Rdu denied entry to BlizzCon qualifiers

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Dima 'Rdu' Radu is a familiar face to every HearthStone fan. The controversial, but very successful youngster burst onto the scene after his high-profile first place finish at DreamHack Summer 2014, beating Priest maestro Amaz in a game which attracted a lot of attention to Dima. Regardless, the MYM player continued to put up results and solidify himself as a premier HearthStone force in Europe.

Unfortunately, despite winning a seed twice for the Blizzcon qualifying rounds (winning DreamHack Summer and the European HearthStone Zotac Cup #23) the Romanian is denied entry into the bracket. You can find a part of his statement on reddit below:

Unfortunately, all of these results and all my hard work as a pro player will not allow me to at least compete in the EU Blizzcon Qualifiers.

I have tried to contact Blizzard many times for an explanation on why Romanian players cannot compete. Many people in the reddit community think that there are laws against gaming or gambling or prize money. In fact,my team's manager and I talked to a lawyer in Romania to understand if there were any laws like this. There aren't.

This should be obvious based on how many e-sports events are in Romania (Dreamhack, IeSF 2013, Comic-Con) and on how many gambling/game shows there are on TV. More importantly, as a Romanian, i have traveled around Europe and around the world to many LAN events as a HS pro gamer.

This is not the first case of a Romanian player who was denied entry to a Blizzard event. During the glory days of WarCraft III, Silviu 'NightEnd' Lazar, a dominating Undead force in Europe was denied entry due to eligibility issues regardless of the fact that each server's top 3 players received a direct invite to BlizzCon.

As eSports is an industry which has, in recent years, exponentially progressed, it is puzzling to see that Blizzard is still dealing with such issues. Follow onGamers.com for all updates on the story.

Source: Rdu's post
Images courtesy of blizzpro