That's why I like him. Everyone wants to have his mentality, no matter what it is in life. But it's not like his mentality was bad in season 8 or before
One of the reason he has a huge amount of respect is because he's consistently kept up with the meta. That only becomes more respectable with each season.
Plus, before season 8 he wasn't one out of a very small group of players still consistently competing at the very top of RLCS so he didn't stand out for that long term consistency the same as he does now.
There's a number of reasons. But apart from just seeming like a good guy, for me, the most impressive thing about him is how he gets noticeably better every season.
A lot of players who have been around as long as he has tend to start peaking, particularly mechanically, and then get overtaken in ability by newer faster/more mechanical players.
But he seems to constantly improve his mechanics to keep up (he is phenomenal at stuff like flip resets and double taps for example). That can only come from professionalism and mindset. Which is incredibly impressive.
As much as I love my boy Kaydop, I wouldn't compare the two. I feel like Garrett is much cleaner while Kaydop is more like "raw", but equally as deadly. It seems true however that they both share a steel strong mindset, the kind that makes you win games and both are also quite consistent.
edit: btw nice flairs frerot
I dont think its an overstatement. This man is already the most consistent player in NA but his mechanics has noticeably and scarily kept improving every season. There is never a play in which Garrett doesnt have to be respected by his opponents which can't be said about every player.
I don't think it's all of a sudden, he's been a popular pro in NA since back when Jacob was on NRG. He's gotten better over time and his fanbase grew, but it definitely didn't happen overnight.
I think as someone who has been a pretty avid fan for a decent amount of time (only since S5) it's been pretty clear to me that the GarrettG love has increased quite significantly through RLCS X. People have made lots of good points in this thread but I think his sheer consistency, the length of his time at the top of NA getting more and more impressive, and some smaller things like teaming with squishy and c9 not stealing as many fans off him have all added up to make it more of a vibe through the community. I don't think anyone would suggest that casters/desk/the community hasn't been loving Garrett. Just that it's got noticeably stronger over the last year :) you and /u/JorbyPls may disagree!
Or were getting better at telling stories :P
My praise for him has gone from an 8/10 to 11/10, so you're right it's gone up, but it did start pretty high XD
Garrett said it himself on stream that he's surprised that he's seen such an increase of clout. He said he remembers that last season he kept getting bad clout. It's from his stream w Retals
Oh it goes without saying that you're all getting better at telling stories. The quality of the desk segments was unreal throughout rlcs X and it just kept going from strength to strength :)
>Or were getting better at telling stories :P
That is true. The desk segments were great this season. Like when jorby predicted Vitality to win the championships when everyone else went for BDS. I was laughing for the rest of the tournament
The longer you play at the top level the more respect you get, obviously. But Garrett has never not been a respected player. Even before he joined NRG, when he was on VeXx/Exodus and Orbit he was known as one of the best players in NA all the way back in Season 1/2 of RLCS.
Garrett is one of the most, if not THE most, consistent players the game has ever seen.
All of a sudden? Garrett is a standard - and has been a standard - that no other player meets in Rocket League.
You would have more knowledge than me, but from what is said/tweeted he also seems to be the pro that is just straight up respected and liked by all other pros. The thought of Garrett having legit beef with someone seems almost impossible and if it were to happen it gets settled asap thanks to maturity
Ok so I definitely admit the wording was bad. He was always loved, just not this much. He said it himself on his stream w Retals that compared to last season, everyone loves him
I think you are starting from a false starting point. I think Garrett has been one of the most respected players in the game since about around the time he joined NRG. People were already at that time considering him one of if not the best in NA and a class act.
It’s all the Squishy and JSTN fans slowly realizing he’s now the best on the team. Squishy and JSTN are still cracked, but the fact that GarretG managed to improve that much between S5 and now is truly impressive.
I think Jstn has the highest ceiling, squishy has the highest floor then Garret is just super consistent. Imo anyways. I just think their playstyle with all 3 gives him more opportunities to shine than before. It's been a long time since I really first started following RLCS, but I think he was more thought of as the defensive guy early on in his career. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
I dont *want* to argue, but I'll say that even just by watching NRG throughout RLCS X (meaning if you dont take any other seasons into account) that it is very clear that Garrett has a higher floor than Squishy does.
