How did you miss DeerNadia? She's one of the best streamers out there, both educational and entertainment: http://www.twitch.tv/deernadia
And Noxious?? One of the most well-known and entertaining streamers. He always plays Randuin Wrynn though so its mostly a just-for-fun stream: http://www.twitch.tv/noxious_hs
Hotform is a very good streamer who always hits legendary and explains every move in detail the entire time and interacts with his audience frequently. He also streams almost all day every day. I wish he could get more viewers because he deserves them. He mostly plays Giants Mage: http://www.twitch.tv/hotform
I disagree about your evaluation of Amaz. Amaz is one of my favorite streamers of all time and he's very good and very entertaining. He plays priest because he's so good at it, its frankly the best deck he could play.
My favorite streamers are Trump, Kripparian, Noxious, Amaz, Hafu and the others I listed above.
amaz should be 5/5 on engagement, he does nothing but talk to the stream and sets goals for them to engage us and make us want to watch more. He's also funny as hell to watch.
I think he used to be 5/5, for sure. But I think his stream has become so much about engaging his viewers to sub, that he's gone downhill. I think he plays more into audience expectations moreso than being himself. I used to enjoy his stream quite a bit, but he's become a tad insufferable for me recently.
But I still understand why people continue to enjoy the heck out of him. They are not wrong if they're enjoying his stream.
edit - then again you have krip as 5/5 personality (lol) so I suppose this should be taken with a pinch of salt ;)
I have a man-crush on Kripp. :)
Kripp just defines what a gamer should be, to me. The moment that became clear was back when he was playing Hardcore Diablo 3 (the mode where if you die, you lose your character permanently). He was streaming. His character died. He lost about a week's worth of progression in that one death. He says on stream "Crap. I just died." Then he proceeds to sip his soup. A lot of gamers would have had a complete public meltdown over the loss. Not Kripp. The next day he was back at hardcore building up a new character.
As long as Kripp is having fun, he gives no f**ks.
I also third, fourth, or fifth the Kolento comments. He really is a fantastic stream. I'm glad you gave Hafu and Lifecoach some love. I couldn't agree more. The Reynad post is hilariously accurate. I think Thatsadmirable, Alchemisxt, Freegold, DuckWingFACE, TheGWalls, and Hyped all deserve a little love too. Let's open up the gates!
So, streamers get low score on Personality if they're trying to entertain, build a following, and make a living on stream, but also if they're not trying to do that at all... that's an interesting definition.
Twitch has become a cesspool of gaming cancer. Whether it be streamers putting on cringe-worthy "shows" to get viewers or cleavage-showing "gurl gamers" with absolutely no skill at gaming garnering millions of views. Almost 90% of popular streams are fucking awful. Very rarely are there actual good streamers that get views based on their gameplay alone. It's all some tap-dance extravaganza where they do everything but beg for subs and views.
So, like the OP, I like Kripp the most. He is what Twitch should be. Let the gameplay speak for itself. He doesn't need huge fat tits in a tiny top or huge overlays with giveaways to get his views. So I respect streamers like Kripp, Kolento, Trump (most of the time), nuba, and Otter.
Interesting reviews. I like how you really are honest in your appraisals.
I only take issue with one thing: Your evaluation of skill levels as streamers. Like him or not, Reynad is a top-tier, fantastic Hearthstone player and easily deserves 5 stars. He's about as good as it gets. Also, calling Trump or Kripp less skilled than players like Hafu or Firebat is laughable.
I only take issue with one thing: Your evaluation of skill levels as streamers. Like him or not, Reynad is a top-tier, fantastic Hearthstone player and easily deserves 5 stars. He's about as good as it gets. Also, calling Trump or Kripp less skilled than players like Hafu or Firebat is laughable.
I honestly don't think Reynad is as good as he thinks he is. He's very good. Just not great. He generally implodes at tournaments (he has one stellar game that everyone talks about and then falls apart) and he's only top spotted once on ladder.
I can see how people would have issue with my Kripparrian rating, though, since he has never seen fit to prove himself at ladder. So that's a purely subjective skill rank. I think he could probably do very well at ladder if he actually had any interest in it. His knowledge of the game certainly suggests he's capable of very high level play. At least, I think so.
As for Firebat. He's hit Top 16 on ladder three times. Hafu is the third seed in North America. Trump hasn't even hit top 16 yet.
I only take issue with one thing: Your evaluation of skill levels as streamers. Like him or not, Reynad is a top-tier, fantastic Hearthstone player and easily deserves 5 stars. He's about as good as it gets. Also, calling Trump or Kripp less skilled than players like Hafu or Firebat is laughable.
