In the spring of last year, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins had the most subscriptions on Twitch with roughly a quarter million, aided by his stream with Drake. Today, he’s been overtaken in subscription numbers in a way no one really expected.
According to Twitch Stats, a third party Twitch API tracker, Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazar has surpassed Ninja and holds the most subscriptions on Twitch. Summit1g has been streaming on Twitch for over four years and played competitive Counter-Strike with various teams such as Mythic and Adaptation. Today, he’s a full-time streamer.
Twitch Stats lists Summit1g with 42,949 subscriptions while Ninja has 41,930. If a user has a tier two or three subscription—similar to a regular subscription just more costly with added benefits, like additional emojis—the subscription counts multiple times. A tier two subscription counts as two and tier three counts as six base subscriptions.
What’s just as surprising is Summit1g’s choice of games. He identifies as a variety streamer, though he has spent considerable time streaming Sea of Thieves over the past few weeks. Sea of Thieves released in March last year and is a pirate-themed adventure game. Summit1g has an aggressive playstyle, which has brought additional viewers to his channel. Through sabotaging enemy ships or robbing them while enemy players aren’t paying attention, he’s become popular in the Sea of Thieves community. Being able to surpass Ninja’s total subscriptions while playing a game which isn’t nearly as popular as Fortnite is unexpected.
While Summit1g leads Ninja in subscriptions, Ninja is still followed by the most people on Twitch. In August, Ninja was the first Twitch streamer to reach 10 million followers on the site. Today, Ninja has roughly 13 million followers while Summit1g has just under three-and-a-half million followers.
This may be foreshadowing Fortnite’s eventual decline in viewership on Twitch. After all, the game has been out for over a year now and many wonder when people will begin to lose interest in the battle royale. For now, though, Fortnite is still leading the way as the most popular game on Twitch.
