Ninja's Most Impressive Records Ever

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins is the true O.G. of online streaming and esports, a powerhouse of gameplay whose transcendent journey from sub-culture myth to mainstream monster is unprecedented within the esports sphere.

Blevins' value as a thought leader and top content creator inside the gaming and streaming community goes much deeper than the medals and trophies on his mantle, though. While record-breaking is a part of Ninja's gimmick and brand, it should be noted that his accomplishments, while vast and plentiful, have taken a backseat to the value his content and contributions have made to the industry as a whole.

For someone like Blevins — a young man who not only helped change the way people play games but the ways they interact and even ingest them — it's impossible to sum up the importance of his contributions with a few facts and figures. Still, it's fun to take a closer look at some of the biggest wins he's racked up to date. In Ninja's own words: "Let's go!"

On one mid-March evening in 2018, Drake and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins — two modern day masters of media — mashed buttons together on the latter's Twitch stream. It was clear viewers were witnessing something special. This was Michael Jordan and Larry Bird meeting in the 1987 NBA Playoffs. This was Vin Diesel and Paul Walker street-racing for the first time in Fast & Furious.

Over 635,000 people watched the two titans engage in digital warfare, a new Twitch record for concurrent non-tourney viewers. The legendary live stream is looked upon with reverence these days, a large contingent of fans and gamers considering it one of the biggest moments in gaming history.

The ramifications of the meetup still ring throughout the gaming galaxy, with Blevins' becoming something of a buzzword almost instantaneously afterward. With the Ninja brand and moniker reaching new heights, Blevins had little trouble steamrolling world records in the aftermath. Including his own.

A few short weeks after his historic stream with Drake, the increasingly famous Blevins was back, breaking records and taking names. This time, he placed the concurrent non-tourney total viewership tally (635,000+) back in his crosshairs. 

Unsatisfied with the watermark he previously reached with Drizzy, Blevins flipped the still surging momentum from the meetup into an even more epic total: 667,000+ concurrent Twitch viewers. In addition to the massive online audience, the record-breaking stream unfolded before a live crowd at the Esports Arena at the Luxor Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

According to Metro, Blevins claimed third on on the list of most social interactions in March 2018, surpassed only by Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James. At only age 26, it was clear that the legend of Tyler Blevins was just starting to gain traction.  

Since its establishment as a facet of professional gaming, esports were (and in many ways still are) regarded as an outlier on the edge of the sports community. Outsiders continue to question the validity of esports' athletic pedigree, with naysayers disputing how much hand-eye coordination it takes to master a game like Mario World and if said coordination even counts as athletic talent.

When Blevins became the subject of an ESPN Magazine cover feature in October 2018 — the very first esports athlete to do so — it was another monumental win for the seasoned streamer and gamer. The biggest implication from the ESPN feature, though, was the notion that esports were starting to get noticed as a professional league of athletes.

There's still more work to be done in terms of esports receiving the recognition it deserves in the professional sports community, but the cover story was a huge step in the right direction.

Ninja's 2018 Twitch campaign is arguably the most glorious 12-month span any streamer has had in video gaming history. This was a year of unprecedented growth for Blevins. Besides the Drake mega-collision and the scores of world record wins, Blevins capped off the year with one more huge accomplishment: "most-watched streamer of the year" on Twitch.

Taking a look at the year-end streaming stats for 2018, it wasn't even a close competition. Blevins scored over 234 million cumulative hours of viewing time. In second place, Riot Games garnered less than half of Ninja's total tally. That gap from first to second shows you just how dominant Blevins was during this time. Basically, there was Ninja, and then there was everyone else.

Here's an even better perspective: If you were to combine the total streaming hours from the top three Twitch channels in 2017 and compared them to Blevins' 2018 total, Blevins would still be ahead by over 40 million hours. That's insane.

Blevins set another record at the tail-end of 2018 when he became the first player to win 5,000 Fortnite matches on PC. That might not seem like a huge accomplishment, especially compared to some of his other feats, but how often do you think the average player comes away from a game of Fortnite with a victory?

