EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/SayleInterview.jpg)
graphics by SilverskY ♥
There are a lot of passionate people in the Team Liquid community. Everyday we see threads about StarCraft cooking, GSL statistics, or recent global events. It is the people who make these – people like you – that perpetuate Team Liquid culture and make it a cool community. We are lucky to have many contributors to inspire us, teach us, and be comrades, of a sort. Ninety-nine percent of these people are not part of the handful of personalities you see on streams, or even part of Team Liquid staff. They are people that you correspond with everyday on the forums, chat with in IRC, and bad manner on B.net. Unfortunately, with the mass of active Team Liquid users and eSports fans, it is not always easy to appreciate these unsung heroes, and too often their work goes unnoticed.
With Community Interviews I am going to put the spotlight on some of the contributors, artists, and fans that have made the Team Liquid community interesting and warm. If you guys have any suggestions or demands(!) for questions or interviewees, please post them. I know that a lot of people have slipped under my radar. The only people that I will not interview are super-popular community figures, like Day[9] and Hot_Bid.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/SayleComHeader.png)
Sayle
Joined TL.net: October 6th, 2010
Total Posts: 734
Most Active Forum: Brood War Tournaments (34% of posts)
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/saylebw
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/saylesc
Why he was interviewed: Sayle has been on a Brood War commentating frenzy. One of the few commentators staying true to the game, his most recent exploits include commentating the successful Kaal and GC foreign Brood War tournaments and becoming a partner on TwitchTV, the income of which he pledged to supporting future E-Sports events. Sayle's commentary is full of genuine passion and is a large factor in the reemergence of a foreign Brood War scene. He has big plans for the upcoming Proleague season, so you better check him out!
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/SayleInterHeader.png)
<style type="text/css">.lightbigbox { margin: 0 auto; width: 540px; padding: 20px; background: #ebeff2; border-radius:8px; -webkit-border-radius: 8px; -moz-border-radius: 8px; } .Q { color: #00005D }</style><div class="lightbigbox"><span class="Q">Hi Sayle! Where are you from and what do you do for a living?</span>
Sayle: Hi! I'm British Chinese and I do software testing for a notable computer networking company.
<span class="Q">How long have you been active in the TL community? What were your initial thoughts on the E-Sports scene and how did you make the transition from passive poster to streamer, commentator and community figure?</span>
Sayle: My discovery of and eventual involvement in the E-Sports scene has actually just been a long series of happy accidents. I first found out about professional starcraft while looking for anime on Crunchyroll (back before they sold out ). Someone had uploaded a VOD of Sea vs Canata and it showed up on the front page under "recently uploaded" or something. I had been playing vanilla SC casually (single player with cheats and UMS on East) until then, so I knew the game already, but I had no idea about competitive 1v1s or the pro scene. I don't recall any "initial thoughts" I had on it since it actually took me a long time to gradually figure out just how big the scene was, but I do remember finding Nada's salary one day and immediately running to my dad and going "HAH! People CAN make money playing video games!"
I discovered TL about 3 years ago, but I was just an account-less lurker for a long time. Actually, the reason I made an account was so that I could PM OneOther to thank him for his 12nex guide, so special shoutout to him. I wasn't really active in the community until maybe a year or so ago though. That was before SC2 was out, so there were a lot of BW streams on TL and I just kind of jumped on the bandwagon. My first 'official' cast actually came about while I was a lowly ICCup ladder admin. They were hosting an A-B tour and needed someone to cast, so I volunteered. Apparently I did a good job, because I ended up casting all the ICCup events after that, and, well, here we are Actually, a little side story to that. LRM)nOoNe had stepped up to cast the previous month's A-B tour and had done such a horrible job of it that neither he nor the head admin wanted him to cast again, so you could say it's partially thanks to him that I started casting ^^
<span class="Q">Since the release of StarCraft 2 the E-Sports community has seen the birth of dozens of commentators. Why is it that you didn't jump on the StarCraft 2 "gravy train" and decided to stick with Brood War?</span>
Sayle: Basically, I don't enjoy the game as much as I do BW, either as a spectator or a player. Note that I'm not saying SC2 is bad or anything like that. SC2 is fine. I just like BW better. And because of that, I think I wouldn't do a very good job of casting SC2 anyway. Doing anything well requires passion, and I think that's especially true for casting. When I'm yelling and screaming about games during my casts, the emotions are all real. I'm genuinely excited to see a monster plague go off or a command center get infested, and that gets the viewers excited too. I don't think I could bring that same level of excitement to an SC2 game. Another problem is that my SC2 game knowledge is lacking. I played a lot of SC2 during patch 1.2, enough to get masters level as protoss and zerg, and watched a ton of VODs/streams, but I still felt really clueless about the game. A big part of that of course is that the game is still constantly evolving, both due to strategy changes and patches, and it's hard to keep up with everything. Combine that with the fact that I'm not really passionate about it anyway, and there's really no point for me to switch over. I'd just end up as another mediocre SC2 commentator.
<span class="Q">As a commentator and spectator, do you think that there are any essential components of Brood War that are missing from Starcraft 2? If so, which ones?</span>
Sayle: I'm always uneasy about this kind of question since it almost inevitably leads to pointless flaming. At the moment, I think my biggest complaint is smartcasting. The fact that now Jangbi storms can be executed by almost anybody takes that 'wow' factor out of the game. However, I do somewhat agree with the argument that purposefully adding a mechanical limitation to the game would be silly and contrived. It's a pretty thin line between "difficult but rewarding" and "pointlessly hard".
