The only thing better than Hearthstone card packs is free Hearthstone cards packs.
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Two new competitive series are being introduced in 2017: Hearthstone Global Games and Hearthstone Inn-vitationals.
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Hearthstone already has a robust competitive scene, with the Hearthstone Championship Tour representing the top tier for professional players.
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The Hearthstone Americas Summer Championship is running Saturday and Sunday featuring eight of the top Hearthstone players from North and South America.
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I'm betting it will be good for Hearthstone in the long run, although I'm not so sure what's good for Hearthstone is good for me.
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Brian Kibler, a former Hearthstone pro and occasional caster official Activision Blizzard live streams, announced that he will no longer cast the Hearthstone Grandmasters at BlizzCon in November.
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In October, many gamers boycotted Blizzard after the publisher banned a professional Hearthstone player and suspended a college Hearthstone esports team from American University for pro-Hong Kong statements.
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Similar to the Overwatch World Cup, the Hearthstone Global Games brings together the top Hearthstone players from 48 countries around the world to compete for glory and a $300,000 prize pool.
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As a [Hong Konger], I quit [ Hearthstone] without consideration.
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Overwatch, Hearthstone and Madden tournaments are also being advertised for the upcoming season, but CSL released a statement Wednesday saying Hearthstone and Overwatch tournaments have been canceled in compliance with Blizzard's requests.
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Blizzard faces backlash after banning "Hearthstone" player from competitionBlizzard stripped Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, of his prize money and banned him from competing in "Hearthstone" esports tournaments for one-year after he shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" in Chinese during a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored "Hearthstone" tournament in Taiwan.
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Yet the Hearthstone comparison misses something important about Artifact's economy: There is no "trading" in Hearthstone (unless you count buying from Blizzard as a kind of trade), whereas Artifact is built on it.
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Calling Artifact a Hearthstone knockoff isn't even half the story.
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Arena borrows a lot from Hearthstone and that's a good.
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In Hearthstone or Magic, players have the option to attack.
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"I play [Hearthstone] everyday," redditor Hinz97 said in a post.
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As punishment, Blitzchung was removed from the Hearthstone Grandmasters competition.
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The player, whose real name is Chung Ng Wai, was participating in the Hearthstone Grandmasters regular season, an esports tournament in which players play Hearthstone, the turn-based online card game developed by Blizzard.
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The pro 'Hearthstone' player banned by US game giant Blizzard has spoken out after his ban from the 'Hearthstone' pro circuit was reduced from one year to six months, and his prize money was reinstated.
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The event was for players of the online card game Hearthstone.
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The new cards for standard play in Hearthstone aren't messing around.
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You can watch the entire tournament on Blizzard's Hearthstone Twitch channel.
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It's more complex than Hearthstone and faster than Magic: The Gathering.
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"In general for people who competed in the Hearthstone Championship Tour last year, especially the American qualifiers, it might be the only tournament you play in all year," says Brian "Th503RaT" Courtade, a Hearthstone pro for Splyce.
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Interested in jumping into Hearthstone but have no idea where to start?
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Misfits just jumped into Hearthstone in December, signing four top-level players.
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The top thread on its Hearthstone board stands in solidarity with Blitzchung.
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Blitzchung wasn't the only Hearthstone player Blizzard punished for publicly supporting Hong Kong.
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The 2016 Hearthstone World Championship will start with group stages running from Oct.
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In the areas I felt Hearthstone came up short, Gwent delivers in spades.
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Elementals are their own type of minion in Hearthstone in Journey to Un'Goro.
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Arena is free to play and Wizards have modeled the economy after Hearthstone.
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"Hearthstone Battlegrounds" is Blizzard's first foray into the growing genre of "auto-battlers."
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One place to start, the two agreed, was reinstating Blitzchung into competitive Hearthstone.
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Welcome to the family, Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, and Hearthstone Esports.
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Blizzard suspended the "Hearthstone" competitor Ng Wai Chung, known as "Blitzchung," and two commentators from "Hearthstone" competitions for six months after Blitzchung called for the liberation of Hong Kong during a postmatch interview at a Blizzard-sponsored event on October 5.
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It's an interesting idea, but Hearthstone is a game people play on their phone.
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Hearthstone and Overwatch both also feature scholarship prize pools of $50,000 and $100,000, respectively.
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A look at potential rewards for the best 'Hearthstone' players in the Heroic Brawl.
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My current obsession is Hearthstone, which I spend way too much time playing (badly).
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Others, like r/nintendoswitch and r/hearthstone, are surprising to see on this list.
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He also said he had "no idea" if he'll continue to play competitive 'Hearthstone'.
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These are great late game cards, but don't think Hearthstone neglected early game elementals.
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Both Magic and Hearthstone allow players to earn new cards by playing the game.
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Blizzard also imposed on him a 28-month ban from participating in Hearthstone esports.
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Xiaomeng Li said someone once told her women didn't belong on the Hearthstone scene.
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They make a game of Hearthstone magical and hilarious every time you boot it up.
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"Yogg-Saron was a really tough decision for us," says Ben Brode, Hearthstone lead designer.
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The total Hearthstone Championship Tour prize pool will add up to $2 million next year.
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If Hearthstone felt too light, then Legends should have more to sink your teeth into.
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I tried out Hearthstone with the Adult Gamers Club I organize on a regular basis.
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Mark your calendars — the latest Hearthstone expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, is coming very soon.
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Battlecast takes the popular Hearthstone formula and adds a handful of classic RPG-like elements.
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LOS ANGELES — The Goblin-run town of Gadgetzan is entering into the world of Hearthstone.
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Artifact is a digital collectible card game (CCG) like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena.
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SkyWeaver is a fantasy-heavy trading card game perhaps most easily compared to Blizzard's Hearthstone.
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What I mean is I am a super fan of, I'll pick Hearthstone, for example.
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I hop in and play Overwatch and I try and still get some Hearthstone in.
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While game and prize pool details have not been announced for 2017, DreamHack's first U.S. event in May, DreamHack Austin, held events in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Hearthstone, Street Fighter V, StarCraft, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm with over $300,000 in prize pools.
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There are plenty of Hearthstone tournaments, and most pay out sums in the $6,000-$10,000 range.
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In rankings of most-watched games on Twitch, it competes with Dota 2, Hearthstone, and Overwatch.
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After the 2016 World Championship in November, the competitive Hearthstone scene is getting some major updates.
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Activision Blizzard suspended a player of its game Hearthstone who expressed support for Hong Kong protestors.
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It's a virtual card game in the spirit of games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering.
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In Hearthstone, adventures are themed, single-player challenges that task players with beating multiple AI bosses.
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With the 2016 Hearthstone World Championship looming, Blizzard is giving away free Grand Tournament card packs.
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The Hearthstone World Championship will be held live at BlizzCon in Anaheim, California Nov. 4-5.
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Here are the 10 best cards of Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan (at least for now).
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From that perspective, Artifact is a lot more likely to resemble Magic: The Gathering than Hearthstone.
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Blizzard has a habit of announcing Hearthstone expansions at BlizzCon, which will be going on Nov.
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"Hearthstone" has an international tour, offering $1 million in prizes for top-level players this year.
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Hearthstone worked (and continues to work) because it took the genre and made it its own.
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Last year, a Hearthstone streamer took an unplanned snooze and woke up to 200 live viewers.
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Another option is the Hearthstone Lounge, a warm and intimate bar off of the hotel lobby.
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Also available on PC. Price: Free Hearthstone is another title we'd be remiss not to mention.
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In response, Activision Blizzard suspended Chung from Hearthstone for a year and rescinded his tournament winnings.
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Blizzard finally spoke up on Friday after a week of upheaval on the professional Hearthstone circuit.
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The Hearthstone controversy comes as a more traditional sport is facing its own crisis over Hong Kong.
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Dungeon Run is unlike any other single player mode that has come to Hearthstone over the years.
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Heroic Brawl is coming to Hearthstone soon, taking the place of Tavern Brawl for one week only.
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The next Hearthstone adventure may be diving into the exotic, dinosaur-filled zone known as Un'Goro Crater.
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Prior to Gwent, my CCG of choice was— as it's been (and remains) for many—Blizzard's Hearthstone.
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In fact, Artifact may very well be more of a trading card game than Hearthstone ever was.
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The next Hearthstone expansion is coming, and it looks like it's coming from the Goblin outpost Gadgetzan.
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If you've played Hearthstone with any regularity, you probably know the name Kripparrian (real name: Octavian Morosan).
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"Hearthstone" is Blizzard's popular digital card game, but "Battlegrounds" is an eight-person turn-based strategy game.
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Both "Casual Play" and "Expert Play" contain "Gauntlets," Artifact's more malleable take on the Hearthstone Arena system.
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Blizzard's Hearthstone, for example, is offering an exclusive card, Kahadgar, that players can work into their decks.
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But the esports machine keep grinding, and yesterday, the previously scheduled American Collegiate Hearthstone Championship was underway.
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Blizzard finally spoke up on Friday after nearly a week of upheaval on the professional Hearthstone circuit.
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In Tuesday's Hearthstone collegiate championship, American University players held up a "Free Hong Kong, boycott Blizzard" sign.
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It was completely out of control, and lead to more YouTube highlights than anything else in Hearthstone history.
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They're mad at Blizzard for suspending Hearthstone player Chung "blitzchung" Ng Wai for expressing support for Hong Kong.
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The publisher also revealed that free-to-play digital card game Hearthstone has surpassed 70 million registered players.
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Otherwise, I can glide between apps with ease and play a match or two in Hearthstone no problem.
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Hearthstone is getting a brand new Brawl mode with much better rewards — but the stakes are much higher.
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Free-to-play games like "Hearthstone" make money by converting users into buyers of premium items and services.
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With teams in League of Legends, Dota 2, CS:GO, Overwatch, StarCraft 2, Street Fighter, Hearthstone, Super Smash Bros.
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Hearthstone took what was good about the game and simplified it in a way that worked well online.
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Just try playing Hearthstone on the iPhone and the iPad mini and tell me which experience was better.
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To put it bluntly, Artifact isn't about making a Hearthstone-killer, but creating a new market to exploit.
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In early October, Blizzard hosted a tournament for the Asia-Pacific region for Hearthstone, a strategy card game.
