S8UL has won the India Qualifier of the Pokemon UNITE World Championship Series 2026. With the victory, the organization will represent the nation at the prestigious Pokemon UNITE World Championships 2026 in San Francisco, where the world’s top teams will compete for a share of the USD 500,000 prize pool (~INR 4.7 crore) from August 28 to 30.
S8UL to represent India at Pokémon UNITE World Championships 2026
This marks a historic fourth time that S8UL will represent India at the global tournament, more than any other Indian team. Impressively, across the five Indian qualifiers held so far for the global event to date, S8UL has emerged victorious in four.
The India Qualifier featured a double-elimination format, with all matches played as best-of-three series except the grand finals, which were contested in a best-of-five showdown. Led by captain Manmohan Singh (All Might), the S8UL roster comprising Anklesh Satelkar (Novaa), Darshan Nate (Kai), Naitik Jain (Wolf), and Md Sarim Hasan (Qing) delivered a commanding performance throughout the tournament.
S8UL began their campaign with a clinical 2-0 victory over Anti Secure in the upper bracket (UB) quarterfinals, before defeating GodLike and Team QML by identical 2-0 margins in the UB semifinals and UB final respectively. In the grand finals, S8UL faced Revenant XSpark in a thrilling five-game battle. Drawing on their composure and experience on the big stage, S8UL edged out a hard-fought 3-2 victory to lift the trophy. For their triumph, S8UL claimed USD 15,000 (~INR 14.1 lakh) from the tournament’s overall USD 25,000 (~INR 23.5 lakh) prize pool.
With this, S8UL continues to carry the Indian flag on the global stage after once again being selected as a Club Partner by the Esports Foundation (EF), placing it among an elite group of 40 global organizations representing their regions at the Esports World Cup (EWC) 2026. S8UL will pursue qualification across 13 titles for the EWC 2026 - Apex Legends, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), Call of Duty: Warzone, Chess, EA Sports FC, FATAL FURY, Fortnite, Honor of Kings, MOBA Legends 5V5, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, Street Fighter 6, TEKKEN 8, and Trackmania.
