The Comeback
Jacob “SoloOrTroll” High on His Controversies, His Struggles With Mental Health, and Becoming a Worlds Semifinalist
Jacob “SoloOrTroll” High with Solar Scarabs at the Season 8 SMITE World Championships, January 2022. Images Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios
[This interview discusses sensitive topics such as suicide and mental health struggles]
Two weeks after we sat down for this interview, Jacob High—known to the SMITE community as SoloOrTroll, SoT, or simply Solo—pulled up to my house in his brand new Tesla. “I think I’m outside” he texted me, “I think this is the right place.” He is tentative in everything he says—always a bit unsure of himself. He waited for me to walk out to his car, but once I did he stepped out into the street to greet me. He’d driven 13 hours from Arizona to Texas the day prior, and still had 15 hours ahead of him to Atlanta, the site of the SMITE Pro League. Despite the long drive and the 200-some-odd hours he had streamed in the 20 days before his road trip, High somehow still had so much energy.
As I fastened the seat-belt in the passenger seat of High’s Tesla, I asked him to “show me the torque”—the thrilling, rollercoaster-esque acceleration that electric vehicles are known for. He ignored my request—probably driving safe with his mom in the car, I assumed—and started driving to the restaurant. Moments later, as I was mid-sentence complaining about my ranked games, High floored it, and I was thrown back into my chair with the force of 0-60 in nearly 3 seconds. After my screaming subsided, he laughed. “I had to wait until you were talking,” he told me. He had a childlike joy about him—one that could only be preserved by coming of age in a gaming community. One thing was abundantly clear: High really loves this Tesla.
It’s this love of things—of Tesla, of SMITE, of his stream and community—that most comes through when speaking with High. He has a passion that, for better and for worse, shows in nearly everything he does, from going on and on about his self-driving car or a clever build in game, to slamming his desk when he makes a mistake. High remains a polarizing figure and, following his 2018 suspension, is often referenced as a litmus test for the fairness of Hi-Rez’ competitive rulings. His sharpness in mechanical skill and in-game knowledge is often accompanied by unrefined decision making both in and out of the game. While his mistakes led to two separate benchings and a stint out of the league at the end of season 7, his drive to grow as both a person and a player saw him rise to the final four a year later with the Solar Scarabs, a team few believed could win on the biggest stage. His quarterfinal performance on Osiris has become arguably one of the most iconic Worlds performances outside of a finals set. For High, the mistakes, controversies, and imperfections are unlikely to disappear altogether. But at the same time, his drive to grow, to improve, and to win is not going anywhere—and neither is he. High is not yet a champion, but he remains a player—and while that is nowhere near enough to satisfy him, for now it means everything.
I sat down with High to talk about, among other things, his time playing SMITE, his controversies and setbacks in the SPL, and becoming a Worlds semifinalist.
[The following interview has been edited for clarity.]
The Long Lane: When did you start playing SMITE?
SoloOrTroll: I started in the middle of March, 2014. I started because of Syndicate Project, an old Call of Duty Youtuber who Streamed Smite a little bit. I thought it looked pretty sick, so I downloaded it.
TLL: What games did you play before SMITE?
SoT: I played a lot of Day Z and CS:GO. That was when I first got my PC, around January of 2014. Before that I played a lot of Xbox. CoD, Minecraft, and NBA 2k.
TLL: Is SMITE the first game you played to get better at?
SoT: Pretty much. I played a lot of CoD, but I just played casuals. I didn’t know eSports existed before SMITE. Once I saw the SPL I thought ‘damn this is pretty cool, you can be a professional gamer.’
TLL: When did you discover SMITE eSports?
SoT: Right around when I started playing. Middle of summer 2014.
TLL: So that was after the launch tournament.
SoT: Yeah. I actually watched the launch tournament afterwards. And then I watched the SPL—I pretty much never missed an SPL game, EU or NA.
TLL: Did you have a team that you followed that you were a big fan of?
SoT: I was a huge fan of COG Red, actually. I was a massive fan.
TLL: And what was it about COG Red that you were drawn to? Was it their dominance in season one?
SoT: Yeah, and they played a lot of weird picks. Like Tyr wasn’t very good [but they played it]. Divios played a lot of unique gods like Janus and Fenrir [in solo lane] and Garz was the best Thor. TheBoosh was also really good—like a miniature Paul. He had a small range of gods that he was really good at.
