Rising Stars was the first official League of Legends tournament open only to teams composed exclusively of women, here’s what you need to know.
Riot Games has been making an active effort to balance out the discrepancy in pro players’ genders in their premier games. Valorant has received Game Changers, and League of Legends is slowly receiving similar support with tournaments like this one.
Rising Stars 2022 took place from November 26-27. It featured 31 different League of Legends teams composed entirely of women from across the EU region and various leagues. It was the first proper women-only tournament to take place in the professional League of Legends space and was hopefully the first of many such tournaments. It was hosted in collaboration with NUEL and GGTech with the expressed mission to increase diversity and inclusion in the European League of Legends esports scene.
The winner of Rising Stars 2022 was G2 Esports’ “G2 Hel” team, the all-women roster signed earlier in the year by the high-profile European organization. The players for G2 Hel, in order from top lane to AD carry, are Olivia “Lizia” Calistus, Agne “Karina” Ivaskeviciute, Alena “Tifa” Maurer, Maya “Caltys” Henckel, and Eve “Colomblbl” Monvoisin.
G2 Hel defeated GLash Midnight in the finals, claiming a prize pool of approximately $2100. While that may seem like an unimpressive reward for a tournament, this event was meant to be the first step along the road to greater equality in European League of Legends esports, and it seems to have been a success. With established organizations like G2 Esports and SK Gaming both having teams in the tournament, it seems like more and more top-tier organizations are seeing the value in tournaments like Rising Stars 2022 and the opportunities being opened by all-women rosters.
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