The Story of: Revenant Esports

Skyesports Masters 2023 was an important milestone in the Indian CS Scene bringing in a slew of new orgs joining some pre-existing rosters in the inaugural 8 team season. The first of the 8 partners that Skyesports announced was Revenant, an organisation best known for their RedBull Campus Clutch winning VALORANT roster and their various mobile game squads.

The organisation was one of the few bringing in international players to bolster an Indian core, and with CEO Rohit Jagasia hyping up the squad in the event pre-show there was much to look forward to.

"I have been an MMORPG guy throughout my life, the only FPS I ever played was CS1.6 in college and at cafes so there's some sort of nostalgia for Counter Strike. I haven't played as much as some of the OGs like you obviously. Our roster consists of 3 Indian players. They're flying to Riyadh right now for the IESF qualifier. We also have one player from Australia and one from Malaysia. We'll be revealing the entire team soon.”
Rohit Jagasia, Revenant Esports

That IESF core turned out to be f1redup, SKwow, and SpawN with f1redup being the star name at the tip of every tongue going into the season. Alongside them were gump, a young Australian rifler and 3nable the Malaysian support.

There was considerable hype surrounding the roster with many wondering how the international players will gel in the Indian squad. Fans didn’t have to wait long however as Revenant were part of the historic opening matchup for Skyesports Masters. Their opponents being the ever-present Gods Reign.

Right off the bat Revenant showed their stacked lineup as SpawN and gump popped off, but the team lacked cohesion, eventually allowing Gods Reign to take the opening series. Over the following weeks, Revenant showed that they were the team to beat in the season with no team having a winning record over them.

Everytime the team lost a game, they came back stronger always taking the rematch. Across the 7 weeks, they were only edged out on the standings by Gods Reign. With that result, the squad found themselves on way to Bangalore for the LAN Finals.

Starting off against 7Sea, Revenant were the favorites in the match. And gump was a man possessed. Clutch after clutch, frag after frag, the Aussie put his team on his back and never looked back. A tough loss on map 1 was followed up by two nail-biting matches to take the series and secure the Grand Finals.

For the third time in the season Gods Reign were Revenant’s final opponent. After a tough first loss and a dominant second victory, Revenant hoped to repeat their recent success. But Gods Reign on LAN were a different beast. They outclassed Revenant and despite gump having an incredible series, his team had to settle with runners up.

With Skyesports Masters done and dusted, the teams entered into an off-season rostermania. gump and 3nable departed back to their home countries and with 7Sea’s collapse, Revenant immediately seized an opportunity and signed rifle star CycloneF, after he played with SpawN and f1redup in Dust2.in Masters #2 and the Taiwan Excellence Gaming Cup 2023: Invite Qualifier.

Alongside him came in the Russian player Shandarez. The roster immediately went into Skyesports Souvenir Qualifiers. Their first matchup saw them once again take care of Marcos Gaming, an opponent that they would routinely beat with various rosters going forward. Gods Reign proved to be too difficult to put away once again, pushing Revenant out of the qualifier.

That demon too would come to pass as Revenant participated in the ROG Showdown Series Summer 2023. The tournament would see Gods Reign and Revenant battle through the bracket to battle it out in the best of 5 Grand Finals where Revenant finally took the win after a gruelling 25-23 Anubis to close it out.

With that win Revenant truly proved that there was no opponent they couldn’t beat online, but their LAN woes still stood. f1redup once again headed to various online cups with a variety of rosters in order to pick up the next talents for Revenant Esports. This time, the team set their sights on a complete overall with CycloneF’s former leader Bhavi joining the squad alongside ELV1S and R2B2.

That was the roster the team used heading into DreamHack Hyderabad 2023. By the time the event rolled about Gods Reign were already struggling and Enigma debuted their brand new roster, giving Revenant and Marcos the perfect runway to a Grand Finals. The two teams clashed in the finals, and despite ELV1S’ incredible quote before the match saying "Marcos have been playing the same style since Sky", the team was unable to capitalise and Marcos swept them out of the server to take the win.

Soon after the event, CycloneF was transferred to Gods Reign with Dust2.in reporting that f1redup would also be joining him with an AWPer swap between the two orgs imminent. Ahead of the Intel Tulpars Reloaded 2023 qualifiers, the two teams indeed agreed to swap players and headed into the event with their new rosters.

Revenant however pulled the trigger and ended up dropping the roster outright. With existing obligations for Skyesports Championship and Esportz Premier Series 2023 qualifiers, the organization was represented by KingPins but following those two events KingPins too were dropped.

Despite their incredible run through 2023, their lack of trophies and perennial second-place finishes were too much for the organization to digest. Rohit Jigasia took to X recently to hint at a future EU roster being the path for the organization’s return, but the realities of such an arrangement remain to be seen. Still Revenant’s contribution to India’s first big CS year can not be understated, whatever their future, they have set a high bar for themselves going into 2024.