Esports makes its debut as a full-fledged medal event at the Hangzhou Asian Games, after being a 'demonstration event' at the 2018 Asian Games. India's only 'medal' at the 2018 event came via Tirth Mehta, who won bronze in Hearthstone.
That game has been excluded from this edition (more on that later), which will offer medals in each of the seven different titles included under eSports: League of Legends, Arena of Valor Asian Games Version, Peace Elite Asian Games Version, Dota 2, Dream Three Kingdoms 2, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, and EA SPORTS FC ONLINE.
India will take part in only four of these seven events, since Arena of Valor and Peace Elite (a version of PUBG mobile developed by TenCent for the Asian Games) are banned in India, while Dream Three Kingdoms 2 is unavailable in the country.
India's eSports Asian Games squad
EA SPORTS FC ONLINE (rebranded from FIFA Online 4)
India's representatives: Charanjot Singh and Karman Singh Tikka
A single-player title, EA FC Online is the analogue of real-life football, with players in control of all the 11 players on their team and the formations and strategies they use - the ultimate aim being to outscore their opponents. FIFA Online 4 is based on the graphics engine from FIFA 18 and gameplay from FIFA 17, and after publisher Electronic Arts' (EA) deal with FIFA collapsed, has been rebranded as EA Sports FC Online.
Charanjot topped the South Asia seeding event ahead of the Asian Games, while Karman finished sixth. Their event at the Asian Games will feature 21 countries, with each tie featuring a best-of-three (BO3) format.
Dates: September 24 - 27
Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
India's representatives: Mayank Prajapati and Ayan Biswas
Street Fighter V is also a single-player fighting title that involves two players going up against each other with unique characters, each having special moves and abilities. Games are usually won by mastery of combos and timing, with the winner needing to deplete his opponent's 'health bar'.
Prajapati and Ayan finished fifth and sixth in their South Asian seeding event ahead of the Games, which is expected to feature 15 countries participating in this event - which will also feature a BO3 format in each tie.
Dates: September 26 - 28
League of Legends (LoL)
India's representatives: Akshaj Shenoy (captain), Samarth Arvind Trivedi, Mihir Ranjan, Aditya Selvaraj, Aakash Shandilya, Sanindhya Malik (five players and one substitute)
Arguably the most popular eSports title featured in the Asian Games, League of Legends is a 5v5 MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, with each player controlling a powerful character of varied abilities across a map. Players are assigned specialized roles (top, jungler, mid, adc, support), with the object of the game being to destroy a structure called the 'Nexus' inside the other team's base.
India has no local LoL servers, with India's squad making do with the newly-introduced SEA server. It makes their unbeaten run at the Central and South Asian seeding event ahead of the Games all that more impressive. LoL will feature 19 countries at the Asian Games, with the group stage being a one-shot contest, while the event will turn into a BO3 format from the quarterfinal stage.
Dates: September 25 - 29
Defence of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2)
India's representatives: Darshan Bata (captain), Krish Gupta, Abhishek Yadav, Ketan Goyal, Shubham Goli.
A team-based event, Dota 2 is also a very popular eSports MOBA title. Like LoL, five players are tasked with destroying the opposing team's Ancient (a structure within their base) and defending their own, with each player controlling a specialized hero (roles: carry, midlane, offlane, soft support, hard support). The game's complexity also lies in the three lanes that connect the two Ancients at either ends (top, middle and bottom).
The Indian team finished second in their seeding group (top eight overall) ahead of the Games, and face stiff competition for a shot at a medal. A team featuring three of the five going to the Asiad recently lost 0-2 to Malaysia and Mongolia in recent GEG23 (Global Esports Games) qualifiers.
The group stage is a best-of-one format, followed by BO3 in the quarterfinal stage onwards.
Dates: September 29 - October 2
What happened with Hearthstone?
Hearthstone's exclusion was the byproduct of the collapse of the publishing deal between Blizzard Entertainment (US-based makers of wildly popular games like World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo III, Overwatch and Hearthstone) and NetEase (Chinese video game company). Chinese laws do not allow foreign companies to publish games in the country, necessitating such deals as that between Blizzard and NetEase. Their 14-year relationship came to an end last year (as Blizzard also dealt with allegations of sexual harassment within the top echelons of the company, as well as an acquisition deal involving Microsoft), with NetEase shutting down all Hearthstone servers in the Chinese mainland.
Thus, with the game unable to function within China, the decision was made to remove it from the Asian Games roster, leaving India's representatives, Shikhar Choudhary (who beat Tirth Mehta to qualify) and Karthik Varma in the lurch. Hearthstone represented a genuine medal opportunity for India and it's exclusion has even led to the likes of Choudhary potentially giving up on his eSports career.