Innovation vs Life

kaelaris, the master of describing literally what we see on screen.



... as Apollo continually tries to bring attention to something about the big picture. haha



Snute sounds like he will be a great commentator.




Well played by Innovation, but very boring matches with just parade pushes all day long imo.



What an Epic Series. <3 Innovation. One of the best Terrans ever.



gwho: better than zombiechub and bliffkin



better than a lot of the good casters too imo



blabla always whining about casters...



Day9
Artosis
Apollo
Tasteless
Wolf
Tod
Nathanias
Axslav
Husky
DJ Wheat
Khaldor
In Control
no caster at all
kaelaris
zombiegrub
rifkin



you missed rotterdam





and moonglade and whatever that Brendon's calling himself now. Not to mention leaving out the unforgettable KellyMilkies! I actually wouldn't mind seeing 1 kellymilkies cast a year or so, it would be worth it for rifkin and zombiegrub to fund this so they look tolerable by comparison.



..........no



Added Rotterdam and Brendan to my favs. Feel free to post yours fellas! I'd be interested to see who your #1 is, and who is last...etc.

Day9
Artosis
Apollo
Tasteless
Wolf
Brendan
Tod
Rotterdam
Nathanias
Axslav
Husky
DJ Wheat
Khaldor
In Control
no caster at all
kaelaris
zombiegrub
rifkin



As you guys can probably tell, I really don't like Zombiegrub and Rifkin. The truth is my feelings are mixed. On one hand I respect their contribution to the scene, putting their time and money into small tourneys and generally adding content. On the other hand they are so brutally amateur that I find myself cringing constantly during their casts and lately I've been avoiding their casts altogether. It's like if a billionaire bought an NHL team because he's a fan of hockey and then insisted on doing the play by play himself. And then starts dropping lame inside jokes and weirdness. It's like dude, this is a public forum here! consider the audience! please

Ideally Rifkin and Zombiegrub would hire a caster for their tournaments and cast only privately as practice. Then one day in the future, if their casting quality improves they can fire their caster and take over. These days though the kanerko cringe meter on their casts averages 5 cringes/minute.

That's my $.02



^ lol 1 for the balance, 1 for the honesty 1 for the kanerko cringe meter and target rate



I'd like to hear your thoughts on the specifics of what make you cringe.

I know rifkin can make not very factual calls. That's the technical starcraft side. But i'm a huge fan of his vibe, the way he engages the audience and makes them feel on an emotional level, and how he handles conflict with other casters in a life situation.

So, maybe his starcraft skills aren't as great, but I think he has a great foundation of skills as a generic caster/anchor/host.



:) I hate to take a sledge hammer to so fragile a nut, but you asked for it:

The interplay between the two feels awkward to me, like two teenagers fumbling through a first date. Since I wear headphones, I'm literally surrounded by teen angst.

Seriously though, their analysis is chalk full of no-no's, like:
- stating matter of factly that what a player did was wrong.
Pro casters avoid that, preferring instead to speculate about what the player was trying to do. It's a fine line. After a skirmish, good casters will venture a guess as to who won the battle, and throw to his partner for his take. ZG and RK need to do more of this back and forth guesswork instead of black and white judgement followed by arguing, which brings me to the next no-no...
- they argue
- they interrupt
- The camera work - needs work. They miss more drops than a techno fan without a subwoofer.

I'll stop there since it's silly to criticize amateurs in great detail. They're both improving all the time, especially Rifkin. I heard him solo cast once and I swear he averaged 2 cringes/minute.

Casting's an art and like the arts, the learning is best done privately. It'd be different if the skill they were learning was more earotically pleasing - like drumming.



kanerko: 1 for the awkward date comment! I fully agree. I also agree with the rest. A well thought out partial analysis of blumpkin and zombieshlub casting.



Weird that no one mentionned Maynarde. I found he was great in the quarters matches. Nice voice, not annoying, good energy. He seems underused.



Edit: round of 16



lol @ blumpkin and zombieshlub nice tommunation

@ mkpolt I forgot about him. Who are your favorite casters? post'em up everybody! I may learn some new casters and remember some old ones.



LOL perfect analogy with drumming.

And no, specifics are very helpful. Conclusions without the reasons why are not. I think it's one of the few comments explaining sincerely the reasons behind the dislikes.

