Amaz

Amaz (real name Jason Chan) is a popular streamer and noted player of Hearthstone from Hong Kong.

Biography
Chan was born in Hong Kong, but moved to Vancouver with his mother when he was in Grade Four. It was in Vancouver that Chan began to learn English, and first discovered computer games. After seeing a friend playing , he bought the game and quickly became a "huge Blizzard fanboy".

When Chan reached High School, he and his mother returned to Hong Kong to be reunited with his father. In Hong Kong he had to go to International school due to his now lacking Chinese language skills. It was at this time that Chan's World of Warcraft days began, going home from school each day to raid with his guild. His fondest memory was managing not to make any mistakes in the tricky boss fight. Chan would later go to university in Waterloo, Ontario.

While Chan's social and gaming life was developing well, his world was rocked when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and later died while Chan was in Toronto. The news devastated him, and while he attempted to focus on his studies, he was left struggling with life and "not caring about anything". Chan states that the one thing that kept him going was the thought of raiding in WoW. While the game served as a form of escapism for Chan, it also provided a source of happiness and excitement in his life, and in time he and his friends would create their own guild, with Chan eventually becoming both Guild Master and raid leader.

Two years later, Chan decided to put his studies on hold and return to Hong Kong to be with his family. After finding the office job provided by his father to be too boring, Chan returned to practising the saxophone, earning a diploma and in time tutoring students for money. He also worked on a board game called Scribe's Arena, for which he successfully crowd-sourced funds using Kickstarter.

When Hearthstone was announced, Chan's experience in card games and with Blizzard led him to take an interest in the game. When Chan began explaining the game to his friends, one suggested that he should start streaming. At the time Chan didn't know what streaming was, but he soon decided to start a channel. Chan considers himself lucky to have queued many of his games into those of Artosis, drawing him attention and viewers and helping his channel to grow. In February 2014 Chan had a high of 200 concurrent viewers; by June of that year that had grown a hundred fold to 20,000.

Trivia

 * Amaz is known for using 'we' when talking to his audience during streaming. Lines such as "Can we do that?" and "Do we win?" have become associated phrases, reflecting Amaz's tendency to consider his viewers part of the team.


 * Since childhood Amaz has enjoyed playing games to "challenge [his] mind and keep it active".


 * Amaz played World of Warcraft for 7 years in total, and was Guild Master and raid leader for 2. At one point his guild was number 2 on their server.

Interviews

 * Official Hearthstone site - Watch and Learn with Amaz(2014-08-04)
 * Team Liquid Pro - Introducing Liquid'Amaz (2014-06-12)
 * Root Gaming - Welcome, ROOTAmaz! (2014-03-04)

Videos

 * Amaz Draw My Life - Amaz's life-story to date (2014-06-04)