Meet BaiZe - The HCT's First Championship Woman Impresses in LA
Learn more about BaiZe, her run through events this year, and how she's been doing so far in the HCT Summer Championship in a blog from Blizzard.
Quote from Kevin HovdestadThis weekend at the Blizzard Arena Los Angeles, the Hearthstone Championship Tour (HCT) has its first-ever woman competing in a seasonal championship. Wang 'BaiZe' XinYu is a well-known Hearthstone competitor in China, and became more of a household name in the Western scene after advancing to the playoffs of the 2017 Hearthstone Wild Open. Her prior performances in NetEase's Gold Series are all notable, but she's making a big entrance on the world stage at the HCT Summer Championship.
Heading into the tournament, BaiZe was already making waves with her uniquely teched deck lists. She's modified a popular Token Shaman with Masters of Evolution, Cult Masters, and the tournament's only copy of Prince Taldaram. While her Zoo, Priest, and Tempo Rogue lists are more in line with what other players settled on, no other player brought the same lineup she did—in part because she's also the only person not playing Druid. Did BaiZe read the field better than her opponents? Read on to find out...
On Friday we spoke to BaiZe about her career leading up to this moment—and she's had some exciting moments thus far. "I started last March with the regional playoffs; we call it the Super Premier, which is the equivalent of the regional HCT playoffs," she said. "This year, in June, I traveled to the U.S. for the Hearthstone Wild Open. Finally, in July, I played in the Summer playoffs."
A lifetime Blizzard fan, BaiZe enjoyed Warcraft III and World of Warcraft before coming to Hearthstone. Besides playing the game professionally, she spends most of her time casting the game in China. What does she get up to outside of Hearthstone? "I enjoy reading and watching movies, and I've also started learning how to play the piano," she said.
Though BaiZe is having fun, that isn't to say that she isn't feeling the pressure, too. "As a professional Hearthstone player, you always want to tell people that you have what it takes to perform on big stages and be great," she said. "I don't want to go out there and have people say to me that I'm just the best woman they've seen play the game. I don't like that. I want to go out there and prove myself."
BaiZe's first series against Pavel 'Pavel' Beltukov on Friday was extraordinarily tense. She took a strong lead in the Shaman mirror, but Pavel tied up the series with his Tempo Rogue over her Highlander Priest.
Arguably the best game of day one followed, with BaiZe skillfully navigating the Highlander Priest mirror. At one point, she made an unexpected call with the 5-cost potion from Kazakus, holding it to confuse Pavel's read of her hand, and then executed a powerful swing turn using Lyra the Sunshard after baiting Pavel into a defensive Priest of the Feast.
Sadly, in the fourth game, BaiZe's Rogue deck fell to Pavel's Shaman, and game five was decided by a series of underwhelming draws for BaiZe as both players exhausted their hands.
Regardless of the outcome, it was a thrilling series, and case in point why BaiZe has to some extent been the talk of the tournament. She is thankful for all the new fans she's accrued this weekend, and wishes they'd follow her on Weibo—a Chinese microblogging service similar to Twitter—but admits, "It might be a little tough for my Western fans!"
Her whole heart has been in Hearthstone for the last few years, and she says she had been feeling as though she had hit a bit of a ceiling. "If I get another opportunity to compete in HCT, I'll come back much stronger," she proclaims, adding that her fans will still see her on the caster desk regardless.
She also shared some insight into her much-discussed Shaman deck. "There are two Shaman cards that I dislike that are prevalent in most people's decks—Mana Tide Totem and Thing from Below," BaiZe said. "I don't think they're effective against all the Druids and Rogues. I wanted to switch to something that was more aggressive, and thought Masters of Evolution and Cult Masters would work. All of those 4-cost minions left room for Prince Taldaram, which is a flexible and very interesting card to play around."
Watching BaiZe take on defending world champion Pavel and compete in Los Angeles has been amazing, and we hope to see her again in future tournaments. What did you think of her matches? Let us know in the comments!
@CypherBenkes: Where is it discriminatory in saying and advertising that there is a female champion in competition?
An adjective is not discrimination. Discrimination is asserting what a person can be or do according to that adjective, and this article is not the case.
Get that straight before boasting your political correctness.
Do you appreciate equality also in videogames? Or are you here to boast?
If you do want equality, then you MUST SHOW it is definitely a thing.
