With Cloud 9 White, there is now the first professional team in Valorant consisting entirely of women. They want to play at the top and become a Tier 1 team. The mission is clear: Ensure equality and break down barriers.
This is the team: Cloud 9 has signed an existing team of 5 Valorant players. They were previously known as “MAJKL” and did not have an overarching organization.
In their composition, they have already achieved initial successes in tournaments. They won the FTW Summer Showdown tournament in September, earning $25,000.
Alexis “Alexis” Guarrasi (21) said: They went into the series confidently, expecting to win. When they actually won, it was not a shock, but rather showed them: We are ready to play at a higher level.
Under Cloud 9, the 5 women want to make an impact and compete in “Tier 1” tournaments. Valorant is considered an upcoming e-sport.
The team consists of:
- Alexis “alexis” Guarassi (21)
- Annie “Annie” Roberts (23)
- Jasmine “Jazzyk1ns” Manakil (16)
- Katsumi
- Melanie “MeL” Capone (20)
Katsumi makes it clear that they want to be “as good as possible.” The goal is to break down barriers and do things that women in e-sports have not done before.
“The goal is absolute equality in everything”
This is what Cloud9 says: Kristen Salvatore is the head of marketing at Cloud 9. She emphasizes in an interview with VentureBeat the strange situation of such a women’s team:
- In e-sports, there is actually no reason to separate women and men – that is the cool thing about e-sports. Nothing makes a difference: neither physical strength, nor gender, nor cultural background.
- But at the moment there is still no equality, and some work must be invested to get there.
- The long-term goal is complete equality, men and women in one team, receiving the same salary. Women in e-sports should be so normal that they are no longer news.
At Cloud 9, the organization has a talent for discovering people who are underestimated and overlooked elsewhere. At Cloud 9, they want to ensure that they help everyone realize their full potential.
All professional players are employees with health insurance. This stems from the firm belief that it is about much more than just winning championships.
At Cloud 9, they want to create female role models in gaming so that more girls and young women enter e-sports. Because they believe that if fans see a female player in competition, they will believe: “That could be me.”
Women’s teams in e-sports are currently still often seen as exotic teams, viewed warily by mostly male fans. Although few doubt that women can be strong players, so far, “women’s teams” have too often turned out to be PR gags.
In LoL, there was a case of a pure women’s team that was hastily assembled to apparently gain attention. It went terribly wrong:
Women’s team in LoL loses 28 times in a row – is replaced by a new team
