The Creation and Early Days of THL

By JediNinja

  I was introduced to Hearthstone when the game officially launched after the open beta, and I quickly became obsessed with it. I spent all of my spare time on r/hearthstone or watching various streamers, hoping the mobile release would come soon. The combination of creative planning and intense PvP gameplay was captivating like nothing else I had ever played.

  The problem for me was finding a way to enjoy the game. Ranked ladder was too grindy for me to ever stand a chance. I had a full-time job, a new baby, and little free time for gaming.  It quickly became clear to me that even with what I thought was a decent win rate, I wouldn’t have enough time in a month to grind my way to Legend rank. Tournament-style play didn’t require nearly as much time and had a more complex and rewarding metagame, but the problem with tournaments was that I wasn’t good enough to be as competitive as I’d like. I was looking for a casual tournament experience that didn’t seem to exist.
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  My solution came from an unexpected source: bowling league. My friend and I had recently joined a bowling league for the first time. Neither one of us was very good—we could both score over 100 but not by much. However, the nature of this “full handicap” league made our novice status nearly irrelevant. For this full handicap league, a player's handicap was 200 minus their average score. This meant that as long as I beat my average, I would end up with a very respectable score of over 200. Each team consisted of four bowlers, seeded by their average, and each bowler competed head-to-head against another bowler on the opposing team. Points in the match were awarded for individual victories as well as team victories, and the accumulation of those points throughout the season determined the champion and final rankings. The result was a system where less skilled or experienced bowlers could contribute to a team victory just as much as highly skilled bowlers. Since anyone can produce a good score by simply beating their own average, it also created an incentive for better players to coach lower-scoring players, which did wonders for team spirit and camaraderie. This was the magical social and competitive dynamic that I wanted to emulate in Hearthstone.

  By this time, I had friended a nice player I met on ladder named Jingbudda. From time to time, I would run some of these ideas past him. There was no obvious way to handicap a Hearthstone game, so I needed a different “equalizer” to make space for lower-skilled players. For this, I look inspiration from professional sports, where artificial limits are imposed to improve competition in the form of a salary cap. Instead of salary, we would cap the total “skill” on a single team, and set that cap low enough that every team would need some lower-skilled or less experienced players to make a complete roster. Teams would have discretion on how to allocate those, which then adds another layer of strategy and metagame in crafting the team itself. The problem was getting a skill rating for each player. Blizzard had (we assume) a hidden MMR value that would have been ideal but was inaccessible to us. Jingbudda, a chess player, suggested the ELO system used in competitive chess, which is a system that increases your rating for wins and decreases for losses. Bigger differences in player ratings result in more change for an upset or less change for the expected result. The equation I used for this was pulled directly out of thin air, and my plan was just to see how it went and adjust as necessary. Thus, the infamous Player Rating (PR) was born. 

  With the basic concept and structure determined, I put out a call for participants on r/hearthstone. The response was decent, but only enough for a few teams. At this point I was concerned that I could set us on the wrong course without some feedback, so I put out a call for volunteers for an advisory board. There are many people in the History of THL without whom, THL would not have lasted. The first of those was one of the original board members, Necrohavoc. A great marketer and designer, he came up with some of THL’s most exciting events and gave us graphics and logos that added some much-needed polish. He was also a loyal friend and advisor. It was also Necrohavoc’s idea to look for players on Facebook, creating the THL Facebook group in the process. From Facebook, we had a surge in interest as well as a community hub. With everything set up, we launched headlong into season Alpha.

  Season Alpha taught us two important lessons: the challenge of scheduling matches and the importance of team captains. It was a frustrating first season for many with lots of missed matches resulting in DQs. Despite those challenges, we began to see the pieces for the future fall into place. A player dropped out and a future legend by the name of Slimsch entered took their place. Jaxox contacted me about an idea for a community talk show, and the THL institution of Tavern Talk was born. We were even able to have some streamed matches with casters by the end of the season. From there, the board expanded and changed, and with their hard work and dedication, we made great progress in getting the league to operate more smoothly. I am so grateful to those board members for what they did for THL. It was a lot of work, often unpleasant, and often late into the night. Still, they were exciting times that I remember fondly. 

  As THL grew, the job of leading it got too big for me. It takes real skill to lead such a large group and I was struggling. My life had gotten busier and I was playing Hearthstone less, so I began to resent the amount of time and energy I had to put into THL, and became less open to feedback. This is yet another point where THL would not have continued without a very special person, RidiculousHat. His ability to organize people, seemingly effortlessly, astounded me. Not only that, he wanted to do it! With RidiculousHat ready to take the reins, I was able to make my exit from THL, confident that it would continue without me. 
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  Since then, I have been continually impressed with what I see coming from THL and I am proud to have been a part of its long history. In addition to those I have already mentioned, I want to shout out Markshire, Cassity, Mainge, Dlineman, Viridae, and Donde for all their many contributions. Shout out to classic community members that made it so special: RadDreams, JoshSampson, Detrucci, edennnnnn, JesusC, AndyRodgers, Brunson, Leumer, and DiAmond. Thank you to all the board members, captains, and contributors that volunteer their time and efforts to make THL possible, including those who I haven’t met but are doing a fantastic job today.