The Dirty Rat from Hearthstone ruined an entire tournament. The audience and the organizers are to blame.
Last weekend, the Hearthstone Championship between China and North America reached its climax. With a prize pool of nearly $87,000, a lot was at stake for both sides.
But it didn’t look good for the Americans from the start: China took an early lead. The “elimination” format was used, where both teams compete against each other until one side runs out of players. China was already ahead by 3 matches, so in the end only Chakki had to face Lovelychook and two of his teammates. Chakki defeated Lovelychook and then faced Lvge. It got really exciting, as the match even went to the decisive 7th game.
Then came a particularly critical play: Lvge decided to play the Dirty Rat early – a card that removes a minion from the opponent’s hand and plays it directly. The miracle happened: VanCleef entered the battlefield as a weak 2/2 creature.
The catch: As several players report, it was possible to hear audience and teammate background noise during the match. Normally, sounds are completely muted to isolate the players. The accusation: As soon as Lvge selected the Dirty Rat with his mouse, audience, casters, and team audibly reacted with excitement. Lvge followed these sounds and played the Dirty Rat, taking away one of Chakki’s win conditions.
The Hearthstone professionals agree that playing the Dirty Rat only makes sense if you have this information – otherwise, it would simply be a bad play.
Lvge later provided his own statement, confirming that the reactions from the surroundings influenced his behavior:
“I have to admit. During this round 2, I heard the voices of the crowd rising, but it wasn’t as our opponents say, that my team was shouting at me to play the Dirty Rat. I saw that Chakki had kept a card and, from my own experience with the deck, I suspected that because he returned three cards, it was not a spell. Because he did not play a pirate in round 1, the choices were basically: VanCleef, Adventure or Pillager.”
The player Reynad remains relatively calm and explained on Twitter: “Honestly, it’s a great format, a great production and we probably wouldn’t have won anyway. But it is frustrating to be eliminated this way.”
NetEase, the Chinese partner of Blizzard, wants to take a closer look at the case and only then come to a judgment.
Read more about this dirty rat here:
