The making and remaking of an esports team

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Editor's note: On a hot, sunny Monday afternoon, four young men crawl out of their beds and plomp themselves in the gaming room of the six-bedroom duplex apartment they occupy in Hyderabad. This is where they spend roughly 10 hours a day, practicing matches, playing tournaments, going over their strategy and live-streaming content.  “It was supposed to be their day off, that’s why they seem a little down,” says team manager Bharath Kiran Reddy as he introduces the players, who are too deep in their games to respond. “We were planning to go to the water park to have some fun but there are matches now.”  One perches himself on the arm of a sofa, hunched over his mobile phone in attack mode as he tries to score kills for his team. Two others are seated more comfortably in ergonomic chairs. Their young faces—the oldest is 21, the youngest 18—give away nothing other than the fact that they mean business. Another is lying on a couch. None of them have had a meal yet, nor will they for the next several hours, …