Women and non-binary League of Legends in bloom with Brod, Verdant and others fielding mixed teams in UKEL tournaments: ‘The opportunity for us to play in a mixed scene is a great experience. I hope more organisations host W&NB tournaments’

Women and non-binary League of Legends esports in Europe may not have the support or reach of circuits like Valorant Game Changers or the Counter-Strike ESL Impact, but it has a growing community, with tournaments like the Equal Esports Cup, GirlGamer Festival, NSE, NUEL, Pathfinders and Rising Stars providing a platform to players, and teams like G2 Hel and BDS Valkyries making their mark.

There have also been mixed gender teams competing in the UK Esports League (UKEL). Recently, Verdant Bloom, Brod Hermanas, Venomcrest Serpents and Belfast Storm have been taking part in the ongoing UKEL Sunshine Showdown. We caught up with some of the players and management involved to learn more about the move to women and non-binary esports and mixed teams.

While the Sunshine Showdown is not exclusively for women and non-binary teams, three mixed gender rosters from UK esports organisations recently competed in the play-ins: Verdant Bloom of Verdant, Brod Hermanas of Brod n Friends (BNF), Venomcrest Serpents of Venomcrest and Belfast Storm. The former two rosters feature several women, while Venomcrest have two non-binary players, and Belfast Storm have a woman sub player.

Verdant’s team isn’t just for the Summer Sunshine Showdown either – they will be the org”s UKEL Division 2 team for Winter as well.

While Verdant Bloom and Brod Hermanas finished bottom of their Showdown play-ins groups, Verdant Bloom picked up a win, and the focus seems to be on inclusivity and providing a platform to more women and non-binary players.

Both Venomcrest and Belfast Storm are currently 1-1 in the group stage at the time of writing.

It’s also not the first time this has happened in a mixed tournament series. Verdant Bloom has players from the Lionscreed Lionesses, who became the first women’s team to qualify for the UKEL last year (before Lionscreed as an org were banned by the UKEL earlier this year).

Elsewhere, both Verdant and Brod are also fielding Verdant and Ruddy Brods rosters in the UKEL Sunshine Showdown, the latter a result of a partnership between Ruddy Esports and Brod n Friends players.

Let’s hear more from the mixed teams below.

Brod Hermanas

• Top: Feng Dere
• Jungle: YuGiHoe
• Mid: Alisor
• ADC: Lissy
• Support: Jaysa
• Sub 1: Vixen
• Sub 2: Snuggli
• Sub 3: TheDisconnect
• Sub 4: Teddy

James ‘Gov’ Gove (aka The Governor), Chief Brod Officer at Brod n Friends, reached out to Esports News UK to explain the move to a mixed roster: “The main goal I set out to with Brod Hermanas was to create a wholesome and friendly team environment. It’s hard to recreate the team atmosphere we had previously at Brod, with most of us being lifelong friends, but I haven’t seen this prioritised as much as it should be by grassroot organisations. Ultimately it’s about having fun at this level.

“I’m also keen to get more women into the mixed scene where they can compete, these competitions (UKEL Div 1 & 2) provide an accessible route to mixed comp experience for lots of players and I hope that includes more women/NB players in the future.

“The rushed nature of the roster caused a few teething issues, but I couldn’t be happier with how the team’s bonded and the role the more experienced players like FengDere and Ali have played helping the newer to competitive players in this short stint.”

Brod Hermanas jungler Claire ‘YuGiHoe’ added: “I’ve been playing League for over a decade now and love that the women’s scene really seems to be flourishing! With my ‘irl’ career kicking off, I thought my window for properly immersing myself in competitive play was closing, but the community and overall vibes that the guys at Brod have managed to create has honestly reignited a love and enjoyment for the game that I was missing for a while.

“I think Brod n Friends (BNF) have really managed to encapsulate what UK esports should be about, and it’s great that so early on they’re creating opportunities for more girls to get into comp too, especially giving the opportunity for us to play in a mixed scene – it’s a great experience.

“The guys have got something really special and I’m so happy to be able to be a part of it!”

Brod Hermanas ADC Lissy also commented: “It’s a dream come true to play with such a brilliant group of women & non-binary players. Brod have been incredibly supportive and I’m so thankful they’ve created an environment for female players to come together, have fun, and compete.

“This is the second W&NB tournament I’ve been part of, after NUEL, and I hope more organisations take the step to start to host their own W&NB tournaments.”

Verdant Bloom

• Top: GertrudeThePony
• Jungle: Lillith
• Mid: Refresh
• ADC: DejaVoo
• Support: Charlotte
• Sub: 2fed4u

Verdant founder Sam ‘Sami’ Cunningham told Esports News UK: “We’ve been looking to step into the WNB scene recently and when the opportunity came along to work with this core, it was a clear cut decision.

“They have been in the UK League scene for a while now and are committed to competing both in the WNB scene but also the UKEL as well, allowing us to further our support of the UK as well.

