Game changers: From Arjun Erigaisi to Team Aryan, meet India's top players at Esports World Cup 2025

Arjun Erigaisi

India has a strong play this year at the ongoing Esports World Cup (EWC) 2025 unlike the inaugural edition of the tournament last year when no team or player participated.

The top contenders from India have qualified for two sports so far—chess and BGMI (Battleground Mobile India).

Chess grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi is levelling up both online and offline. He became the first Indian chess player to qualify for the 2025 edition of EWC through his performance in the Champions Chess Tour (CCT). The CCT, originally known as the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour when it launched in 2020, is a prestigious online chess circuit. The Indian chess star finished in the top 12 in the CCT, confirming his spot at EWC 2025.

Professional esports organisation Gen.G Esports had signed Erigaisi in February 2025 to compete in EWC 2025.

Chess at EWC has a prize pool of $1.5 million or around Rs 12.8 crore.

What are his chances of winning? The world’s top three players—Magnus Carlsen, who is also the chess ambassador at EWC, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana have all qualified. Erigaisi is currently ranked fifth in the world, with India’s fourth-ranked Praggnanandhaa R and sixth-ranked Gukesh Dommaraju yet to qualify. This gives him a strong chance of securing a high finish at the tournament.

Born on September 3, 2003 in Warangal, Telangana, Erigaisi at 21 is India’s top-rated chess player according to the FIDE rankings (the International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation is commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE). He earned the grandmaster title when he was 14 and in September last year became the top rated. By December, he achieved a peak rating of 2,801. He is the second Indian, after Viswanathan Anand, to cross the 2,800-point rating.

The other sport where India has qualified is BGMI, with Team Aryan x TMG Gaming making an entry into EWC 2025.

The five-player BGMI team consists of Aryan Chouhan, Gursimran Singh (also known as Vishu), Subhash Bediya (Hitler), Syrax and Christopher Yadav (Devotee). After winning Battlegrounds Mobile India Pro Series (BMPS) 2025, the team earned a special invite to the PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) Mobile World Cup 2025 (PMWC), which will take place at EWC 2025.

PMWC 2025 is a mid-season international event of the 2025 PUBG Mobile competitive season. Krafton India announced a special slot for the winner of BMPS 2025 in the ongoing tournament.

At EWC 2025, PMWC 2025 offers a prize pool of $3-million or Rs 25.7 crore.

Team Aryan x TMG Gaming has been drawn in the same group as top contenders like Team Falcons, who won last year’s EWC Club Championship, Alpha7 Esports, the reigning PUBG Mobile World Cup champions, and Weibo Gaming, winners of the PUBG Mobile Hong Kong Invitational 2025.

All these teams regularly compete in PUBG Mobile and frequently face international opponents in major tournaments.

In contrast, due to the ban on PUBG Mobile in India, Indian teams have had limited opportunities to compete on the international stage and lack comparable experience. Additionally, this will be Team Aryan x TMG Gaming’s first global esports tournament, making their chances of advancing quite slim.

Overall, EWC 2025's prize pool has increased to $70 million or Rs 600 crore from $62.5 million or Rs 533 crore in the first edition.

That outing attracted a global audience of 500 million viewers. In India, it had a reach of 10.5 million and a total consumption of 64 million minutes watched, as per data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council. Star Sports was the official broadcast partner of EWC last year.