Insomnia i71 esports winners roundup: Michelle’s Kittens win Valorant Womens Cup, Cabbage Corp secure fourth LoL Open, Raptors beat Endpoint in CS ESL Prem and more
Dom Sacco, Senior Editor
Last Updated: 19/05/2025
The latest Insomnia Gaming Festival concluded last weekend at the Birmingham NEC, and once again there were several esports tournaments running, including the return of the CS LAN finals at i71. Here’s a roundup of the i71 esports winners.
Michelle’s Kittens named Valorant Women’s Cup i71 esports winners
Michelle’s Kittens beat Escaped Da Kitchen 13-3 in the grand final of the £10,000 Valorant Women’s Cup. The winners took the £5,000 top prize (pictured above), while the runners-up received £2,500.
Clique X finished third, with headshotgirls in fourth and MomsSpaghetti fifth in the tournament.
Michelle’s Kittens consisted of ikyoo, Astrixe, Miiizzy, koneko and JMBass.
Relive the moment that Michelle's Kittens became our #i71 Valorant Women's Cup champions! 🏆️ pic.twitter.com/k32IVMS1BF
— Insomnia the Gaming Festival (@IGFestUK) September 10, 2023
Koneko said after the win: “I was excited going into the final, we came here to have fun, we have good mentals, did our best and ended up winning.”
The tournament was a result of Insomnia Gaming Festival teaming up with UK esports organisation Excel Esports and mobile operator EE. Excel also has a Power Up Programme with EE to help women break into the esports industry, with a spot up for grabs on their women’s team.
Twiggy, Billie Purdie, Ne0kai and Winteriio were on board as broadcast talent for the event.
Check back on Esports News UK soon for an interview with Ne0kai and Winteriio about women’s Valorant and Counter-Strike. Thanks to Billie for the intel and helping to arrange the interview!
Clique Esports win Valorant iSeries tournament
In the £10,000 Valorant open, UK esports organisation Clique (CLQ.GT Omega) were crowned winners after defeating Yari Esports 2-1 in the final.
Dutchie said on the win: “It’s been tough learning the IGL role, but everyone has stepped up a lot to help me, and I felt we performed well. We’re all good friends, so the vibes are good and we believe in ourselves as a team, so even if we go behind we know we’re capable of bringing us back.”
Bully gave a classic esports one word answers, saying “good” after being asked what the win felt like.
Coach Raymon said the next step for CLQ.GT Omega is getting to the Polaris playoffs and ‘showing everyone we’re much better than what we showed today’.
Three maps and an overtime later…
— CLQ Esports (@CLQGG) September 10, 2023
🏆Champions on LAN🏆
Thank you so much to the talented players who represented us!@Dev0XD@ReQzvl@DarkLightFPS@bullyvlr@DutchieVAL @Rayyymun
And thank you very much to @GTOmegaRacing for supporting our players throughout#JoinTheClique https://t.co/UpqeXnJFQN
Can anyone stop four-time Insomnia LoL winners Cabbage Corp?
Cabbage Corp, the League of Legends team formerly of the University of Warwick, continued their dominance at Insomnia with their fourth LAN victory in a row.
They won the £3,000 League of Legends Open at i71 after beating Ruddy Painkillers in the grand final.
The win comes after Cabbage Corp urged other orgs to try and take part and beat them after their three-peat esports win at i70 earlier this year.
Peace and Love
— George (@pawplol) September 9, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ pic.twitter.com/FBCvrJqBcY
Elsewhere, Paragon finished third in the open and Brod & Friends fourth, with GreyHart and Temporal on casting duties.
Esports News UK has an interview with members of Ruddy, Cabbage and Brod coming soon.
Speaking of Brod & Friends, they were also ARAM champions, so had something to celebrate at least (along with their barrage of stickers and tattoos overtaking the LAN)!
Brod & Friends won the #i71 League of Legends ARAM tournament earlier on Friday!
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) September 9, 2023
Squid Salah secured a Pentakill versus @RuddyCorp Painkillers in the final pic.twitter.com/yTRpAd5Z50
Raptors beat Endpoint to win CS ESL Prem LAN in fairytale run
Raptors were the victors in the €15,000 Counter-Strike ESL Premiership. They beat favourites Endpoint 2-1 in the final to make a name for themselves, after an incredible lower bracket run in a qualifier, beating the likes of Spring 2023 ESL Prem title holders Into the Breach.
Raptors’ team consisted of zodi, ReegaN, AwaykeN, MMS, ifan and coach papp. They beat Endpoint’s line-up of Surreal, MiGHTYMAX, HeavyGod, AZUWU and sl3nd, with coach Frøg.
ESL PREMIERSHIP CHAMPIONS.🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/pPVBXihAFK
— Raptors Esports Club (@RPTRSgg) September 9, 2023
Verdant (who picked up the former Viperio roster) and the ex-Coalesce roster finished 3rd/4th. Surprisingly, Into the Breach didn’t make it through the qualifiers to reach the LAN itself.
Broadcast talent at i71 included GreyHart, Ne0kai, Skriv, Jacky and Blank.
There was some criticism of the LAN, with some complaining about the qualifying format, saying some teams shouldn’t have got through. For example, Endpoint beat Overpowered, a team who came through the last chance qualifier, 32-0 across two maps. Others hit back saying more players should have entered themselves rather than complaining about it.
There’s a comprehensive ESL Prem i71 finals recap by GrimyRannarr on the UKCSGO website here.