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League of Legends generally leads the pack, with Overwatch, Dota 2, CS:GO and Hearthstone hot on its heels.
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Two days later, another "Hearthstone" commentator, Nathan "Admirable" Zamora said he was withdrawing from the event as well.
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Blizzard has banned 3 more 'Hearthstone' players for holding up pro-Hong Kong protest signs during a livestream.
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Chung had shouted 'Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!' in Chinese during an official 'Hearthstone' tournament livestream.
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When Hearthstone came out in 2014, Blizzard unwittingly set off an avalanche of copycat online collectible card games.
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Blizzard — the company behind massive game titles like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Hearthstone — is getting new leadership.
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"We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this decision may cause," Hearthstone said in its announcement of the change.
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"We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this decision may cause," Hearthstone said in its annoucement of the change.
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But, that business is under threat with the growth of competing games like Hearthstone and League of Legends.
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The videogame maker's unit Blizzard Entertainment on Tuesday said it had removed a Hong Kong player's video-on-demand (VOD) replay of a Hearthstone match and banned the player from Hearthstone esports for a year, after the masked player called for the liberation of the region in a post-game interview.
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Jonathan Oh, vice president of WGA and president of the Hearthstone team, has been monitoring one particular player's progress.
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NRG Esports — which has professional teams and players competing in Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Hearthstone, Super Smash Bros.
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There's Scrolls, which looked like a fascinating take on collectible card games until Blizzard's Hearthstone crushed it into oblivion.
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EST The voice actor has since updated her resume so that it does not include the unannounced Hearthstone project.
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To vote, head on over to the Global Games page on the Hearthstone website, log in to your Battle.
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When the move to standard was first announced back in February, many Hearthstone players, including myself, reacted with anger.
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Mobile card games have also proven to be very lucrative, with Blizzard's Hearthstone reportedly earning $20 million a month.
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The original team that created Hearthstone was unorthodox by Blizzard standards, consisting of a little over a dozen people.
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"Hearthstone Battlegrounds" is in beta testing now and Blizzard is opening up the program to everyone on November 12.
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It's hard not to marvel at the depths of Artifact, which, to me, feels like Hearthstone in three dimensions.
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On October 8, Activision Blizzard suspended pro Hearthstone player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai for supporting the Hong Kong protests.
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They released new cards on Hearthstone [an online collectible card video game], so I play three games on my phone.
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Players will compete in five games: Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm and Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.
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Sixteen-year old William "Amnesiac" Barton was locked in the quarterfinals of the 22016 Hearthstone World Championship against Pavel Beltukov.
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"It's better for the core official tournament line to feel like what you'd see on the Hearthstone ladder," says Brode.
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But now I'm done, both with Hearthstone and any other Activision Blizzard product, unless it reinstates Chung and the casters.
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Blizzard's argument for suspending Chung hinges on an alleged rule violation, specifically Section 6.1 of the official Hearthstone Grandmasters rules.
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Fable Fortune arrives in a post-Hearthstone world, after competitors based on Elder Scrolls and Skylanders (among others) have surfaced.
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Hearthstone just introduced 132 new cards with Mean Streets of Gadgetzan's release Thursday, and some of them look pretty amazing.
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The subtext to Old Gods, however, is a far more fundamental change to the way Hearthstone will evolve going forward.
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The next Hearthstone expansion is venturing into the dinosaur-filled jungles of Un'Goro Crater with Journey to Un'Goro in April.
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Hearthstone, a strategy card game also from Blizzard, famously keeps things clean by having no direct chat interface at all.
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Ms. Saccomando believes that the first restaurant specializing in the fried chicken was the Hearthstone, in Metamora, in the 2000s.
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Blizzard Entertainment today announced that its virtual card game Hearthstone would be getting a brand-new game mode called Battlegrounds.
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Jeremy "DisguisedToast" Wang, a famous face in Hearthstone who transitioned into auto-battlers, surprised many by going to Facebook Gaming.
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Ng Wai Chung, also known as "Blitzchung," was a competitor in the ongoing Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, in the Asia-Pacific division.
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It may sound like yet another Hearthstone knockoff, but Gwent has at least one unique feature: a full-blown story mode.
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But because you're playing against AI opponents, the Hearthstone team was able to test out some crazy cards in Dungeon Run.
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Outside virtual reality, games like Hearthstone and Splatoon were praised for removing — not expanding — the ability to communicate with other players.
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The latest Hearthstone expansion — Mean Streets of Gadgetzan — released on Thursday, bringing 132 brand new cards to Blizzard's competitive card game.
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All of the cards are available on Hearthstone now and can be collected by opening Mean Streets of Gadgetzan card packs.
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Blizzard's digital card game "Hearthstone" saw receipts fall to their lowest level since launching on both Android and Apple iOS devices.
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The popular digital card game Hearthstone shows how board game design can be improved with the help of a little computing.
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The most addictive and popular games show up in every category, with the heroin-like Hearthstone sitting close to the middle.
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Welcome to the Hearthstone Meta Update, where we review of one of the most powerful or exciting decks in competitive play.
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As Blizzard's digital card game Hearthstone heads into its fourth year, the experience is set to get a bit more social.
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Blizzard's former 'World of Warcraft' lead is boycotting the firm for punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who supported the Hong Kong protests.
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Blitzchung, whose real name is Chung Ng Wai, is a grandmaster-level player in "Hearthstone," Blizzard's very popular digital card game.
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I want to take a few minutes to talk to all of you about the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament this past weekend.
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On Sunday, the esports publication Inven Global tweeted out footage of Blitzchung's post-match interview on the official Taiwanese Hearthstone stream.
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In Hearthstone, you seem to be interested in trying out and experimenting with cards that maybe other people think don't work.
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"Hearthstone" player Xiaomeng "VKLiooon" Li became the first woman to win a BlizzCon esports championship, and the first Chinese Global Champion.
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"Call of Duty: Black Ops 4," and "Hearthstone" grew sales and the number of monthly active users rose on both games.
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It's a model not unlike its cousins in other eSports genres, from League of Legends to Hearthstone and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
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A mechanic that flipped a game through pure, unadulterated randomness now decided the fates of people who play Hearthstone for a living.
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In Hearthstone you're locked into the same ladder system as everyone else, no matter what they hope to get from the game.
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The Hearthstone Global Games are team-based competitions where teams from around the globe will go head-to-head in weekly matches.
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Over the weekend, Blizzard Entertainment banned a Hearthstone player from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters.
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Last month Blizzard revealed that it had paid out $2.8 million in prizes to Hearthstone players, with $4 million earmarked for 2019.
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Tespa is hosting in partnership with Blizzard college-level tournaments in Overwatch, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm for the coming season.
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HotS has weekly tournaments through mid-November while Hearthstone and Overwatch start with group stages that move to playoffs ending Jan. 31.
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Heroic Brawl is not really designed for inexperienced players, as explained in a video by Hearthstone designers Dan Emmons and Pat Nagle.
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PT The culmination of the 23 Hearthstone season is down to eight players: Amnesiac, Che0nsu, Cydonia, DrHippi, Hamster, HotMeowth, Jasonzhou and Pavel.
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Bossland's current available products that affect Blizzard games are Hearthbuddy (Hearthstone bot), Demonbuddy (Diablo 3 bot) and Honorbuddy (World of Warcraft bot).
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With all-new powerful pirates, menacing Murlocs and crooked criminals entering the fray, the Hearthstone meta is sure to be shaken up.
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As for the game itself, it's described as a digital card game in line with Hearthstone, but with the aforementioned special effects.
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A handful of new and unique cards will be introduced to Hearthstone when Mean Streets of Gadgetzan goes live in early December.
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Hearthstone is a free-to-play, turn-based, collectable card game that borrows from the existing World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.
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The game also doesn't draw in professional team organizations like other esports or even other competitive mobile games like Vainglory or Hearthstone.
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Valencia joins other European soccer clubs like FC Schalke and West Ham United, and potential titles include Rocket League, FIFA, and Hearthstone.
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The video game distributor Blizzard has also drawn backlash this week for banning a Hearthstone player for supporting the Hong Kong protests.
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Blitzchung, whose real name is Chung Ng Wai, is a grand-master-level player in "Hearthstone," Blizzard's very popular digital card game.
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I ran into the same problem in Gwent, a Hearthstone-like card game that should, again, be great on a touch display.
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Meanwhile Shadow Visions allows you to double up on one of your own spells, which is never a bad thing in Hearthstone.
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And the company recently struck gold again with Hearthstone, a Warcraft-themed, accessible online trading card game similar to Magic: The Gathering.
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Team Liquid, for example, competes in Counter Strike:Global Offensive, League of Legends, Hearthstone, StarCraft, Dota 2, Halo, Overwatch, Street Fighter, Smash Bros.
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All laptops have graphics chipsets, usually just built into the processor, so they can handle very light gaming (think Hearthstone or Gwent).
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One Hearthstone "caster" (an esports commentatory), Brian Kibler, summed up the broad response to the ruling very well in a Medium post.
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Unlike the long-existing Magic Online, Arena actually works well and brings Magic into digital competition with games like Hearthstone and Gwent.
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Kicking off the program, a new character in Blizzard's popular game Hearthstone will be exclusive, for the next month, to Twitch Prime members.
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Currently, players from different regions don't face-off in the Hearthstone Championship Tour until the World Championship, and Blizzard wants to change that.
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The big question for any game entering the digital CCG space now is bound to be: how does it stack up to Hearthstone?
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Compared with the basic Hearthstone cards, Legends already has more variety in card mechanics that might feel overwhelming for a brand new player.
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The filtered subreddits also include gaming communities like r/Overwatch, r/DotA2, and r/hearthstone, as well as an assload of sports subreddits.
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LOS ANGELES — The 2016 Hearthstone World Championship is just around the corner and only eight competitors are left in the $1 million tournament.
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Welcome to the Hearthstone Meta Update, where you'll find a review of one of the most powerful or exciting decks in competitive play.
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Welcome to the Hearthstone Meta Update, where you'll find a review of one of the most powerful or exciting decks in competitive play.
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There are only two more chances to qualify for the 2016 Hearthstone World Championship, and winning the Summer Championship is one of them.
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When the new set of cards is released in late April or early May, Hearthstone will split into two formats: standard and wild.
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There were hopes for a Warcraft mobile game, a Hearthstone expansion, and a new Starcraft game, but it [ended up] being as advertised.
