Acend Rising have won the inaugural EMEA Medusa Series, a new Valorant tournament for women featuring a host of other well-known esports organisations.
Acend Rising beat Guild X 2-0 in the grand final yesterday, 13-9 on Split and 13-8 on Bind. In doing so, they took home €1,100 from the tournament’s €2,000 prize pool, and Guild received €600.
They topped Group D, with UK org Rix.GG’s Lightning roster topping Group C, and fellow UK orgs Guild X and Tenstar Nova topping Group A and B respectively. Into the Breach Prime finished second in Group B.
In the upper bracket semi-finals, Guild actually beat Acend 2-0, knocking them into the lower bracket, where Acend rose to the grand final for revenge after beating Rix 2-1 (who finished fourth) and Tenstar 2-1 (who finished third).
Scottish org Skelp, set up in 2020, also took part in the tournament with their Skelp Serene women’s Valorant roster.
A host of UK talent took part in the EMEA Medusa Series. Rix has Padge, Acend has Scottish player Jade, Into the Breach has Puffy, Skelp has jenn and Ginabina, while NOM Legion have bdaph and Thykuza on their roster and Squad of Aces Blaze have Koneko.
“I’m happy to have shown all the haters what me and my team can really do. I’m excited to bring an even greater level to Game Changers in September, to hopefully qualify for the international LAN and represent Scotland on the world stage.”
Jade, Acend Rising
Org Wraith Esports had a UK-heavy roster in the tournament, with UK players Tvsha, Egg, Ara and Marma, plus Romanian player Mara.
You can see a clip of Jade in action for Acend here:
Jade told Esports News UK: “I’m happy to have shown all the haters what me and my team can really do.
“I’m excited to bring an even greater level to Game Changers in September, to hopefully qualify for the international LAN and represent Scotland on the world stage.”
The Medusa Series also featured a host of broadcast talent, including Giniro, Gottmoxi, NaoriMizuki, Kairo, Hazza and more, with Jakub ‘atroooix’ Szmyt, creator of an esports paint drying broadcast, on board as a producer.
You can see a more comprehensive list of people involved in the EMEA Medusa Series here.
It’s been a good week for Acend after they won HCS Valencia 2022 a few days ago with their Halo roster featuring UK and French players.
There are other women’s Valorant esports initiatives including Riot’s own VCT Game Changers, as well as the likes of The Goose House’s Bird of Prey and the Contenders Legion Athena Series, and at the university level NUEL has its women and non-binary tournaments.
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.
