The 10 Most Epic Ninja Moments
If you haven't heard of Fortnite, you might be living under a rock. And if you haven't heard of Ninja, then that rock just so happens to be particularly soundproof because the two have become essentially synonymous. Tyler "Ninja" Blevins may seem like your average streamer: a young guy with a background in pro gaming who entertains his audience with exciting gameplay and a fun, loud personality. How Ninja became the one of the most well-known Twitch streamers and the Fortnite player is anything but average.
Like the game, Ninja's success seems to have happened overnight. Epic Games' epic win of a title has it all: a creative aesthetic, fun gameplay, intense firefights, and the dedicated attention of kids and adults alike. Ninja's popularity may be linked to how he brings out the best of Fortnite: he's having fun, but he's also good. Really good.
Here are some of the best moments from Ninja's epic stream.
Like a ninja, Ninja makes 32 solo kills
Fortnite doesn't have to be an intense game. Depending on play style, players can just goof around with their friends, ride some shopping carts into the sky, and enjoy themselves. Ninja's streams often consist of fun and games within the game. But keeping in mind Ninja's past as a pro Halo player, things sometimes get serious. Ninja, usually all smiles and appreciative comments to the chat, gets silent and focused. Ninja-like, he strikes.
In this particular instance, he starts a killing spree in Tilted Towers. With 80 players on the map, that's a lot of gunfire to avoid, but playing with the Ginger Gunner skin, Ninja makes three kills within two minutes. And he just keeps going, relentlessly seeking out enemies and taking them out with a well-practiced precision. Showing his skill, Ninja is deft when it comes to building his way out of harm's way and then using the high ground to his advantage. After taking to the rooftops with a rocket launcher, he makes a double before clearing yet another building.
In total, Ninja makes 32 kills all on his lonesome, hopping around the map with an ease that only a true master can attain.
Ninja and Marshmello win $1 million
Fortnite is a moneymaker, that's for certain. Therefore, Epic Games has some room to spread the cash around, and thus the Fortnite competitive scene was born, starting with the Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am. 50 pro Fortnite players like Ninja or TimtheTatman were paired up with more conventional, mainstream celebrities who ranged from that guy from iCarly, Nathan Kress, to everyone's favorite emo bassist, Pete Wentz. Whether or not these celebs had anywhere near the same level of skill as streamers who were playing Fortnite for eight hours each day wasn't the point: the big $1,000,000 prize would be split and given to the charities of the winning duo's choice.
In the two days Ninja took off of his usual streaming schedule to compete in the Pro-Am at E3, Ninja lost 40,000 subscribers but gained $500,000 for charity, which seems like a fairly good trade off. Ninja was paired with the mysterious music producer and DJ Marshmello, who in Daft Punk-like fashion wears a giant marshmallow helmet. The helmet apparently has no effect on his ability to play, because he remained at Ninja's side until the last moments of the very last round. Up against OpTic Gaming's CouRageJD on his last legs, Ninja made the winning kill, earning the duo the shiny, golden pickaxe trophy.
Building at the speed of sound
In Fortnite, sometimes building is half the battle. What puts the game apart from other battle royale shooters like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is the building feature left over from the original player vs environment mode, Save the World. Quickly-crafted walls and ramps can help players block incoming projectiles or let themselves climb their way to safety. At the final round of a Fortnite tournament, it was a rickety, ramshackle tower that turned the final moments into a game of angles and hiding out until the last possible moment.
Before this, Ninja had already established himself as something of a building expert. His strategy often involves prioritizing the high ground and then building an even higher ground should enemies get wise to his plan. However, it's hard to keep up with Ninja's ninja-fast building skills. Wood flying faster than the eye can follow, Ninja and Lupo took on Team Solo Mid's Myth and Hamlinz in a building battle to the death. Silent but for the sound of ramps constructing and deconstructing, Ninja builds his way into and then out of a close-quarter skirmish.
