Wings aiming to cement their place in the ESL India Premiership Masters. Although the other teams in the event played extremely well (Aggressive 5 in particular), BI and IW stood head and shoulders above the rest and it came as no surprise that these two teams made it to the finals, a butt clenching series where both BlizzarD and Crowley shined. The series ended 2-1 in favor of BI who took home a cool ₹1,50,000. Aggressive 5 finished in 3rd place joining BI and IW in qualifying for the Masters.

After what seemed like the form of their lives, Beyond Infinity suddenly started dropping game after game in the Mr.Cat Invitational and Mineski Pro-Gaming League Season 8. They finished dead last in both the tournaments while losing to the likes of Signature.Trust, s1 Lykos and G1- teams that they had beaten with ease in previous tournaments.

They seemed to have found their mojo with a 2nd place finish in the group stages of the Pro Dota Cup SEA Season 1. This eupohoria was short lived as they proceeded to lose 2-0 to Orange.taring in the winner bracket round 1 and were soon after eliminated from the competition courtesy RRQ.

Post TI6, the Fall shuffle was upon us. ZeDisBuGG announced his retirement and all eyes were on Beyond Infinity to announce the addition of a new support as his replacement. But to everyone’s astonishment Beyond Infinity and Invisible Wings had merged their squads to become Entity Esports - a team that holds a lot of potential for international success.

Beyond Infinity with their ESL Challenger cup #1 trophy