Polymarket deleted their tweet because they wanted to stop the backlash they were getting for it. I won’t let them. Prediction markets, and polymarket specifically are disgusting sites who only exist because enough people lose money on them that it keeps them running. The normalization of this website, especially within the League of Legends community, is one of the most alarming things that has happened in recent years. League creators are getting paid hundreds, if not thousands per quote tweet, as well as 5 figure monthly salaries to promote them on stream and it’s at a point now where this is just accepted. It shouldn’t be. Prediction markets, gambling websites, and sports betting sites are willing to shill tens of thousands of dollars to content creators because they know the viewers of said creator will lose infinitely more than they pay for the sponsor. How can this be okay? Money, especially in this economy, is hard to come by. But throwing your viewers and the people who support you under the bus because you want to make a few thousand extra every month should inspire criticism, not acceptance. Fuck Polymarket, and fuck the people who run the account for trying to use mine and my wife’s pregnancy announcement for their own benefit and everyone else’s demise. cer.econ.columbia.edu/news/u… scu.edu/ethics-spotlight/the… science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…

When we got married I promised my wife she’d always be the person I’d love most… I didn’t think I’d break my promise less than a year later. I’m going to be a dad.

This last weekend has definitely been one of the highlights of my streaming career. Eternally grateful for the opportunity to have competed for Canada, even more grateful that I got to do it alongside new (and old) friends.

Over the last few years scientists have conducted thousands of experiments; Today I’m testing something out that none of them have before.. Seeing what happens to the human brain after 24 hours straight of League of Legends solo queue. Right now, I’m 1100 LP. If I don’t make it past my peak (1414 LP) by the end of the 24 hours, I have to bring a blowup pool in my room and bathe myself in baby oil. If I do make it past my peak in that timeframe, I get nothing. Let’s see what happens.

In 2 days I’m flying to Florida. In 3 days, the most insane League of Legends marathon ever will begin. Me and Jynxzi, live 24/7 with a stream that can’t end until he hits silver. Get ready for Peak.

