Hearthstone’s esports team has two secret weapons: a Halo vet and an Olympic aspirant

Blizzard Entertainment doesn’t follow anyone’s playbook. It writes its own. We’ve seen that with games like Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. And this approach applies to esports as well as to game development.

In January, Hearthstone crowned its 2017 champion, Chen “tom60229” Wei-Lin, in Amsterdam, the first time Blizzard held finals for its card game outside of the company’s annual fan fest, BlizzCon. It was an ambitious trip, showing the importance of turning a championship round into a showcase for how a major publisher puts on a signature event.