TLL: It’s interesting that you keyed in on Divios playing weird picks. He was known for playing Janus solo at the kick-off LAN. And I think you have a lot of that in your own identity, playing weird picks. Is that something that you pride yourself in, being able to play anything in the solo lane?
SoT: I don’t pride myself. It’s just my style. I wish I could be like Variety or Benji, the guy who just locks in the same god over and over and just does their job well. I kind of switch to a new god every week. Whatever god is on the plate at the time I always do well with. I do far better with whatever meta god. I think it’s a positive thing, just a different style [from Benji and Variety]. I wish I could tap into the other style more.
High during picks and bans at the Season 8 World Championships
TLL: Maybe the tournament that I think of as most indicative of who you are as a player is actually the tournament that the Titans won earlier this year. Hunters were very viable in solo and you played a lot of Ullr and Cliodhna and ran it down. And people in the SMITE Pro subreddit and the Twitch chat were saying you might be the best player in the world at the time, doing things no other solo laner could do. How do you feel seeing fans say that you could be the best player in the world?
SoT: It’s a surreal thing. It’s sort of not something I can believe. It’s like when someone tells you you’re the handsomest person in the world, I can’t believe that. I don’t have that confidence. I don’t believe I’m the best player [in the world]. I just have to get back to work, keep working hard until I am the best. But it definitely feels surreal after being some twelve-year-old kid playing SMITE wanting to be pro, and now people years later were saying I’m the best. It’s an unbelievable feeling, but it’s not fulfilling because I don’t believe I’m the best personally, so I have to keep trying hard.
TLL: Moving on to summer Masters, you had a couple of difficult sets. You dropped game 1 to the Valkyries, and then had a couple of tight, close games where you managed to win [the set]. And then a tough five game set that you dropped to the Kings. Does that tournament, when you contrast it to the tournament earlier in the year, does that mess with your confidence? I know you tweeted after the Valkyries set that it was one of the hardest sets you’ve ever played.
SoT: The first tournament I was on top of the world. I know on that patch, on 9.5, I was saying on stream if I’m not at least a top two solo laner, I should quit because that was the perfect patch for my style. It ended up being good, thank god. This tournament a lot of things went wrong. We had bad practice, and we just didn’t understand what was best meta wise. We had a few strats, but didn’t stick to them and kind of derailed off of our main strategy. Mid tournament we would say ‘these gods are the worst in the game, we can’t pick them’ but we spent a few weeks playing them. We had really bad scrims in general. We would get farmed. I got camped, literally. I played against a few different teams, and they all four manned my blue buff. I remember sitting under tower with emperor’s armor, five mana potions, and chalice of the oracle thinking ‘I’m not sure what more I can do here.’ And before the Valks set I tweeted some really dumb stuff. I shouldn’t let that get to me, but I did. A lot of those small things add up, and Valks played super well.
TLL: I want to talk about Twitter later on, but before we move on from the Valkyries set, and you were doing this in the Kings set as well, you would rotate a lot in the mid game, and I noticed you would often be down two levels from rotating. How do you make those decisions to stay in lane and farm, or rotate to the duo side and try to force a play at the risk of falling behind? And do you notice that level difference?
SoT: For a while in scrims, I would get out rotated. So I wanted to try to focus on trying to out-rotate. Sort of like how I played at Worlds [with the Scarabs], I was always at the teamfight first, so we were able to win some fights. So I was trying to mimic that style. If I’m behind, as long as I am there first and doing something, I’m more useful. The level difference is annoying, but as long as you’re making plays [it’s okay]. It’s only really bad if you lose the fight. Otherwise I don’t care [if I’m behind in levels] if we’re getting gold furies.
TLL: So you mentioned Tweeting before the set. Can you walk me through the tweet and why it was getting to you?
SoT: I just made some stupid COVID mandate tweet. I didn’t put much thought into it. It was just a dumb thing I said. I didn’t put much thought into it. It was just a selfish tweet. I said something like ‘if you’re immunocompromised you should just stay home’ and not go to a big event. It was a selfish take. I talked to some people and formed different opinions about mandates overall. I wasn’t sure if mask mandates and vaccine mandates were a good thing, but after some talks I think [the mandates] are a good thing.
TLL: Who wanted to talk to you [about your post]?
SoT: A lot of people. A lot of close friends. I won’t name names, but a lot of friends [reached out to me].
