Ludwig being bad at League of Legends is the best marketing Riot never asked for
Riot Games/LudwigArcane Season 2 just ended. The 2025 season of Noxus is coming soon, complete with a new map and jungle monster. Faker just got his 5th title. And yet, the most exciting thing about LoL right now might be a Silver 2 player one-tricking Fiddlesticks in solo queue: Ludwig.
Ludwig is known for many things. He’s one of the biggest content creators on YouTube, and he was one of the first people to do a massive subathon on Twitch, getting near the 200k sub mark when that type of traffic in a month was unprecedented. He’s also hosted a number of gaming events, and has even gotten involved in esports along with Charlie, aka MoistCr1TiKaL.
Additionally, taking on speedrunning challenges in frustrating games like Pogostuck and Jump King, as well as being a high-level Smash player, are key parts of how Ludwig got to where he is today. He’s historically very good at video games. However, Ludwig has met his match: League of Legends solo queue.
And, though the streamer still has a long way to go when it comes to learning the game, his commitment to conquering it may be the best thing that could have happened to League of Legends.
Ludwig is the best ad campaign LoL could have gotten
Riot has been very smart about trying to get new audiences to play an older game like League of Legends. Arcane, 2XKO, various other LoL spinoff games, limited-time modes to keep audiences engaged, a constant flow of updates that change the game’s balance and bring champions in and out of the meta; LoL has a lot going on.
Who knew that Ludwig being bad at League of Legends was the real advertising LoL needed?
MoistCr1TiKaL claimed it was “infuriating” watching Ludwig struggle with the game, and, while he may be playing it up partially to poke fun at his friend, this is also an actual marketing tactic companies will employ on purpose.
Have you ever seen a mobile game ad where the person playing makes a decision that’s obviously the wrong one? For old-school LoL players who haven’t touched the game in a while but grinded it for years, that’s what this is like. Seeing someone constantly make the wrong decision spurs you into action to go play the game for yourself and make the right one.
In all fairness, though, Ludwig is learning the game in potentially the worst way possible. He’s stepped right into a pitfall I’d imagine many other new LoL players have fallen into.
He has avoided laning and learning to CS entirely by playing jungle, and he’s avoided having to learn a mechanically complex character by maining mostly Fiddlesticks and Amumu. This has, incidentally, set Ludwig along an incredibly non-linear and difficult path of learning.
You’d think playing easy characters in a role where you don’t have to learn LoL’s complex mechanics would be the best thing you could do. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Starting on the wrong foot
Because the champions he plays are so mechanically simple, it’s very hard for him to actively track his improvement as a player. Additionally, not learning how laning works from the get-go makes it incredibly difficult to know when he should/shouldn’t be ganking lanes.
This can make it difficult to identify when you’re making the right decision, often leading to getting hardstuck in your rank and massive win/loss streaks without understanding why.
In his champion and role choice, Ludwig has accidentally shot himself in the foot. Not only is it difficult to learn about vision control and general macro play on your own, but Ludwig’s main champions have almost no tower push and ability to solo carry the game. He’s at the mercy of matchmaking. In Bronze/Silver. That’s a genuine recipe for disaster.
Without the intervention of a coach or him learning other champions/roles, he may never improve. A lack of skill expression and carry potential in the champion he’s chosen to main doesn’t make climbing impossible, but it does make it a lot harder. All of the mechanical skill he has from being an elite player in other games just doesn’t transfer over to sitting still as Fiddlesticks and sucking the enemy until they die.
I’m not trying to make excuses for Ludwig here, he is genuinely set up to fail in almost every conceivable way and probably doesn’t even know it. That, combined with a lot of his fans and friends in the space poking fun at him for being hardstuck in Silver, can make it difficult to persevere and not get discouraged.
Learning the game on your own is hard enough, but poor Ludwig has the world watching him struggle. However, in this struggle, there’s an opportunity.
Clearing LoL’s toxic name
League of Legends has long been held up as the most toxic community in gaming, at least from an outside perspective. It’s a pretty common joke to label LoL players as a bunch of toxic losers who sit around and play the game all day.
There are small shreds of truth to that, but most people are pretty chill and just want to win their games. It’s really not that bad, just that the negative experiences you have in solo queue tend to stand out much more than the positive ones.
However, interactions like the ones Tyler1 had with Ludwig after the show match they had don’t exactly make the LoL community look great.
“‘Had a great time playing League with you, hope we play again sometime!’ Go f**k yourself. You stupid bi*ch ass motherf**ker. You are one of the worst League players I have ever seen in my entire life, and I’ve played 30000 games, I’ve played against AI bots for like 5000 games and every single AI beginner bot I’ve played against is 5 times the player you are at your peak, bro.
“I’m not kidding, you are garbage and you cost me my reputation you piece of sh*t. Thanks for the 10k bits, though,” he said to Ludwig.
Lud took it well, but I can’t imagine it’s overly encouraging for a new player to see him getting all this flame over the past two years. There’s only one way to fix it.
At the point that Ludwig starts hitting higher ranks and making progress, we need to see an equal amount of praise heaped onto him for getting through it and picking up the game. Ludwig showing that struggling with LoL is normal even for a seasoned gamer is one thing, but seeing him get over that hill and being rewarded by the end of it would be the perfect end to his League of Legends arc.
Or maybe it doesn’t end, maybe he continues to support the community and tries to get more involved with the scene and hosting events. I still firmly believe co-streamers and content creators are the future of League of Legends & esports as a whole, and Ludwig would be the perfect guy to get involved as a true mainstay.
If you’re reading this Ludwig, I’ve got one thing to say: Don’t give up.