UK esports organisations Guild Esports and Tenstar put in a solid showing in the Valorant Game Changers EMEA Series 1 women’s tournament finals on the weekend.
GuildX, Guild’s women’s Valorant initiative first announced last September, reached the grand final, where they fell to G2 Gozen 3-1.
The first map on Icebox was close, with G2 winning 16-14, before Guild took the second map (Split) 13-4. G2 turned up the heat in the next two games, however, winning 13-7 and 13-4 on Ascent and Bind respectively.
G2 were cheeky with their winners interviews, pretending to be asleep after one and holding a bunch of rubbish bags (or trashbags) with the Guild logo on them.
Guild X had previously beaten Tenstar Nova 2-1 in the upper bracket, before facing G2 Gozen in the upper bracket final (losing 2-0) then the grand final (losing 3-1).
In the lower bracket, Tenstar swept aside Untapped and NoOrg in 2-0 matches, before suffering a 2-1 defeat to Guild in the lower bracket final.
Tenstar Nova have of course had solid success in Game Changers already, having previously won back-to-back VCT Game Changers EMEA tournaments last year.
Both Guild and Tenstar sent and received messages of support following their run to the top three, with Tenstar sending love to their players, and both Guild and Tenstar saying they were proud of their teams.
The Game Changers Series 1 EMEA event also had a host of talent working on the broadcast, including UK and Ireland talent Yinsu Collins (UK, host), Tombizz and RyanCentral (UK analysts), UK’s Pansy and hypoc and Ireland’s MitchMan (casters), UK observer xilv and more.
Riot Games announced the Valorant Game Changers initiative last year to provide opportunities and exposure for women and other marginalised genders within Valorant esports.
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.
