Apex Legends content has been popular on YouTube for as long as the game has been out, and the trend of ‘Rookie to Predator’ streams has been one of the defining themes in recent times. ItzTimmy is probably the most famous for doing so, with a 54-hour stream making headlines last year, but the trend is not a new one and many others have replicated the feat, or tried to.

However, one Apex streamer has spoken out about this type of content, and the way creators will make new ‘smurf’ accounts to start at the lowest rank. Laurice "GuhRL" Habibi, a Twitch streamer and former Apex Legends Global Series caster, called out other creators for essentially ruining the experience of players trying to play the game at their own level in a string of tweets posted last night.

Her main argument against the practice is a simple one, but one that some struggle to grasp: That in order to go from the lowest to the highest rank, a top-level player must create a fake account to start at the bottom. By doing so, they then impact people just trying to play the game and have fun in the limited time they get to play, with play time not a problem most streamers have.

Smurfing crackdown never came

The final point is one that many streamers and content creators have often missed in the conversation. While the average Twitch wannabe star might have 8-10 hours a day to play, most people are fitting in a few games between work, school or family. To go up against an ItzTimmy-level player in the lower ranks is not only robbing them of a fair experience, but also disrespectful towards the playerbase that supports creators, and ruins their gameplay experience.

She also pointed out that she is not trying to discredit the challenge of going from the lowest rank to the top, but puts herself in the shoes of the people she might come across in the lower ranks.

Not all the replies agreed, with former TSM coach Martin “gdolphn” Skrydstrup saying he didn’t enjoy playing ranked stacked, and would continue to do whatever he found fun. Other creators blamed matchmaking issues, or a lack of content in the game for doing these challenges, while some fans replied saying smurfing was the reason they had stopped playing altogether.

Unfortunately for GuhRL, her argument is slightly undermined by the fact her pinned tweet is celebrating her own run from Bronze to Masters...on a smurf account. Respawn claimed to be cracking down on smurfing back in Season 9, but the prevalence of big creators posting and making content using smurf accounts shows that is yet to come into place in any significant way.