I guarantee that he didn’t perform his best or he wouldn’t have even been playing with gold rank people during placements.
He purposefully underperformed in qp until level 25 and then purposefully underperformed so he could place as low as possible, I guarantee it. He used Mercy because her simple kit and low skill ceiling allowed him to easily disguise his underperformance and her versatility allowed him to always play her so he could continue to easily fool his viewers.
The thing is, he already mains Sym at a high level because that’s where he belongs, not in gold. It means nothing for him to do a gold to gm sym run because he has already maintained that level of play with her.
But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and overlook logic and common sense, let’s say he did do his best on Mercy. All he proved was that he is a gold level Mercy. He shot back up when playing sym because he belongs in higher ranks as sym.
If he wanted to make a smurf and do something interesting, he should have stuck with a character he might not be familiar with and made it to GM with them, not the character he’s already maintaining a high rank on…
…or, stayed on his main account and seen if he could maintain his rank with a character he is unfamiliar with while communicating with his team about it and just letting his viewers see how he got better with the character over time.
well to be fair, his hero pool is pretty shallow. It’s not surprising that he would be placed in gold if he only can play bastion and symmetra… both of witch needs a team built around them.
Didn’t realize that if one plays the placements on a new account with a hero they have low experience with is considered “MMR manipulating.”
By this logic, one might have a high ranked DPS account and buys a new fresh account to play supports, which they might be terrible at. That person proceeds to play only supports and places somewhere in silver/gold. Is that MMR manipulation?
I’m not saying she can’t. I’m saying that a GM Sym player smurfing and a GM Widow player smurfing are two different beasts since Widow is a more reliable damage dealer and is very self-sufficient. Steveo said himself in the stream that Sym doesn’t do enough by herself most of the time, which becomes apparent in Diamond. Imo while it isn’t exactly wholesome for him to do, it’s much easier to shut down a good Sym compared to a good Widow regardless of the difference in rank. Syms orbs have to hit you twice and each take a second. Widow only has to hit you once.
And I disagree that it isn’t educational. You can’t play Sym the same way across the ranks and actually have to formulate different strategies vs a Widow that just pops half your teams heads off and wins the teamfight automatically. It shows how you might have to think if you intend to climb out of those ranks.
In a lot of the games in the lower ranks, many people simply didn’t communicate. In the games that they did, he had to micromanage heavily and the times those teams listened, he carried. Again, vs a Widow, who doesn’t have to micromanage the team and just kills everyone.
If you actually watch his placements. He wasn’t throwing. He was trying harder than most mercy players do at lower ranks. Not only did he rank lower than he expected for the effort he put in he went against aim botters in gold (really in gold?).
He has mained sym since before her rework so his aim is not that of GM widows etc. So to say he’s stomping lower lvls and ruining their games is silly, his tracking and aim are ok-average at best. All he ever does is teleports turrets into the backline and pops in behind fully charged then people just die. He even expresses shock himself at how unaware people are that he’s teleported behind people and that it is working. Even at one point just standing there zapping an Orisa that did not think to look behind as to why she was dying.
It’d be completely different if he was a GM Widow just popping into gold and teamwiping people before they had a chance. But this is Sym. You know how she works, can see her tele appear way before she comes through it and she doesn’t kill instantly. But people just seem to hate on him because he’s a Sym onetrick.
He could have tried to borrow some poor bronze’s account and try to go with a “Sombra from bronze to GM” run. Knowing how team dependant she is, its almost impossible to main her only and solo get higher than gold.
Lets not forget that way back then Sym and Torb had this strange SR that they would lose a lot less points per loss and gain normal/more points per win.
I think Animetic is so too. She has been playing Mercy since forever and she never really forces to play Mercy, she looks at what healer would be best at that current situation (that’s how I see it).
I personally like stevo’s gameplay and I have been learning a lot from him as Symmetra main myself and we can assume that he is throwing, but I personally just try to be positive. For what? I don’t know, but at least my respect for stevo’s gameplay still remains.
Edit: But we can all agree that Aria Rose is the worst of them all.
Stevoo isn’t even close to as toxic as people make him out to be. Maybe he used to be that way, but he legitimately is one of the least toxic streamers I watch these days. He just doesn’t care what the trolls say about him. He tries his best and shotcalls when needed, but he almost always is positive even when his teammates are flaming him for playing Sym.
I don’t have a problem with gold to GM accounts simply because that’s how the game is meant to be played. You climb pretty quickly into your skill level and the amount of games that effects is relatively small before you’re playing with competent teams around the same skill level.
Also, Stevo SUCKS at Mercy. He has barely touched the character. He only played her for his ten placements to have the least effect on his placed SR so the climb can be true “only sym”. Y’all on here acting like a one-trick can play Mercy at least as competent enough to place Diamond. That’s not how it works. Mercy isn’t always the easy hero for everyone. She has hidden depth that many people aren’t aware of. On top of that, Stevo NEVER plays healer. He always has to carry his games (usually as Bastion, Sym, or Orisa), and it’s significantly harder for him to carry from the support role especially with Mercy.
I lost 8 games on my smurf and placed 3.9k. If your performance is top notch and you’re tryharding, there is no other reason as to why you won’t place very high.
A top 50 player in gold on a smurf playing one of the easiest heroes in the game is ruining the game for others and throwing.
Why is he even encouraging smurfing in the first place ?
I went over this with my own anecdotal experience. I’ve hit Masters several times as Support, but wanted to learn DPS.
Create a DPS Alt account.
Tried as hard as I could to learn and practice.
Did Comp placements as a mostly McCree one trick.
Placed High Plat (2850 or something).
Stevo meanwhile.
Multiple time top 500 player.
Created a new Alt Account.
Played multiple different heros to give the MMR system no ‘read’ on his ability. Manipulation 1.
One Tricked Mercy in Comp, a hero with little mechanical ability to give the MMR system data, who is largely dependent on her team, to place as low as possible. Manipulation 2.
There is a HUGE difference between what I did, and what Stevo did. Yes, he manipulated the system.
The (few) people in this thread that are supporting his behavior have said that he maintained a 92% WR through Diamond. So yeah, that’s exactly what he did.
He still has the skill that lands him in GM and shouldn’t be going against anyone under. Doesn’t change just because he’s not picking instakill heroes. Not to mention he’s done this in the past and gotten banned.
If you’re a notorious GM-rank Symmetra player, you should not be playing anything underneath GM. Period.
Why? What does it matter that he got a new account to GM? The amount of games it took was relatively small. Blizzard themselves have said that smurfs are not really an issue.