Calvin Ackerman

LMBT # 20487 - Sports Massage, Rock Tape, Cupping and IASTM ———————————————————————Maple and River Stan

[Sekine ★ 関根🐉🏁 @SukiSekine]

I guess it turned out the Project was an L after all.

[Dan Harrison @AuxCasts]

Decided to make a longer post to discuss this situation as it’s gotten pretty exhausting trying to reply to each individual comment.

First I want to start off by saying, women are a vital part of the the LCK Fandom, and LoL Esports in general. Every day I see a large portion of our live audience be women fans who’ve travelled to LoL Park to support their favourite teams and the league. At every event like our Road Shows or Internationals, this is also the case. I’ve had my disagreements with fans in the past, some of those fans have been men, some have been women. Reducing any complaints towards me down to gender and disregarding it as a result, is not helping anyone. Women already face a lot of challenges in the space, and I do not want anyone to add to that in order to defend me.

Casting is a very subjective craft, the style of the LCK has been based and molded around the Tasteless/Artosis style from the early days of SC2, it’s something that has remained a constant in the broadcast despite talent being changed quite a bit over the years. Some people love it, some people don’t, that’s okay, it’s impossible to appeal to everyone. That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to appeal to as wide an audience as possible but to completely warp the broadcast to appeal to some people would push it in a direction that a lot of our fans wouldn’t appreciate. It’s a delicate balancing act to try and keep the broadcast entertaining during drier periods while also ensuring we’re covering all the important details of the game.

I’ll be the first to admit we get it wrong sometimes, I’m not a perfect caster, I strive to be better every day but there are times I finish a cast and I’m not completely satisfied with it. An example being shared a lot from April was when me and Max opened a DK game joking about champions names but replacing the first letter with J. This started in draft and then bled into the game, often with any of our more lengthy jokes there will be interaction with production, as there was here, and there can be more back and forth as a result. There was some fans that enjoyed this, there was also some that didn’t and felt we occupied too much time, didn’t focus on the game enough, and especially since it was in draft/the start of the game, didn’t even give a chance to the game before going on a tangent. Max responded directly to the feedback, explained his PoV but also accepted it was good feedback and something that would be worked on. That was the most egregious example from me this year, and it hasn't been replicated since.

Jokes/tangents during cast are essentially improv, something comes up or happens, whether it’s something my co-caster says or something in game that we think is interesting or funny to talk about and it spawns a wider discussion or a funny situation. An example was in the recent KT vs DK match which was very one-sided and there was this intense battle to maintain vision in the bush next to raptors. We made light of that, and focused our commentary on this intense battle to have the last control ward standing. It’s something I’ve seen referenced where even those who aren’t huge fans of our off-topic tangents did enjoy. The thing is not every match has a situation like that to focus on, and sometimes a very one-sided match will just seem dry if we’re rehitting the same narrative beats in terms of win cons, comeback angles, stakes and powerspikes.

The most recent dialogue was spawned from a BRO vs KRX match, BRO have historically had a tendency to engage in ‘BRO and brew’ where they slow down the pace of the game and, for a good period of it, it’s a lot more focused on farming waves and pushing towards power spikes. This series had very long games and long periods where not much happened, and I don’t mean not much fighting or not much kills, just not much to really change the state of the game. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, BRO won the series in the end and that’s their end goal, but in terms of the cast, it does stretch what you can talk about in the game. There’s only so many times you can reiterate what the teams are doing/playing for/waiting for/might do before it becomes repetitive and monotonous. The stakes had already been set, and so our discussion inevitably moved off topic. I maintain that this was the right call.

There’s been this discussion around the way we approach matches between teams towards the bottom end of the table, not viewing the matchups as seriously, or respecting the teams. I will admit that Rise group has spawned a lot of jokes and we do have fun with some of the matches, but we also have consistently expressed our love for these chaotic matches that are a ton of fun to cover. We also have consistently championed players on these lower end teams, Year of Dudu, Year of Clozer, Year of Vicla. The BRO fandom and BRO tax (shoutout Dgon). I recently did a segment on DNS when they were still able to make play-ins and we had multiple graphics highlighting their potential dream run to win worlds. Pleata was a player I fully believed in and praised despite being on a bottom of the table team, when I voted for him for all-pro the Korean audience was shocked, but the Global audience understood as I’d praised him extensively over the year.

