It’s not every day that you see multiple people collectively lose thousands of dollars. At least, not in my bubble of esports, the remainder of my Bachelor’s degree or the scarce article I write for a political party’s youth branch. Perhaps if I dove into the world of esports betting I’d come across a couple of people who bet – and lost – all of their hard-earned money on SK Gaming winning against Grayhound, only to be disappointed by the fallen Brazilian CS:GO squad. I don’t think I’ll take such a dive anytime soon, however, as I prefer a more conservative stance towards a notoriously shady part of the industry.

My bubble burst when I learned that StriveWire was shutting down, causing hundreds of Hearthstone players to possibly lose all the money they had invested.

For those who do not know what StriveWire is (technically they rebranded to “1vs1” shortly before they announced their insolvency in an act of desperation), let me quickly run you through it. The platform offered many tournaments on the grassroots level of esports.  Usually with a buy-in, players could enter tournaments of different sizes and win some nice pocket money up to a couple of hundred dollars. Similar to a PayPal account, money could be stored on and withdrawn from a StriveWire account, with $10 being the minimum amount that could be withdrawn. Given that tournaments happened every day, many players just let the money sit in their StriveWire account for a long time.

And now that’s all gone. Two days ago, this message appeared on the platform’s website:

Dot Esports reached out to Hearthstone players and discovered that, among over twelve of the people spoken to, the sum of money lost was already more than $3000.

Above all, it’s a downright sad situation. While StriveWire’s statements seems to indicate the wish to repay all those affected, the circumstances don’t look too hopeful. As of now, players have no way to prove how much money they still have locked away on the website and who’s to say there ever will be a way. Expecting a sudden act of decency from the company leans towards naivety as well –  they have yet to pay a hired designer and didn’t notify its employees of the shutdown until it was all over.

StriveWire the company’s loss shouldn’t be mourned. The wolf has undone its sheep’s clothing. But the loss of the platform is quite the blow. StriveWire’s tournaments served as a greenhouse for talent. Aspiring professional players went up against each other in a small, but highly competitive environment. Even established professionals participated in the larger tournaments held, testing line-ups in a competitive, but not-too-punishing environment. StriveWire was the bridge between the local pub-tournament and the big stage.

So what now, now that one of the most popular ways for talent to hone their skill? After all, when the grassroots disappear, all that’s left for new talent to arise in is a messy pool of mud.

Well, I am willing to bet that it will all land on its feet. Not only is Blizzard slowly but surely pushing competitive Hearthstone in the right direction (incentivizing organizations to jump on the hype train), but Hearthstone from the start has had an enormous amount of support from the grassroots level. Remember, it was the community’s overwhelming enthusiasm for the competitive scene that got Blizzard to invest in it in the first place.

It might take a while, but another platform will be founded where the aspiring talent can go to get familiar with competition. While less popular, ESL has been doing similar Hearthstone tournaments for a long time – look for them to take advantage of the situation. It wouldn’t surprise me at all either if bracket-hubs like Smash.gg and Battlefy pick up where StriveWire’s platform stopped. A huge boost to the scene will be the tournament mode coming to Hearthstone soon™, which hopefully will quickly be tuned to competitive Hearthstone’s needs.

StriveWire shutting down is sad, infuriating and leaves a bitter taste. It’s a loss, but not an insuperable one. Grassroots Hearthstone has proven to be resilient, and there’s no signs of it wearing down. It only has to be a little more cautious from now on.