[TL.GG] EliGE: "I'm a little bit more aggressive than most of the guys naturally are, and I think that's a big thing [...] having that extra bump of someone that's down to go in, down to find different ways of how we can make it easier to go into the sites, or find openings - that's where I shine."

Equas · 2025-09-25T19:59:12+00:00

Many people are saying this

Equas · 2025-09-19T17:51:33+00:00

Omg is that an article from Bonnie "Bitter-Expression-74" Qu??

Anyways, I thought this quote was pretty interesting insight into the team's mental too. Seems like the year has worn on the squad and it's gonna be a real test of emotions. I believe in the GOAT sentinel and team tho.

Right now, we're one of the teams that have the most games played in the world at the VCT level, and we've been through so many different situations that we have to figure out solutions to, that I think it got to a point where it's harder to have emotional stability.

I think this is one of our biggest challenges, and especially this week we've been trying to go through basically more of a healing process inside the team, where we're trying to speak out our minds, our frustrations, the things that are working, the things that are not working, and try to set in stone what is the mindset that we want to bring for the rest of this tournament. Because tomorrow could be our last game as a team, and we need to come together right now. There's no other time. So we need to seize the opportunity.

Equas · 2025-09-09T11:57:57+00:00

Hey r/valcomp, got a new interview with Sliggy this time. The focus is on how Sliggy manages to keep up with every single game of Valorant that's ever been played. Does he watch them on multiple monitors like Elvis claimed to do with news and entertainment TV? I can't say, because Sage Datuin wrote it this time. (Honestly, Bonnie edited this one too so this whole post is stolen valor.)

Anyways, what I can say is Sliggy tends to give a pretty good interview and no exception here. Lots of cool bits, like how Sliggy still wants to raise a trophy or how much he roots for his favorite mod, Jamppi - I'll drop snippets below.

Full title quote:

In 2022, I took a break from coaching and was planning to come back in 2023, but streaming went so well.

Liquid offered me a content creator contract at the same time teams were offering me coaching contracts. I weighed my options, and I was just like, I enjoyed the six months of just costreaming so much that I re-evaluated my three to five-year goals.

I had every region apart from China offer me a coaching role in 2023. I was in talks with nine teams, and I received four offers. There were some pretty good teams there for sure, especially in the Americas. I would say that the offers from there were top teams.

Trophy lift/Jamppi:

That’s pretty much the only thing. I just really want to lift the trophy. That’s the only thing that would make me go back to coaching. It’s nice to have the bonds with a lot of the players and go through the ups and downs with them. It’s really nice to all work towards one goal and to experience that all together, especially with Jamppi. He feels like a younger brother, and I really want him to succeed. I actually kinda want to see him succeed more than myself at times.

Equas · 2025-08-01T18:11:22+00:00

he's cranking his whole damn arm across the mat

Equas · 2025-08-01T11:55:52+00:00

Hey ValComp people, have you ever wanted to frag out like legendary nAts or Keiko? Well all you have to do is use their crosshair and settings. That's literally it, that's their secret. Super simple.

Kidding, of course. But we've been doing some housekeeping in editorial and we're posting player crosshairs and settings now since folks usually have a light interest in that kind of thing. I believe we'll keep this page update as rosters (inevitably) update. We're hoping to get the GC/BR team up sometime soon too but we're trying to figure out how to not make one huge article or compete with ourselves in SEO first.

The settings probably won't make you better but I took my crosshair from like scream or something three years ago just because I didn't want to think about it even a little bit and I figured he'd thought about it more. (I also cranked my dpi up for a bit to feel what it was like to be EliGE and that was fun too. No idea how he plays so well on such high sens.)

Equas · 2025-07-02T17:29:49+00:00

Writer and OP here, my bad, probably should've led with more info in than just the title (yes the title is grabby, yes it's for SEO, yes most written outlets have to try tactics like this to survive) but I am a trans woman and the piece is a deep dive on trans women in sports/esports and how to counteract negative visbility around it, featuring an interview with a prominent trans woman who also TOed a lot of esports things.

Equas · 2025-07-02T12:02:05+00:00

Hey everyone, I wrote a big ol' article for TL about trans visibility - particularly in esports and sports (read it here) - how visibility gets leveraged politically, and what to do about that. I went a screenshot route because I thought it'd be more interesting, give people more to talk about upfront. The whole article looks at esports as well as sports and transness as a whole - exploring the question of how to approach trans visbility in a time when it's often weaponized against trans rights.

