Hangzhou: As E-sports prepares to make its official medal sport debut at the Hangzhou Asian Games, India has earned top seeding in the League of Legends E-sports event, granting them direct entry into the quarterfinals.
In addition to League of Legends, India will also compete in two other sections among the seven E-sports events scheduled for the Asian Games.
Leading the Indian League of Legends team is Akshaj Shenoy, known as Kai, with Samarth Arvind Trivedi (CrankO), Mihir Ranjan (Lotus), Sanindhya Malik (Deadcorp), Aakash Shandilya (Infi), and Aditya Selvaraj (Krow) comprising the rest of the squad.
In the FC Online-4 category, Charanjot Singh, competing as Charanjot12_, secured the top seed, while his teammate Karman Singh, known as tikkatown, claimed the fifth seed. Their advantageous seeding places them in the last-32 stage, where Charanjot will face China's Liu Jiacheng, and Karman will go up against A.A. Faqeehi from Bahrain.
In the 'Street Fighter V: Champion Edition' category, Mayank Prajapati (MiKeYROG) and Ayan Biswas (AYAN01) clinched the fifth and sixth seeds, respectively. They, too, will commence their campaigns from the last-32 stage, with Mayank set to compete against Saudi Arabia's T.F. Rajikhan and Biswas facing Vietnam's K.H.C Nguyen.
The DOTA 2 team, led by Darshan Bata (A35) and featuring Krish Gupta (Krish-), Abhishek Yadav (Abhi-), Ketan Goyal (Evil-Ash), and Shubham Goli (Madness), has been placed in Group A alongside Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines. The group stage matches, scheduled for September 29, will adopt a Best-of-One (BO1) single round-robin format.
The group winner will advance to the elimination stages on September 30, where all matches will be played in a head-to-head, BO3 single-elimination format. India's E-sports teams are poised to make their mark in this groundbreaking edition of the Asian Games.