How Cora Georgiou Went From Hearthstone Caster to Developer

ign.com:

Hearthstone has been around for a long time now - almost nine years - and in that time the game has evolved a great deal. That’s part and parcel for any live service game, of course, but it’s also a reflection of the development team learning from all those years of designing cards, mechanics, classes, events, modes and more. And as Hearthstone has grown, so too has its development team, even hiring some really well-known pro players and personalities to bring their own expertise and passion to bear on the game.

Back in mid-October during my trip to Blizzard HQ to see the new Death Knight class, I caught up with one such well-known Hearthstone personality turned developer, Cora Georgiou. A prominent commentator and host for several years in the Hearthstone scene, as well as one of the original members of the Coin Concede podcast (now with 373 episodes and counting), Cora joined Team 5 about three years ago, starting out in final design but soon playing key roles in a number of different areas, including leading design on the recent Murder at Castle Nathria set. It’s a path many fans would love to be able to follow, so I sat down with Cora to chat about her career, her drive to succeed and what working on Hearthstone is actually like. What follows is a slightly abridged transcript of our conversation.

IGN: Tell me a little about your card gaming background and how much of a role TCGs played as you were growing up.

Cora Georgiou: First off, my father owns a computer store, and he went into entrepreneurship specifically because he wanted to play video games and sell software. And now that was 27 years ago. The landscape has obviously changed significantly, but you can see where we get it from! My brother and I are two years