After a disappointing 2015, China was burdened with a monstrous task: Find the hidden gems in its ranks and mentor them to greatness in time for the 2016 World Championship. And what a Ferrari couldn’t change last year, a transition in generation certainly did this.
New, young talents such as Zhuo “Hamster” Wang and Zheng “OmegaZero” Lin emerged to take their place among the 16 best at Worlds. Veterans like Yuxiang “Breath” Chen and Bohan “Lovelychook” Zhang re-established themselves on the top of the scene, either punching a Blizzcon ticket or headlining the charge for a victory against the west.
Between the two generations is one Jason “JasonZhou” Zhou, a playing manager for the most successful Hearthstone team in China: eStar. Formerly known as Yolo Miracle, the team has secured a total of three team league championships, most recently the gold from Team Story 2, China’s premier team tournament with $190,000 prize pool.
On Friday, JasonZhou will open the Blizzcon playoffs against a fellow countryman. We caught up with him to ask him a bunch of questions for our very first “5 questions with” series.
You are about to compete in the playoffs of the biggest Hearthstone event of all time and you’re going against a fellow countryman in Hamster. How do you feel before the quarter finals in general and about having to play the only other Chinese player in the tournament?
I feel great about hitting top 8 and I am satisfied with my performance in the group stage so far. As for my next match against Hamster, he might be the person I really don’t want to play against because he’s my countryman. Nevertheless, I will still bring my best line-up to beat him.
You had possibly the toughest group in the first stage, with ThijsNL and Handsomeguy. How did you weigh your chances of a victory there?
Although a lot of people, especially those from other countries, thought I might be the weakest player in that group, I was pretty confident about myself. Last year, I beat a lot of top players on ladder and won plenty of small cups on the NA server. I think my skills were good enough to win against good players like ThijsNL about 50 per cent of the time.
I am not surprised I made it through, though I didn’t expect to come out as top seed.
You managed eStar to a Team Story championship in July, making it the most successful team in China. How important is Team Story to the HS scene in China and what’s the prestige compared to, say, winning Gold Series, and how important is it to one’s career?
Team Story is the only Hearthstone team tournament in China. I think it’s fun and it can help a team think more deeply about the game. Winning Golden Series is the door to professional Hearthstne in China however, and with it come opportunities to compete in other events, such as CN vs EU or Blizzcon.
As a region, China had a tough year in 2015 results-wise when it came to facing the west, which led to some really harsh criticism from TiddlerCelestial in January. Since then, however, the region has been performing quite well, winning a CN vs EU 3 and doing well in Celestial Invitational. What’s the driving factor behind this improvement?
I think a lot of Chinese players realized hard work should be important in Hearthstone. Before 2015, those who represented Chinese Hearthstone only did it because they picked the game up early. As the scene developed, a lot of talented, hard-working players started beating the old and lazy, hugely contributing to China’s improvement. Currently, China not only has a lot of aggressive players, as its our tradition, but many good control players, too. I am pretty sure the world will know just how good we are.
In your half of the bracket is arguably the most flawless player at Worlds, Amnesiac, who destroyed his group, dropping just 3 games, the least of all players. He’s been hyped as the child prodigy of Hearthstone, a genius of the game, a “young savage” and Americas’ best shot at a championship and if the World Championship games so far have been any indication, he’ll likely be a semi finalist by Friday. What do you think about him as a player and do you look forward to potentially playing him in the Ro4?
Last year, I met him several times on ladder and watched his performance during the 2015 Road to Blizzcon and at the time I didn’t think he was that good, I felt I would’ve had an advantage. This year, he’s improved a lot, but so have I. I understand Europe and US think he is the best because they always think the Chinese players are inferior and they want to root for their guy, just like my fans always root for me.
I would say it’s still a 50/50 match-up between us. I respect his skill a lot but I have quite a chance to win. Before I consider this, however, I will focus on my first match with Hamster and Amnesiac’s win over Pavel is not 100 per cent guaranteed either. We’ll see.
