Shadowhorn: The Backstory
Yadin Bromberg, otherwise known as Shadowhorn, was born on March 5, 1997 in Laguna Hills, California and raised through 9th grade in Baltimore Maryland. Following that, he moved back to Irvine, California which is where he currently lives. This is his story.
Gaming was always a huge part of Yadin's early life. Whether it was staying up past everyone at home to turn on the GameCube and grind out levels in Sonic Heroes or getting finessed by friends to trade them a Shiny Vigoroth in Pokemon Sapphire. Gaming was always present, however, consoles aside from the PS2, GameCube and Wii were never really accessible for Yadin and so he found his time being spent on internet flash games. When a friend recommended trying out this new game called Wizard101, Yadin was hooked. Although he didn't know it at the time, this was setting the foundation for Yadin's entire life and career dedicated to gaming.
The Origin
On September 12th, 2010, Shadowhorn was born. Yadin started his first fansite, Mywizard101site (now Tales of the Spiral) which over the next few years not only helped found and grow the Wizard101 community from the ground up, but also served as a leading hub for any and all content, Wizard101.
To clarify, the Shadowhorn you know today was "born" on September 12th, 2010 but Blaze Shadowhorn, the original character in Wizard101 that the Shadowhorn brand started with was created on May 4th, 2009.
Blaze Shadowhorn grew as a figure within the Wizard101 community and helped lead various fansites, forums, community driven in-game events and podcasts through 2014. While he is still a part of the community and has put out some content since, the majority of his time is now redirected towards his career in esports however, Wizard101 will always remain a part of him and has allowed him to get to where he is today. In 2017, Blaze Shadowhorn was invited by KingsIsle Entertainment, the developers behind Wizard101 to be a guest on their monthly podcast, KI Live, while he was in town for DreamHack Austin. KI Live: Blaze Shadowhorn Interview.
An Introduction to Esports
In 2014, Yadin found SMITE, a 5v5 Third-Person MOBA made by Hi-Rez Studios. This was the first game outside of Wizard101 that Yadin really played consistently on PC and when 2015 came around, Yadin took a leap of faith and sent out some resumes in hopes of getting brought on to work for one of the professional SMITE esports teams. He finally heard back from Titan, an esports organization based out of Singapore with a world renowned Counter Strike: Global Offensive team along with a top tier SMITE team which took 2nd place at the SMITE World Championship that year. His work in Community Management opened up the door to what the world of esports could be and also gave him a kick-start in his streaming which he began on June 8th, 2015.
Five Years Later
Over the next five years, Yadin would spend his time in and out of college, trying to balance his passion (now career) in gaming and the studies for the degree he wanted to eventually get. These five years took him down many paths in the esports industry which, as he likes to joke, led him to work in the shadows, behind the scenes, a place where he was able to grow far beyond what he thought he was capable of. He was eventually able to put more of an emphasis on growing Shadowhorn which included putting out higher quality YouTube content along with regular streams. He also worked as a talent representative for PRO Management Group, a leading talent agency in the gaming and MMA world where he got to travel to different conventions across the country every other week meeting with pro players, streamers, sponsors, developers and anyone who wanted to chat.
Present Day
Currently, Yadin puts his focus on two things: growing Shadowhorn into a household name and running the Hollywood Esports Theatre at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. This world-renowned venue, the Home of Cinema and Heart of Hollywood, the TCL Chinese Theatre is where every red carpet movie premiere takes place and since 2017, it has also become a home for esports on the West Coast. Yadin was part of Hollywood Esports when the theatre was first being designed and also helped come up with the ideas for how their immersive 4D chairs would interact with Overwatch when first demoed at E3 2017. Since then, Hollywood Esports has worked closely with companies such as Tencent to put on the Arena of Valor World Championship 2018 hosted at the TCL Chinese Theatre along with the FaZe Clan Modern Warfare Celebrity Pro-Am in 2019 featuring Lil Yachty, Offset, Borgore and Slim Jxmmi.
At the end of the day, Shadowhorn strives to break boundaries, putting out new and unique content to bring joy to others and just really help make the world a better place. Having a platform, having a voice is not something to be taken for granted and Shadowhorn just wants to give people an experience similar to how he had growing up. The Shadow Realm is open to anyone and always will be. Are you in?