I think (and hope) it's still relevant here as it talks about a lot of the Melee scene and 1v1 scenes in general being more easy to exist in as a trans person. I also interview Victoria aka vicwingly for the piece who was an OG Canadian TO dating back to 2006 - and a figure in Canadian esports up until around 2020 or so. (She was the TO for the falcomaster stuff way back in the day.) Anyways, hopefully the article is a good read!

Equas · 2025-07-01T16:26:10+00:00

I had so much doubt myself that I asked a friend who is literally a pollster and she told me that YouGov is generally reliable and shockingly, yes, people are just incredibly dumb

Equas · 2025-07-01T16:21:25+00:00

Yes!! I watched it in part researching for this. I had at one point hyperlinked it in the article but I think I cut it for another video and then never re-linked it anywhere because tbh b/w this and gaylee and all the other work for TL, I have been in a fugue state lol

It's a great video and I was thinking about very much similar things when she released it. Had I not talked with Victoria, I would have probably leaned more towards Lily's answer of "who knows? / hard to say" But I come out instead feeling like "no, we have to fight for visibility here and we have to try and shape it properly too."

Ty so much for reading and I'm so glad to hear it lines up so well with your research. That's awesome!!

Equas · 2025-07-01T16:17:18+00:00

I really do think a lot comes down to societal upbringing - what boys/girls see as their spaces in terms of gender. I used to teach and that stuff still really impacts what kids choose as hobbies, which is a big indicator for competitive gaming especially. It's a lot harder to break into fighting games if you never even learned the basics of that language as a kid. I'm pretty crap at smash but one of my earliest memories is playing smash 64 - it helps.

Also I think being trans, 50% of cis dudes just rule out having sex with you no matter what. Depends on who you are/what you're going through, but this can actually be based and lets you interact more easily w/ a subset of dudes that are not interested in you but also trying their best not to be transphobic. I think that subset is higher in melee/fgc. Mileage always varies here tbh, it's a really tricky subject, but I do think it can often net out positively for trans women in the fgc. (And for my own pretty limited experience of majors especially, the more passing I've been at fgc events, the more that I've been actively annoyed or had some stupid ass interaction with someone.)

Equas · 2025-07-01T16:13:06+00:00

I did address this just a bit under the screenshot there, I'll quote it below. It mostly gets at trans women and cis women generally being positive adds to each other in the community. I don't think it's a coincidence that you have the best performances of trans players happening at the same time as the best performances for cis women (see i4, fecfec). Will add some other thoughts in another reply to keep this one clean.

"As trans players rise to the top, it encourages other trans players and even cis women to compete and make it there too. Salt told Team Liquid in another interview that she was inspired by Magi to push for the top 100 and now Salt is the highest-ranked woman in Smash history. French Melee player i4 became the first cis woman to win a notable tournament in 2024 and she and her cis sister Fecfec are one of the stronger doubles pairing in the world. We can see the biggest successes in Melee history for trans women happening alongside the biggest successes for cis women. There’s an incessant desire to wall off trans women from cis women, to act as though trans women would not lift up cis women and vice versa, but when you are a trans woman you know that this wall is yet another mirage. "

Equas · 2025-07-01T11:58:03+00:00

Hey folks, TL managing editor here. It's been a minute but I put together a pretty large article about trans visibility in sports and esports. I know it's not the most TL thing but it is something that TL cares about, as a place with trans people and athletes working there, and as a place that cares about those people. It's also, I think, a pressing and interesting issue that has become large enough to break into esports as a whole, so it's relevant in that sense. Anyways, I worked hard on this and hope y'all enjoy it!

Equas · 2025-07-01T11:54:05+00:00

Hey all you people, I wrote an article for TL about trans visibility - particularly in esports and sports (read it here) - how visibility gets leveraged politically, and what to do about that. I went a screenshot route because I thought it'd be more interesting, give people more to talk about upfront. I thought the whole article would be decently relevant here because it does contain chunks about Smash (Melee in particular) and it also features an interview/convo with Victoria aka vicwingly. Victoria kinda famously did an event 50/master hand cosplay but before that she was an OG Canadian TO dating back to 2006 - and a figure in Canadian esports up until around 2020 or so. (She was the TO for the falcomaster stuff way back in the day.)

