After several years, League of Legends still dominates that #1 spot in Twitch stream viewership. However, are the most popular streamers the most quality streamers? That’s a matter of opinion! It’s a fact that a good portion of them—Sneaky, imaqtpie, Trick2G, and others—are what I like to call “meme streamers.” While they’re all amazing players, they’re entertainers first.
Though there’s nothing wrong with having a laugh while watching a stream, I find that it gets old to sit through hours of text-to-speech donation spam and the like. You should know that not every streamer is like that! There’s actually several League streamers who you can learn a lot and greatly improve as a player from. Here’s five of them.
Valkrin
Valkrin is attached to TSM as a streamer. Although he’s listed as an official substitute for their LCS squad, it’s turned out to be more of a deal like we’ve seen with TSM Gosu and Splyce Grypex where they bring a Twitch viewership to the brand.
Valkrin is a jack of all trades. I’ve watched his stream quite often and I’ve seen him play every role except Bot. He’s listed as TSM’s Support substitute, behind Biofrost, but I often see him playing Top, Mid, and Jungle.
He’s a a really knowledgeable player at the Challenger level and he has a lot of personality on stream. He’s especially good on Rumble, Shyvana, and Zac. He goes into great detail explaining his thought process in every game, so if you’re into those champions then you’ll definitely take in a lot from watching him.
Valkrin streams Monday–Friday 2 –8pm EST. Check out his stream here.
Arcsecond
At the time of writing this, Arcsecond is rank #2 on the NA Challenger ladder. That is a massive achievement for any player that isn’t currently on any competing LCS and NACS team.
Let me start by saying this guy is one of the few streamers I’ve watched that practically never tilts. If he’s losing, he tries to teach how to play from behind. He never complains, blames his jungler, or spams to forfeit. He’s a huge competitor and he realizes that any game is winnable and things can be learned from every experience in game.
Arcsecond almost exclusively plays Mid, although he’ll play Top or Jungle if he gets queued into them. His favorite champions to play are Diana, Viktor, and Nidalee. Another note is that Arcsecond doesn’t play music during his stream, so that might be a big perk for some of you!
Arcsecond has no set schedule, but you can usually catch him streaming during afternoon EST hours. Check out his stream here.
SickMotion
SickMotion is one of my favorite streamers because he’s a night owl (for my timezone, at least). He’s got a ton of personality, he’s loud at times, and he’s a really good Top player.
SickMotion plays Sion, Shen, Olaf, Irelia, Ekko, Poppy, Maokai, Fiora, Nasus, Malphite, and most other popular Top laners. His commentary comes laced with salt, but you can really learn a lot from him.
The viewer community over at his stream ranges from 200–500 people at any given time, so it’s a small enough community to where you feel included and get your questions answered but also big enough to actually be chatty with other users. When he answers chat questions, he’s brutally honest.
SickMotion starts his stream at around 1am EST and streams for about 8–10 hours. Check out his stream here.
Wingsofdeath
The League of Legends community has a bit of a love–hate relationship with Wingsofdeath as a streamer, but putting aside all bias and checking out his stream will definitely improve you as a player.
Some of the beef that people have against Wings is that he’s pretty susceptible to tilting, he has a habit of blaming others, and a few other negative character traits like that. It’s true, and there are times where he acts like that where he’s clearly in the wrong. However, no one can deny that he understands Top lane and League of Legends in general.
I’ve learned more watching Wings than I have with any other streamer. He is really smart when it comes to lane control and there are times after games where he’ll go into great detail—while in queue—explaining why he did something the way he did in his last game. Having played since Season 1, he’s experienced in all roles (although he hates Support) and has something to teach at each of them.
Wingsofdeath streams League of Legends Monday–Thursday (and sometimes Friday) starting at 4pm EST. Check out his stream here.
LastShadow
LastShadow is a bit of an acquired taste as a streamer, but he brings a level of information that the other streamers on this list don’t.
LS is an American living in South Korea. Being so, he plays on the most competitive ladder in League of Legends.
He places a huge emphasis on coaching others on how to climb through the ranks of solo queue. His patch tier lists really helped him blow up as a streamer and there are times where he’ll just sit in Twitch chat for hours answering questions about what champions to play, what items to build, etc. He plays every role, but I see him most commonly in Top, Mid, and Jungler.
LastShadow has no set streaming schedule. Check out his stream here.
If LUL spam and memes aren’t exactly your idea of a quality stream, be sure to check out these five. You will definitely learn a thing or two. I know, because I have! My climb from being a Bronze player in Season 2 to a Diamond player in Season 6 was greatly assisted by some of these names.
What do you think of these streamers? Do you have any others that you’d like to suggest? Let me know in the comments below!
Published: Aug 12, 2016 08:00 am