2019 was a crazy year for streaming, with big streamers like Ninja and Shroud both leaving Twitch for Mixer, esports and streaming finally gaining enough mainstream attention to receive dedicated episodes on The Simpsons and the NBC announcing an entire sitcom series dedicated to esports, called The Squad due for release in 2020. As awareness for streaming and esports rises, so does the number of aspiring gamers who also hope to make it as a pro someday. However, as the video gaming space is so dominated by males, it can seem a bit daunting to aspiring female gamers.
This is why it’s so significant that there are a growing number of female streamers who take gaming and streaming seriously and want to be known for their genuine personalities and skills, over other factors who can act as role-models for the next generation of female streamers. We have therefore track down the top ten female streamers that we feel are most likely to positively impact the Twitch across different gaming categories as we enter 2020:
1. Loeya – Fortnite & Minecraft
Liah is a Swedish streamer who has been gaming since she was a child. She opened her channel and began streaming Fortnite in the same month of its release and has been steadily gaining followers since then. Aside from her FPS skills, she is also well-known for her Fortnite victory dances, helium-esque voices, consistency and constant engagement with her chat, known as the ‘Loeyalists.’ Although she started streaming Fortnite in late 2017, her channel only really began attracting followers in April 2018. However, since then she has continued growing exponentially, due to her ~31% solo and ~41% squad win rates and high kill counts. In fact, Loeya is ranked 20th in solo and 70th overall on the Fortnite leaderboards according to FortniteTracker. She has also recently begun producing Minecraft content on her sub-only server.
2. KayPeaLoL – League of Legends
Kelsie Pelling is a Canadian streamer, who has made her mark as one of the most successful League of Legends streamers. As with many streamers, Pelling’s passion for gaming started at an early age. However, her hobby wasn’t shared by her friends. She therefore spent a lot of that time playing alone, and really wanted to have people to interact with. A friend of hers introduced her to Twitch, thereby opening a new, fun community to her. She began streaming purely for the sake of having a few people to chat with while she was gaming. Her enthusiasm and skill eventually attracted the attention of SivHD, who invited her to join his team in 2015. Even though it was a huge risk, she decided to quit her job, sell her belongings and move to the Netherlands to pursue a career as a professional gamer, and she hasn’t looked back since.
3. Danucd – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Dana Gard is a Latvian streamer who started streaming her Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) gameplays in April 2018. Although her viewership only really started growing in late 2018, it’s still a noteworthy accomplishment, given how much later she joined the PUBG community than other streamers did. The key to her success seems to lie in her cheerfulness, ‘giveaway games’ where she teams with her subscribers for live gameplays, as well as her cute personality and high skill level. She has drawn the attention of many high-skill players including Shroud, who have praised her for her skills. When she’s online, she is usually among the top five in the PUBG category.
4. Ms5000Watts – Destiny 2
Ms5000Watts is a Destiny 2 and variety gaming streamers who was introduced to video games by her mom when she a kindergartener. Although she started out play Pitfall! On the Atari, she later discovered fps and shooter games, which became her favorite types. is known for her upbeat personality, constant engagement with chat and consistency. She is fairly established in the streaming scene, as she has been creating YouTube content since 2012, and Twitch content since 2015. She originally started out creating Call of Duty and transitioned to Destiny 2 later on. Her genuine love of streaming and engagement is obvious despite how long she has been involved with it for. A large part of this comes from her gratitude towards this career allowing her the flexibility that she needs in order to work around her chronic fatigue.
5. Aspen – Overwatch
Becca Rukavina is the youngest streamer on this list. She hales from Minnesota and has been playing video games since she was very young. She discovered Overwatch when she was in high school and quickly became addicted to it. Due to her dedication to the came, she gained high level skills that attracted the attention of Cloud9 by June 2018 with whom she signed in June 2018 when she was only seventeen years old. However, she switched to Revival in October 2019, as she wanted to attempt a career as an actual pro player rather than solely as a streamer. Stream-wise, she is known for her chilled personality and good teamwork.
6. MiDNiTEMN – Call of Duty
Ashley Glassel is an established name in the Call of Duty (CoD) scene, as she has been streaming CoD since April 2010 and then signed on with OpTiC Gaming in August 2010. Although their all-girl team soon disbanded, she alone was asked to remain with their stream team, which she did until June 2019 after the organization had changed ownership. In general, she is known for her laid-back demeanor, good-natured way of dealing with trolls and high-level gameplay. Although she doesn’t smile often, she does interact with her chat throughout her gameplays as well as when they send her gifts to unbox or items to sign.
7. SheeverGaming – Dota 2
Jorie van der Heijdin is a prominent Dutch caster who has been playing video games since childhood and has been streaming Dota 2 since she received a beta key in 2013. In October 2012, she started uploading daily informational Dota 2 videos in October 2012, which were like news segments that would catch up all of her viewers on the latest updates and events that were happening in the DotA community. This move is what really got her channel growing. From there, she was offered the opportunity to act as one of the casters for Beyond the Summit in 2013, which was actually her second casting role. She successfully made her mark and has been one of the main casters in the DotA scene ever since. This combination enabled her to transition to a fulltime streamer and caster, thereby working a job she loves, rather than one that she has to.
8. MeloOnie – Apex Legends
Melissa Jumpertz is a German, dual-language streamer who is unusual in that she only got into gaming as an adult in 2011 when she had a boyfriend who was a serious gamer and introduced her to Call of Duty. She was soon just as hooked on video games as he was and was soon exploring other titles as well.
In 2013, her main game was Destiny on the PS3. However, her console broke around the same time that the PS4 was releasing, and so she decided to go with an upgrade. This was a life-changing decision for her, as one of her co-workers eventually told her about PS4 Live, which is how she began watching streamers, which in turn lead her to trying it out herself. She found that she enjoyed it, and slowly transitioned into a serious grinding schedule and slowly grew her channel until she was able to quit her job and attempt it as a fulltime career in October 2015. She generally attempts to keep her community positive and friendly, and so avoids broadcasting games with more toxic communities. Over time she transitioned to PUBG, but now mainly plays Apex Legends.
9. Snowlit – Variety
Circe is an American streamer who started streaming in December 2014 after her boyfriend was watching one of her gameplays and encouraged her to try streaming it. Her channel grew quite quickly and by February 18, 2015 she had gained enough followers to receive full Twitch partnership. She decided to attempt a fulltime streaming career soon after that. Although she is generally soft-spoken and laid back, giving her chat a lot of engagement, her language and topics of conversation are occasionally not appropriate for a younger audience.
10. Amazonian – MTG: Arena
Relatively speaking, Amy Demicco’s foray into Magic: The Gathering started quite late, as she was only first introduced to it in 2009 during her freshman year of college by one of her friends. However, she immediately fell in love with it and started streaming occasionally soon afterwards, when she learned about it from various MTG forums. However, she only became really serious about streaming she was allowed to stream MTG: Arena during its closed beta in December 2017.
Since then, her stream has slowly grown thanks to her friendly, optimistic personality that allows her to have fun even when she is losing. Her growth was helped along by her signing with compLexity Gaming, as well as her active involvement at various LAN events such as PAX East.
She and AliasV have been hosting a weekly MTG podcast since February 2019 entitled, ‘Duels, Decks and Discourse’ where they offer deckbuilding advice, lists and analyses of the current happenings, among other things, in the MTG space.