I honestly don't think Reynad is as good as he thinks he is. He's very good. Just not great. He generally implodes at tournaments (he has one stellar game that everyone talks about and then falls apart) and he's only top spotted once on ladder.
I can see how people would have issue with my Kripparrian rating, though, since he has never seen fit to prove himself at ladder. So that's a purely subjective skill rank. I think he could probably do very well at ladder if he actually had any interest in it. His knowledge of the game certainly suggests he's capable of very high level play. At least, I think so.
As for Firebat. He's hit Top 16 on ladder three times. Hafu is the third seed in North America. Trump hasn't even hit top 16 yet.
I disagree. Everytime I've seen Reynad lose is when he didn't draw the right cards despite doing all he could with what he had. He doesn't make bad decisions. And while those godlike plays are rare, I doubt most people playing in premier tournaments even see them.
Also Trump has made it to top 16, but lost it because he tried to "innovate" with new decks or tried to play pally for the viewers of his stream. Whereas Hafu mostly plays miracle rogue. I'm not sure about firebat but I'm pretty sure he doesn't mess around with random decks on stream while laddering. Basically ladder rankings doesn't really matter when you take these factors into consideration when talking about ~top 100 legend streamers. It's more about the plays they make and how much of the time are they actually serious.
To those people who recommended Realz. I am watching him right now. Very good stream. When I add to the evaluations in the future, he should rank above Hafu. This is a stream I am going to continue watching. Thanks for the heads up, people.
Also Trump has made it to top 16, but lost it because he tried to "innovate" with new decks.
You have to finish Top 16, otherwise meaningless. Close only counts in horseshoes and poop fights.
I know, but I'm saying that he lost top 16 because he didn't care all that much more than his lack of skill. Whether or not that affects other parts of your review score is up to u, but I don't think he should be voted down on skill level just based off that. He did fairly well in Seatstory cup a while ago. Yes the meta has changed a lot since then, but I still think he is pretty good. We haven't seen any results from hafu yet. (On 2nd thought tho I do believe that firebat is better :P)
Also Trump has made it to top 16, but lost it because he tried to "innovate" with new decks.
You have to finish Top 16, otherwise meaningless. Close only counts in horseshoes and poop fights.
I know, but I'm saying that he lost top 16 because he didn't care all that much more than his lack of skill. Whether or not that affects other parts of your review score is up to u, but I don't think he should be voted down on skill level just based off that. He did fairly well in Seatstory cup a while ago. Yes the meta has changed a lot since then, but I still think he is pretty good. We haven't seen any results from hafu yet. (On 2nd thought tho I do believe that firebat is better :P)
I don't think he's terrible. I just don't think Trump is better than anybody I gave 5 stars to in Skill Rank. I'll grant you that Hafu is debatable. Certainly not Firebat. The only reason Firebat hasn't been in big tournaments is because he hasn't been invited. The tournament scene this year has been fairly incestuous, with mostly the same faces over and over again.
I think perhaps your metric for skill is a bit flawed, as it's based purely on constructed grinding results. What I see in Trump, Reynad, and Kripparian is unlimited potential without the willingness to commit fully to a grind.
As far as I'm concerned, there's two types of players: players with experience and exceptional decision-making w/r/t specific decks, and players who actually understand the game on a deeper level and innovate/define the meta-game. Firebat and Hafu aren't meta-game definers, they're merely good netdeck players who have honed their decision making skills.
Kripparian, whenever he has dabbled in constructed (however few times this is) has forged his own path. I remember in late 2013 when he was one of the first to run Pyromancer combos with Paladin. He's probably the hardest to argue for w/r/t skill, just because he's so damn obstinant when it comes to ladder grinding. He's given us very little to observe. But what we have observed has been nothing but good. He's fantastic at arena, has strong results in almost every tournament he plays in, and is not afraid to improvise and get creative with his decks.
Trump plays unorthodox decks and makes them work because of his in-game knowledge. Every class he's picked for his free-to-play series has made it to legend, and this is no small feat. It's something you can't say Hafu or Firebat or any other streamer has done. When he runs standard decks, he improvises and strongly impacts the meta game (for season 4, look no further than Divine Zoo). Trump's biggest issue is that he tends to handicap himself to make it more interesting for the viewers, or just to keep himself entertained, I suppose. It's really the same problem with Kripparian -- except his handicap is apathy. He's (Kripp) stated multiple times he has no interest in ladder grinding and prefers the more volatile 'meta' of arena. I can respect that, but I don't think ladder 'results' alone are proof of one's actual skill level. In that same light, I've never seen Trump express nor show an actual interest in attempting to go for top legend ranks. A lack of interest certainly doesn't equate to a lack of skill.
