SPL Casters (SNM/Whiplash) Appreciation/Criticism - Page 14

I've tuned in to quite a few games this season and here's what I've got to say about the English casting duo:

- It's not that bad. Honestly, I don't think it's as bad as some people say it is. I've heard much worse (English) amateur/semi-professional casting for BW/SC2 for all these years and I think the SNM+Whiplash duo is better than a whole lot of them.

- More teamwork, please! One thing that stands out as a major area of improvement is teamwork. Instead of building on each other's points, the SNM+Whiplash casting often wanders in two different directions as each caster tries to carry his own train of thought with very little regards to the other. Rookie mistake? Maybe. The beauty of the original Korean casting team (@ OGN) is that with over a decade of experience, they have amazing teamwork and build up the excitement piece by piece until the GG.

Let me give you a Mario Strikers (Wii) example: the original OGN team tries to score by doing connecting a bunch of sick passes to build up the ball charge then scores with the biggest one-timer, GG. The SNM+Whiplash duo is kind of like Toad and Hammer Bro trying to score individually with their skill/charge shots. The amazing string of passes from the OGN team manages to avoid the tackles (hate and criticism) from the defending team (the "eSports fans") and when the slow-mo for the big shot is engaged, everyone gets absorbed into the moment before the play culminates in an epic goal. On the other side, the newbie Toad trying to solo through the defenders gets crushed (by the defending team / eSports fans) into the electric fence, ball is loose, Hammer Bro picks it up, right away starts charging for the hammer shot, before get demolished in the face by the defending team again.

Was that confusing? Point: needs better teamwork!

- Less stating the obvious, needs more depth and breadth. This is a fairly general statement and it comes with a bunch of exceptions and things but the point is, casters need to offer something that the viewers can't get on his/her own. It can be anything from past match statistics to player-specific jokes as long as it's based on something factual. We don't want to know about what you (caster) did on ladder two weeks ago, we want to know why the player is doing an unusual build in this specific map and what consequences it may lead to. It's not asking for mind-reading capabilities, it's asking for a well-constructed "educated guess" on the situation. Saying "oh he's doing immortal-sentry all-in again, it's a powerful build when done right, opponent is in big trouble" and "this immortal-sentry may work better on this map due to x and y and on top of that, the opponent is totally not expecting it as you can see from his build, so in z minutes we can expect him to be completely shocked" seems similar, but the viewer gets more satisfaction from that extra bit of expert information.

- Don't get excited before we do. We, the self-entitled viewers, want to be excited. We don't care if you are. It's the reality and it's your job so it's up to you (the casters) to make up for it. Like I said above, you need teamwork to build up excitement. Pass on the analysis back and forth, add and pad on the chain of thought, and don't be afraid to sound like a crazy dog if the situation calls for it. Even after a big main army battle and the seconds before the inevitable GG, float our hopes up there with stuff like "we can almost feel his despair as he gathers his remaining armies, hoping for a miracle" instead of "and the supply difference is 170 to 60 as we wait for him to GG out".

- Respect both old BW-veterans and newcomers to SC2. It's okay and maybe even beneficial to reference BW once in a while - what's wrong with comparing the current state of the game with its roots? I think it's good for all viewers to know stuff like how a player's specific style evolved since his BW days, or how he adapted his style with the new/changed unit dynamics. One thing I have to say here though, is that you shouldn't use BW references if you aren't sure about is details. It makes us (who actually know a little more than you do about certain aspects) disgusted.

There was one game where Crazy (BW: Crazy-Hydra) was making a ton of lings, and you blabbed on for the last ~10 minutes of the game how this style is like the Crazy Zerg style from BW where you pump lings non-stop and toss them at the enemy until they get overwhelmed. Well, that's a small part of the actual strategy, and you missed the core point of it. The Crazy Zerg style indeed makes a lot of lings - but for a specific purpose. In BW ZvT, transitioning from Lair tech to Hive tech can be done in various ways - but commonly the zerg player morphs a handful of lurkers to hold ramps, occupy key map positions, and maybe even try drop plays. The Crazy Zerg strategy skips that. While microing the heart out of the mutalisk stack and keeping Terran player disjointed, the Zerg player pumps lings and immediately techs to Hive with no other gas expenses (maybe except ground unit defence upgrades). The point of Crazy Zerg is to reach Hive tech very fast and with lots of gas (even on 2 or 3 gas situations) so that once you reach Hive, you can immediately produce ultralisks (skip defilers because they are for pussies) and immediately overpower the Terran player. So yes, lots of lings are sacrificed, but the point is to reach Hive and make fast ultralisks. Casting time is short and the game is intense, so I understand that you can't explain all this in detail even if you knew it. However, I got sick of hearing "oh this is like Crazy Zerg from BW" "in BW there is this Crazy Zerg style where you pump lings" "Crazy about to win with Crazy Zerg style from BW" "Crazy, using Crazy Zerg style from BW, takes the set for KT" etc. A 10-second context information like "this is similar to Crazy Zerg from BW - but instead of going fast Hive + ultralisks like in BW Crazy Zerg, [in this game of SC2 right now] he's just going to try to finish his opponent with tons of zerglings!" would have got the job done properly.

- Most of all, keep the enthusiasm up! I've written huge blocks of text above because I genuinely want to raise the English casting level up a few notches so that the viewers (including myself) can have a better experience. Thanks for the efforts and GLHF!