In the past few weeks, two pro players have had their accounts banned in Hearthstone. Now Blizzard has announced competitive bans, but only for the World Championship.
Olzhas “Naiman” Batyrbekov and Dan “Alchemixt” Walton, who recently had their accounts banned in Hearthstone, have also been banned from the 2015 Hearthstone World Championships by Blizzard. The pair, along with relative unknowns “Damnery” and “XzaM,” are the four players announced as being banned in a post by Blizzard on their official forums.
The post was made late on Friday night, and has not been promoted on social media or the World Championship section of the Hearthstone website.
The post states that the four players are ineligible for the 2015 World Championships, which are of course run by Blizzard themselves. The post also confirms that all four players were banned for “win-trading,” the practice of queueing into someone on ladder with the intention of conceding to them or having them concede to you in order to advance your rank.
While the players are banned from the 2015 World Championships, Blizzard gave no information on the length of the bans or whether or not they are eligible for third-party tournaments that give out HWC points.
According to Walton, Blizzard gave no indication to the banned players that their bans would now in fact be made public. Blizzard has in the past as a matter of course not released any information about players who have been banned.