As for Reynad, at many times he's single-handedly defined the meta-game. Almost every deck he runs ends up being wildly popular on the ladder, and if you watch his stream he's constantly testing out new decks and ideas to counter the current meta that he himself helps create. There's a reason for this -- the guy makes great decks. He has a thorough understanding of what's good in both Hearthstone as well as other trading card games. He's not only good at playing standard decks, but he's good at creating the next standard deck.
So, in closing, just to be a little redundant: there's players that play standard decks well, and they've honed their decision making-skills and match up knowledge to near perfection, like Hafu and Firebat. They're good players, but they're not creative and they don't define nor influence the shape of the meta-game. They just play whatever the current meta is well. That's great, and they're undeniably good, but I wouldn't classify them as the absolute best of the best. They're just good high-level players. However, there's also players who use their knowledge of the game to both be good players as well as define and push the cutting edge meta, and I think that's something that going solely on ladder results won't cover. There's much more to overall Hearthstone skill than ladder grinding. Maybe one could make an argument that Firebat and Hafu are as good as Trump/Reynad/Kripp when it comes to specific decks, but I really don't think it's possible to say that they're actually categorically better than them.
Yep, my evaluations would definitely look a lot different from yours, though I respect your opinion!
Kripp would be quite low on mine - chat's not important to me, but his completely ruins my experience.
Trump's a lot higher up, about on par with Hafu.
Simcopter and Amaz would be in the middle of my pack. I really enjoy how engaged Simcopter is, though he definitely has a lot of room for improvement - both as a streamer and a player.
I think perhaps your metric for skill is a bit flawed, as it's based purely on constructed grinding results. What I see in Trump, Reynad, and Kripparrian is unlimited potential without the willingness to commit fully to a grind.
As far as I'm concerned, there's two types of players: players with experience and exceptional decision-making w/r/t specific decks, and players who actually understand the game on a deeper level and innovate/define the meta-game. Firebat and Hafu aren't meta-game definers, they're merely good netdeck players who have honed their decision making skills.
I won't quote your entire reply to save space, but I did indeed read it all. +1, for sure.
You make a lot of sense, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of your points. When I update these evaluations sometime in the future (including more streamers), I will definitely take those ideas into consideration when considering skill levels for them all again.
I don't see too many successful Trump decks on the ladder, but you're certainly right about Reynad. Perhaps I should have considered how players have redefined the meta when considering their overall skill. I certainly do give credit to Reynad for his effect on the meta, I just did not include that into my consideration of skill level.
I really like the review. It's somewhat close to my personal assessment. Kripp is also one of my favorite streamers due to his relaxed attitude. I don't like Trump much because I think he's trying too hard to be a nice guy and I don't like fake personality. Amaz has stream is pretty good and entertaining but I stop watching because he always play Priest and I can't learn much from it.
Regarding skill level, I think it's correct to put Trump as 4 stars. He's a good player but definitely not as good in comparison with players like Kolento, StrifeCro or Tides. He always go for conventional - value orientated moves and often miss out the less obvious but more powerful plays.
Reynad would be 4.5. It's harder to rate him because he play mostly aggro decks which relies heavily on RNG and this guy sometimes got really bad luck. I think his control is on par with other pro players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
How did you miss DeerNadia? She's one of the best streamers out there, both educational and entertainment: http://www.twitch.tv/deernadia
And Noxious?? One of the most well-known and entertaining streamers. He always plays Randuin Wrynn though so its mostly a just-for-fun stream: http://www.twitch.tv/noxious_hs
Hotform is a very good streamer who always hits legendary and explains every move in detail the entire time and interacts with his audience frequently. He also streams almost all day every day. I wish he could get more viewers because he deserves them. He mostly plays Giants Mage: http://www.twitch.tv/hotform
I disagree about your evaluation of Amaz. Amaz is one of my favorite streamers of all time and he's very good and very entertaining. He plays priest because he's so good at it, its frankly the best deck he could play.
My favorite streamers are Trump, Kripparian, Noxious, Amaz, Hafu and the others I listed above.
I think he used to be 5/5, for sure. But I think his stream has become so much about engaging his viewers to sub, that he's gone downhill. I think he plays more into audience expectations moreso than being himself. I used to enjoy his stream quite a bit, but he's become a tad insufferable for me recently.
But I still understand why people continue to enjoy the heck out of him. They are not wrong if they're enjoying his stream.
Poetic.