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It's the same in Hearthstone and both games have a system whereby you can trade in duplicate cards for individual cards you want.
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I've never spent money in Hearthstone and I've only spent $5 in Magic—the cost of a "welcome pack" containing discounted card packs.
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Some of the games Blizzard offers as a service, including "World of Warcraft" and the card game "Hearthstone," received expansions this year, too.
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"Today, what I have lost in Hearthstone is four years of time," he said, referring to the years he spent playing the game.
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Twitch previously had exclusive rights to Overwatch League events, and Call of Duty and Hearthstone primarily aired on Twitch in the United States.
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Free-to-play games like Candy Crush Saga, Hearthstone, and World of Tanks built fabulous fortunes with it and continue to do so.
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For as much love as the World of Warcraft community has for Thrall, the Shaman class has not always been the darling in Hearthstone.
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The Hearthstone Inn-vitationals are taking a more light-hearted approach to competitions, featuring all kind of players including pros, popular streamers and celebrities.
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Some of Hearthstone's most popular (and most hated) cards are being altered to help balance out the meta ahead of the Hearthstone World Championship.
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It's almost like putting together a deck in a game like Hearthstone, except with only six characters each decision you make counts a lot.
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And video game company Activision Blizzard removed a recording of a professional Hearthstone player calling for Hong Kong's liberation in a post-game interview.
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The message comes after Blizzard caught fire this week for banning a professional Hearthstone player for shouting a statement associated with Hong Kong protesters.
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Blizzard has issued a year-long ban to a Hearthstone player who expressed support for the Hong Kong protestors during a competition live stream.
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Blizzard Entertainment may be feeling the effects of its controversial ban of Hong Kong Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung for quite some time.
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Welcome to the Hearthstone Meta Update, where you'll find a review of one of the most powerful or exciting decks currently in competitive play.
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The resume was posted on Minella's official website and includes credits for dozens of other video games, including past Blizzard games and Hearthstone expansions.
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The game itself is described as similar to collectible card games both real and virtual, including Blizzard's Hearthstone and the seminal Magic: The Gathering.
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Price: $4.99 In 2014, the World of Warcraft franchise got a little bigger when it expanded into mobile gaming with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
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Today the company announced that "Whispers of the Old Gods" will be available for Hearthstone via in-game purchase starting on Tuesday, April 26th.
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Yesterday afternoon, Blizzard, developer of the enormously popular digital card game Hearthstone, made an announcement about its new expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods.
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Some multiplayer games, like Hearthstone and Splatoon, have dropped chat systems because they often end up full of harassment, trash-talking, and useless noise.
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Blitzchung shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" in Chinese amid a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored "Hearthstone" tournament in Taiwan.
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Some Blizzard employees reportedly walked out to protest the punishment of a 'Hearthstone' competitor who spoke up in support of the Hong Kong protests.
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Esports competitor Chung Ng Wai, or Blitzchung, yelled "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" during an interview at the Hearthstone tournament in Taiwan.
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Even newer pro gaming sensations like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm come from a well-established giant — both of those are Blizzard creations.
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I experienced none of the lag and framerate drops my iPhone 6 gets with, say, Hearthstone, and no annoying ads interrupted me while playing.
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When her parents bought what would become Wagner's Village Inn in 220, the owners of the Hearthstone showed the Wagners how they fried it.
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A typical session on ProGuides lasts around 45 minutes and players are available for Fortnite, League of Legends, Super Smash Brothers, CS:GO and Hearthstone.
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Battlegrounds will feature eight-player combat that combines traditional Hearthstone cards and heroes with a customizable game board instead of a deck of cards.
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Kibler's decision, he wrote, is a reaction to what he described as Activision Blizzard's "incredibly harsh" treatment of Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai.
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Blitzchung's suspension from competitive Hearthstone was shortened to six months, and the two casters who spoke with him also received similar six-month bans.
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Although Hearthstone could be classed as a touch esport, Vainglory is among the first properties to be developed that way from the ground up.
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He's still one of the best Hearthstone players in the world, and there's no reason to think he won't bounce back with a successful 2017.
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Round up Denial's Call of Duty world champions for a game of Hearthstone against its own elite players, and the shooters wouldn't stand a chance.
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Over the weekend, Blizzard banned Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the protesters in Hong Kong.
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Blizzard Entertainment drew millions of fans to its beginner-friendly take on the genre, and Hearthstone remains both immensely popular and successful for that company.
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Gwent bears some similarities to other deck-building games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, but it also embraces its roots from The Witcher 3.
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On Tuesday, Blizzard disqualified and banned the player Ng Wai Chung, also known as "Blitzchung," from a worldwide tournament for the online card game Hearthstone.
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The non-Chinese Hearthstone player base is furious with Blizzard; the game's subreddit is full of longtime players vowing to quit the game in protest.
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You can find more details about registration, player eligibility and more match formats on Tespa's individual pages for Overwatch, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.
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Fable Fortune tweaks the Hearthstone formula with planned features like cooperative modes against AI-controlled bosses and a level progression system for regularly used cards.
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Bossland creates and sells cheats for most of Blizzard's current games, including Hearthbuddy (Hearthstone bot), Demonbuddy (Diablo 3 bot), and Honorbuddy (World of Warcraft bot).
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The tournament starts with the 48 teams being seeded based on winter season Hearthstone Competitive Points (HCP) into groups of six for round robin play.
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Warcraft, for instance, is still going strong, with an upcoming Duncan Jones-directed film adaptation and the incredibly popular digital card game spin-off Hearthstone.
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Despite having all the conventions of a TCG, the only "person" you ever really trade with when you're playing Hearthstone (or whatever) is Blizzard itself.
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Today, Blizzard revealed an upcoming feature for the game that will allow Hearthstone players to create their own in-game tournaments for competing with friends.
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Blizzard is embroiled in a fresh censorship controversy after giving three more "Hearthstone" players a ban for supporting the Hong Kong protests during a tournament.
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I usually just kind of check out what other people are doing on Reddit, on streams, on some of the popular Hearthstone sites like Hearthpwn.
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The publisher&aposs leagues include Overwatch League (OWL), Call of Duty League (CDL), and Hearthstone Esports, and are among the most popular in the world.
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Outrage at Activision Blizzard is mounting after the company suspended Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai for declaring his support of Hong Kong's protest movement.
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"If they really do make amends, genuinely, then I'd love to go back to playing Hearthstone with my friends and enjoying the game," said Dark.
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While reasonable for a round of Gwent or Hearthstone, Intel's integrated graphics have struggled to handle more complex rendering demands like Rise of the Tomb Raider.
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Shaman decks are being used more than other hero decks in Hearthstone, so Blizzard is making some changes that balance out the pool a little more.
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In addition to Call of Duty, the digital card game Hearthstone, developed by the Blizzard side of the company, has developed a sizable e-sports following.
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Another particularly large item which was also shipped to the property included a 13-ton hearthstone — or what Paul described as a 'crazy piece of rock.'
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Hearthstone and Overwatch feature scholarship prize pools of $50,000 and $100,000 Overwatch's fall season is a Collegiate Series tournament, which only allows one team per school.
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Like Blizzard Entertainment's wildly popular Hearthstone, Hex is a card game where players duel one another with decks constructed from a vast array of different cards.
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She's also played on a number of video game scores, including Hearthstone, Diablo III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II and III, and Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.
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Recent comments from Twitch stars who are women, like Hearthstone streamer Hafu Chan, show that sexist harassment on Twitch is still very much alive and well.
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"Quests will give you access to some of the most powerful cards Hearthstone has ever seen — if you can complete them," Chayes said in the announcement.
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If Hearthstone continues the pattern of alternating adventure and expansion releases, expect a whole bunch of new Gadgetzan-themed cards in the next six months. pic.twitter.
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A few hours before Jayne's tweet, "Hearthstone" commentator Brian Kibler announced that he would decline working with the company for the finals of its Grandmasters competition.
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Murloc builds haven't been super popular in the recent Hearthstone meta but that's probably because there was no Megafin, the reward for the Shaman quest card.
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Blizzard's "Hearthstone Battlegrounds" joins Riot Games' "Teamfight Tactics" and Valve's "DOTA 2 Underlords" as the latest auto-battler to use a popular franchise to attract players.
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The video game publisher Blizzard came under fire for punishing a professional "Hearthstone" player after he voiced support for the Hong Kong protests during a livestream.
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Still, if you're looking to sling cards à la Magic the Gathering but prefer to sling them in the Warcraft universe, Hearthstone is what you want.
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HearthstoneA Hearthstone Masters Tour event, set for Los Angeles on March 20-22 after a previous coronavirus-related rescheduling from Indonesia, will now be online only.
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Mr. Ulman took on the renovation of the home himself, and was surprised to find a treasure trove of artifacts underneath the hearthstone of the fireplace.
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Perhaps someday Hearthstone will have the competitive infrastructure for pro players to deal with a suck-out, but for the time being the consequences can be devastating.
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Hearthstone has a massive player base—Blizzard reported 50 million accounts in 2016—and a lot of those players really enjoyed the lunacy that Yogg-Saron wrought.
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It's certainly understandable why the pros hated the lack of finesse that Yogg required, but then again, most people are playing Hearthstone for fun, not rent money.
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Multiple hero cards, aggressive cards and Yogg-Saron are all getting changes in the coming weeks before the Last Chance Hearthstone qualifier tournaments for the World Championship.
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The brand new arena will host a handful of Blizzard's esports competitions, including the upcoming first season of Overwatch League and the Hearthstone Championship Tour's Summer Championship.
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Match streams will be available to watch six nights a week: Hearthstone on Mondays and Tuesdays, Overwatch on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and HotS on Saturdays and Sundays.
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Lately, with games like Hearthstone and Clash Royale, there's been a shift from the safer mid-core (Clash of Clans) to a more competitive and engaging experience.
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No release date has been set, but Blizzard says that "Whispers of the Old Gods" cards will be in Hearthstone sometime in late April or early May.
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Good for Hearthstone might be bad for me I started playing Magic back 1990s and gave it up by the time I finished high school in 2001.
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This morning, Good Morning America pulled a muscle while stuffing a tweet with the stilted meme-speak of an FBI agent trying to infiltrate a Hearthstone subreddit.
