Scarlett (Sasha Hostyn) Biography 2026: Age, Career, Net Worth, Family

Scarlett (born Sasha Hostyn on December 14, 1993, in Kingston, Ontario) is a 32-year-old Canadian professional StarCraft II player, nicknamed the Queen of Blades, and the first woman to win a major StarCraft II tournament, taking IEM Pyeongchang in 2018. She plays Zerg for Shopify Rebellion, holds a Guinness World Record as the highest-earning female competitive gamer, has won $484,124 in prize money, and has a net worth of $500,000. As of November 1, 2026, she is in the news for winning the Douyu Cup 2026 in June, her first StarCraft II championship in more than five years.

Scarlett Quick Facts

Why Is Scarlett Trending in 2026?

The reason is her comeback. On June 28, 2026, she won the Douyu Cup 2026, beating Neeb, soO, and Kelazhur on the way to a 4-2 final win over Oliveira. It was her first StarCraft II title in more than five years, and Shopify Rebellion made it the lead story in its June digest. The year also had a sour note for the StarCraft community: the 2026 Esports World Cup dropped StarCraft II from its lineup, which meant no real-time strategy game at all, and fans and creators criticized the decision.

Scarlett Early Life

Sasha Hostyn grew up in Kingston, a city of about 120,000 people in Ontario, in what her family describes as a progressive household. She uses her mother’s last name, and her older brother, Sean, uses their father’s. The kids called their parents by their first names, and the family followed what their parents call “unbundled parenting,” which meant they didn’t expect their children to follow a traditional path. Her father once compared her pro gaming career to a young person backpacking for two years after high school.

Games were part of the family’s routine from the start. Game nights in the kitchen meant Magic: The Gathering and board games like Carcassonne, and Sasha won so often that everyone else competed for second place. Her parents set clear rules on computer time, first half an hour a day and later an hour, and shooters were off limits, though she sometimes played them in secret while they were out. Her dad installed StarCraft on the family computer, and she was hooked. She and Sean also made Warcraft III maps online, under the names Bobo_The_Kodo and PurplePoot.

In junior high, a teacher recommended she try math competitions, which was news to her mother, who hadn’t realized how analytical her daughter was. She started playing StarCraft II in April 2011, and her first competitive wins came that autumn in an online women’s league called the NESL Iron Lady, which she won twice in a row.

Scarlett Family

Scarlett’s father, Rob Harrap, is a geology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston. Her mother, Joyce Hostyn, has worked in public radio, politics, and software design, spent more than 20 years in enterprise software, and is now a designer and adjunct professor at Queen’s University. Her older brother, Sean, studied math and computer science, and played Warcraft III with her as a kid. The family has stayed close through her career, and her parents have said they were never worried that she was wasting time on games.

Scarlett Education

Scarlett went to school in Kingston, where her junior high teacher encouraged her to enter math competitions. She turned professional as a teenager and focused on StarCraft II full time from 2012.

Scarlett Career

The Beginning (2011 to 2012)

After winning the Iron Lady league, Scarlett took the Playhem “Sponsor Me!” tournament in March 2012, an event for amateur players without a team, and the prize was a sponsored trip to IGN ProLeague Season 4 in Las Vegas. She arrived as an unknown, and then pulled off upsets over notable players including Terius and DdoRo before losing to Golden. In April, the French team Eclypsia signed her, and in June she joined Team Acer, which would be her team for almost four years.

That summer, she won WCS Canada with a game record of 12-1, defeating Ostojiy in the final, which earned her $6,000 and a spot at the North American Championship. On August 24, 2012, she won that title too, beating Vibe 2-0 in the final for $24,000 and a place at the world championship in Shanghai.

Becoming the Best Foreigner (2013 to 2014)

In January 2013, she moved into the Axiom team house in Seoul as part of the Axiom-Acer team and made her GSTL debut, where she became the first woman to beat a male opponent on GOMTV after defeating Mvp with a Baneling bust and Infested Terrans used as bait for his Widow Mines. She stayed in Korea until August and played in the WCS Season 2 Finals in Cologne, where she reached the quarterfinals before losing a five-game series to Bomber.

Her rivalry with Bomber became one of the most memorable of the year. In November, she beat him at Red Bull Battle Grounds in New York City in a game that Day9 called the best professional StarCraft II game ever played, finishing third. She then reached the quarterfinals at IEM Singapore and, in December, the final of ASUS ROG NorthCon, where she lost to Jaedong. By the end of 2013, she was ranked 21st in the world.

In 2014, she won Red Bull Battle Grounds North America, placed fourth at MLG Anaheim, where she became famous for beating DongRaeGu with an off-raced Protoss, and finished third to fourth at HomeStory Cup IX. By then she had won more than $110,000, and The New Yorker called her the most accomplished woman in esports.

A Break and a Return (2015 to 2017)

In January 2015, she hinted that WCS might be her last tournament, saying she’d lost some of her competitive drive, and in February she announced a move to Dota 2, joking that if she could be good at both, it would be something nobody had done before. She was back in StarCraft II by June 2015 with Dead Pixels, then joined Team Expert (later Tollenz Lions) in August 2016.

That fall she won the WESG 2016 North and South America qualifier for $12,058, and on October 5, 2016, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized her as the highest-earning female competitive video game player. In 2016, she also beat a team of Koreans while representing Canada at Nations War. In 2017, she began casting, working as a caster and analyst through 2018.

IEM Pyeongchang and Olympic History (2018)

Her biggest victory came in February 2018. At IEM Season XII in Pyeongchang, South Korea, held in the week before the Winter Olympics in the same city, she beat Cham in the play-in, then defeated TIME, Serral, and Elazer, and in the final she beat two-time WCS Global champion sOs 4-1. She became the first woman to win a premier StarCraft II tournament, the first champion of an esports tournament supported by the International Olympic Committee, and only the third foreigner to win a premier StarCraft tournament in Korea. The prize was $50,000.

