Tyler “Ninja” Blevins was the leading streamer on Twitch in 2018. At the peak of his Fortnite streaming, over 600,000 people watched him. By 2021, the former shooter star is playing League of Legends and his performance has been mixed. The taboo of “I no longer flame” is also over.
How big was Ninja at the height of his career? Tyler “Ninja” Blevins came from Halo and H1Z1 when he discovered “Fortnite: Battle Royale” as one of the first Twitch streamers in September 2017. 2018 became his year on Twitch, and he set records that were previously unthinkable:
- In 2018, an average of 77,719 people watched him
- At his peak, he reached 617,767 concurrent viewers during the legendary stream with Drake
- During that time, he also set the record for the most subs, paid subscriptions, with 269,154 – the Twitch record held for 3 years until it was broken in 2021
- Ninja climbed to unprecedented heights with followers – even today, he stands alone at the top of Twitch with over 16 million followers
- Later, he revealed: In the year 2018 he made “around 10 million US dollars”
This is how he achieved it: Right at the beginning of Fortnite, Ninja was a dominant shooter player who could dominate the lobbies against “normal opponents.” He also played with various other streamers who became part of his crew, such as TimTheTatman, CourageJD, or DrLupo.
When his brother, a teacher, pointed out to the well-known flamer that he was a role model for the young viewers of Fortnite, he restrained his outbursts and made an effort to use “youth-friendly language.” This may have also helped him land some advertising deals, such as with adidas. Because now Ninja was considered “brandsafe.”
Ninja was also incredibly ambitious, grinding every day and making many deals to become even more present. Highlights of that time included collaborating with rapper Drake. He even made the cover of the sports magazine ESPN.
At that time, Ninja dreamed of being the “number 1 gamer.” He wanted to be untouchable just like David Beckham.
How is Ninja doing today: After a lucrative but rather unsatisfactory stint on Mixer, Ninja is back on Twitch. Recently, he has focused more on League of Legends:
- Today he has an average of 11,361 viewers – about one-seventh of his previous numbers
- Even at his absolute peak, he reached only 28,453 in the last 30 days – that’s 21 times less than in 2018
- With his average viewership, he is not the number 1 in LoL, but about 3 times smaller than Tyler1, the biggest LoL streamer
Ragequits and Flames – Ninja in the LoL Spiral
Is he as dominant in LoL as he was in Fortnite? No, not even close. Ninja is a trained shooter player and streamer, not an esports player. He could not keep up with the young pros later in Fortnite either.
If things are not going well today, it can also lead to the famous “Rage Quit” in LoL:
In LoL, he is a decent player in the “upper midfield” and plays in the Platinum range. This puts him among the top 10% of players. The top streamers on Twitch, however, are in the Master and Grandmaster ranges, the upper 0.1% or 0.03% of the player base.
And what about the no curses rule? That has also relaxed a bit. League of Legends is considered extremely toxic, and even Ninja gets caught up in it from time to time.
Here you can see how Ninja types angrily in chat about how stupid a teammate is and reads it out loud: the other is “fucking stupid” – “horrible” – “should finally stop playing LoL.”
It looks like the top Fortnite star is now a pretty typical LoL streamer.
Let’s see how Ninja continues on Twitch. At the moment, he apparently is not playing what is “trending” or “what is expected of him,” but what he enjoys. And that right now is LoL.
Because of the money, Ninja probably never has to work again. From everything we know, he has greatly benefited from the end of Mixer.
While Ninja and shroud are cashing in, small Mixer streamers are completely done.
