posted by Sun_Tzu,
With the first day of play for the Raidcall EMS One upon us, we caught up with one of the three casters for the event, our very own and newly recruited de Christian 'Epi' Czech! We discussed his upcoming duties with EMS One, united in calling uk Gareth 'durka' Bateson a lazy git and talked a bit about staying positive.

How were you approached to be part of the EMS casting team and what do you see as your role on this team and what do you believe you can bring to the table?


I have recently signed a part time contract with the Freaks 4U Gaming GmbH, which essentially owns joinDOTA. They see a lot of potential in me and my casting and want to provide me with an environment and the resources necessary to develop my casting style. I want to make clear that, at this point in time, I do not consider myself a top-tier caster. I think I have the basics of casting down, but I have a lot of expectations for myself and where I am headed and I am happy about joinDOTA wanting to support me in my goal of developing my commentator personality (doing this while having a responsibility-laden full-time job is hard, guys) - What do I bring to the table? A fresh perspective on casting. I don't think that many people watch every single game happening in the Dota 2 scene, there is simply too many going on at this point. I want to cater to the players that are as passionate about the game and the scene as I am and try to structure my cast in a way that makes it easy to understand why a team does what they do, in order for each VOD to contain as much valuable information for players that want to improve as possible. A co-caster with a professional understanding of the game is a must-have, here (durka? Slesh? anyone?) I currently focus on improving my play-by-play and making the casts more light hearted. Bear with me, guys. Gut Ding will Weile haben.

To finish answering your question: joinDOTA on the other hand agreed to be the official broadcasting partner for the RaidCall EMS One (with Lari Syrota as project manager and Kawa as commentator and project manager). That is the story behind me making it onto the broadcasting team and tonight it'll be Kawa and myself covering the first matchday for the RaidCall EMS One Cup #1.


You became fairly well known initially through your casts together with durka, but you guys haven't been seen together for a while. Many peopled seemed to quite enjoy that pairing, any plans to revive it for the EMS, or are you reaching out to new co-casters?


I love casting with the durk-man, but the guy is unreliable as hell. I'm guessing he would rather pop a cold one and watch pro matches, or play Dota 2 himself, as opposed to actually providing analytical insight over the course of 1-3 hours. I will continue trying to get him on, though!



Epi - he thinks durka should co-cast more, and so do we over at joinDOTA News!


You've been known to have a very positive take on the community and casting. Do you ever feel like giving in to the negativity, and what is it that helps you find the energy to stay positive?


No, it never crosses my mind to "give in to the negativity". The Dota 2 scene is known for being very harsh. The internet itself is harsh, if you are a content-creator. On the one hand, I consider myself experienced enough in regards to human interaction to understand the constructive criticism behind hateful comments (of course there are and always will be completely unproductive comments that every content-creator has to learn to deal with) and on the other hand I have enough integrity to keep believing that what I am doing brings value and entertainment to many people out there. The fact that I am now a caster for joinDOTA makes me very proud. To give a further example into this phenomenon: I have never thanked Sheever for posting on reddit each day with the upcoming matches. Does it mean I am not thankful for this great convenience she produces? (Thank you!) I assume that a great minority of my viewers are "haters", but a majority of the haters are vocal about it. I do this for the silent enjoyer of Doto.


After the casters for EMS One were revealed on Twitter, you tweeted to Kawa that if he needed anything to just reach out. Have you guys talked anything since, and is there any plan in the making to teach the yank about real beer?


I am glad you asked! Hell yeah. I have nothing but respect for the guy. I can somewhat relate with him and the plethora of things you go through when moving transcontinentally, because I spent 3-4 years in a foreign country (oh, canada), so I invited him over to my place for a beer (albeit Tyskie, na sdorowje, guys) so we can get to know each other. We had a talk over Skype yesterday, too, and the guy is very nice and I am looking forward to the future cooperation. We are also both relatively new casters (both of us casting for about 8 months) so I think it's only natural that we network.


Any shoutouts or last words?


Shoutout to Freaks 4U Gaming, the whole joinDOTA crew, especially Moose and Tobi for their support, Ayesee for his general badassery, the lazy bastard durka, Slesh, all organizations and persons in the esports scene that share the common goal of developing the scene and making it more professional and "commercial" (money is important: best of luck, BTS), you, Sun_Tzu, for the interview, the silent enjoyers of Doto, everyone I met at Dreamhack and Gamescom, my german friends (wollt ihr auch den Grund wissen?), the mousesports Dota 2 squad, Dotasource.de and, as always, a heartfelt shoutout to Maria. Thank you all.


Remember to tune in tonight at 19:00 CET over at www.twitch.tv/jd_epi for your first look at the new Raidcall EMS One Season!

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