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If Hearthstone is the beginner-level CCG experience, a good foot in the door for newcomers to this kind of game, Gwent feels like the step up.
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The hugely successful toys-to-life franchise Skylanders is taking its first foray into the hugely successful mobile card game genre currently dominated by titles like Hearthstone.
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The Poland-based developer took note of this and — likely emboldened by the runaway success of Blizzard's Hearthstone — set to work on creating a standalone spin-off.
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Casey Chambers, Corwin Dark, and a third player with the online moniker TJammer — members of the American University esports team — were competing in the Collegiate "Hearthstone" Championship.
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Ultimately, Brack's statement did little to change the perception of Blizzard's punishment of Blitzchung, though the "Hearthstone" player said he accepted the company's stance on the situation.
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Even as Blizzard employees gathered in protest, "Hearthstone" commentator Brian Kibler announced that he would decline working with the company for the finals of its Grandmasters competition.
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Blitzchung shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" in Chinese amid a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored "Hearthstone" tournament in Taiwan on October 5.
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Magic: The Gathering perfected the art of competitive card games and brought them online, and then Hearthstone followed up with its own fantastic take on the genre.
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For those who've never heard of Hearthstone (which, wake up, losers), basically it's Magic: The Gathering but set in the World of Warcraft universe and all online.
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For example, members will get a free character, Tyrande Whisperwind, for the popular digital card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, said Emmett Shear, chief executive of Twitch.
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Blizzard initially responded by stripping Blitzchung of his prize money and barring him and the two commentators who conducted the interview from "Hearthstone" competitions for one year.
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"Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together in a tough Hearthstone e-sports moment about a month a ago, and we did not," he said.
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Remember the whole Blizzard, Hong Kong, Hearthstone story, where amazing pro player Blitzchung got banned for several months for speaking out about politics on a Blizzard stream?
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As PC Gamer reports, Blitzchung has signed with esports organization Tempo Storm, a group founded by a former professional Hearthstone player who goes by the handle Reynad.
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Players are boycotting games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Hearthstone after a user was punished for supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong during a tournament.
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Hearthstone, Blizzard's massively popular free-to-play card game, hit 50 million registered players two years after release, and that's a game you can play on your iPhone.
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The ban, which was first reported by VICE Games, comes just over a week after Blizzard suspended a professional Hearthstone player, Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung for six months.
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No, Overwatch and Hearthstone aren't going permanently offline or anything, you'll just be calling the service that hosts and updates your Blizzard games something else from now on.
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The company also released a new Hearthstone short, and it's easy to mistake the animation at first glance for something at the level of, say, Pixar or DreamWorks.
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Ten different countries were present to show that games such as Starcraft II and Hearthstone should join the ranks of swimming, gymnastics, and equestrian events at the games.
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I've been playing Hearthstone daily for about two years, including spending some money on cards and reaching the top tier of the game's competitive ladder (the Legend ranks).
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"Recent gameplay decisions have been unpopular with the Hearthstone community, and the result has been a sharp decrease in conversion on mobile," SuperData said in its monthly report.
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As we have pointed out in the past, Magic never managed to find a mainstream audience online the way Hearthstone did, despite its continued growth over the years.
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Hearthstone is cooling off this summer with a wintery, death-themed expansion called Knights of the Frozen Throne inspired by the northern home of the undead Scourge, Northrend.
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The next Hearthstone expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, is bringing a whole new set of cards to Blizzard's competitive online card game to shake up the current meta.
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California-based video game giant Blizzard Entertainment recently faced backlash for banning a competitive "Hearthstone" player after he voiced his support for the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.
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The pro 'Hearthstone' player banned by Blizzard after voicing support for the Hong Kong protesters has spoken out after his ban was reduced and his prize money reinstated.
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With Hearthstone, Blizzard created a game where the casual player could pop in, play a few rounds, win some cards, and still feel like they were having fun.
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The US games giant has faced widespread public criticism in recent weeks for its bans of several "Hearthstone" players who've expressed support for the protests in Hong Kong.
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The HearthStone Masters Tour Los Angeles will be played Friday-Sunday with more than 300 invited players from more than 40 countries competing for a $250,13 prize pool.
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Patrick Chow, 20, who works at an e-sports stadium in Hong Kong, said he used to play Hearthstone a lot but would immediately stop playing Blizzard games.
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Ever since Blizzard suspended Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai on Tuesday for speaking up in support of Hong Kong's ongoing political protests, the company has been quiet.
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Game developer and publisher Blizzard is in hot water after suspending a popular Hearthstone player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai for publicly voicing support for the Hong Kong protesters.
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When three 19-year-old college Hearthstone players held up a "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" sign during an official competition stream, they knew what they were doing.
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Integrated graphics are intended for the games you want to play a quick round of after dinner—hugely popular but not taxing titles like Gwent or Hearthstone or Overwatch.
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Over the weekend, a professional Hearthstone player voiced support for the Hong Kong protests in a post-game interview and Blizzard banned him from tournaments for an entire year.
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Video game developer Blizzard Entertainment has finally broken its silence after banning a professional player of popular virtual card game Hearthstone for voicing support for the Hong Kong protests.
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The Facebook event is more explicit about Gamers for Freedom's goals because it spells out the connection between the protest action and Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung's ban from Hearthstone.
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On October 8th, Video game developer Blizzard banned virtual card game Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung for voicing support for Hong Kong protesters during a competition live stream.
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"BlueStacks users are already playing mobile games like Hearthstone, Castle Clash, Vainglory and others, we just built a bridge between our platforms," CEO Rosen Sharma said in a statement.
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Hearthstone is harkening back to some of fantasy's most classic elements with its latest expansion, even taking its own crack at dungeon-delving with a new single player mode.
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It's also really fun — the strategies that pop up, the treasures are so unique and different from a lot of vanilla Hearthstone cards that your experience changes every game.
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First, there's Marin the Fox, a legendary card that every player will receive for free as long as they remember to log in to Hearthstone on Monday, Nov. 6.
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In the spring season, the games will switch tournament styles: Overwatch will have an open tournament while Hearthstone and HotS will have tournaments limited to one team per school.
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Since many popular games, like Hearthstone for example, don't have desktop clients, these apps have been almost completely closed off to Chromebook and even most desktops for that matter.
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The new level is essentially an amusement park based on all of the developer's properties, with everything from a Hearthstone tavern to a Diablo crypt to do battle in.
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The Hearthstone Global Games are almost upon us and voting for your favorite player in your home country will earn you some free Whispers of the Old Gods cards.
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In the announcement video above, Hearthstone production director Jason Chayes and game director Ben Brode discuss some of the new cards and unique features coming to the game soon.
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The official Hearthstone Twitter teased an upcoming expansion with a postcard saying "Greetings from Gadgetzan" over an image of the coastal Goblin town, located in the desert of Tanaris.
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When we think about the suspension, six months for blitzchung is more appropriate, after which time he can compete in the Hearthstone pro circuit again if he so chooses.
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Three collegiate Hearthstone competitors were banned for six months each after holding up a sign that read "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" near the end of a livestreamed match.
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I had mentioned this before, when you play other games like Magic or Hearthstone or things like that, you tend to see the pieces on the board as expendable.
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On this episode of Back of House, Richard Blais enjoys a meal with Chef Brian Massie and tries his luck at the Las Vegas hot spot, Hearthstone Kitchen & Cellar.
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The US games firm hit back at reports suggesting that it was censoring viewers who typed "Free Hong Kong" into the chat box for the "Play Hearthstone" Twitch channel.
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"Blizzard had a chance to bring the world together in a tough 'Hearthstone' esports moment about a month ago, and we did not," Brack told the audience at BlizzCon.
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Since Overwatch came out, it's been one of the most streamed games, typically alongside League of Legends, which boasts tens of millions of players, and Hearthstone, another Blizzard game.
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The /r/hearthstone subreddit is awash in angry players promising to give up on Activision Blizzard, and both /r/overwatch and /r/wow have threads dedicated to Chung's suspension.
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Blizzard is in the midst of an "internet shitstorm" after suspending Hong Kong Hearthstone player Chung Ng Wai ("blitzchung") for declaring his support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests.
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YouTube announced late on Friday that three different e-sports organizations — the Call of Duty League, the Overwatch League, and competitive Hearthstone — will stream matches exclusively on its platform.
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Over the last year, YouTube Gaming has absorbed some of Twitch's biggest streamers and esports channels, including all of Activision Blizzard's esports leagues: Call of Duty, Overwatch and Hearthstone.
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Blizzard Entertainment suspended Hong Kong-based Hearthstone player Chung "blitzchung" Ng Wai for his public support of pro-democracy protestors in the city during a postgame interview on Sunday.
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Here are the events that Twitch will have exclusive broadcasting rights to for the next two years: Overwatch APEX League Overwatch Premier Series Hearthstone Championship Tour Hearthstone Global Games StarCraft II World Championship Series World of Warcraft Arena Championship Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Unless Blizzard plans on signing an exclusive deal with another platform, its other tournaments including the Overwatch League will likely also appear on Twitch, but probably not exclusively.
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With Twitch Prime you'll get ad-free viewing, exclusive loot in games like Hearthstone and Madden '215, and a monthly channel subscription that allows you to support your favorite channel.
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But his loss at the World Championship last year has become a community meme that's emblematic of a broader culture war in Hearthstone—it was just so deeply, hilariously unfair.
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Activision has labeled 231 a "transition year", cutting 653 jobs and focusing on investing more in developing its game franchises "Call of Duty", "Candy Crush", "Overwatch", "Warcraft", "Hearthstone" and "Diablo".
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He claims to have been considering dropping Hearthstone as a career, but in signing with Tempo Storm, said he "will start competing again after I am unbanned" sometime in 2020.
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Blizzard has suspended three college Hearthstone players for six months after they held up a sign that read "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" while participating in an official competition stream.
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Blizzard has run the college-level Heroes of the Storm tournament "Heroes of the Dorm" in previous years, so they may plan on running similar tournaments for Overwatch and Hearthstone.
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Three members of America University's Hearthstone team held up a sign that said "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizzard" during one of their matches, and Blizzard banned them for six months.
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But it's good to see Blizzard finding ways to stay true to the core concepts of the original World of Warcraft class and translating them into meta-friendly Hearthstone cards.