The answer is hard to pin down, but players seem to agree that the average win rate is roughly 1-3%. Apparently, not many gamers have tasted victory within the confines of the battle royale, and those who do, do so at an infrequent rate. According to Dexerto, Ninja played 13,500 games to reach the 5K milestone, with 37% of those games resulting in a win. Yes, you read that right. There's a reason Ninja is considered the face of Fortnite.

Ninja takes his world records however they come, whether it's Solo play or Duos. In late 2019, Blevins found himself in the company of a new partner, Malachi 'Reverse2k' Greiner. Greiner was a 19-year-old sophomore pro coming off a hot 2018, which included winning an $86,000 payout for his performance in the Fortnite Summer Skirmish Series.

Ninja and Reverse2k initially linked up for the 2019 World Cup qualifiers, but it wasn't until early October when their chemistry finally hit its stride. During their first combined stream, the duo racked up an astounding 29 wins. Continuing their path of carnage on day two, the pair added another 13 victories before finally clinching the world record on October 2 with 43 consecutive wins. Blevins ended their final match with five eliminations, while Reverse2K boasted three of his own.

All things — good, bad or mild — must end. This is how events have unfolded since the dawn of mankind, and Blevins' career as a Twitch streamer is not exempt from this universal principle.

On August 1, 2019, Ninja made waves in the gaming community when he announced his move to Microsoft's new streaming platform, Mixer. Eschewing the familiar digital landscapes of streaming mainstay Twitch for the unfamiliar but perhaps more vibrant pastures of Mixer certainly shook things up.

One of the major questions that resulted from the announcement was whether Ninja's massive audience would follow him over to a new service. Months before the move, Guinness World Records anointed Blevins as the ultimate king of Twitch, his then 13,197,876 follower count etched into the history books as the platform's biggest following of all-time.

As of this writing, Blevins has a follower count of just over 3 million on Mixer, but, these things take time. If you've learned anything since Ninja's streaming career caught fire a few years back, it's to never bet against this guy.

With Blevins consistently shattering Twitch and Fortnite records and barely breaking a sweat while doing so, it's easy to forget he's more than just a fine-tuned gaming machine — he's also an experienced content creator. Ninja publishes videos and streams at a prolific pace, truly embodying the spirit of both gamers and creators worldwide.

This became evident in early May 2018 when Blevins was handed the lauded YouTube Diamond Play Button, an award reserved for those who surpass the 10 million subscriber mark. In true Ninja fashion, Blevins did some record-breaking on the way to reaching the 10 million milestone, becoming the fastest non-music channel to earn the Diamond award and accomplishing the task in under 100 days.

Three million is not the 14 million+ followers he cultivated during his few dominant years on Twitch, but every journey starts with a step, not a leap. Also, it'd be short-sighted to only include Twitch records in this list, as the potential of Mixer's platform shouldn't go unnoticed.

Blevins has already set the record for the most followed Mixer channel. That said, Ninja has a lot of work to do to accrue the gigantic following he previously amassed. The move to Microsoft's new streaming destination makes sense from multiple perspectives, though, with Blevins citing Twitch's increasingly toxic comments as one reason for making the switch.

When it comes to the streaming statistics, Ninja's perspective is likely much more positive than the average gaming pundit. "Let's just look at the numbers bro," Blevins said on The True Geordie Podcast in December 2019. "A the end of my Twitch life, I was averaging like 20 to 30k viewers every single day, and to literally be able to average 10,000 viewers on Mixer? It's astounding."

Never one to rest on his laurels, Blevins and Reverse2k decided to run the clock back once more inside Duos mode. Days after they clinched the world record with 43 consecutive wins, the fearsome pair struck gold again. This time they racked up an impressive 51 consecutive victories while the collective mouths of the gaming community fell open in astonishment.

This is, perhaps, one of the more impressive feats Blevins has accomplished in his storied gaming career to date. Sure, there's a veritable mountain of fresh-faced streamers and gamers boasting records and accomplishments that surpass Ninja's these days. Comparing Tyler "Ninja" Blevins to anyone in gaming — either today or in the past — would be unfair, though. There is only one Ninja, and that is a record, fact, and feat that can never be surpassed. 

Love him or hate him, Ninja has helped bring both Fortnite and gaming into the mainstream. His star only continues to rise.