Indian eSports Championship: Ground Zero – Preview

IeSC 2016 which began in September featuring Dota2 and CS: GO and a whopping 2,000,000 INR prize pool is in final stages. The grand finals of the event (Ground Zero) are scheduled from 10^th-12^th November. IeSC has been organised by Neon Gaming Studio and Essence Transmedia and has by far, the highest prize pool.

The Final Prize Pool for CS: GO  Final event is 8,50,000 INR

• 1^st– 350,000 INR
• 2^nd– 150,000 INR
• 3^rd/4^th– 75,000 INR
• 5^thto 8^th – 50,000 INR

IeSC which started with “The Uprising” subevent in the month of September, where the BO1 matches were played till the semi-finals. The semi-finalists also got to move on to Proving Grounds (online knockouts) where they started with 2 point advantage. It was followed Proving Grounds (League Stage) where the 60 team from online knockouts and 4 semi-finalists from uprising battled it out for place in Ground Zero ( The Final event). The 64 teams were divided into 8 groups and the top team from each group qualified for the Main Proving Ground event (Ground Zero).

The Semi-finalists for the Uprising Event were Team Brutality, A3, Rippers and Intense Gaming. These teams competed with 60 teams.

The teams who qualified for the Main event are:

• Team Brutality (V3nom, Juventa ,RiX ,astaRRRRR and impale) were winners from Group A with 16 points beating Team Dracarys. Team Brutality are meant to be the favorites to win the event. Players to watch? Astarrrr!
• Overcome (m0nster, Amaterasu, ShabbY, Bababiceps) were winners from Group B with 14 points beating Team KAFAN. Playing their first game after returning from Paris.
• Entity Blue (RiTz, MithilF, ManaN, Psy, Kappa) winners of Group C with 12 points
• Goutfits were winners from group D with 12 points beating Team Dota2haters. Goutfits marked their name when they almost beat Entity Gold in the ESL Starter Cup #6.
• Destructive 5 (Wuzz, sMx, Ad1, Fox, PeXXer) were winners of Group E with 14 points.
• Gunpoint were winners of Group F with 14 points beating Team Elements.
• TMG were winners of Group G with 12 points.
• A3 were the winners of Group H with 14 points where they defeated team TakeOver who had 12 points. A3 has former players of Team NSD. If you’re a CS fan in India, you know their dominance. Expect the same from them, mark this team as an underdog for the event!

The Final Event Ground Zero is scheduled from November 10^th-12^th to be a LAN event at Phoenix Marketcity (Kurla) where these 8 Teams will Battle it out for the Grand Prize.