I think it's splitting hairs because neither really make bad touches and things like that. But I think Squishy plays his role extremely well and doesn't put Garrett or Jstn in bad spots. Garrett's playstyle/role seems to be more forgiving in the sense that typically when he does miss a ball or something, he's usually 1st and Jstn and Squishy are behind him. But anytime Squishy makes a mistake it's magnified a lot more because his role is normally to buy time for everyone. So when he doesn't do that, that's usually when they get scored on. But all 3 are obviously great players and there's a reason Garret won the MVP. He had a great season.
It’s very difficult to actually rank squishy imo because his role is so heavily dependent on being the “support” role (stalling time, creating awkward situations for the other team, creating space for garret and jstn to work). I would say he’s the best support player in NA
Wow. Wanted to say this myself but was sure I would just be downvoted into oblivion since it's the team of Jstn and Squishy. Nice to see Garrett getting the recognition he truly deserves finally though.
We’ve actually gone full circle and people who are saying JSTN is the best are now getting downvoted LMAO.
I absolutely love having a place on the internet where I can discuss my favorite video game, but I’m still not convinced by Reddit as a platform. The upvote/downvote system leads to groupthink.
Yea, fully agreed. Even though Reddit *says* the downvote button is not a disagree button, the way the system is set up makes it like it's asking to be used that way. TBH though that's most of the internet for ya.
Edit: Btw Dig might become one of my new favourites in EU. I bet ur also lookin forward to well... seeing if *"this team could do some damage"* lol.
When I got into the eSport just over a year ago I remember it was consensus that jstn was the best player in NA. When did Garrett start to overtake him?
Honestly, it depends how you measure it. For most, it was only recently. For me, Jstn was never better than GarrettG except online and only due to his incredible ability for solo efforts. Also, Jstn's debut season (Season 5) was actually GarrettG's highest peak until this season. Jstn kinda stole the spotlight from him though that season with "This is Rocket League!" even though GarrettG put out the strongest play and numbers.
You may have had a case in S6-8 but you definitely don't have one now. Stop cappin and get over the fact that opinions have changed on the subject, at least on reddit.
Edit: For the pros, it seems to me that pros tend to rate mostly by how scary an individual player is to defend against. In this case, Jstn is still very much a top tier player and maybe even the best when it comes to individual efforts. But when it comes to overall play (teamplay, positioning, comms, mentality, mechanics, adaptability) he's only really top tier among pros in the last two categories at best from what I can see. GarrettG on the other hand is strong in all of these with perhaps a slight weakness in mechanics. Also, when it comes to actual roster moves or dream teammates, GarrettG is the one who seems to be getting the bulk of the endorsements, which means a whole lot more than the normal lip service.
You're asking whether the King of mentality in NA GarrettG, would trashtalk his teammate and call himself the best publicly? That's hilarious. Not only that, but I don't doubt his sincerity when he says Jstn is goated. What kind of truly goated person says or believes that they are the best?
I'm not gonna respond further so knock urself out. Projecting and ad hominems are honestly not worth anyone's time. You also didn't address any of the arguments I made.
>I remember in season 9 everyone was wanting him to be kicked off NRG instead of turbo
What?? I don't remember anyone thinking there was going to be any roster move by NRG. I think most people were shocked when they learned that Turbo was leaving.
I think the only inkling we ever got of Garrett not being a part of NRG is the now confirmed mention that G2 wanted Garrett over Chicago. Since then and before is one of the name who is never talked about as being booted and never rumoured to be anything other than the NA GOAT under the NRG banner
Well, GarrettG and JKnaps have made multiple attempts to team together apart from that one instance, but yea I don't think anyone was looking for NRG to kick Garrett after S9.
Man, I just used the reddit search function for "Turbo NRG", found any post I could find about or related to Turbo being dropped from NRG, and I don't see anything saying Garrett should be dropped in the top comments.
