Hearthpwn

LOVED the fact they stuck to the Nozdormu rounds for the Tie Breaker matches. Great fun. :D

Alright, the Nozdormu rounds certainly were entertaining, if only for Frodan and TJ to go slowly mad while casting. xD

Priest mirrors are ridiculously long, but that Luna vs the French dude one was amazingly entertaining.

Very much hyped for these Nozdormu rounds. Bring it on!

Hums: And the man in the back said "Everyone Attack!" and it turned into a Barrens Blitz, B-Barrens Blitz.

Yep, this is the balance Blizzard will have to deal with, weighing popular streamers that draw watchers in and having less well known streamers that are fun and capable, but represent more, and can greatly benefit from showing out at this type of event.

It will be good if Blizzard doesn't fall into the trap of recycling these same representatives over and over again too. Keep it fresh. Invite some new faces every time.

Otherwise you end up with 1 or a few streamers becoming the go-to representative for their group. Keep it fresh and keep it moving. There's enough quality people to fill these broadcasts 10 times over, so use it.

Kripparrian has been invited to Hearthstone PR events since its inception. He was part of the very first official "competitive" event Blizzard ever held.

He's been getting invites and exposure at the corporate events for almost as long as the game exists.

It's EXACTLY that kind of disparity between the streamers they usually have for these events and the streamers they now intend to start inviting that is part of the problem.

It's a circular problem, where people don't get invited cause they are not popular enough according to a part of the community and they don't get to be popular enough due to the community never seeing them at these events. It's a catch 22 that many underrepresented groups suffer from and that props up old, unjust systems.

And for this particular, purely PR event, that makes no sense at all. It should be used to showcase talented people that can grow the Hearthstone brand to new markets, not the same old tired faces we have seen a billion times before.

And this isn't even something new.

Blizzard have been tweaking these invite lists for a while now, bringing in streamers from different languages to help promote these events in those markets. 

It;s just that they have ALWAYS underrepresented women at these events, and that is finally about to change.

One can only hope that other groups that are under represented but make up a significant part of the player base get their chances too.

It's about damn time.

Popularity is mostly achieved through exposure, and guess what these women are now finally getting with these invites...

That's right, exposure to a bigger audience.

There's a reason why some streamers go out of their way to raid other streamers with their viewers. It is significantly impactful for the streamers getting an influx of viewers that may not normally come to their channel.

And that same method applies here and is why Blizz is (finally!) going to put a more diverse talent pool on these events.

What if Blizzard realized their line ups for these events didn;t match their intended company goal they have for being inclusive in their games "Every Voice Matters" and chose to invite two highly skilled women from a long list of deserving candidates.

No quick fix, no "make them look better", just 2 deserving candidates for a spot in a tournament, chosen because they represent a shockingly underrepresented group in the original line up.

The original line up had 2 women on a group of 20 players. That's 1 in 10.

Even with this, there are only 4 women on 20 players, or 1 in 5, or 20%.

That is STILL not even close to the true % of women that play Hearthstone.

I'm perfectly okay with holding Blizzard to the fire over what is undoubtedly a dumb initial group of players. But that's not what some of the detracters are doing. Some of them are specifically upset that Blizzard chose women to replace the men that withdrew and question their qualifications and question that there are not better men to be chosen instead.

And THAT is bullshit.

Are people really going to try and argue that a current Grandmaster and someone who represents their Country in international play and who has held Rank 1 on ladder should have not gotten invited, because they are somehow not qualified enough?

Really?

That's a special kind of bullshit.

I think these invites just go to show that there's plenty of women available who could show out in events like this, and all they need is a chance to show it.

Which they are hopefully finally getting, moving forward.