South Korean esports giant T1 has signed UK streamer Karagii as the first woman on its Valorant content team.
The 25-year-old from London joins fellow UK streamer Flights, who was added to T1 at the start of the year, and North American streamer Grim, who joined in June.
Karagii (aka Carol) was introduced to the T1 team in this announcement video, which was shot and edited by UK-based creative agency DLC Studios at the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London.
Karagii started out playing RuneScape, before switching to League of Legends and finally finding her home with FPS games. Today, Valorant is her game of choice.
She said: “I’d like to thank T1 for this opportunity and I can’t wait to make more content for them and for you guys, especially my community, who have endlessly supported me throughout this journey.
“Before joining T1 I was already playing a bit with [fellow T1 creator] Flights, so it was natural for me to mesh and do something together, because it felt like just playing with a friend. Then when Grim had his announcement with T1, I watched it live on stream and I knew it was going to happen, but had to pretend I didn’t!
“It’s still weird to me that people recognise my voice in game. A lot of people said I sound like Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones!”
“It’s also still weird to me that people recognise my voice in game. A lot of people said I sound like Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones!
“I’m very transparent with my community, I talk about my mental health, social anxiety, cultural differences… just growing up in a Western world and being Asian, I feel that my community can relate to that, and it makes you feel less alone. I want to foster an honest relationship with what I’m going through and what my community might be going through.”
T1 added in a statement: “The T1 team is getting bigger and better. Welcome the first woman to our T1 Valorant content creator squad, Karagii.
“Thank you to DLC Studios for their assistance in shooting and editing this piece, as well as to Red Bull UK for hosting us at their wonderful facility, the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London.”
As well as streamers like Karagii and Flights, the UK has a host of talent in Valorant, from players like Boaster and Mistic (Fnatic), Soulcas, Kryptix and L1NK (Team Liquid), to coaches like mini and Sliggy.
There’s also analysts like Bacon9, and hosts such as Yinsu Collins, Mitchman (Ireland) and James Banks, who is also general manager at Alliance, journalists like George Geddes… the list goes on.
Last month, the UK was the most represented country in Valorant EU Stage 3 Challengers 2.
Earlier this month, Team Liquid won Valorant EU Stage 3 Challengers 2 as Fnatic failed to qualify for the Masters Berlin LAN event, which takes place in September.
You can follow Karagii on Twitter and Karagii’s Twitch channel here
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
