Former Starcraft 2 star Sjow joins ROOT Gaming

Photo: Carl Oscar Aaro / DreamHack

The eSports market of Hearthstone is picking up speed with big names from all around other games are joining the fray. Two weeks ago MTG and poker icon TheGwalls signed with a team, today former Starcraft 2 professional Jeffrey 'sjoW' Brusi is putting his signature on the contract for ROOT Gaming - an organization with Starcraft 2 background themselves. 

It was hinted at before, now it is confirmed truth: former Starcraft 2 player Jeffrey 'sjoW' Brusi has found a new home in the ROOT Gaming organization for Hearthstone. The dedicated streamer from Sweden tweeted earlier that he signed with a competitive organization, bringing him to a new chapter of his professional gaming career, today now the official introduction into the ROOT Gaming family was announced.

The small family at that doubled in size with the signing of the Swedish player, giving the currently reigning NESL King of the Hill Amaz a team member. SjoW's competitive resume in Hearthstone is limited with several attempts to make deep runs in ZOTAC or ESL cups, without the real big success thus far. Yesterday the former Terran player from Dignitas reached the Quarterfinals in the third installment of the GosuCups, ultimately being eliminated by fellow country man Semijew with 2-1. His Starcraft 2 accomplishments are thus far more impressive highlighted by a 3rd/4th place on home soil at DreamHack Summer 2013 and a European Championship in the fifth season of IEM in 2011. Now that game is the past, Hearthstone is his future and as a four-time Legend player sjoW is up for the challenge in the various tournaments the competitive scene has to offer.

Sup, kids?  My name is Jeffrey Brusi, aka sjoW. I've been playing games most of my life. In real life, I’m the typical Swedish nerd. I was playing StarCraft 2 professionally and in December, I kind of got bored of it, so I wanted to try a new game. The choice of game was Hearthstone. I was really skeptical of it at first since it looked like a easy-mode Magic: The Gathering game. But to my surprise I got really obsessed with it, and I still am.

Sadly, I don’t have much achievements so far, other than getting deep into the bracket on the few ZOTAC and ESL tournaments I entered. I reached Legend every season I played, though, and ended up in Rank 4 Legend last season. I’m planning to play more tournaments in the future, though, and I’m sure I can deliver better results.

My favourite class is Priest because it has such sick value cards, like Cabal Shadow Priest, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Madness, etc. But the problem is it kind of sucks d*** and is the worst class, in my opinion. That being said, I’m more of the control player, so I rarely play any aggro decks at all, which is a flaw since it gives me less options in tournament play.

If I was a Hearthstone card? In StarCraft 2, I always amazed people with how I could keep up in the highest level with inferior mechanics, which is the number one skill to possess in that game in many people's minds. So an underrated card, like Illidan. 

Shoutouts to ROOT and my fans who keep following even though I play Hearthstone rather than StarCraft2!”