INTERNET — Rust YouTuber ‘Vice’ was found by his landlord Friday evening, deceased from apparent drowning in his bathtub. Authorities have ruled out foul play, but the coroner’s office has not officially declared a cause of death.

This tragic death comes on the heels of Vice’s release of what some gaming critics are calling “the most painful fail since Leeroy Jenkins,” ending with a massive official servers ban for hundreds of his YouTube fans.

Hoping to prove his skill at Rust, Vice took his YouTube building exploits to the legendary US EAST Facepunch 2 server to see if these tricks could help him hang with the “big boys” of Rust fame, such as BChillz and Lifestomper. Vice formed the “Chad” clan on Rust, and suggested the Chads were the largest clan ever assembled.

However, their claims are in dispute from Poob, CEO of Poob’s Pipe n’ Poob Tavern, whose practically unraidable bases have withstood an astounding amount of all-out hacker assaults over the course of many, many wipes on East 2. Poob told reporters, “thay just hate us cause they anus.”

Noted on the developer’s blog, and once visited and congratulated by Rust God Helk for his great compound, Poob has also created his own Rust-based cryptocoin, ‘poobcoin’. Poob’s is not even the only megazerg to go hard for a whole wipe on East 2. The wipe before Vice’s fake megazerg flopped, “The Village” walled in the entire Junkyard, gaining uncontested chinook drops until the end of wipe.

In the infamous video documenting “The Rise and Fall of the 100 Man Clan,” [that never rose] Vice can be seen aiming at heli using a silenced custom and not even leading, as well as doing a 10 man offline eoka raid on an empty 2×2 and a wood door with no room behind it. His team is entirely mowed down by a few attackers many times, but they are always saved at the last second when his hacker picks up a gun and goes spinbot.  Lead developer Errrrn told Vice he was a bad boy who broke the rules, and won’t be getting any special treatment even with his ever-expanding ego. Some have suggested that Vice being spurned by Errrrn may have contributed to or even wholly constituted his final, tragic meltdown.

While many fans, obviously shaken by grief, have tried to excuse Vice of this miserable video and say that the game or its makers have made it impossible to live the dream of a gigantic clan on Rust, many are insisting that Vice was a fraud who was just terrible at Rust and couldn’t handle it.

Video game suicide expert Dr. Troubador told reporters, “His fantasy was brutally, brutally crushed, so he transferred this energy into the rehabilitation of an old abandoned idea, the Rusty Pirates custom map server. Moments before his death, Vice could be seen mangling his way through a new Rustedit map like an abject noob, making a river that defies all known laws of hydrodynamics just to fit a senseless whim. It was just sad to watch.”

Building expert and East 2 veteran Kilgoar, who has wiped many megazergs using “insane” trap bases said, “His bases are okay, but it’s all flash and too focused on some imaginary transcendental perfection rather than the needs of the moment. Like if Petrarch was a gamer. A guy in my clan, FrostyFlamez, that motherfucker assembled an equally big clan on his first wipe just by making friends with people. Their crazy YouTube base didn’t last long but at least they didn’t get insided by my homeboys. Anyway, I’ve seen dogs that are better gamers than Vice. As a builder it disgusts me to see that crap constantly upheld as a good example to follow. Every moment of that video was painful, and the fact that he wanted to start his own server on account of his own incompetence and because he got all these people banned for cheating is just not facing the facts. Well, it didn’t have to end like this. RIP in pieces, Vice. And thanks for the LOOT!”

Dr. Troubador added, “I’ve seen it before, but never on a YouTuber level. The desperation, the cut-throat attitude with nothing to back it up. He thinks he’s amazing at a game because he can make a great video and figure out a few exploits. He’s not. This kind of cheating is the worst display I’ve ever seen in any game, anywhere. His shame must have been bottomless, that’s why he outed himself in the video, he’s trying to overcome insecurity. Many of his most loyal fans were banned from the most hallowed server because of his ill judgment. Sad! Some of the slaves ought to get off the hook for getting mesmerized by a YouTube star. Obviously his bases were metaphors for his psychic shell and all his hangups. Well, in the end he got the ultimate banhammer that he psychologically needed, but he needn’t have acted it out except in ritual or in symbol. A base that was turned outwards and played fair, rather than one that transgressed inwards. Start at the start rather than the finish. The true tragedy is that all this could have been a great coming of age moment, but it was WASTED!“