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The game is a riff on popular collectible card games like Blizzard's Hearthstone where you battle another opponent in strategic combat using playing cards you draw from a virtual deck.
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The Hearthstone- and Warcraft-themed scene features a Murloc singing Christmas carols, pausing between songs to go do battle with denizens outside and decorating the fireplace with its newfound loot.
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Hearthstone: Journey to Un'Goro is bringing 135 new cards to Blizzard's online competitive card game in early April, including dangerous dinosaurs, predatory plant life, elite elementals and a volatile volcano.
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Blizzard risks triggering a fresh censorship furor after barring three more "Hearthstone" players from participating in tournaments after the trio held up a sign supporting the ongoing Hong Kong protests.
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During the interview on the official Taiwanese Hearthstone stream, Blitzchung appeared wearing a gas mask, which he lifted up before shouting "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" in Chinese.
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Hearthstone has revealed another new batch of Journey to Un'Goro cards over the past day, including new murlocs, a murloc-related quest, elementals and a couple other cool new cards.
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As Hearthstone continues to reveal more cards before the release of Journey to Un'Goro, we'll keep you up to date on how the new cards are shaking up the meta.
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Today, he makes a living playing Hearthstone and sharing his insights on the game day in, day out, in an obsessively analytical, creative style that transcends the obvious or popular.
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Games studio Blizzard banned a Hong Kong-based player of its popular game Hearthstone game after he said: "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" in a live-streamed interview.
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Seemingly worried at the potential repercussions for its Chinese business interests, Blizzard responded to the incident by banning Blitzchung from competing in Hearthstone tournaments for one year, effective from October 5th.
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Reddit users first noticed the disappearance of the Mitsubishi logo during a recent Asia Pacific Hearthstone tournament, and the company confirmed its decision to pull its sponsorship to The Daily Beast.
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Blizzard operates numerous online video games in China, and it also oversees e-sports teams and leagues for some of its most successful properties, like Overwatch and Hearthstone, in the country.
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Blizzard — the company behind Overwatch, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Heroes of the Storm — won a lawsuit last week against the creators of multiple cheating services used on its games.
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In the same way that World of Warcraft set the bar for MMORPGs and Hearthstone set it for collectible card games, now we have Overwatch putting team-based shooters on notice.
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Starting in mid-October, Blizzard Arena Los Angeles will host the Hearthstone Championship Tour's Summer Championship, the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Finals and the World of Warcraft Arena Championship.
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"Whispers of Gods" is said to have a decidedly darker feel than past Hearthstone expansions, with at least some of the 134 new cards reportedly being "corrupted" versions of classic minions.
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Activision, also known for its "World of Warcraft" and "Hearthstone" franchises, forecast first-quarter adjusted profit of 11 cents per share on revenue of $800 million, which includes results from King.
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Deck building in Artifact will probably be less about opening card packs a la Hearthstone, but encouraging players to head out onto the Steam market to get the cards they want.
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Featured afternoon speakers included Casey Chambers and Torin Wright, two members of the American University Hearthstone team, which had been barred from competing after speaking out in support of Mr. Chung.
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Blizzard has been at the center of a political firestorm in recent weeks after meting out a series of bans to "Hearthstone" players expressing support for the protests in Hong Kong.
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Activision Blizzard, whose portfolio includes popular games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty and Hearthstone, generated $23 billion in 2017 from in-game transactions, more than half of its total revenue.
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Artifact's supporters are right to point out that the game will very likely cost less to play than Hearthstone, which, for very serious players, can cost up to $400 per year.
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"I've played Blizzard games since I was seven," said redditor Poobs87, who has one of the most upvoted comments on /r/hearthstone, in a direct message to me on Reddit today.
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Lee's symbolic gestures during this year's Mythic Championship come after Activision Blizzard suspended Hearthstone player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai for making pro-Hong Kong statements during a post-game live stream.
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Disguised Toast, who has broadcast his game play since 2015, is best known for streaming the card game "Hearthstone," popular shooter "Apex Legends" and games from the "League of Legends" franchise.
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Board games rise in popularity year after year, independent developers are experimenting in the space, and physical card games have somehow managed to thrive alongside their digital counterparts like Hearthstone and Eternal.
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The company has labeled 2019 a "transition year", cutting about 800 jobs and focusing on investing more in developing its game franchises "Call of Duty", "Candy Crush", "Overwatch", "Warcraft", "Hearthstone" and "Diablo".
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Earlier this week, Blizzard banned professional Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung from participating in tournaments for a year after he yelled a pro-Hong Kong slogan during a post-game interview.
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Team player Casey Chambers tweeted out an email from a member of the Hearthstone team at Blizzard, which stated that the entire team received the ban for violating the company's official rules.
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This overarching genre of "forever" games encompasses esports like Hearthstone and Overwatch, social hangouts like World of Warcraft and Fortnite, and endlessly repetitive grinds like Destiny 2 and even Candy Crush Saga.
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"Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together in a tough Hearthstone esports moment about a month ago and we did not," he said in a live stream of the event.
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On Saturday, Blitzchung published a personal statement in which he said he was "grateful" to Blizzard for reconsidering its stance, adding that he has "no idea" if he'll keep playing competitive 'Hearthstone.
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Blizzard has faced harsh criticism for its decision to ban "Hearthstone" player Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, from competition for one year and withhold the approximately $3,000 of prize money.
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Blizzard's first foray into the mobile market was Hearthstone, which first landed on PC and Mac in March 2014, followed by iOS and Android in April and December of the same year.
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"I have 15,000 rounds of Hearthstone, I'm done," 19-year-old college student Casey Chambers, one of the three American University team members on the stream, told me this afternoon on Discord.
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The organizations announced that YouTube will serve as the exclusive streaming partner for live broadcasts of Activision Blizzard's esports leagues and events, including Overwatch League, Call of Duty League and Hearthstone Esports.
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LOS ANGELES — The 2016 Hearthstone World Championship series was down to two Europeans, and after an exciting 4-1003 match, Pavel "Pavel" Beltukov defeated Artem "DrHippi" Kravets in Saturday's BlizzCon grand finals.
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Long story short ... Moore says under the partnership with KSE, he put together a bunch of successful teams to compete in games from Fortnite and Apex Legends to League of Legends and Hearthstone.
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Someone claiming to be a Blizzard employee posted a photo of workers sitting beside the statue on the r/Hearthstone subreddit, where it was met with praise from members of the Reddit community.
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In most of them, like Facebook's 360-degree video app or the Hearthstone-like game Dragon Front, the controller is just a more convenient way of doing the same things you did before.
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The impressive five-bedroom home boasts a downstairs bar with local beers on tap and cocktail smoker, a whiskey lounge and games room, a 13-ton hearthstone, indoor balcony, cinema, and heated floors.
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Hearthstone: Kobolds and Catacombs was revealed at BlizzCon today, and will dive into the subterranean world of the kobolds and the things they find (and run away from) while digging and scavenging underground.
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I don't think so, and that all has to do with the changes that have been made to the game in order to bring it further in-line with other games like Hearthstone.
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A handful of cards have been revealed in the weeks since Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was revealed at BlizzCon in early November, and you can check them out on the Hearthstone Facebook page.
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Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone players will soon be able to stream their matches via Facebook Live, thanks to budding relationship between the social network and game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment.
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Blizzard Entertainment, the developers of Overwatch, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Heroes of the Storm, filed a motion against the creators and sellers of several cheating services that target multiple Blizzard games.
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Every time Overwatch or Hearthstone has a big new update, Twitch and YouTube creators can see hundreds of thousands of views just from opening up a bunch of loot boxes or card packs.
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In recent weeks Blizzard came under fire after it slapped a six month ban on a professional Hearthstone player for supporting the Hong Kong protests, something that didn't sit well with Blizzard employees.
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Blizzard responded to Blitzchung's comments on October 8 by stripping him of about $3,000 in prize money he had already earned for the tournament, and barred him from "Hearthstone" competitions for one year.
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Chung Ng Wai, the esports competitor better known as Blitzchung, shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" in Chinese amid a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored "Hearthstone" tournament in Taiwan.
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Chung Ng Wai, the esports competitor better known as Blitzchung, shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age" in Chinese during a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored "Hearthstone" tournament in Taiwan.
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Here's a look at Blizzard World, which is an amusement park with attractions that pull from all of Blizzard's biggest properties, including World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone.
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After a lengthy recruitment process and months of tryouts, the Pennsylvania science and tech school has awarded 16 full-ride scholarships for incoming students who excel in Hearthstone, League of Legends, and Overwatch.
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"The issue with Yogg-Saron was that once played, he invalidates every play and decision made leading up to that point," says Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk, Hearthstone pro and owner of the TempoStorm esports franchise.
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A spokesperson for Blizzard told Mashable in an email that all these changes stem from Blizzard learning from how it's changed competitive Hearthstone in the last year and hearing feedback from players and fans.
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For example, game developer Blizzard, which makes popular, competitive multiplayer shooter games like Overwatch and Hearthstone, recently issued controversial suspensions to several esports professionals over one player's support of the protests in Hong Kong.
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Bringing a similar filtering option to "Overwatch" and "Hearthstone" made sense because they were two of Twitch's most popular competitive games, and players often watch others in order to help improve their own skills.
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Somewhere along the way—probably around watching Patrick wrap his head around Spelunky, or seeing friends who'd never bought a Magic the Gathering pack in their lives exchange Hearthstone strategies—I thankfully mellowed out.
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These people are all healthy older adults with no significant age-related disabilities, but they could nonetheless use some minor accommodations when learning how to play a relatively simple card game such as Hearthstone.
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A few of the newly released cards have given this game style a huge boost in both power and popularity, making it a very common sight on all rungs of the standard Hearthstone ladder.
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This year's Global Games tournament is the first of its kind for Hearthstone and will be played in a team format rather than 1v1, each player having two classes to play in a match.
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The eight-minute-long clip delves into the backstory of one of the more intriguing Overwatch combatants, a cybernetic gorilla known as Winston, who's not only a scientist, but an avid Hearthstone player, too.
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After the set was revealed, Blizzard transitioned directly into its Winter Tournament, one of many professional qualifiers for Hearthstone the e-sport, a scene which now supports tournaments worth millions in annual prize money.
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After spending a few hours with it, it's easy to see why: It combines the sense of discovery in rogue-lites like FTL with the clever, interlocking rules of a card game like Hearthstone.
