Earlier this week, long time professional Hearthstone player Keaton “Chakki” Gill announced he was retiring from competitive play to accept a position at Blizzard Entertainment on Hearthstone’s final balance team.

It is not uncommon for esports pros to transition into jobs within esports once they stop competing. Joshua “Jatt” Leesman and Wade “Dreadnaught” Penfold each began working for Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment respectively as esports commentators after competing at the highest level of League of Legends . Bora “YellOwStaR” Kim went from supporting the best AD Carries in the world to become the head of esports for Paris Saint Germain FC .

Despite former pros going into public-facing and leadership roles, it is far less common to see a top level esports competitor become a designer for the game itself.

There is a game publisher that makes a common practice of hiring former pros, though it is not active in esports—yet. Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast has made a history of signing former pros like Melissa Detora and Gavin Verhey onto development roles.

Wizards of the Coast developed an online, digital version of Magic years ago, but the client simply does not hold up to modern standards. Its visuals are outdated and the user interface is anything but friendly to new players. Last year, Wizards announced it had begun developing a new, modernized online client called Magic: the Gathering Arena that could compete with the digital card games of today.

Related Article: Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode Leaves Blizzard

Now, with Arena on the horizon, it could be that Hearthstone is looking to add a more competitive perspective to its design team to answer its latest competition.

Those that have followed Hearthstone since its launch may laugh at the notion of any collectible card game making a dent in its market dominance. Publishers like CD Projekt Red (makers of The Witcher series and its card game spinoff Gwent), Pop Cap (Plants vs Zombies Heroes), and Hi-Rez Studios (Hand of the Gods: SMITE Tactics) have all tried to compete, and none has come close to matching Hearthstone‘s success, either in sales or in viewership on streaming sites like Twitch .

The Esports Observer’s Audience Insights tool shows that last month viewers consumed 95.2M hours of Hearthstone on Twitch, while in the same period one of its largest competitors, Gwent, was only watched for 5.1M hours.

Hearthstone has become the World of Warcraft of digital card games, and not just because it shares the same intellectual property. It redefined an existing genre and obliterated the competition. Nothing else comes close to its level of polish or the strength of its IP. That said, the game has consistently received criticism in one area—its lack of depth for hardcore competitors. Now, Hearthstone is staring down the barrel of two upcoming competitors from developers with long histories of creating successful competitive games with massive global scenes.

The first is MTG Arena. Magic is a game with over 20 years of competitive history. In many ways its core design philosophies directly oppose Hearthstone’s. Magic lacks the random effects that permeate Hearthstone‘s gameplay, instead focusing on rewarding players who can find the best play on every turn. While these create hilarious highlight videos on YouTube, they generally produce feelings of frustration from viewers and players when they decide a tournament with thousands of dollars on the line.

In terms of polish, Arena seems to have studied Hearthstone very closely. Even in closed beta, the game is showing a promising level of polish. Many cards have detailed animations when they enter the play area, and the Planeswalkers—cards that represent the main characters of Magic’s story—each have multiple voice lines for their effects. Wizards even borrowed Hearthstone’s interactive “sand pit” game board. Over 25 years of development, Magic has faced even more pretenders in the physical card game space to its throne than Hearthstone in the digital, and managed to stay on top. If MTG: Arena can match Hearthstone’s visual polish, it could be the competitive answer many Hearthstone players have been craving for years.

Last year, Valve announced it would also try to challenge Blizzard’s goliath with a Dota 2 -inspired card game known as Artifact. The game is set for release later this year, but Valve has already made it clear that it will be an esport. The company has confirmed that Artifact will offer “compendium” goals to fund the professional scene, similar to the way Dota 2 funds The International and other Major tournaments, and will support automated tournaments (something Blizzard still fails to do with Hearthstone). Valve has also announced a tournament for early 2019 with a $1M prize pool.

Blizzard may support Hearthstone esports with thousands of dollars in prize money every year, but if Artifact can come close to matching Dota 2’s remarkable prize pool compendiums, top level players might find it hard to keep losing Hearthstone tournaments to a bad roll of the dice.

Artifact and MTG Arena represent credible threats to Hearthstone. Both games will draw from massive existing communities and appeal directly to gamers frustrated with Hearthstone’s lack of depth at the highest level. Blizzard may have brought Chakki in primarily for final balance, but he could be the voice the Hearthstone team needs to begin preparing for these contenders now. Hearthstone will never remove the randomness from its core gameplay, but it could appease its competitive scene with more rewarding in-game features.

A tournament mode that supports major online events, a ranked mode that mirrors tournament formats, more competitive formats that create interesting deck-building puzzles—these are the things that keep high level card game players fighting through the frustrating losses. While Blizzard does support the Hearthstone financially with large prize pools, it’s the lack of competitive features that frustrates the competitive community, and could be the breaking point between losing the game’s biggest influencers and remaining the biggest digital card game on the block. With the help of Chakki’s competitive perspective, Blizzard could prioritize some of these features to ensure that their players are too busy playing with their new toys to stray into another game.

Now is the perfect chance for Hearthstone to re-prioritize its competitive community. Today, game director Ben Brode announced his departure from Blizzard. Brode had worked on what would become the Hearthstone team since 2008 and was the public face of the game. With new leadership comes a chance to take a step back, examine your current course, and redirect if necessary.

To date, Hearthstone has thrived on accessibility, exceptional polish, and its connection to the ever-popular Warcraft IP. Competitors have endured the bad rolls and limited decision-making because the game still provided the most satisfying overall experience both as a player and streamer. If MTG Arena and Artifact can match Hearthstone’s polish while providing a better-supported, more satisfying competitive experience, we could see top players and key influencers leaving the scene in droves. If that happens, Blizzard will need to rely on Chakki’s competitive experience to find ways to make the game more rewarding for its esports fans and pros.