Perhaps in the greatest match of humanity v machine, chess grandmaster, and strategic genius, Garry Kasparov lost to artificial intelligence. We wanted to resurface some of that intrigue, give him the opportunity to once again play a computer, and build excitement around the launch of Hearthstone. In what begins as a story of revenge, we see that Garry isn’t interested in being the advocate for sentient beings, he is simply a competitor. And he likes to win, against whoever or whatever.

In a plot twist, we get a former #2 world ranked player Slyssa, acting as AI to take on the cunning Kasparov. These two great minds battle it out in a documentary that offers more than just a glimpse of the game, but rather a narrative of how two completely different minds attack the same goal.

We concepted an idea called “The Brain’s Last Stand” and reached out to strategic genius Garry Kasparov, offering him the chance to play AI in Hearthstone and avenge his loss to IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997. What he didn’t know is he’d actually be playing against a human.

Over the course of a few weeks, a Hearthstone employee taught Kasparov how to play the game and we filmed his journey as he learned, improved, and climbed the ranks to become a formidable opponent. It wasn’t a surprise that a chess grandmaster and someone with his intellect would pick up the game quickly. The more he played, the more he prepared, the more confident he became. The stage was set.

To launch the new Hearthstone game, our main challenge was finding new users as sustained category leadership had tapped out the audience that naturally gravitates toward Hearthstone. Our ambition was to broaden the brand's appeal by creating cultural relevance beyond the core player base. We picked our target as “Mental Athletes,” people who are interested in cerebral and strategic games, but outside of the Dungeons and Dragons type genre. At a time when Beth Harmon was taking on the male dominated Chess world in Queens Gambit, and the sub-Reddit WallStreetBets was taking on actual Wall Street, our strategy was to legitimize Hearthstone's strategic chops at a broader cultural level, with the notion “Take Down Giants with your Mind.” This strategy and the new audience gave way to the campaign and the execution “Brain’s Last Stand” where Garry Kasparov takes on his giant in the form of AI in Hearthstone.

On match day, as Kasparov thought he was playing against AI, his real opponent - a Hearthstone player known as Slyssa - was behind the scenes playing against him in another room. In the best of three, Kasparov lost the first, won the second, and in a dramatic finish was narrowly defeated. Then it was revealed that he actually played a human instead of a machine (artificial intelligence). This proved our point that all different kinds of brains can be successful at Hearthstone.

The Brain’s Last Stand took the gaming world by storm. The film itself racked up 18MM views across social media, got coverage by publications from 13 different countries, thousands of social media mentions, including a special shoutout from the World Chess Federation. By doing all of this, we reached an entirely new audience which was the goal of the campaign from the start.