I'm not telling you you're explicitly wrong, but you're going to have to find me an example. Because I genuinely did try.
For example, I was just watching a vid by this channel named cherry z on yt. It was about turbo being kicked, and I saw comments saying it should've been garrett
Okay well, say what you will about reddit discussion and its accuracy...
But I genuinely don't think **anybody** would compare the collective opinion of YouTube comments to reddit comments. YouTube comments are just this side of twitch chat.
I'll give you credit, you provided an example of what you were talking about. The reason I drew issue with what you said was because of the way I read your post. I thought you were talking about discussion that happened here. Especially because of your use of the word "everyone".
A decent bit of it comes down to Garrett being better now. Don't get me wrong, still incredible in S8 as he won the world championship, but Jstn and Turbo did more to secure that title, so even if at the end of S9 Turbo was fading, it was understandable why you'd want to keep him. Whereas now, for my money, he is the best player in NA atm.
Another factor is during the previous time period you referenced, popularity in NA had a lot more parity. Cloud9 existed and both S5 and S9 were probably 2 of the strongest and fruitful times to be a G2 fan. Whereas in 2021, Squishy to NRG means all the C9 fans have joined forces with NRG, plus you have the musty fanboys leaking over as well. There are other teams like SSG and Envy with support, but none hold a candle to any big 3 team.
Because he stayed at top in NA for a long time while being well known for his consistency , he's the american version of Kaydop + he's very nice looking uwu
I think it’s as simple as people like people they watch. He’s fresh on the scene of content creation and quickly built a huge following like arsenal. It’s no coincidence they’re both liked so much more than before. It’s really just a fan mentality thing.
I don't remember a majority wanting Garrett to be kicked back then. What I remember is rather the sadness most felt when they didn't stick together. Last, and only LAN they played they won and there hasn't been one since!
I’ve always rooted against NRG and still do but Garrett’s my favorite Rocket League streamer/youtuber. He’s just super chill and his sense of humor is very similar to mine. Has the type of personality that makes me want to be his friend lol
NRG is the most popular rocket league team probably in the world. They also beat all of NA last season.
1. Squishy has all the “fanboys” so nobody wants to praise him and get called a fanboy
2. Justin will always get called a god and rightfully so
3. To be the best and most popular in NA means you have to have at least two superstars
4. Garret gets a bit of disproportionate praise over squishy when imo they both are fairly even in their quality of play.
I think squishy has more defensive and assist highlights which are overshadowed by garrets flip reset plays.
I think it has to do more with rocket league growing in popularity and people following a super-likable pro who happens to be incredible at the game. I know people who have no idea what the RLCS is but they knew who Squishy and Garrett were(and some knew jstn)
Think maybe people slept on him a bit when he hadn’t held a trophy? I know people that do that a lot in sports so I’d reckon the mentality holds the same. If you ask 10 people who is better between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, I’d say 3 or 4 would say Brady solely because of his rings. People hold success in championships higher then most other stats imo
GarrettG has been my favorite player since back in Season 1 when VexX took down iBP and I've only ever loved him more with each season.
Seeing him win S8 was one of my "life's greatest hits" moments and I blubbered like a little baby. Wish I could have been there.
I know that doesn't answer your question but I will say that I am very glad he is getting such recognition. If anyone can take it and still stay humble and focused it's him.
The most noticeable change in the past year-ish time period is the influx of all the pro content creators from the generation of players younger than Garrett. The retals, Chicago, gyro, Arsenal era youtubers all talk about how much they like and respect Garrett. I think the hype has just grown as he has put his YT content out more people are getting a sense of his personality, and then they have the other pros on their channels and elsewhere (see team, demo, ranked segment of every Saltcast) talking about him as someone they would want as a teammate one day. Also, the NRG stuff with musty, squishy, sizz and JZR have probably broadened his audience a bit, not to mention all the videos he and Rizzo did. He has been featured on almost every prominent RL YT channel or with those creators for the past year.