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"Hearthstone" player Ng Wai Chung , better known as Blitzchung, wore a gas mask and called for the liberation of Hong Kong during a post-match interview at a Blizzard-sponsored event on October 5.
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Chung 'Blitzchung' Ng Wai was handed the ban after he shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" during a live post-game interview at a 'Hearthstone' tournament, with his prize money also withheld.
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Two days later, on October 8, Activision Blizzard suspended him from competing in Hearthstone esports tournaments for a year, rescinded his $3000 winnings from the tournament, and fired the two people who interviewed him.
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The company, which labeled 2019 a "transition year" in May, cut 800 jobs during second quarter and spent heavily on developing its key game franchises "Call of Duty", "Candy Crush", "Overwatch", "Warcraft", "Hearthstone" and "Diablo".
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Blizzard explained Friday that it disqualified Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung for shouting the protest slogan "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" because it was a violation of rules that he had acknowledged.
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On October 8th, the company issued a yearlong ban to Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung, a prominent professional Hearthstone player from Hong Kong, after he said a pro-Hong Kong slogan in a post-game interview.
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The Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm fall seasons are both Training Grounds tournaments, which means they are open to any eligible college players and schools are not limited in how many teams can participate.
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According to a Reddit post today, video game voice actor Lani Minella included a line on her resume for credits on Hearthstone: Lost Secrets of Un'Goro, an unannounced project for Blizzard's popular competitive card game.
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The studio has partnered with Chinese internet company NetEase, which also operates a handful of other big Western-developed games in China, including digital card game Hearthstone and the iconic online RPG World of Warcraft.
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Blizzard, meanwhile, is home to some of the biggest e-sports titles around, from established games like Starcraft and Hearthstone to up-and-comers like Heroes of the Storm and the just-launched shooter Overwatch.
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Chung Ng Wai, aka Blitzchung, was handed the ban after he shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" during a live post-game interview at a 'Hearthstone' tournament, with his prize money also withheld.
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Last week, Blizzard – whose parent company is part-owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent – banned Blitzchung for a year and revoked $10,ooo in prize money he had won playing the Blizzard-made game 'Hearthstone.
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The company, which labeled 238 a "transition year" in May, cut 21.21 jobs during second quarter and spent heavily on developing its key game franchises "Call of Duty", "Candy Crush", "Overwatch", "Warcraft", "Hearthstone" and "Diablo".
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Gentle Megasaur's battlecry adapts your murlocs on the board, giving them a choose-able buff like windfury, +1/+23 or one of several other adaptations Hearthstone showed off in its first and second card reveals.
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Some of these e-sports events include the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship, StarCraft II World Championship Series, Hearthstone Global Games, World of Warcraft Arena Championship and the Overwatch Premier Series, among several others.
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Professional "Hearthstone" player Chung Ng Wai, also known as "Blitzchung", was penalized by Blizzard last month after shouting "liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age," while wearing a gas mask during a post-match interview.
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Hearthstone has a brand new live action web series following explorer and professor George Herbert Doyle (played by Danny Pudi) in his adventures through Un'Goro Crater, the setting of Hearthstone's upcoming expansion Journey to Un'Goro.
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BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment's annual convention, opened with an apology from Blizzard president J. Allen Brack regarding the company's decision to punish a professional Hearthstone player who voiced support for Hong Kong protesters on a Blizzard stream.
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Should the new card game pan out in the same fashion as Hearthstone did for Blizzard, Valve would have its first mobile hit on its hands, having until now limited itself to desktop and console games.
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And Twitch only has some of Blizzard's events, including the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship, StarCraft II World Championship Series, Hearthstone Championship Tour, World of Warcraft Arena Championship, Overwatch APEX League, and Overwatch Premier Series.
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If you've ever played the likes of Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering, this might sound a bit familiar, and on first inspection, A Game of Thrones shares a lot of similarities with other strategy card games.
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What's perhaps most impressive about Overwatch — and it's something Blizzard seems to have a knack for lately with titles like Hearthstone — is that the approachability of the game doesn't eliminate the possibilities for high-level play.
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Musk came up with Hearthstone on the back of his children's love of the game, and generally praises Blizzard, but has not so nice things to say about the latest instalment of the Deus Ex franchise.
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The esports player, whose real name is Chung Ng Wai but who is known as Blitzchung, will also be fined the full amount of the prize money he won from the Hearthstone Grandmasters regular-season tournament.
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Mr. Pardo said his inspiration for creating a start-up with a small development team occurred while at Blizzard, during the making of Hearthstone, a digital card game that was a huge hit for the studio.
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Twitch streamer Lea "LegendaryLea" May is no stranger to PayPal donations for her streams of popular video games, but even she had to pause last January when someone named iNexus_Ninja donated $250 during a Hearthstone session.
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It's strategic, nuanced and gloriously complex, and it's given rise to other games like Pokémon, Legend of the Five Rings and digital upstart Hearthstone, all of which brought their own distinct approaches to card-based combat.
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Activision Blizzard suspended Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai on Tuesday after he spoke up in support of protests in Hong Kong during a post-match interview during Hearsthone's Asia-Pacific Grandmaster tournament on October 6.
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Although the company just announced a new shooter game and more expansions to its nostalgic franchises, including "World of Warcraft" and "Hearthstone," some gamers say they are hesitant about giving the company their time and money.
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The r/Blizzard subreddit went down for a few hours on Tuesday after the board was overrun with memes and posts calling for players to boycott Blizzard and its games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Hearthstone.
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Activision Blizzard, one of America's biggest gaming companies, just bowed to Chinese censorship in a disturbing way: suspending a professional player of Hearthstone, its digital card game, over a statement supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.
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To kick off BlizzCon, a fan event that comes after the company's lengthy controversy involving the temporary banning of a Hearthstone pro for supporting the Hong Kong protests, came a long expected announcement: Diablo IV is coming.
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It's one of several experimental projects from Blizzard, which has seen great success with Hearthstone, a free-to-play collectible card game set in the Warcraft universe, along with the multiplayer strategy game Heroes of the Storm.
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Whereas in Hearthstone the Flamestrike card can decimate opponents in one fell swoop, relatively risk free, Gwent doesn't really have a "one size fits all" solution to permanent crowd control—save perhaps for its First Light card.
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But Battlecast isn't trying to compete with Hearthstone so much as it is looking to reach a new audience in the same genre — all of which probably works for Activision, the publishing powerhouse that owns both franchises.
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Blizzard has faced harsh criticism from fans and U.S. lawmakers for its decision to ban "Hearthstone" player Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, from competition for one year and withhold the prize money he had earned.
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That's comparable to brute force buying all the cards in a Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering expansion, but the difference is that both of those games have methods by which players can grind out cards for free.
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In a post-match interview with the Taiwan stream of Hearthstone, Mr. Chung, who is known as Blitzchung, appeared with ballistic goggles and a gas mask, protective gear often worn by protesters during demonstrations in Hong Kong.
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The company owns Call of Duty, one of the most popular first-person shooters in esports, along with developer Blizzard, which is responsible for StarCraft, card battler Hearthstone and up-and-coming MOBA Heroes of the Storm.
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A couple dozen Blizzard employees walked out of work Tuesday in protest of the company's decision to ban a professional Hearthstone player who voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters over the weekend, according to The Daily Beast.
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The second letter, signed by some of the same lawmakers, was sent to Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick, and similarly criticizes the company's decision to ban a competitive Hearthstone player who voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters.
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There are traditional options like competitive deathmatch, with games that can last two hours at high-level play, as well as the all-new Hearthstone-inspired "blitz" mode, with matches that can be completed in under 10 minutes.
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In October, Blizzard created an avalanche of criticism from everyone from hardcore fans to U.S. Senators when it suspended Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai after he made statements supporting Hong Kong protesters in a post-match livestream.
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Activision owns Call of Duty, one of the most popular first-person shooters in esports, and Blizzard owns StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch, four huge entities that continue to grow in the esports scene.
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Blizzard responds with a one-year ban, withholding Blitzchung's prize moneyBlizzard responded to Blitzchung's comments by stripping him of any prize money he would have earned for the tournament and barred him from "Hearthstone" competitions for one year.
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Read more: Blizzard is under scrutiny from lawmakers, gamers, and maybe even its own employees after punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who voiced his support for protesters in Hong KongHKMap Live's Twitter account railed against Apple's decision on Twitter.
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For the last month video game giant Blizzard has been at the center of a censorship controversy after it penalized professional "Hearthstone" player Chung Ng Wai — professionally known as "Blitzchung" — for expressing support for the Hong Kong protests.
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Today, YouTube announced that it will exclusively stream three behemoth esports leagues—the Call of Duty League, the Overwatch League, and Hearthstone Esports, all controlled by Activision Blizzard—that had lived primarily on the game streaming platform Twitch.
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The company, in defending its decision to ban Wai Chung, said it was because he used a Blizzard platform in the form of a post-game telecast for an Asia Pacific Hearthstone tournament to promote a political ideology.
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In February, Blizzard announced a new Hearthstone e-sports program, called the Masters Tour, to pit the game's best players against each other for a chance to win the acclaim of the internet (and potentially a lot of money).
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For instance, Curse operates database and guide websites for League of Legends, World of Warcraft and NFL games, video game news sites, many different high-traffic forums around Minecraft, Pokémon, Diablo III and Hearthstone, and all the GamePedia wikis.
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Brack took the stage and talked vaguely, with as few specifics as possible, about the company's decision last month to suspend Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai after he made pro-Hong Kong statements on a post-match livestream.
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There are five different tournaments going on at BlizzCon on Friday and Saturday: the Overwatch World Cup, Hearthstone World Championship, Heroes of the Storm Fall Championship, StarCraft 2 WCS Global Finals and the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship.
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And the controversy, in which Blizzard banned a professional Hearthstone player for supporting the Hong Kong protestors in what critics say was a direct appeasement of the Chinese government, still threatens to overshadow many of the company's announcements today.
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Not only will Twitch be the go-to third party broadcaster for popular tournaments like Overwatch APEX, the StarCraft II World Championship Series, and the Hearthstone Championship Tour, it will also be gifting Blizzard-related goodies to Twitch Prime subscribers.
