Piratechnics: Europe and North America Made Their Own Decisions on What Would Be the Best Formats for Their Leagues

Interview conducted by Jessica "DuelQueen" Pohl.

After IEM Cologne, we had a chance to sit down and talk to Devin "Piratechnics" Younge. He has been working for Riot since the Spring Split 2015. Prior to that, he cast the English stream of the LPL with Indiana "Froskurinn" Black before moving onto the European LCS.

GameSpot: Since you couldn't cast Worlds this year, were you glad to cast the last tournament of the year?

Piratechnics: Yeah, it's been really exciting to be along for the ride at IEM Cologne, so I hope to do more events like this in the future. I'm looking forward to the next season as well!

You cast games together with Froskurinn way before you joined the Riot LCS team. How does it feel to cast with her again--since she's someone you still have a lot of synergy with?

It's nice to get back to casting with her. It feels like when you don't meet a friend for two years and then you get back together and immediately start sharing jokes and hanging out--it feels exactly like that. I hope that translates on screen because when I cast with her it's probably the most fun that I have as a caster.

Do you think the western audience would accept a female caster the same way the Asian scene does? You worked in both scenes and have been casting with Froskurinn. What are your thoughts?

I think it's a lot harder for women in esports in general to get acceptance and I think it just takes time before somebody will be fully accepted to be doing a regular casting job. So for Froskurinn in particular--she has very strong opinions, and she backs them up almost all the time, but people will still give her a hard time with Reddit and Twitch chat. The people that complain are just such a small amount of the people watching that it's so hard to know how well someone is actually received. I think the majority of people like what she does and will continue to do so.

What are your thoughts on the format changes coming up in the summer split?

I am really excited to see how it differentiates the European and North American LCS. A lot of people seem to think that it was one big decision but Europe and North America kind of made their own decisions on what they thought would be the best formats for their leagues. I like the European format changes because it's a little bit more reliable to figure out how to plan the day out and how to get the teams a lot of experience. There may be some less games but, in the end, both LCS formats will have a lot more games, a lot more excitement and I think that's really good for the players and the fans.

But won't the fans miss one game always due to two sets being played out at the same time?

Yeah it isn't always optimal because you wont get to watch all the games if you're only in one place. If you're watching at home from Twitch you can have both streams open. But the idea is that sometimes people will watch a few games and then not watch a few games and it's all broadcasted at once which makes it all very long and people will tune out after a while. This way, you can kind of pick and choose what you want to watch live and there are always VODs available for games you might miss if you don't want to watch them both at the same time.

In this new patch, we seem to be going back to a tank ­meta. What are your thoughts on this as a caster? Is it less interesting to cast because a lot of the resources are spent on the tanks to kill them or is it more interesting because teams have to navigate around it and have to think about how to get to the enemy carries while there is a tank in their face?

Well, it's more exciting than an assassin meta. At least I have more than two seconds to talk about a fight before it's over but it requires a lot of finesse from the teams because while you're running in and kind of bashing each other in the head, it's really easy to forget about the carries. You need to be able to target ­prioritize a lot more and that's where the color commentator can get a lot more in. As a play­-by-­play I don't need to do as much.

Out of the new talent joining the LCS next split, who is a player to watch and why?

I think Noxiak is one person to watch because there are so much expectations on him in filling the role of YellOwStaR but he is also, which we saw at IEM, a very talented player and he hasn't really had a chance to prove himself since he has only been on relegation­-bound teams up until now.

(Image courtesy: Riot Games)