Tirth ‘Gcttirth’ Mehta, the Indian e-sports player making rounds on several news channel because of his success at the Asian Games, has made a record run at the WESG tournament for Hearthstone. Gcttirth qualified in the playoffs, recording a 3-0 win against Australian player TINGT0NG. Luck did not favor him in the quarter-finals, where he went out 1-3 against 山下智久.
The stigma associated with playing a niche e-sport has never made Gcttirth falter, clearly seen in his performance at the regional finals as well in the final playoffs. A position in the top 8 means that Gcttirth gets to walk away with $5000, and the pride of an esports player from a country which hasn’t seen much representation at top esports tournaments.
Gcttirth had earlier won the bronze medal in the Hearthstone tournament held at the Asian Games, earning India what seems to be the first major victory for the country in esports in recent times. For the ones in the dark, the Asian Electronic Sports Federation had decided to hold an esports tournament for certain games like Hearthstone, League of Legends and StarCraft 2 at the Asian Games on a trial basis. As for the WESG, the World Electronics Sports Games is an international tournament organized by Alisports (a division of the Alibaba group) with the finals held in Shanghai. The tournament is organized on an annual basis, and currently has some of the highest prize pools for any third party tournament.