Should Casters Play All 3 Races? I say No.

Playing all 3 races as a caster is in right now. Day 9 and Apollo started out doing it. Orb, Painuser, and Gretorp switched to do it. Even Blizzard asked for Diamond Random player when recruiting a new member for the balance team. I believe this is mistake. Personally, I think Casters should only play one race seriously.

On its face, playing all 3 races should be great if you're going to cast all 3 races. Instead of the myopic perspective of a 1 race player, you will be able to understand the entire game. In reality, I believe Casters just guarantee they will never have a deep understanding of the game.

If you ask in the TL.net strategy forum how to improve, you'll inevitably hear the following: 1) learn one safe, solid build for each matchup, 2) focus on improving one skill in each game (like chronoing).' If you try to do too many different things, you'll confuse yourself and spread your practice over too wide a set of things to efficiently get better. Ironically, Casters will give precisely the above advice while trying to learn dozens of strategies for the 6 different matchups they play.

What compounds the problem is the limited amount of time Casters have to actually practice the game. If you're professional pianist with 12 hours a day to practice, spending a couple of hours experimenting with other instruments might be beneficial. However, if you're someone with a few spare hours a day to practice, you should probably stick to playing the piano. Because Casting and Marketing are the primary jobs of a Commentator, they don't have enough time to be a Starcraft dilettante and dabble in each race.

Finally, playing Random obscures a player's skill level from the community, and from themselves. If a Caster is in GM, one can safely assume he's good at SC2. However, if he's a Masters Random, it's almost impossible determine whether you really should be listening to them. The line between low, mid, and high Masters changes so frequently it's hard to keep up. To be frank, I actually believe some players choose Random simply to obfuscate their mid-masters skill level.

So, because playing all 3 Races dilutes your practice and hides your actual from the community (and more importantly yourself), I think Casters should focus on one race. I'd rather have a great RTS player discuss the overall strategy of a race he doesn't play rather than hear an average one blather on about build order numbers while missing the big picture.

Do you disagree? Tell me what you think.

Posting is my business and business is good.

micronesia United States. September 02 2012 13:46. Posts 19280

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If it's a caster who is going to be casting major events then you will run into the problem of them not knowing how to play certain matchups at all. For example, if I am a terran expert and caster, what happens when I'm suddenly casting pvp, or zvz, or zvp? It's not practical to rotate casters by matchup.

One the other hand, having the caster lean more towards one race than the other two (slightly or moderately, not severely) might still be viable.

+ Show Spoiler +

Last edit: 2012-09-02 13:48:23

Thanks Epoxide for all your help. Without you I never would have figured out how to install that boost gauge into my car.

RogerX New Zealand. September 02 2012 14:02. Posts 2488

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On September 02 2012 13:46 micronesia wrote:
If it's a caster who is going to be casting major events then you will run into the problem of them not knowing how to play certain matchups at all. For example, if I am a terran expert and caster, what happens when I'm suddenly casting pvp, or zvz, or zvp? It's not practical to rotate casters by matchup.

One the other hand, having the caster lean more towards one race than the other two (slightly or moderately, not severely) might still be viable.

+ Show Spoiler +

Is there a video of this?

I'd love to watch.

"This is more fucked up than Lord of the Flies" - Tasteless/Zyrkhan <-LoL/♞

noobcakes United States. September 02 2012 14:04. Posts 476

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Aren't casters trying to see the game from all three angles instead of one? True the way to improve how to play is to just play one race and practice practice practice, but is that their main goal? Although they might not play as much as others, they analyze games like no other, maybe even more than players.

I haven't played sc2 in a while, just my opinion. I could be speaking complete bullshit.

Professional BattleCraft Player

Bobo_XIII United States. September 02 2012 14:06. Posts 412

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I think it's better to specialize in a single race and have the chance to offer some real insight to the circumstances of a matchup when your race comes up. That, and as you said, you develop a really good understanding of the flow of the game if you focus all your attention to just one race and its dynamics. The generalities of the game that you derived from your experience while specializing in that race can most of the time be applied broadly to the other matchups.

You can still know the general flow of a matchup without even playing either of the races, and if you're knowledgeable enough on the generics of each matchup then you can still get by (Doa/Knocke come to mind) so long as you're observant enough to not make some blatantly wrong calls. I feel like the common trend among the especially despised casters is that they're all around the plat and below level. Learning to not completely suck is step 1

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babylon September 02 2012 14:17. Posts 6229

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I agree with what you're saying overall. It's pretty much universally true that pro players are better analyst-casters than most of the casters in the scene, and all notable pro players pretty much focus extensively on one race. That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with dabbling a little bit in the other races after you've attained a fairly decent level with one race.

