I've paid people who needed to meet metrics in order to keep their job that could only dream of Darziak levels of productivity.
This is why I note that Phil is (or was, at least) not terrible at fighting games. He was that mid-tier gatekeeper that you beat to get to the real competitive level. But, Phil was still good and someone most of them they respected playing... until they got to know Phil at all.
Any respect they might have had for his dedication/competence didn't stop them from seeing through him: He once posted on SRK, offering a free ride to an upcoming tourney to anyone who wanted. Nobody responded and eventually somebody asked "what's on, this seems like a good offer and nobody's taking him up on it". The response? "Because it's DSP.". He was so radioactive that his name was shorthand for "insufferable" to almost everybody in the FGC.
We all know people similar to DSP, where 'free ride' really means he will lord it over you constantly forever, as he does with anybody he interacts with on the internet nowadays. It was clearly obviously to everybody else back then that paying for a ride from literally anybody else was better than paying $0 to DSP Space Gayman Space REAL
Some legends say that was the last time DSP ever drove a car...
I'll say why I don't think he's on stimulants: When it's time to end the stream its done. He will whine about more money for like 10 minutes bt=ut thats it.
Does it fuck up your hairline decades later when your mom puts them on too?
I'm going to go hotter than hot take: Phail was not only not terrible, for a brief period of time, he was a very good player.
You better be fucking 'above average' if you are taking cash advances off credit cards and going into 6 figure debt to play a videogame
Remember when he threw his WiiU in the garbage? Kiwifarms remembers
Really the only way it'd be possible for anyone to make a DaS2 playthrough in Anno Domini MMXXVI entertaining is if they played with a randomizer mod but he's way too much of a coward to do that. He can prove me wrong if he wants.
It's hard to tell what Phil's level really was back then because info is so sparse. 4th place in a flawed EVO, he won EVO East, etc... but I can't imagine these tournaments were deep back then, like you say. There are a few videos from Phil at EVO East and you have to admit he was at least competitive against good players.
If he decided to only play "Souls like" shit for the rest of his streaming life and actually modded the game in depth and did randos and stuff he would be on a better path but nope he is gonna just slip in a DS2 run with some cheese build and cope about how hard it is the install mods.
Man he's really butthurt huh? Like go to bed, dude. He must really be feeling the squeeze of this new addiction and is looking for some kind of control, because he gets shit on all the time and doesn't react like this. He wants to, always, but he seems to have learned better for the most part.
