Akita and amy have described threats online and abuse from the crowd in São Paulo, and G2 have backed their players while a Brazilian host disputes the account from the arena.
Two G2 Gozen players have gone public with the abuse they say the team received around the Valorant Game Changers Championship 2026 in São Paulo, where the EMEA champions were knocked out after two straight 2-0 defeats. The story was first reported by Sheep Esports.
Esllene “Akita” Xu wrote on X on Tuesday evening, in French, that her teammates received death threats once some fans learned the team would play in São Paulo, along with a second kind of threat she wrote as a purple heart emoji and which Sheep Esports reported as rape threats. She added that the team were insulted from the crowd during their matches. In our translation, she wrote that “this kind of behaviour, on top of the lack of support throughout the year, made me doubt the legitimacy of my work and the value of all the effort we put in.”
The French player opened the post by apologising for the team’s performance and said she knew she might “face the consequences” of speaking out.
amy: “people were screaming my name”
Amy “amy” Lai followed on Wednesday with a post about what she heard in the arena after the elimination.
After we lost, people were screaming my name, calling me puta telling us don’t cry, mocking us and many more things.
amy stressed that a hostile crowd was not the problem in itself. She called it “so cool to have such a passionate crowd”, even when it is against you, but said those who shouted abuse in the Riot arena and online “ruin it for the people that are here for a good time”. She also praised the players, staff and even airport workers she met in São Paulo, and ended the post by saying she would not speak about it again.
The grudge from 2025
The hostility towards amy goes back to the 2025 Game Changers Championship. In November 2025 she used a monkey emoji in a social media post about G2 Gozen’s upcoming match against MIBR GC, and many Brazilian fans read it as racially insensitive, Sheep Esports noted.
In Wednesday’s post she addressed it directly. She wrote that she has accepted that some people “will forever go on with this narrative that i’m racist, no matter what i do or say”, and that she “was just simply uneducated about this topic, believe it or not.”
G2 back their players
G2’s Valorant account published a statement on Wednesday evening. The organisation said it had been made aware of comments directed at its players “that have no place in esports” and drew a line between the people behind them and Brazilian fans as a whole.
We know that the Brazilian community is full of love and passion, and while the actions of a few do not represent the entire region, we stand firmly with our players against all forms of abuse.
Not everyone accepts the players’ account of the arena. Brazilian host Gustavo “Melão” Ruzza wrote on X late on Wednesday that racism, transphobia and misogyny are crimes in Brazil and that no one in the arena was treated with hostility. In our translation from Portuguese: “If any fan had crossed the line, they would have been summarily expelled from there.”
Riot Games had not commented on the players’ posts when this article was written. We found no statement from Riot’s Valorant esports accounts.
Two series, no maps
On the server, G2 Gozen’s trip was short. The EMEA Stage 3 winners started in the upper bracket quarter-finals and lost to MIBR GC on Saturday, then fell to the reigning world champions Team Liquid Brazil in the lower bracket on Monday.
MIBR GC2-0
G2 GozenUpper bracket quarter-final, 24 October: Ascent 13-11, Lotus 13-10
Liquid Brazil2-0G2 GozenLower bracket, 26 October: Split 13-7, Sunset 13-8The 7th to 8th place is G2 Gozen’s worst finish in five appearances at the event. The 2022 world champions had never failed to qualify for the Championship since that title, and Brazilian teams have now ended their run in four straight editions: MIBR GC twice before this year and Liquid Brazil once.
Captain Michaela “mimi” Lintrup is the only player left from the 2022 lineup. Alongside her, amy, Akita, Vania and eva make up the roster that won EMEA Stage 3 by beating Gentle Mates 3-2 in Istanbul in August.
The Championship continues without them. The top four teams play the final stage in São Paulo from Friday.
