There was a time when Sebastian "Forsen" Fors was best known for being one of Hearthstone’s most skilled Miracle Rogue experts. These days he can also plausibly claim to be the best Freeze Mage player in the world, but it’s the explosive popularity of his Twitch channel that has made him one of the biggest draws in the game, as much in demand as a caster as a competitor.
Forsen has a unique relationship with the fans who frequent his channel—they call themselves the forsenboys and refer to him in chat as ‘dad’—and the result is chaotic, often boozy, streams, in which the rapidfire barrage of copy pasta memes and relentless Plug DJ ‘cancer’ music are likely to terrify the uninitiated. I caught up with him a couple of weeks ago as part of a Blizzard get together, and we spoke about how he feels about Hearthstone, his fans, and never, ever being lucky.
Picture via ESL/ASUS ROG.
Unusually for a player of his high profile, Forsen isn’t part of a team. However, he did join forces with Chakki of Team Dignitas and Ostkaka (now of Na’Vi) to form the Forsen Boys (of course) to compete in the Archon Team League. Check out his back and forth BM in the series with Team Archon in the video embedded further down the page. Forsen can be found on Twitter here and on Twitch here.
PC Gamer: What would you say are the most common mistakes you see players on ladder making?
Forsen: Well, they’re focused too much on copying other players’ decks without actually thinking for themselves about why it might be a good deck and what the point of the deck is. It usually takes a lot of time to understand the purpose of a deck, and watching streamers can actually help out with that. But they just go to a streamer and say “oh he’s getting this rank with this deck”, but don’t really understand how to play it. That’s one of the biggest problems.
PC Gamer: If you could delete any one card from Hearthstone, what would it be?
Forsen: Warsong Commander. For obvious reasons.
PC Gamer: Who do you think is the most creative deck builder in the world.
Forsen: There are a lot of really good players, but the best players are not usually the best deck builders. I would think that StrifeCro is one of the best deck builders in the world. I wouldn’t say Kolento is any more, he’s just one of those [players] who copies a really good deck from someone else and then plays it perfectly anyway. He doesn’t need to create his own decks anymore. I would say StrifeCro and maybe Lifecoach.
PC Gamer: If Twitch let you have a global emote, what would it be?
Forsen: Tuck Frump.
PC Gamer: What’s was your first legendary card?
Forsen: It may have been Ragnaros I think.
PC Gamer: How do you avoid tilt when you’re streaming?
Forsen: I don’t. I just get tilted. As a streamer it’s really hard to avoid tilt because you know that at least 50 percent of the time the people you’re playing are watching the stream. It’s super hard to avoid it. I mean you can put on delay or something like that, but that ruins the stream quality so I just deal with it. I get pissed, but I accept it.
PC Gamer: You’re probably the most popular Hearthstone streamer, what do you put the growth of your stream down to?
Forsen: Pretty much having a unique personality compared to the standard nerdy personality of Hearthstone. Like, I’m actually a pretty good player, but I’m not a fucking nerd like most top streamers.
PC Gamer: Do you feel like you have a sense of responsibility having your army of ‘forsenboys’?
Forsen: I mean, I don’t use them as a personal army. I think of them as my loyal fanbase basically. I don’t really feel responsible for their actions whenever they do something bad, and I don’t take credit for whenever they do something good.
The game doesn’t really amuse me anymore at all. It’s too much RNG.
PC Gamer: What’s been your happiest Hearthstone moment so far?
Forsen: That’s a hard one. I haven’t been happy playing Hearthstone in a long time.
PC Gamer: You haven’t?
Forsen: No.
PC Gamer: Why?
Forsen: Because the game doesn’t really amuse me anymore at all. It’s too much RNG. I come from StarCraft II where it’s all about skill, and I play Hearthstone and get rekt by some guy who’s getting lucky you know? 10 levels beneath me in skill.
PC Gamer: And of course you’re never lucky.
Forsen: Yeah, exactly. I dunno, probably when I played the Fight Night series a year ago. Kind of the first Hearthstone tournament. I won that.
PC Gamer: Do you think the amount of RNG in the game is going to keep holding it back?
Forsen: Oh, not at all. The more RNG there is, the more casual the game is—and the more casual the game is, the more viewers it has. So it’s a good thing for the community. I don’t personally enjoy it, but I enjoy having a big community around Hearthstone, because that’s the main game I stream.
PC Gamer: And what would you say has been your lowest moment in relation to Hearthstone?
Forsen: Everything has been going upwards for me, so I can’t really pick a lowest moment. But I guess whenever you feel like everything is going against you on a stream, that’s like one of the most horrible experiences ever. You have to keep streaming even though you’re fucking feeling so bad because of all the stream snipers, bad RNG, and all that shit. But I wouldn’t say I’ve had a lowest moment.
PC Gamer: Are you still interested in competing in tournaments? You famously slept through the Last Call qualifier for the Hearthstone European championship.
Forsen: I mean, I’m not tryharding. If I get invited to stuff I’ll play for my fans, but not because I want to win. So that’s pretty much it when it comes to tournaments for me.
PC Gamer: If you were [Team 5 senior game designer] Ben Brode for a day, what would you do?
Forsen: I would probably see a doctor for my throat, because that would be hurting like shit from all the laughing. That guy is insane.
Other recent Hearthstone interviews with pro players and streamers include Brian Kibler, Savjz and Amnesiac. Also check out our lengthy chat with Hearthstone's senior game designer Ben Brode.
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