This is a unfortunate day for the growing Indian gaming scene. The teams that qualified from PUBG Mobile Club Open India qualifiers have their visa to Germany declined. Three teams qualified for the global finals in Berlin from India, SOUL, TeamIND and Indian Tigers. SOUL placed first at the tournament and will directly be participating in the main event on 26 July. But TeamIND and Indian Tigers have to play the qualifiers from July 20. The teams have been denied visa to enter Germany on the grounds that India does not have a governing esports body.
While team SOUL member still have time to apply for visa again, the others don’t. TeamIND and Indian Tigers will be participating in the qualifiers from NODWIN’s Delhi office. This is a rather big disadvantage for them since their ping will be considerably higher than the competition. With such a significant handicap, it will be difficult for the Indian teams to break even in the qualifiers. Lag is a major issue in normal games, and considering that these will be tournament games, the stakes are much higher.
PUBG Mobile Club Open 2019 India details
The PUBG Mobile Club Open 2019 (PMCO 2019) India Finals took place at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex in New Delhi on the June 14 and 15 with 16 elite teams from the country. The semifinals took place over a period of two weeks. The top teams of the semifinals were Team SouL, Team HYDRA, TEAM Insidious and The Brawlers. Chinese smartphone maker Vivo, is the official title sponsor of PMCO 2019.
WATCH: PMCO India Regional Finals Day 1
The tournament organized by Tencent Games had a star cast of presenters this time around both for the English and the vernacular stream. Abish Mathews took the center-stage as the presenter of the tournament. The English commentating team included Jason Kaplan, Sudhen “Bleh” Wahengbam, Alex “Snodz” Byfield and John Allen. While the Hindi commentating team included Vageesh Bhan, Ketan Patel, Mannu Karki and Dharam Kundra. Team SouL was the winner after two days and will represent India at Spring Split of the PMCO Global Finals 2019 in Berlin Germany.
