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Hearthstone10 years ago

A long talk with DH champion TiddlerCelestial: "It was so amazing, I felt like crying"

Xieyu "TiddlerCelestial" Wang is among the most successful Hearthstone players in the world. The Chinese powerhouse currently holds the #1 rank in the GosuGamers rankings, breaking records nobody before him did. He holds a 67% all-time win-rate - a number more than impressive for a card game player - and just two weeks ago won the biggest Hearthstone event in the west of this year, the $40,000 DreamHack Summer.

This was a success on many levels, for Tiddler and China both. Tiddler himself has been searching for his first major gold for forever, losing the finals of WCA 2014 and Blizzcon 2014 and finishing top four at several other premier events. He was dangerously close to becoming the most successful Hearthstone player to haven't won a trophy, until DHS happened. For China, on the other hand, this was something the country has always wanted - beat the Westerners.

Right after DreamHack's end, after my fanboyism quieted down, I bombarded TiddlerCelestial with questions via email. You can read the lengthy interview with him below as you get to know the most winning player in Hearthstone.

You're fresh out of your first major tournament championship! How does it feel?

So amazing that I felt like crying. Before DreamHack Summer 2015 I've always been asking myself: Would my career path become some kind of "legendary story" in which I could never win finals? Turns out that it won't.

You only recently started traveling abroad, attending HouseCup #2 and now DreamHack. Is it the plan to attend more international tournaments in the future?

I would most definitely attend more if I could get the chance, of course. But to be honest, China in the east is quite far away. To participate in LAN in the western world, it requires you to invest a lot of time and money in traveling, you need to think it through if it's ever worth it, not to mention the inevitable issues like visas and language barriers. But no matter what, getting opportunities to attend offline tournaments, so that you could meet and communicate with others in person, is incredibly invaluable.

The DreamHack player pool was predominantly western. How did this affect your preparation?

My preparation wasn't affected by it. I don’t think it should have anything to do with it since we are playing the exact same game.

For starters, the whole idea of attending DreamHack Summer 2015 was decided by myself last year after BlizzCon. I told Monk from LiquidHearth about it right away and he helped me a lot. If it wasn't him I could hardly make this happen. Here I want to thank him for everything.

About the preparation of the game strategy itself I have to introduce to you our own tournament "Celestial League". This is a Chinese online tournament using Swiss format of six rounds. The league members are selected based on merit and each tournament has around thirty young players in it, they are all very talented.

From our inside statistics (deck win rates, popularities, wins, etc.) out of the league I was convinced to pick Druid, DemonZoo and Patron Warrior. Thanks to these young people in the league, I believe they will achieve more in the future.

We’ll get to the Chinese scene as a main topic later on in the interview, but did you ever think you had an edge, coming from an under-televised region?

I guess not. I think even in the west people can still easily find my games being recorded everywhere. Of course western tournaments are indeed more often being televised through Twitch. I have to admit that the meta changes are mostly led by the western pros.

I know you generally prefer Handlock but we saw you piloting zoo at the tournament. Is it because you feel the deck is stronger than its control counterpart at the moment?

You can ask Sinn (the manager of Celestial) to give you our inside statistics which I've mentioned above about the performance of Handlock and Zoo, they will show you why I chose Zoo rather than Handlock. For each week we could gather data from around five hundred top level games. In this current meta, aggros are generally just stronger than control decks. Blizzard might change that and give Control decks more love to make them more viable in the future but as a competitor I need to play the decks that currently have the potential to win me more games.

Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack

Worthiest opponent of the tournament? I know that Dog might seem like the proper answer but then again Hawkeye was the only player to take a series off you.

Tough question. There were countless games that were super close. If [card]Imp-losion[/card] didn't roll 4 in the last game, the champion trophy could've been Dog's. As for Hawkeye, his Shaman plays were just incredible. This current meta couldn't be more unfriendly to Shaman players but he believed in it and managed to win all the time, I admire and respect that a lot.