I have a man-crush on Kripp. :)
Kripp just defines what a gamer should be, to me. The moment that became clear was back when he was playing Hardcore Diablo 3 (the mode where if you die, you lose your character permanently). He was streaming. His character died. He lost about a week's worth of progression in that one death. He says on stream "Crap. I just died." Then he proceeds to sip his soup. A lot of gamers would have had a complete public meltdown over the loss. Not Kripp. The next day he was back at hardcore building up a new character.
As long as Kripp is having fun, he gives no f**ks.
Poetic.
I just followed Kolento and will watch when I catch him online.
Poetic.
HAHAHAHAHAHA Best comeback ever. The dude abides!
I also third, fourth, or fifth the Kolento comments. He really is a fantastic stream. I'm glad you gave Hafu and Lifecoach some love. I couldn't agree more. The Reynad post is hilariously accurate. I think Thatsadmirable, Alchemisxt, Freegold, DuckWingFACE, TheGWalls, and Hyped all deserve a little love too. Let's open up the gates!
So, streamers get low score on Personality if they're trying to entertain, build a following, and make a living on stream, but also if they're not trying to do that at all... that's an interesting definition.
Twitch has become a cesspool of gaming cancer. Whether it be streamers putting on cringe-worthy "shows" to get viewers or cleavage-showing "gurl gamers" with absolutely no skill at gaming garnering millions of views. Almost 90% of popular streams are fucking awful. Very rarely are there actual good streamers that get views based on their gameplay alone. It's all some tap-dance extravaganza where they do everything but beg for subs and views.
So, like the OP, I like Kripp the most. He is what Twitch should be. Let the gameplay speak for itself. He doesn't need huge fat tits in a tiny top or huge overlays with giveaways to get his views. So I respect streamers like Kripp, Kolento, Trump (most of the time), nuba, and Otter.
WHERE IS KACEYTRON?!
but seriously realz and zilea are pretty good imo
Interesting reviews. I like how you really are honest in your appraisals.
I only take issue with one thing: Your evaluation of skill levels as streamers. Like him or not, Reynad is a top-tier, fantastic Hearthstone player and easily deserves 5 stars. He's about as good as it gets. Also, calling Trump or Kripp less skilled than players like Hafu or Firebat is laughable.
I honestly don't think Reynad is as good as he thinks he is. He's very good. Just not great. He generally implodes at tournaments (he has one stellar game that everyone talks about and then falls apart) and he's only top spotted once on ladder.
I can see how people would have issue with my Kripparrian rating, though, since he has never seen fit to prove himself at ladder. So that's a purely subjective skill rank. I think he could probably do very well at ladder if he actually had any interest in it. His knowledge of the game certainly suggests he's capable of very high level play. At least, I think so.
As for Firebat. He's hit Top 16 on ladder three times. Hafu is the third seed in North America. Trump hasn't even hit top 16 yet.
Poetic.
I disagree. Everytime I've seen Reynad lose is when he didn't draw the right cards despite doing all he could with what he had. He doesn't make bad decisions. And while those godlike plays are rare, I doubt most people playing in premier tournaments even see them.
Also Trump has made it to top 16, but lost it because he tried to "innovate" with new decks or tried to play pally for the viewers of his stream. Whereas Hafu mostly plays miracle rogue. I'm not sure about firebat but I'm pretty sure he doesn't mess around with random decks on stream while laddering. Basically ladder rankings doesn't really matter when you take these factors into consideration when talking about ~top 100 legend streamers. It's more about the plays they make and how much of the time are they actually serious.
You have to finish Top 16, otherwise meaningless. Close only counts in horseshoes and poop fights.
Poetic.
To those people who recommended Realz. I am watching him right now. Very good stream. When I add to the evaluations in the future, he should rank above Hafu. This is a stream I am going to continue watching. Thanks for the heads up, people.
Poetic.
Twitch is far from what it use to be in the days where there were great streamers like reckful.
I know, but I'm saying that he lost top 16 because he didn't care all that much more than his lack of skill. Whether or not that affects other parts of your review score is up to u, but I don't think he should be voted down on skill level just based off that. He did fairly well in Seatstory cup a while ago. Yes the meta has changed a lot since then, but I still think he is pretty good. We haven't seen any results from hafu yet. (On 2nd thought tho I do believe that firebat is better :P)
I don't think he's terrible. I just don't think Trump is better than anybody I gave 5 stars to in Skill Rank. I'll grant you that Hafu is debatable. Certainly not Firebat. The only reason Firebat hasn't been in big tournaments is because he hasn't been invited. The tournament scene this year has been fairly incestuous, with mostly the same faces over and over again.
