This week's eSports Report has the details on the biggest tournament of the past weekend, the League of Legends Midseason Invitational, and the potentially game-changing details on the sale of pro league ESL. But first, meet the gold-card seeking gamer who bought 2,700 Hearthstone card packs all in one night's work.
He Spent How Much on Hearthstone?!
Last Wednesday night, a rather interesting post went up on the Hearthstone subreddit. User MattCauthron made a post claiming that he had just purchased 2,700 card packs for a total of around $3,400. Not surprisingly, he added that he was a bit tipsy at the time of the transaction.
Matt is not a professional on the eSports scene by any means, but the post still attracted a lot of attention on Reddit and around the web. Millions of Hearthstone players around the world have fantasized about what it would be like to have the funds to go on an epic card-opening binge. Matt's post provided a unique opportunity for pro players and casuals alike to get an inside glance at just how much money it takes be a Hearthstone "whale".
PC Gamer caught up with Matt in the aftermath of the post, and he shed some insight into the business of opening packs. Click through for the full interview, but here are some of the more interesting tidbits:
On why he did it:
"I already have every card. I knew I would have to buy a sizable amount of packs to get all the gold cards I wanted. I'm playing economies of scale here. The more packs I open, the more gold cards I'll get and the less I'll have to craft. "
On how much dust he's gotten:
I have opened 1700 packs and have 1000 packs left to open, but it's 1 a.m. and I must go to sleep. My disenchant dust is at 145,980. I'm expecting to be in the range of 160K to 200K when I finish. Not nearly enough to craft every golden card, but it should be enough to craft all the ones people actually play.
On what his girlfriend thinks:
At this moment, she does not know. We have separate bank accounts, maybe you should leave this question out, haha.
On what he does for a living:
I am a CPA. I do large corporate and partnership tax work, mainly in the oil and gas industry. I believe (Hearthstone pro) Reynad said on his stream last night that college education was a waste, I should note my job would not be possible without my Masters' degree.
On how he justifies spending that much on a game:
There's a large number in my bank account that just became a slightly less larger number. I have enough money, to the point where I rarely look at my bank accept every few months to make sure it is going in an upward direction. This game is my biggest pastime. Let's say I've spent $5,000 on this game total, and received 1,000 hours of entertainment. That's only $5 an hour of entertainment. I'll spend 60 bucks on a game that I play for $15 minutes and never touch again.
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Page 2: EDward Gaming Dominates
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EDward Gaming Takes Midseason Invitational
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This past weekend provided a rare scene that's usually reserved for the League of Legends World Championship. Many of the best teams in the world headed to the same place, Tallahassee, FL, for the Mid-Season Invitational.
The tournament and the final in particular did not disappoint, with arguably two of the best teams in the world squaring off against each other. EDward Gaming took out SK Telecom T1 in a close 3 to 2 series to give the Chinese the victory over the Koreans. SK Telecom certainly didn't make it easy. The team's best player, and one of the top mid laners in the world, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok nearly won the series for SK all by himself.
No one had ever taken out Faker when he played on his favorite champion, Leblanc, which is why it was surprising when EDward chose not to ban the character for the decisive game 5. But it turns out, they had a plan. Faker took the bait, only to see his unkillable streak as Leblanc come to an end.
As Tong "Koro1" Yang of EDward dashed his Maokai into Faker's character, the commentators began screaming "Faker's down!". It was probably the closest thing that eSports has had to a "Down goes Frazier" kind of moment so far.
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Pro Sports League ESL Sold to Media Giant MTG
ESL is well-known as one of the biggest eSports leagues in the world, which is why it was big news when it was reported today that Swedish media group MTG purchased Turtle Entertainment, ESL's parent company.
MTG also runs its own eSports tournaments in games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and League of Legends. Both companies converging into one could eventually put multiple eSports ventures under one roof.
The sale price has not been disclosed, and neither company is on the record confirming the deal. But if it pans out, it could potentially lead to more opportunities on television for eSports, thanks to MTG's connections in that area.