“This roster is very much a long term project for us with the Summer Showdown team being more of a mix, whilst they continue to finalise the full roster ahead of Winter. So far it’s been very easy to work with them – I’m keen to see how we progress once the roster is finalised.”

Verdant Bloom top-laner Laura Riches aka GertrudeThePony told Esports News UK: “Having previously played in the UKEL, I’m very happy to be able to continue the journey in the Summer Showdown under the Verdant banner.

“I’m really looking forward to being able to showcase our full roster in the next split of UKEL.”

Venomcrest Serpents

• Top: Artorias
• Jungle: Nutri
• Mid: shunpo
• ADC: meo (aka Mirai)
• Support: Prosfair
• Sub: toaster

Venomcrest have two non-binary players on the team: Nutri and Mirai.

Jack ‘Ace’ Doe, founder and CEO of Venomcrest, told Esports News UK: “In terms of our intentions and goals for the summer cup, I brought on a new manager, and I gave him the task of simply setting up a team worthy of doing well. We want to continue creating chances for everyone to enjoy esports, especially in the UK scene, but it wasn’t a project that was set out to be one thing or another, we simply had trials and this was the team we settled on.

“Each player earned their spot and were given same chance as everyone else to do so. Nutri our jungler and Mirai our ADC, are both NB and identify as they/them.”

Mirai added: “I think the team just kinda happened to have two non-binary players on it in this iteration of its roster, it wasnt really targeted like the Brod and Verdant line-ups. Still, it’s cool to see more teams getting interested in fielding w/nb teams. There was more talks of interest from even more orgs that didn’t even end up making one, as far as I know. It feels kinda weird to comment on what’s needed and what not, because personally I feel kinda distanced from that discussion.

“Also, it’s nice to see some old uni WNB scene teammates and opponents playing this summer tourney on both Verdant and Brod, it’s a shame we didnt get to face off this time round.”

On being a non-binary player in UK esports, Mirai continued:

“And even then its still pretty restrictive to actually developing a scene since it’s usually the same names jumping around the same teams in what are basically just friends-only clubs with the odd underdogs popping up like Nord Polaris and Chester Gaming.

“For me as a non-binary person, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in terms of acceptance and understanding in the greater community, when I first realised my gender identity at uni I was also discovering grassroot league esports at the same time, so it was easy to find out about W&NB NUEL, since my friend brought me to join her team and take part, that was run by I think Twillen and Geomancy at the time.

“The uni scene had some hiccups you’d expect, with accusations of pretending to be non-binary to compete in an ‘easier’ league and whatnot, but that was more of a bad egg situation, in general the university level community are extremely welcoming, especially the ‘Esports Coven’ people which is headed by Twillen and Lauryn.

“As a player outside of university, it’s still rather hard as a lot of people have that pre-conceived idea that male at birth non-binary people are pretenders, or just not valid at all, they wont outright say it to you, but someone like me would just straight up never make it onto most of the rosters that claim to be ‘inclusive’ because it kind of starts and ends with just women. I remember an org advertising for non binary players who behind the scenes were straight up never gonna pick up a non binary player unless they were female at birth, they just wanted to seem inclusive. Which I partly get is because it’s marketing for these orgs of course, but it’s still obviously something that would leave a sour taste in your mouth when you know you’re not someone who wants to be reduced to gender.

“In the wider mixed scene, there are some teething problems you get when you join tryouts or a team and meet a bunch of people for the first time, you’ll not want cause any problems and bring attention to being referred to by the wrong pronouns, a lot of people I’ve found do it by accident/not checking pronouns and just assuming your voice matches your gender identity. This isn’t a problem, the issue just starts when they try to give you their opinion on how pronouns are ‘woke’ and/or just straight up will refuse to correct themselves.”

Belfast Storm

• Top: Synapse
• Jungle: Dunlosi
• Mid: Splaff
• ADC: Clemeragon
• Sup: Buzzy
• Sub 1: Limsy
• Sub 2: Toriable

Belfast Storm have a woman sub player: Toriable (aka Victoria or Tori).

She told Esports News UK: “I’m glad to see both returning and new women & non binary teams/players finding their way into the mixed scene.

“I’m very grateful that Belfast Storm have welcomed me with open arms and I commend them so greatly for how much passion and support they’ve shown to our entire roster.

“Hopefully the scene will continue to grow as well as allow for more inclusion in the future.”

With rosters like these forming, and more tournaments providing a stage for women and non-binary League of Legends players to compete, UK LoL is a far cry from where it was in its early days, where opportunities for women and non-binary players were much more limited.

We hope to see these opportunities continue, and for more leagues with prize pools to emerge – and for Riot to provide greater support to a women’s LoL ecosystem that can one day match Valorant’s or CS2’s.

Related article: A history of women’s esports in the UK

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.