The 19-year-old Becca “Aspen” Rukavina is an exceptional player in Overwatch. She has now reached the number 1 rank in North America twice. However, she has not yet received a chance in the Overwatch League and is constantly facing bullying, being accused of just having been “boosted” or only playing Mercy, a noob character.
Who is Aspen? The 19-year-old is probably the best Overwatch player in the West. She worked for a year as a professional Twitch streamer for the e-sports organization Cloud 9. However, she left her job there to become a professional player in Overwatch. She has yet to make her breakthrough into the top league, the Overwatch League, and is currently playing in the second league, the Overwatch Contenders.
Aspen is a support main, and her typical heroes are Mercy, Lúcio, Ana, Brigitte, and Baptiste.
In 2019, Aspen became known for the first time: Back then, she clarified that the Overwatch player “Ellie” was never real, but just an experiment by a male streamer. This caused headlines at the time.
Streamer climbs the leaderboard in Overwatch NA twice
This is her special achievement: Aspen has now become the number 1 on the Overwatch NA leaderboard twice:
- The first time she became number 1 on January 29 – during that time she mainly played Mercy, Brigitte, and Baptiste.
- The second time she became number 1 now on February 28. She says she mainly played Baptiste and Lúcio in the rush tactic – so nothing with “Mercy Main” anymore.
“F***ing e-sport girl and Mercy main”
What kind of crap must she hear? Many professional players congratulated Aspen on her achievement, but there are also some critical voices.
One user said: “The game is really dead when a f***ing e-sport girl and a Mercy main is number one.”
Another said: “Balance with Brigitte is perfect – Hahahaha.”
In a now-deleted thread in the Blizzard forum “Aspen achieves rank 1 – nerf Mercy” (via webcache.google), Aspen was accused: “She doesn’t deserve rank 1 because she is a Mercy main. This has nothing to do with [the fact that she is a woman]. Mercy is a beginner hero, the easiest hero in the game.”
Others accuse her of being boosted. So not really contributing to her own success but being pulled up to this rank by other stronger players.
No place for sexism and misogyny in Overwatch
These are the positive reactions: Even though some criticize Aspen, the overwhelming majority of reactions are positive. People highlight how strong a player Aspen is and how hard she has worked for her success.
The professional team Boston Uprising issues a statement that they stand against sexism and misogyny. There is no place for that in Overwatch. Many support this view.
This is what the fans are discussing: Even though Aspen leads the leaderboard in Overwatch twice, she has not yet received a chance in the Overwatch League. There, the 21-year-old South Korean Geguri was long the only woman. Geguri became a free agent in October 2020 and has not found a new team since.
Many hope that a professional team will give the 19-year-old Aspen a chance and sign her for the Overwatch League, so they can see how strong she is.
Geguri also had to constantly hear that she wasn’t really playing or at least not honestly:
Overwatch: Teenager is so good that people think she must be cheating
In the positive comments, it is believed that the criticism of Aspen stems from a generally misogynistic attitude.
What’s behind it: Overwatch was designed by Blizzard to be as diverse as possible. Every player should see themselves in the characters of the game and discover someone they can identify with.
In practice, female players who identify as women in Overwatch are often mocked. Therefore, many opt to turn off voice chat and obscure their gender. Women who play exceptionally well face accusations that something is wrong with their performance. They are constantly questioned. This does not happen to men in the same way.
Geguri also had to constantly hear that she wasn’t really playing or at least not honestly:
Overwatch: Teenager is so good that people think she must be cheating
