It’s one of the biggest annual events in the video game world: BlizzCon. This weekend, hoards (and alliances) of people will visit the convention and closely follow all the announcements Blizzard makes regarding their games. But BlizzCon is also a place of competition and prestige, and for the first time, the finals of the Hearthstone Global Games (HGG) will be held at the event.

With caster Daniel “Falcone” Falcone, we talked about the second iteration of Hearthstone’s version of the Olympics. The cheerful Brit gave his opinion on the highs and lows of the year, discussed the value of having a tournament such as the Global Games, and even gave us a sneak preview of his predictions for the finals...

On the brink of the Global Games' final stages, how do you look back at the second iteration of the tournament?

I think it's been a great evolution of everything that was started up last year. I feel HGG has always been a great idea -- it's very different to everything else that we have in Hearthstone at the moment. You can see where it's taken inspiration from, which other tournaments. There have been other team leagues, like the Trinity Series, but the Global Games is very unique in the sense that it's both a team league and a tournament with national pride. I think last year laid the groundwork and this year has been a great step up from that. It's been a lot of fun!

What are the biggest improvements HGG has made, in your opinion?

Firstly, it's been more concise. Obviously the group stages were only eight weeks as opposed to fifteen, which is much better, especially for people who want to watch it all. The selection process for players was also different, with only competitive players rather than a mix with streamers/personalities. I think that was a fine idea last year, to have the most popular players in each country, but as we're going forward in Hearthstone we want to celebrate players for being the best, regardless as to whether or not they also stream. Also, the finals are at BlizzCon, which is obviously very cool.

The production team has stepped up its game compared to last year too. Lots of little things that would go wrong last year improved much, much faster, from my perspective as a caster. I felt like we, the casters, were able to build up a better relationship with the production team this year and get to know everyone better. Our communication with Blizzard during the whole process has been better... basically every little aspect that maybe doesn't even get noticed from the outside has improved.

For example, before HGG even started all the casters got to go to one of the Blizzard studios and have a meeting with them. We learned more about the tournament and got in the frame of mind to do it. There was also a lot of talk about the intro video, which the casters filmed around London. That was a lot of fun to do.

Leading up to the tournament we just talked a lot with Drew, TJ, Wei and Gnimsh to hear what Blizzard wanted to see from HGG and what they wanted to see from us, but also for them to hear our opinions and expectations. Those aspects have come together very nicely, in particular on the Monday preview show, which from week to week has also improved.

Which countries surprised you by how well they've performed this year?

The first one that stands out to me is Brazil, who went completely undefeated in the Swiss stage. Some people will have seen that coming, with names like Rase on the team. It's not gonna be a bad team, but I don't think anyone expected them to be the one and only team that went undefeated.

Looking at the finals though, Bulgaria is another one we were quite surprised by. We talked about Jengo often throughout the process of casting, because he was the member of the team that we communicated the most with. He was the one telling us what was going on each week, and he gave us the impression that he was putting a lot of work in. Bulgaria is one of the teams where, when you open up HGG, you see all of the many great Hearthstone countries like Germany and France being eliminated... and then you don't expect Bulgaria to make it through.

Maybe I was underestimating New Zealand a little bit. Quite a well-known team in Hearthstone, with Pathra being a popular streamer and Mage, TingTong and Jakattack have been competing for a while. It's great to see them in the finals.

"I think it's interesting that [the Global Games] is sort of a second route
into competitive Hearthstone, especially for some of these countries that
don't have the most well-known players,"

What are the negative upsets; which countries underperformed?

Germany, again. For some reason they can't seem to make it in HGG. And Sweden is another team that two years in a row just haven't managed to live up to it. Last year their HGG team was Alliance's full roster, and they weren't able to make it through to the second phase. This year we still had a solid team of players, but even with Bozzzton and Orange they couldn't get through.

I always like to support Italy. I don't think that calling this an upset is fair, because they're not one of the most well-respected countries. However, they did very well last year so I went supporting them this year. They did okay, but didn't make it all the way. Oh, I guess I should mention Czech Republic too, who won the first edition.

I also supported The Netherlands, as I'm sure you're well aware. Given that they were the same team two years in a row -- one of only two teams who had the same roster -- I was disappointed that they weren't able to make it all the way. Thijs, Mitsuhide, Theo and Tyler is such a great set of names. And their games last year... I remember Tyler playing Quest Warrior, which was probably one of the best matches in Hearthstone history. It was also the first time I'd ever cast with Cora, so it's just a great memory for me.