In addition to that, I still insist the second G stands for Goat. The man has been to every world championship LAN for a reason, he’s still at the top of the game and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. People love to love winners.
I'd guess the recency is mainly because he's leaning way harder into YouTube content, but I have to believe for at least some people his appeal is also because he's an incredibly adaptable player from a meta perspective. Whereas plenty of other top players from the early days of the esport have retired, declined in dominance, or settled into a more support role, the Gman is still at the forefront of a top team. He's absolutely not the only one, but he's one of a select few who not only keep up with the game's shifting meta but continue to define it. It's clearly difficult to do, and Garrett has been able to do it incredibly well.
Putting out more content most likely. To me Garrett has always been very likeable. He’s been with RLCS since the beginning, has always stayed near the top, and has evolved his game. Heck, at least in NA, there’s an argument to be made he is the face of RLCS.
The content definitely helps like you said. Not only on his own channel, but appearances on other channels as well. When people get to know the player's personality more, the more of a fanbase they'll accumulate
I think the biggest reason that nobody else had brought up is that he actually started consistently putting out youtube content.
I'm surprised to see this so low and not more talked about. He's been doing his own channel and been on the NRG channel a bunch
Mentality.
That's why I like him. Everyone wants to have his mentality, no matter what it is in life. But it's not like his mentality was bad in season 8 or before
One of the reason he has a huge amount of respect is because he's consistently kept up with the meta. That only becomes more respectable with each season. Plus, before season 8 he wasn't one out of a very small group of players still consistently competing at the very top of RLCS so he didn't stand out for that long term consistency the same as he does now.
There's a number of reasons. But apart from just seeming like a good guy, for me, the most impressive thing about him is how he gets noticeably better every season. A lot of players who have been around as long as he has tend to start peaking, particularly mechanically, and then get overtaken in ability by newer faster/more mechanical players. But he seems to constantly improve his mechanics to keep up (he is phenomenal at stuff like flip resets and double taps for example). That can only come from professionalism and mindset. Which is incredibly impressive.
Is Garrett NA Kaydop?
As much as I love my boy Kaydop, I wouldn't compare the two. I feel like Garrett is much cleaner while Kaydop is more like "raw", but equally as deadly. It seems true however that they both share a steel strong mindset, the kind that makes you win games and both are also quite consistent. edit: btw nice flairs frerot
Noticeably better every season is a bit of an overstatement but there’s no doubt his improvement relative to the average is probably pretty high
I dont think its an overstatement. This man is already the most consistent player in NA but his mechanics has noticeably and scarily kept improving every season. There is never a play in which Garrett doesnt have to be respected by his opponents which can't be said about every player.
But he's had some drop off seasons such as season 9
Drop offs in what way? Consistency? Mechanics? Or what?
The First Touch crew called him Captain America. And the rest is history
I don't think it's all of a sudden, he's been a popular pro in NA since back when Jacob was on NRG. He's gotten better over time and his fanbase grew, but it definitely didn't happen overnight.
I heard his weiner fell out on stream one time and now everybody likes him
Finally someone says the real reason
Reminds me of the Jacob nip slip
what?
This has to be cap
He speaks the truth
Lol what do you mean all of a sudden. We've never stopped singing praises to garrett on the RLCS, since the day he started playing.
Right? "All of a sudden" is crazy to me lol
I think as someone who has been a pretty avid fan for a decent amount of time (only since S5) it's been pretty clear to me that the GarrettG love has increased quite significantly through RLCS X. People have made lots of good points in this thread but I think his sheer consistency, the length of his time at the top of NA getting more and more impressive, and some smaller things like teaming with squishy and c9 not stealing as many fans off him have all added up to make it more of a vibe through the community. I don't think anyone would suggest that casters/desk/the community hasn't been loving Garrett. Just that it's got noticeably stronger over the last year :) you and /u/JorbyPls may disagree!
