After years of distro hopping, I had one to many updates which borked some driver & realized what I'm really looking for is my laptop should be boring stable appliance. Incredibly happy with it so far.
Go with Mint. It will be better set up out of the box for gaming. Also, don't dual boot. It will make it more complicated and scarier. Save any important files to a backup location, and rip off the bandaid by completely ditching Windows. You won't miss it.