Poetic.
I think perhaps your metric for skill is a bit flawed, as it's based purely on constructed grinding results. What I see in Trump, Reynad, and Kripparian is unlimited potential without the willingness to commit fully to a grind.
As far as I'm concerned, there's two types of players: players with experience and exceptional decision-making w/r/t specific decks, and players who actually understand the game on a deeper level and innovate/define the meta-game. Firebat and Hafu aren't meta-game definers, they're merely good netdeck players who have honed their decision making skills.
Kripparian, whenever he has dabbled in constructed (however few times this is) has forged his own path. I remember in late 2013 when he was one of the first to run Pyromancer combos with Paladin. He's probably the hardest to argue for w/r/t skill, just because he's so damn obstinant when it comes to ladder grinding. He's given us very little to observe. But what we have observed has been nothing but good. He's fantastic at arena, has strong results in almost every tournament he plays in, and is not afraid to improvise and get creative with his decks.
Trump plays unorthodox decks and makes them work because of his in-game knowledge. Every class he's picked for his free-to-play series has made it to legend, and this is no small feat. It's something you can't say Hafu or Firebat or any other streamer has done. When he runs standard decks, he improvises and strongly impacts the meta game (for season 4, look no further than Divine Zoo). Trump's biggest issue is that he tends to handicap himself to make it more interesting for the viewers, or just to keep himself entertained, I suppose. It's really the same problem with Kripparian -- except his handicap is apathy. He's (Kripp) stated multiple times he has no interest in ladder grinding and prefers the more volatile 'meta' of arena. I can respect that, but I don't think ladder 'results' alone are proof of one's actual skill level. In that same light, I've never seen Trump express nor show an actual interest in attempting to go for top legend ranks. A lack of interest certainly doesn't equate to a lack of skill.
As for Reynad, at many times he's single-handedly defined the meta-game. Almost every deck he runs ends up being wildly popular on the ladder, and if you watch his stream he's constantly testing out new decks and ideas to counter the current meta that he himself helps create. There's a reason for this -- the guy makes great decks. He has a thorough understanding of what's good in both Hearthstone as well as other trading card games. He's not only good at playing standard decks, but he's good at creating the next standard deck.
So, in closing, just to be a little redundant: there's players that play standard decks well, and they've honed their decision making-skills and match up knowledge to near perfection, like Hafu and Firebat. They're good players, but they're not creative and they don't define nor influence the shape of the meta-game. They just play whatever the current meta is well. That's great, and they're undeniably good, but I wouldn't classify them as the absolute best of the best. They're just good high-level players. However, there's also players who use their knowledge of the game to both be good players as well as define and push the cutting edge meta, and I think that's something that going solely on ladder results won't cover. There's much more to overall Hearthstone skill than ladder grinding. Maybe one could make an argument that Firebat and Hafu are as good as Trump/Reynad/Kripp when it comes to specific decks, but I really don't think it's possible to say that they're actually categorically better than them.
Yep, my evaluations would definitely look a lot different from yours, though I respect your opinion!
Kripp would be quite low on mine - chat's not important to me, but his completely ruins my experience.
Trump's a lot higher up, about on par with Hafu.
Simcopter and Amaz would be in the middle of my pack. I really enjoy how engaged Simcopter is, though he definitely has a lot of room for improvement - both as a streamer and a player.
I won't quote your entire reply to save space, but I did indeed read it all. +1, for sure.
You make a lot of sense, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of your points. When I update these evaluations sometime in the future (including more streamers), I will definitely take those ideas into consideration when considering skill levels for them all again.
I don't see too many successful Trump decks on the ladder, but you're certainly right about Reynad. Perhaps I should have considered how players have redefined the meta when considering their overall skill. I certainly do give credit to Reynad for his effect on the meta, I just did not include that into my consideration of skill level.
Poetic.
I really like the review. It's somewhat close to my personal assessment. Kripp is also one of my favorite streamers due to his relaxed attitude. I don't like Trump much because I think he's trying too hard to be a nice guy and I don't like fake personality. Amaz has stream is pretty good and entertaining but I stop watching because he always play Priest and I can't learn much from it.
Regarding skill level, I think it's correct to put Trump as 4 stars. He's a good player but definitely not as good in comparison with players like Kolento, StrifeCro or Tides. He always go for conventional - value orientated moves and often miss out the less obvious but more powerful plays.
Reynad would be 4.5. It's harder to rate him because he play mostly aggro decks which relies heavily on RNG and this guy sometimes got really bad luck. I think his control is on par with other pro players.