During this weekend’s Hearthstone Championship tournament, Canadian player Eddie “Eddie” Lui triumphed over Hong Kong’s Lo “kin0531" Tsz Kin, winning nearly $95,000 and the title of Bucharest Master Tour Champion. He also got a lovely trophy that immediately fell apart. Update 1:25 pm ET: Blizzard says it was meant to do that
I would like to think that the trophy, which was presented to Lui at around the one hour and 53 minute mark in the video below, fell apart in protest to Blizzard’s recent treatment of Hong Kong player Wai Chung “Blitzchung” Ng, who was suspended and had his winnings withheld (the winnings were eventually restored) for delivering a pro-Hong Kong message during a stream. “No!” the trophy in my imagination shouted. “This cannot go on!” it continued, before bravely popping its top, letting it clatter to the floor of the stage.
In reality, there is no higher meaning here. (Probably.) We’ve asked the tournament organizers if they intend to replace the broken trophy and haven’t yet heard back. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, though. We’ve seen trophies break during Pokémon tournaments. We’ve seen them dropped by commentators. Maybe this Hearthstone trophy got dropped a few times before making it into Lui’s hands. I mean, look at these guys. They look like they’re trying to walk into each other.
Make better trophies, people.
Update 1:20 PM: Blizzard PR coordinator Eric Elliott responded to our inquiry, explaining the trophies come in two parts for easy travel.
“The trophy is in two parts to make transportation for the champion much easier. This way they don’t have to plan on a larger suitcase in case they win, and to help avoid risks of it breaking during travel,” says Elliott, adding “If the trophy were to break then we would fix it for the champions.”