League YouTuber under fire after throwing dozens of matches for “Iron to Diamond” series
Riot GamesGetting to Iron in League of Legends is harder than you’d think, and getting to a rank that low requires a lot of losses. YouTuber Yaegerlol’s account threw over 40 matches to get to League’s lowest rank before shooting up to a 90% win rate for the sake of an “Iron to Diamond” YouTube series.
Smurf and alt accounts are fairly common in League of Legends these days. With sites that actively sell Level 30 accounts for pocket change, it’s easier than ever to grab a new account and hop into matches.
However, many of these accounts are leveled by bots and get flagged for deletion at some point. Riot has gotten better at spotting bot accounts and have been cracking down on it. This is why an authentic account that’s in Iron rank can be worth more than you’d think. Hitting League’s lowest ranks without purposely inting is a legitimate challenge for high level players.
In order to complete a YouTube challenge and go from Iron to Diamond on Yone, YouTuber Yeagerlol played on an account that threw over 40 matches with a less than 10% win rate before immediately shooting up to a 90% win rate with Yone.
Yeagerlol under fire for throwing low-level League matches
In League of Legends, having just one of your teammates decide that they don’t want to play means you have a drastically reduced chance of winning.
If you’re in a lobby where everyone’s is trying equally hard, one player throwing the entire match is actually pretty easy. And, in low ranks, someone not understanding how basic game mechanics work isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
However, when that account goes from a 10% ranked win rate to winning almost every match on Yone, there’s clearly something afoot.
Content creator VaporaDark exposed the account with proof, showing the account’s name match history that align with the account used in Yeager’s videos. With the account of that name being used in Yeager’s Iron to Diamond Yone series that has several episodes on his channel, it’s impossible to deny these accounts are one and the same.
While it’s entirely possible that Yeagerlol didn’t derank this account himself and instead just bought a deranked account, the result is the same: Someone is throwing matches and ruining games.
In the case that Yeager bought this account, it’s functionally no different from him going in and throwing matches himself. If anything, it stimulates the market and creates more demand for these services.
This kind of content is something VaporaDark has been called out for as well, but he’s since denounced “Iron to Diamond” series and anything like them where players use purposely deranked accounts for the sake of their videos or streams.
While it isn’t like every match is getting thrown by someone trying to create content, incidents like these have people worried about the health of League’s solo queue environment at all levels of play.