Less than a week later, she became the first woman to reach the quarterfinals of GSL Season 1 2018, after beating Zest and INnoVation to win her group, and she is also the non-Korean with the most GSL Code S appearances at ten. In November 2018, she joined Newbee in China.

China, Brood War, and Shopify Rebellion (2018 to 2023)

She won the NeXT 2019 Spring tournament and finished second at several other events, and in April 2020, she moved to Brave Star Gaming, where she began competing in StarCraft: Remastered showmatches in July 2020, playing Protoss, and reached the top rank on the Brood War ladder within two months. Back in StarCraft II, she won DreamHack SC2 Masters 2020 Fall North America for $8,600 and DreamHack SC2 Masters 2021 Winter North America for $6,850.

On February 19, 2021, she joined Shopify Rebellion, the Canadian esports organization that Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke started, beginning with its StarCraft II team alongside ByuN. She was a runner-up at ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer for $5,000, and between 2020 and 2023 she also worked as a caster.

2026: The Comeback

Her 2026 began quietly. She placed 20th at Rongyi Cup S3 in January, 13th at the LiuLi Cup 2025 Grand Finals in February, and fourth at Basilisk Big Brain Bouts #112 in April. Then in June, she won the Douyu Cup 2026, beating Neeb, soO, and Kelazhur before taking the final 4-2 over Oliveira, and in July she reached the group stage of RSL Revival Season 6, finishing ninth.

Scarlett Major Results

Scarlett Records and Honors

Scarlett Play Style

Scarlett is known for creep spread, which she uses to cover the map with vision and pressure opponents long before the decisive fight. She favors Zerglings, Banelings, and Mutalisks, but she is also strong with Infestors, Brood Lords, Ultralisks, and Swarm Hosts, and she was one of the first to use Infested Terrans to bait Widow Mine hits. She is also known for occasionally off-racing, as with her Protoss win over DongRaeGu at MLG Anaheim, which earned her the nickname Queen of Psi Blades. ZvT is her best matchup, and her toughest opponent is PartinG.

Scarlett and Representation in Esports

Scarlett is a transgender woman, and she has said her gender identity has “absolutely no relevance” to how she plays and that she has always tried to make it a non-issue. Her results spoke for themselves, but they also made her one of the most visible trans athletes in esports, and her wins in Korea, where the scene was dominated by male players, helped change how many fans think about who can compete at the top. She still deals with criticism online, but she says she prefers to be known for her play.

Scarlett Relationship

Scarlett is unmarried and keeps her private life out of the public eye. She has focused on her career since her teens, and she rarely talks about relationships in interviews.

Scarlett Net Worth

Scarlett’s net worth is $500,000, built mostly on StarCraft II prize money, which totals $484,124 across nearly 300 tournaments and makes her the highest-earning female player in the game’s history. The biggest single payday was $50,000 for IEM Pyeongchang in 2018, followed by $24,000 for the 2012 WCS North America title, $12,058 for the WESG 2016 qualifier, and $10,000 for WESG 2018.

Her prize income in recent years averages about $15,000 a year, or $1,250 a month, and in 2026 it has been $4,170 so far. That is far below the peak of 2018, when she earned more than $100,000. Her other income comes from a team salary with Shopify Rebellion, which she has had since 2021, earlier contracts with Acer, Tollenz Lions, and Newbee, Twitch streaming as a partnered streamer, and casting work, which she did from 2017 to 2018 and from 2020 to 2023.

Scarlett Social Media

10 Interesting Facts About Scarlett

1. She grew up in Kingston, Ontario, where her father teaches geology at Queen’s University.
2. She started playing StarCraft II in April 2011 and won an online women’s league twice in a row that autumn.
3. She won both the WCS Canada and North American titles in 2012, earning $30,000.
4. She was the first woman to beat a male opponent on Korean TV in StarCraft II.
5. Day9 called her 2013 win over Bomber the best professional StarCraft II game ever.
6. A GOMTV camera once caught her eating corn on the cob on the team bench, which became a fan favorite.
7. She won IEM Pyeongchang in 2018, the first esports event supported by the International Olympic Committee.
8. Guinness recognized her in 2016 as the highest-earning female competitive video gamer.
9. She has ten GSL Code S appearances, the most for any non-Korean.
10. She dislikes playing against Protoss so much that she used the ID TossImba at one tournament, but she plays Protoss in StarCraft: Brood War.

Scarlett Recent News

As of November 1, 2026, her biggest recent result is the Douyu Cup 2026 title on June 28, her first StarCraft II championship in over five years. She followed it with a ninth-place finish at RSL Revival Season 6 in July. StarCraft II was left out of the 2026 Esports World Cup, which sparked criticism from fans, and Scarlett continues to compete for Shopify Rebellion in online events.

Scarlett FAQs

What is Scarlett’s real name?
Sasha Hostyn.

How old is Scarlett?
She was born on December 14, 1993, so she is 32 in 2026.

Where is Scarlett from?
Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Which team does Scarlett play for?
Shopify Rebellion, since February 2021.

What is Scarlett’s biggest win?
IEM Season XII Pyeongchang in 2018, which made her the first woman to win a major StarCraft II tournament.

What is Scarlett’s net worth?
$500,000.

How much prize money has Scarlett won?
$484,124.

Who are Scarlett’s parents?
Rob Harrap, a geology professor, and Joyce Hostyn, a designer, both at Queen’s University.

What race does Scarlett play?
Zerg in StarCraft II, and Protoss in Brood War.