The first major tournament you compete in. It’s something you never forget. I remember more about DreamHack Austin 2018 than my first kiss.
Grinding ladder, being approached by a local team, the day my boss texted me when I was biking to work saying DreamHack just announced the Hearthstone Grand Prix, and preparing over 40 days for one event gave me the hope and purpose I had lost for almost nine months.
Quitting my job right before the event so I could have a week of uninterrupted practice, finding out three days before leaving the tournament was Last Hero Standing, not Conquest, and sticking to my lineup despite this didn’t beat me down but gave me more resolve.
Rubbing shoulders with professionals I’d only seen on Twitch, taking Cydonia to game 5, meeting my favorite Hearthstone streamer, Hotform, and being hugged by him, whoever said never meet your heroes was trolling by the way, having the internet go out for an hour and getting tips from JustSaiyan, being down two games to zero against TerrenceM then reverse-sweeping him, and finally going out to dinner with my friends and partying after was one of the best and most emotional times of my life.
Although I’d been in love before, this event gave me my definition: nothing else matters as long as I have this thing. I was in love with Hearthstone, specifically competitive Hearthstone.
My travel, my expenses, my room and ticket were all covered; I only had to focus on competing.
However, I’m the exception to the rule, not the norm.
Hearthstone has always had a prevalence of short-term contracts and with the implementation of Hearthstone Grandmasters, this occurrence has become more frequent.
At the time, I was just a random mid-level legend player. Honestly, I was evidence of the problem, not the system working correctly. I only got an offer because I knew the owner.
For players I couldn’t hold a candle to, players who practice full time, players who’ve not only hit high legend but managed to finish there, players who’ve won national tournaments, for players who dedicate their lives to Hearthstone, players like Teebs “Teebs” Auberdine, the system is dysfunctional.
Teebs has a history of playing competitively. She’s competed in Heroes of the Storm and Yu-Gi-Oh! and said she won the Canadian Warhammer 40,000 National Championship in high school.
Teebs has attended A LOT of conventions and competitions.
She’d been playing Hearthstone since beta, but began playing competitively in Nov. 2016. Eventually, she was signed with her first team in spring 2017. Shortly after, she decided she wanted to pursue the game further and realized she needed more time to do so.
After coming to that decision, Teebs quit the team, focused on saving as much money as possible through work and then quit her job as well.
“I took my savings and I gave myself about a year to find something sustainable,” Teebs said.
Seven months later, she was signed by an organization named Scythe Esports for “a respectable contract that [she] could work with.”
Teebs was on a path to success as Scythe Esports provided her a $500 monthly salary and travel expenses which allowed her to almost completely focus Hearthstone.
On Dec. 2, 2018 she was the best player in the room once again, but this time for Hearthstone. She won the Canadian female Hearthstone qualifiers for World Electronic Sports Games 2018 and received $8,000 CAD or $6,206 USD.
Later that month she was she was invited to WSOE 2 in Los Angeles where she finished top eight, winning $1,000 USD.
“Everything was over the top, from the accommodations to the venue, makeup, gifts, [and] the staff,“ Teebs said. “We all got the full Hollywood experience; It was amazing in every way.”
At the end of 2018 she found a stable home to live and stream in, was breaking even with her salary and just won a sizeable prize which gave her some breathing room.
“New Year’s Day 2019 was perhaps the most put together I had ever felt about my life,” Teebs said.
However, Blizzard had other plans for her. They had something planned in secret and kept it mostly internal. On Dec. 13, 2018, Blizzard pulled all support from Heroes of the Storm esports, less than two weeks after Teebs won WESG.
By all accounts I’ve heard and all research I’ve done, that announcement was the first anyone officially heard of plans to no longer support esports for Heroes of the Storm. Other than rumors circulating days before the announcement, most organizations and players found out the day of. Players were released and organizations disbanded overnight because of it.
But how does this impact Teebs?
Well, Scythe Esports had a major stake in Heroes of the Storm and the team evaporated because of this announcement.
“Unfortunately the team fell apart days later, due to sponsors withdrawing after Blizzard cancelled their HOTS league (which we had a team in) and I’ve never really recovered,” Teebs said.
The peace and fulfillment she found was so quickly taken away.
She started looking for a new team and found one that was willing to negotiate. During negotiations, they promised to cover her travel expenses for Masters Tour Vegas and asked her to book the event.
After the event, she was never reimbursed and negotiations fell through.
That was Teebs’ breaking point.
Years of practicing and playing, being paid less than minimum wage, having promises broken, all the while Blizzard pulled support from all tournaments and put it solely in Masters and Grandmasters made Teebs quit.
An aspiring player, a hardworking player who came in with a dream, won a national tournament and said she practiced more than most Hearthstone competitors has been lost to us.
“I feel like I wanted to practice more than most players, and I often had a hard time finding practice partners as a result, but I had some good performances when I was well prepared,” Teebs said.
Teebs gave Hearthstone more than anyone should reasonably be expected to. It wasn’t that she didn’t work hard enough or wasn’t good enough, she just wasn’t lucky enough to find a proper sponsor.
Through the combination of Hearthstone Grandmasters and the cancellation of Heroes of the Storm’s competitive scene, Teebs, like many other players, had her dream snuffed out.
Imagine being a competitor and losing a majority of your income despite putting out your best performance. It’s analogous to a company laying off employees despite record-high profits.