You finally brought victory for China at an international event. I imagine it was celebrated lavishly when you went back home?

Yes, people came to see me the moment I got off the plane. I was very touched. This is the very first time for Chinese players from mainland to win an international Hearthstone tournament at European soil while only three mainland players like myself were in it. The post about me winning DreamHack on Weibo (Twitter's counterpart in China) was shared five hundred more times and got 500k+ views in single day. I was told that there were a lot of people watching me play during the event even though it was midnight there. Big thanks to my fans in China!

You should really give the NetEase president a call, see if he can give you that Ferrari after all!

*Smiles*

Since April, you’ve been captaining your own team, Celestial. Why did you decide on founding your own team? And why now?

Back then during BlizzCon when I learned about Amaz founding Team Archon, I was thinking if it's possible to create a Hearthstone team that's China or Asia based.

In fact I left Vici Gaming right after Netease Esports League (NEL is a Chinese Hearthstone team tournament) Season 2 was over. I find that the so-called Chinese Hearthstone teams are mostly just expanded divisions of huge and established League teams or Dota teams, the Hearthstone parts are just attached to it and would not be focused at or paid enough attention to. Celestial was founded based on this background.

What learning experience did you take away from your time with Vici Gaming?

I was a part of Vici Gaming mostly because of the second season of NEL. Vici Gaming is a very successful esports organization in China. They were willing to give me an opportunity to be a part of it and I am super grateful. The roster changing was their decision to make and I’m sure they had good reasons. After the reconstruction they also achieved a lot for example the NEL Season 3 Champions. It was during this period when I was convinced that founding Celestial was necessary.

Photo: Ben Cotton / DreamHack

"Team Celestial will become more than just an esports team."

On Team Celestial, you gathered known players like SilentStorm and FrozenIce but also some lesser known ones, like Ding and Yavis. What do you look for in a talent?

Popularity is for us naturally a very crucial factor. We picked up SilentStorm and FrozenIce - back then when they were still free agents - also due to their good capability of speaking Chinese language, so that it could make internal communication easier. Ding and Yavis are super stars as stream partners in the Chinese community, they are definitely not lesser known than any other western streamers in terms of fanbase. Especially Ding, we call him “Wang Shi Fu”, pretty much the cool bigger brother type or boy next door. Ding is the most important host and caster on our team.

To be a part of Celestial, you need to be passionate about Hearthstone and Blizzard games, that’s what matters the most. Celestial will become something more than just an esports team. It will be a place where the east and the west could communicate with each other barrier free, to do that, we hope to create more content that’s Hearthstone related.

In China we also want to give more opportunities and exposures to young talented players. Like “Celestial League” I’ve mentioned above. I will talk about it more when the time feels right.

Would you say you’re bringing the best of both the Chinese and Western scenes, having signed players from different parts of the world?

At this point, we are recruiting players all over the world who are capable of speaking Chinese, mostly for easier communication at the early stage of the organization. We hope there will be more western players who are interested in joining us at some point later on. We welcome everyone as long as you truly love Hearthstone like we do.

There are plenty of examples where a player starts up his own team and engages his new brand in variety of activities, like organizing tournaments or writing content for example. What’s Team Celestial’s agenda?

Of course we have a lot of activities in plan. As a matter of fact, we have already made many of them happen in China. We have our own weekly tournament going on inside Celestial League. It is now the fifth week and we've formally broadcasted each one of them after the round of eight. We gained a lot of positive feedbacks from the articles and guides we've published about grinding up the Chinese ladder specifically. We also had a lot of fun with our team tournaments. This month, we are having a fan meet-up in Shanghai along with a minor offline tournament. We are still planning for more. If we want to go big and fully international, I can see some possible issues need to be solved first such as funding, or how to manage players in different time zone with maybe bad connections to different servers, etc. But I'm pretty sure there's nothing we cannot overcome.

Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack

Despite being one of Hearthstone’s most renowned names, you still lack the exposure of names like Reynad or Amaz, for example, both of which used their reputation and place in the HS community to propel their teams at the start. Were you worried that that could be a set back for Celestial?