Outside of the ESL Prem finals, in the intermediate tournament, Ahoka took the win and the £500 top prize.
Outside of #ESLPrem here at @IGFestUK #i71… we had the CS:GO Intermediate tournament.
— Michael Moriarty (@DuckMoriarty) September 9, 2023
Shout out to Ahoka for taking the win today, picking up £500 and five tickets to next LAN. Invictum came in second to take home £350. AntennaMan picked up the third place prize of £150. pic.twitter.com/Lg8UIVcPBI
All-UK team Witness Gaming secure TF2 i71 title
Witness Gaming showed why they’re regarded as one of the best Team Fortress 2 esports teams out there last weekend.
Their all-UK roster defeated TonyResort – a team with Welsh, Irish and UK players – 5-0, 5-0 and 3-0 in the final to take the £900 top prize in the £3,000 tournament.
Witness Gaming’s roster consists of Toamas (MVP of the tournament), Thaigrr, Silentes, puck, Domo and auto.
Thaigrr said after the win: “It feels good. Tonight we’ll get very drunk, and I think this will be my final [event] playing at a top level. The whole reason we’re here is because of [the community]. It wouldn’t be the same without the crowd.”
A special thanks to our friends at EssentialsTF (hi Kirsty!) for all the info and images from the finals.
That's a wrap at #i71 for TF2!
— EssentialsTF (@TF2Essentials) September 10, 2023
Congratulations to @WitnessGamingTF for winning the main tournament, and to everyone else who won prizes during the event!
Huge shoutout to our crew that made this event happen, and to everyone who showed up to take part!
see you next time! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/3ZpwxNAQ2Q
Team Hosky on top in Rocket League once again
Team Hosky’s Parka, Smashy and Pluvo defeated Tranmere Rovers Esports in the final of the £2,000 i71 Rocket League Open, with a clean sweep.
Their victory comes after Team Hosky’s win at i70 earlier in the year.
Back-to-back Insomnia iSeries champions!🏆
— Team HSK Esports (@TeamHSKgg) September 8, 2023
A clean sweep in the grand finals vs @TRFCesports secures the victory for the second event running!
Until next time @IGFestUK!#TeamHOSKY #RocketLeague pic.twitter.com/yXOoMlkFNh
Tranmere’s players Seeb, Reeho and Stat shared their views after the game:
Spark crowned Splatoon 3 champions at i71
In the Splatoon 3 Championship, Spark beat Chew-Its Mafia 3-1 in the final.
Hey. We're UK Champions.
— SPARK (@SPARK_Splat) September 11, 2023
We'll see you in Frankfurt to represent at the European Championship in early October!
📸 @dorycoq pic.twitter.com/MHOGTDxlbE
You can watch the Splatoon 3 UK finals at i71 here.
Spark went on to represent the UK in Frankfurt at the Splatoon 3 European Championship on October 7th and 8th, where they finished fourth:
We took 4th place at the 2023 European Championship
— SPARK (@SPARK_Splat) October 10, 2023
A huge shout out goes to @HIDDLEYHODDLER for coaching us from soon after UK Champs up until #NintendoEC2023!
Thank you so much to everyone who supported us throughout the event, we hope we did the UK & Ireland proud! pic.twitter.com/HQgBw3rTvS
Cosplay winners at Insomnia i71
It isn’t just about esports at Insomnia, of course – there are those who are champions in another way.
Once again there was a varied assortment of impressive cosplay going on at the event.
First up, the Cosplay Masquerade was won by Eufiemoon for their Baldur’s Gate 3 Astarion cosplay. It even caught the eye of the voice actor of Astarion: Neil Newbon, who we interviewed at Insomnia last year.
Guys we won!!! I worked very hard on this silly man’s doublet and this was my first time properly performing on stage! A huge thankyou to everyone working behind stage too, you made it such a stress-free experience and it really wouldn’t work without you guys back there! pic.twitter.com/xVXmU0AMdZ
— 🕊 seph 🕊 🔜 MCM London (@eufiemoon) September 8, 2023
The Cosplay Championship and Ubisoft Cosplay winners can also be found below:
Introducing the winner of our #i71 Cosplay Championship: @CaptainAmelia 👑 pic.twitter.com/Is6XVGvR2r
— Insomnia the Gaming Festival (@IGFestUK) September 9, 2023
CONGRATULATIONS! 🎉
— Ubisoft UK (@Ubisoft_UK) September 11, 2023
To all three of our winners from the #UbiCosplayComp yesterday @IGFestUK –
Honourable mention – @eufiemoon
Best Performance – Fairy Nova Cosplay
Best in show – @creedcosplay@CosXpo #i71 pic.twitter.com/9YoeX1A9nF
Insomnia i72 dates confirmed for 2024
To conclude, Insomnia Gaming Festival announced the dates of the next LAN.
i72 will take place from March 28th to April 1st 2024:
That's a wrap on #i71!
— Insomnia the Gaming Festival (@IGFestUK) September 10, 2023
Thanks for playing, we hope you had an incredible time, and we cannot wait to see you in spring 2024 for the next level of Insomnia, #i72.
💻 The LAN Party | 28th March – 1st April
🎮 The Festival | 29th March – 31st March
🌐 Sign up for our newsletter:… pic.twitter.com/34aG3KcLY3
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Dom Sacco, Senior Editor
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025. 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 also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.
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