By JediNinja
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This latest piece in our 30 for 30 series is shorter than others, but equally important to THL's vast history. The current THL logo is a core part of the league's identity, so telling the story of its inspiration is critical. JediNinja, the original founder of THL, gives us a thorough walkthrough on every part of the logo, showing that every symbol featured has a deeper meaning.
- Marty

​By TwoStarMako

​The following piece in our THL 30 for 30 series will be written mostly in interview form as I would like the people involved to talk about their story and experience first-hand. This piece in our series might also be our newest as Livdera, the captain of Lethally Blind, first reached out to us via email in the Fall of 2023. Before I let her and some of her players speak for themselves, I’ll give a little background into how Lethally Blind and THL came together from the THL side. 
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By YellowDart

THL is one of only a handful of things in the world with more eras than Taylor Swift; and today we’ll explore an era of THL that, while brief, was absolutely electric. The Discord server was buzzing like a hive of bees who just learned that Winnie the Pooh is in town. Late in 2019, possibly during a valley in the cycles of interest levels in Hearthstone, a “3 person collective” who called themselves Ranklytics showed up uninvited to the THL Discord server and dropped a fresh take on THL Power Rankings based on cutting-edge analytics modeling and discord-scraping technology. It was full of zingers and hot takes, drawing reactions more volatile than Yogg-Saron. 
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By MartyB

​THL’s 30 for 30 series represents a fun opportunity for us to compare players across history. Typically, we’re focused on a single season or lifetime, but we rarely return to specific seasons to measure player success. Fortunately, PAR now allows us to look back on individual seasons and rank them in ways that we were never able to before.

By Wild9

​Every team has its culture, history, and roots. Some teams are based on intense competition, recruiting players who are at their highest value per PR, looking for ways to take advantage of the PR system with under-valued PR players at every seed, and having a strong winning mindset. Some teams are more casual, bringing together community members who just want to play together and enjoy the ride. Defias has always seemed to find a middle ground between these two ends of the spectrum.
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By MartyB

THL has had no shortage of ambitious ventures. The league has promoted all kinds of formats and ways to play over the years. Some were hits with the community, while others received more lukewarm receptions. Nearly all of these formats, however, shared one thing in common: they were run on the Americas server. 

Eventually, though, ambition will lead those to explore the furthest reaches. In THL’s case, this meant reaching out to a new server. Hearthstone’s EU server was historically known to be one of the largest and most competitive servers the game offered. In theory, it was a perfect place for THL to thrive. More players meant more competition and more community. The league would also gain more opportunities to explore new ideas and try new formats. For nearly two years, THL became fixated on making a second server work. Little did The Board know at the time, this endeavor would be far more difficult than anyone could have imagined. 

By Jaxox

​Community.

What an odd term in today’s world.

By TwoStarMako

By Whodack

I think it’s safe to say that your average Hearthstone player does not have memories of each of the Star Wars trilogies hitting the silver screen.  A majority of us likely saw the start of the Sequel Trilogy back in 2015.  And there’s still a good group of us who were conscious enough in 1999 to remember standing in line overnight for the release of The Phantom Menace.  But what would you guess is the percentage of current Hearthstone players who saw Star Wars, before it was renamed ‘A New Hope’, in theatres back in 1977?
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Cards on the table: I consider myself an older gamer.  I turned 40 last month, which means that I grew up in an era where the cell phone I got when I turned 16 had Snake as its only game.  It was my sophomore year of college that Facebook launched and you could only get in if you had a valid college email address.  And, I was already 29 in 2014 when Hearthstone launched its open beta. 

 I’ve known for the past decade that there are many gamers at or near my age playing Hearthstone – there’s plenty of streamers that are pretty close to me in age.   But, surely we in the late 30s/early 40s bracket are some of the oldest playing the game, right?  Most of us with kids are comfortable reaching ‘Dad Legend,’ Diamond 5, each month – but there are no Grandpas playing Hearthstone.  Right?

Jimphilos has entered the chat.