Valkyrae Calls out Twitch Rivals for Marvel Rivals Tournament Rule Changes

Marvel Rivals is a new addition to esports, but things are heating up in the game’s competitive sphere. Twitch Rivals is already hosting the most popular streamers in a Marvel Rivals Showdown tournament with a 200,000 USD prize pool. However, the tournament has taken a turn: streamers including Valkyrae, Necros and Bogur are voicing upset at Twitch’s confusing rule changes and set-up choices. Let’s explore everything we know why the Marvel Rivals Showdown is causing streamers stress.

Twitch Rivals is a tournament initiative hosted by streaming platform Twitch. The event aims to bring together the site’s most popular streamers in competition. It operates multiple times a year and takes place in various game titles. For streamers, participating in a Twitch Rivals match is a huge honor, and the tournaments often have large prizes.

Twitch Rivals tournaments are hosted on the initiative’s official Twitch.com account, twitch.tv/twitchrivals. Participating creators also commonly livestream their gameplay on their individual channels.

In January 2025, Twitch collaborated with smash hit hero shooter Marvel Rivals in a fresh Twitch Rivals event: the Marvel Rivals Showdown. The tournament will occur on January 18 and January 19, 2025. It features the game’s most famous content creators and spans all ranks.

Twitch Rivals tournaments do offer competitive prizes, but they typically balance their intensity with lighthearted team chemistry and memorable stream moments. Ideally, streamers of all backgrounds and ranks play together, collaborate and entertain their audiences.

Originally, Twitch Rivals specified that Marvel Rivals Showdown teams could contain at most two Grandmaster level players. However, the organization changed the rules at the last minute, allowing teams to have up to four Grandmaster players on one roster. Most teams quickly took advantage of the changes and restructured their players to prioritize higher ranks and have a higher chance of winning the 21,000 USD Grand Prize.

Stacked Teams: “Coughing Baby vs Hydrogen Bomb”

As the rosters finalized and players began entering scrims, it became very apparent that there were huge rank disparities between the competing teams. Valkyrae, who has 1.3 million Twitch followers, was one such streamer who became frustrated with uneven team matchups as she and her teammates who largely play the game casually faced a roster of four Grandmaster level players including multiple former Overwatch pros.

While live on stream, Valkyrae became discouraged and chatted with her teammates about whether they should surrender. One team member noted that the enemy team had ‘one pro player on every role’ while their team only had two pros per the original Marvel Rivals Showdown rules. Valkyrae angrily replied, saying:

I’m gonna throw up. Like, which Twitch staff member do I need to talk to? I don’t understand how this happened. I waited five years to play in a Twitch Rivals just for this sh– to happen? This is insane! Who planned this garbage? Whose rat a– idea was this? I don’t understand! […] Just say it’s a pro tourney at that point, like why even have people under Grandmaster? Who is doing this? Twitch has so many issues.

– Valkyrae

It’s worth noting that Valkyrae has only recently returned to Twitch after five years in an exclusivity contract with YouTube. This is her first Twitch Rivals while back on the platform.

Valkyrae’s teammates Eskay, who has over 241,000 followers on Twitch, shared her sentiments. As the group convened after the match, they lamented about how strong the enemy team was.

Fellow participant and enemy team member @b0gur described the situation on X.com as “right now its coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.” He also noted the uneven matchups, saying “now [the tournament is] just a bunch of eternity sweats (like us) with over 300 hours stomping on streamers who are just there for fun.”

Split-Second Decisions: Sykkuno Almost Kicked

Bulgarian streamer Bogur rose to fame for his Overwatch skills before moving to Marvel Rivals, which he currently streams. He has over 100,000 followers on his Twitch channel, twitch.tv/bogur. Necros, who also gained repute in Overwatch as one of the game’s strongest Genji players, has over 735,000 Twitch followers at twitch.tv/necros. The two teamed up with 3.9 million follower streamer Sykkuno, 60,000 follower Marvel Rivals pro kayjii, 200,000 follower creator ellum and 913,000 follower Overwatch legend ml7 to create a powerhouse Marvel Rivals Showdown team.

While Bogur and his team emerged victorious from their matchup against Valkyrae’s group, it turned out the team would face their own struggles with Twitch’s event management shortly after.

Twitch originally invited Sykkuno to Necros and Bogur’s team because they required a Platinum player to lower their team’s rank average and comply with rules. The two welcomed Sykkuno to Team Necros and began practicing. As Bogur and Necros boasted some of the highest Marvel Rivals ranks in their team and both had experience in similar Overwatch tournaments, they invested time into coaching the lower-ranked Sykkuno to prepare. The group even played in scrims together prior to the tournament’s start.

However, the team was shocked when Twitch removed Sykkuno from their team just one day before Marvel Rivals Showdown began because he had hit Diamond in the previous season. It appears Twitch’s reaction time with this decision was a bit too slow and caused some serious confusion. Bogur, ellum and Sykkuno all commented on the dilemma, and the team panicked as the tournament’s start was approaching.

Sykkuno posted a meme to his official X.com account depicting Twitch Rivals shooting him before saying “the tournament is balanced now.” Bogur explained the situation to his chat on stream saying:

“it’s so stupid … it’s funny because they invited Sykkuno, so I would expect that they checked before inviting him, but they checked only a day before the tournament. So that’s great.”

– Bogur

As Bogur continued, he voiced frustration because the team’s entire synergy was broken after removing a member and they had to start from scratch with new strategies and protocols to accommodate a new player.

Eventually, Sykkuno’s teammate and friend ellum, who has over 200,000 Twitch followers and was also participating in the tournament, issued an ultimatum live on stream: if Sykkuno was not allowed to play, he would drop out as well. Ellum stated, “I can’t do that to my friend […] basically, if he doesn’t play in it, then I won’t play in it.”

Ellum did note that “The tournament is hard to do, and I think they’re trying their best” and his decision is just “down to me, helping my friend.” He continued, saying “things are being worked out behind the scenes […] it should all be fine.”

Twitch did eventually relent and allow Sykkuno to rejoin the tournament at about 6:45 PM EST on January 17. However, the situation had already gained major traction and disappointed the community. One archive account on X.com, @sykkarchive, even referred to the situation as “World War 3.” One thing is for certain: the Marvel Rivals Showdown organizers are facing massive community pressure to ensure the event continues without any further hiccups and being closely watched by fans.