Update (December 10th 2023): Riot Games has announced the Valorant EMEA Awards 2023 winners, recognising a range of esports talent.
UK players Georgio “Keiko” Sanassy (Team Liquid), Benjy “benjyfishy” Fish (Team Heretics) and Turkish player Mert “Wo0t” Alkan (Team Heretics) have been named the Challengers Rising Stars of the year, the top three players who competed in Challengers in 2023.
While they are all on new teams and will compete in the VCT EMEA 2024, this year they were mainly on Apeks, Enterprise Esports and Fire Flux Esports respectively.
Benjyfishy said: “Thank you to anyone who voted for me, it’s been a really great year for me and I never would have expected to be where I am so soon. I hope i can make those supporting me and Heretics proud next year and prove to you how great we really are.’
Another UK-related win was for Fnatic’s watch party which took place in London and saw Fnatic win Lock/In.
Elsewhere, the three women’s Game Changers Rising Stars & Graduates included Aleyna “Vania” Keskin (BBL Queens), Yağmur “Smurfette” Gündüz (FUT Female) and Michaela “mimi” Lintrup (G2 Gozen), while other Game Changers playing in Challengers included Lidia “Didii” del Moral de la Torre (Rebels Velvet), Paula Blanco “Devilasxa” Martínez (Rebels Velvet) and Minh “Thu” Pham (Unicorns of Love).
Gentle Mates were named as Ascension tournament winners, G2 Gozen as Game Changers tournament winners and Team Liquid as VCT EMEA winners in 2023.
Finally, Farbenfuchs, Kuba and Hellian were named the Cosplayer, Entertainer and Breakthrough Creator of the Year, while the following players were recognised as the five most promising players showing ‘immense potential in their gameplay’: Christina ‘Chrissy’ Krasnov, Dağhan ‘Da1mon‘ Eryılmaz, Nicole ‘Ginger’ Rott, Khalid ‘Aimhunter’ Mohammed and Francesca ‘Juptears’ Di Carlo.
See the full list of winners on the Valorant website here
Original article (September 27th 2023):
The Valorant EMEA Awards 2023 nominees have been announced, and they include a range of UK talent.
Caster, host and content creator HazzaJC is up for the Entertainer of the Year category, alongside fellow caster Kairo and content creator Fnatic Meg (aka megsoundslikeegg, who recently won Ludwig’s Valorant Brew Battles on a Fnatic mix team).
StaticMMIV, who grew up in London, is also included in this category.
Looking at the Breakthrough Creator of the Year category, and Navi’s UK streamer SoMarcus has been shortlisted.
In the Cosplayer of the Year category, UK-based cosplayers Yazbae and Lirael and more are up for the award for some of their cosplays below.
Then, there’s also a Rising Star (Grassroots) category in the Valorant EMEA Community Awards 2023, but we couldn’t see any UK talent here.
The Rising Star category features a mix of talent, from players to creators, journalists like da1moN and more. Some of those nominated as Rising Stars include Chrissy, Kaajak, Titanbain, Jesmu and AimHunter to name a few.
And last but by no means last, Fnatic’s London watch party for the VCT Lock/In finals (which Fnatic won), is up for the Best Community Watch Party award.
Riot said on the Valorant website:
“2023 has a been a whirlwind of a year for the Valorant community. We want to celebrate this with you, and find out which Valorant content creators, cosplayers, watch parties and promising new players have caught your eye.”
Riot Games
Voting closes on Wednesday October 4th 2023 at midnight. You can vote for people in the Valorant EMEA Community Awards 2023 here on the Valorant website.
The Valorant EMEA Community Awards 2023 news comes one week after the international Esports Awards 2023 finalists were announced across a range of games and categories. This event also has a separate collegiate awards ceremony called The Scholars.
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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.
