Team India's ENC 2026 Regional Qualifier campaign ends at the hands of Korea

Team India's goal of making it to the Esports Nations Cup 2026 has been dashed as the India team has suffered an exit in the regional qualifiers. The Indian team's exit comes after a loss to the Republic of Korea in the lower bracket of the East & South Asia Qualifiers. After starting with a convincing map win, the Indian team was reverse swept out of the qualifiers by the Korean squad despite f1redup's 1.52 rating performance.

Korea's pick of Dust2 got the series underway with the Korean squad starting with the T pistols, conversions and the first gun round of the back of a B hit to go 4-0 up. A mixed buy with f1redup's AWP and Bhavi's Scout saw India get on the board. It was the f1redup and Bhavi duo with 14 and 13 kills respectively on the CT side that saw India take a 7-5 lead at the half.

eE_EEE pulled off a 1v2 with a straight up defuse stick to see Korea pick up both pistols on Dust2 but India answered with a force buy to get on the board early on, on their T side. With Bhavi and f1redup fragging out, f1redup's 25 kill performance along with a 22 kill show from Bhavi saw India draw first blood in the elimination game with a 13-7 win.

Moving to India's pick of Mirage, it was Korea shutting down an A hit to get things going with yet another pistol in the bag. A hits, mid splits, all were shut down by the Korean squad as they stormed to a 5-1 lead before a quad kill from clouda got the Indian squad on the board. A coupe of late rounds helped India finds four T rounds to salvage the half. Switching to the CT side, it was a near flawless T side from Korea as eE_EEE's 23 kill show saw Korea tie up the series with a big 13-5 win.

The decider headed to Anubis where impact from f1redup helped India keep the score even at 6-6 at the half with Bhavi and co. starting on the T side. Moving to the CT side it was a back and forth affair to kick off things but once the Korean squad brought out the guns, back to back B hits saw Korea walk away with a 13-9 win with eE_EEE once again on top with 25 kills.

With a 1-2 loss in the lower bracket round 2 game, it is the end of the road for the Indian squad at the Esports Nations Cup 2026 South & East Asia Regional Qualifier. Korea meanwhile are set to take on Pakistan in the lower bracket semi-final.