For years, I've used my Autism to further my career. Today, I'm using it to save League of Legends. It took me 4 hours to make this post. Please, take 10 minutes to read it in its entirety and voice support if you agree with any of it. It's not just for me, it's for all of us. In this post I detail the 3 main situations that Riot has presented as problems within the Ranked system, as well as their proposed solutions. I then offer what I believe to be the best solution for all parties involved, while giving supporting arguments to further all my claims. This post is structured with the detailing of 3 core situational problems, insight into smurfing, insight into the ladder reset, and then ending off with how everything could be fixed in the next 39 days and cement Season 16 as one of the greatest seasons for the ranked playerbase in the last decade. Let's begin. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SITUATION #1: Masters being more achievable this Season & the best players getting stronger as the years go on is expanding the gap between the bottom of Master and the top of Challenger. Us making climbing at apex less daunting caused us to add Grandmaster several years ago and we’re nearing some of those feels now; the skill gaps in Apex are getting too big. Changes to systems like these [the Master+ system] are a natural part of League being a long-lived game and having growing player skills over time. Riot-Proposed Solution: In an effort to better differentiate between skill levels, allow LP numbers to become potentially unlimited so the higher-end skill levels among Master and Challenger players is more visible and better represented. Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution: - Grinding Master and Challenger now feels unrewarding and unattainable. Players who get into Masters on +/-20 LP gains will not want to make the grind all the way to 1500 LP just to hit Grandmaster (75 net wins, which is essentially the same as going from Iron 4 0 LP to Platinum 4 0 LP) and players who hit Challenger will not want to grind all the way to Rank 1 on even gains since, again, they will have to get upwards of 100 (or more) net wins. - Smurfing becomes worse. When confronted with a number as vast as what's going to be commonplace in terms of LP requirements, instead of playing on accounts with even gains; players will instead opt to smurf since there's the potential of getting an account with better gains playing in higher MMR lobbies to make the climbing process easier to process. To understand fully and properly, see the UNDERSTANDING SMURFING sidenote after Situation #3. Ideal solution #1: Add a new (4-tier) rank in between Diamond and Masters and (potentially) remove Grandmaster. This change properly addresses the situation without having the same issues as the proposed solution because; - Climbing at Apex will not feel daunting since LP cutoffs can even go as low as 1000 LP for Rank 1 and still maintain skill discrepancy since all the players that WOULD be Grandmaster are instead Masters and all the players that WOULD be Masters are instead in the new rank that's been introduced. - Players will not feel 'cheated' out of getting demoted out of Masters since the new Rank is essentially taking the place of Masters and Masters is now essentially Grandmaster. - The prestige of being Masters and viewing it as a true Apex tier due to lower player-count finally returns. Smurfing gets DEINCENTIVIZED rather than INCENTIVIZED because the climb for Masters and Challengers feels like it's truly attainable and the actual ranking process of getting into the higher elos takes longer. It's important to note, however, that this could have been done in the past by Riot when Emerald was introduced, but the execution was improperly handled and as a result didn't change anything. To elaborate, back in the day Apex players would start, at the highest, Platinum 1. When Emerald was introduced most people were led to believe that this would still be the case which would have resulted in significant elo DEFLATION among the Apex tiers since all the Diamond level players would now start in Platinum and would have to climb a LOT to make it back to Masters. By allowing everyone to start in Emerald 1, this elo deflation did not occur. For this solution to properly do its job, players MUST still maintain an Emerald 1 start [at the highest MMR end] so that the vetting process can properly occur. Ideal solution #2: Add promotional series BACK to Diamond+ SoloQueue. To preface, this does NOT NEED to happen; but one of the issues right now is that there is such an LP spread among Master+ players that adding promotional series BACK to Diamond (as well as the new rank) can add 9 net wins to promotion between tiers (assuming +/-20) while also making the ranks seem more competitive and exclusive since the rules become different. A popup can be given upon first time promotion into Diamond explaining the system changes while also being done in a way that EXCITES the player (e,g. Congratulations on promoting! Since you're now approaching TOP-LEVEL competition, we're making things even MORE competitive so you can really test yourself!) --------------- SITUATION #2: The addition of Challenger duos made it more challenging to balance some of these games. While we took pre-emptive mitigations to reduce the impact of things like Rank 1 & 2 duoing together, they weren’t powerful enough and resulted in the best players catapulting further ahead. Riot-Proposed Solution: In an effort to make things more competitive, potentially look into the limiting of duos between the highest ranked players while also uncapping the LP soft-cap so that players who did play Solo are still able to make progress. Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution: - Does not address the issue that already took place (i.e players ALREADY catapulting ahead) - Does not give an actual timeframe on when this limiting will take place, allowing for further abuse to take place. - Restricting RANKS from duoing with each other (i.e Rank 1 with Rank 10) does not prevent the Rank 10 player from playing on a Grandmaster account and duoing with the Rank 1. - Uncapping the LP cap leads to a whole other slew of problems which are detailed in Situation #1 Ideal solution: Resetting the ladder and making it so that upon reaching APEX ranks, duoing becomes limited to a percentage basis of games played. This change properly addresses the situation without having the same issues as the proposed solution because; - Players who were catapulted through duoing are now reset to 0, allowing for a fair playing field for everyone. - Players will NOT be able to catapult themselves in the future. This is a 2 part solution, and as a result I will give 2 different paragraphs explaining the necessity of both changes. SOLUTION #1: RESETTING THE LADDER - Explained further in depth later in this post SOLUTION #2: Duo Restrictions - The only way to properly allow for duoing in high elo is if it's limited. This is how the sliding scale should work; Masters: 75% GrandMaster: 50% Challenger: 30% Top 200: 20% Top 100: 10% To preface, the numbers can be adjusted. This would allow for duoing to STILL be possible in high elo and allow for players to have fun, while also making it so it cannot be abused. It's important to note, however, that restrictions should be made AT CUTOFFS rather than at RANKS or else people will use this to their advantage in an effort to camp 1 win below a certain threshold one day, then spend the entire next day abusing the lower threshold and duoing more than they should until the ladder updates. --------------- SITUATION #3: In the Live Ranked system, the max LP attainable has a soft cap to prevent LP gains from getting too high, which combined with the above issues has led to a less than ideal apex ladder experience. We might also reconsider the top end of how much LP you can gain per win, but need to be considerate of how much this incentivizes smurfing. Riot-Proposed Solution: Uncapping LP gain for high-end players in an effort to make the grind feel more rewarding for people in Challenger and top 10. Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution: - Delegitimizes an entire decade of 'lp quotas' and sends the entire ladder into disarray as to what's considered good and what's not (it's important to note that this has ALREADY been the case this season, but now it's tenfold worse) - Encourages smurfing since players at 1400 LP will only see an LP gain of +23 and as a result will go new account to hopefully get +30 in Challenger so they can compete with current Rank 1s who are already getting +30 at 2500 LP. - Doesn't actually make the grind feel more rewarding since now LP is just a number that is going up rather than a benchmark of success. To explain, in the past people used to view 1k LP players as insane and 2k LP players as god-level. Nowadays, 1k LP isn't even Challenger and 2k is becoming commonplace. This is actually REMOVING incentive from players to grind since previously respected and sought-after benchmarks aren't even present anymore. Ideal solution: Static gains across the board, with there being a bell curve amongst the top 10 players. In Apex tiers, MMR should cease to exist. Once you achieve Masters, the LP curve should look like this; Master: +20/-20 Grandmaster: +18/-20 Challenger: +16/-20 Top 100: +14/-20 Top 10: +12/-20 Rank 1: +10/-20 The real reason behind why high elo players have been smurfing this season is based upon 2 lines of reasoning, -30 feels awful, and people just want high MMR accounts (explained later in UNDERSTANDING SMURFING). By making gains static you not only deincentivize smurfing since people cannot get high MMR accounts anymore, but you also make it so that the losses don't feel AS bad since it's only -20. A baseline of -30 is just unsustainable for the game long-term because of how huge that number really is. This also fixes the issue of people complaining about matchmaking since now MMR won't even necessarily be a factor inside of it which makes it so that players end up feeling a lot better about game quality too (even though no changes actually happen to matchmaking). Needless to say, the only way to fix the third point is a ladder reset (explained later). New benchmarks will not present themselves because nobody even know what is or isn't good anymore and one year is not ample enough time to do so. In previous seasons boundaries and limits were pushed slightly every year to make it so that people could have generalized ideas of skill based upon LP. This season has completely unwound an entire decade of progression, the only fix is a reset. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank you for making it this far. Now, it's time for us to talk about two concepts. The first, smurfing. And the second, the Ladder Reset. Let's start with Smurfing. People do not enjoy smurfing. Contrary to popular belief, most people actually resent it. The idea of going on a new account and stomping 50 games in a row is just not something that people care about anymore. There's a reason why high winrate accounts don't get many impressions anymore on Twitter. The only reason why Master+ players do it typically falls into one of 4 categories; - Practicing new roles/champions - Getting banned - Master players trying to get high MMR to climb to GM - Challenger players trying to get high MMR to climb to Rank 1 The vast majority of smurfs that you will find in your games is apart of one of the last 2 points. Even among lower elos Diamond players will smurf to hit Masters, Emerald players will smurf to hit Diamond, and so on. By removing the concept of MMR while maintaining the ranking system you're able to actually reduce (I would assume) over 50% of smurfing cases if not even upwards of 75%. Players want to play in the highest elo they can, and the reason why they smurf is because they believe that getting an account with better LP gains is their ticket out of whatever rank they're stuck in. Removing this option removes all incentive. --- I saved this part for last because it's by far the most important. The Ladder Reset. As things are right now, it's only getting worse. 2500 LP players are gaining 30 per game, with players around the middle (700-1500 LP) gaining 22-23. If you're somebody who wants to grind for top 10 or Rank 1, which believe it or not is most of the high elo playerbase, you will not even want to try competing with players like GeneralSniper who are gaining more LP than you with double the amount that you have. Instead, you're going to smurf in the hopes that you can get an account with +30 to be on the same playing field. And this is why I wanted to structure my post in the way I did. There are many solutions that have been proposed, so let me just take a second to tell you what I would do if I were in your position, Riot. There are 39 days until 'Season 1' ends. With the exception of adding in an entirely new rank, every other change can be done within that timeframe. If there's one thing I've learned in my life as a content creator it's that it doesn't matter what you do, it's about how you present it. The same is true for everything. I know you're worried that some players will end up feeling demotivated at being reset, but I can promise you that the alternative is things will only get worse. Smurfing will become worse, player perception will become worse, communication lines will weaken, and overall trust among the playerbase towards you will completely fall. You have the opportunity right now to be heroes. Genuinely. Let me tell you how I would do it. Work together with the team in charge of the client and the overall seasonal progression. We're in the Demacia season, right? Demacia vs Noxus is a war. So play into that. Have popups appear over the course of the next few weeks talking about how something big is coming in the Apex tiers. Get people excited. Make Master+ players want to grind hard, and make lower elo players strive to also rankup so they can take part in whatever the event is. Then, when the new season starts, say (something along the lines of) the great battle is taking place. Master+ players can choose to be either Noxus or Demacia, and once they make their selection their ranks get reset. To prevent abuse of people just playing on new accounts and constantly smurfing once the season begins, make it so you can ONLY be a contender if you've reach Master+ in Split 1. In the client, you can view the players that are apart of both factions and see which ones are competing for which side, with a tab showing how the battle is faring (think similar to the pool party event you had years ago with the Mundo skin). And then, after 4 weeks, the event ends, with the side that gained more LP in Master+ taking the trophy. Players get some kind of in-game reward who participated based on if they were on the winning side and how far up in the ladder they made it and you can even have low elo players choose which side they want to support (even if they're not apart of the actual battle) with maybe an icon that can have a prestige edition for the winners. You would fix high elo. You would reinstill a sense of community. You would play into the seasonal hype and make everyone excited You would avoid (almost all) the backlash from the people who are getting reset. And you would save the game. Just remember that for many of us this isn't just a game. For me, it's my life. I had trouble sleeping last night, I didn't really feel like getting out of bed this morning, And I spent 4 hours this morning typing up this tweet. And it's not out of hate, or malice, or anything negative. It's out of love. So please, for not just me, but for all of us who love this game and just want to feel excited playing it daily, I'm begging you to hear me out. Thank you for reading.