@everyone: the article is just about promoting equality and representation. If you do not see that, you are biased by complications of your own.
Welcome to the real and simple world of things and words.
So it's politically correct for me to tell you that race and gender is not an achievement?
How naive of you.
Either you got me wrong or I got you wrong...
I see nowhere in the article or in my words where race and gender should be an achievement in itself.
I say it is good to advertise her presence, you seem to say we should not.
Politically correctness is saying we should not advertise BaiZe presence, because that would be a discrimination, which clearly isn't.
Politically correctness is being so neutral as to negate the very existence of the question, and thinking to be more rigtheous than the others because of this.
You do not make change easier if you censure its milestones.
Discrimination would be considering her inferior for being a girl, and I challenge everyone to find it either explicit or implicit in the article.
She herself said that she's there to prove her skills. The article is advertising that, her skill and her courage in altering a meta deck in a tournament.
Advertisement that promotes representation (and equality). What's wrong in that?
I thought I made it clear earlier. Sorry if this has been confusing for you.
You wrote "It celebrates the first female Champion in a global stage, which is an achievement in itself." In this most recent comment, you also wrote "I see nowhere in the article or in my words where race and gender should be an achievement in itself." Her being a female is not an achievement. That's like saying you're not racist because you have a black friend. Race and gender are not achievements, so her being a Female Champion is nothing. A lot of people that have seen or heard an article concerning BaiZe don't care that she's a Female. It matters more that she's a Champion and less that she's a Female Champion. We don't need to acknowledge her just because she's a female, she doesn't need her own post, even though we enjoy hearing about her.
Remember when I said this earlier: "It is not an achievement to have won a race while being a girl." I feel like you weren't trying to make her being a female the most outstanding part of the things you said earlier, however, this article and your nature and tone here suggest that her being a female is somehow valuable to the article, when it isn't. It's like valuing the fact that you buy brand name products when products with a lesser brand name are just as effective. The name of the brand is useless, same with the fact that she's a female.
It's really sad, seeing you edited your comment. Nice to know that you aren't capable of standing by your original statement. It's a good thing you understand now, at least.
I either don't care that she's a female.
Her being female is irrelevant. However, her being female AND champion is a more complex function. Equally irrelevant for individual players such as me and you, who want to see nice matches and that's it.
But it IS relevant towards a more equal representation in hearthstone. It is about equality (and more players for Blizz ofc).
If you do not care of equality, fine. But then this article should be completely irrelevant for you, because you don't care and it doesn't affect you in any way.
But if you care, the article is good, because that's exactly why it's been written - and it's been written WITHOUT treating her as a precious fragile jewel or a trophy.
She's being treated as the first player from a very welcome part of the community, previously not represented at that level, and scarcely represented thoroughly.
I don't feel like your words are worth anything to anyone when you can't stand by them. Your editing of the initial comment is hilarious. Bask in this glorious screenshot of your original comment.
He is always so cocky with his talking nothing new here.
Wow, you don't make any sense at all.
GET IN HERE, lets take a seat by the hearth and objectify girls who play video games
Her gender didn't really matter to me. I really appreciated her persona and presence overall, I would like to see her more in these events
Honestly, I feel guilty for feeding into this focus on her gender. I picked her as my Champion, but only because I wanted to show her support for having made it to a big tournament. I picked Pavel with my F2P account, because honestly, picking someone you don't know just because they're special, or because they're a chick, that's honestly dealing them an injustice.
If you put their gender before their ability, you aren't valuing the things that are valuable. Having a gender is just a matter of existing. Her being a female doesn't matter. What does matter, however, is the fact that many, many people are making her gender the focus, when they shouldn't. It's insulting to think that, not only am I surrounded by many children in this community, but that OOH BOY, SHE GOT THEM TITTIES, WOW, A REAL GIRL GAMER. It's like how someone mentioned before with that All Female League of Legends Team, HOLY SHIT, ALL FEMALE, THAT'S AMAZING, WOW, SUCH BRAVE, MANY NOVELTY, WOW. Get a fucking grip. People are not trophies, and gender is not a "hot commodity" that people should care about, for fuck sake.
It's kinda difficult to balance knowing to celebrate gender representation and when to ignore it in order to enforce gender equality. I also feel really guilty that I solely viewed her as a "gurl" rather than a human who faced off Pavel without a single Druid deck and almost won.
On one hand, it encourages more woman to join the scene, and it gives us a little representation.
