Skyesports announced their IP 'Skyesports 5.0 Championship' this year consisting of BGMI and Counter-Strike 2 LAN events in November and December respectively. For CS2, they announced that each region will have its qualifiers and the winners will fly to Mumbai for the CS2 LAN finals starting on 1 December 2023. The Indian qualifiers have just concluded with Gods Reign toppling Revenant Esports in a best-of-three matchup with a scoreline of 2-1. While they will be joining the other teams at the LAN event, the LAN has been indefinitely postponed by Skyesports.
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Gods Reign To Represent India Among International Teams at Skyesports 5.0 CS2 LAN
The Skyesports Championship 5.0 CS2 LAN event was originally planned to take place on December 1–3, 2023, featuring four teams (one invited team and one team each from the EU, India, and UAE Qualifiers). Gods Reign has been confirmed as the Indian representative for the event. They defeated Revenant Esports in a best-of-three match in the Grand Finals, winning 2-1. This comes after two players from both rosters were exchanged with rev3nnn and Ember shifting from Gods Reign to Revenant Esports in place of Cyclonef and f1redup who took up the open spots on the opposing team.
The veto for the best-of-three match resulted in Ancient, (selected by Gods Reign), Mirage (selected by Revenant Esports), and Anubis as the decider. Gods Reign won their map of Ancient with a score line of 13-9, leading the series with a 1-0 score. Revenant Esports bounced back on map 2, which was their pick. Gods Reign was leading Mirage 6-1, which made the series seem like an easy win for them at first, but Revenant managed to find their footing and show why they selected the map, winning it with a score line of 13-8.
The score was equalized at 1-1, bringing the series to the decider map of Anubis. Anubis was an easy win for Gods Reign as they showed their dominance to close out map 3 with a score of 13-6, winning the Indian qualifiers for the tournament. The playing five for the CS2 roster of Gods Reign are as follows:
- Hrishikesh "Crazy Gamer" Shenoy (IGL)
- Piyush "Clouda" Kalwania
- Aakash "Ph1nnn" Bose
- Harsh "f1redup" Jain (Not announced yet)
- Vishwesh "Cyclonef" Waradkar (Not announced yet)
Gods Reign will now be joining the likes of Aurora Gaming from European qualifiers and OG Esports as the invited team at the main LAN event. The event was previously scheduled to take place in Mumbai from December 1 to December 3, 2023, but has been postponed indefinitely as of now. The fourth team for the event is also yet to be announced. Fans are speculating that this might be the reason for the delay.