Ahead of Game Changers, women’s VALORANT scene flourishing with more signed teams

With the first VALORANT Game Changers tournament for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and the third tournament of the year for North America taking place this weekend, more orgs than ever are signing women-only rosters.

Benita “bENITA” Novshadian has been around the women’s esports scene since her CS:GO days, and is glad to see more women signed to organizations.

“It's always been the goal, especially since the creation of CLG Red which was a brand that started in 2015. This whole thing has been about growing this little community of female competitive gamers and trying to get a bunch of girls more involved in the competitive scene. So it's just amazing, it's absolutely, absolutely amazing to see the bracket and how many big orgs are a part of this eight-team bracket,” bENITA said in a press conference prior to the tournament’s main event.

Cloud9 White have been dominating the women’s VALORANT scene, and regardless of the competition that signed women’s rosters might bring, they’re also excited to see more women being signed to big orgs.

“It's pretty insane to see this many signed teams and esport female teams signed,” Alexis "alexis" Guarrasi said. “I played competitive CS a couple of years ago, and there were literally four teams that were signed. It was literally just like [Dignitas] and CLG Red who traded winning every tournament in CS, and it was kind of boring that there was only two competitive teams, and then a couple like small orgs that would sign other female teams, but there's like every major org signing teams in VALORANT and it's pretty incredible and it's pretty awesome that we're also the first ones that got signed as well and have had like the most experience.”

CLG Red have had their women-only roster since 2015, and they are one of the oldest organizations to sign a team of women. Cloud9 White were introduced before Game Changers was even announced, and they compete in many VALORANT tournaments, including VCT NA Challengers and smaller tournaments such as the Nerd Street Summer Championship and the Pittsburgh Knights Monthly Gauntlet.

Lately though, more esports orgs worldwide are starting to sign teams. EMEA kicks off their first Game Changers tournaments with a few signed teams, including Guild Esports, SuperMassive Blaze and Team Singularity. NA recently saw the addition of a new org-sponsored team in XSET Female.

XSET Female, formerly NOTHING2LOSE, join Shopify Rebellion, VersionX and Complexity GX3 as the most recent orgs to sign an all-female rosters.

The number of signed teams since the first NA Game Changers tournament has nearly doubled. Game Changers Series 1 had a total of four signed teams in the main event bracket, while this Game Changers event has seven, not to mention a couple other signed teams that didn’t make the main event.

If the rapid growth of the women’s esport scene continues, there will hopefully be more events with bigger prize pools and more fan attention. These teams are also itching to get to LAN events, and while the pandemic hasn’t helped in that regard, fans following the women’s side of VALORANT are hoping for a LAN tournament sometime next year.

Lead image credit: Riot Games