Update: Someone claiming to be Sngisback contacted me and has clarified some things, St4ck wasn't using crafted cards and probably spent quite a bit more money: "he had $13k worth in bugged(not crafted) cards. He spent ~x4 more."

Original:

Over two weeks ago, Valve began their Steam Summer Sale, an event that brings tears to wallets and huge discounts to games. Within Steam, users are given 'Levels' and 'XP' (experience points) for playing games or trading Steam cards (as well as other things).

One Steam user decided that this Summer Sale would be the sale that would make himt he highest level Steam user in the world – no matter how much money it took. Well, it worked. Steam user St4ck has the highest level on Steam and it took quite bit of money to get there.

Currently, St4ck’s is sitting at a Steam level of 1113 – the highest in the world. He got this title (which doesn't really add up to much outside of Steam) by using the Steam Sale's discounts to max out his XP and having around $13,000 to throw away.

According to someone close to St4ck, who goes by sngisback, this is how he did it:

"he bought Summer sale (mysterious) cards every day from the 1st day of release on Steam community market for $2000 daily limit"

"he prepared [approximately] 7000 trading card complete sets from different games to get bonus Summer sale cards after craft them"

"he ask[ed] for me with help him to get the maximum of Summer sale cards and i got few thousands from trades with many steam community users"

Basically, St4ck wanted to be the top dog on Steam and $13,000 got him there. It's a shame to see that he didn't buy games with that money…

[Kotaku]