Basalt

Ixnael
icon, done by rotttenz on reddit
Pronouns	They/Them, Octo/Octos, He/Him
Country	United States
Peak	S+2
Zones Power	1900.1
Current Team	Mesopelagic
Past Teams	Ocean's Edge, Nat-20, Tumble Tubs
Weapons
Aliases	octo☆yaoi
Favorite Titles	Dualie-Using Shark Tamer
Socials	Bluesky, YouTube, Twitch, Sendou

Good timezone! I'm Basalt, though I have been known as Octo☆Yaoi. I'm a competitive player for Splatoon 3, and I go by they/octo/he pronouns. I've had an interest in the Splatoon competitive scene since the release of Splatoon 2, even though I didn't get the game until late 2019.

Biography

I'll admit I didn't play Splatoon 2 that much. I originally got it in 2019 and was basically the definition of a casual player. I had a massive weapon pool, although my favorite weapons at first were Splat Brella. In around early-2020 due to the pandemic, I started playing Splatoon a lot more often than I did before, racking up a few thousand hours by the time Splatoon 3 released. During early-2020 I started to feel called towards the Dualies, specifically Hero Dualie Replicas after I decided to play them randomly. I tossed the Kensa Splat Dualies into my weapon pool after a while, and eventually found a love for the Dark Tetra Dualies in late 2021. I played tetras until the end of Splatoon 2, and the release of Splatoon 3.

I never ventured into any of the ranked modes. I preferred to play Turf War, although I eventually reached B-Rank in Splat Zones which had become my favorite mode due to how similar it felt to Turf War. That being said, I also liked Rainmaker a lot!

During the Splatoon 3 Splatfest World Premiere, I decided to try out some of the new weapons that were released. Splatana Wiper was a fun weapon that I enjoyed, though I still mostly played Dark Tetras during the world premiere. After the release of Splatoon 3, I 4-starred wiper in about a week or two. I dropped it after a while though, due to it being hard for me at the time. I tried out the vanilla and Nouveau kits of dapples, REEF-LUX 450, some Splatana Stamper, and Splash-o-Matic, but I always returned to Dark Tetras.

In January of 2023, some people at my college wanted to form a collegiate Splatoon 3 team, after they had heard of CCA. I knew about the competitive scene due to watching some tournament sets, and figured this would be a cool way to interact with other people at my college and make connections in the Splatoon scene. The collegiate team never got off the ground, however, so I never played any sets.

I never played anarchy all that often, so my highest rank hovered at B+. After the release of Splattercolor Screen and due to its negative effects on me, I stopped playing the normal PVP modes entirely. Instead, I decided to play Salmon Run, and I even started an overfishing journey that didn't last long. I could never make it past EVP 400 due to my switch lagging out and basically being unplayable.

In June of 2024, I decided that I would finally want to play the main game competitively. I was heading into my last year of college, and figured something fun like that would be a great way for me to have something to do after I graduated. Since I had barely touched any Anarchy modes since Splatoon 2, I started watching more videos on how to improve and started to practice and really hone my skills. I went from C- to A+ in a little less than a month during Sizzle Season 2024, as I had picked up and 4-starred both Wellstring V and Custom Wellstring V. At the time, I thought I would play a more supportive midline style if I ever joined comp.

But honestly, I was meant to be a frontline player! At the beginning of Drizzle Season 2024, I narrowed my weapon pool down to only dualies: Dapple Nouveau, Dark Tetras, and Order Dualie Replicas. I liked to call myself a dualie one-trick, and I made it my goal to 3-star one of every type of dualie. This is still a goal of mine.

In mid-October 2024, after meeting them on Reddit, I become a founding member and the captain of Ocean's Edge, a low-level competitive team. This was the same month I made my YouTube channel to document my competitive journey. I reached S-rank for the first time across any game in November, but stopped playing Splatoon as much as I wanted to due to college and the looming threat of grad school. Despite this, I practiced with my team as much as we could, and we got our first (and last) significant result together in Setting Sail #1.

I reached S+0 in February 2025 and unlocked X-Battles. Though I still didn't grind as much due to the effects of Splattercolor Screen, it was during this time where I realized that I wanted to push myself further into the comp scene. Due to timezone issues I wasn't able to practice as much as I wanted to on Ocean's Edge, so I left them and founded Mesopelagic. I became co-captain of that team, and we got our first significant tournament result by getting 3rd place (11th overall) in Low Cut of World 9: Mission #14 in June of 2025.

After the release of third kits in the same month, I decided to focus and really lock myself as a one-trick for all dapple kits. I fell in love with Dapple Dualies NOC-T, though I still played the other two kits as well.

In August of 2025, I joined a small for-fun pickup group with some friends called Hawkfrost Fanclub, and we got another significant tournament result: we won silver bracket (8th overall) of Shark Tank: Deep Waters. Around the same time, I picked up Splatana Wiper again because I found it fun to play, and I figured it would help me learn how to pick better fights.

Mesopelagic also made some changes to how we decided to run ourselves as a team. We went from having spontaneous practices to having a set practice schedule, and decided that while we still want to play for fun, we do want to get to a skill level that could win us From the Ink Up, and so we started to play in more open-level tournaments, we started grinding X-rank, and even doing more sendouQ. We had two members have to leave the team due to IRL circumstances.

Eventually, I decided that I wanted to do more pick-ups and work on my individual skills.

Competitive Stats

Weapon Pool

Main Weapons

• Splatana Wiper
• Dapple Dualies Nouveau

Secondary Weapons

• Dapple Dualies NOC-T
• Dapple Dualies

Teams

Pick-Ups

Tournament Placements

Notes