Originally created by Anisah ‘Geomancy’ Munim and Natacha Jones, the NUEL’s Women and Non-Binary university esports tournaments have gone on to become a solid regular feature in the NUEL calendar and have expanded to Valorant.
How are they helping players, who are the current champions and what’s next? Esports News UK provides some insight and speaks to several people involved to find out.
Starting off with League of Legends, mixed university team Ethereal Cats won the most recent Women and Non-Binary (W&NB) League of Legends University Tournament, beating The Vixens 3-0 in the Spring 2022 Grand Final (Twitch VoD link here), which was cast by BlackBloxer and CasualCutie.
Prior to this, Ethereal Cats also won the Winter Split, putting them in a prime position as they misplaced teams like Athene’s Unholy Grillz and Derby’s Pyjama Guardians (who won the NUEL Women and Non-Binary LoL tournament in late 2020).
They also have a solid team foundation. The top and support players have played together since Winter 2020, and the mid-laner and ADC have also played together before.
The Ethereal Cats roster is as follows:
- Top: GertrudeThePony (platinum 2)
- Jungle: Mirai (diamond 1)
- Mid: Mitsudo (platinum 4)
- ADC: Lucianne (platinum 1)
- Support: Charlotte (diamond 3, team captain)
The captain of Ethereal Cats, Charlotte, has also gone on to be a substitute player for LDN UTD ICE, the UK esports organisation’s grassroots women’s League of Legends roster.
Charlotte sent in the following comment to Esports News UK: “It was definitely a great experience to be apart of the W&NB NUEL tournament, especially since a few of us have been participating since the beginning. We’ve watched the tournament grow and get the excitement of meeting new players every split.
“I think a lot of strong relationships can be formed through these tournaments, because not only do you share a common interest, but people can come together and understand what it’s like being a minority in this field. Its a ‘safe space’, a term that has been used a lot.
“With regards to our win, all our players have been extremely satisfied with their performances, not letting a game drop in the past Winter and Spring splits.”
Charlotte, Ethereal Cats
“Forming the team was initially a little difficult, since we were struggling to find players for certain roles. Needless to say, I think all of us just hope for more players and teams to take part and help the group grow more.”
There’s more info on bracketing and more on the recent NUEL LoL Women and Non-Binary final here.
Looking towards Valorant, then, and we caught up with Twillen, the Women & Non-Binary Valorant Product Manager at NUEL, for some insight.
Cailinros took first place in the Spring 2022 tournament, beating Aschente 3-0 in the grand final.
Other team names in the tournament include the clever Get Ovary It (who finished third), Ligma Grindset and Cool Team Name.
Twillen said: “Overall, Spring went fairly smoothly, we had 15 teams of mixed university students sign up. They played a swiss bracket of three best-of-ones for the first two weeks and then moved into playoffs with one best-of-three.
“Based on the standings, I split the teams into top eight for the prize playoffs and bottom seven for a for-fun playoffs (this was so that all of the teams were able to play games for the full length of the tournament! I wanted everyone to have the chance to play every week if they wanted to take it more casually).
“Cailinros is a pre-made team, they signed up all together instead of as solo players. They are all Irish uni students and were a mix of skill levels – all the way from unranked to Immortal! Two of the players have played in VCT Game Changers for Aura Mystics- Lufzy/Jennifer and E3fa/Aoife.
“A lot of our other teams are made up of players who signed up solo or with one or two others, allowing us to place players together. We had a few people sign up with their team from Winter which was lovely to see!
“We had a successful split, players seemed to enjoy this season a lot and we are slowly but surely expanding our community. It’s a lovely environment – we have loads of players who have said they really enjoyed the atmosphere and felt like it was a much safer and more enjoyable experience while still offering a decent level of competitiveness.”
“We have all made amazing friends through this tournament, I didn’t realise there were any other women in Ireland that played Valorant to be honest. Not only has this tournament given us an opportunity to meet other Irish Valorant women, but also opened us up to the amazing female Valorant community across Europe.”
E3fa, Cailinros
E3fa (Aoife) from Cailinros added: “For Cailinros, we were so excited to compete in this tournament for the second time. We are all Irish girls from three different universities and due to our schedules and work commitments, it’s hard to find time to spend together and this is a great opportunity for us!
“We have all made amazing friends through this tournament, I didn’t realise there were any other women in Ireland that played Valorant to be honest. Not only has this tournament given us an opportunity to meet other Irish Valorant women, but also opened us up to the amazing female Valorant community across Europe.
“The tournament is very well run and friendly, great for any newcomers of tournaments or Valorant itself. There is however a great amount of skill in this tournament for any serious competitors who want to sweat it out. Sad to say it’s my last time playing in this tournament, but I will continue to promote this wonderful experience with all the females and non-binary in the Valorant community!”
Those on the Cailinros team included:
- E3fa
- itQUaCK
- PanicJungle
- Bbytee
- Mochi
- Lufzy
- diasaures
- Phantomyyy
There’s more info on bracketing and more on the recent NUEL Valorant Women and Non-Binary final here.
‘In the future perhaps we’ll expand to other games – we want to cater for everybody’
We recently spoke with Lauryn Halpenny, the Women & Non-Binary League of Legends Product Manager at NUEL (and part of the NSE Intel FutureGen 2022 cohort) in a video interview.
Lauryn said: “We had about nine or ten teams sign up, it was a four-week tournament, it went really smoothly and everyone had a lot of fun. It’s fun to have a supportive and wholesome environment.
“I feel like sometimes people who come from marginalised genders and backgrounds can feel quite intimidated to join leagues, so we exist to be a safe space and kind of like a stepping stone for people.
“I know in an ideal world we wouldn’t have to have these tournaments, but unfortunately that’s how it is at the moment. Hopefully with small steps like this we can work towards creating a more inclusive space for everybody in the future.”
It’s clear at this point that women and non-binary players do receive sexist and toxic abuse in game lobbies, which does put off some of those players from putting in the grind to reach a higher level.
Valorant has its Game Changers tournaments (with G2 Gozen dominating), specifically for women and non-binary players, and these are official Riot leagues, so would Lauryn like to see a League of Legends Game Changers tournament in the future?
“League has been around for 12 or 13 years now, so definitely, this is something I would love to see. There are a few [wider/multi-region women’s] tournaments out there but I don’t believe any that are officially produced by Riot.”
And what about the future of NUEL’s Women and Non-Binary tournaments?
“We want to make the tournaments bigger and better,” Lauryn added. “Anyone who is a woman or non-binary student player in the UK or Ireland, you’re more than welcome to come and participate. We have a Discord server, we’re all super friendly and super chill, it’s really fun.
“Maybe in the future, perhaps we’ll expand into other games – there’s Overwatch 2 on the way, so we want to cater for everybody and make it a more inclusive and welcoming space.”
If you’d like to join NUEL’s Women & Non-Binary tournaments, make sure to check out thenuel.com or join the Discord at discord.gg/thenuel
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.
