Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp is a League of Legends streamer that became famous for playing like shit.
Tyler1: "I'm not going to feed intentionally, because I don't want ban. So I'm just going to, you know, turret dive a full-hp Annivia. You know what I mean?"
Which is weird, because he’s actually a pretty solid League player.
Tyler: "Boys. You are watching a Challenger streamer. How's it feel?"
And it’s even weirder, because his shitty attitude actually broke solo queue.
Tyler1 has made it to Challenger, a matchmaking tier that’s limited to the 200 best players in the region.
Usually made up of pros or pro player prospects.
People who are being scouted because they're just that good at league of Legends
But Tyler1 wasn’t exactly pro-caliber.
First of all, Tyler1 was a one-trick.
He only played Draven, a snowball-y champion that needs to get ahead as early as possible
to make his game plan work.
Tyler1: "Let's go!"
"I'm Tyler f***ing 1."
Second, and this is the important part. Tyler1 was as toxic as it gets.
Tyler1: "Bam, b***, get the f*** out my lane."
So toxic in fact, he used to advertise it on his YouTube Channel.
See, Tyler1 did play champions other than Draven.
You kind of have to know how to play multiple champions to succeed at League,
since your character could get picked by the other team or banned.
But Tyler1 didn’t really “play” other champions. He ruined games with them.
If you banned or picked Tyler1’s Draven, or if you did anything at all in the game he didn’t like,
Tyler1: "What the f***?"
He'd run it down mid.
That meant running at enemy champions, killing himself over and over again to give them the gold
and experience they needed to close out the game.
Tyler1: "Not my fault."
It’s a miserable experience, because even the shortest online League
game lasts about 15 minutes between drafting, loading in and actually playing the game.
Someone running it down mid effectively takes away that chunk of your life.
ROBERTxLEE: "He's actually f***ing serious. Holy sh*t. I thought... that's a f***ing joke. Holy sh*t. What the f***."
You’re not having fun, your enemy isn’t having fun, and
worst of all, one toxic jerk running it down mid is getting adoration from Twitch chat.
So naturally, people started copying him.
(Tyler1 screaming)
Tyler1 effectively found a way to ruin solo queue.
His toxic attitude was highlighted by players like Meteos and Hai
and he even got in a long, strange feud with Riot’s community coordinator and caster, Phreak.
Phreak: "Tyler1's not really that much of a personality though. He's a nobody. And his only marketable skill is being an asshole?"
Tyler1: "I think Phreak needs, you know, to taste what an Alpha, an Alpha tastes like boys. Let's go."
All that meant more stream viewers, and more Tyler1 fans copying him for laughs.
Ironically, community figures criticising Tyler1’s toxic behaviour only made him more popular.
Doublelift: "I'm just, I'm just really confused about how a player like that isn't just completely perma-banned instantly."
"I think there's something, there's gotta be something wrong with the system, because there's always going to be toxic players."
They put an eye on the toxicity at the heart of League of Legends, and instead of shying away from it,
some fans embraced it.
Together with his fans, Tyler1 proved that there is a problem behind League of Legends’ solo queue.
It's a system that requires everyone to want to win, but sometimes,
that's just not true. In response Riot issued an ID ban to Tyler1.
Tyler1: "Not banned on Twitch, no. I still have that. But banned from League."
It's the harshest thing Riot can do to a player because it meant that they would ban Tyler1
anytime they found any evidence of him playing League of Legends.
Tyler1: "Riot please."
That essentially killed his streams.
Because Riot could ban his account the second he started streaming.
The inting eventually died down,
Partially because people stopped finding it funny, but also because the toxic vanguard had died on his cross.
Meanwhile Tyler won entertained his stream audience by doing this.
Tyler1: "If a meal looks good on your plate it will 100 percent taste good in your mouth."
And this.
Tyler1: "...to another episode of Tyler paints with friends."
And this.
Tyler1: "For the first one. The first one I'm going to hit up is orange. After I do orange, like I said I've got ten more eggs. Because I bought a dozen boys."
Tyler1 spent the better part of 2016 and 2017 trying to show Riot that he had reformed.
Tyler1: "Well, I'm here to tell you that from loltyler1.com you can pick up your very own... mousepad."
Between hosting his own amateur League of Legends tournament that drew in more viewers than some
EU LCS games and
a Rioter hurling some heinous insults at Tyler. Riot found reason to lift his ban in January 2018.
Tyler1: "And it's f***ing true. After 613 days I can finally, finally play League of Legends without getting my accounts banned."
And Tyler1's return to League of Legends on Twitch broke records for the most
simultaneous viewers on an individual stream.
Tyler1: "Heads up, let's f***ing go baby."
These days, Tyler1 purports to be reformed.
And, to his credit nobody's found him running down mid since his ban was lifted.
He even made it back to Challenger with no complaints from major players.
Tyler1: "It's fair to say, wow Tyler. You are a Challenger-tier f***ing player. How'd you do it, dude? How?"
Maybe having League of Legends taken away from him for all that time, made him realize that his inting was
taking League of Legends away from everyone else.
Whatever the reason though Tyler1's story shows us
how fragile the social contract between League of Legends players really is.
How one person, with two spinning axes to grind can ruin the game for everyone.
Also, how wearing a fake mustache in a Wonder Woman tiara can break Twitch records
if you're willing to put in hours of toxic work.
Tyler1: "What's up? Ay. Ay. Y'all ready know who it be."