Jon “Orange” Westberg Was Suspended From Competitive Play

Update: Orange has addressed the situation, you can read his statement here.

Just yesterday, we learned that a pro Hearthstone player Jon “Orange” Westberg was suspended from competitive play. As of right now, it looks like it’s a year of suspension, but that’s a standard Blizzard practice and they can extend it if deemed necessary.

Orange didn’t disclose the reason behind this ban, only that it happened due to “a mistake in his past”. Many people suspect that the reason for his suspension is sexual misconduct, which is supported by the Swedish court records from 2019. However, we still don’t officially know if that’s the actual reason he was banned.

We’re still waiting to hear more from either the suspended player or the official sources.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

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12 Comments

  1. Bullet
    May 19, 2022 at 7:35 AM

    Hi Stonekeep, I’m a hearthstone player, but visually impaired, I can only play this game because a community member has developed a mode that allows people with disabilities to play, but, it doesn’t update that mode anymore, so I want to leave an appeal to that you can report to Blizzard to make accessibility available to the visually impaired. thanks

  2. Chi.Spurger
    May 19, 2022 at 1:43 AM

    Who will get his Grand Master spot? I hope Gaby…

  3. KingArthas
    May 19, 2022 at 1:22 AM

    I’ve been struggling to understand a few things about this story. Orange committed a crime (S.A.) four years ago. He was convicted by a court of law 3 years ago. Blizzard finds out now and suspends him from competitive play. Question 1: Was Orange supposed to go public with this in the first place? Q.2: Was the victim also from the HS or other e-sports competitive scene? Q.3: How did Blizzard find out and who leaked the trial documents? Q.4: Is every streamer all of a sudden some kind of role model or influencer and therefore can do no wrong?

    • Unlikely
      May 19, 2022 at 9:54 AM

      To answer question 2: Yes, it seems so. and on question 3: He’s Swedish. It happened in Sweden, the trial was in Sweden. More or less anyone is free to call the court and ask for information pertaining to a trial that has been held. It’s public information.

      also, what does question 4 have to do with anything? Sure, they can do wrong – but that doesn’t really mean Blizzard needs to let someone be part of the competitive scene if they find out they’ve been found guilty of sexual assault/sexual harassment and in this case – even suspected of rape. And considering what’s been going on at Blizzard I can understand why they wouldn’t want to keep him in their pro scene.

      • KingArthas
        May 20, 2022 at 11:54 AM

        I understand the last part and it makes a lot of sense (suspension part). I guess what puzzles me the most is the timing, since we’re talking about a case that took place almost 3 years ago and it’s not like Orange got away with it or something. Why now? Did someone tip them off or did they already know about it and decided to pull the trigger on a specific time, e.g. a few days after his tournament?

  4. Pandamonium
    May 18, 2022 at 11:06 AM

    Give anyone a little esport attention and they turn into weird perverts like clockwork. Good riddance. This dude always had something suspicious about his demeanor.

    • Pandamonium
      May 18, 2022 at 11:22 AM

      Plus, the little scavenger is feigning an apology now, only due to being caught. He never felt bad or stopped trying to scrounge esport money knowing that his window was probably closing. He went all in on the game just to try to scrounge a little bit more money from the last master tour. I think they actually showed his life earnings from Hearthstone on the last casted match of his. It was absurdly high. This dude didn’t need to be trying to get even more than what he’s already been lucky enough to get. I’d bet he’s found other ways to make money from this one game which wasn’t even counted. I feel like this is par for the course for the typical grandmaster type player that blizzard loves to push onto a pedestal (while subtly making it as hard as humanly possible for upcoming players to gain the position that these players have attained through momentum early in the game’s life). And he tweets that he wants more time to prepare some dishonest dopey statement, facepalm.

      • Wolfur
        May 18, 2022 at 11:03 PM

        What is wrong with you write something like this at this time!

    • Chi.Spurger
      May 20, 2022 at 5:31 AM

      Didn’t he reveal he has autism or something like that quite recently? Would prehaps explain why his demeanor would come off as weird