Disguised Toast makes Hearthstone promise regarding Hong Kong protests

Hearthstone if Blizzard decides to reverse their decision to ban Grandmaster player Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng for supporting the Hong Kong protests.

Disguised Toast started life as a streamer playing Hearthstone, before making the bold swap to Riot’s newly released Teamfight Tactics earlier this year.

Toast rapidly rose to the top of the TFT scene after his change to the League of Legends-themed auto chess game, soaring past one million followers in June. Now he’s suggested he would rewind the clock to support Blitzchung’s potential unbanning.

Blitzchung was banned for a year after supporting the Hong Kong protests on-stream.

The former Hearthstone personality has promised his fans that he’ll make a shock switch in the games that he plays if Blizzard rescinds their decision to bar Blitzchung from the competitive scene for a year and withhold his championship winnings.

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“Streamers are being pressured to stop streaming Hearthstone due to the Blitzchung drama, but that’s financially unrealistic for them,” Toast said. “So I’ll make this offer instead. Blizzard, I will START playing Hearthstone again if you reconsider your position about his ban.”

Toast hasn’t been the only long term Hearthstone player to vocalize an opinion. Grandmasters commentator Brian Kibler steppped down from his casting role this week, while Octavian ‘Kripparrian’ Morosan called for the game company to “reconsider their position.”

Most recently, 2014 world champion James ‘Firebat’ Kostesich revealed he believes Blizzard are “totally in the wrong” for how they reacted following Chung’s on-stream comments, and said he was shocked at the developer’s move to “murder a guy’s career.”

Brian Kibler is one of many Hearthstone personalities that has spoken out on Blitzchung’s ban.

“I agree he’s not supposed to do that, that is definitely clearly against the rules of Grandmasters for him to do what he did, but it’s definitely ridiculous how much he was punished for it, and I agree there’s probably something else going on,” Firebat said during Kibler’s Twitch talk-show Omnistone on October 10.

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“They want to make an example of him. The punishment Blizzard has decided to give is just so unreasonable. To absolutely murder a guy’s Hearthstone career, or attempting to, is so sad to see. I wish they’d support their players a little bit more.”

The ongoing controversy surrounding Blizzard and Blitzchung’s lengthy ban has continued to build over the past week, with Fox News even calling in esports expert Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau to explain the situation to their viewers.

The community outrage has even spread to other esports scenes, including Tencent-owned Riot Games, who were forced to rebuke rumors they had issued a muzzle order on the phrase ‘Hong Kong’ at the League of Legends World Championship earlier this week.