Settling In To A New Home - An Interview With Wolf
Earlier this year, veteran esports caster Wolf Schröder announced his debut to the LCK broadcast talent lineup and to casting League of Legends. However, only a few weeks later, he would also announce his subsequent departure from two seasons at the Overwatch League, and from three years of casting the game. It was a mixed bag of emotions for fans and for Wolf himself.
On the one hand, an exciting new opportunity had come to fruition. Being able to cast League of Legends for the first time in his career, from his apartment in Korea, and becoming the voice to bridging a western audience to Korean esports for a new season of competition.
On the other hand, Wolf was not offered a spot to cast the premier tournament for a game that he had dedicated the past three years of his career to.
I was always getting ready for the possibility to commentate on League of Legends since forever.
As a resident of Korea since early 2010, Wolf had spent most of his career as a caster, commentating for StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch’s most premiere Korean-centered tournaments. But even though he didn’t work in League of Legends until 2021, Wolf had always paid a keen amount of attention to the scene.
“I’ve always been a follower of the LCK and Champions, the OGN tournament that eventually became the LCK. Just because it’s always been so popular out here in Korea, you kind of had to know who the best players were. It was impossible not to know if you cared about esports at all. Because it was the most popular tournament out here, you couldn’t not follow it even at a basic level.
“I’ve also played a lot of League of Legends over the years, especially when it came out, so I’m pretty familiar with the game. I had been playing it a lot these last few years because I think it’s a fun game, and I always thought, ‘well, maybe there’s a chance that I'll get the opportunity to commentate this game at some point’. I was getting ready for the possibility to commentate on League of Legends since forever, even as far back as the early 2010s. I knew there was a hugely successful casting team for this game already, but might as well be ready and prepared! When I was doing Overwatch, I was still playing the game a lot and following the game a lot, but I never really got the opportunity to commentate.”
“Then I got a call from Atlus, from the LCK casting team, and he asked me if I was interested; I had to apply for it. He said, ‘If you’re interested give it a shot, I would like to work with you again’. So, I gave it a go. [At the time in 2020], I just wanted to return to my biggest goal for 2021, which was being a freelancer. So I thought, if I don’t get this gig then I’ll just keep doing Overwatch League, and if I do, it’s a really awesome and amazing opportunity. I didn’t know the scale of what LCK would be, but I could probably continue to do OWL. That was the first thing Riot told me when I first had my official conversation with them; I didn’t even have to ask, they told me ‘were totally okay with you doing Overwatch League, this is a freelance position, and you can do as much Overwatch League as you want. Just work out the schedule and make sure everyone is on the same page', so I was like, great!
“At the end of the day, I am a freelance commentator, and my goal for 2021 was to live in Korea and commentate whatever I can from Korea. I didn’t know at the time whether OWL would relocate to a central location; I didn’t know what would happen. So, I thought well, I’ll tell Blizzard what I’m thinking and we’ll see what happens. They ended up not giving me a position, so I didn’t end up doing OWL for this year. There is a possibility I could be invited as a guest caster, maybe, but that's it. I was really hoping I would be able to do both. Achillios, for example, is able to do both OWL and VALORANT, and I was hoping to have that opportunity as well, but I did not get the offer”.
It’s an unenviable position. Without a doubt, Wolf reached a new peak of popularity with his time in Overwatch and the Overwatch League, something that he had grown to appreciate. His unique perspective and ability to always recall teams’ or players’ history in relation to the narrative of a match, was always a welcome addition to the broadcast, and he never was afraid to show a little tough love to a team mid-match, or even their fans.
In LoL, Korea are the defending world champions but they’re certainly not by far the best region anymore.
“Now that I’m a full-time League of Legends caster. I’ve been studying a lot, but it’s not as much studying of the game as it is keeping up to date with everything that’s been going on in the world. In the past, for games like Heroes of the Storm or StarCraft, generally, the Korean meta would solidify itself fairly early on, and most of the world would be doing similar things if not the same.
“But in LoL, Korea are the defending world champions, but they’re certainly not by far the best region anymore, so following what’s happening in America, Europe, and China is actually really important because it gives you a lot of perspective on what a Korean team might do. It’s not random; maybe Gen.G would be inspired by something I saw Rogue do in LEC, for example.
“So, a lot happening, a lot to keep up with, but it's also really exciting cause they’re so much high-level play happening at the same time around the world, and now that’s all culminating at MSI. It’s really cool because it feels like there’s always something new to learn when you watch another region. For example, like in StarCraft, you would watch the NA leagues and say, ‘wow, these guys are nowhere near as good as Korea, but now you can watch Europe and China and be like ‘wow, that’s a really good strategy, that’s very new, there’s a lot to know and learn’. So, in League, there’s so much information all the time, and everyone has a different perspective, and everyone has a different opinion too. You talk to a Korean caster, an EU caster, they might have completely different opinions on a single draft, and I think that’s really awesome."
But as cool as the interregional differences its metagaming come into play at MSI, Wolf is always going to be a Korean fanboy at heart. It’s his home, it’s his region, and he’s always going to want them to come out on top. That being said, though, Wolf is always capable of taking off the rose-coloured shades whenever he needs to and give some of that tough love some of those teams may need. So, how has the LCK’s representative, DWG KIA, stacked up in this international tournament? Well, according to Wolf, it’d been pretty lacklustre.
