Thomas “Sodapoppin” Chance is one of the biggest Twitch streamers in the world. In 2023, he was honored as MMORPG Streamer of the Year. He actually comes from games like World of Warcraft. As an experiment, he has now played League of Legends and achieved Gold rank. He explains how he perceives LoL as a newcomer.
What does he say? Sodapoppin says that when he reached Gold rank, he was ranked higher than about 40% of LoL players:
- LoL is an absolutely terrible game for any newbie. It is just damn awful. Being new to LoL is “Intolerable”.
- LoL players are unable to even remotely understand that someone may not know every single champ in the game in detail. They cannot comprehend that someone is truly new because everyone else has been playing LoL for 15 years and is on their “eighty-second” account.
- No one in LoL is new. Everyone is a smurf. He’s not exaggerating; that’s just how it is: It’s crazy.
Life is tough as a mummy in LoL or as a new player:
What particularly annoys him? As a streamer, LoL is particularly unbearable because you still have a stream sniper in every other game:
“Why are Europeans in my game? What are they doing here? It’s so dumb.”
Sodapoppin curses: LoL at low ELO is therapy for people who are extremely insecure and total losers in real life.
Not a game for new people
What’s behind it: Sodapoppin struggles with the problem of “smurfing”, which is when experienced LoL players create or acquire a new account to play at a lower level than intended by the game.
In fact, LoL’s matchmaking is intended to be fair in the MOBA. Each player should theoretically compete against equally strong opponents and play alongside equally strong teammates. The result should be that one wins about half of the games and loses half:
- However, those who smurf bypass this matchmaking; they will get easy opponents, win a lot, and feel good. Teammates might be happy to have such a strong team member.
- Those who play honestly become victims, face much too tough opponents, lose constantly, and are flamed by their teammates.
Even smurfs are annoyed by smurfs
This is a phenomenon that is indeed significant in LoL. The German Twitch streamer NoWay, himself a player at the highest level, recently leveled three new accounts from 0 during a challenge.
He was a “smurf” himself, playing against much worse opponents, but noticed that he was constantly encountering other smurfs who were far too good to play at the level he was mistakenly competing at.
So what Sodapoppin says is an experience that a new player in LoL has: The game seems terrible because you are not playing against other newcomers who are still learning LoL, but instead against extremely experienced players who set far too high expectations on their teammates. We present you a player who took revenge on smurfs here: A 66-year-old grandpa becomes a legend in LoL and a nightmare for Riot Games