Well at least in China I should be just as famous as them I guess. I’m trying to make it the same in the west. For me personally, I’ve already given my best to participate every single western tournament that I was able to. To be absolutely honest, I think my performance in the west was quite good considering how few western tournaments I had access to and how few matches I have played. As for DreamHack Summer 2015 I was hoping there could be more Chinese players in it. However, many of them were not willing to come for some reasons which was quite disappointing.

I’m not worried at all. Our players have their own way and pretty much all have already proven themselves to the world like SilentStorm winning ESL Legendary Series Season 1, or like Ding as the most established host and caster mastering both English and Chinese languages in the Chinese community. We will be doing okay whether in the west or in China.

There are examples of team projects in other games - most notably in League of Legends with guys like Reginald (TSM) and Hotshot (CLG) - where a team grows from a start up to a massive brand and the face of the game. Is that the end goal for Celestial?

In the future we might will head to some other directions. Like Tempo Storm opening Heroes of the Storm division - we do not narrow ourselves down to anything right now. But for the time being it’s very clear that we need to focus on Hearthstone, or shall we say, the Blizzard games, they are the most important projects.

How is the team being managed? What’s the practice schedule, philosophies, etc?

I’m the leader and the decision maker of the whole organization. Our manager Sinn does the talking, he speaks for the team and connects us with the western scene. Ding’s in charge of all the stuff related to streaming, hosting, casting and broadcasting. Jasonzhou - a NA player you probably know - is doing the admin work for all our tournaments and practices.

Most importantly, we have a special fan club which is also working as our production team, helping with the art design, web/app development, stream setup, article writeup, editing, etc. I’m super grateful to them.

"We will hold our own events that both scenes can be part of."

I know you have aspirations to bring the Chinese and Western scene closer together. What’s the plan for that?

First of all we intend to support our best Chinese players to attend more international tournaments, if any organizer wants their events to involve the Chinese scene, Celestial is the one you should talk with. Secondly, we will hold our own events that both scenes can be part of. Thirdly, we will start to introduce and to rebroadcast the major international tournaments to the Chinese community after we reach an agreement with their organizers of course.

Photo: Ben Cotton / DreamHack

I keep semi-regular touch with the folks over at NetEase and throw an eye or two at the CN scene and it looks to me that level of competition has increased compared to 2014. Is that in fact true?

Yes the competition has indeed increased. There are tons of Hearthstone tournaments being held in China these days, big or small, you can always find some to compete in every week.

The Gold Series Open tournaments seems like a great road to establishing a healthy grassroots scene which can breed future champions, something I feel the west is still lacking.

There’s no doubt that the Gold Series LAN Opens, held by Blizzard and NetEase, are very successful. Some may say there’s still room for improvement, but you can’t deny it’s one of the most well organized tournament series. It draws a lot of attentions of the community, gives opportunities to hundreds of thousands of fans to make a name for themselves. The 512-man registration system was forced to be closed just ten minutes after it started. All these players from the whole country were willing to travel a long way to the event, some were even on the waiting list, you can imagine how passionate the community has to be.

However, as for pro scene, I think in China there are still a lot of problems need to be solved, which in the west do not exist. It’s hard to explain in one or two sentences, but things are getting better and better, with all the effort Blizzard and NetEase have invested, with all the support from the fans, and with the internationalization the Chinese scene is heading to.

Are the Chinese players more motivated from money or is it more the rivalry with the west?

Very good question! But I think it depends on each individual. For me I am going to go with Kolento's words, “not for money, not for honor, just for fun.”

Several of my colleagues and friends consider Asia to become the dominant region in Hearthstone, because of the player mentality. Do you see this as a reality?

I felt it that way as well. Actually we started this discussion at BlizzCon last year already. There were twelve of BlizzCon contenders who were originally Asian, that seemed kind of interesting. But I think this phenomenon is irrelevant anyways, since we know for a fact that most of the tournament champions are still from the west.