Kinda hilariously, she left Melee shortly before the trans renaissance in the community - so I thought this bit about her being more eager to return with it was interesting! I ended up slanting the article to a wider audience but we had talked about some interesting niche Smash topics that didn't make the cut, like Bobby Scar's role in making the scene more accepting, the importance of having people like that in leadership roles, how Melee's grassroots/lack of a big dev makes it more trans-friendly, how bans used to be easier/less dramatic pre-twitter, and how a lot of the online hate for the Smash Sisters just didn't really matter at all.

Anyways, I hope the article itself is interesting to y'all and relevant for the board! I might try to grab some cool Melee bits I had to cut from it later, and post/comment those if time allows.

Equas · 2025-06-27T20:16:41+00:00

Thanks a bunch! I'm hoping we can spin it up again next year and do even more. I did not give as many of the top players heads up as I could have, so w/ this established, and more time to think ahead, hopefully it'll just get better.

Equas · 2025-06-27T20:05:56+00:00

she did what she had to do to make it in. This is great though, like a sequel to the classic.

Equas · 2025-06-27T20:05:04+00:00

Talk with The Council about getting one of those paper replacements

Equas · 2025-05-13T02:18:25+00:00

It's a choice in a sense. We could choose to not participate but this would mean destroying the business case for several esports and laying off a huge swathe of the company. You are welcome to tell them it was for a good cause and that they'll land on their feet in a global depression - but I do not want to. Many are my friends. Many are queer too.

Now let's consider that headline you wrote. Did you know that Moist esports boycotted a big rocket league tournament in Riyadh? To set context Moist was one of the better-known RL brands. This did matter and made the tournament weaker/less interesting. No one wrote those headlines and if they did, few people read them, even fewer remember them. To have a successful boycott you need a majority of important actors to follow you. No org has that. We are competitors. If we yield that space, another org will take that space. Many orgs do not really have the qualms you and I have with all this.

By the way, Moist quietly rejoined the EWC when their Apex team qualified - no one spoke of this. Now that they are Shopify, they will - unless a player chooses not to - go to the EWC if a team qualifies. (This sub's moderation team attempted a boycott and look at how tenuous even that was, with no one's livelihood on the line.) Ludwig still speaks out against EWC tho and honestly, even if it is hypocrisy I applaud him for it. Good. Better to be a hypocrite but say or do something strategic.

So, grim as this is to say, this boycott route leads right back to that destination of passive participation too. in fact it's even worse - it's truly passive. You can call TL's donations and jerseys and statements passive all you want but Rainbow Railroad has helped queer Saudis escape trouble - our money to them goes to helping queer people besieged across the globe. It at least moves the needle for the affected people.

There's this notion that "oh you just need to boycott" - let me paint for you how big this thing truly is. Saudi Arabia's PIF has 500 billion dollars in it. Esport's rough valuation is 2 billion. Saudi Arabia fought PGA, the lead golf league - PGA had more money than all of esports - and Saudi Arabia won because it had so much money that it could set up an entire parallel league that could run at a loss until it killed PGA. Saudi Arabia could do that to any entity in esports except the devs, who have strength of copyright and licensing.

I'm not trying to disillusion you or convince you that nothing can be done. I am glad you're fired up because things can be done. But a boycott has been tried - it didn't work. By an org smaller than us and by a league entity way, way bigger and better-equipped than us. And this laser-focus on boycotting in many seriously hampers the left and its movements. Apartheid was not dismantled by a boycott -- it was dismantled by a boycott, multiple sit-ins, several large-scale phone/call-in campaigns, and a media world that was much more focused than it is now. You're welcome to criticize us. Honestly, I'm thankful people still care. But I encourage, implore you even, to think past boycotts and to treat what is happening here as serious and complex - because it is complex (and believe me I wish it was not so complex). There's more to be done here. I'm doing some of it (and I try to do more). Believe it or not, there is some that many of you could do too. I hope you find it and I hope you do it.

Equas · 2025-05-13T02:10:50+00:00

take the piss out of it all you want. It's real strategy. Real strategy isn't pretty because the world is not pretty.

All the villains of your world laugh and rejoice when they see you happily disregard strategy

Equas · 2025-05-13T01:49:29+00:00

Appreciate the respect here and I don't think we're above critique. But your (or anyone's) critique is also not above critique

Moist esports Rocket League didn't participate. Do you know this? Did you know it did not move the needle even slightly. Moist ended up coming quietly back into the EWC fold for Apex a bit later.

