In a January 17 post on Twitter, Sykkuno called out Twitch for removing him from the Marvel Rivals tournament just one day before competition began.
After the overwhelming popularity of Marvel Rivals since its release in late 2024, many were excited when Twitch Rivals announced an upcoming Marvel Rivals event, set to take place on January 18-19.
However, last-minute rule changes from Twitch have caused confusion and frustration among those involved in the tournament.
In an effort to make the tournament more balanced, Twitch required each team with high-ranking players to have some lower level players to even out the team’s rank average. However, their stance on how many players this should be went back and forth, resulting in some huge issues.
Sykkuno calls out Twitch over Marvel Rivals event
One of the teams, which included Twitch streamers and Overwatch veterans Bogur and Necros, asked Twitch for some lower level players in order to comply with the rules.
Twitch then added streamers Sykkuno and Ellum due to their low ranking in Marvel Rivals, and the team began to practice for the upcoming tournament thinking that they’d be able to compete with no problems.
However, just a day before the tournament was set to begin, Twitch removed Sykkuno from the team because he had reached Diamond rank in the previous season. This is despite Twitch hand-picking Sykkuno for bogur’s team and inviting him to the event.
The decision to remove Sykkuno surprised everyone in the team, including Sykkuno himself.
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— Sykkuno (@Sykkuno) January 17, 2025
Many in the community came to the support of Sykkuno, including streamers Cinna, Pokimane, and Tubbo. The tweet has since amassed over 30,000 likes, with streamers and fans alike protesting Twitch’s handling of the event.
The immediate backlash caused Twitch to reverse their decision in just a couple of hours, with Bogur tweeting “great sacrifices have been made but…SYKKUNO IS BACK IN TWITCH RIVALS,”
However, this came at the cost of ml7 and Kayjii being unable to play on their team after even more rule changes.
update:twitch reverted the rules back to only 2 pros per team so we had to nuke kayjii and ml7 https://t.co/tscmFrtKXw pic.twitter.com/qmKyw1LVsn
— bogur (@b0gur) January 18, 2025
By bogur’s account, he had to tell the teammates he kicked they weren’t going to be able to play the day before the event started.
They’re just a few of several creators who were forced out of the event last-minute due to rule changes from Twitch.
One of these streamers was dokibird, someone who was stuck in a similar situation to Sykkuno and the rest of his team. Twitch staff assured her and her team that they’d be fine to compete, but, by her account, the admins confirmed her worst fears and barred their team from competing.