I wanted to take accountability for what happened and what I tweeted yesterday. Please watch this video, I hope you can forgive me.

Seeing looksmaxxing become a mainstream talking point after initially discovering it years ago on incel/blackpill subreddits and forums actually feels surreal. Genuine advice for all the men that follow me, please read this post before buying into any of it. It could genuinely save your life. Put yourself in my shoes for a minute; At 16 years old you have no dating experience whatsoever. One day, you stumble upon a YouTube video taking about inceldom and although you find the idea of it so absurd, it’s presented in such an entertaining way that you can’t stop watching. After the video ends, you search up the term online to find more resources on the matter and in doing so, become obsessed with redpill, blackpill, and incel subreddits for months. Eventually the posts stop being purely entertainment for you, and you resonate with some of what’s being said. Months pass. At 17 you think no one will ever love you for being you, so as a result you dedicate your everything, for years, to being the kind of person that can experience that love; You workout every day, You work hard towards the actualization of your career every day, And with everyone you meet, you try to put yourself in their mind to figure out how to best approach situations in order to better their idea of you. Along the way, every negative experience and heartbreak only reinforces the ideas that were present in your mind, pushing you further down the rabbit hole. And then, years later, when you finally end up ‘making it’ you doubt the intentions of every single person you ever meet because you hate the very idea of them liking you now because they would’ve never liked you back then. Paranoia and anxiety don’t become traits that you possess, they become the very center of your being. Your entire existence takes on a grey undertone so severe that you become even less the person you once were in such a way that you isolate yourself completely from who you are at your core. You separate yourself from your hobbies, Your interests, Your family, And your friends; And in walking this path that makes you feel worse the further along you trudge across it, you believe that the only way forward is forward. At 21, things hit a peak. After years of struggling and finally making it to the top of your industry you turn the cameras off and, while living out your literal childhood dream, feel nothing but hollowness as you drift off to sleep every night. You realize that after years of being hurt, you’ve slowly turned into someone who also hurts others and, while hating it, feeling enough comfort in it that you continue down that path. At 22, in an ultimate act of mental instability and foolishness you break things off with the only person you ever felt true comfort with because your mind convinces you that you’re undeserving of what you found and must rededicate yourself because maybe, just maybe, if you push yourself further you’ll feel deserving of love. And then at 23, after she decides to work together with you and help you realize just how problematic your mindset has become for not only yourself, but all those you love, you finally go to therapy. You spend months there, restrengthen the bond you had with your girlfriend, start dating again, propose, and get married. And then, at almost 24, you feel more at peace than you ever have before after having not only found acceptance for yourself, but also committed yourself towards working on the negative traits in your personality that actually need to be fixed. This entire concept is a trap that strings some people along for not only years, but decades at a time. What’s the point of having all the knowledge in the world if the only thing it does is make you hate your existence inside of it? Ironically, most people that end up getting into this rabbit hole only do so because they believe they’ll never be able to find someone who loves and accepts them for being them, and as a result they stray so far from who they are at their core that they end up turning their biggest fear into their most likely reality. Yes, the dating pool is hard nowadays. Yes, social media has warped peoples perceptions of what is ‘normal’. Yes, there IS a male loneliness epidemic. But, as someone that for years went down that rabbit hole, no matter how much research you do, how attractive you become, or how many people you sleep with, no amount of looksmaxxing or red pilling will ever make you happy. You’ll render yourself somewhat immune to the hurt that you’ll experience throughout your life, but in doing so you’ll not only limit the amount of comfort and happiness that you’d regularly be able to feel with your partner, but you’ll also inevitably end up hurting genuine people in the process as well. You’ll become so obsessed with the idea of what people’s idea of you is that you cease to even exist in your own mind. Your personality won’t be a unique blend so in tune with who you are that you can cultivate a close circle of those that genuinely like and appreciate you for being you, and will rather end up becoming a cardboard cutout that while being able to appeal to more people, will only ever bring you surface level relationships that either never last or never go beyond the surface-level. As much as I wish it weren’t the case, the only way to truly ‘ascend’ is to become okay with the idea of being hurt; Being rejected, Being heartbroken, Being mentally shattered for months, And being willing to give all of you, once again, to the next person you believe whose intentions will be true. That’s not to say you shouldn’t self-improve, however. Working on your career, your physique, your hobbies, and yourself is, and will always be, admirable. But turning your entire way of being into that of someone who just wants the approval of others and the confidence boost that comes with it can only ever end disastrously. Always remain true to who you are.