<span class="Q">What are your thoughts on the spectator-friendly aides in StarCraft 2, like the production tab? Do they help or hinder the spectator experience?</span>
Sayle: This is another fine line that seems to have been crossed between BW and SC2. On one hand, I think that the plain BW spectator interface (no obs mode) is slightly lacking, but on the other hand the mass of information in SC2 makes the commentators seem a bit redundant. I may be biased since it's what I use, but I think the obs mode plugin for BW actually makes the best viewing experience. You can see all the upgrades/production when the observer clicks on a building, but you can still get surprised when the observer goes to the terran base and suddenly there's 6 starports making battlecruisers. Essentially, you're given full information limited by what the observer is looking at, which allows the observer to be like the storyteller for the game. As an analogy, spectating BW with obs mode is like reading a first-person narrative. You know and see everything that the main character does, and you're surprised when the main character is. Spectating SC2 is like reading a book with an omniscient narrator. You know literally everything, so it makes things a bit less exciting. Watching BW with no obs mode is like reading a book with some pages missing. It's exciting but you do miss some things and the results might seem unexpected/random.
<span class="Q">Your most memorable E-Sports moment, as a spectator and as a commentator?</span>
Sayle: Wow, so many to choose from. As a spectator, I'll go with SkyHigh's reverse all-kill vs Oz. Special mention goes to Nony vs Idra in the TSL2 Ro8 though. I'm a huge Nony fanboy and the proxy gates on FS still make me giggle. As a commentator, I'm going to pick something that's not so much of an E-Sports moment, but very special to me nonetheless. That would be my dual cast with Diggity of the ISL finals. I really got into professional BW thanks to the Youtube casts of Klazart, moletrap, Diggity and Cholera, so getting to cast with Diggity was almost surreal. Many thanks to LRM)Game for making that happen
<span class="Q">You have been very active lately with the Kaal and GC tournaments. How did you come to commentate those tournaments and what is next? You definitely seem to be one of if not the top English commentator for Brood War.</span>
Sayle: Haha thanks for saying that ^^ I was asked to commentate those tournaments by their respective organizers. I'd worked with them before on other events, and I think with how small the BW community is nowadays, they didn't really have too many options As for what's next, well, that depends a lot on the tournament organizers and sponsors. In the long run, I hope that enough sponsors will be interested for us to have casted events every weekend as we've been doing. I don't have any delusions of grandeur for the BW scene, but I would like to keep casting awesome tournaments with a healthy viewer base ^^
<span class="Q">On October 5th you wrote: "I have a big project planned for the upcoming proleague season. I'm not going to announce the details until I see roughly what the proleague schedule looks like, but it should solve all these complaints of not enough English commentaries ;p" What are these big plans?? Can you give us a teaser?</span>
Sayle: There will be English commentaries of Proleague games. Lots of them.
<span class="Q">What is a tasty and easy recipe that you commonly use?</span>
Sayle: Grapes.
Actually, I've been drinking a lot of honey lately. Honey in tea or just honey in hot water. Good for the throat and oh so delicious.
<span class="Q">Ideally, what will be the state of the Korean BW scene when PL returns?
[this interview was conducted before the big KeSPA news]</span>
Sayle: Hopefully all the current 'issues' will be resolved and we can just have a normal PL season like the ones before (with fewer teams I suppose). So, Flash will have fully recovered; the 8th team will be officially formed; MBCGame will stay alive long enough to cast the new season; Sayle will be hired by OGN to cast PL in English; Sayle and TossGirl fall in love and get married. Wait what. To be honest, I'm not actually following all the news very closely. I've just sort of buried my head in the sand and am hoping everything will be fine.
<span class="Q">What are some of your non-StarCraft hobbies?</span>
Sayle: People have hobbies outside of Starcraft? O_o
I watch anime, play piano, cook, and occasionally play badminton and poker with people from work.
<span class="Q">Jiyeon or Eunjung from T-ara?</span>
Sayle: What's a T-ara?
[interviewer: -_-;]
<span class="Q">Why so many grapes? After like 100 don't you get sick of them?</span>
Sayle: I'll get sick of grapes when Bisu wins an OSL.
<span class="Q">Who is your favorite Korean player, who is your favorite foreign player, and who is your favorite foreign player who is now playing SC2?</span>
Sayle: Favorite Korean player: Stork (with glasses) and Zero
Favorite foreign player: Bakuryu (with mustache)
Favorite foreign player who is now ez-moding: Nony and Ret
(I'm kidding SC2 fans, put down your pitchforks)
<span class="Q">Who are your favorite non-staff TL users?</span>
Sayle: ILOVEKITTENS (RIP): master of girl blogs
Zergneedsfood: keeper of lolis
OneOther: creator of the 12nex
Rekrul: Rekrul
Kiante: fuck
If you're my friend and you're wondering why I didn't mention you, it's because I secretly hate you. Except Harem. I didn't mention you because you're staff.
<span class="Q">Final thoughts?</span>
Sayle: There's a stupid amount of drama and conflict in the SC community. Whether it's BW vs SC2 or all the dumb BW drama, people should really just stop and think for a bit. The real enemy is not your fellow TLer. The real enemy is the ESPORTS hater. Whether it be Jack Thompson or your 80 year old grandma, the real enemy is the person who thinks Starcraft is just a silly game and a waste of time. We must put aside our differences to fight this common foe. ESPORTS fans of the world unite!
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