There was some critique on the format of HGG this year. The pick and ban phase was highly praised, but the random queue order of decks was scrutinized. In what way do you think it influenced the results?

So, like you said, there was the random element after the pick and ban. The queue order of decks was basically like Conquest, but maybe slightly worse because you don't play the same decks multiple times. If you've brought this great deck but get the wrong match-up for it, it can mess up the whole strategy.

Some teams would disagree with the criticism though, and say there was strategy to it. I'm not able to look at it on the same levels as these players who are making line-ups every week, but I believe the UK and some other countries were at some point saying: "We are taking advantage of this format, we found a couple of loopholes watching other teams, and we've spotted certain patterns."

So while we've seen a lot of complaints online about the format, I have heard good things as well. I have no idea if the format will stay the same next year, but it's all a learning process. As I said, this year is an evolution of last year, and I'm sure we'll see improvements again next year, if the tournament is held again.

Earlier on you talked a bit about national pride, but what makes HGG valuable and what does it contribute to Hearthstone as an esport?

I think it's interesting that it's sort of a second route into competitive Hearthstone, especially for some of these countries that don't have the most well-known players. Take Bulgaria again, for example. None of the player were that well-known. They have a chance to come into HGG and prove themselves as four of the best players not just in their country, but also on the world stage. A chance they've clearly taken seriously, given that they're going to BlizzCon. So I think that having a tournament of this scale, that's also outside of HCT, is great as an extra way to get people out there.

Again, I think the national pride element is a big deal. I don't want to undersell that. Talking to the various teams, community members, you hear that people love to watch their team play in the Global Games. Even if you get people that just tune in for their own team's games, and then tune out again, it's great that they can get involved and cheer them on like that.

Would you say it's a league for the up-and-coming?

I don't know if calling it something like a B-league is even fair. It's a separate tournament in its own right, with the fact that the format is so different and everything. It's obviously not the Hearthstone World Championship; that very much is HCT. I don't think anything is going to beat that, because it's not supposed to. But having a very different team-focused tournament that also gets an epic finals at BlizzCon, I'd rather just call it a different tournament entirely.

Perhaps the most discussed country in the Global Games was Taiwan, and for a negative reason: they were caught stream-sniping. What's your take on that whole situation?

I'm disappointed. That's the first word that I should use. We are talking about the team that has the current Hearthstone world champion on it. It is a stain on his reputation, and on the team's reputation. I'm glad that they were caught though. It's very difficult to monitor this kind of thing. In HGG, we banned the use of deck trackers, but it's difficult to track that. Obviously if someone is found they will be punished, and hopefully it's not worth the risk. But it's difficult to find out every way someone could be infringing on the rules.

It's strange that this footage came out, where they themselves revealed that they were cheating, so it's weird that we're in this situation. But yeah, I'm disappointed they were found to be doing that and I'm glad their spot is filled by Singapore.

You mention that monitoring some rules is tough, if not impossible, in online tournaments. And when it was announced you couldn't run a deck tracker, a third-party app, people were understandably skeptical about enforcing that rule. So how do you enforce it?

I know that the admin team works very hard to keep track of the games. I won't pretend that I know exactly what they do, because I don't. It's very much outside of my scope. They do sit in on the team's Discord calls, they do all sorts of things like that. But most of all, they pay very close attention. There have been occasions in the past when there was a team not trying to win, the admins would look into that and check if there was wintrading going on. And they were pretty good, pretty on the case.

Alright, let's talk about the finals at BlizzCon now. Who's going to make it out of group A?

Hm, let's see. It has Spain, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and China. I love Spain, I'm a big fan of the team itself. I've made it no secret that AKAWonder is one of my favorite Hearthstone players, but Jac0b, riku and Dalesom have also been fantastic. I would love to see them make it out of the group. And I think China, actually, based on how they've performed this year. They were a little bit shaky last year, especially towards the start, but this year they've been fantastic. And yup, I am continuing to underestimate New Zealand. Sorry guys!

What about group B?

Brazil, Bulgaria, Norway and Singapore. Well, it's Brazil and Norway. We're talking about the team that went undefeated in Swiss, and we're talking... just Norway. Do I have to say anything more than that? They're just four of the best Hearthstone players in the world at the moment. Hunterace is at least in the top 3 Hearthstone players right now.

And who takes it all?

I'm reluctant to say Norway, because they are L0rinda's caster pick from the very beginning. (laughs) But yeah, I believe they are in the best place to win the Hearthstone Global Games this year.