Ostkaka and Powder Leave Alliance, Rethinking Their Hearthstone Involvement
Hearthstone pros Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall and Harald "Powder" Gimre are taking a break from the game and have left their team for the past year, Alliance. Both players are taking a break and are going to rethink their involvement in the game. Reasons cited for their breaks include the way the Hearthstone Championship Tour was structured and being unable to find the passion to grind. Good luck out there Ostkaka and Powder!
In what ways do you get tired of Hearthstone? What do you think Blizzard could do to improve fatigue?
You can view the press release here, or down below.
Quote from AllianceGothenburg, Sweden – December 18th, 2017 – Going into 2018 Alliance is sad to say farewell to two of our Hearthstone players, Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall and Harald “Powder” Gimre. Both Sebastian and Harald have decided to take a break from playing Hearthstone professionally for the near future.
After our venture into Hearthstone in 2016 with Jon “Orange” Westberg we followed it up by signing Sebastian and Harald at the end of that year. Subsequently all three of them competed together in ESL’s Trinity Series (don’t mention the murlocs please) as well as recently coming back from China after placing 4th in the Gold Club World Championship.
Alliance COO, Erik Barge had the following to say as Alliance parts with Sebastian and Harald: “We here at Alliance have thoroughly enjoyed having Sebastian and Harald on the team for the past year. Both of them are stellar competitors and I will definitely miss having them on the team. With that said I completely respect their decision to take a break and wish them the best of luck in the future, whether it is in Hearthstone or outside of it.”
Ostkaka:
“In the past few months I have taken a step back from the Hearthstone grind, I have not had the passion to stream or ladder for hours every day. I do still enjoy competing and I will see how I feel in 2018 with the new HCT tour but for now I am taking a break and re-evaluating. Alliance has been a great team to be a part of and I am thankful for their support during my time with them.”
Powder:
“It has been a great experience with Alliance over the past year, unfortunately with the way the HCT system was structured I could not really find the passion to grind and stream over the last few months. I have decided to focus more on my life outside of Hearthstone and I will be going back to studying. I hope all the best for Alliance in the future and as for what I will be doing with Hearthstone next year I am not sure, but I still love competing and I might try to get back to the grind when the new season starts.”
Alliance wish Sebastian and Harald best of luck in their future endeavours. Next up for Alliance Hearthstone will be in January where Jon is competing in the HCT World Championship in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Honestly, taking Hearthstone professionally and making it your job is probably the worst thing ever. Don't get me wrong I love the game a lot, but I can only play for a fews hours a week. Playing it for 7 hours everyday is just horrible, no wonder they got burned out.
That's probably why most ex-competitive players start streaming with fun decks after achieving success (See Kibler or Firebat).
You are most certainly right : pay me to do something I enjoy and watch the enjoyment progressively vanishing in the haze ..!
I agree with you, but the same can be said for any game really. If you play a game for 7+ hours a day, everyday you will get tired of it fast, and I don't blame about not having the drive to grind.
HS does need to improve the ladder system, and Blizzard needs to release more cards (maybe a few monthly), but the biggest issue is the lack of balance patches in the game right now. That could help keep things "fresh", but you will still get tired of the game over all tho.
No matter what happens, if you play a game for 7+ hours everyday...it will become stale as hell...but Blizzard can at least try to make things better for HS players at least ;)