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On Friday, Riot Games said that League of Legends broadcasters should "refrain" from discussing "sensitive topics" on the air, following a controversial move from Blizzard to ban a Hearthstone player who voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters over the weekend.
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A number of US companies have attempted to stifle internal shows of support for those protests in deference to Chinese partners, including the NBA and Blizzard, which banned a professional Hearthstone player for comments made in a post-game interview.
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" As such, Activision Blizzard says that it'll be focusing more on its biggest franchises: Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo, with plans to increase developers across those titles by "approximately 20% over the course of 2019.
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The three students were acting in solidarity with a Hong Kong player, Ng "blitzchung" Wai Chung, who was banned for six months by Blizzard and disqualified from the "Hearthstone" Grandmasters tournament last week after he shouted a pro-Hong Kong slogan.
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Most of that protest has happened online, like the three college Hearthstone players who held up a "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" sign during an official tournament, but now there's a chance it's going to move into the real world.
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Additionally, as part of the deal with Blizzard, Twitch will be offering in-game loot for Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone for Twitch Prime subscribers, starting with a Golden Loot Box in Overwatch that guarantees a legendary item.
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A professional Hearthstone player who voiced support for the protests during a post-game interview earlier in October was suspended for a full season and stripped of his prize money; the two esports casters who'd hosted the interview were fired.
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With keynotes generally come a bit of news… and sure enough, here's what's new: The first Twitch Prime "loot" bonus: Twitch Prime members will get access to Tyrande, from Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm, as a new hero in Blizzard's Hearthstone.
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He didn't say Hong Kong or Hearthstone, but everyone watching knew what Blizzard President J. Allen Brack was talking about when he stepped out on stage at BlizzCon, the annual fan event for the company, and immediately adopted a somber tone.
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The arena will host "multiple sound stages, control rooms, and practice facilities" on a rotating event schedule throughout the year featuring the best players of Blizzard's hit competitive games, including Overwatch, of course, but also World of Warcraft and Hearthstone.
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Following last year's efforts to bring the full Skylanders Supercharged game to Android and iOS, this year the company instead decided to focus on consoles while letting the new Hearthstone-like mobile card game Battlecast be the franchise's mobile title.
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Developer Blizzard has announced a new partnership with Facebook that will see the game studio integrate Facebook Live into all of its games on PC, so that you can stream everything from Hearthstone to Diablo directly on your Facebook timeline.
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The US games giant, which develops "Hearthstone," barred the three college players from taking part in tournaments for six months after they held up a sign that read "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" during an official competition stream last week.
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Blizzard faces boycotts for punishing Hong Kong-based playerBlizzard sparked an international controversy earlier this week when it barred Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, from "Hearthstone" competitions for one year and withheld approximately $203,000 of prize money he earned.
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Blizzard Entertainment President J.Allen Brack has issued the company's first public statement since making the decision to punish Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung — a "Hearthstone" esports competitor who spoke out in favor of the protests in Hong Kong.
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Blizzard is currently the target of harsh criticism, boycotts, and widespread scrutiny for its decision to ban "Hearthstone" player Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, from competition for one year and withhold approximately $3,000 of prize money he earned.
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It makes me chuckle to think he's earned the moniker "The Beast" as I watch him potter bashfully around the stage area, tapping away at Hearthstone on his phone and drifting to and fro with no particular destination in mind.
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After days of internal and external protests, pressure from U.S. senators, players, and human rights organizations, Blizzard has finally addressed why it suspended and revoked prize money from a Hearthstone player who expressed support for Hong Kong protesters last weekend.
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The letter addresses none of the concerns raised earlier Friday by digital rights organization Access Now, which said in no uncertain terms that Blizzard's censorship of Ng Wai Chung (known as "Blitzchung" on Hearthstone) is an international human rights issue.
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The player in question who spoke out is Chung Ng Wai, a grandmaster and professional Hearthstone player who lives in Hong Kong, so it only stands to reason that he'd have something to say about the ongoing pro-democracy protests.
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NetEase has previously worked with Mojang, the Swedish game developer owned by Microsoft, on launching a version of "Minecraft" in China, while Activision Blizzard has also worked with the firm to bring its digital card game "Hearthstone" to the country.
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New and existing Twitch Prime subscribers will be receiving in-game items for Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch over the next several months, starting with a new golden loot box for Overwatch that guarantees at least one legendary-level hero skin.
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Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai, stripped of his competitive earnings (which he eventually got back) and temporarily banned from tournament play by Blizzard earlier this month for showing public support for the protests in Hong Kong, has a new esports team.
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SHANGHAI, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Blizzard Entertainment has reduced the punishment that it dealt out to a Hong Kong-based Hearthstone esports player for his public support of pro-democracy protests in the city, after its decision sparked controversy among players and the public.
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In what amounts to the video game generation's political coming-of-age, Blizzard finds itself buffeted by a maelstrom of anger and controversy after the company banned a professional Hearthstone player earlier this month for supporting pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.
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The hashtag #BoycottBlizzard swept Twitter, a Hearthstone team from American University displayed a sign reading "Free Hong Kong Boycott Blizz" — for which they were also banned — and one of the original designers of World of Warcraft, Blizzard's flagship game, publicly canceled his account.
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If I were a healthy person aged 65 or older today, I would exercise my wits by trying to reach legendary rank in Hearthstone, get an occasional workout in with the HTC Vive, keep my fingers nimble by casually playing Super Smash Bros.
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Blizzard initially banned Blitzchung from competing for a year and fined him all the prize money he won from the Hearthstone Grandmasters regular-season tournament (roughly $10,000), after he shouted "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!" during a post-game interview.
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You see this with Hearthstone — a total reimagining of an all-new game type using the Warcraft IP. In some cases it might be — like we've shown with Diablo Immortal — a similar game type but different and unlinked from the core game franchise.
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The esports publication Dot Esports first reported that anyone who typed the words "Free Hong Kong" in Twitch's chat area during the "Hearthstone" Masters Tour in Bucharest, Romania, over the weekend saw their message automatically erased and were handed a 24-hour ban.
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The world of e-sports had its own run-in with Chinese politics on Tuesday, when Blizzard Entertainment said it was suspending Chung Ng Wai, a Hong Kong player of the game Hearthstone, for a year and forcing him to forfeit prize money.
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A coalition of activists and gamers (and gamer activists) are planning an "umbrella protest" at BlizzCon, Blizzard Activision's biggest annual conference, to push back against the company's censorship of a high-profile Hearthstone player who voiced support for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.
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In 2015, for instance, Hyerim Lee, a professional competitor known as MagicAmy in another popular game, Hearthstone, was accused by a fellow player of being nothing more than a pretty face and a front for an anonymous man or team of players.
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Traditional card games like Magic or Netrunner feature plenty of effects that let you retrieve cards from your deck, but Hearthstone exists on the digital plane, so, in Babbling Book's case, you're literally drawing a random spell from the game's entire available card pool.
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Hearthstone is adjusting its Championship Tour schedule to sync with the standard season schedule (which starts with new expansions in the spring), introducing seasonal global championships with regional playoffs, changing up competitive points and cups, upping prize pools and offering new ways to play.
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It is, under no circumstances, to be confused with Hearthstone, a collectable card game from Blizzard that gathers together various characters and items from across the lore of the company's popular fantasy game series and puts them all into a digital card game format.
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The offending commentary from Chung Ng Wai, a Hong Kong-based player who goes by the name "Blitzchung," came during an official interview on Sunday held after he won a match in the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, the highest level of competition in the game.
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Esports, the broad term for competitive gaming that includes games like League of Legends, StarCraft, Hearthstone, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, has the distinction of being one of the few sports where men and women can compete against each other at the professional level.
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While moderators on posts in the main room did a good job of keeping the conversation civil, joining a chat room left me with a enormous feed of mobile notifications about anal sex that seemed to have little or nothing to do with Hearthstone.
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Read more: Some Blizzard employees reportedly walked out to protest the punishment of a 'Hearthstone' competitor who spoke up in support of the Hong Kong protestsMany Blizzard fans accused the company of protecting its business interests in China rather than upholding free speech; Republican Sen.
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A core audience of millions will continue to play World of Warcraft, millions more are playing its spin-off card game Hearthstone, and if Blizzard ever decided to make another Warcraft real-time strategy game, I'll be the first one in line to get it.
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"We understand that the vast majority of invited competitors travel to each event on their own cost without the support of a team organization, even taking time off from their jobs for a shot at becoming a Hearthstone pro," Blizzard said in making the announcement.
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In just the past six months, the Communist Party in China has forced an NBA general manager to apologize for a pro-Hong Kong tweet, gotten Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung suspended, and pressured Apple into taking down an app used by protestors.
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The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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In a move to stay at the top of esports broadcasting, Twitch revealed today a partnership with Blizzard to be the exclusive platform for more than 20 esports competitions in Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm over the next two years.
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The second issue, taking place shortly after, involved video game developer Blizzard Entertainment banning a professional Hong Kong player of the virtual card game Hearthstone from competing in tournaments for a full year over his vocal support of the protesters in a live, post-game interview.
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Hearthstone pro Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai, the player who Activision Blizzard suspended from competitive play after he made pro-Hong Kong protest comments during a post-game interview, spent this morning streaming Liberate Hong Kong on Twitch, a game depicting scenes from the Hong Kong protests.
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Short recap: After he discussed the political protests happening in Hong Kong on a Blizzard-sponsored stream, Hearthstone player Blitzchung, aka Chung Ng Wai, was seriously punished by Activision Blizzard, which banned him from competing for several months and, initially, forced him to return his prize money.
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Twitch announced today that it has signed a deal with Blizzard Entertainment that gives the popular video game streaming site two-year, third-party live-streaming rights to some of Blizzard's biggest e-sports events in popular games like Overwatch, Starcraft, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm.
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And if you look at Twitch's top games right now, you'll see a lot of overlap with Curse's communities — League of Legends, Hearthstone, Dota 2, Counter Strike, Overwatch… I'll interview Twitch CEO Emmett Shear at TechCrunch Disrupt SF next month, so we'll definitely talk about this acquisition.
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Legacy publishers like Activision Blizzard have also tasted what cross-platform play can do for their franchises: Hearthstone has continued to dominate the collective card game category, because it works seamlessly across PC and mobile, and offers a smooth integration with live-streaming platforms like Twitch.
