Cambodia’s Esports champions have been crowned after a tough two days of competition at the Road to SEA Games tournament, organised by Cellcard and the Esports Federation of Cambodian (EFC), with the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MOEYS) and the National Olympic Committee (NOCC).

In the PUBG Mobile category, Kill Enemy won first place while Angkor PUBG secured second. In the Mobile Legends Bang Bang category (MLBB), Burn X Flash was the leader, followed by Seeyousoon. The MLBB group winners will now merge into one team and receive professional training.

The top five or six online athletes will go on to compete in the SEA Games in Hanoi, Vietnam in May to compete for a medal in the 31^st SEA Games. This will be the second time Esports is an official event at the games. Three Esports medals will be hosted, including PUBG Mobile and MLBB.

On February 19 & 20, scores of online game athlete compete at the Road to Seagame tournament at Aeon Mall Sen Sok. They battled it out for the top spot in two game titles: PUBG Mobile and MLBB. This was the final event in a grander tournament, which ran from January 27 to February 19 and saw 160 teams register to participate in the competition.

In addition to the prestige of representing Cambodia in the regional sporting event, the winners received a pool prize totalling 72 million Riel (36 million Riel for each game title), as well as more than 30,000 MLBB diamonds.

Cellcard CEO Simon Perkins congratulated the winners. “As a 100% Khmer-owned telecom, we are proud to be able to offer this incredible opportunity to the winners. We wish them luck at the SEA Games and would love nothing more than to see them bring a medal home for Cambodia.”

Winner of PUBG category Kill Enemy said, “It’s amazing to have won and we’re so excited to be competing in the SEA Games in Vietnam. We want to do our country proud. Thank you Cellcard for making this possible, it’s beyond our wildest dreams.”

Burn X Flash, the winner of the MLBB category added that the competition was fierce. “It’s great to see Esports becoming more popular in Cambodia, and it’s down to competitions like these that our community is able to grow.”

During the two-day tournament, Sting was the energy drink partner, gamers were treated to tonnes of giveaways. This included MLBB diamonds to gaming fans and Cellcard subscribers who bought new SIM cards.

The Road to SEA Games tournament forms part of Cellcard’s agenda to support, nurture and grow Cambodia’s Esports and gaming category. Since 2019, Cellcard has made progress in the category with the launch of innovative products and services, and regular rollout of tournaments with its exclusive partnership with EFC.

“The gaming community continues to grow nationwide. We will continue to develop the sector and provide more opportunities for Cambodia’s Esports community to be recognised on the international stage,” added Mr Perkins.

H.E. Chea Chanboribo, of EFC, said “this marks another step towards Cambodia forming a medal-winning Esports team. This forms an important part of the development, capacity building, inspiration and promotion of Esports in Cambodia to grow to an international level.”