I do wish that we had more solid GM casters. People might say casters just need to know "theory" but there are smaller nuances to the game like overall game sense ("star sense," I guess) and game flow.

[insert StarTale icon here]

xmungam United States. September 02 2012 14:26. Posts 1049

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lol i am a caster and i play random and it totally helps me understand every match up and unit from an unbiased perspective because i'm not going to be biased and go "oh zerg units so bad" when i understand their strengths and why it's balanced... people who play 1 race all the time have a very twisted view

just look at morrow, he is very good at discussing balance and tvz and it's because he understand the game from 2 matchups.

i think it is a big benefit

or at least thats what i tell myself as i loose games on ladder!

youtube.com/xmungam ~~ twitch.tv/thenessman

Bigtony United States. September 02 2012 14:58. Posts 890

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If they don't take their job seriously and they can only play all 3 races at a silver level, then you've got a point. If they aren't too bad and can play all 3 to Diamond+ then it makes sense.

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Cycle United States. September 02 2012 15:17. Posts 300

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Strongly disagree. You're under the assumption that playing random means you don't know how to play all three races well and understand the matchups. Using Day9 as an example: he's said himself he less plays "random"; he more plays zerg, terran, and protoss.

Personally as someone who's both played as random and also as all three races, I have to disagree with you and say that playing all 3 races is beneficial.

Additionally, it's not like someone pursuing a casting career is going to actually focus on getting to GM as a single race anyways. Regardless of how people on TL and reddit shit talk people who get promoted to GM, it's really fucking hard to get there. If you're working full time as a caster, it's going to be tough to get to GM anyways.

.kv United States. September 02 2012 16:31. Posts 2106

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I don't think they need to balance their playtime for each race but I do think they should at least play with the other races on like a smurf account (if they wish). It will help them when it comes to analyzing matchup/situations/composition/etc and can use their own experience when casting.

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Rodberd Germany. September 02 2012 17:24. Posts 177

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good casters (like day9 or apollo) have to play more or less random to be able to cast, imo.
the assumption caster = gamer isnt correct in my eyes.
casters have to do a lot more during a game:
- provide infos whats going on
- make predictions about the next moves
- entertain audience

the entertaining part is very important, a almost perfect TvZ caster can provide tons of infos, but might be boring as hell to watch/listen too.

when the casters play random, they get a good ammount of insight for all MU's and it also provides a bigger pool of entertaining. like story that came up during their ladder-sesseions etc.
so instead of focusing on a race to improve the casting, they shouldimprove their entertaining-skills.
to me, thats more important than a deep insight of the game.

Hey, look its a retard-magnet ... and its working

Teoita Italy. September 02 2012 17:48. Posts 4214

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Totally disagree. If i had to cast any non p matchup (not that i cast), i wouldn't have any idea of wtf is going on beyond the obvios "oh cool terran is going hellion banshee!" or stuff like that. Only playing a few matchups drastically changes your understanding of the game compared to all of them.

Of course, this assumes you play at a decent level (Master). If a caster is a random bronze player, he will probably not have good game knowledge overall.

Protoss all-ins are like a wok. You can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.

y0su September 02 2012 17:56. Posts 1759

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On September 02 2012 17:24 Rodberd wrote:
good casters (like day9 or apollo) have to play more or less random to be able to cast, imo.
the assumption caster = gamer isnt correct in my eyes.
casters have to do a lot more during a game:
- provide infos whats going on
- make predictions about the next moves
- entertain audience

the entertaining part is very important, a almost perfect TvZ caster can provide tons of infos, but might be boring as hell to watch/listen too.

when the casters play random, they get a good ammount of insight for all MU's and it also provides a bigger pool of entertaining. like story that came up during their ladder-sesseions etc.
so instead of focusing on a race to improve the casting, they shouldimprove their entertaining-skills.
to me, thats more important than a deep insight of the game.

I fully agree that caster = gamer is incorrect. Let's also remember that a typical broadcasts include both analytic and play-by-play casting.

I don't fully agree that entertainment is #1. I think the emphasis should be on "provide information on what's going on". I do think entertainment is very important too, but how many times have you been watching a cast and the OBSERVER fails to catch some key action? Or the caster(s) are busy talking about how the openings work in the current meta-game but miss the fact that one player is doing a proxy instead. I know that when there's multiple drops or a run-by going on during an engagement it's difficult to split vision, but you'll notice that pro sports will instantly cut off analysis to talk about a current action. What is happening > what could happen.

