Apex Legends Pros Argue Over “Solo to Predator” Streams
Halo and Apex Legends pro Eric “Snip3down” Wrona called out the trend of “Solo to Predator” streams where Apex players create smurf accounts and go from Iron Rank to Apex Predator for content. Apex Predator is a title reserved for the top 750 players in Apex Legends on each platform. A number of pro players do streams where they make a new account and reach the upper echelons of the ranked leagues. Snip3down is unhappy with the trend because it creates a negative experience for lower-ranked players.
NICKMERCS, ShivFPS and HisWattson respond to Snip3down
Snip3down said on Twitter that these Solo to Predator challenges on Apex Legends are “extremely lame and overdone”. He bashed the streamers who do such streams saying, “you’re just smoking a bunch of new players or people clearly not as good as you.”
Jacob “HisWattson” McMillin who is known for these challenges felt called out. NRG’s “babynikki” said that she agrees with Snip3down and she does not approve of players farming low-level lobbies. She wanted high-ranked players to “suffer like the rest of us in our normal ranked (Predator) lobbies.”
After she made that comment, others pointed out that NRG’s Christopher “sweetdreams” Sexton also does the same thing. Sweetdreams responded saying he does it maybe once a season and not 13 times. HisWattson is the Apex Legends Global Series MVP and has hit the number one Predator spot on numerous occasions. He frequently does these challenges with different legends and his solo runs have become more frequent after he gained popularity.
This entire exchange divided a number of pro players and streamers. Nicholas “NICKMERCS” Kolcheff said that there is nothing else to do once players reach the top of the ranked leaderboards. Streamers usually move on to other games until the next ranked split or start doing challenges or play on alternate accounts in most cases.
Shivam “ShivFPS” Patel who is known for his solo queue gameplay sided with Snip3down saying that he started the trend of solo queuing in Apex. Solo queuing in anything under Predator lobbies after the ranks settle down in a season is “unimpressive” if the highest tier players do it and the solo queue warlord himself does not approve of this trend.
Solo to Predator streams generate a lot of views and are entertaining for players, but it also comes at the expense of a number of lower-ranked players getting stomped. Smurfing is also against Apex Legends’ terms of service but Respawn Entertainment does not seem to take action against such players.