Lethally Blind: Getting to Know THL's First All-Blind Team

​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. 
​

Livdera reached out to the Board via email in the Fall of 2023 after finding us through means which she will talk about in her interview. Her initial email to us was titled “Questions about THL in regards to blind players.” I remember seeing that email notification on my phone and immediately thinking to myself, “How in the world?” I messaged the rest of the Board about it as I was ignorant of the possibility of playing Hearthstone while visually impaired and was sent down a rabbit hole where I learned so much about the Hearthstone Access mod and blind accessibility in video games as a whole. As a school counselor and someone who deals with accommodations and accessibility software every day for my students, I had never thought about the kinds of similar software that my students would be using to play their games at home. We then took to answering her questions and there was a determination by all of us to figure it out and make it work. This shortly led to a group DM between myself (Mako), LotusKnight, and MartyB where we held a call with Livdera to talk about how THL works, the website, the rules, etc. After sending her links to important parts of the website and the rulebook, Livdera advocated for changes that would make both of these important parts of THL more accessible for blind players.

Since joining back in late 2023, Lethally Blind has played in every THL Legacy season that they have been around for, while also joining Pro in mid-2024. Since joining THL, Lethally Blind has shown an increased amount of success from season to season as they continue to improve. 

The rest of this piece will be an interview that took place in March 2025 with the captain of Lethally Blind, Livdera, as well as two of Lethally Blind’s players, CritterPup and Athlon.

​Enjoy!

How did you get into Hearthstone?

Livdera:
I heard about the Hearthstone Access mod not long after it was released, which was right in the middle of United in Stormwind. Hearthstone had always been a game I had hoped to be able to play one day, as I knew of sighted friends that played it (as well as my sighted husband), and, prior to this, it was really difficult to find a game that was geared to sighted players that I could also play. I vividly remember the first time booting the game up and going through the Tutorial and how exciting it all seemed. The mod is extremely well done and seamless; I was hooked immediately even though, during the very first weeks of the mod, the only thing accessible was the Tutorial and playing games against the Innkeeper in Practice mode, as well as some of the Solo Content (Book of Heroes). I want to say it was one of the first times a mainstream game had such a really good mod as well, so a lot of the blind players were really impatient and finding ways to play on the ladder in Apprentice even before the mod allowed that (they were able to do so using OCR and force-clicking on things, as once you started the ladder, the actual battling was accessible). I've been playing ever since and the mod has gotten even better: we are now able to play Arena, Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds Duos.

CritterPup:
Quite by accident, actually. I was told by my friends that I should play it, and I thought, "ugh, another card game." There are some card battlers for the blind, none [of which were] particularly engaging, so I thought "no thanks, I'm good." [That is], until one day I said, "fine, I'll try it." I pulled it up and from the first moment I began playing it, I was taken in by the fun tutorial, sound effects, and gameplay. I, and my wallet, have been hooked ever since.

Athlon:
​I heard about the Hearthstone access mod from fellow blind gamers and decided to give it a shot one day, and the rest was history.
​

What brought you to THL?

Livdera:
I'd been interested for some time in trying to improve my competitive game. There were blind-only tournaments from time to time held by the blind community, though nothing truly concrete. I'd been listening to various podcasts for a while at that point and had heard about THL. Curious, I looked up the website and, after perusing things, reached out to the board to inquire on whether or not it may be possible to have a team of fully blind players join the league. At that point I had several blind players interested, so I was relatively confident I could muster a team. A couple members of the Board got on a voice call with me to figure out where the pain points may be and what workarounds we could do and the rest is history.

CritterPup:
Mainly what brought me to THL was the support of my friends. They believed in me more than I believed in myself and here I am.

Athlon:
My captain Livdera invited me to give it a try!
​

What has your experience been like as someone who is visually impaired playing a predominantly visual video game?

Livdera:
Pretty seamless, I think! As blind players I think we tend to focus a lot more on the voice lines and sound effects than do sighted players; whenever those "what card is this voice line from?" games come up on tournament streams, we're usually pretty good at that since often we use the audio cues from the cards being played to know what is going on in addition to the information we get from the mod itself. I think the only current barrier we have right now is that we do not, currently, have access to a fully accessible deck tracker. None of the overlays really work with a screen reader and HSReplay's table structure on their website is built strangely so it makes it very difficult to navigate with a screen reader. We end up having to mentally keep track of things that sighted players probably use a deck tracker for, but we make it work. HSGuru has been really helpful, as their website is well-coded.