I think a big problem with the recent dialogue is people taking things out of context or using small clips to try and further their point, it’s not a new phenomenon in social media but it’s felt more and more prominent recently. There was an example last year with Chronicler where his face was screencapped at a specific moment to suggest he had ill feelings towards a player, when if you watched the whole clip it was obviously not the case. Sometimes a snippet of our casting is taken, posted on twitter and then the dialogue is that the entire cast was like this, even when the off-topic tangent might have only taken up a small portion of the total cast time. Without the context surrounding that moment the joke/tangent might also seem more out of place and forced. I see certain fans chiming in on these moments saying things like “This is why I stopped watching LCK Global 4 years ago” and that’s okay you’re fine to seek LCK coverage from other sources but you’re not really getting a fair representation of the broadcast if the only thing you’ve seen in 4 years is snippets from social media. It doesn’t give the full picture, and I often see those same people making suggestions that we should talk about things like itemization, win cons, power spikes, rotations, snap decision making etc. things that we do consistently cover in our broadcasts, but doesn't make it to these critical clips.

I’m open to feedback, I know some of those reading this will not view it that way, but I read a lot more than I reply to and every week I return to the LCK I think about what I can do to level things up and be a better caster. I do think we get a lot of unfair criticism, but I also think there is valid criticism too. I think a problem with the unfair criticism is they have the perspective that nothing has changed, no one is trying to change and no one is trying to grow. The day I hit that point is the day I should no longer be a caster. Last year during the Road to MSI roadshow I was pretty unhappy with my casting, I felt like I wasn’t as confident as I should be on current trends/the meta/how the game should be played, that lack of confidence in a big arena made me less able to get my points across coherently and ultimately I did not do as well as I would’ve liked. I went into this years Road to MSI adamant it would be different, prepped extensively and felt very confident on my reads going into the matches, I got a lot of positive feedback and came out of the weekend feeling satisfied.

I love my job, and I love the life I've been able to make in Korea with my partner. I'm very grateful that I've had the opportunity to cover the LCK, it was my dream ever since I started casting. I'll keep striving to be the best I can be, and I'm grateful for all the support I get that allows me to continue doing it.

If you read all of this, you're a real one, and I owe you a piece of tiramisu!

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@feviknight As hype as it was that Pyosik won worlds, most of the time it’s usually 4 strong players/players peaking at the right time and one player getting dragged along. I feel like we see this most years outside of the ZOFGK dynasty. Pyosik has been given a lot of grace bc of his title

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

Got my worlds tickets :)

[kelso 🧸 @kelseyremige]

Worlds tickets sold out in under 8 minutes

Scalpers already posting about having tickets and reselling them

I've been playing league for 13+ years and have basically built my life around this game and I can't even get a chance to watch it live in my home country

[Shams Charania @ShamsCharania]

BREAKING: LeBron James is signing with the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year, $8 million deal with a player option, Klutch Sports Group and Klutch CEO and Game Over show host Rich Paul tells ESPN.

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@lolRiver Damn right 😤

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@firelordaimee We took the Stanley cup champions to overtime twice and made them sweat 💪

[Chris Marler @Vern_Funquist]

There is so much beauty in this world

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@CGJXXIII Ey it was a fun ride while it lasted

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@firelordaimee This team showed up in such a big way for the fans this year. Gave us an absolute show of a lifetime

[Gritty @GrittyNHL]

ilysm, philly

[Ulises @UlisesDavid__]

Si decís que la Coca y la Pepsi tienen el mismo sabor no tenés papilas gustativas en absoluto

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

Last place to see this. But some volleyball highlights. Been my life since taking a step back from league

[Iran Embassy in Thailand ☫ @IranInThailand]

Are you ready folks?

[Philly sports thruther @phillysportruth]

FLYERS ARE IN A PLAYOFF SPOT

[Annie Wu (all socials: @annie_wu_22) @Annie_Wu_22]

& that’s a LOT of hate!

[Calvin Ackerman @MongooseLMBT]

@paola_m41 Guess its time for me to get a new jersey 🥲

[Philadelphia Eagles @Eagles]

An exciting four seasons 🥹