Alex Donovan · @Dono__HS
7th Jan 2020 from TwitLonger
A Farewell to Hearthstone and my Story. (reasoning at bottom)
I still remember how it all started. It was a beautiful spring day during my vacation in Italy, touring a old kingdom with an educational group during spring break of 2014. I had just turned 11 years old was sick for the day and was complaining that there was nothing to do. My dad told me to download this game that I had saw him play during its beta but I wasn't really into the concept at that age. I accepted his offer only because there was nothing better to do and started my journey into hearthstone. He taught me the mechanics and I picked up pretty quickly, but I never thought anything would come out of this game. I didn't play many games at the time and had my mind set on becoming a professional baseball player when I grew up (lol).
Fast forward a couple of years and I play the game regularly, almost daily for about 20-30 mins each day, It is not a big part of my life, but gives me something to do while I am bored. I am still very focused on sports and my goal is still to become a professional athlete but then, out of nowhere, I break my leg. During this time, I am unable to participate in athletics and fall behind quickly, and over a span of 9 months. During this time, I fall behind in my athletics and start playing hearthstone a bit more, and start finishing seasons around rank 5. Due to my injury, I miss the tryouts for the 14u boys club baseball and when I finally do get back on the field, I am not the same player I was. This was a hard time for me since my dream of becoming a professional baseball player was cast to the shadows, but my newfound love for hearthstone gave me motivation to compete.
The introduction of fireside gatherings was the first time I ever got a taste of competitive hearthstone which I played at a local Microsoft store. I ended up winning the tournament and decided I wanted to put more time into hearthstone. I was no longer very good at baseball and ended up quitting to make more time for competitive hearthstone play, and that was when I started hitting legend. I had watched an LAN and had saw a really unique deck that fr0zen had brought to the field, centred around the card, frost lich jaina. I had opened a golden one recently, and being my stubborn self and refusing to ever netdeck, I built my own variation of control mage. I queued it on ladder with a good winrate and reached legend for the first time ever. I was not finished, I knew I could go further. Over the past 2 years, I have become more involved in the hearthstone community and a few days after turning 16, I achieved my goal of hitting rank 1 legend.
During this time period in my life, I had stopped most of my other hobbies to pursue my dream of becoming a competitive hearthstone player, and although I liked playing, I started to miss my old hobbies and lifestyle. This had taken a toll in other aspects too as I was prioritizing hearthstone over almost everything else and was not living a healthy lifestyle. It had been brought to my attention multiple times but I thought it was too late to turn back, and I enjoyed playing the game. Recently, however, the game has not felt the same. My favorite archetype of decks: control decks, remains almost unplayable within the current meta. After many months of consideration and my withdrawal from the competitive scene, I have decided I want to focus on my studies as well as music production instead of grinding the hearthstone ladder. I would say that I would like to return to hearthstone someday when the meta is in a better spot for me, but deep down, I know that if I were return, I would start grinding daily again and it would affect my performance in other areas of life. I am truly grateful for all the memories and friends brought to me by the hearthstone community, but I am ready to live my life as a regular high school student. I wish all of you who are reading this good luck with whatever you are doing and may we meet again someday...
-Dono