Valorant Champions Tour 2026: In Conversation With EstoniaMan
In an ever-growing world of online streaming, standing out is no easy feat. EstoniaMan, a Valorant streamer with over 30,000 Twitch followers, is carving out his own space in the gaming community. With countless creators competing for attention, building an audience takes more than being skilled at a game; it takes personality and immense dedication. In collaboration with STRAND Magazine and KCL Gaming & Esports, we put together questions to ask EstoniaMan that explore his journey into streaming and what it was like to be invited to the 2026 Valorant Champions Tour in Shanghai.
Give our audience a short intro: how did you get into streaming, and how long have you been streaming?
I have been streaming for three and a half years. I got into content creation just through genuinely wanting to make people laugh. As for my origin story, I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to be someone like PewDiePie was to me as a kid, like an escape for young people from their everyday struggles. As soon as I worked hard and got my own money, I bought my own PC, and I just instantly started [content creation].
How did you first get into Valorant, and what keeps you coming back?
It was a hard choice because the moment I started streaming, I knew I was a First-Person Shooter player, and at the time, Valorant had just come out as a new, popular game. I was already done with the Counter-Strike era, and League of Legends was a cesspool in itself. So I just thought to myself, you know what, let’s get into Valorant. It was a very fresh and exciting game. I still find Valorant fun, but the community still has a lot of problems that are hard to change.
How did you balance creating content (streaming irl) with enjoying the VCT event for yourself?
To be honest, it’s just planning. The first time I had to travel out of the country and wanted to do content, I was kind of inexperienced and didn’t know what to do. But the more experience you have with whatever it is that you do, the more experienced you become and get used to planning ahead so you don’t get overwhelmed by everything.
On that note, what was it like streaming the event in person compared to streaming from your own setup at home?
The feeling there is magical, in a sense that the crowd comes alive and you get to hang out with other Valorant creators. It was mainly just the energy of being there and the crowd. Especially since it was a Chinese crowd and, sadly, there was no Chinese team in the final, so it felt like everyone was rooting for everyone.
At the event, a lot of big names in the streaming world were in attendance. Who would you say is your biggest inspiration when it comes to your streaming career, and what do you find most inspiring about them?
Oh my god, that is such a good question. I have a lot of inspiration when it comes to streaming, and it’s always growing. Of course, the big dog CaseOh has always been up there. When I was still working full time, I always watched CaseOh in the morning because that’s when he would be streaming. Right now, I am a big fan of Joe Bartalozzi; he is a very chill guy and super down to earth. Jynxzi, of course, the absolute goat, just the way he sets everything up. Ohnepixel, being able to meet him at the event was amazing. And being able to put a face to the name that is so huge in the streaming community. I feel like everybody makes up a fantasy of what they expect a streamer to be like in person. I have been fortunate enough to meet other big creators, so I knew that people are literally just people. Even though they are behind a screen with 40,000 viewers, they are just guys who want to play their games and have fun. For example, it was refreshing to see that Ohnepixel is the same chill, cool guy behind the camera.
Looking back on your own streaming journey, what advice would you give to someone who is just starting out and aspiring to be a streamer?
I mean, don’t just stream. Probably a lot of other creators have said this. If you just start streaming, there is probably a 0.1% chance that you will ever make it out of the 3-viewer hemisphere. If you really want to be successful and grow in the streaming community, you need to prioritise posting content. You need to stream maybe 2 hours, fully clip farming, then post like 4 videos, so that you can break out of the niche and for people to see your content. As much as people don’t want to admit it, they don’t want to see new streamers; they like the familiarity of watching someone they already know. It is not often they give chances to new creators. You need to start putting yourself out there so that, at one point, instead of instantly scrolling, they think, ‘Oh, I’ve seen this guy a lot on my feed, maybe I should give this video a chance.’ Then they might start sharing and watching your older videos that didn’t do as well at first.
How did you find the crowd in Shanghai? What was your initial impression of the crowd, and did that impression change throughout the tournament?
The Chinese crowd is very reserved. I think it’s because China itself is a very reserved country, so people didn’t go that crazy. I’m not going to lie, American, European, and Japanese crowds will probably be 10x more intense. As a European, seeing how football fans celebrate, it was a little underwhelming.
EMEA once again missed out on getting a trophy, continuing the unfortunate no-trophy streak for EMEA in international VCT tournaments. Do you believe EMEA will be able to get a trophy any time soon?
As people can see right now, there are huge roster changes incoming, whole teams are getting rooted up from the ground. We will never know until we see what type of teams the Europeans put up. It brings a lot more variety now that European teams need to have three European players and the rest of the team can be imported. Europeans have a lot of very talented players. I just think that European teams were a little behind in some aspects. Sometimes they would just be playing too aggressively or too passively and couldn’t read their enemies well. Maybe it’s different because I was watching both teams play and could read the situation. Europe definitely has a chance, it just needs the right roster. Jamppi, Derke, Chronicle, Sayonara, and PROFEK, the entire Vitality squad was very good, they just messed up in some really readable situations.
What was the most memorable match other than the finals?
One of the very good games was Vitality versus 100 Thieves in the lower-bracket Grand Final, everybody was playing really well, and it was fun to watch.
This is the last time VCT will have this format. Do you think you'll miss it, or are you more looking forward to the next format for VCT 2027?
I’ve yet to come to a conclusion on whether I like or hate what the new format is going to be like. On one hand, it’s giving more chances to newer teams, but it’s also taking those chances away at the same time for partner teams. Let’s say a no-name team has an incredibly good player, and they win a bunch of money if they qualify. Now, for example, Team Liquid sees that player and decides they want to bring them onto their roster. Liquid offers them X amount of money per month to join, and now the security of players is just not as good. I am just wondering how they will counteract rosters changing all the time because of this.
Edited by Joanne Baranga, Gaming Editor
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