World of Tanks wraps up in Baku

By Amina Nazarli - AzerNews 

The Azerbaijani World of Tanks Tournament, a massive cybersports competition dedicated to Hazi Aslanov, an Azerbaijani Major-General, wrapped up in Baku on September 26.

The event brought together more than 1,200 people including representatives of the Youth and Sport Ministry, various youth organizations, media, and eSports fans from other countries.

The tournament was held in two formats: team and individual competitions.

The total prize fund was 5,000 manats, of which 3,000 manats were given to the winning team.

In the individual competition, the winner received Apple iPhone 6 (64Gb). Players who came in 2nd and 3rd also took home equally enticing prizes, such as a Microsoft Xbox One console and tablet Apple iPad mini 3 16GB, respectively.

This is not the first championship of this magnitude in Azerbaijan. Over 10 years, the country has hosted a variety of events and competitions for eSports, organized by the Azerbaijan E-Sports Federation with the support of the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Federation president Ramil Aliyev told local media that this time, the event was held in conjunction with the Wargaming Company, which is one of the world's largest developers in free multiplayer online role-playing games.

He added that the tournament has become the major cyber event of the year in our country.

“Every year, the eSports tournament is getting better and more interesting,” cyberathlete Huseyn Nasirli said. “Playing and winning is becoming more and more difficult, but interesting! We thank all the organizers of this wonderful tournament, because they offer us the opportunity to prove ourselves and to show our abilities and talents, and finally to win first place not only in Azerbaijan but also in the international arena.”

World of Tanks is a massive team-based multiplayer online game dedicated to armored warfare in the mid-20th century, where gamers throw themselves into epic tank battles shoulder to shoulder with other steel cowboys to dominate the world with tank supremacy.

Electronic sports are a well-developing activity in Azerbaijan. The Cyber Sport Federation of the country was established in June 2011. IeSF, established in 2008, is an International Federation that manages all e-Sports activity. The Federation aims to make e-Sports recognized as an official sport discipline.

Last year, Baku hosted the 6th e-Sport World Championship, which was attended by over 250 gamers from 33 countries