YouTube king Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg was just over 18,000 subscribers away from being overtaken by Bollywood label T-Series when he pulled out all the stops with an emergency Minecraft stream.

PewDiePie went live on February 17, just as T-Series appeared to be winning their race with a mere 18,000 sub gap between the two channels.

PewDiePie engaged in a series of variety games within Minecraft with his fanbase, playing everything from a version of Pictionary to hide and seek and other activities to engage with his viewers.

Following the first hour of his stream, PewDiePie managed to increase the gap between T-Series by around 4,000 subs, reaching a gap of 22,000 subscribers – despite supposedly being on holiday. 

This wouldn’t be the first time PewDiePie has broken down to play a popular game in an effort to defeat his Bollywood menace, either.

The YouTuber streamed popular battle royale title Fortnite and children’s title Roblox in quick succession, managing a major comeback against T-Series each time.

In fact, PewDiePie managed to beat out the entirety of Fortnite’s viewership across Twitch due to his broadcast, unintentionally becoming one of the game’s most popular streamers thus far.

PewDiePie’s streams have likewise garnered some negative attention, with his Roblox stream ultimately resulting in a ban against the YouTuber.

Roblox later admitted that their ban was a mistake, claiming that they had merely intended to ban the word “Pewdie” across their platform due to an alleged “negative” meme that spread throughout their community in late December of 2018.

Despite initially refusing to play such games as Fortnite and Roblox, PewDiePie’s livestreams have seen major involvement across the net – as well as helping bolster his sub count in the fight against T-Series.