Seeing the positive response on my tweet yesterday brought me genuine joy. There’s something that needs to be clarified, though; My primary motivator for years was my insecurity. I worked out because I wanted to look better than everyone, I grinded league because I wanted to be better than everyone, And I grinded streaming because I wanted to be more popular than everyone. And while, for years, this did wonders on how much I was able to succeed, the truth is that I was left with a permanent impostor syndrome that made me feel like none of my successes were ever truly mine. It felt like I was merely a video game character being incessantly upgraded. Oftentimes, I’d spend hours at a time just gazing into my own reflection, asking myself who I really am and praying that I’d find the answer somewhere deep within my soul, thinking that my eyes would be the pathway to take me there. And this, unfortunately, is the place where many of you also get lost. You read everything I’ve written thus far and rather than treating it as the cautionary tale it is, you pose a question that renders everything meaningless. “But Dantes, you made it. It’s easy for you to say ‘just dont act this way’ when you don’t have to anymore. What about those of us that haven’t?” Let me explain something to you. The underlying reasoning behind why you do something will not only completely warp your character, but also determine whether or not you’re setup for long-term success. Everything that I’ve worked towards could’ve been worked on with the same fervor, but for completely different reasons. - Rather than working out to impress girls and be more aesthetic than other men, I could’ve done it to challenge myself to hit new heights within my own body. - Rather than grinding league to be higher elo than everyone else, I could’ve done it to see just how far I could take my own hard work in an area that I knew I wasn’t very naturally gifted in. - Rather than grinding streaming to be more popular than everyone, I could’ve done it to see just how many people could resonate with me and be entertained by my personality. That’s not to say that these factors weren’t at all present, in no small part they actually were; But they were not my primary motivators. And today, I’m paying the price for it. After being able to experience genuine comfort and happiness within my marriage and my relationship leading up to it, I felt no urge to push myself. For years now , as a result, my physique, rank, and position within the streaming scene have all either plateaued, stagnated, or dropped off. So, what does this mean? It means that a man who makes it the way I did is confronted with two options; The first is to deny yourself the right of happiness. To keep yourself incessantly insecure, hurting all those around you who try to get close including yourself so you can achieve enough material wealth until the day comes where you feel like you’re ‘set’ enough to finally heal. The second is to reforge your mind. To completely revamp and rework the way you view yourself, your surroundings, and your goals in a way that allows you to experience the happiness you deserve to experience and still striving for more. When I was a lesser man, I’d choose the first option. 18 months ago, I chose the second. It was one of the hardest choices I ever had to make that even to this day I still struggle to put into practice, but I know that when the day comes that I am able to fully recalibrate I’m set for a remaining lifetime of both success and happiness. It is not admirable, nor should it even be acceptable to believe that suffering should be a daily constant in the life of someone who just wants to do better. You do not deserve to feel let down by those you love. You do not deserve to feel like a stranger in your own mind. You do not deserve to feel lonely in a room full of people who care about you. None of these feelings should be admired. You do not deserve to hurt. Funnily enough, many look down on women who do onlyfans because they give up pieces of their soul for material wealth, and yet those same people are willing to idolize men who do the same. When driving down the highway of life the most important thing you can do is make sure the car you ride in always remains yours.