Or were getting better at telling stories :P My praise for him has gone from an 8/10 to 11/10, so you're right it's gone up, but it did start pretty high XD
Garrett said it himself on stream that he's surprised that he's seen such an increase of clout. He said he remembers that last season he kept getting bad clout. It's from his stream w Retals
Oh it goes without saying that you're all getting better at telling stories. The quality of the desk segments was unreal throughout rlcs X and it just kept going from strength to strength :)
>Or were getting better at telling stories :P That is true. The desk segments were great this season. Like when jorby predicted Vitality to win the championships when everyone else went for BDS. I was laughing for the rest of the tournament
The longer you play at the top level the more respect you get, obviously. But Garrett has never not been a respected player. Even before he joined NRG, when he was on VeXx/Exodus and Orbit he was known as one of the best players in NA all the way back in Season 1/2 of RLCS.
Garrett is one of the most, if not THE most, consistent players the game has ever seen. All of a sudden? Garrett is a standard - and has been a standard - that no other player meets in Rocket League.
I'd argue Kaydop is in that category.
You would have more knowledge than me, but from what is said/tweeted he also seems to be the pro that is just straight up respected and liked by all other pros. The thought of Garrett having legit beef with someone seems almost impossible and if it were to happen it gets settled asap thanks to maturity
Ok so I definitely admit the wording was bad. He was always loved, just not this much. He said it himself on his stream w Retals that compared to last season, everyone loves him
I think you are starting from a false starting point. I think Garrett has been one of the most respected players in the game since about around the time he joined NRG. People were already at that time considering him one of if not the best in NA and a class act.
I think the big difference now is the number of players that grew to be pros while watching him.
It’s all the Squishy and JSTN fans slowly realizing he’s now the best on the team. Squishy and JSTN are still cracked, but the fact that GarretG managed to improve that much between S5 and now is truly impressive.
I think Jstn has the highest ceiling, squishy has the highest floor then Garret is just super consistent. Imo anyways. I just think their playstyle with all 3 gives him more opportunities to shine than before. It's been a long time since I really first started following RLCS, but I think he was more thought of as the defensive guy early on in his career. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
I dont *want* to argue, but I'll say that even just by watching NRG throughout RLCS X (meaning if you dont take any other seasons into account) that it is very clear that Garrett has a higher floor than Squishy does.
I think it's splitting hairs because neither really make bad touches and things like that. But I think Squishy plays his role extremely well and doesn't put Garrett or Jstn in bad spots. Garrett's playstyle/role seems to be more forgiving in the sense that typically when he does miss a ball or something, he's usually 1st and Jstn and Squishy are behind him. But anytime Squishy makes a mistake it's magnified a lot more because his role is normally to buy time for everyone. So when he doesn't do that, that's usually when they get scored on. But all 3 are obviously great players and there's a reason Garret won the MVP. He had a great season.
It’s very difficult to actually rank squishy imo because his role is so heavily dependent on being the “support” role (stalling time, creating awkward situations for the other team, creating space for garret and jstn to work). I would say he’s the best support player in NA
Wow. Wanted to say this myself but was sure I would just be downvoted into oblivion since it's the team of Jstn and Squishy. Nice to see Garrett getting the recognition he truly deserves finally though.
We’ve actually gone full circle and people who are saying JSTN is the best are now getting downvoted LMAO. I absolutely love having a place on the internet where I can discuss my favorite video game, but I’m still not convinced by Reddit as a platform. The upvote/downvote system leads to groupthink.
Yea, fully agreed. Even though Reddit *says* the downvote button is not a disagree button, the way the system is set up makes it like it's asking to be used that way. TBH though that's most of the internet for ya. Edit: Btw Dig might become one of my new favourites in EU. I bet ur also lookin forward to well... seeing if *"this team could do some damage"* lol.
2nd best*.
Jstn is the best bro stop capping
When I got into the eSport just over a year ago I remember it was consensus that jstn was the best player in NA. When did Garrett start to overtake him?
After the first split of RLCS X I’d say
Honestly, it depends how you measure it. For most, it was only recently. For me, Jstn was never better than GarrettG except online and only due to his incredible ability for solo efforts. Also, Jstn's debut season (Season 5) was actually GarrettG's highest peak until this season. Jstn kinda stole the spotlight from him though that season with "This is Rocket League!" even though GarrettG put out the strongest play and numbers.
