From universal fan favorite to hated-on punching
bag, Riot Phreak has had a dizzying journey over the years. Involved with the game since day one,
Phreak found his way into the hearts of fans and players early on in his career, but in the span
of less than two years, his reputation completely tanked, and he has found himself on the other
side of countless criticisms, toxicity, and even death threats. So, what happened? What caused Riot
Phreak’s fall from grace? Welcome to LoLAthlete. This is How Riot Phreak Ruined His Reputation.
Phreak, born David Turley, has been a part of League of Legends since the very beginning. A
former professional Warcraft 3 player and caster, Phreak applied for and secured an internship at
Riot Games in December of 2009, fresh off of the game’s release. One of his first duties at Riot
was to spearhead their Champion Spotlight YouTube videos. Through these videos, Phreak was able to
not just showcase newly released champions and their kits, but also let some of his personality
shine through, adding flavor by coining the catchphrase “tons of damage” and advocating for
unusual junglers. The release of a new champion brought everyone excitement not just for the
champion itself, but also for Phreak’s insightful, humorous spotlights. Given his skills and
experience in in-game commentary from his Warcraft days, Phreak also immediately joined
Riot’s casting team, and had a casting career spanning over 13 years, commentating on some
of the biggest events on not just the American stage, but internationally as well
Beyond the cheesy puns and the memes, Phreak clearly had an immense passion not
only for League of Legends, but for educating people on the game. Through his spotlights and his
casting, Phreak not only made things entertaining, but gave tips and tricks, helped players
understand certain situations, and ultimately made everyone who watched his commentary a
better player. In addition to all of this, Phreak would also make comprehensive videos
outlining each patch whenever the patch went live. He went over changes, made everything easy
to understand, and explained the reasoning and the implications behind the decisions that Riot’s
team made, trying to help other players fully understand and use the patch to their advantage.
Phreak’s technical skill, fun-loving personality, and encyclopedic knowledge of the game made him a
fan favorite in the community, and he has been the undisputed face of League of Legends throughout
the game’s history. Him and Teemo, of course.
So, you’re probably asking yourself how League’s
essential mascot became the subject of some of the most intense hate and toxicity in the history
of the game. After a long and illustrious career of casting, in December of 2022, Phreak made an
announcement. Now, by all accounts, this was good news for Phreak. He had spent over ten years with
Riot and had a clear love for the game, and now he had the opportunity to work on it directly
and try and make it the best it could be. Who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity? And fans, while
disappointed they wouldn’t see him in the casting booth anymore, were undoubtedly happy for Phreak’s
promotion. Who better to balance the game than the guy who had essentially served as a tutor,
mentor, and League Dad since day one? On paper, this transition was a home run. But in reality,
this was the beginning of Phreak’s downfall.
For the first few months of Phreak’s career as
a game dev, he flew mostly under the radar. He was never specifically tied to any changes,
and things carried on more or less as normal. A patch would come out, and Phreak, now with
the added insight and experience of being on the development team himself, could offer even
more info and advice pertaining to the changes and their impact on the game moving forward. That
all changed in May of 2023, when Patch 13.10 came out. This patch was the first time that Phreak had
his name stamped on some changes, namely, changes to ADC Crit items. Phreak himself saw this as
a great moment of pride but for the community, this was the jumping off point to the
destruction of Phreak’s reputation.
Needless to say, these changes did not go over
well within the community Pros and streamers alike hated the ADC item changes, and Phreak took the
brunt of the blame. Being the main man behind that area of the patch, he was an easy scapegoat. But,
this patch aside, there was a bigger transition at play, and the community seemed to turn on
Phreak out of nowhere. In addition to the item changes themselves, there was an overall narrative
that Phreak spent all of his time buffing ADCs, historically his main role. This sentiment didn’t
have much backing to it, for several reasons, and Phreak himself addressed it on YouTube but
that didn’t stop the community from laying into him. Over time, with each patch, any changes
that Phreak made or had a large hand in were scrutinized more heavily than others, and people
even began to suspect if Phreak had underlying motivations for certain changes to the game.
He was also criticized for using metrics such as pick and ban rates as opposed to win rates
to determine if a champion was deserving of a buff or nerf. It was clear from the get go
that people didn’t like the new Phreak.