I personally don’t see there were much of a difference in terms of player mentality between Asia and the west. Only the popularity in this or that specific region matters. I would love to see more African players playing competitively, but unfortunately Hearthstone seems not so popular among their community.

Photo: Blizzard

China is very known for its innovative decklists. Your Mage deck became very famous for being nothing like other builds. Players like MoYan also constantly try to innovate decklists. Is that an advantage or a liability for China?

Most of the Chinese players have their own understanding on the deck building. But I have to say that the meta is still led by the west. We are still lacking innovative deck designers.

Apart from the vibrant tournament scene, what’s Chinese Hearthstone like? Are teams founding team houses for their HS players? How seriously is China taking the game as compared to other esports popular there, like Dota or League?

Very good question. I’m going to spend more time on this one.

Frankly speaking, in terms of viewership, we have a lot to catch up with the League scene, but getting very close to Dota, maybe even slightly bigger now.

"In terms of viewership, we're getting very close to Dota, maybe we're even slightly bigger now."

As for the pro scene, we are just getting started. I will take the chance to talk a bit more about the problems the scene is facing here. Though we at Celestial do not share these problems.

As I have mentioned before, most of the so-called Hearthstone pro teams in China are just one small section of the huge organization. They are irrelevant to the big picture. Their manager and leadership are not familiar with the Hearthstone scene. There are no team houses for HS players to live or practice in. The whole management is quite loose and casual. Because of the inconsistency in tournament results, many HS pros have no secure and steady income. In China, most income and sponsorship come from stream. The reality is, 90% of the Hearthstone related earnings are there only for streamers. Many pros were forced to turn to a streamer even though they didn’t want to.

But the good news is, Blizzard China and NetEase have realized the situation. They are trying to make things better for pros. However, we still need the full support from the Chinese community also from the world.

Let’s talk a bit about you. Where does the love for card games come from? What’s been your gaming history before Hearthstone?

Yay finally something less serious! I’ve always been a fan of Blizzard games. I have played Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. In the meanwhile I’m also a fan of board games. I was playing board games for a long time. The combination of these two makes Hearthstone automatically my favorite game.

Correct me if I’m wrong but you’re one of the oldest players on the scene. What keeps you motivated to continue to play the game?

I know Brian Kibler is older than me. There are a few players in China who are older than me as well. I don’t think age should be a problem that stops you from loving playing games. I believe, in the very near future, computer games won’t be something that belongs to young generation. I have no problems being friend with Thijs or Lovelychook, as Hearthstone fans we are no different.

Asking this question also because you’re now officially the most winning player either. So it can’t be just money.

I play Hearthstone so that I can live the way I want, that’s all it matters. Besides, the money I earned from Hearthstone is actually not as much as you guys may think. In Shanghai I cannot even afford a down payment on an apartment, unfortunately.

"I play Hearthstone so that I can live the way I want."

Who’s TiddlerCelestial outside the Hearthstone tavern? What did you study/work before the progaming you? How do you spend your day?

I spend my everyday doing all kinds of work about Hearthstone. When I finally get some free time I play some other games or watch TV series produced in the US. Before Hearthstone I was studying in the School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University. I was once an owner of a board game store for a long time, though it wasn’t as successful as what I did in the Hearthstone industry.

I have to ask about these crazy and motley outfits that you’re known for wearing and which first caught attention during BlizzCon. What’s that all about?

It was a brand which only appears in the east Asia. I like things that show personalities. One of my best friends also wears such outfits. The one I was wearing during BlizzCon got lost at the airport when I was doing flight transfer in Russia. Never Lucky.

Quickfire questions:

-- Party or stay at home?

Stay at home.

-- Adventure expansions or GvG-like expansions?

GvG-like expansions

-- The friendliest progamer you met at DreamHack?

Thijs.

-- The player who you consider your rival?

Lifecoach. (the only big name I have never met in person)

-- Your biggest Hearthstone inspiration/mentor?

Monk.

-- The best player in the West?