Female Overwatch pro Aspen tops North American leaderboard

Olivia Richman Published 28/02/2021

Professional Overwatch player Becca “Aspen” Rukavina has staked her claim to being the best support player in North America.

Female Overwatch pro Aspen has climbed up the ranks to become the top support in North America with 4,700 SR. The talented player plays a variety of support heroes in Overwatch including Brigitte, Ana, Mercy, and Lucio. For this season, Aspen mostly used Baptise and Lucio to climb the ladder since rushdown-style team compositions are dominating the meta.

Rank 1 and 4700 pic.twitter.com/YQzHi0szoo
— Aspen (@Aspen_OW) February 28, 2021

Despite the success, the news has been met with a lot of toxicity from the gaming community. In response to her tweet, a lot of men declared that using Baptise was an “easy” way to get to the top. Others stated that Aspen was carried up the leaderboard. One male Twitter user even claimed she reached rank 1 due to a lack of people playing Overwatch right now.

Dude it’s like March. The Santa hat’s gotta go. But also there’s no real reason to play Overwatch outside of being a steamer so. People are probably just waiting for the DLC.
— Mitchell (@ProceduralGen) February 28, 2021

Luckily many people in the esports community had Aspen’s back. This includes Overwatch League pro Timo ”Taimou” Kettunen and commentator Jack Wright, who called her a “legend.”

Aspen has been streaming on Twitch since 2017, most often playing Overwatch. She signed a contract as a content creator with Cloud9 that lasted from 2018 to 2019. She decided to leave the organization and announced that she was going pro around that time. Her goal has been to compete in the Overwatch League.

Unfortunately, a lot of the harassment has gotten Aspen down. On February 2, Aspen said she was “giving up” mentally due to the amount of hate she kept receiving.

I’ll be taking a short break to wait out the effects of my medication, my main goal has and will always be Overwatch League. However, in my current mental state it’s hard, so please bare with me ❤️
— Aspen (@Aspen_OW) February 2, 2021

Given that Aspen has hit number one, it seems like she’s fought off some of her doubts and mental exhaustion to prove herself inside the game. Many Overwatch fans congratulated Aspen on the achievement and seem confident that an Overwatch League team will notice her in the near future.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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