esports
Erik "DoA" Lonnquist talks casting many games, understanding Hearthstone and his new favorite deck.
As we all know, a solid eSports community is held by three pillars: First are the fans, who love to watch their favorite game being played on the highest skill level. Second are the professional players who love to play their favorite game on the highest skill level. The third? Shoutcasters. Often the mouthpiece of a whole community, they try to connect not only fans but also new viewers to the game they're watching.
Erik "DoA" Lonnquist is part of the third group. As a longtime caster in multiple games, he's been around for what feels like a lifetime in eSports years. After starting his career by casting Starcraft II, his home is now OGN, a Korean television channel where he regularly casts League of Legends and Hearthstone. He sat down with us to discuss what it's like casting Hearthstone compared to other titles, what the Korean scene is like and what he'd like to see for the title in the future.
It's all in the cards
"When OGN started their Hearthstone events it was pretty natural to jump in," says the casting veteran. While he began his Korean casting adventure by covering GSL's Code A, the most premier Starcraft II league, DoA's roots with card games go back all the way to his childhood: "I actually started playing CCGs/TCGs back in 1994 with Magic the Gathering. A friend showed me the game in a school cafeteria and I was hooked immediately. The idea of collecting these cards and then competing with your friends using decks you created yourself blew my 11-year-old mind."
With such a deep relation to card games, DoA's personal motivation and fascination seems more than fitting. Together with Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, a big CG-fan himself, he decided to create the IHearthU King of the Hill tournament, which was one of the hotspots for aspiring pro players just after the release of the game. Many now-known pros like Savjz and Thjis kick-started their professional career there.
As the nature of a new and hyped up game dictates, numerous casters switched to Hearthstone from FPS, RTS and MOBA titles, and the community wasn't too sure about what to expect from a Hearthstone shoutcaster.
While seeing a lot of similarities with other eSports titles, DoA still respected the amount of work he had to put in as a host of the OGN Hearthstone format. "As a host for a Hearthstone cast, I need to know the game on a deeper level via actual play experience than I do for LoL. You can’t really watch Hearthstone games and deduce what the players might be thinking unless you’ve played that deck enough yourself to understand the lines of play that are available. In the fact that I came into this already knowing the core CCG basics of board control, tempo, card advantage, trading and deck building helped as well."
Understanding of the game one talks about is probably the most important attribute a shoutcaster has to bring to the table. That specifically translates to shoutcasting video games in Korea, since it is the home to the most-talented players on the planet. And despite the fact that the Korean Hearthstone scene created many talents, it just doesn't compare to the ever-lasting domination of korean teams and players in other eSports titles.
"It's interesting!" DoA responded as he was asked about the very special development within the Korean scene. "It seems like there’s just been less interest in this type of game in Asia. In Korea specifically YuGiOh was fairly big, but a lot of Hearthstone players still came into the game without any previous card game experience. I think that’s the major factor in why it’s taken the players here longer to catch up. Another thing to consider is that practice time via being able to live in a team house is a big part of what’s made Korea so dominant in other games."
Besides that, variance in gameplay has always been a well-known factor of success in any card game, and that is why neither region will dominate Hearthstone, he adds.
Despite all the volatility that variance — or RNG as most call it — can cause to a card game, it is the main reason why each and every regional event is so highly enjoyable. In fact, it is another factor that especially pro players tend to criticize during the last months: Blizzard's Hearthstone Championship Tour has one of the most complex rulesets in all of eSports. From a viewer's perspective, the system prevents the development of continuous storylines because it keeps providing fresh blood; a fact that was confirmed during last week's Americas Spring Championship, where no player of this year's Top 8 competed in last year's "Road to Blizzcon" event.
In that regard, DoA would love to change up the rules just slightly if he could: "One thing I really wish we had in Korea is player seeding from tournament to tournament. OGN has the only continuous league in Hearthstone and viewership would certainly be helped by creating an ongoing story around the players for fans to follow. If I could, I’d keep the top 4 from each season and have qualifiers for the rest of the spots each season rather than having purely open qualifiers each time.
"Open qualifiers are certainly better for CCG tournaments in general, but one that also has a televised component to it needs some sort of narrative that can be followed. OGN has a unique situation with Masters and I wish Blizzard would allow for some flexibility in that regard."
All for the viewers
Another factor that influences the viewing experience of every esport title is the game's spectator mode. With basically no additional features in comparison to the "live" game, Hearthstone's spectator mode offers nothing that shoutcasters could use to their advantage.
While DoA thinks that the basics ot spectator mode are sufficient, there is still one thing that he would like to see improved: "My one complaint has always been that the top players cards appear upside down and still have to be flipped manually by the production company. That also creates a need for separate Secret graphics for that player as well, which is just more bust work that should be avoidable. I’m pretty surprised it hasn’t been fixed yet. "
Play what's interesting, not easy
While others may propose more changes to spectator mode, DoA wants to keep it simple. But that preference for simplicity does not apply to his favorite deck at the moment: "My favorite deck at the moment has been Savjz’s Yogg and Load deck."
The control-style Hunter deck with Yogg'Saron and "Lock and Load" as its core cards received quite a lot of praise lately, and it is arguably one of the more difficult decks to play in the current meta. The fact that DoA loves to play complex decks like Yogg Hunter and Control Warrior once again shows how important it is as a Hearthstone shoutcaster to not only understand but also play the game on a high level.
"At the end of the day it’s much better for me as a caster to take turns playing a large amount of ladder games with every meta deck than just grind feel-good wins with whatever’s strongest at the moment."
When talking with DoA about his efforts to stay on top of his game knowledge he then sighs and adds: "I don’t know how I ended up getting so responsible!" But for the rest of us, it's easy to see what that responsibility has taken him — all the way to the pinnacle of his craft.
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