On the other hand, it completely takes away her achievements, and the fact that she almost managed to beat the Pavel is out-shadowed by the genes she was given at birth.
Honestly, I wouldn't even recognize her as the HCT's First Championship Woman, and I guiltily felt happy reading this article, but at the same time, I find it depressing that this article might've just pigeon-holed her through a loose stereotype (gamer girl), and I find it disheartening that people may have been predisposed to the mentality you just mentioned. It's quite a conundrum, and this is a question that seems to appear more and more as we go through the 21st century: to what extent should we recognize the achievements of cultural/sexual/ethnic groups that do not normally occur in the past?
Honestly, the fact that we've made diversity a focal point with media, sports, etc, really speaks about us as a species. People are puzzled when faced with a newer element, a fresher feel, something that doesn't sit with typically established elements. It's like hearing about musicians beating Daigo at Street Fighter: The fact that this musician, someone who isn't associated with video games, is here in the flesh, playing this game. It's different.
"It isn't typical of a den of nerds to be playing with a girl."
People were understandably excited about an All Female LoL Team. The "problem" is people were too excited, which drove people away from caring about it. The fact that people were fixated on the gender, it's understandable to get frustrated with the forced focus, and I mean really forced. All they would've had to do to send people on bloodthirsty rampages with that sort of themed hype would be to give the people in those positions very shaped, very tailored language that almost enforces girl power, as if it was assumed by everyone that girls were not as capable as boys.
I think, while it's bad to focus on it being a chick, or a black guy, whatever, I think it's interesting when something that doesn't feel typical about a subject crops up, and gives us more to contemplate. It's kind of like being given more options on a menu, options you weren't familiar with. You have no idea what a Big Mac Deluxe is, or why relish is now an option to put on your burger, but you are mentally, curiously stimulated when seeing these new options. You will always consider them because they are new, because it is human nature to want more than you have. See Conquest for more information.
In essence, while this focus is unhealthy, it is good that we take time to recognize newcomers. Furthered and intensified focus concerning gender, color, these things are worthless.
I welcome this player with open arms, and I hope she does well from here on out.
This is my personal opinion of course, but I think recognizing diversity is a good thing. It promotes more of it, and it makes everyone realize that everyone is unique and that we should do away with stereotypical groups.
Of course, I recognize that focusing too much on this fact detracts the attention away from her achievements as the BaiZe and objectifies her as that "woman playing a game that men usually play".
So the question is this: should we celebrate that BaiZe is HCT's First Championship Woman? I think the answer is yes, but I think we need to perceive it as a part of a whole, not the entire picture. Acknowledgements like this aren't inherently bad. If treated right, it doesn't detract from her abilities as a whole. I personally love representation as it encourages me to know more about the person and be proud of who I am, instead of being like "great, I'm the only girl here...yayyyyy...". At the same time, it's something we need to treat with caution.
I'm with you on a lot of what you said here. There's nothing wrong with celebrating diversity, but understanding what constitutes healthy levels of focus, moderation, I think it's good to take a step back from how we approach things before proceeding. Peer review is a good practice.
I don't feel games need to be inclusive of all groups. I believe that if a game, a product, is attractive enough to someone, regardless of if they're the target audience or not, the product is a success if it brings people in with what it has to offer. Sure, it's good to understand what should and shouldn't be involved with that product, but creating something and tailoring it so it appeals to everyone, I don't think that's a healthy methodology. What rubs me wrong about this article and articles like it, is that we already have female competitors. It's not often that we see a female in a tournament, however, Hafu, for example, is a well established and enjoyed female Hearthstone player. I don't know when she was last in a tournament, however, I don't understand why it matters that we have another female player. I think it's really great, and as mentioned before, I support her in her endeavors. I just don't understand why this was worth writing an article, submitting a post like this. It's good to have your articles that show the world that Hearthstone is enjoyed by many. I just feel like this article is out of place.
She's cute. :)
People are people, why discriminate?
I want to see a trans gendered professional get to the championship and see if they follow the same route. That would be a very interesting cast to watch.
It feels really belittling every time you see a professional girl gamer and the main focus is OMG IT'S A GURL.
I remember when The Sirens and LoL happened and that was what they mainly focused on. Turns out they were a bunch of thots trying set the bar back years and I feel we haven't recovered since.
People aren't novelties...
HEY GURL