Team XO came from third to win India Rising 2022

The first Upthrust Esports India Rising Series ran from 16 to 24 March 2022, and Team XO won it. The event was open to all: four thousand teams registered and were filtered through multiple rounds down to six hundred, then one hundred twenty, then twenty seven quarter-finalists, with eighteen reaching the Grand Finals. Team XO started the final day in third, scored more than eighty three points from the last six matches, and finished on 423 points with 184 kills. Wings Lifestyle was the title sponsor, with TickerTape and Loco also on board, and the pool was fifteen lakh rupees.

Entity Gaming had led the table for four days and had to settle for second on 401 points with 178 kills, worth three lakh rupees, after managing only nineteen points on the final day. TSM were the most aggressive team of the event but finished third on 385 with 199 kills. GodLike Esports came fourth and OR Esports fifth, while the BGIS champions Skylightz Gaming finished eleventh. The surprises came earlier: fan favourites Team SouL and TeamXSpark were both eliminated in the semi-finals and never reached the Grand Finals at all.

Punkk of Team XO was named the MVP of the finals after 62 kills across the event, including sixteen on the final day alone. The fragging list behind him read SprayGod of 7Sea on 57, Delta of Chemin on 57 and Destro of Chemin on 54. The title was Team XO's second in five weeks after the Skyesports Grand Slam, and it remains the high point of the organisation's competitive history.

Eighteen teams played a seven-day Grand Finals of 42 matches; Team XO's 423 (184 kills) beat Entity's 401.

Upthrust Esports India Rising 2022's mid-table stayed tight behind the top five. Chemin Esports finished sixth on 344 points with 177 finishes, Revenant Esports seventh on 327, and Orangutan eighth on 304. Team Forever were ninth on 302 points despite six chicken dinners, the most of any finalist, while 7Sea Esports closed the top ten on 296.

India Rising 2022 began with open qualifiers: 4,000 registered teams were split into 200 groups of 20 for Round 1, with the top three in each group moving on. Round 2 cut a field of 600 teams in 30 groups down to the top four per group, and the Group Stage then took 120 teams in six groups of 20, with the top two per group reaching the Quarter Finals.

The Quarter Finals fielded 27 teams (15 invited and 12 qualified) in three groups of nine in a round-robin, and the Semi Finals fielded 24 teams (15 invited and nine qualified) playing 12 matches per group. The top 18 teams advanced to the Grand Finals, where Team XO won the title.