MenaRD, Craime, Zubair and Tasty Steve Nominated for Esports Awards

The annual Esports Awards nominees are now out. These are awards that celebrate the very best of what esports has to offer.

As expected, there are several categories, and the FGC, which forms only a small part of the larger esports ecosystem, didn’t have too much representation. That said, there were some standouts.

For the category of Esports Controller Player of the Year, there were two nominees from the FGC in MenaRD and Arslan Ash. This category recognizes outstanding players who compete with a controller or other peripheral that isn’t the more dominant keyboard-and-mouse setup of many esports titles. This also covers things like fightsticks and leverless controllers.

Interestingly, Xiao Hai is the reigning Controller Player of the Year, having won the award at the last ceremony.

The other notable names from the FGC that were nominated for awards are Craime, Zubair, and Tasty Steve. Craime and Zubair were nominated for Breakthrough Player of the Year after an incredible season that culminated in huge wins at the Esports World Cup for Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8, respectively.

For Tasty Steve, he was nominated for Play-by-Play Caster of the Year after another stellar year of calling games and bringing the excitement.

MenaRD has personally called on the community to vote for him to win what would be a first award victory for him in his career so far.

He posted on X saying:

“Check this out, every year im nominated to awards but never win, would love to break the curse.

“This year:

EVO 2026 🏆
Topanga Championship 7 🏆
Blink Respawn 2026 🏆
EWC Finals 🏅

“I will be focusing on the SFL Japan league, so my season is over, but this one was special.”

Craime has also called for support in hopes of also getting a win.

Voting is open until the 10th of November 2026, with the ceremony set for a week later on the 17th of November.

Craime has also called for support in hopes of also getting a win.

Voting is open until the 10th of November 2026, with the ceremony set for a week later on the 17th of November.