Reynad: "I will always prioritize content creators and people that work their ass off day-to-day"

With Whispers of the Old Gods released earlier this week, we've got a host of intriguing cards that could result in new deck archetypes. What do you think is the card with the highest potential to be broken?

I'd have to see a list of cards in front of me. I guess Fandral Staghelm is a good one. Every interviewer asks me that question - I don't think they'll make a card like Dr. Boom again, that's good everywhere. There are going to be cards that are broken in their respective decks, but that you don't see that often. Xaril, Poisoned Mind, the Rogue legendary, is pretty broken in Rogue, but you're not going to play against him every other game, like Piloted Shredder. If people read this interview six months down the line and I don't name some neutral that's everywhere, they're going to be like "Oh, what an idiot!", even though Xaril is in 100 percent of Rogue decks. It's really hard to answer these kind of questions, but I think Fandral will be good for a very long time.

Whispers also brought in several high-cost Old Gods and a large pool of resources for control. Do you think that these cards will cause the Standard meta-game to be slower than the competitive meta-game that we have seen in the past few months?

No, the meta-game is still going to be fast. You can still build aggressive decks that end the game on turn 8 pretty consistently, so as long as one of those decks exists in the meta-game, it kind of works all of the other decks around it. Even the more defensive decks kill pretty quickly. Midrange Rogue decks kill people just as fast as Oil Rogue did. Yes, there are more defensive cards, but there were also very efficient decks that were around before Whispers that are still around, and those decks gained 2-4 cards each. That makes them still very fast and a little bit more efficient, so the meta-game is still going to be faster than people think. The tools are there for Control though, which is cool.

If you were to immortalize one card from either Naxxramas or GvG so that it could be played in Standard in perpetuity, why would it not be Dr. Boom?

So it could be in Standard forever? Ooo. (thinks for several seconds) I'd have to go for Clockwork Gnome, because there are a bunch of niche minions like Demented Frostcaller and spells like Lock and Load. Those cards are role-player cards that will be really impactful in Wild, because all of the tools are there for them. The fact that Standard will have one less neutral one-mana spell makes them worse there. I think Clockwork Gnome's actually a really interesting card, but not at all for the reasons that Blizzard designed it for. It's the only neutral one-mana spell. There are a bunch of decks that just want spells, so I'd say that.

I think Clockwork Gnome's actually a really interesting card, but not at all for the reasons that Blizzard designed it for.



Is there a particular card from Whispers that’s currently seeing little use, but which you hope becomes a more crucial deck component as the meta progresses?

Savage Roar (laughs). Druid is going to devolve back to that, I think, so that card's pretty under-rated. It's so hard to answer these questions unless you have it all pulled up, let's see if I can pull a filter up (opens his collection in Hearthstone and scrolls through the WotOG cards). Oh, this 2-drop Murloc, Bilefin Tidehunter - he's pretty good in Standard, better than people think. He's going to start seeing more play. C'Thun's Chosen is pretty decent - it's not played quite as much as it could be. Silithid Swarmer as well. Nothing comes to mind to the top of my head as far as one card that stands out - people are experimenting with everything right now, so a good mix of everything is seeing play.

Are there any particular cards from previous sets that might see revived play with the new format?

Unearthed Raptor is going to see a lot of play. It's probably the biggest example. There are a lot more Deathrattle Rogue cards. I expect to see a good amount of him moving forward.

Which class or classes are you not expecting to see heavy use in the first standard format tournament, and why?

Priest is pretty bad. Hunter is just trash right now. Those two, I'd say.

You were very vocal on the recent classic card changes, particularly about Knife Juggler. Do you feel strongly about any other cards that should’ve been changed but weren’t'?