TLL: Staying in this space, you’re no stranger to controversy when it comes to SMITE. You’re far from the most controversial player [in SMITE], but there have been some moments in the past where you continue to be criticized from fans. You were suspended in the middle of season 7 for the use of banned language, which cost your team a really big set at the midseason LAN. Then a similar situation [in season 8] where you couldn’t come to the studio because you weren’t vaccinated, which also cost your team a set at LAN. So how do you move forward from situations like that, and what do you say to anyone who is still critical of you for those situations?
SoT: I think the way to move on from mistakes and bad decisions is just to take accountability and accept the consequences. Say “yeah I f— up” and I did f— up, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Then apologize to the people it affected, like my team and the fans. And then try to learn from it and grow from it. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future.
TLL: In season 7, you got kicked from the renegades after your suspension and replaced with Variety. When that happened, you weren’t able to get back into the SPL that season. What was that like for you, and how did you keep going?
SoT: This will be a long answer.
TLL: Sure.
SoT: After that LAN, I was benched for a week. It was kind of a mutual benching. I was in a really bad spot mentally, and my confidence was not there. Everything was bad. I was being a really bad teammate overall, and I feel really bad for the Renegades guys having to put up with that. After the bench, I came back to SPL and we had a double header against Ghost and SSG, the top 2 teams. We actually won the Ghost set, and we should have won the SSG set but I picked Susano into Wukong, which was really bad. We were in high spirits, but scrims after that went bad because I was not in confidence. Before my benching I was emotional during an SPL game because I was playing so bad. I literally said ‘I don’t want to play,’ which is probably the last thing you want to hear your solo laner say four minutes into game 1 of an SPL set. The benching happened after that, and I thought things were better after I came back and we were on a good track. But they decided to replace me. Overall it was my fault. I was just a bad teammate. I woke up late, complained a lot. I was kind of toxic—not in real life, but in game. And I had no confidence whatsoever. I kind of wish I got a little bit more help from my teammates. I never understood how bad it was until after the fact. But it was my fault overall.
After that I went into a spiraling depression. I was going to quit [playing SMITE]. The only thing I enjoyed playing was League of Legends, and you know you’re down bad if that’s the only thing you enjoy doing in life. [laughs]. I stopped working out. LASBRA and I worked out a lot. We went on walks every day, played tennis, and had really good healthy eating habits. All of that went out the window [after I left the team]. My girlfriend broke up with me because I made some mistakes. I was broke. My home life was negative as well. I was pretty much ready to kill myself at one point. And I was close to doing it almost, but a few things helped me get to a better place. One was space. I saw this video, melodysheep’s Timelapse of the Future. It was a very eye opening video.
TLL: I think I might be familiar with this video.
SoT: Yeah, it’s very popular. It basically goes through trillions and trillions of years, and the small amount of time humans will be alive for. And I saw a SpaceX video—I didn’t know who Elon Musk was or what SpaceX was at the time—but I saw a video called “Make Humanity a Multi-planetary Species.” And the big motivator for me was going to space and doing big things in life, and Elon Musk was a big inspiration to work harder and not give up. It sounds cringe, but since then I was kind of reborn in a way. My life did a whole 360. I mean 180.
TLL: [laughs] A complete 360!
SoT: [laughs] A whole 180, and now we’re here. And it’s been a long journey.
TLL: You mentioned your home life was rough. Could you elaborate on where you’re from and what your situation was?
SoT: I’m from Arizona. Things were just negative overall. No one in my house was very happy. I had my uncles and a bunch of cats and my mom. And my mom got angry at me every day, especially when I was a kid. But as I got older and got money it didn’t happen as much. It’s still a bit traumatizing. And my early childhood was a bit rough. I only played video games, didn’t really learn anything or do much. Sleeping at, you know, 8 am, waking up at who-knows when. I actually would wake up at 10 pm, and I would not see any sun. Literally I would go to bed as the sun was coming up in the morning, and then sleep until the sun went down. I was not seeing any sun for weeks on end. It was just a negative atmosphere.
TLL: Do you think being in the Smite Pro League has given you an opportunity to sort of break out [of that situation]?
SoT: Yeah it definitely has. When some teammates are uplifting or push you to go out, work out, you know. I’ve learned a lot over the years about life from my teammates.
TLL: Is there a player, teammate, or friend who has been kind of a mentor to you? Not just learning the game, but also helping you grow and mature as a person.
