Venruki
Name Origins
During his time playing Counter-Strike 1.6, he used the handle ‘Kabuki’. When he moved on to WoW, he started using his real surname. He later decided to build a Mage Alt character, as his current build wasn’t performing well. So, he created his new character with a name that combined his two previous usernames.
Gaming Origins
In his early teens, Venruki played Warcraft III. In 2005, he saw WoW being advertised in the game and decided to try it out. However, the game was too advanced for his computer specs, so he shelfed it for a while. A few months later, he watched one of his friends playing WoW on a compatible computer and decided to by a new computer on which to play it, as it seemed really fun when optimized. He has been maining WoW ever since.
When he reached level 60, he focused on dueling and generally ranked as the top-duelist and later as one of the top WoW Arena players.
Professional Gaming
He met another player, Sodah, through dueling and arena. While they originally started out as opponents, they eventually teamed up and achieved high ranks over a few seasons. This motivated them to begin attending LAN tournaments with GotGame’s sponsorship. However, it was only when Lich King was released and Reckful joined them, that they were able to start perform decently at tournaments. He graduated from college in 2010 and started working fulltime for a communications company. However, he was heavily in debt from college, so in 2012, he decided to quit his job in preparation for BlizzCon, in the hopes of winning to be able to pay off his student loans. He won and paid off his debts.
As he didn’t really know what he wanted to do, he decided to attempt streaming at that point, as he felt that he might be able to launch his career from the success of BlizzCon. Although he didn’t originally like streaming, he stuck with it and has been participating in tournaments and streaming ever since. In 2015, he moved on to casting as well. He joined Cloud9 in July 2020.
Relationships
He lives with his teammate, Ziqoftw and is dating @stilljane
Income
He has ~1,800 subscribers, which should minimally net him a monthly income of $4,500 USD per month, excluding additional revenue from tiered subscriptions, tips, sponsorships, advertising, tournament winnings, casting, and his team salary.
Streaming Hours
Venruki doesn’t have a set schedule, but he streams almost daily for between 3 – 8 hours a session.
Accomplishments
- 1st - American Regional Championship - 2014
- 1st - Battle.net World Championship - 2012
- 1st - World of Warcraft Arena Global Finals - 2012
- 1st - BlizzCon - 2012
Quotes
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The way to get good at any game is to play a lot; to play and lose against the best people so you can improve yourself.
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Make sure you duel, A LOT ~ teaches you how to rotate your defensive cool downs and burst people down. Learning how your class interacts with other classes is the key to being good at any class!
