An unexpected turn of events during the last weekend of Hearthstone Grandmasters' regular season. After finishing his match, Hong Kong player Ng "blitzchung" Wai Chung appeared on the official Taiwanese Hearthstone stream for his post-game interview wearing a gas mask. After lifting the mouthpiece, Blitzchung shouted, in Chinese: "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!"

Not wanting to be associated with the statement made by Blitzchung, the casters both hide behind their desk. Afterwards, they say something along the lines of: "Ok that's it, Blitz bro." Once the production team realizes what had transpired, the stream quickly cuts to an ad break. A thread on the Hearthstone subreddit was formed swiftly, but the clip has been taken down since. As a matter of fact, the entire VODs of Grandmasters' third day seems to no longer exist.

Hong Kong has been in the spotlight the past few months for its massive protests against the Chinese government's involvement in the area. Around a seventh of Hong Kong's entire population has taken to the streets in marches, blocked airports or has participated in a different form of protest.

Inven Global has reached out to Blizzard for a statement and to Blitzchung for additional comments.

EDIT October 6th, 23:54 CEST: Blitzchung has provided a comment to Inven Global, regarding his action on stream: "As you know there are serious protests in my country now. My call on stream was just another form of participation of the protest that I wish to grab more attention. I put so much effort in that social movement in the past few months, that I sometimes couldn't focus on preparing my Grandmaster match. I know what my action on stream means. It could cause me lot of trouble, even my personal safety in real life. But I think it's my duty to say something about the issue."

EDIT October 8th, 08:39 CEST: Blizzard has responded to the event, and has decided to ban Blitzchung from competing in Hearthstone for 1 year. They have kicked him from Hearthstone Grandmasters effective immediately, and have rescinded his earning for Grandmasters Season 2. Read the full article here.