I agree the interplay is bad. I feel that's more of a zombiegrub thing.

I hear you on the mistake thing, and it's good to stay polite, give the benefit of the doubt, be skeptical. Sometimes it's clear cut and i've seen just about every caster say something is a mistake, but they always did it after due diligence and skepticism, as well as saying it not so bluntly. Ojbective analysis is a big part of casting, and we can't be sweeping truth under the rug to save people's feelings. It's not ... <insert bash-worthy inconsistent thing here>

Everything you said, I really see the reasoning behind. What I see in Rifkin is separate from everything you said, which can definitely be improved on. He has that likable, relaxed, jovial air about him, which is what I'm considering the emotional foundation of a host/anchor, separate from the analytical skills, and avoiding no-nos that comes with experience and feedback.



Good talk. This is so much more helpful, interesting, and constructive than reason-less blurting of conclusions that doesn't help anyone learn the lessons from.



If I was casting, I would want feedback like kanerko pointed out. specific, thought out. It can be harsh, even infused with annoyance, but at least I got how I can improve instead of being in the dark trying to guess while only being exposed to the negative emotional backlash.

It's always tough being public-facing, as you have to walk that balance between ignoring and being thick-skinned, and really listening to the feedback without letting it get to you.

If there was a caster's tournament, rifkin is my underdog, although he's not such an underdog in my eyes.



:) yes gwho good talk indeed, it was fun and I'm glad you appreciated the effort I put in!



I'm with ya on what you said too. Rifkin's stock is going up. I'm interested on where these two will be in another six months to a year.

There is a guy, called Madals, that went from zero to hero. He started out totally raw, with a terrible lisp - think The King's Speech. Okay maybe not that bad but yeah a total lisp working against him. But he just went for it, selecting replays off bnet, working on it semi privately with a tiny youtube audience, just doing it for the practice, fun and the challenge of improving, but then he went one step further. He hired a speech therapist and worked on his lisp directly. It was amazing to see the improvement week after week, the improvement was noticable especially if it was like a month since I last heard him. Was unreal.

Finally like six months later I checked back and he sounded like a new man. No detectable lisp at all.

Now, he's a downright good caster. Probably the best amateur caster out there in my opinion.



I recall not like Madals initially. I think he fixed his lisp by the time I saw him, but what would annoy me is his random pauses between words, like that one famous celebrity, except he would do it in "piccacato"

Anyways, I saw his casts a few months later, and it was gone. I'll bet that he's a damned smart guy and hard worker.



My fav will always be day9. His insight into games are a level above other casters imo. Highly intelligent, subtle points, very on-point.

Apollo is so solid now. He looks at the big picture.

I'm really liking incontrol's commentary nowadays, and his demeaner is always solid.

Artosis will be artosis. =]
Tasteless really set the tone and the swagger for English casting.

Destiny's style will always be lots of flare, intelligence and a lot of laughts. There is a crassness about him though.

I can't say I'm a fan of the European accents, and rotty / frenchman are decent.

I generally like it when players who don't usually cast cast. They say things that are more analytical, and they change the tone from the usual "official castery" tone. It's the kind of feeling in an NBA game when there is a close-up camera as opposed to the 98% of the time official camera position. You really get to see the details and decision-making thought process that players may be having during the game, as opposed to the casters' superficial, entertainment-oriented, sparse interpretation.



I think a real up and comer is Snute. He has the raw player perspective as well as the on-pointness of Day9. And he rarely stammers, pauses, or breaks the flow of his thoughts. Very enjoyable.



Rotty's English is getting a lot more refined. I can hear that logarithmic improvement, those subtle smoothing of accents, reduced frequency of not-quite-right prepositions. Solid caster.




Meanwhile, I'm lazy with my grammar and sentence structure lol.



Totally! Day9's the man. Between his ability as a player (was GM back in the day) and his practice doing a thousand daily youtube videos, he's a cut above. I wonder why he doesn't cast more - anybody know? I like to think it's because he's too expensive

Oh and man you were on point when you said:
kaelaris, the master of describing literally what we see on screen.

I couldn't have said it better myself




Everyone is better than Crota. Do you remember him? He tried to say what was on the screen only, but with a massive delay. I say tried, because he frequently misnamed things.



Haha man



parade push every single game... a little more variety please otherwise why have 5 games?

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