With over 2 million viewers, NODWIN Invitational highlights the potential of Valorant in India

There was a bit of speculation among Indian Valorant fans, as to how much traction the shooter would get in the nation.

In a country which is just obsessed with mobile esports, an IP that is (for now) exclusively for the PC platform is going to have a much harder time gaining popularity and a solid player base.

However, NODWIN Gaming’s very first Valorant Invitational, which was held yesterday, surprised us all with the amount of potential that Valorant has in India.

Not only did the tournament boast a whopping prize pool of Rs.1,75,000 but it also had a cumulative viewership of over 2 million active viewers throughout the entirety of the Invitational.

NODWIN’s stream alone had a total engagement of 358.8k, and as some of the players had their own relative streams live, the total number of views shot up way past the 2 million mark. The peak concurrent viewership was more than 41k.

The Talents involved in the NODWIN Valorant Invitational

The NODWIN Valorant Invitational featured some of the biggest names from the Indian esports industry. From popular online streamers like Shagufta' XYAA' Iqbal and Rohan' HydraFlick' Ledwani to PUBG icons like Team Fnatic and Tanmay ‘Sc0utOP' Singh, there were a lot of heavyweight personalities.

Former CS: GO professionals like Tejas ‘Rite2Ace' Sawant and 'Antidote' were also a part of the competition along with Ankit 'V3NOM' Panth, who was accompanied by 'Psy', 'Robo', 'EXCALI' and 'Kappa'.

Team V3NOM were the winners of the NODWIN Gaming Valorant Invitational and secured themselves the first prize of Rs. 75,000.

A take on the finals of the NODWIN Valorant Invitational

It was quite surprising for some fans when Team 8BIT Thug were not able to qualify for the finals. Rite2Ace and his gang suffered a loss at the hands of Team Xyaa, who beat them with a 13-3 scoreline.

The 8BIT Thug line-up was also headlined by arguably the highest-profile player attending the tournament, Tanmay 'ScoutOP' Singh, India's PUBG Mobile Superstar.

Divyansh ‘Scarg0d’ Jain popped off in the match and secured a total frag count of 30 kills, making him the most valuable player of the match.

Screen Grab from NODWIN's Stream

However, in the semifinals against Team V3NOM, the match did not go as well as he would have wanted it to, and Team Xyaa lost with a 13-6 scoreline. Scarg0d was still the top fragger in the squad.

The finals between Team V3NOM and Team Global Esports might have started out as a close affair but that was until Akshay “KappA” Sinkar and Karan “Excali” Mhaswadkar took over the rounds.

However, it was not just KappA and Excali who played well in the games. Every member of Team V3NOM had a pop-off performance and even their captain, Ankit 'V3NOM' Panth, scored an ace on the first map.

Team comp in Bind (Screen Grab from NODWIN's Stream)

Simar “Psy” Sethi showed some incredible sniping skills and consistently got picks on the opponent with his Operator.

Team Comp in Split (Screen Grab from NODWIN's Stream)

Vatsal “Nghtmre2k” Uniyal, was by far the best player in the Global Esports line-up. He had a mean Raze macro and was, in many rounds, successfully able to stave off aggressive pushes from Team V3NOM all by himself. However, his hard carry performance did not help his team win out in the finals, and they lost 13-6 and 13-1 in Bind and Split respectively.

The level of competition was quite fierce in the NODWIN Valorant Invitational, and with the amount of fan support that the tournament got, it’s safe to say that the game indeed has a very bright future in India.