Interview: Women’s Valorant team Skelp NYX on signing to an organisation, Scottish esports and playing in Game Changers

NYX are a women’s Valorant team set up a few months ago that recently signed to Scottish esports organisation Skelp, to become Skelp NYX.

We caught up with their players including team captain Billie ‘billieidk’ Purdie, as well as Skelp founder Jonny Boyle, to ask them about taking part in Riot’s official Valorant Game Changers EMEA circuit and what’s next, with some of the players asking questions to each other towards the bottom of the article.

Q: For Billie – Please tell us about the team and why have you signed to Skelp to become Skelp NYX? How do you feel about representing an org, and particularly one in Scotland?

billieidk: NYX was a team I started back in September 2022 as I was craving competing in Valorant again. I had previously competed in the Rix.gg Huntress Trials and Girls House EU tournaments back in early 2021, but at that point had decided I’d rather work behind the scenes in tournaments and dive into a career in esports – as I knew I was never going to be at the standard needed of being a full time competitive player.

I volunteered for The Goose House who had just started their Birds of Prey series and went on to work for Esports Scotland, now managing the Women in Esports initiative at British Esports.

This Skelp NYX team has a strong core roster including myself, Billie ‘billieidk’ (Scottish), Naia ‘zoinks’ (Scottish/Filipino), Kylie ‘Lliandra’ (English) with the most recent additions of Emma ‘Listo’ (Scottish) and Heidi ‘theskiesbg’ (Scottish/American) with Jasmine ‘JorangeJam’ (English) as coach. We’re a complete mix of personalities and experiences, with our ages ranging from 17 to 39. We all have other commitments outside of competing, for example kids, a couple of the girls are teachers, we have a student and we have some working in the esports industry also.

We signed to Skelp because the Skelp community have shown us nothing but love since we began our Game Changers journey. They’re an organisation that value their community and put their teams at the forefront of what they do. It also just felt right with it being a Scottish org, which personally I want to see more of going into 2023.

You would think signing to an org would give us extra pressure on performance, but because we have had the support and backing from Skelp and their community already anyway, I feel it is only going to motivate us to work hard and do what we can as a team. A couple of things you can certainly expect from Skelp NYX is some questionable gameplay (at times), lots of laughs and plenty of cringe content. 

Q: For Billie – What are your general views on both women’s Valorant and also Scottish esports right now? 

billieidk: Riot has made great progress in developing women’s Valorant through their Game Changer’s initiative, it’s something I wish that other publishers would take on board and implement to support more women gaming.

From growing up playing in toxic Call of Duty lobbies, it’s nice to see and be a part of the welcoming community that currently exists in the competitive women’s scene. I hope to see many of the talented women that currently play in EMEA Game Changers to go on and play in the main VCT, as well as joining mixed rosters. 

Scottish esports has a long long way to go in my opinion. It feels as though it is really far behind, so much so that not enough exists for there to even be a structure at the moment. Esports Scotland has made attempts to grow the scene with their annual Scottish Esports League, however I think more can be done in this area and would welcome competitors to challenge what currently exists.

I was hoping that the Commonwealth Esports Championships that occurred back in August 2022 would help drive this forward, however I feel up here we’re yet to hook an interest and convince Scottish society that esports is a worthwhile industry to develop in both professionally and personally. No one is doing esports full time in Scotland – and I think that shows. This is something I’m taking into account in my role at British Esports, outside of Women in Esports, to hopefully improve on and help grow. 

Q: For Jonny (Boyle, Skelp founder) – I remember writing about Skelp launching two and a half years ago! How have things gone since then, what can you tell us about the org and the state of Scottish esports, and how it’s changed since you set up Skelp? 

Jonny: Wow – two and a half years has flown by. Things have been eventful to say the least – we’ve managed to do almost everything we set out to do: continue building a great community, produce great teams, great content, attend LAN and take relationships from online to offline and make everything we do feel even more real.

It’s not been without its challenges though – particularly with getting the correct support needed to really take the org to the next level. Everyone thinks it’s easy and they can do it – I can confirm it definitely isn’t. But it’s made me, and Skelp, more determined to succeed and get to where we want to be.

Q: For Jonny – Please tell us about picking up this team and your goals with the Skelp NYX roster. 

Jonny: Well, firstly, it’s a very talented team. Even though we only announced this month, I find myself immediately jumping to their personalities and what they mean to our community rather than focusing on that talent. They can definitely play Valorant.

