Pre-Ramble – This took way too long to write

I’ve re-written this post 3 times now. In my first draft, I had written 1500+ words on the state of Hearthstone commentary and nearly convinced myself there were no good casters at all in Hearthstone, which I don’t think is necessarily true at all.

I purged it with fire and started from scratch. In my defense, it started off promising. I felt like I hit some great points with strong video examples to drive my point home. But I did a quick read-through and the tone was overly negative which is ironic given the title for this post. Didn’t like it at all. So I’m taking the post in a different direction.

Generally, I want to use this series to talk about my own casting experiences and share any knowledge I have for any aspiring casters or interested fans. Above everything else, I believe even writing it out helps me improve which I’m always looking to do.

Today’s topic is positive energy and the value added to a broadcast by consistently having lots of it!

Introduction – Hearthstone is different than other games

Hearthstone is very unique compared to other games on Twitch. There aren’t many climaxes in the game because all of the intricacies are cerebral/strategical. Lots of downtime between turns also can make the pacing slow…especially if players take their sweet time to make a pivotal decision. As such, sometimes long drawn out games can feel boring or tedious.

Yet, the game is fun as hell to watch. Both for personal streams and tournaments streams alike! There are several games where I don’t enjoy watching players stream from home, but I love tournaments. The converse is true as well…don’t think I can bring myself to watch many Heroes streamers, but the tournaments themselves are pleasantly entertaining at times.

I think ultimately the biggest reason why Hearthstone exploded onto the broadcast industry is because of the level of engagement of the personality has to the audience. Brave streamers can read chat, answer questions, and thoughtfully figure out ways to interact. Tournaments rely on the casters to engage the audience — that’s where guys like me come in.

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