From November 8th through November 11th, Riot Games hosted the 2024 Valorant Game Changers Tournament in Berlin, Germany. The Game Changers tournament is unique in the way it specifically advocates for the participation of genders that are typically marginalized in esports, only allowing teams of women, transgender men, transgender women, and nonbinary people to compete. Last week, the team Shopify Rebellion made history as the first team to ever win with the score 13-0 in one of their games ever, as well as completely sweeping the tournament 3-0 and winning the entire event. However, there was one player that performed so well, it captured the attention of everyone in the community: Ava “florescent” Eugene. She ended with a kill to death ratio of 74/37 on her last game, which is incredible even at the professional level. Her performance actually led to her being the first player in the history of Game Changers to ever be recruited by a Tier one professional team straight out of the tournament! As of November 19th, she signed with the team Apex gaming. Being a girl that loves Valorant and its esports community as much as I do, and knowing very well that the game is extremely male-dominated, seeing a transwoman make it to the T1 level in real time has been absolutely inspirational to witness, and I’m endlessly excited to see where her career goes from here.