When the new season drops, streamers typically stream anywhere between 8-16 hours; Not me. For the first time in 2 years, League of Legends will be fun again. As a result, I will not hit ‘end stream’ until I’m challenger. Years ago, everyone used to consider me one of the hardest grinders in the entire League of Legends space. It’s time to reclaim that throne.

7 years ago, 12 kids from Thailand were stuck in a cave for 18 days straight. While most consider this a horror beyond human comprehension, I’ve recently had to deal with something infinitely worse. Being stuck in NA SoloQ for the last year. In 3 days, I’ll finally be free.

Over the last year of my life, I've been in one of the most consistently happy states ever. But, there's one universal truth that every League of Legends player knows; Happiness does not make your rank higher. So, in 4 days, I'm sacrificing everything. For 3 weeks, I will not have any access to my girlfriend, family, friends, privacy, warm food or the outside world. The only thing I will have access to is a PC with League of Legends installed. For years, you all told me that I need to be admitted into an asylum. Starting Tuesday, it's finally happening.

After a day of checking DMs, I have something to announce that I hope will make some of you smile. Everyone has been telling me that the amateur scene will likely be dead until OQs in late January… This year, that won’t be the case. Since it doesn’t look like my team will be able to get good competitive experience for the next few months, I decided that we’re going to make our own competition. Not only will I try to get eyes on the NA amateur scene, but I’ll also attempt to make NA SoloQ feel competitive again; Get ready to get hyped. I’m currently in talks with several potential GMs for my team (roster TBA soon) that are well acquainted within the scene and, together, we’ll be having (almost) weekly tournaments in which entry to them will require your team’s cumulative SoloQ LP to be higher than the other potential entries. Simplified; it means that if you want to play in the tournament, your team’s combined SoloQ LP will determine whether or not you’re able to compete (when compared to the other teams that also apply) If all goes well and sponsors are found, you can expect for these tournaments to not only be very good practice in the off-season, but also have money prizes as well. Everything is still in the early stages; so don’t expect anything concrete to come out in the next several days, but more info and a more defined rule set should be released soon.

After 118 hours and only 3075 deaths, the ascension has finally taken place; I am no longer the TARDNISHED. I am the ELDENTARD. - First ever playthrough on keyboard and mouse - All REMEMBERANCE and MAIN bosses defeated - No magic - No bleed - No incantations - No summons - 24 vigor Overall amazing game, just wish the storytelling was better. I'll return one day to play the DLC...

Nobody beats the ELDENTARD 670 times in a row.