You can make an argument for Doomhammer, but for the most part they were pretty spot-on with the nerfs apart from Knife Juggler. I don't know why they didn't nuke that card. It's just sad. I'd say take a look at this tournament and see why it's bad design for the game, but you can also take a look at any of the past twenty Hearthstone tournaments that have happened and you'll see two things. Firstly: why cards like that add nothing to the game of note, and there's just no reason for them to exist. Secondly: the people that follow esports, other esports especially, when they think of Hearthstone they just kind of roll their eyes and don't respect it as a skill-intensive game. It is a skill-intensive game, but they are also right to think that when any time you tune in, you just see these turn 3 50-50's decide who wins. It's just sad.

Even if they nuked Knife Juggler completely, Flame Juggler is just an egregious of an error. It's not as good as old Knife Juggler, so it hasn't seen too much play up until now but it will start seeing more. And then, Fiery Bat - same crap. There's just no reason to do RNG like that, you know. They've done good RNG, like with Undercity Huckster, but early-game random board-controlling effects are just not healthy.

Pros and the community were adamant on wanting to nerf Druid’s ramp - particularly Innervate, yet it remained unscathed. Thoughts?

I think the Druid nerfs are fine. They could have nerfed any two cards and it would have been reasonable. I actually did an article about the ten cards that I'd nerf. Innervate was on there, but my nerf to it made it just as good, basically. I basically said "The next minion you play this turn costs 2 less". You couldn't Innervate-Hero Power or Innervate-Wrath. I thought that was a decent way to do it. I don't think they should just nuke Innervate. It's a fun effect, even though it is one of the better cards in the game, if not the best.

Do you think Druid would need a complete rework if its ramp was nerfed?

It would be a lot worse. I don't know what a complete re-work would entail, but it definitely wouldn't be as good of a class as it is now.

Do you feel Hearthstone needs drastic changes in the he future, not light touches? There is constant talk about the need for changes to Life Tap, but it never gets discussed by Blizzard.

No, I don't they could ever re-work a Hero Power at this point. It would completely throw off the balance of hundreds of cards. It's just like a delicate ecosystem - you can't upset fundamental rules of the game like that. All of the Warlock cards they've designed in every expansion that's ever come out has been with the Warlock hero power in mind. You can't really make changes like that. As far as big sweeping changes, Blizzard rightfully doesn't change cards too much, because people will always complain about something being overpowered and they'll want something changed every week. It's good to let the meta-game shape itself.

I think that the big change that they should make is just releasing content more often. A lot the Blizzard team come from Wizards of the Coast. That's a developer that makes Magic: The Gathering. They've been around since like 1990 or something like that. The philosophy from the 90's of just 'don't flood people with too much content' doesn't necessarily make sense in 2016. The landscape is different. Especially because Hearthstone is a digital card game, people consume content much faster than Blizzard thinks, in my opinion. I think that three releases per year is just way too few. It's actually ridiculous that that's how little content we get. In order for the meta-game to self-correct and continue to be fun, there need to be more frequent card releases, I think.

The philosophy from the 90's of just 'don't flood people with too much content' doesn't necessarily make sense in 2016.

I want to talk a bit about Tempo Storm as a team. In 2014, you were at the top of most tournaments, and the brand was considered a front-runner of the scene. In 2015, you experienced a dip, surrendering the top spot to teams like G2, Na’Vi, C9, and Archon. Would you say anything held you back as a team?

I think GosuGamers is ridiculous in a lot of ways. I get that they want to be the authority on how players are ranked, and there aren't many better options to do it than the way that they do. But realistically, how do I put this? Signing high-profile Hearthstone players does not bring a team any amount of income whatsoever. No sponsor gives a shit about who wins Hearthstone tournaments, because even on the best teams, a player will win what, one in fifteen tournaments that they play in? Like, how many tournaments of the past ten that Thijs has played in has he won?

I have absolutely no idea.

Right, yeah. Well, it's not like ten of them, you know. It's not like Fnatic's level of dominance in Counter-Strike. So, I think that no matter how good the player is, there's no return from a team owner perspective in having good HearthStone players because sponsors just don't give a shit. So, I will always prioritize content creators and people that work their ass off day-to-day, contributing to the community in ways other than playing in tournaments.

