Few games deliver as many genuinely laugh out loud moments as Hearthstone. Maybe it's because of the game's huge and diverse streamer community. Maybe it's down to the multitude of playable cards, which combine create endless possibilities for creative deckbuilding. Or maybe it's the RNG, providing a constant reminder that we live in a godless universe are are only ever an unseen dice roll away from personal and professional disaster.
Merry Christmas everyone!
As we approach the end of 2017 and look back, it's clear that this has been a bountiful year for memetastic Hearthstone content. I can tell you this safely, as I've spent my entire day plumbing the depths of Reddit for the best examples. Here's what I came up with, in order of hilarity...
The best Tempo Rogue start of all time
In this clip, Team G2 find themselves drawing the single best Tempo Rogue hand it's possible to draw, then topdecking—hilariously—the ideal cards to go with it. The result is a turn three board consisting of 24 points worth of stats, including a simply bonkers 14/14 Edwin Vancleef.
The real joy of this video, and indeed the Trinity Series format as a whole, is getting to hear how the players on both sides react. RDU's reaction is my favourite: "average turn", he dead-pans.
Akawonder with the purest of lethals
Come on, admit it—RNG is funny.
To break down exactly why this is, there are three main factors that contribute to the funniness of any given RNG event. First, RNG is funny when it leads to a really unlikely outcome. Second, RNG is funny when it subverts the "true" result of the game, when one player should rightly have the game won but ends up getting screwed in a big way. Thirdly, RNG is funny when it comes at a high-stakes point in a big tournament.
This clip, of AKAWonder high-rolling lethal at Dreamhack Winter, pleasingly satisfies all three criteria. Make sure to savour the look on his opponent's face at the exact moment his heart breaks.
Kibler burning the card everyone wanted to see
You are Brian Kibler. You're probably not actually Brian Kibler, but for the purposes of this exercise, imagine you are Brian Kibler. You are Brian Kibler, you're on Blizzard's official card reveal stream, and you've been set the very specific task of showing off the new cards in the new set. Over 100k judgemental Twitch chat users' eyes are on you. You don't want to do anything stupid. You don't want to ruin the entire stream.
For example: now would be a really bad time to discard the most exciting new card in your deck. Yes, it would definitely be a bad thing if you accidentally filled your hand to max, so that you could no longer draw any cards, and ended up discarding the new Warlock Death Knight that everyone is dying to see in action. That would not be a good thing to do.
It'd be funny, though.
Ben Brode promotes the new set in peculiar fashion
Headphone users be warned, we're about to serve a second slice of Brode. History has taught us that being the public face of a Blizzard game is no easy task. I remember how, in Starcraft 2's heyday, game designers David Kim and Dustin Browder were subjected to the role of whipping boys, made to suffer for every poorly received patch or ephemeral meta swing.
And yet, somehow, everyone loves Ben Brode. How, with a playerbase as massive and easily offended as Hearthstone's, can the game director be so universally liked? The answer is actually pretty simple.
Rapping, he does it by rapping.
Trump singing (again)
So we've had rapping, and the rapping was, admittedly, quite good. But Brode is actually a relative newcomer to the musical Hearthstone game—this next clip is of the dude who started it all. I am, of course, talking about Jeffrey "Trump" Shih. Trump's debut hit, "Going to the Zoo", won the heart of many a Hearthstone fan back in 2014, and this year he has blessed us with another addition to his solid gold discography.
Here Trump has masterfully restyled Frozen's classic "Do you want to build a snowman?" to make it actually about the Hunter Death Knight "Deathstalker Rexxar". Trump's pulled out all the stops for the music video, which features surprisingly creative production—and while his vocal range is perhaps not the best, he more than makes up for it with pure emotion. A late addition for your Christmas playlist.
That dude who dances when he casts Defile
This changed the whole funny Hearthstone clip game. There is nothing much to say about it, other than that every time a new board clear spell is announced I now evaluate it purely on the basis of "danceability".
Oh, and watch the cat bolt a couple of seconds in. It knows what's coming.
