A Full Breakdown of Marvel Rivals’ Kingsman 265 Controversy

Hero shooters like Marvel Rivals are a regular source of tournaments, be it official programs run by NetEase or player-organized events. A recent tournament within the latter category has made a massive splash in the video game world, sparking a controversy so huge that even the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks referenced what happened on TikTok. The entire Marvel Rivals subreddit is currently covered in posts about the drama, with essentially all of said posts calling out those that treated streamer Kingsman265 poorly.

For those that don’t follow the Marvel Rivals competitive scene closely, they’ll likely have no understanding of the drama or where it came from, so it’s worth breaking down what happened. Doing so makes it clear why this specific controversy has become such a big deal, as it encompasses some trends everyone has encountered while gaming. Specifically, it covers the naturally clashing casual and competitive groups, the tiresome act of flaming teammates, and heroes that have a bad reputation of being throw picks.

What Sparked Marvel Rivals’ Kingsman265_ Drama?

Image via NetEase

Before getting into the explanation of the controversy, it’s important to highlight the main contributors, those being:

• Kingsman265_: A Marvel Rivals streamer who took the tournament seriously.
• zazzastack: A Marvel Rivals streamer who played for fun and refused to change off Black Widow.
• Kaplunk: zazzastack’s boyfriend, responsible for a document designed to make Kingsman265_ look bad.
• Cecee: Streamer and team leader of Kingsman265_ and zazzastack’s team, who sided with the latter.
• BazimZB: The tournament organizer.

While zazzastack and Cecee have taken the brunt of the early criticism regarding the tournament, the Marvel Rivals community has started turning its attention to BazimZB. This is because of how poorly the tournament was set up, as a lack of structure essentially created the opportunity for the controversy. Despite initially being labeled as a casual competition, and some captains not being told about the high amount of prize money until just before they drafted teams, a $40,000 reward was eventually introduced for whoever could win the tournament. This instantly opened the door to problems, as some players will have stuck to the initial casual description and signed up just for some “good vibes,” whereas others saw the potential money as motivation to be competitive. The other big issue with the event was the range of players participating, as Diamond 1 players were paired with and against Top 500s, creating unfair Marvel Rivals matches.

With this problematic setup in mind, it makes sense why things fell apart, even if it doesn’t excuse everything that happened. During the early stages of the Marvel Rivals competition, Kingsman265_ (who was significantly outperforming everyone on his team) politely suggested that zazzastack switch heroes to give the group a better chance of winning. At the time this suggestion was made, zazzastack was 0-5 on Black Widow, a hero that already has a reputation for being a throw pick given how hard it is to get value out of Snipers in hero shooters. Despite Kingsman265_’s request being made calmly — and making perfect sense giving zazzastack’s stats — Cecee immediately lashed out at Kingsman265_ for taking things too seriously when the rest of the team was just playing for fun.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the team to join in, bashing Kingsman265_ for even suggesting that they alter their comp and try to take a different approach to the match. He was called a “loser,” repeatedly shouted over and told to “shut up,” and when he gave up and stopped speaking, Cecee would bring back up the argument, essentially bullying the streamer. With Kingsman265_ wanting to win the money to help pay for his college degree, it’s clear that he had a different outlook on the Marvel Rivals tournament from the rest of his team, but he was incredibly fair in how he communicated those desires whereas his team instantly got hostile. Things only escalated from there, as event organizer BazimZB was shown a document full of out-of-context clips of Kingsman265_ from the argument (said document was made by zazzastack’s boyfriend Kaplunk and was, as one might expect, very biased). Without asking for Kingsman’s side of the story or watching the full footage, Bazim banned Kingsman.

The Fallout of Marvel Rivals’ Kingsman265_ Drama

Image via NetEase

It didn’t take long for the internet to roll back the video and showcase what really happened, with Cecee getting a ton of deserved criticism for how she spoke to Kingsman, as she was essentially the ringleader and wouldn’t let things go. After saying that she had a panic attack and taking a few days away from the internet following the incident, she has since apologized for “snapping” at Kingsman and the name-calling. Cecee also owned up to not being a better team leader, saying that she should have de-escalated the situation and been fair to both sides. However, many members of the Marvel Rivals community have been unwilling to let things go, pointing out how Cecee wouldn’t stop bringing up the initial argument and was stoking the flames. Cecee has since lost a partnership deal with Infinity Mice, an eSports peripheral provider, for her behavior.