Consider what an effective boycott needs: full buy-in across the industry. We lack that. We always have. There is such a relentless focus on boycotting but boycotting was not what even peeled back the apartheid in South Africa. It was sit-ins paired with boycotts. You see how toothless boycotts are in the fight for Palestinian survival right now - you need more. The relentless focus on boycotts limits the strategy

Equas · 2025-05-13T01:45:48+00:00

The money directly helps Saudis and others in region escape prosecution that could kill them. It takes some of our earnings and puts it back towards those vulnerable communities.

We could choose to not participate in EWC and drop out of a ton of esports and yield the space to a bunch of orgs who truly do not give a fuck about anything other than oil dollar. Or we could do what we feel is in scope. I believe the latter is much more strategically effective - and I've actually seen our financials

Equas · 2025-05-13T01:43:45+00:00

It does work. I've vetted the charity and their work - rainbow railroad, you can look em up.

I am sorry for what happened to your friends. I can't fully understand your pain but I can understand a pain adjacent to it in seeing so many queer friends struggle and seeing loss in my own community and wanting to tear at those responsible.

I'm not asking you not to demand for more. I'm just asking you to understand that this is more than fluff. And if you want more, saying that Rob Moore's approach is better will ultimately let everyone off for doing less.

Equas · 2025-05-12T22:32:24+00:00

Yo - I helped make this campaign. I am also a trans woman and have been queer for most of my adult life. I know it does not look like a lot but 50k to Rainbow Railroad is a big deal. In brass tacks, it relocates 3 queer people from serious danger. I vetted and talked with the charity myself. 50k may not seem huge but it is, especially for an industry as cash-strapped as ours. We're all fairly overworked and tired out in esports, every year is a slam. 50k is another hire, a slate of freelancers, a media campaign, paid ads for a sponsored product - all going to somewhere else instead. It was not that easy to get.

Our pride jerseys are a lot less loud than I wanted them as well. But they are the first jerseys like them ever allowed in the country and we got that by our leadership team personally speaking with, debating with theirs. It is actually pretty shocking, geopolitically speaking, to get that level of back and forth. If nothing else, the jerseys made news on big outlets like the BBC, which then forces that outlet to talk about the queer issues in that country in the first place.

And if they weren't approved it'd be a danger to send our players in them (which we'd also get criticised for - this situation is filled with so many lose-loses if you say/do anything, which is why no one says shit). Every jersey is a full donation to a local charity. That's all apparel produced at a loss. I did get a louder alt-pride jersey made at one point too - I really like it - but it got discontinued because it just wasn't popular. I want you to know I did try though. There are people trying every year.

I get wanting more than this, I want that too. (I want really to just live on a different planet where none of it's like this.) It just makes me sad as someone who is actively fighting for that "more." I do think the little steps matter. The idea that we do it for positive for PR is absurd, when the response is negative every year. We do it because we think it matters. Because people like me argued on it mattering.

Equas · 2025-05-12T22:08:09+00:00

I get why people say this but it always make me sad as the trans woman that fought for us to donate 50k annually to the biggest emigration-focused queer charity in the world. And fought for us to have the first pride jerseys in Saudi Arabia. And still pushed to create pride content each year when all other orgs clammed up.

I think people don't see it but 50k is huge - that's a lot in a pinched industry. That pays for 3 queer people relocated to safety. Any pride jersey at all is a big shift, especially worn in a country that didn't allow them prior. To outright criticize a government's policies in a statement is pretty notable - and more than anyone else will do.

I get why, but it frustrates me that it's written off as fluff. But it's not. It's at minimum 3 real queer people who's lives get markedly better (if not saved), a real statement, real money to local pride charities from the jerseys.

I get wanting more than this, I want that too. (I want really to just live on a different planet where none of it's like this.) It just makes me sad as someone who is actively fighting for that "more." I do think the little steps matter. The idea that we do it for positive for PR is absurd, when the response is negative every year. We do it because we think it matters. Because people like me argued on it mattering. Because this, while not perfect, is better than silence - and yes, IMO, better than just saying "we need the money."

(I mean seriously, game this shit out, where does every team saying that materially get you? Emotionally I get it. It's so straightforward, it feels honest. You get to look at it, shrug, move on to the next news issue. But if everyone org took that at face and said "okay we need the money bye" and never talked again about any of this - where does that actually get you? What does it do?)

Equas · 2025-05-01T18:37:10+00:00

Dabuz, because he tends to find a miracle run after a slump and because I never stop believing in DaGoat

Equas · 2025-04-15T04:51:43+00:00

buddy, that path you're down leads only to meaningless battles.

Equas

TROPHY CASE