Taiwan has been banned from the Hearthstone Global Games due to cheating

Let’s talk about stream sniping, shall we? As much as everyone would like for Hearthstone matches to be perfectly simultaneous around the world, it is possible to watch what someone is doing on a delayed broadcast and use that to inform what you’re about to do next. This, needless to say, is cheating. It’s also what the Taiwan team appears to have engaged with in the most recent round of play of the Hearthstone Global Games, resulting in an unceremonious ban of the team.

The tournament rules specifically prohibit any sort of “stream sniping” in play, and the official ban notice states that investigation found evidence to support the idea that the team engaged in this unscrupulous behavior against the Singaporean team. Based on this, the Singapore team will advance to the next stage of the competition, while the Taiwanese team will be left to consider its actions. And not participate, obviously.