In a country where the competitive video gaming scene is dominated by mobile games like PUBG Mobile and Free Fire, it’s quite rare to see a PC game gain so much support.
CS: GO and League of Legends have been in India for a very long time. They have enjoyed a decent amount of success in terms of tournaments and prize pools in the country. However, when it comes to the Valve shooter, the League of Legends scene is next to non-existent.
When The Esports Club decided to host the first-ever major Valorant tournament, quite a number of people (including us) were skeptical about the amount of success this venture would accumulate.
The Esports Club AMD Valorant Cup was able to surprise us all. Not only did it get 400 teams to participate in the competition, but with a INR 70K prize pool and the promise of new AMD GPUs for the top MVPs, it even got players from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to participate as well.
This indeed was a very big deal for the Valorant eSports scene in India. We even saw a glimpse of how Tejas 'Ace' Sawant, or ‘Rit2Ace’, performed on a competitive level in this new shooter from Riot Games.
Ace was one of the most celebrated and successful CS: GO players in India. He officially took up playing Valorant at a professional level on the 29th of May.
Tejas, along with his team Vertigo, was able to win the whole tournament this time around.
However, we wouldn’t go as far as to say the Grand Finals were an exciting affair.
Vertigo didn’t even drop a map in the finals, making them the undisputed winner of the Esports Club AMD Valorant Cup.
After the conclusion of the tournament, The Esports Club shared some statistical information that their AMD Tournament was privy to.
With 93K overall views, 6200+ hours of total watch time, and 1K+ peak CCV, it would seem that the tournament has gained some unprecedented amount of success.
It just goes to show that Valorant in India has great potential. With proper investments, the game might just have a successful esports scene in the coming years.