This is where Phreak’s reputation and his massive
exposure over the years came back to bite him. Because he had been involved with Riot since the
very beginning and had spent over a decade in the casting booth, Phreak had become synonymous
with League itself. He spent years building up a fanbase, reaching out to fellow players
and fans, and making himself accessible on the internet. As a result, he had visibility that
other members of the development team did not have. This made him an easy target for frustrated
players. Anyone can rage at some faceless game dev that they’ve never met and will never talk
to in real life, but what’s the point? You want to know who you’re insulting. When Phreak
joined the development team, there was a face, a name, and a personality that the fans
knew. And blaming Phreak specifically for changes that didn’t go over well became the
norm. While his public persona was starting to decline from patch 13.10 on, things passed
the point of no return in September of 2023, when Phreak announced that he was getting promoted
to Design Lead for the Summoner’s Rift Team Pod. This essentially meant that Phreak was going
to be spearheading any and all balance changes to the game moving forward. And this is when the
old Phreak officially died, and we were left with the punching bag we have today. Despite praise
and support from fellow team members at Riot, the playerbase was unenthusiastic about Phreak
taking the reins when it came to balance, and they let that be known. Many people felt Phreak
was unqualified, inexperienced, and all around ill-equipped for the role. He became the guy
to blame for anything and everything wrong with the game, and, knowing the League community,
people did not hold back, regardless of how directly involved Phreak actually was. A great
example of this was Riot’s changes to team pings, making teammate timer and item pings invisible
to anyone but the one pinging, more or less…you know…making them completely meaningless. Phreak
was not directly involved in the changes to the ping system. But guess who got flamed?
Promotion aside, at this point in time, the community’s sentiment around him was getting
more and more sour. It was clear that Phreak had let the constant criticism get to him, and as a
result, players could see him getting increasingly bitter shortly after he took the role of Design
Lead. People found his patch rundowns, tweets, and general replies to anyone questioning his
ability to do his job more and more condescending by the day, and they felt he would rather sit
and defend his changes for hours on end rather than ever admit a mistake. No matter what the
change was, what the community thought of it, or the overall effect it had on the game, Phreak
would stand by his decisions, making anyone who disagreed or felt differently than him out to be
an idiot who just didn’t understand why Riot was doing what they were doing. The community as a
whole began to feel insulted by him, and more importantly, unheard as players. Phreak seemed to
be only making changes based on hard statistics as opposed to player sentiment. One could say
he had a hard time finding balance…ironic.
Unfortunately, the vitriol for Phreak never
let up. It got to a point where in November of last year, Phreak decided to take a step back
from social media, saying that he was receiving literal death threats because of his changes
to League. I understand guys, League is life, and getting to Gold means everything to you…but
really? Phreak knew the responsibility he was getting himself into, and since he’s been
with Riot since 2009, he knew just how toxic the community could be.No matter how you feel
about his role as a game dev or how he defends his changes, it’s sad to see someone who lands
their dream job and is immediately crucified for almost every decision they ever make. As
well as plenty that they don’t even make.
It’s important to keep a couple of things
in mind here. For one, you can never please everyone. League of Legends has been around
for almost 15 years. There are five roles, hundreds of items, over 160 different champions,
and tens of thousands of players all over the world. Any changes made to any of those facets
of the game, or to gameplay itself, will draw some criticism. If you do what one guy wants,
you’re doing what a hundred others don’t. Also, it’s easy to pick out a scapegoat, but even
as design lead, it’s not like Phreak is the ultimate authority, be-all-end-all to any game
changes. He said it best himself Phreak is a part of a huge team of game devs. And most of
those game devs prefer to stay in the shadows, working on the back end but never showing
face and making themselves vulnerable to criticism. Despite receiving multiple threats
of violence, Phreak still makes a huge effort to be completely transparent to the community,
still posting updates and rundowns on YouTube whenever there’s a new patch or a big change.
And that more or less brings us to today. The journey of Phreak has been absolutely wild.
The guy is still largely the face of the game, and the fact that he went from a beloved caster
and jokester to public enemy number one in a matter of months maybe speaks as much to the
community as it does to him and his behavior. As soon as Phreak stepped into the role of a
developer, people began to feel comfortable criticizing him, and it felt like every move he
made was the wrong one. He let that eat away at him until he became cold and bitter towards the
community he’s supposed to serve. Phreak is still working as the Design Lead with no plans to stop,
and while he maybe isn’t the memeable “tons of damage” goofball that he was in the early 2010s,
he’s the same guy, right? Or is he? Is he just a guy who loves League of Legends and wants it to
be the best it can be? Or is he a condescending prick who just wants to buff all of his favorite
roles and champs while ignoring the plights of the playerbase? That’s for you to decide; plenty of
the League community already has. But one thing is for certain. The old Phreak died a long
time ago. Thank you for watching LoLAthlete.