Ninja and Drake: dream duo
The way the world learned of Ninja's name was probably through the infamous stream that piloted Fortnite into the global spotlight: Ninja played with rapper Drake on stream that was aptly titled "Squads with Drake, Travis and JuJu you heard me." Drake here being the artist behind hits like "Hotline Bling" and "God's Plan"; Travis Scott the Grammy-nominated rapper; and JuJu Smith-Schuster the pro NFL football player who focuses on gaming in the off-season. Later called the "God Squad," this dream team broke the record for the most viewed livestream with 628,000 concurrent viewers.
Ninja's stream alone brings in big numbers, but adding an international celebrity to the mix? The few matches the two played and chatted over became a phenomenon. Drake, playing with the handle TheBoyDuddus on PlayStation 4 is a good player, his Reaper skin a testament to his skill and apparent Fortnite habit.
What might be the most "epic" part of this duo is that this wasn't a lone incident — Drake and Ninja have paired up to play duos a few other times, with Drake once promising a $5,000 donation should they win. They did, and Drake ponied up, wrapping up a 16 kill streak and a nice conversation about how Epic Games should add the "Hotline Bling" dance as an emote.
That time he was trolled by $50,000 worth of donations
Ninja gets a lot of donations, making him one of the most profitable streamers around, not even taking into consideration the significant amount of brand deals and sponsors he sports on his hugely popular streams. Donations are all the more satisfying, however, when they're done for charity. GuardianCon kicked off with a week of "Charity Blitz" streams that benefited St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. When Ninja threw his almighty audience behind the cause, it was no surprise that he was able to amass hundreds of thousands of dollars for the kids.
$50,000 of these donations came from one, somewhat malicious source — but hey, it's for the kids. YouTuber MrBeast has made something of a name for himself by throwing ridiculous amounts of cash at streamers just to see their reaction. When it came to this particular stream, Ninja had donation incentives; $250 meant he had to drop his weapon, $500 meant he had to drop all his materials, $1,000 meant no medkits allowed. So with MrBeast's generosity came a tough time for Ninja, MrBeast outright saying in his first $10,000 donation that he would do everything in his power (and budget) to make Ninja lose.
And so began a friendly rivalry of the two complimenting each other and Ninja becoming increasingly frustrated as MrBeast became all the more amused at the havoc he caused. MrBeast actually went over budget by $10,000 in troll incentives, but again, it was all for the kids.
Ninja takes out the whole city
Titled Towers is usually a spot on the map that players want to get in and then get out of as quickly as possible. For Ninja, however, the target-rich environment is apparently a playground and he takes the nonstop firefights in stride. Dropping in, the air was thick with players all eager to eliminate each other, Ninja no exception. Taking advantage of the large amount of loot scattered within the buildings, he takes out two players within thirty seconds of landing. Ninja can switch from close-quarters bullet dodging to long range sniping with ease — taking out yet another player in a building across the street.
By the time he has cleared the streets and building of any enemies, he's gotten seven kills in an ever-shrinking map. Those who took the sage advice of heading for the countryside were now his prey. As the storm closes in on the Dusty Divot, Ninja has made a total of 19 kills and only needs one more to win. He fires upon every suspicious bush, cautious but quick and confident as he spots the other player. It comes down to a confusion of walls and ramps as the two final players build around each other, Ninja trying to lure them to a damage trap. Ultimately, Ninja proves to be the faster builder and spikes spell the end for Player359.
Ninja plays duos with Lil Yachty
There's something about Ninja that evidently attracts celebrities. They want to play with him, and are rewarded with a pretty chill experience with a pro player that doesn't make them feel bad for not being the best of Fortnite players. Ninja has that part covered. This makes for some interesting streams, one of which featured rapper Lil Yachty playing duos with Ninja.
