by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

The Archon Team League Championships came with a lot of hype, most of it based on its massive 250.000$ prize pool that rivaled the World Championships. Not only that, but a roster that had included both some of most consistently winning players, and also some of the most popular. And don’t forget a new and innovative team format that is sure to spice up the proceedings.

Week 1 of ATLC has come and gone, but were the high expectations matched? The opening week of ATLC gave us a lot to talk about, join me here as we recap and highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

Content and Matches:

One thing that must be said is that Amaz knows his audience, The ATLC brought not only some great hearthstone games, but also the kind of atmosphere that has been a staple of the Hearthstone scene. The matches were good, the format lovely, and the organizers spiced things up with nice little details that can only enhance the viewing experience. ATLC promises to deliver exciting matches and fun in spades on a week-to-week basis.  The pre-match versus screens were a nice touch, the player spotlight videos were very well done, and if you need any examples of the kind of content I’m talking about, check out this amazing video by Trolden:

The Bad

Production Values:

Sadly, for all its hype, ATLC had a bit of rough start as Day 1 was marred by technical difficulties. Casters losing connection, slow reactions to address the spectator mode bugs,  and all the typical issues that prompt Twitch Chat to spam FailFish. While these issues didn’t render the event unwatchable, it was a regrettable blemish on what would have otherwise been a super successful premiere.

The Ugly

PR Disasters:

While the production issues seem to be resolved by day 2, the second offering of ATLC had problems of its own. When you are hosting an event that has been labeled as the biggest tournament of the year, you have some shiny new sponsors, and are giving out one of the biggest prize pools in Hearthstone history, there’s a minimum standard of human decency that should be met. Sadly for the event, guest caster Byron “Reckful” Bernstein couldn’t have cared less about it.

Reckful’s brash attitude and foul language were on full effect. Casually eating on stream, showing his lack of knowledge by mispronouncing the players names, and even his use of the word rape to describe a game situation, Bernstein was the opposite of professional. He didn’t seemed prepared for the stage, and he didn’t seem to care. All of these things eventually caused the organizers to pull the plug on Reckful and eventually he was replaced by Amaz.

But this is not an isolated incident, Reckful’s casting has been critiziced in the past, even to the point that he had to offer a public apology after his participation as a caster of the Lord of the Arena 2 Tournament last year.

The fact of the matter is that Team Archon knew who Reckful was, and selecting him to be the voice of ATLC was definitely an ill-advised move. Archon has owned up to this mishap and Amaz confirmed that the casting lineup will be changed in the future.

Hey @PlayHearthstone #ATLC guys. I apologize for the casting setback today – the casting lineup will be changed. Hope Week 1 was enjoyable!

— Amaz (@Amaz) July 2, 2015

Despite a rocky start, The Archon Team League Championship shows great potential. The Archon is bringing a lot of quality content and is quickly working on resolving the issues that kept week 1 from being a golden start. The future looks bright though, and we are expecting that by next week they will have become legendary.

Oops, wrong team!

Mistakes were made!