You might already be familiar with Amaz’s energetic streaming style and clever combo plays. Now Amaz, alongside another prominent Hearthstone player and streamer Realz, will be shoutcasting the North American Collegiate Hearthstone Open 2 Grand Finals at PAX Prime 2014!
Tune into the Twitch.tv stream Monday, September 1 starting at 10:00 am PDT to catch all the action live!
Our Taiwan Hearthstone Community team interviewed Amaz back in July, and we’ve reproduced it here for your reading pleasure.
Q: We heard that you originally wanted to use the name Amazon as your ID, but that you eventually shortened it to Amaz. Does the name Amazon have any special significance to you?
Amaz: When I wanted to make a username for online games, I wanted to merge “Amazing” and “Jason” together, so “Amazon” seemed like an awesome creation. Then I realized that the term is used everywhere—I don’t sell things online!—so I shortened it to Amaz and it has stuck ever since.
Q: Recently, you sang the Amaz Theme Song on your live channel. Did you write the lyrics yourself? You mention Ragnaros the Firelord, Sylvanas Windrunner, Thoughtsteal, Wild Pyromancer, and Mind Blast in the song—are these your favorite cards? If you had to pick the card you like the most, which one would you pick?
Amaz: Yep! I was just eating one day and I thought of the lyrics to match the Hearthstone theme song. The cards I mentioned are definitely my favorites, but if I had to choose one it would have to be Ragnaros. People who watch my videos know that he hits the target I need to kill every time, earning him the title “Sniper Rag.”
Q: What led you to start streaming on Twitch, and how long have you been at it?
Amaz: I’m a very big fan of gaming, and even before Twitch I would game an average of 4 hours a day. One day my friend told me that I should stream, and since I was playing anyway, it was just a matter of turning on a program and my webcam. I actually did my first stream January of this year.
Q: You have gathered more than 100,000 followers in a short period of time, which is a remarkable feat! Can you share tips about the ways you manage your Twitch channel?
Amaz: It was pretty crazy that my channel exploded so fast! I was lucky in the sense that I queued up with another famous streamer, Artosis, quite often and beat him in a lot of games. Some of his viewers came over to my stream and liked what they saw, and those people became my first 100 or so viewers.
What made my channel interesting was a combination of my enthusiasm and passion for the game, my choice of class—Priest is quite special—and my interaction with my viewers. I would like to think that these qualities are my strong points, and to anyone who wants to start streaming: remember to have a lot of passion for whatever game you intend to play!
Q: We heard that you took a hiatus from your job teaching saxophone so that you could focus all of your efforts on your streaming activities. If that’s true, what led you to make that decision? What did your family think about that?
Amaz: With the amount of work required, like responding to messages, editing videos, and streaming, I had to make a hard decision to focus on one thing in my life. So I did put saxophone teaching on pause, but so far it has paid off!
While some family members were initially concerned, they understood that I really enjoyed what I did with Hearthstone. In the end, what makes you happy is the most important thing, right?
Q: You have recently joined Team Liquid. Are you currently the only member of the Hearthstone team? What goals do you have for it?
Amaz: Yes, I am the only member of Team Liquid’s Hearthstone division—for now! Even though this team is new, I know that Liquid is a team made of not only skillful players, but players with a lot of sportsmanship and style. I think it is a good partnership because I share a lot of the same points of view with Liquid as well.
For now, the most important things for us are building our Hearthstone community, recruiting teammates, and joining major tournaments.
Q: You started to play on the Asia server last week—does that mean you’re planning to compete in the Hong Kong Qualifier Tournament for the Hearthstone World Championship? After playing on two different servers, America and Asia, do you feel there are any big differences regarding the meta and strategies you’re seeing?
Amaz: That’s right: the Asia qualifiers require me to have at least a Legend ranking, so it’s time for me to really focus on that to make the deadline for this season. So far in my ladder journey, I have found that Asia players tend to like creativity, as a lot of unused and interesting cards are included in players’ decks compared to the builds on the US and EU servers. Also, Asia players love the Druid, so building an anti-Druid deck should help players starting in the Rank 5 to Legend bracket onwards.
Q: We heard that your flight to the Dreamhack Summer competition took 17 hours! Did you have any jetlag at the competition? How did you adjust to that? Do you do any special training or practice before big games? Do you play Hearthstone when you don’t have your stream going?
Amaz: When I’m not streaming, I do play classes other than Priest in Hearthstone, just to make sure I still understand how they play and to prepare for tournaments. Before a major event, I try to organize some practice time with other pros and talk about what decks are the best to bring in the current state of the tournament meta, which is really different compared to the ladder meta, surprisingly.
And yes, even though the flight was 17 hours, I fixed my jet lag quite fast, since I’m used to traveling frequently and I can plan ahead. Being well rested is probably the most important factor to performing well in a tournament.
Q: You mostly play Priest on your Twitch channel. What led you to choose to play that character? Did you mainly play Priest back in your World of Warcraft days?
Amaz: I chose Priest as my main class in Hearthstone because of the card Thoughtsteal. I still believe it to be the strongest card in the game, as my logic goes like this: Think of the best card in the game . . . my Thoughtsteal will take that card plus an additional one!
In a more practical sense, the card opens up a lot of combos when combined with your own cards. Also, not to mention that most of your opponents’ decks tend to counter themselves: The Black Knight against Druids; Ironbeak Owl against Handlocks, Twilight Drake, et cetera.
In World of Warcraft, I played primarily as a Hunter because, as a Raid Leader, it was easiest to look at a situation and call out Raid warnings while playing a mobile DPS class.
Q: Aside from Priest, what other classes do you do well with? Why do you think that is?
Amaz: I’m probably most comfortable with Druid, since Innervate and Wild Growth can easily snowball any game. It is also one of the more consistent classes when you compare it to, say, a Miracle Rogue, where the deck really relies on drawing Gadgetzan Auctioneer in the mid-game.
Q: We have seen you broadcast some games, and you can explain what’s going on as both a caster and a player. Which role do you like more? Why?
Amaz: The roles of player and caster are definitely quite different, as there are different skills and concepts that you need to have for either one. For now, I prefer to be a player since there is no better feeling than when you have the crowd cheering you on in a major tournament. Even now, I still remember in the Dreamhack Finals when my Ragnaros did two major attacks. I could see the whole crowd cheering and on their feet! That is definitely something I’ll never forget.
Q: What is your best Legend standing in the ladder rankings?
Amaz: The best ranking I had was Legend 34 in Test Season 4 (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/13311672/test-season-4-final-rankings-americas-4-3-2014), and while having a good ladder ranking is important, being consistent across multiple decks is very important for performing well in tournaments.
Q: Do you have any tips or suggestions for players who want to improve their Hearthstone skills?
Amaz: For newer players, I recommend playing the Arena to learn basic Hearthstone concepts such as trading, the value of cards, the mana curve, and preparing for the next turn. Watching the streams of top players and their analysis also helps a lot in developing your early skillset.
After that, find a good deck online and play it a couple of times on the ladder. Understand the strategies and the play style of the deck, and then you can change a couple of cards to suit your own interests while also countering the meta. It is also at this point when you will learn advanced concepts like anticipation, which is guessing what your opponent will do next turn and trying to make it hard for them to perform optimal moves.
Q: In Curse of Naxxramas there is a new card called the Dark Cultist for the Priest class. What do you think about this card? Do you think it will be very useful?
Amaz: Dark Cultist is most likely the strongest 3-drop, as it is effectively a 3/7. The stats are very good for a 3-mana drop, and if one can utilize his Deathrattle correctly, he can really turn games around!