Lil Yachty, a Grammy Award-nominated rapper and songwriter, likes video games. He has his own minimalist Twitch channel where he streams games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Fortnite. He was a featured celebrity during Epic Games' Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am, where he was paired with TBNRFrags. Lil Yachty was confident then that they would place somewhere in the top ten. They didn't.
Lil Yachty gets some hate on his Twitch about not being the best (aka "sucking") at the games he plays, but he brushes it off saying that he doesn't care, considering that he's a millionaire. Skill or no skill, Ninja and Lil Yachty won their match. Teamwork made the dream work with Ninja sharp-eyed and seeking out enemies with Lil Yachty as quick backup. They laughed and Lil Yachty seemed impressed with Ninja's quietly deadly gameplay.
"Man, you move so fast," he said while Ninja took out yet another enemy.
Ninja becomes Thanos
In anticipation of the Avengers: Infinity War film, Epic Games teamed up with Marvel for the what's been called (and riffed on) the most ambitious crossover of all time. In a limited-time mashup mode, players could get their mitts on the Infinity Gauntlet and be granted all its powers — kind of. Players then become Thanos: big, purple, and punchy. His hits can destroy buildings, if he smashes down onto the ground from his gravity-defying jumps he causes an impact that sends players flying, and he can shoot destructive lasers from the infinity stones.
Ninja is usually hard to take down, but with the power of the Infinity Gauntlet, he proves to be an even deadlier foe. Taking destiny into his own hands after an unworthy player drops the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos nee Ninja smashes his way around the Fatal Fields, the target of everyone and the death of many. He flies easily away from the line of fire and punches the life out of scrambling enemies without blinking. Thanos is overpowered to begin with, but with Ninja at the controls, he takes out 16 players and wins his way to a Victory Royale.
Ninja has to get tattoos after $100,000 anonymous donation
Ninja has several times over harnessed the power of his Fortnite mastery and the enormous audience that follows him for good: his charity streams wrack up hundreds of thousands of dollars, donators feeling all the more spendy given the good cause. Ninja is always thankful, and sometimes stunned into a disbelieving silence when a many-digit number pops up as a donation notification.
During the GuardianCon Charity Blitz, streamers banded together to raise a total of $2.7 million dollars for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. The final donations came during Ninja's own stream that put $325,000 to the cause. To encourage viewers to be giving, he had several incentives that were too trolly to pass up ($500 meant he had to drop all his weapons) and several stretch goals to aim for. $50,000 meant he would have to re-dye his hair, $150,000 promised a cosplay stream, and the $200,000 tier put Ninja's own skin on the line: he'd have to get a tattoo.
After meeting $150,000, a $100,000 dollar donation suddenly pops up. Not a flood of donations to push him to get a tattoo, but a single, anonymous $100,000 dropped without comment. Ninja doesn't even notice it initially, distracted by his dog, but when he does he obsesses. His wife Jess laments, apparently not onboard with the tattoo idea.
"Daddy gets a llama tattoo," he tells his dog. We've yet to see the Fortnite llama pinata grace Ninja's skin.
Ninja helps fans with homework
Every now and then, Ninja will stream with fans, many of them fairly young. The disbelief in their prepubescent voices when they see Ninja's famous handle in-game is priceless, heart-warming. Fortnite's demographic skews younger, Ninja's fan base following suit. Ninja has already proven himself as a chill dude that just about anyone (except for female streamers, controversially) can stream with — hip hop artists, NFL players, and DJs alike fit right in on his streams. With young fans, Ninja takes on a brotherly role, making gentle nudges toward better gameplay and advising them on equipment settings.
One fan leaves the game momentarily to tell his dad that he's playing with his favorite streamer. Ninja seems touched, happy to say hi to impressed siblings and in turn admonishing them for saying bad words. Guiding his fan through the match, Ninja assured them that the copyright strike on their own YouTube channel was no big deal and even helped them with some homework. Evidently they had a some kind of report due on Fortnite, and needed an interview. Who better to ask than the number one Fortnite streamer?