Streamers to ...

Streamers to Watch: Jeffrey ‘Trump’ Shih


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Anytime a new game comes out, the initial star players are the ones who people look back on and compare future stars to. They essentially become legends within their community. Over the next several weeks, I am going to be interviewing and writing about different players who are laying the ground work for Hearthstone to become a fun to watch, competitive eSport. There are a lot of people out there who are doing just that, but I will be focusing mostly on those who stream because they are the ones that you can watch regularly.

If you are looking for a streamer to watch, one of the more obvious choices would be Trump. Trump streams every day from 11am-6pm Pacific Time. He has an immense knowledge of the game and is excellent at communicating why he makes certain decisions while providing entertaining commentary on his games.

Trump started out streaming during the Starcraft II beta about 3 years ago and had a large amount of viewers from the beginning. “I tend to be of the belief that if you are the first mover of a game, it’s a lot easier to keep the momentum later.” Trump said of his success early on. Since then he has streamed games such as, but not limited to, Diablo III, League of Legends, Final Fantasy 14, and even The Curse of Monkey Island. He clearly has a passion for video games and enjoys showcasing some of the most popular games around.

After getting into Hearthstone towards the beginning of its beta, Trump started streaming it. Immediately he began to see his numbers and popularity on stream rise. He now averages 10-15,000 viewers when he streams. His popularity did not go unnoticed by the gaming companies; shortly after the release of Hearthstone he secured a partnership with the Razer. When asked about his success Trump said, “Sometimes you don’t know why you yourself are that popular, but I’m going to chalk it down to a regular schedule, calm professional demeanor, and being knowledgeable in explaining the game well.”

Having a background in Magic: The Gathering, Trump is no noob when it comes to competitive card games. Because of his knowledge and expertise of Hearthstone, he has also become the co-host of a show called Value Town, which was started by ChanmanV. This is a show dedicated to Hearthstone and generates great discussion on the balance of the game. Along with co-hosting Value Town, Trump recently casted the 2P Hearthstone tournament. “I respect casters a lot because it’s difficult. It’s difficult to say whether or not I’ll be cut out for casting.” Trump said. He also stated that he enjoys casting and if he were asked to cast another tournament, he would certainly do it.

Hearthstone has gained a lot of popularity and, depending on how Blizzard carries it out; it has the chance to be one of the bigger eSports games out there. “If that happens then I would be ecstatic about it and I would aim to be one of the top players of the game.” Said Trump.

As a player, Trump prefers to play control decks. The current meta game is a rush heavy style in which you try to rush down your opponent with fast, efficient minions. “I tend to take the side that tries to stem that tide, get card advantage, and take control of the game. Right now the deck that I am liking the most for that is Shaman.” Trump said. However, until Blizzard fixes the constructed deck ranked ladder system, he is focusing on Arena play. His favorite card is the Mad Bomber because you can use it when the odds are stacked in your favor.

There are changes that Trump would like to see within the game that he believes will help it to be one of the more popular eSports around. These changes include; adding a spectator mode, getting an accurate ranked ladder system, and possibly even adding in an automatic tournament feature for constructed decks. He also hopes that Blizzard will keep up with the balance of the cards.

Though there are some changes he believes should be made, Trump still thinks this game stands out in many ways. He especially appreciates the depth that the cards give to the game even though it is only the first set and how easy it is for people to pick up. He also said that he enjoys that the game has been given the usual Blizzard polish by giving each card an animation and voice over, and even little details like “being able to click the do-dads on the map.” According to Trump, this game really has the chance to become a top eSport.

Trump does his best and constantly tries to improve, but he adds a lot of fun commentary through his game-play that is more than just explaining why he chose to do certain moves. His chat is pretty heavily moderated and keeps the trolls and spammers to a minimum. The chat experience in Trump’s stream is cool, calm, and most people are there to learn more about the game or be entertained by him, not to troll. He always tries to make his stream enjoyable, so much so that he has created a character that he has busted out twice just for his viewers. When people started jokingly saying that Trump wasn’t on stream because he was in prison, Trump created “Prison Trump”. On Halloween, Trump put on a beanie and sunglasses to become a hardened criminal with a huge ego that loves to BM his opponents. He also made an appearance on Thanksgiving.

Trump is a terrific player that you can learn a lot from and have a good time watching as well. He can be a bit shy, but he does his best to interact with the chat and answer questions viewers may have. He wanted to be sure to thank his fans and Razer, “Thank you to all of the viewers who have kept up with me through the times and Hearthstone, as well as Razer for the partnership.”

If you would like to watch Trump, his stream is: https://www.twitch.tv/trumpsc

Or check out his Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TrumpSC

Be sure to follow him on Twitter: @trumpSC

Check out his Arena guide right here on IHEARTHU: Trump’s Arena Card Rankings

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15 COMMENTS

  8. Personally I think it’s a good way to kick off the series. Start with someone well known and get some eyeballs on the series itself, and then mix it up between less popular and more popular streamers each week. 

  9. yeah but the quality of the article itself wasn’t very high. 
     
    I don’t mind that it features trump or that we’re featuring streamers; it’s that reading the article was a chore because of how it was written.

  10. Thank you all for so many comments! I really appreciate it. I understand that my writing style is a bit boring. I majored in history and for the past 4 years all I’ve done is write professional research papers rather than exciting, fast paced articles. I would love to hear some of your constructive criticism on what would make this piece more interesting to read. I sent out a message to multiple streamers about this article idea and Trump was the first to respond. He has been amazing in helping me write this article and I really appreciate that he trusted me enough to write this. I felt like Trump was a great way to start this series because his name would catch people’s attention, new people to the scene would probably gain the most from watching someone like him, and if a big name like Trump trusts me to write for him then hopefully others will trust me to write for them as well. It’s a risk to let someone with no other published articles to write about you because you never know the reception it will get and could end up getting more negative attention than positive attention. Because of this, I am very grateful for Trump’s trust.

  11. are you really going to be like that?
     
    whatever your past or present profession, what you wrote reads like an advertisement and is of low quality not because of the way it was written but because of the content. more specifically, the lack of content in the presence of a mountain of fluff. 
     
    you say you write research papers, well I went to grad school and I’ve read a fair bit as you might imagine. you might try bringing some of that to your next article. look to some of the other articles on the site, written by people who appear to have significantly less experience than you claim, yet provided significantly higher quality of content and were similarly polished. I suppose that some might enjoy wading through pages of cloyingly sweet lip service, but personally the point of these articles is supposed to be to deliver content to hearthstone players.
     
    if you want some constructive criticism, here it is: go emulate the people who did it right. 
     
    and I still think your article is the single lowest quality one contributed to the site so far. 

    • Thanks for the help! I will certainly work on that! When you say it lacks content, what would you like to see added? And what about the content did you not like? You said it sounded like an advertisement, but said the way it was written is not the issue. And the reason I assumed it was my writing style is because you said earlier that you felt like it was a chore to read. Often times that means people didn’t like the way something is written. Like I would consider Nathaniel Hawthorne to be a chore to read because I don’t like his style, but his content is still great. Please don’t take this as me trying to insult you or take a stab at you. I really just want to contribute and provide enjoyable content for people and the best way for me to do that is to get accurate feedback.

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