Former Fnatic coach mini and Liquid streamer Sliggy announce VALORANT anniversary showmatch

Former Fnatic coach Jacob ‘mini’ Harris and Team Liquid content creator Connor ‘Sliggy’ Blomfield have announced a showmatch to celebrate five years of VALORANT.

The celebration, called Semicade Slugfest, will be live-streamed today starting at 7 pm BST on the Twitch channel of Fnatic streamer Megan ‘megsoundslikeegg’ Garner.

Riot Games’ first-person tactical shooter VALORANT was released on June 2^nd five years ago. Since then, mini and Sliggy have made a name for themselves within the game’s esports community. Both hailed from Counter-Strile esports and picked up VALORANT coaching in the game’s early days.

Sliggy spent two years coaching Team Liquid’s VALORANT rosters before moving to a content creation role within the esports organisation. He then successfully established himself as one of the most popular esports co-streamers in the game’s competitive ecosystem. Although Sliggy rarely makes on-air appearances at official VALORANT events, he is highly respected by players, coaches and talent in the field.

Meanwhile, fellow British VALORANT professional mini only recently retired from coaching. From 2021-2024, mini worked for Fnatic, contributing to the team’s back-to-back international trophies in their dominant 2023 season.

Having claimed VCT EMEA’s  ‘Coach of the Year’ award in 2023, mini is now exploring different career options. This year, he has been co-streaming, VOD-reviewing, casting and analysing VALORANT esports matches.

Throughout five years of VALORANT esports, the two former coaches have collaborated on several occasions while constantly poking fun at each other. It was, therefore, inevitable that their friendly feuds would eventually escalate into an epic showmatch.

On the game’s five-year anniversary, Team Mini and Team Sliggy will face each other across five maps. Mini’s squad consists of VALORANT content creators Acrethedog and Thinking Man’s Valorant as well as esports commentators Josh ‘Sideshow’ Wilkinson and Mitch ‘MitchMan’ McBride.

“PUTTING THIS OLD MAN TO SLEEP TOMORROW,” commented mini in his announcement today. “I’d like to thank my teammates on the victory already.”

On the other hand, Sliggy will be supported by the VALORANT coaching brothers Emil ‘eMIL’ Sandgren and Erik ‘d00mbr0s’ Sandgren. They will be joined by VALORANT streamer Karagii and Liquid Academy Head Coach Jake ‘Bacon9’ Lloyd.

Sliggy shared ahead of the showmatch: “We are up against 2 undersized Men & 3 Dogs See you there.”

With both sides bursting with confidence, VALORANT fans can also follow mini’s and Sliggy’s individual POVs through their respective Twitch channels.

The Semicade Slugfest is not the only special event dedicated to VALORANT’s fifth anniversary. The game’s developer also announced a series of parties across the UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden and Norway.

On top of that, Riot will release a new map and an anniversary event pass with the upcoming Patch 11.00. The update is expected to drop on June 24^th or 25^th.

In the meantime, fans can experience the VALORANT anniversary nostalgia with a celebratory cinematic titled ‘Why We Fight.’