So, yes, if the metric of the success of a Hearthstone team is "How many arbitrary Gosu Monopoly points do we have on the Internet?" Yes, we have not had a great year, or whatever. But, we also don't really play tournaments. If the metric we go by is how many people actually give a shit about our team, Tempo Storm is far and away in the lead of any organization in Hearthstone. You can check that yourself by going to pretty much anywhere. Whether that's reddit and just counting flairs, because we have a lot of great fans that support us everywhere. Whether we go by merch sales - people that actually want to spend money to support their favourite players. Whether we go by the developers memeing to promote the wonderful savings at TempoStorm.com. Tempo Storm really is the most successful Hearthstone team. But, we certainly do not win as many forgettable tournaments as the other organizations, I will say that.

Who would you love to attract to the Tempo Storm team, following on from that?

I mean, I've actually had the opportunity to sign literally every player that has ever played professionally except for Lifecoach. Currently, Kripparian and Trump are both great picks. Kolento is up there - big fan of Kolento. But yeah, like I said - I'm happy with what the team is and where we're at. I'm not in a massive rush to sign more people or anything like that. It's just diminishing returns in a lot of ways. I just want players that people like to cheer for and like to be fans of. There are a lot of great Hearthstone personalities as far as players go.

I just want players that people like to cheer for and like to be fans of.

Tempo Storm’s other divisions have been quite successful in the arbitrary online metrics over the last year. What have you learned from managing them?

Team games are a very different animal compared to Hearthstone. Being a team owner for the non-Hearthstone games is actually significantly more stressful in a lot of ways. I have learned a lot of things about the correct environment for teams to be successful in team games from Heroes of the Storm (that was our first team that we had), and then from trying to apply those lessons that I'd learned from Heroes with the Counter-Strike team. I made a lot of mistakes as far as managing players for a team game to begin with. It's always a learning process, but what was the question originally? I feel like I've been going on a tangent.

No, you've been answering it: what have you learned from managing team?

Oh, yeah. I think you can't let the team just do whatever it wants all the time. At the end of the day, in most professional teams it's just a bunch of teenagers. There are some exceptions in Counter-Strike. The veteran teams are like grown-ass men. They've been playing for ten years. They're adults. They can be responsible and all that. The reality is, even in games like Counter-Strike, it's very young people that you're working with. It's easy for them to be fighting internally and not being able to work through their shit and things like that. It's things like that that you try to manage and learn from as a team owner. I basically try to do what I can to keep things together using experience. I can't really go into specific details, but there's always stuff that comes up every other day.

I think you can't let the team just do whatever it wants all the time.

Esports is still a growing industry. What would you like to see to help it progress?

I think team-owned leagues are the next evolution of esports. That's a big step. That's going to be a sustainable, profitable model like the NFL has. That's just what we need more of. One of the things that's scary right now is a lot of big money coming in. For example, if the Broncos want to buy an esports team, I hope that the grassroots fans of esports that have been around for a long time will continue to support the teams that they've watched grow from the beginning. I don't think we have this kind of industry, but I certainly hope that we don't have the kind of industry where someone can just come in, throw a bunch of money around, and just own the space. That's what we're seeing progressively more and more of. I do not like these VC-funded organizations. It hurts the space in a lot of ways. It helps progress it a bit too, but...

There comes a point where the extra money doesn't really help, it just stagnates the area.

Yeah, if people just start jumping around to where the biggest pay check is. The investors don't know shit about esports. If those are the people making decisions for its well-being, then what are they going to do? They're just going to look at sports models. They'll replicate the NFL and things like that in every single way because they don't know any better. In some ways, that is good for esports. In a lot of ways, it fucks a lot of people over. Basically, I think that the people making decisions for the future of esports should be the people that have been around long enough to have the experience to make the right decision for everybody, not just the investors that want to throw money in the space because they see it growing.