Is Riot going to launch women’s League of Legends esports circuit? 

G2’s announcement of launching the women’s League of Legends team yesterday came as a surprise to the organization’s fans, considering there’s no official league for women they could compete in. Unless Riot Games is planning to launch one. 

While the VCT Game Changers, Valoran’t official esports initiative for female and non-binary people, is already nearing the conclusion of its second season, the League of Legends esports scene, which has been around for more than a decade longer, is still waiting for a similar circuit. 

However, following G2’s announcement, reports and speculations have started emerging in the community, claiming that Riot is indeed planning to launch women’s League of Legends global esports circuit soon. 

G2 HEL 

According to the official announcement made by the European org G2 Esports, the name of its League of Legends team was inspired by Norse mythology, where Hel is a powerful goddess and the daughter of Loki. The formation of G2 Hel is reportedly a part of G2’s effort to “provide top gamers with the opportunity to compete at the highest levels”. 

Indeed, the interest of organizations in forming teams consisting of women and other marginalized genders is an important step toward inclusivity in esports. However, as G2 CEO Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez admitted in the Tech & Science Daily podcast, it’s not only about making the world a better place, and definitely not for company image purposes.

He was very straightforward about it: 

“It’s a very marketable, likable, funny group of people, and in this case, they happen to be women. But we’re not doing this just to right the wrongs of the world. We’re doing this because it’s fun, because we want to win and because they’re an extremely high-performing, sought-after team that everybody wanted to have.” 

All of this combined with the official G2 statement, which is clear about the team’s ambition to compete at the highest level, indicates that something about the current League of Legends esports scene might change soon. 

Here’s the full G2 HEL roster: 

• Top: Olivia “Lizia ” Calistua
• Jungle: Agnė “Karina” Ivaškevičiūtė
• Mid: Alena “TIFA” Maurer
• AD Carry: Maya “Caltys” Henckel
• Support: Ève “Colomblbl” Monvoisin

League Game Changers? 

Despite lasting calls from the League of Legends community, the title does not yet have an official tournament series for women. Surely, there have been a couple of third-party League tournaments, including the GirlGamer Oradea Festival EU back in July, which was won by team Burger Flippers, aka the current G2 HEL line-up. But many will agree that an official global women’s League esports circuit is long overdue. 

Nevertheless, it seems that Game Changers for League might finally become reality. According to a report by Esports news UK, Riot Games has been considering adding a women’s League of Legends global esports circuit, and with G2 already waiting, it’s even more likely to happen. However, the timing of the league’s launch has not yet been decided. 

Furthermore, the developer is also allegedly planning to host other isolated tournaments for female players separate from the global circuit, with the plans still in the works.

It doesn’t end with launching a league

While fans of inclusivity in esports are probably cheering right now, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Meanwhile, in the women’s European League scene, teams are withdrawing due to a lack of events and developer support. UK esports orgs Resolve and LDN UTD announced the news this week. 

And Valorant esports having its own women’s global circuit also doesn’t mean that everything’s solved and that opportunities are equal for everybody. For instance, the VCT Game Changers EMEA is currently having issues with verifying non-binary players, which prevents them from competing. A purely bureaucratic issue, that makes the league miss its purpose. 

All in all, while Riot still has a long way to go before creating a full-fledged League of Legends esport circuit for women, it’s good to know that developer is at least on the right track.  

Header: Riot Games