XSET Female discuss getting signed, competing in Game Changers and what’s next

With more organizations signing women’s VALORANT rosters, it was only fitting that XSET, an organization that aims to highlight women and minorities in gaming, signed one too.

The team, which consists of Ariane “ARIANARCHIST” Lafrenière, Katherine “starriebun” So, Carolyn “ArtstaR” Noquez, Maryna “maryna” Semyaniv and Elena “EllieTwitches” Garland, were formerly part of unsigned team NOTHING2LOSE.

On Sept. 29, in the middle of a North American VALORANT Game Changers tournament, the team announced that they’d been signed to XSET with Daniel “Ducky” Duong as the head coach.

Nerd Street caught up with some of the XSET teammates to find out what it’s been like to get signed and what’s next for them.

XSET Female may be a new team, but they’re not new to competitive VALORANT

The current roster has been together since EllieTwitches joined Aug. 15, and ARIANARCHIST, starriebun and ArtstaR have been playing together since May. The team was one of the more notable unsigned teams going through the Game Changers events since they were able to make it to the playoff bracket in both the second and third NA Game Changers events.

Halfway through Game Changers Series 3, right before their first bracket game against Cloud9 White, they announced that they would be continuing as XSET Female.

“I was the one who got the DM from them, but we felt like it was really surreal, especially with the timing, because it all happened really, really fast,” starriebun said. “They basically DM’d us and then we got signed within like the next week, and it was really, really surreal, just kind of felt like a dream.”

Getting signed to an organization is a significant life event for any player, but it is especially significant for VALORANT players who are women or of a marginalized gender. Many female players can’t afford to just play professionally and are either working or going to school, so getting signed is a big deal because it means getting paid to play professional VALORANT.

Read more: All women’s VALORANT teams signed by orgs in North America and EMEA

Maryna is only 16 years old, so getting paid to play professionally has provided her with a way to support herself.

“I'm 16, so obviously it's a bit weird for me to have a job that pays well and be able to support myself. I guess it was really exciting for my parents to hear that and just finally, give them something to actually be proud of, because they didn't really believe in me for the past like year that I've been trying to compete and all that, so it was definitely like really good news for them,” maryna said.

“I actually quit my job in December to go full time in VALORANT content creation,” starriebun said. “But after playing in some tournaments, I realized that I wanted to compete. So then I put all my time into competing and getting signed. … I do like to stream a lot and still keep up with the content creation side like TikTok and stuff. But other than that, I'm fully focused on just VALORANT and competing.”

XSET Female are building up their experience in VALORANT

Although the teams didn’t make the final of Game Changers Series 3, they did qualify for the playoff bracket, which is impressive for a newly signed team. They beat TSM Female, which is another roster that has been playing together for a long time, and they also beat Gen.G Black. They lost to Dignitas Female, but with more time together comes more improvement.

“VALORANT is something we dream of when we're sleeping. We wake up and we think about it, like we do it every single day,” ArtstaR said. “So, you know, this is something that we take very seriously and make it our No. 1 priority in our lives.”

One of the teams that every VALORANT women’s roster is looking to beat is Cloud9 White. They’ve come out on top in all three Game Changers tournaments, but as more teams spend more time together and grow as a roster, C9 will likely start to feel the heat. ArtstaR thinks their success is due to their time spent together, which contributes a lot to the synergy the team has.

“I think it's only a matter of time before we catch up just because when we played against them, I think someone even quoted in a tweet and said that we proved that gods could bleed because we almost took a map off of them,” artstaR said “So I think it's only a matter of time before we beat them, but those girls definitely radiate confidence, and that's something that we're trying to also show maryna, who’s a little bit less experienced, that there's nothing to be afraid of, because at the end of the day, they aren't gods.”

XSET Female credits a lot of their success to their head coach, Ducky. He has been with the team since the beginning and has coached the team to a few Game Changers Academy victories as well as fourth place in the last NA Game Changers tournament.

“Huge shoutout to our coach Ducky, he’s been with us since the very beginning with the core three of us for six months, and he’s been coaching us pretty much for free because he believed that we would make it and get signed,” starriebun said. “So I think that having him as a coach really made us grow as players and helped us individually as well.”

What’s next for XSET Female?

Because there aren’t many tournaments left this year, the team will most likely get somewhat of a break, although all of them will most likely keep grinding VALORANT in order to keep their skills sharp for next year.

What the XSET crew, and the rest of the VALORANT female community is looking forward to is a LAN. In-person events stopped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and have slowly started to pop up again in the last couple months. Fans of the scene are hopeful that sometime next year there will be a LAN catered toward female VALORANT teams.

“I’ve never been on a LAN at all, so I’m definitely really excited for the first one and to be able to play with this team. Can’t really ask for much more than that,” maryna said.

“We have a lot of friends on almost every single team … I’m definitely really excited for LAN just because I have not gone to a LAN in so long,” artstaR said.

More than anything, XSET Female are ready to play alongside their teammates, to reach out and touch them and give them fist bumps or high fives for good plays during tournaments.

“I can’t wait to play next to every single one of my teammates,” starriebun said. “I love being able to fist bump and kiss my teammates and I’m also excited to see all the wonderful females and women in the community because I love them all. All of these women are so incredible, and a lot of them are my friends, and I’m excited to see them succeed and compete.”

The VALORANT community for women and marginalized genders has been growing lately with the signing of many teams to organizations. After match days, players from different teams can be seen on social media cheering on or cheering up members of other teams.

There have been more and more teams signing up for Game Changers tournaments, and the tournament has been expanding to new regions, which gives fans and players hope for an international tournament sometime in the future.

For now, other regions are still holding their Game Changers tournaments, like EMEA this week, but NA is done for the year. In the meantime, teams like XSET Female will be practicing and gearing up for a new year of VALORANT Game Changers tournaments in 2022, as well as tournaments open to all teams such as the VALORANT Champions Tour.

Lead image credit: XSET