CritterPup:
It's been fun and frustrating all at once: fun because I can connect with a wider audience, frustrating because some people are still so caught in ignorance they can't believe that a blind person could ever use a computer, much less play a videogame. The fun trumps the frustration, however.

Athlon:
I have felt largely on an equal footing thanks to the access mod. Competitive information is inherently accessible due to the fact that everything has a name and card text, so there is a common language that is used to communicate about game concepts.
​

How has your experience been in the THL community? Do you encounter any pushback regarding accommodations?

Livdera:
Very good so far! We've had a few times where the team we are facing in Legacy doesn't realize we are blind and players don't understand the special rules for bans, but usually a quick explainer is all that is needed and they're okay with it and very friendly. With Pro all the submissions/bans are perfectly accessible and the fact we are blind may not even come up.

CritterPup:
My experience has been great! I've met a lot of people, and though sometimes I find myself frustrated with the tournament overall, that has nothing to do with THL and everything to do with me. I'm playing in this upcoming season and I look forward to giving it a second try.

Athlon:
My experience has generally been a positive one. Occasionally there are opponents in THL who have had trouble understanding the ban system in Legacy matches because it differs from what they are used to, but the administrative board has never given me trouble about accommodations.

​What would you like to see for the future of Hearthstone or other video games and their support for the visually impaired?

Livdera:
The Holy Grail would obviously be native accessibility without having to use a mod, but I know that is more difficult than anticipated especially with a game like Hearthstone that has been around for a while. There have been a lot of advances lately with game engines including accessibility hooks, though, including Unity and Unreal Game Engine. It would just be that the developers need to keep accessibility in mind when creating things and know they are there. We've had several triple A release titles that are almost there to being fully accessible but they fall short in a few areas where workarounds are needed; it's definitely improving but I just wish it were a given that all games released had some accessibility built in!

CritterPup:
I would like accessibility to become a forethought instead of an afterthought. One of the things that has always confused me was the fact some companies will say there's no business sense in it. I think this is purely untrue. If you make things accessible for a wider audience, that's more money potentially in your pockets. Especially in this age of live service games, this becomes less of an issue and I really wish companies would realize that. For Hearthstone in particular, though, I would love it if Blizzard would finally get to work on or release native accessibility. It's a scary thought that I constantly ignore, but my access to Hearthstone is not guaranteed.

Athlon:
I would like to see more blind accessibility consultants working on games from the outset. Many times they are asked about accessibility late into a game's development. This often causes accessibility adjustments to be added on top of an already finished game, causing a less integrated and/or incomplete gaming experience for blind players. Designing the game for accessibility from the outset results in a more seamless experience.

How did you go about meeting others in the visually impaired community? How did your team come together?

Livdera:
Hearthstone Access mod has its own Discord server and that is where most of my intermingling with the visually impaired community happened. This is where I went to for my initial recruiting for our teams, as well! Most those that are passionate about the game join the Discord server and I've had luck in reaching out to newer players that have only found the mod recently, as well, and seeing if they will join our team. We have a couple we've recruited for this upcoming season that are fairly new to the game that are going to try out Legacy.

​What other games do you like to play? Is there accommodating software for these games as well?

Livdera:
Before I went blind my favorite games were strategy games and simulation games like Civilization, Age of Empires, and Tropico. I've been trying to find similar games to play that are accessible now that I am blind. Other than Hearthstone, I enjoy: Crusader Kings 3 (this has a mod that essentially makes it so you can use OCR to read the menus), King of Dragon Pass (on IOS/iPhone), BitLife (also on IOS/iPhone), Furry Paws (a web-based browser game), as well as text-based roleplaying games (MUDs). I've been meaning to try both Stardew Valley and Factorio, both of which have some sort of third party mod available to make them workable. The Last of Us (Part 1 and Part 2) are both fully accessible, as well, but I don't have a computer strong enough to play them or a PS5, alas, but I am hoping to try them out in the future.

CritterPup:
I play some Mortal Kombat. The latest game, Mortal Kombat 1, has a lot of built in accessibility features, such as a screen reader and audio descriptions. But, in all actuality, Hearthstone is my main game and the only one I feel inspired to keep playing.

Athlon:
I generally like to play deeper strategy games such as Balatro and Slay the Spire, which has accessibility mods similar to Hearthstone Access, and Trimps, which is an idle resource management game that the developer has made accessible.