A perfect storm of COVID lockdowns and content dry spells led to the impressive rise of Among Us in 2020, when the social deduction game quickly became a favorite among some of the most popular streamers in the world. Some of those streamers, like Ludwig, used that perfect storm to hitch a ride to the top alongside the game.

Ludwig was already streaming to several thousand Twitch viewers daily before the Among Us boom, but his following swelled along with the game, as he quickly found himself in lobbies with people like Sodapoppin, xQc, and members of Offline TV. It also helped that Ludwig was quite good at sniffing out imposters.

There was one very good reason that Ludwig seemed a natural at the game: he cheated.

Ludwig’s podcast, The Yard, uploaded a new episode entitled “Ludwig Finally Admits to Cheating in Among Us” on April 28. In the video, Ludwig admitted to cheating on stream in Among Us after he and his co-hosts discuss the drama swirling around OTK’s Schooled and streamer EEvisu, who admitted to cheating to win the Mizkif-hosted game show.

Frequently when bigger streamers played Among Us, they would put their chats into emote-only mode in order to prevent chatters from spoiling who the imposters in their game were. Still, this method wasn’t perfect, as Ludwig admitted he “could kind of see who they were emoting.” Some streamers’ avatars in the game, like Sykkuno’s trademark leaf, could make it fairly easy to tell what chat was trying to say.

Despite this, Ludwig claims he never cheated to win games but rather to make better content for his stream and YouTube channel.

“Not, like, ‘let me be the genius,’” Ludwig said, explaining his approach to checking his chat to see who imposters were. “It’s like, ‘Oh, Sykkuno’s the imposter? Let me hang out with him all game, and then pretend like I got super manipulated…’ It doesn’t matter if you win Among Us, but you can make better content if you know [who imposters are].”

When pressed by his co-hosts on his participation in Among Us tournaments with cash prizes, Ludwig denied ever cheating or even looking at chat when actual money was on the line. Despite his co-hosts not initially believing him, the group eventually agreed that the extent of Ludwig’s cheating truly was in service to content.

It’s hard to argue with Ludwig’s assertion that cheating did help him make better content. He effectively doubled his average viewership on Twitch from the beginning of 2020 to July of that year, when Among Us’ popularity spiked. Sometimes, cheaters do win.

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