You can get a lot of game knowledge just by watching high level of play (what casters are usually doing anyway).
IMO you really don't even need to play the game actively to keep track of the current strategies (knowing the players and their styles makes a caster look just as good if not better prepared).

I'd like to say that the last IEM (Kaelaris, day9, tasteless and artosis) did a great job with providing between game analysis. Being a big sports fan I've been missing that aspect in SC2. I really enjoy high end analysis but I'd like to see it between games. I'd like to see more big tournaments adopt a similar style.
For smaller (online) casts (especially solo casts) I think the focus should be on keeping tabs on what's going on and providing some analysis during down time and keeping fans entertained.

-_- United States. September 02 2012 22:06. Posts 6871

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You know, that's a very good point. I was implicitly assuming that being good at the game was crucial to being a good caster. It is for me, but clearly it's not for everyone. Maybe playing all three races is the key to be entertaining.

Posting is my business and business is good.

StarStruck September 02 2012 23:45. Posts 18286

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...

I recommend playing random if you're really, really good and know the match-ups well enough.

I hear guys complain about a lot of random players who look for the easy way out, which is bullshit.

Apollo got pretty good recently and look at his analysis now. Ten times better than a lot of the other guys trying to drop the e-bombs.

On September 02 2012 14:26 xmungam wrote:
lol i am a caster and i play random and it totally helps me understand every match up and unit from an unbiased perspective because i'm not going to be biased and go "oh zerg units so bad" when i understand their strengths and why it's balanced... people who play 1 race all the time have a very twisted view

just look at morrow, he is very good at discussing balance and tvz and it's because he understand the game from 2 matchups.

i think it is a big benefit

or at least thats what i tell myself as i loose games on ladder!

You can play one match-up and still have the knowledge and unbiased prowess to call a game. What it comes down to is being a student of the game and understanding why players lost the way they did. You could be a replay junkie for all I care and still know what's going on.

I'm not the biggest fan of MOBA games, but I have been paying some attention to the International tournament and I love their set-up for post-game, pre-game and Tobi doing his thing with the play-by-play.

That's one hell of a good team they have in that Tournament. Excellent set-up too.

Last edit: 2012-09-02 23:49:27

Asukurra United Kingdom. September 03 2012 02:01. Posts 48

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While I agree with some of the points for and against in the Previous posts, here's my take on it

Being a good player is very useful for casting but not a needed, I'm not talking about playing 1 or 3 races ect, I'm of the opinion that you don't even need to be a player to cast well, as long as you know the game, I've started going to a few lans lately and at one I was talking to about some strats and all the usual jazz us geeks talk about, then the what league you in came up, I answered and asked in turn to the reply of oh I don't play, I just enjoy watching, and he knew everything I was talking about and gave insight and thoughts into what I was asking

Tl:Dr
You don't need to be a good player or play at all to cast/know what your talking about

Aterons_toss Romania. September 03 2012 03:50. Posts 1227

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Blizzard recruits random diamond player for balance team ? Is that a joke ? Is it true

?

Also, the world 2 best casters player protoss atm, and the only really good analysis caster that plays random is Dapollo and arguably day9... but non know what his account is so who knows ?
Other analytical caster that are arguably better atm and play 1 race: Khlador, Roterdam, Mr bitter, Wolf, Grubby ( i guess he is a player... but did you hear that guy cast ? damn ), Incontrol , Idra ( same as Grubby, they are players but casted a few events and were pretty good ), DOA ( not sure about him tho ).
Those are pretty much "the guys" that you go for if you need an analytical caster... so 13 guys out of which 2 are random.

Last edit: 2012-09-03 03:55:48

A good strategy means leaving your opponent room to make mistakes

Dfgj Singapore. September 03 2012 07:47. Posts 5560

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When I did casting I started playing other races and random so I knew what the hell I was talking about.

Taking a bit of time away from my main race doesn't really remove any current understanding, but it adds a huge amount of knowledge and experience in the other matchups. Entirely worth it.

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Netsky Australia. September 03 2012 10:07. Posts 1102

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I think it would be nice if Starcraft 2 casters even played Starcraft 2 at all.

avilo United States. September 03 2012 11:21. Posts 3231

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Actually, what should be required for all casters is that they reach masters level not with random, but with all 3 races. I'm completely serious. Listening to some casts recently has been...well...let's say they've been slightly less than informative.

Sup

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