As for zazzastack, not only is there a massive amount of pushback to her apology — she denies approving of the anti-Kingsman document created by Kaplunk, which was used to get Kingsman banned, despite seemingly watching part of its creation on-stream — but her Black Widow gameplay has become a running gag within the community. Black Widow mains have half-jokingly said that she’s ruined the hero’s image forever, as the character will be even more associated with throwing than ever before. Players are also auto-leaving her matches when they see her on their team as a form of punishment, though this is discouraged since it turns them into throwers just like she was. Her boyfriend, Kaplunk, has since privated his Twitter account despite saying to direct hate at him for what happened. Lastly, there’s BasimZB, who has since said that those outraged need to “get over it,” whereas Marvel Rivals fans feel he should no longer be allowed to host any tournaments due to a lack of professionalism.

Obviously, there are two sides to every story (even if Kingsman was clearly in the right). Perhaps Cecee overreacted to the polite request for her friend to switch because of how common it is for Marvel Rivals players — especially women — to be talked down to when playing the game. While that certainly wasn’t happening here, as there was no sexism on display from Kingsman, Cecee snapping could have been a result of pent-up frustration after dealing with toxicity in other matches. Additionally, it can’t be stressed enough that the “good vibes” the team pushed for would have made sense for a casual tournament, which is what the Deadpool Creator Cup had been improperly labeled as despite its poorly handled monetization. None of this excuses the behavior of Kingsman’s team whatsoever, but the situation regarding the “mean girls,” as they’ve since been labeled online, is concerning since it can inspire even more toxicity against all the female gamers who aren’t problematic. Yes, men and women should be criticized equally for rude behavior, but that requires them to be treated equally all around, which is not nearly as common as it should be.

Game Rant | Source images via NetEase

Kingsman has since released his own google doc, showing that zazzastack’s boyfriend was conspiring with at least one of Kingsman’s teammates to ensure the ban happened. Kingsman believes this partner in crime was Cecee, sharing messages with her from after he was kicked where she blames him for the harassment that she and zazzastack have received instead of taking blame for her own actions. The doc also includes an unhinged message from a viewer that shames Kingsman for not fighting back more and for not bashing all women in his response, clearly reflecting the above concern, as misogynistic internet users are now using this situation as a chance to be awful to the opposite sex. While the actual conflict has nothing to do with sexism, and was just a case of casual Marvel Rivals players wrongly lashing out at a more competitive gamer, it’s being morphed into a different kind of debate by outside parties.

The Silver Lining of Marvel Rivals’ Kingsman265_ Drama

The one positive of this situation (outside all the Black Widow memes) is that Kingsman265_ has come out of everything better off than before the tournament. Yes, he had a teammate throw the match and then had to deal with his team conspiring to get him banned, but the internet quickly flocked to his side. Following his video on the situation, which has brought in over a million views, he’s had major streamers like XqC and Jay3 speak out on his behalf. His viewership has skyrocketed from an average of 200 viewers to 4,400, with Kingsman265_ getting hundreds of subscribers to match the drastic increase in view count, and he’s become a Twitch partner as a result of this rapid growth.

In fact, Kingsman265_ has gotten so much love when it comes to subscriptions and donations that he’s made well over the $3,000 cut he would have received from winning the tournament, something that will go a long way to his goal of getting through college. He’s remained humble as well. Per a Reddit post from LobotomyObjective, Kingsman has told his now-significant audience to stop sending money his way and instead to donate to a dementia charity, as he has lost a family member due to the disease. Given this positive attitude and his quick climb to becoming a top Marvel Rivals streamer, Kingsman265_ should have a fruitful streaming career ahead of him, with players uniting to show him plenty of love after he was mistreated by his team.

While Black Widow mains and girl gamers will unfortunately have to deal with the fallout from this situation for the foreseeable future, at least Kingsman265_ is now being rewarded for playing the game the right way instead of being shouted at. Hopefully, the wrong lessons aren’t taken from this situation. It should be a reminder to be kind when criticizing one’s team and requesting changes, and never to gang up on players who don’t deserve it. Given the public shaming Cecee and zazzastack have gotten for their nastiness during the match, and with Kingsman265_ ultimately benefiting from the controversy, hopefully everybody can put the poorly organized Creator Cup behind them and any harassment can stop. A poorly planned event, an overreaction to fair criticism, and a failure to treat all parties equally resulted in a gigantic mess, but the outpouring of love for Kingsman265_ has gone a long way to fixing it.

Released

December 6, 2024

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence

Developer(s)

NetEase Games

Publisher(s)

NetEase Games