A local team has become Singapore’s first full-woman squadron to qualify for the grand finals of the Word Electronic Sports Games (WESG) tournament. Team Asterisk secured their seat at the competition by winning second place during Counter Strike: Global Offensive’s (CS:GO) tournament in the Asia Pacific (APAC), and now gears up for a 5,5 million bounty in the highest-paid eSports competition in the world.

With their victory at APAC, Team Asterisk became the first team to qualify for the WESG as well as the first to reach the finals of the APAC, winning USD 4000 in the process; however, this is just a taste of the blood they will hunt for during WESG.

The WESG is currently the top of the world as far as eSports go: its hosted by Alisports (the sports subsidiary of Chinese eCommerce titan, Alibaba), and pits more than 60,000 players from 120 countries and regions eSports like Dota 2, CS:GO, Hearthstone and StarCraft 2. The battlefield is set from March 12 to 18.

Team Asterisk celebrates its victory at the APAC.

Asterisk, along with another CS:GO team are the only Singaporean representations to make it through the APAC – two other Singaporean teams were sent home during the Dota 2 and Hearthstone qualifiers.

In team captain Tasha Chew’s (23) words, “We couldn’t believe it. It’s our first time playing on such a big scale and being able to come in second is amazing.” Strategist Sabrina Ang (20) shares the sentiment: “The other teams were so well-equipped and looked like pro-gamers. We were like little villagers who knew nothing.”

Team Asterisk is one made up of young professionals: while Tasha just graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finances and Sabrina works as an event planner at Ape Works, Meryl Oh (22) is in Biomed, Dinah Marinah (30) works in the construction industry, and Nurlelawati Hussain (26) is a graphic designer. It’s all rounded up by Hanzel Chua (31), the team manager and a property agent.

Miss Ang closes up with a message of hope: “We’ve had a taste of victory. Now everyone wants more.”

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