I am not sure where Ben is so I will answer in the mean time.

1) Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. One thing I love about card games and DCSS is how every time you play you are in new situations with slightly different resources to deal with them. You are constantly discovering new things and that keeps it fun for a long time.

2) I like Sushi. There is a place with really good Alaskan rolls called Octopus or Tomikawa that I go to when I am choosing.

3) We do a lot of Teambuilding things, but that is pretty much the opposite of competitive. We share design knowledge, we loan devs, we play in the same WoW guilds, etc. We even had 9 teams in the last DCSS tournament.

4) I feel like Ben was born for that stuff.

5) I love Spain and Europe in general. The vibe is great and the people are great. I especially like the less populated areas (not major cities. I also like old architecture and castles which you really can't find in the US.

I will also let Ben know about this thread, although I suspect he will see it either way :)

the idea that this belongs on the HS Subreddit is dubious, but i will reply anyway, because I cannot abide /u/mdonais being the top comment

1) What is your favorite non-Blizzard game?

You have to go pretty deep because War3, SC2 and World of Warcraft are WAY up there for me. But outside of that, Tron 2.0.

2) What is your favorite place to grab a quick bite to eat?

Carl's Jr. It's important to note that the abbreviation here is not "CJ's", as Bob Fitch would have you believe. It's "C's J". It's Carl's Jr, not Carl Jr's. This is important. Also, C's J used to have great chili burgers and I'm really sad that they don't any more. Their Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich is still pretty good.

If you want a more exciting answer, I really love Le Diplomat in Irvine, even though it's not as close by as C's J. Get the Chicken Dijon. I love it so much i created an animated gif of me eating it.

3) Are there any inter-department competitions that we should be aware of?

I used to play a ton of basketball - it's really fun exercise, and I get to cheat by virtue of being tall and heavy and thereby unmovable once I set up in the key. (6'4", 280lbs) I also enjoyed getting to meet and hang out with folks from all over the company. But I wouldn't say it's very competitive.

4) When you became Hearthstone Game Director, were you prepared for how many videos you would be doing?

I have actually done less videos since then, mostly because I'm less involved in actual day-to-day design (the design team is 20 people, now!), and my kids are older and sleeping less. :) We're democratizing videos more and I think that's awesome. (Dean Ayala's video went live last week.)

5) Where is your favorite place that you have traveled to?

Korea! My wife is Korean, so we have family there. This was one of the home-cooked meals we had. drool emoji

Ha! Last tournament I won with Human, Draconian, Minotaur, Octopode, Gnoll, Vinestalker, Troll, Gargoyle.

But I think I play Octopode the most.