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Blizzard revealed Hearthstone: Knights of the Frozen Throne last night with a handful of new cards and a tease of what's to come in August: heroes turning into Death Knights with new hero cards and quests that send players through the Lich King's Ice Crown Citadel.
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The decision to suspend Chung Ng Wai, a professional Hearthstone player in Hong Kong, for a year, while forcing him to forfeit a reported $10,000 in prize money, prompted a backlash in the United States similar to the public relations debacle the N.B.A. has faced this week.
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Blizzard's censorship and sanctioning of a Hearthstone player who expressed support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters is a human rights issue that demonstrates the video game company doesn't respect the humanity and basic rights of its customers, a prominent international human rights organization said Friday.
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The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angles of our nature.
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News of the agreement was made public in late January with Activistion Blizzard and Google — YouTube's parent company — announcing that YouTube would be the exclusive streaming partner for live broadcasts of Activision Blizzard's esports leagues and events, including Overwatch League, Call of Duty League and Hearthstone Esports.
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Instead, I think we need to have open and honest questions about the shape that the game of Magic: The Gathering has taken since the release of Magic Arena, the digital platform that has made the infamously complicated Magic as easy to pick up and play as Hearthstone.
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The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the cause of our union, when touched when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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Gwent is less about specific collections, and more about what you do with the cards you've got—which you can argue is true of Hearthstone, too, but there's more emphasis there on buying up legendary cards, with no limit set on how many you can hold in a deck.
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After the postcard teaser on Tuesday, a new edition of The Gadgetzan Gazette — a fictional newspaper — was posted on the Hearthstone website, featuring a story about a "110 percent unrobbable" new bank, and ads for loans, the Gadgetzan Emporium, funnel cakes, a bar and a used mount dealership.
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Mei, a Chinese character from Blizzard's "Overwatch," has been included in a viral wave of memes and social-media posts supporting the protests in Hong Kong and criticizing Blizzard's decision to punish a professional "Hearthstone" player who called for the liberation of Hong Kong during a post-match interview.
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Despite the fact that virtually no details about Artifact were revealed, in a world that already has Hearthstone (and Elder Scrolls Legends, Gwent, and… ), it's hard not to sympathize with those who think that Artifact is just another attempt to cash in on the popularity of digital trading card games.
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Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt to appease China, U.S. gaming giant Activision Blizzard suspended the professional "Hearthstone" player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai and stripped him of his earnings after he appeared to express support for the protesters in an interview — only to later reduce the ban and return his prize money.
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Update October 21st, 11:05AM ET: A Blizzard esports spokesperson clarified that the company is not banning people from its Hearthstone Twitch chat for using pro-Hong Kong speech specifically (or any other political statements); the bans have been triggered by an automated moderating system that catches viewers "spamming any phrase repeatedly."
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And while iOS may not have titles like Battlefront 2 or Destiny 2, both of which have drawn fire from gamers for loot crate tactics over the past few months, Apple's policy would seem to include popular games like Hearthstone, with its randomized card packs that players can buy as in-game purchases.
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The just announced Clash Royale — which has soft-launched on iOS in just a few countries, including Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and New Zealand — takes elements from collectible card games like Hearthstone and merges them with real-time competitive strategy games like Dota 2 or League of Legends.
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Read more: Blizzard is under scrutiny from lawmakers, gamers, and maybe even its own employees after punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who voiced his support for protesters in Hong KongJayne reportedly told the Dallas Morning News that he was instructed to delete the tweet, and it disappeared within a few hours of appearing online.
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Blizzard has since gone on to ban other pro players for supporting the Hong Kong protests, including three US college students participating in the collegiate circuit of the game's e-sports scene and Twitch users who expressed support for Hong Kong during live streams of the European leg of the Hearthstone Masters Tour.
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And although there are precious finds — a gold 18th-century ring adorned with red carnelian stone, a regal 1556 hearthstone decorated with a terracotta crown and coat of arms — most of the Amsterdam artifacts are humble, filling those enduring human needs to communicate, to work, to move, to eat, and to play.
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Obviously getting the green light to direct the first film adaptation of a franchise as big as Warcraft—still a billion-dollar business, with the card game Hearthstone pulling in around $20 million a month—isn't as simple as having a level-100 orc shaman and knowing your Illidan from your Sargeras.
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It's got some way to go before it can challenge Hearthstone as the preeminent CCG on the market, and not without launch hiccups—I've run into my share of glitches and bugs, server crashes and balance headaches, and there's no doubt that it needs to move from PC and consoles to tablets and phones ASAP.
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Blizzard is under scrutiny from lawmakers, gamers, and maybe even its own employees after punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who voiced his support for protesters in Hong Kong'Fortnite' creator says it won't punish players for speaking out about politics, as Blizzard faces backlash and calls for a boycott after banning competitor for supporting Hong Kong protests
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Polygon's Phil Kollar is visiting New York, and despite worries that he'd get thrown in Internet jail for getting too close to us, he joined Austin, Danielle, and myself to discuss the state of Hearthstone, what the heck is going on with that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds game, and find out what's inside The Question Bucket.
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Blizzard, which is based in Irvine, faced backlash from fans — including account cancellations and calls for international boycotts — after it was revealed that the company was involved in a decision to rescind all prize money and issue a one-year suspension to Blitzchung, a professional gamer who competes on Blizzard's international "Hearthstone" circuit. Sens.
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As video games have emerged as the new Hollywood for the next generation (the game business is now bigger than the film box office and the recorded music industries combined), Blizzard has hoped to become the next Walt Disney Company, the feel-good home of an incomparable stable of revered franchises: Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft.
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According to Kumar, the subreddits most responsible for provoking conflict are: r/subredditdrama, r/circlebroke, r/shitliberalssay, r/drama, r/conspiracy, r/bestofoutrageculture, r/hearthstone, r/shitamericanssay, r/mensrights, r/outoftheloop, r/badhistory, r/hailcorporate, r/copypasta, r/circlebroke2, r/dotamasterrace, r/nintendoswitch, r/atheism, r/negareddit, r/nostupidquestions, r/explainlikeimfive, r/the_donald, and r/anarcho_capitalism.
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Watch more, from Waypoint: I'm purposefully skimming over a lot of the deeper, more particular mechanical aspects of both Hearthstone and Gwent here, so as to not confuse those who've not spent much time with the former, but are tempted to take the latter out for a hand or two, after enjoying it in The Witcher 3.
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The formula for being good at Hearthstone is already set in stone, and that is: Find the statistical best deck and learn to play it so you make no mistakes, learn which cards are the least important so you can switch those out to put in other cards, and play at certain times in reaction to what's trending.
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Which is not to say the two games are completely comparable— but, both are CCGs in the fantasy realm, spun-off from bigger franchises (Hearthstone, in case you're playing catch up, features characters from the Warcraft series), so there are surface-level similarities enough to warrant a deeper exploration of why Gwent has stolen me away from my Old Gods and Karazhan critters.
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Grab a hand stamp on your way out (you'll need it to return), and proceed directly to The Grand Californian for upscale concoctions and spirits at Hearthstone Lounge and Napa Rose Lounge, Downtown Disney for a full range of cocktails and beers at Uva Bar or margaritas at Tortilla Jo's, or the hidden gem, Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar at the Disneyland Hotel.
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Setting out to secure the most dedicated players first, before spreading to encompass a more casual audience, has worked wonders for the MOBA genre, as well as the likes of Hearthstone and Counter-Strike: GO. So there's no reason why it can't work here, as that first pillar that ultimately holds up a larger offering later on in the game's lifespan.
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" In so saying, he echoed his first inaugural address, in which he proclaimed, "We are not enemies, but friends," and prophesied that "the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone," would "swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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Read more: Blizzard is under scrutiny from lawmakers, gamers, and maybe even its own employees after punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who voiced his support for protesters in Hong KongDespite ties to China, Sweeney says Epic will "never" punish players for commenting on politics and human rightsEpic is the creator of "Fortnite," the popular free-to-play game with more than 250 million registered players.
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Read more: Blizzard is under scrutiny from lawmakers, gamers, and maybe even its own employees after punishing a 'Hearthstone' competitor who voiced his support for protesters in Hong KongHours after Blizzard announced Blitzchung's ban, a former Blizzard employee tweeted that some backlash seemed to be brewing internally: Someone had covered up two of the company's key values — "Think Globally" and "Every Voice Matters" — enshrined on a statue at the company's headquarters.
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Open the Apple App Store today and you'll see several popular apps, including Cut the Rope, Blizzard's free-to-play card game Hearthstone, and LINE messenger, all supporting something called "Apps for Earth," a new initiative from Apple and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that's designed to raise awareness for a litany of environmental issues that threaten the health and well-being of this blue marble we call Earth.
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Blizzard canceled a public event to celebrate the of the Switch port of Overwatch, postponed a World of Warcraft event in Taiwan, and suspended three more Hearthstone players for additional pro-Hong Kong protests.. Two Blizzard employees spoke with VICE on condition of anonymity, due to fear of retaliation for speaking out and said that the mood in the office has been "negative" and it only got worse after Blizzard made its official statement.
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" Blizzard cited the 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters Official Competition Rules section 6.1 (o), which reads: "Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard's sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player's prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard's Website Terms.
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Jeremy "DisguisedToast" Wang, a 27-year-old Hearthstone and Teamfight Tactics streamer from Canada with more than a million followers on Twitch, is now streaming exclusively on Facebook Gaming, and his first stream is set for today at 3PM ET. It's Facebook's first big streamer acquisition, and it showcases the company's ambitions: by decisively entering the bidding war for streaming talent, Facebook is making it clear that it isn't content to leave streaming to Amazon and Microsoft.
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Discussed: Peanut Butter, Europa Universalis IV, Victoria II, Sim City, Real Lives 2019, Spent, Red Dead Redemption 2, Bridge, Dance Dance Revolution, Picross, Solitaire, Spelunky, Binding of Issac, Dark Souls, Hearthstone, Netrunner, Legend of the Five Rings, Magic: The Gathering, Slay the Spire, XCOM 2, Subterfuge, Battlefield, F.E.A.R, Destiny, Diablo Immortal, Paper Mario Franchise, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Galak-Z Variant S, Fantasy Life, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, The Heir to the Empire Trilogy, Total War: Medieval, Harry Potter series You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
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