Paytm First Games will be hosting a Teamfight Tactics (TFT) mobile tournament for India later this month. The tournament will be held online from June 17 – 21, and feature a prize pool of 75K INR ($1K USD). Registrations for the event have opened with the first 512 players being eligible for the competition.
Speaking about the decision to host a TFT tournament, Sudhanshu Gupta, chief operating officer at Paytm First Games told The Esports Observer that Riot already has a built-in fan base in India thanks to League of Legends’ popularity there.
“Paytm First Games is always looking to bring interesting competitive opportunities to the Indian gamers. When we started esports, we looked at mobile titles that are unique and can also be meaningful for our users,” he said. “This is where Riot Games’ TFT comes in. Riot’s League of Legends (LoL) for PC is a huge IP well-loved by the core gaming population in India. TFT started out as a game mod inside LoL PC and it became so popular that Riot launched it as a stand-alone game for the mobile. This is where we saw the opportunity to bring competitive TFT to its fanbase in India.”
Paytm First Games previously hosted a Clash Royale competition in April that saw over 11K registrations. It has also announced another season of Clash Royale competitions, spanning a full year with a 100K INR ($13K USD) prize pool. In addition, the platform is also hosting a Free Fire solos tournament.
Having worked with publishers such as Garena and Supercell in the past, the partnership with Riot Games could open up new doors for both companies in the region.
“Riot Games is a large multi-game publisher and we couldn’t be more excited at the suite of titles they announced in their L10 (League’s 10th-year celebration) live stream which we broadcasted live on Inbox inside Paytm app,” Gupta said. “Other games including TFT, Legends of Runeterra and VALORANT have delivered on that promise and we can’t wait for Wild Rift to arrive.”
This will be the first major TFT competition in India after Riot added South Asia to the list of eligible regions that can be a part of its esports circuit for the title. The Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies Championship is the marquee event for the title, which will be held later in the year. This is a competitive series with eight regional qualifiers that will take 16 of the best TFT players from around the world to a final tournament with a $200K prize pool.
This announcement marks one of the first times that Riot has actively invested in a tournament in India. Riot also announced recently that it would launch VALORANT servers for Indian players in the second half of 2020.
Shounak Sengupta is a staff writer for AFK Gaming.
