CLG Red has announced that it will be entering Valorant with the retired female Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional, Benita “bENITA” Novshadian, leading the team.
CLG Red first entered the competitive CS:GO scene with their all-female roster in the summer of 2015. The lineup consisted of Christine “potter” Chi, who became an analyst for Valorant, Diane “di^” Tran, Catherine “CAth” Leroux, Stephanie “missharvey” Harvey and bENITA. CLG Red continues to compete in CS:GO with their all-female roster and they recently won the DreamHack Showdown Winter 2020 against Dignitas.
BENITA competed with CLG Red until her retirement in June of 2020 when she pursued her professional career in Valorant.  Since then, she has played in minor weekly tournaments with a group of different players. She won the first Valorant Women’s Open in May of last year when the game was still in Beta.
CLG Red joins Cloud9 White with an all-female roster
Valorant was taken by storm with Cloud9 White, an all-female professional roster that coincided with Cloud9 Blue. While other esports organizations have also formed all-female or mixed-gender rosters, Cloud9 White was the biggest news. They were also the first organization to sign a transgender woman to their roster, an announcement that continued to further diversity in esports.
Riot Games hosted an all-female tournament last summer, which showcased talented women in the Valorant scene. Most of these players have been signed to teams like Dignitas, Cloud9 White and, now, CLG Red. Outside of CS:GO, women in competitive esports have not been as prominent. Valorant has brought multiple women out of their streaming careers to have full-time jobs as professional players.
CLG Red has not revealed the rest of their roster outside of bENITA but they teased that the news would be coming in the following days. Fans can potentially see members from previous iterations of the CLG Red CS:GO team transfer over to Valorant with bENITA.
