The history of StarCraft II turns pages with the first female player to win the Major

Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn, one of the female gamer The most successful of the professional Esports village, has just written his name on the history page of StarCraft II when he won the championship at Intel Extreme Masters 2018. This is a tournament sponsored by the Commission Olympic International with a championship prize of $50,000 and held in Korea, the country that has always dominated the sport. With this championship, Scarlett She also became the first female champion to win a major StarCraft II international tournament.
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This victory ushered in a new era for Scarlett herself, who left the pro StarCraft scene in 2015. At the time, she shared that her titles were “not big enough” and “are going on.” thinking about leaving the game for a while.” After taking a break in 2015, Scarlett returned to the pro scene with a whole new dynamic, bringing her 3 championships in 2016 and 2017.

Currently, Scarlett is known in StarCraft community II with a series of victories over the years. There are very few female gamers who truly succeed in the professional esports scene, and Scarlett is definitely one of them. She was even recorded in the Guinness World Records as the highest earning Canadian female gamer (only counting prizes) in 2016, with a total prize money of up to $200,000.
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Victory at IEM It was a very special victory. Not only was it the first tournament to be held in partnership with the International Olympic Committee (the venue for the tournament is also where the upcoming Winter Olympics will be held), but it was also the first StarCraft II tournament that a female gamer won the championship. More specifically, Scarlett is also the only girl participating in this tournament, after being almost eliminated from the tournament. A last-minute rule change allowed her to compete at the Main Event in South Korea after failing in the North American qualifiers last December.

Scarlett’s journey to the championship was extremely difficult, as her final opponent in the final was Kim “sOs” Yo Jin, a two-time StarCraft II world champion. After 5 thrilling and dramatic matches, Scarlett disappointed the whole Korea by defeating sOs with a convincing score of 4-1.
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$50,000 is not really a large number when compared to the total prize money that Scarlett has received as well as other Esport tournaments. Last year, the StarCraft II World Championship even had a prize pool of up to $280,000 for the champion. However, this award still has great value in terms of meaning, for Scarlett in particular and female gamers who are participating in the professional Esport arena in particular.

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