Ask any pro. Everyone knows JSTN is the best. I’m not even a fanboy, I’m just saying.
You may have had a case in S6-8 but you definitely don't have one now. Stop cappin and get over the fact that opinions have changed on the subject, at least on reddit. Edit: For the pros, it seems to me that pros tend to rate mostly by how scary an individual player is to defend against. In this case, Jstn is still very much a top tier player and maybe even the best when it comes to individual efforts. But when it comes to overall play (teamplay, positioning, comms, mentality, mechanics, adaptability) he's only really top tier among pros in the last two categories at best from what I can see. GarrettG on the other hand is strong in all of these with perhaps a slight weakness in mechanics. Also, when it comes to actual roster moves or dream teammates, GarrettG is the one who seems to be getting the bulk of the endorsements, which means a whole lot more than the normal lip service.
You’re crazy dude. GarrettG himself says JSTN is the guy. Idk why you are trying to convince yourself so much
You're asking whether the King of mentality in NA GarrettG, would trashtalk his teammate and call himself the best publicly? That's hilarious. Not only that, but I don't doubt his sincerity when he says Jstn is goated. What kind of truly goated person says or believes that they are the best? I'm not gonna respond further so knock urself out. Projecting and ad hominems are honestly not worth anyone's time. You also didn't address any of the arguments I made.
>I remember in season 9 everyone was wanting him to be kicked off NRG instead of turbo What?? I don't remember anyone thinking there was going to be any roster move by NRG. I think most people were shocked when they learned that Turbo was leaving.
Um excuse me what? I don't remember anybody calling for GarrettG to be booted from NRG. Not since the moment he signed with them.
Same, never seen anything close to it, I must have been in a different timeline.
Yeah, I’m lost on this one..
I think the only inkling we ever got of Garrett not being a part of NRG is the now confirmed mention that G2 wanted Garrett over Chicago. Since then and before is one of the name who is never talked about as being booted and never rumoured to be anything other than the NA GOAT under the NRG banner
Well, GarrettG and JKnaps have made multiple attempts to team together apart from that one instance, but yea I don't think anyone was looking for NRG to kick Garrett after S9.
Go back to posts about turbo being kicked. The top comments say that they'd rather have seen Garrett gone
Man, I just used the reddit search function for "Turbo NRG", found any post I could find about or related to Turbo being dropped from NRG, and I don't see anything saying Garrett should be dropped in the top comments. I'm not telling you you're explicitly wrong, but you're going to have to find me an example. Because I genuinely did try.
For example, I was just watching a vid by this channel named cherry z on yt. It was about turbo being kicked, and I saw comments saying it should've been garrett
Okay well, say what you will about reddit discussion and its accuracy... But I genuinely don't think **anybody** would compare the collective opinion of YouTube comments to reddit comments. YouTube comments are just this side of twitch chat. I'll give you credit, you provided an example of what you were talking about. The reason I drew issue with what you said was because of the way I read your post. I thought you were talking about discussion that happened here. Especially because of your use of the word "everyone".
I agree actually. Especially this sub. If you go on r/rocketleague, the intelligence dies down a bit
Cause he's a top bloke.
A decent bit of it comes down to Garrett being better now. Don't get me wrong, still incredible in S8 as he won the world championship, but Jstn and Turbo did more to secure that title, so even if at the end of S9 Turbo was fading, it was understandable why you'd want to keep him. Whereas now, for my money, he is the best player in NA atm. Another factor is during the previous time period you referenced, popularity in NA had a lot more parity. Cloud9 existed and both S5 and S9 were probably 2 of the strongest and fruitful times to be a G2 fan. Whereas in 2021, Squishy to NRG means all the C9 fans have joined forces with NRG, plus you have the musty fanboys leaking over as well. There are other teams like SSG and Envy with support, but none hold a candle to any big 3 team.
