IEM Shenzhen Review

Author - Ferretling | Youtube

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhCH_nPE4JTrP56ziGpnAaLEXjcZ-Mxgq”]

IEM Shenzhen was a rather strangely ambitious event being both located in China with a largely Asian roster and commentated in English and hosted by mostly western casters. In the end we ended up with a mess. A beautiful, hilarious, and gripping mess but still flawed in its presentation.

Technical Difficulties

For those of you who were unable to view it live the stream was fairly consistently plagued with issues until the very last day (which was definitely the highlight of the event). From random cuts throughout the stream to exceedingly long breaks constant tech problems interfered with the stream. Even worse because of these issues the stream was forced to end short prior to the most anticipated match. That said having the best match of the series on the last day isn’t really a bad thing. I’m almost inclined to put my tinfoil hat on and say that it was all a set up! They knew that we’d all show up to see who’d win! Everything is a lie!

The Internet Never Forgets

However the virtually un-monitored twitch chat proved to be as entertaining as you can expect a group of pre-teens awake at 5 AM riding their sugar high. During the sections in which RDU was playing or commentating a small but vocal minority insisted on spamming twitch chat as if they could somehow accomplish something or even be taken seriously by shouting profanity and demanding that they burn RDU at the stake.

Despite this, RDU’s controversy probably has helped him more than anything. Most of his strongest supporters are probably a result of sympathy towards him and his games wouldn’t have been half as exciting if it weren’t for his polarized personas either as a vile fraud who has developed all he has by mere deceit or an innocent child whose been wrongly prosecuted for forces far outside of his control.

Both his presence and the Tech difficulties didn’t seem to impact the viewership all that much as most of the tournament was extremely entertaining and seemed to progressively gain viewership throughout the week.

A Clash of Cultures

IEM was a major feat introducing several Asian players to western audiences. Prior to this point the Asian and western Hearthstone competitive scene had been largely separated and with the right eyes you can really see just how different the play style of the regions are. It was rather enlightening seeing twitch chat go insane when a player decided to end his turn instead of attacking his opponent’s face in order to avoid cheapening Molten Giant. At the time it seemed like the objectively right move. Surely they’d have seen this kind of thing before!

However, after re-watching some KOTH and other high level matches I quickly realized that by and large European and North American Players play extremely aggressively towards handlock. A perfect example would be watching ThijsNL vs Chacruna in KOTH.

“Asians never show emotion” ~RDU 2014

With that said players from Asia generally speaking excel at doing massive amounts of burst damage (27 damage in one turn) and I could just spend hours explaining all the small intricate differences if I weren’t afraid of being misquoted.

The Bigger Picture

Gameplay wise the event was even more of a mixed bag. I vividly recall Jeanno and JackyChan’s miracle vs miracle match in which literally nothing happened until Leeroy Jenkins came out of nowhere and ended the game. However when the games got crazy they got really crazy.

No one can forget Amaz’s insane Sylvanas Windrunner or any of his several clutch Ragnaros plays.

I think Amaz’s victory shines especially due to the sheer creativity of Amaz. He excels as not only a Hearthstone player but also as a entertainer. He proved that even using one of the most marginalized classes in the game and using some of the riskiest plays I’ve ever seen.

In short IEM really stands as a testament towards the capability of Professional Hearthstone. Through its many quirks and hurdles Hearthstone has personality. All of the drama, the complex meta, and intense passion of the player base leaves a lot of potential. With the emergence of more and more of these tournaments we’re slowly working out these issues and I sincerely think that Hearthstone has great potential as an esport and I hope to see more of these truly international tournaments in the future.

All pretentiousness aside congrats to Amaz for emerging victorious and for doing so with such style!