A new grassroots esports collective known as Discord Mods have raised more than £1,000 for Cats Protection UK after running the Valorant Cat Cup.
The group of FURiends passionate about grassroots esports and charity ran the 3v3 Valorant Cat Cup tournament, in partnership with hardware brand AGON by AOC, and sponsored by Sneak Energy.
The event was first announced back in May with a couple of well-received announcements pouncing onto Twitter, each generating more than 20,000 views.
Valorant Cat Cup draws 100+ players
The Valorant Cat Cup was open to all UK gamers, with participants able to enter by making a donation.
32 teams signed up, with more than 100 players – including subs – getting involved overall. Qualifiers ran online on June 11th, followed by the quarter finals and semi-finals on June 18th.
The LAN finals took place at Staffordshire University on June 24th 2023, and saw the teams ‘Village Boys’ and ‘Ed, Edd and Eddy’ go head-to-head, with the latter winning.
Prizes included three 27-inch AGON by AOC monitors, snoods, water bottles, T-shirts and hoodies, plus Sneak Energy starter packs. Discord Mods also made a video offering a closer look at Cats Protection after visiting a centre.
All in all, it sounds like a purrfect first grassroots tournament for the cluster of friends.
Aston ‘Kieswetter’ Hollingsworth, co-founder of Discord Mods, told Esports News UK: “The team itself was founded by myself, Kai Heale and James West, and consists of university students and recent graduates with interests in esports.
“It was all done purely voluntary to do something awesome for charity. We are planning on doing more events in the future and hope to keep doing cooler and cooler events for charity.”
So, the all important question… why cats?
“Discord Mods is a playful spin on the fact that many of us orginated as esports society execs, where Discord is the main platform used,” Aston explained. “With the stream we played up to the joke of Discord mods and kittens as with our extensive knowledge of social media, we understand that memes are a powerful tool to drive engagement.
“People checked it out for the meme and stuck around for the professional product we delivered.”
Good luck to the team and let’s see what they deliver in the future following the first Valorant Cat Cup. Anything is pawsible.
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.
