4 casual streamers who became esports pros

While most esports professionals worked their way through the ranked ladder to earn themselves a spot in a major esports org, there are others whose talents were recognised during one of their live stream sessions.

Platforms like Twitch and YouTube were instrumental in the careers of many esports professionals and in our list, we will be going over four of the most notable video game personalities who began their career as streamers.

1. Michael ‘Shroud’ Grzesiek

Famous Twitch streamer Shroud (Image Credits: Shroud)

Not a lot of people know this but the Twitch king Shroud actually began as a streamer before he started making a name for himself in the CS: GO professional scene.

Shroud’s passion for video games comes from his father, who was influential in helping Shroud take up streaming in 2011. After seeing certain personalities like Summit1g make money out of streaming games, Shroud thought of giving it a try.

He began his streaming career by playing Counter-Strike Source and World of Warcraft. However, he hardly had viewers and his channel went pretty much unnoticed before he started streaming CS: GO.

Shroud’s movement and aim were incredibly good in CS: GO, and his talents were what helped him attract a significant fan base before he went pro with Exertus Esports.

2. Richard Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins

Ninja (Image Credits: Ninja)

Much like Shroud, Ninja also started streaming during 2011. Although he was a professional Halo 3 player before that, Ninja's success at the time was not all that significant.

He came into notoriety when he became a streamer. He started with H1Z1 on his channels and slowly moved on to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. His career as a streamer temporarily took a back seat in 2017, when he joined Luminosity Gaming as a professional Halo player.

He then started playing H1Z1 for Luminosity and then finally PUBG. He actually went ahead to win the PUBG Gamescom Invitational Squads classification.

However, Ninja’s popularity bloomed only after he took up Fortnite Battle Royale, and the game is literally synonymous with his name at the moment.

3. Jaryd Russell ‘Summit1g’ Lazar

Summit1g (Image Credits: Summit1g)

There are two things that Summit1g is recognised the most for- one for his career as a streamer and the other is for his ‘smooth-brained’ Molotov fail when he was playing as a substitute for Splyce at the 2016 DreamHack Open in Dallas. The latter is what actually skyrocketed his popularity, and not in a good way.

A non-popular fact about Summit1g is that he is kind of a stalwart on Twitch and has been in the streaming profession for over 8 years. He was broadcasting his gameplay live before even thinking of joining the CS: GO professional scene.

Summit1g was also the streamer who actually inspired Shroud to seek a career as a full-time streamer.

4. Cody ‘Clix’ Condor

Cody ‘Clix’ Condor (Image Credits: Clix)

The Fortnite Battle Royale prodigy was introduced to video gaming by his brother, with Minecraft being the very first game he ever played.

And though he tried out other games- like Call of Duty: Zombies- growing up, he still invested most of his time playing Minecraft. However, he soon wanted to be a professional player and realised that Minecraft would not be able to take him where he wants to go.

After he got his very own PC in 2018, Clix took to playing and streaming Fortnite at a very high level. He was entering a lot of online events and was actually getting placed well in the tournaments.

This brought him under the notice of Misfits, and the org soon signed him up in 2019.