"They’ve kind of disappointed me a little bit and our casting team out here. We’ve been a little bit disappointed in the support player Cho "BeryL" Geon-hee in particular. We’ve seen interviews with the players, they’ve said they’re still adjusting to the meta, but I think they might have come in a little overconfident. At this moment in time [May 17], I actually think RNG will win the tournament; I think they’re the strongest team at the moment. And that’s okay! I’m sad for my region, but I think the best team right now is RNG.
"I think that when I watch it, they haven’t been able to group up for team fights very well. We’re in a meta where supports are often the initiators of team fights, so BeryL, gets caught a lot, and he's been too aggressive trying to set up for picks when playing slower or playing passively, and still looking for that same sort of engagement, would work well. So he’s getting punished a lot, Also, Damwon are a team that is known for winning almost any game, no matter how far behind they are. Their team fight is so good that it doesn’t matter, but with players like BeryL getting picked off early because of positioning issues in team fights, or just not playing around vision correctly, they’ve really struggled to win those team fights that have kind of been guaranteed for them in the LCK and even in Worlds last year.
"I think that’s just the main thing, just trying to play better around vision and playing better around setting up for team fights that they’ve really struggled on. They’re playing against teams that are more aggressive than a lot of LCK teams, so I think that it’s been a big adjustment for them to play against the rest of the world."
Having a first-hand account of DWG KIA's ability to dominate, through casting their LCK Spring split win only a few weeks ago, Wolf also breaks down the differences between Worlds 2020 DWG and MSI DWG.
"I think the difference is in Worlds was they had their team playing as a unit altogether, in terms of their strong laning phase. Kim "Canyon" Geon-bu was able to become the Worlds’ MVP by dominating the jungle, and they were able to win every lane, so they looked like this god-tier unstoppable team. The only change in the roster is Kim "Khan" Dong-ha, who has come in for Nuguri in the top lane, but even besides that, the team itself is struggling to play around support more. There’s some argument on whether support is the most pivotal role, or Jungle is the more pivotal role, but I’m leaning towards Support.
"I think the Bot lane is not dominant as it needs to be in the lane, and I think BeryL has all this extra pressure he didn’t have to have before, and that has kind of pulled the team into uncomfortable situations. The rest of the world is more comfortable around this style of play, the hard engage team fights and picks, instead of extended team fights. I think Damwon just aren’t comfortable with that style yet. Cause back in Worlds; I think they had a lot more control over the map because of the lane dominance and Canyon’s dominance. With the changes to the jungle, they’re struggling to adjust to having less control.
For Wolf, he still expects DWG to do well this tournament, enough to make it past the semi-finals and into the final match, but it might not be enough to take it all.
It’s probably going to be a DWG/RNG final, with the big dark horse being PSG.Talon.
I think RNG has one of the best roaming supports in Shi "Ming" Sen-Ming. They’re so good at team fighting, GALA has really come into his own at this tournament, they just look like this well-oiled machine, they look like they were born to play in this meta. I think just straight up, RNG has taken this tournament extremely seriously. They went undefeated in the first group stage, and they’re taking every game so seriously, almost as if their lives depend on it. Having that mentality, 'we're not going to stop till we take this whole thing no matter who’s in the way'. That’s a champion’s mentality. I don’t know what Damwon's mentality is right now, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the same level of seriousness that RNG has, just from the outside looking in."
At the time of the interview, The Rumble had just finished its first two days, and North America's Cloud9 had just finished an abysmal 1-5 record in the Rumble stage to begin Day 3. Touted as one of the best teams to enter the tournament, and a team that had the capacity to succeed, at the time Cloud9 did nothing but crumble under the pressure, and Wolf gave his insight on the repercussions of Cloud9's potential failure to make the Knockout Stage.
"The thing about Cloud9 is I think they’re really underperforming. DWG is underperforming slightly, but I think Cloud9 is really underperforming. However, I don’t think this is the power level that NA is. I think Cloud9 is a stronger team than what we’re seeing; I think there have been some nerve issues for the team, especially around in-game team fighting. I don’t think they’re going to get out of groups, but I do hope that they get another shot at Worlds, to play internationally. Because this team is way better than what they’ve shown us. I think they should've made it; the game that we saw, they should’ve been a lot closer. It’s really disappointing, but it’s better than people think. People judging NA off this one performance, C9 is better than this."
Finally, as a fellow "new kid on the block" to League of Legends, Wolf had this to say about all the incoming or potential new fans that might find LoL esports intriguing, but don't know where to take the right step.
"This going to sound kind of corny, but go to lolesports website, and there’s a schedule of all the games that are happening and upcoming in your time zone, and what’s happening in your region. You can watch games that are probably going to be where you are. I would say if you’re a new LoL fan, you don’t necessarily have to watch Korea and stay up all night you can watch the LCS or LEC and have a good experience. If you haven’t played the game, you might be a little confused at first, because it is a very complicated game. Just watch the esports that are happening near where you are and see what you think about it, see if it looks fun to you. Especially if you’ve never played the game, watching the esport might actually make you interested in installing it, cause it’s free to play game, and everyone can play it.
"It’s a game that’s extremely complicated, and I think probably a lot of LoL fans don’t feel that way because they’ve been watching it for several years. But I personally think it’s a very complicated game. It’s an easy game to understand once you have experience with it, and the complicated part isn't annoying or hard; it’s just complex. When you watch the games, there are so many different games that can happen; no two games look the same. The same champion might have four or five different item paths based on the game, what runes they might pick, and all the subtle micro-decisions they make in a team fight, which are really awesome. So once you start to get some experience, I think it’s a really fun esport to watch."
Images via Blizzard Entertainment
