A power ranking of Hearthstone’s saltiest players

Every month, the Daily Dot issues Hearthstone power rankings. We look at how player across the competitive scene perform in everything from weekly leagues to major tournaments. It’s an important feature for a scene still so young. You can track players as they rise and fall. We’ve been able to anoint young players like Jon “Orange” Westberg just as he was breaking big.

But I’m also interested in a slightly less crucial part of the Hearthstone pro scene: salt. That’s right, the ultimate symbol of a gamer’s occasionally justified frustration, anger, or outright rage. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the inaugural Hearthstone Salt Power Rankings! Every once in a while I’ll be taking a look at what Hearthstone players are making the biggest strides when it comes to salt. Who’s emoting? Who’s raging? Who has “the worst draws ever?” Find out below!

1) Kripparrian

Octavian “Kripparrian” Morosan maintains his stranglehold on the number one spot of the Hearthstone Salt Power Rankings, as still nobody else in the scene can quite match up with his legendary orneriness. Hearthstone pundits around the world agree that this level of consistency over a solid two years of play truly makes Kripparrian the Michael Jordan of saltiness. He’s at least the only personality whose anger can be woven into beautiful music. At press time, Kripp was suffering his second lost in arena after his opponent played a second Fire Elemental. Early reports confirm that “the deck was crazy,” and that “he played that perfectly.”

2) Reynad

Finishing second yet again is Andrey “Reynad” Yanyuk, who’s truly the salty Nadal to Kripparrian’s Federer. Known for his legendary mood swings, Reynad’s salt goes from 0 to 100 real quick and pops up most when he does stuff like buy the wrong packs or concedes right before a bot makes a missplay. While Reynad does maintain that Hearthstone harbors a personal vendetta against him as a person, he doesn’t get quite as angry as Kripp, so for now he’s just a second banana.

3) TideofTime

We haven’t seen a ton of Andrew “TidesofTime” Biessener lately, but he status as one of the most proficient ragequitters in Hearthstone continues unabated. Here he is quitting mid-match against a Leeroy Jenkins bluff and slowly realizing what an awful mistake he’s made. There’s also that time he mic-dropped out of Pinnacle in one of the saltiest tournament moments ever, and if someone can please find me a YouTube video of that it would be much, much appreciated. Unfortunately Tides’ cult of personality has not ballooned to the prodigious likes of Reynad and Kripp, but he’s still got plenty of potential. We’re rooting for you!

4) Forsen

Look, Sebastian “Forsen” Fors makes a ton of money from streaming video games, so he’s understandably a pretty happy guy. Like, how salty can you really get after bad RNG when you don’t even need a team to pay rent? Forsen does crack the top five simply by having the filthiest mouth in all of Hearthstone. How many moments of profanity can you fit into a four minute Face Hunter match. Quite a few, apparently!  We need to do something about that mouth Forsen. Actually, keep it up and you might someday, someday see the #1 spot.

5) Chakki

Keaton “Chakki” Gill doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional definition of salt. We don’t see him spend 30 solid minutes on stream complaining about draws, but he does sport some legendary BM and that’s close enough. 

He’s still riding high off that famed 2014 performance in NESL King of the Hill, where he dusted off an Innervate top-deck lethal with not one, not two, but three “Threaten” emotes before finally wasting Reynad. At the end of the set, you’ll see him Power Overwhelming an inactivated Ancient Watcher while he has lethal on the board, essentially just wasting time before Reynad finally, mercifully concedes. Also before that video ends, Chakki sends a challenge request to Reynad, and is met with the solemn, capstone message “challenge cancelled because Reynad is no longer your friend.” 

Oh Chakki, you weasel you. Salt can be measured by furrowed brows, but it can also be measured by how much you overcompensate. Unfortunately we haven’t seen this version of Chakki in quite some time, which is why he’s fallen down through the salt power rankings. We’re hoping he makes a comeback soon.

Illustration by Tiffany Pai