| Scarlett | |
|---|---|
 Hostyn at BlizzCon 2014 | |
| Personal information | |
| Name | Sasha Hostyn |
| Nickname(s) |
|
| Born | December 1993 (age 30) Kingston, Ontario, Canada |
| Career information | |
| Games | |
| Playing career | 2011–present |
Sasha Hostyn (born December 1993), [1] also known by her username Scarlett, is a Canadian professional video game player. She is most well known for playing StarCraft II , and is the first woman to win a major StarCraft II tournament. She has also played Dota 2 .
Hostyn grew up in Kingston, Ontario [2] and played games as a hobby during school and began to enter tournaments in 2011, leading to her career as a professional player. Hostyn is a transgender woman, and has said that her gender identity has "absolutely no relevance" to how she plays and that she has "always tried to make it a complete non-issue". [3] [4]
Hostyn became prominent in the StarCraft II scene in 2012 when she beat a number of highly ranked professionals at an event in Las Vegas. [5] In 2013, she climbed the global StarCraft II rankings to rank 21 and placed second at NorthCon. [3] By mid-2014, Hostyn had taken first place in seven tournaments, making her the second highest-paid professional female gamer at the time. [6] By 2014, Hostyn had won over $110,000. [2]
During her time playing StarCraft II, Hostyn has been called "the queen of StarCraft II", "Korean Kryptonite", and "The Queen of Blades". [5] [7] The New Yorker called her "the most accomplished woman in e-sports". [2] She was the only Red Bull Battle Grounds 2014 finalist from a country other than South Korea. [8] In 2014, Polygon named her one of 2014's 50 admirable gaming people, describing her as "one of the few women succeeding at the top level of the StarCraft II pro scene". [9]
Having lost some of her "competitive drive" for StarCraft II, Hostyn switched to playing Dota 2 in February 2015, explaining "If I can be good at both it’ll be something nobody has really done before." [1]
As of June 2015, Hostyn has returned to StarCraft II, joining the Dead Pixels team [10] and will compete in Korean leagues.
On August 17, 2016, Scarlett joined Team Expert. [11]
In February 2018, Scarlett won the Intel Extreme Masters tournament, held in the leadup to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, becoming the first woman to win a major StarCraft II tournament. [12] [13] Following this, in November 2018 Scarlett joined Newbee. [14]
In February 2021, she joined the newly formed Shopify Rebellion. [15]
Scarlett was entered in the Guinness Book of Records as "highest career earnings for a female competitive video game player" on October 5, 2016. [16]
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