SoT: Definitely Cabom. He helped me a lot and taught me about life. Aror as well. Aror is a very good conversationalist, and he’s a really smart dude with a lot of life experience. He’s also a great dude, probably one of the best guys in the SPL. And he taught me a lot. Still does. Every conversation I have with him I’m always learning something. LASBRA taught me a lot about fitness and eating right, and life stuff in general. At one point we were budgeting my monthly salary, talking about taxes. LASBRA is a good dude as well.
High with Splyce at the season 6 SMITE World Championships, November 2019
TLL: You came into the league with Splyce, which was Aror and Cabom’s team. And before you joined full time you got to sub in week 4 of phase 1 for Divios. What was that like, after being a huge fan of Divios, and then being asked to sub for him?
SoT: It was super cool. A surreal experience. Flying out and living with the guys for a week. I wish I played better, but I was super nervous. But it was cool. A lot of people watching, a lot of hype around it.
TLL: So that Splyce roster kept struggling and they got Baskin from Armada, an SML team, and you took Baskin’s spot [on Armada]. Then at the midseason LAN, something incredible happened. You, Meerkat, Snoopy, Masked, and Geno pulled off an incredible upset over the #1 seed RivaL. What was your reaction to being a part of the biggest upset in SMITE history?
SoT: [laughs] It was kind of crazy, honestly. I don’t think anyone expected to win too much. We kind of just went there to have fun. I was just excited to be there. And then I was like ‘damn, I can’t believe we just won.’ And the way we won, too. We 2-0’d them. And then against Splyce, we did okay, but we lost in the end. We got 3-0’d but from my memory it didn’t seem like we got completely farmed. It was just kind of crazy.
TLL: And everyone knew that Baskin wasn’t finishing the season with Splyce. And it seemed like after that RivaL set, people started saying you were the one they should pick up. Were you aware of that chatter, thinking ‘this is my shot?’
SoT: Yeah I was. I was actually close to being on EUnited I think. Benji was going to swap, but there was some contract stuff that didn’t work out. But that was like the next option.
TLL: And then of course [Splyce] had a successful season, and then you made it to your first Worlds, and your friend Haddix is there subbing for Sanguine. Was it more special being at that tournament with Haddix and getting a chance to share the Worlds stage with an old friend?
SoT: It was really cool. We went to Worlds in 2018—me, Haddix, Amuel, Glaivus, a few other friends—Riskyace and some other guys. But 2019 was a surreal experience. Taking pictures with fans, being on stage. I think it’s going to be even better at this season’s Worlds since it’s been so long since the last in-person Worlds. With Haddix it’s just cool—we’ve been friends since 2014, and we were playing at Worlds together. We both got first rounded. But it was cool to share the spotlight with him.
TLL: I want to talk about that first round match up, because Splyce entered on a hot streak and RivaL didn’t look as dominant after the midseason LAN. People thought there was a legitimate chance that Splyce could repeat [as champions] even though the roster was totally different. You went up against SK, and you won game 1 but lost the next two. What was it like seeing them go on to win the tournament, thinking ‘if we could have just won one more game’?
SoT: It was really sad. I actually cried walking off stage. I didn’t think we would get first rounded. I thought maybe—I thought we were going to win the whole thing. I didn’t think we’d get first rounded. We won the first game really hard, but the next two we threw really bad.
TLL: [laughs] They did that to a few teams.
SoT: Yeah, looking back on it, it’s not a big deal. They were just on fire. They did that for two seasons in a row. We could talk about what we could have done better, but they were on fire and we weren’t. It’s just kind of how it is.
TLL: In 2018 you finally made it to the Smite Minor League on a team called the 40-IQ overlords.
SoT: [laughs]
TLL: What was that experience [on that team] like, and who was on that team?
SoT: We had me, Shing, Paul. That was the core. We had MadManMarc at one point, and Wolfking. And Wolfking was not doing it for us, so we got LeftSyndrome. And I think Marc left or we kicked him, I can’t remember. But we got Riskyace at the end. That was my first time playing with Paul, and it was really funny. Those days were really troll, just playing in SOC and random SmiteCentral tournaments trying to get good. And playing with Shing. It was just really troll. We actually weren’t too bad. Paul carried us a lot of the time. It was fun.
TLL: Having teamed with Paul and then seeing what he’s done since then [winning two World Championships], what is it like getting to play with him again in season 9?
