Renma Kagariya Trims Grandmaster Climb From Six Wins to Two in Overwatch

UNIRAID! — Renma Kagariya of Uniraid! cut the number of wins he needed to reach Grandmaster in Overwatch from six to two during a stream of about four and a half hours. The count was the stream’s stated goal; its title promised that six more wins would get him there.

He opened the stream just after finishing a horror game and a bowl of ramen, with a voice that sounded rough to him. “Is my voice weird?” he asked, and chat wondered whether it sounded lower than usual. He played mostly support, taking a damage hero at times, and midway through said he had started the night six wins short and was now four wins ahead of where he began.

“I’m the type of person who stops playing any game the moment I reach the top rank.” — Renma Kagariya, on reaching a game’s highest rank

Along the way he asked ChatGPT how a support player should handle a diving tank, reading the answer aloud and agreeing with parts of it. Later he turned to the NieR:Automata collaboration skins in the game, saying he knew the character 2B from Overwatch before he knew the game, and chat recommended the title. At one point a viewer told him they wanted to watch him reach Grandmaster, and another cheered him on with two wins left.

Near the end, the game’s servers dropped him from a match. He tried repeatedly to get back in, said his hands were shaking from wanting to play, and was met with a 10-minute penalty notice after he rejoined. With the match gone, he said he would stop for the night with two wins still to go. A viewer wrote that the server crash made them want to cry.

Before signing off, Kagariya said he and some members of his group would hunt the Ender Dragon in Minecraft at 8 p.m. on the 11th. He also said he would begin a monthly stream reading viewers’ questions sent through the Marshmallow question service.