Blizzard taps pro Hearthstone player to join its design team

Competitive Hearthstone player Ryan Masterton announced this week that he is joining Blizzard's ranks as an associate game designer. The news comes courtesy of PCGamer, who reports that Masterton is a competitive Hearthstone player and streamer of some renown. He also led the competitive Hearthstone team Managrind until it disbanded earlier this month. "I hope my association with the continuing development of Hearthstone will serve to comfort fellow ladder grinders, competitors, and players at large that 'one of us' is behind the scenes looking out for the interests of the player," wrote Masterton in a reddit post addressing news of his hire. Hearthstone lead designer Eric Dodds told Gamasutra in a recent interview that the game's design group is small (by Blizzard standards) and composed of "a team of generalists" that are free to get involved in multiple levels of Hearthstone's development.