RotterdaM 'Grilled' interview (41 mins)

"Not much, if I have to be honest. I practice a lot, I think, as a caster, and I really put lot of time and effort into understanding the game as well, but I'm very well aware of that fact that they make decisions that, even though I see them and can try to make sense out of them, that I understand the full reasoning out of it. That's one of the challenging parts of my profession, to some degree at least, that I will never fully be able to understand why someone makes a certain decision.

Even though sometimes it's going to be super obvious, straight to the point, sometimes progamers play bad too, like there's no shame in it. I will do a shitty cast every now and then and some players will play a shitty game, that happens. I do not understand the game on the same level they understand it, even though I watch so much StarCraft and I play a lot, and I play on a respectable level, that I could almost compete even. That still doesn't mean I have the same knowledge that these players have.

As much as the fans out there would love to think that Caster A or Caster B knows as much about the game as the players, no, that's absolute rubbish. Most GrandMaster league players know more about the game than any caster."

"The problem lays within the tournament as well, a lot of tournaments are just all about putting on a great show, having lots of fancy lights and a big stage, but they don't really expose the personality of those players. Cos those Korean players, they have personality and they're damn fun to hang out with, and they have a sense of humour as well. But if they never get the stage to really show how they are to the audience then they can identify with those guys, so they will never feel the same about those guys as they feel with a raging IdrA or a charismatic Grubby, you know."

"His dedication to the game and the passion that he has to be the absolute best in whatever he does. NaNiwa is a person that can really block pretty much anything out in his life that's going on, like he'll care about nothing else but being the best in the game. I have always admired his passion for the game, he's never played the game for money, he's always just played for, perhaps just to compete, he wants to be the best in what he does and he wants to win.

You don't make NaNiwa any happier if he wins a thousand dollar tournament or if he wins a ten dollar tournament in a Bo1 bracket. NaNiwa just wants to win whatever he plays, that's why I love his dedication. I still have faith in NaNiwa, yes he had a couple of rough tournaments but there's a reason why he has been so damn successful in the last year or two years of StarCraft. Maybe 2012 hasn't been as successful as 2011 was for him, but in 2013 I'm damn sure we're gonna hear a lot from NaNiwa again.

It's weird, he has this kind of drive to compete and this will to be the best, it's almost like Ash Ketchum in Pokemon, you know, he wants to be the very best, that's NaNiwa, and he's going to do good again."