SoT: I was really happy. I’ve wanted to team with Paul for a while. Paul, and Sheento—and I guess Pegon now. But I was either going to team with Paul or Sheento or make a team myself. Those are the options I wanted. Obviously I wasn’t teaming with Sheento because they had Jarcorrr and now Haddix. So it was either Paul, or I go mid [on my own team]. It worked out in the end.
TLL: When you look at this Titans team, they have the storied duo lane of Aror and Cyclone, the season 5 champions. Of course you played with them in season 6 when they had title aspirations. They were Radiance in season 7 with a strong chance to win. Then they made it to the finals in season 8—there’s no question that this Titans team has championship aspirations, and anything short of winning it all will be a disappointment. Do you feel that pressure of being on a team that expects to win?
SoT: I don’t personally. I have the same mindset.
TLL: I want to talk about your time with the Scarabs, because we haven’t really discussed that yet. But before we get there, after you were kicked in season 7, you played for SpreeeD in the SOC as a jungler, and you dominated. Was that a big boost to your confidence being able to run it down on a hyper carry jungler every game?
SoT: Kind of. I was thinking you know ‘I’ve already been kicked, I’m role swapped, on 130 ping. I might as well go balls to the wall and see what happens.’ So it probably helped a bit.
TLL: When people look back on that season, I think [you playing jungle] is going to be one of the more under-discussed things in that season because you eventually lost to Mind The Gap. But if you made Worlds I think people would be talking more about [your time as a jungler]. When that season ended, were you looking to go back to solo, or stick with jungle?
SoT: I was kind of thinking jungle, but I was down for either. I was not finding a team at all. Obviously I kind of griefed the other year. Luckily I got on the Scarabs like last second.
TLL: And you got Zapman. Was that a huge surprise?
SoT: Yeah it was a decent surprise. I was pretty excited for it. We would have gone far with Zap. Stu is a great player don’t get me wrong. But Zap is really smart, and I learned a lot in-game from him. We probably could have won worlds with Zap-Layers. I’m not sure.
TLL: Seeing what those players were able to do, of course facing off in the finals, it’s hard to argue that the original [Scarabs] roster couldn’t have been successful.
SoT: Yeah.
TLL: So you made it to worlds, and you were against the Jade Dragons. And Aggro said it’s one of the hardest carries in a Worlds set he’s ever seen. You played Osiris three straight games and solo killed their entire team almost. How was that Osiris pick feeling?
SoT: I don’t know what happened. I played Osiris a bit in scrims and it went pretty well. I remember Stu at one point said ‘my solo laner is smurfing on them’ when I was 8-0. I didn’t really think about it too much, but I played him in the second game and I almost got the penta, so I said ‘just give me Osiris every game.’
TLL: Is that something teams think about, trying to find that one pick that is just on that day? I know at [summer] Masters Deathwalker mentioned how he was just feeling Tyr that day.
SoT: It kind of just comes to you. You can’t really look for it. You just have to play what’s good, and it might come to you mid-tournament.
TLL: You beat the Dragons 3-1. Did y’all think ‘we could win this thing?’
SoT: Yeah I thought there was a chance we could win. Especially with all the support from fans and other pros. We probably could have won it too if I hadn’t thrown game 2 against titans.
TLL: You say you threw it. Are you talking about your death [lazy backing] in the fog?
SoT: The fog, the [first blood] under tower. I had three really bad deaths. We probably could have won the game if I only f—ed up twice [instead of three times].
TLL: In game two you almost soloed Benji, but you died [to tower damage]. And you often go for risky plays, get the solo kill, or get the blue buff invade, and die for it. People call it ‘SoT moment’, like fighting 3 people level 4. Is that something you think about, or do you just want to unapologetically go for it?
SoT: It’s definitely something I want to fix. I try to have more discipline.
TLL: Back in season 8, you were one of the first to realize that [the gold spooling on] benevolence was broken, and in season 7 you pioneered a movement speed build that got an entire item tree nerfed. Do you look at those moments and think of yourself as one of the top minds in SMITE?
SoT: Probably not, no. I’m not sure about ‘top minds.’ I just have some out of the box plays and strategies that have worked over the years. I just try to put some thought into it, see what other people are doing. Always thinking about what could be good.
SoloOrTroll and the Titans will return to face Baskin and the Bolts when the SPL resumes on Friday, September 30th at Twitch.tv/Smitegame.