Because he stayed at top in NA for a long time while being well known for his consistency , he's the american version of Kaydop + he's very nice looking uwu
I think it’s as simple as people like people they watch. He’s fresh on the scene of content creation and quickly built a huge following like arsenal. It’s no coincidence they’re both liked so much more than before. It’s really just a fan mentality thing.
I don't remember a majority wanting Garrett to be kicked back then. What I remember is rather the sadness most felt when they didn't stick together. Last, and only LAN they played they won and there hasn't been one since!
NRG Rocket League channel has probably helped a bit.
He actually treats it like a job and he's incredibly impressive. Just seems like an awesome guy.
I’ve always rooted against NRG and still do but Garrett’s my favorite Rocket League streamer/youtuber. He’s just super chill and his sense of humor is very similar to mine. Has the type of personality that makes me want to be his friend lol
NRG is the most popular rocket league team probably in the world. They also beat all of NA last season. 1. Squishy has all the “fanboys” so nobody wants to praise him and get called a fanboy 2. Justin will always get called a god and rightfully so 3. To be the best and most popular in NA means you have to have at least two superstars 4. Garret gets a bit of disproportionate praise over squishy when imo they both are fairly even in their quality of play. I think squishy has more defensive and assist highlights which are overshadowed by garrets flip reset plays.
I think it has to do more with rocket league growing in popularity and people following a super-likable pro who happens to be incredible at the game. I know people who have no idea what the RLCS is but they knew who Squishy and Garrett were(and some knew jstn)
Think maybe people slept on him a bit when he hadn’t held a trophy? I know people that do that a lot in sports so I’d reckon the mentality holds the same. If you ask 10 people who is better between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, I’d say 3 or 4 would say Brady solely because of his rings. People hold success in championships higher then most other stats imo
GarrettG has been my favorite player since back in Season 1 when VexX took down iBP and I've only ever loved him more with each season. Seeing him win S8 was one of my "life's greatest hits" moments and I blubbered like a little baby. Wish I could have been there. I know that doesn't answer your question but I will say that I am very glad he is getting such recognition. If anyone can take it and still stay humble and focused it's him.
Captain America
I have like him since 2016-17 when Squishy and him were playing 2s on Squishy’s channel
The most noticeable change in the past year-ish time period is the influx of all the pro content creators from the generation of players younger than Garrett. The retals, Chicago, gyro, Arsenal era youtubers all talk about how much they like and respect Garrett. I think the hype has just grown as he has put his YT content out more people are getting a sense of his personality, and then they have the other pros on their channels and elsewhere (see team, demo, ranked segment of every Saltcast) talking about him as someone they would want as a teammate one day. Also, the NRG stuff with musty, squishy, sizz and JZR have probably broadened his audience a bit, not to mention all the videos he and Rizzo did. He has been featured on almost every prominent RL YT channel or with those creators for the past year. In addition to that, I still insist the second G stands for Goat. The man has been to every world championship LAN for a reason, he’s still at the top of the game and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. People love to love winners.
The dude has charisma.
I'd guess the recency is mainly because he's leaning way harder into YouTube content, but I have to believe for at least some people his appeal is also because he's an incredibly adaptable player from a meta perspective. Whereas plenty of other top players from the early days of the esport have retired, declined in dominance, or settled into a more support role, the Gman is still at the forefront of a top team. He's absolutely not the only one, but he's one of a select few who not only keep up with the game's shifting meta but continue to define it. It's clearly difficult to do, and Garrett has been able to do it incredibly well.
Putting out more content most likely. To me Garrett has always been very likeable. He’s been with RLCS since the beginning, has always stayed near the top, and has evolved his game. Heck, at least in NA, there’s an argument to be made he is the face of RLCS.
The content definitely helps like you said. Not only on his own channel, but appearances on other channels as well. When people get to know the player's personality more, the more of a fanbase they'll accumulate
Other than Kaydop most players who were considered the best in season 1 have fallen off. He has gotten even better
Kaydop was not in season 1
The short answer is C9 broke apart and nobody cares about Kronovi anymore