But, as I said, they are well known to me and our community – and that’s going to be a big theme to our teams this year. I want teams who can compete but also have that connection to our community. I want people to follow them, watch them, engage with them. I want fans to see what Skelp is all about represented in a team. That’s what this team is.

In terms of goals – I have none. I want the Skelp NYX team to enjoy it first and foremost – and after that, we see what happens. I’m confident they’ll give a good account of themselves in the Game Changers events this year and I can’t want to get going.

Q: For Lliandra – What was it like taking part in Game Changers? What learnings did you take from this experience?

Lliandra: For our first outing into Game Changers I think we performed rather well! In the first swiss round of the series we won three out of six games, which, for a team that hadn’t been together longer than a couple of weeks, I don’t think was too bad. As a team, It was crazy how well we all clicked. We displayed a level of skill and competence that I think, as a group, we recognised that we could build upon, so vowed to come back better and stronger for the next series. 

Personally, nerves got the better of me in some matches, but knowing what to expect now will help massively in reaching those further stages. The Skelp NYX team already has some LAN experience and we hope to bootcamp before/during Game Changers to really solidify our tactics and teamwork.

Taking on Emma and Heidi has added further skill and knowledge and as a team, we feel like we’ve been together for longer than we actually have! This feeling of familiarity contributes massively to our overall synergy as some teams and line-ups in esports tend to swap and change quite frequently. Keeping our current roster is super important to the development of the squad and I’ve no doubt progression and success is imminent.

It was also encouraging to see so many other skilled female teams in the scene and I can’t wait to see the new GC tournament format in action. I’m also really thankful to Skelp NYX for giving an ageing player a chance – I haven’t played competitively since my days in 4Kings Ladies so to be able to feel part of a team again and a part of a community where we’re encouraged to put ourselves out there and participate is amazing.

Big shout to Beanroll and Skelp too for the opportunity to feel part of something much bigger than just our Skelp NYX team and making us feel so welcome – we won’t let you down!

Q: For zoinks – What did you enjoy the most about our first GC outing and what are you looking forward to this time round?

zoinks: There were so many aspects for our first Game Changers event that I really enjoyed. Since we all had never really been involved in a tournament like this before, just the anticipation of what was going to happen was really exciting.

However, what I really enjoyed the most was that all the hard work we put into preparing was finally going to be displayed. Despite not scrimming and praccing as much as the other teams in the scene, I was very pleased with our performance.

This time around I’m really looking forward to showing off our new roster but also I’m really looking forward to seeing how the new structure of Game Changers is going to work. 

Q: For Listo – What led you to join Skelp NYX and what have you learnt so far from joining?

Listo: There were so many reasons to join NYX. I manage my own org and team within the education circuit (Alva Alliance) and want to be able to experience the competitive scene, in order to pass on that experience to them and future teams to come.

The girls at Skelp Nyx were all so welcoming and encouraging too, entering a competitive scene in any game can be daunting, but Game Changers feels very inviting, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of supportive girls to party up with.

Playing competitively in a team teaches so many transferable skills, even in adults, learning how to work efficiently within a group, emotional regulation, people skills etc. I hope to pass these on to future Scottish talent coming up through the education scene.

Q: For theskiesbg – As a younger member of the GC scene, what has joining Skelp NYX been like for you? 

theskiesbg: Joining Skelp NYX has been both amazing but super unexpected. I wasn’t ever really looking for or thinking of joining a team but I’m so glad I got the opportunity to do so. I was at first terrified of meeting and playing with the girls as I never considered myself to be too amazing at the game and was scared I wouldn’t meet their expectations, but as soon as I met and played with them for the first time the support was overwhelming.

I’d say I’m very lucky to compete alongside these girls, in GC and in other events, as there is truly nothing but support and kindness within the Skelp NYX team. I’ve so far met some really cool people, some of whom I even looked up to or watched on various streams when I first became introduced to the UK Valorant scene, which is surreal in a way.

I admired our captain, billieidk, when she was volunteering for TheGooseHouse, as it was cool seeing a woman have such a leading role in a male-dominated community, so the fact I’m on a team with her now along with other inspiring women is still crazy to me.

Everyone has been so welcoming and nice to me, which has been really cool considering I am new to this scene. Being on the younger side means I can’t play or practice as much as I would like because I have school and other commitments, but I’m super excited to see what the future entails and to see what opportunities come up for us.

Related article: Head of VCT Game Changers EMEA Ashley Washington answers questions from women in UK Valorant

Dom Sacco

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.