Esportsheaven had the pleasure to interview LPL Caster and LEC Guest Nymaera. We talk LEC, LPL, LJL, Ahri rework and mental health in esports and casting.
This interview was conducted February 15th, 2022.
How have your first few weeks of the season been?
It’s been a hell of a gear-shift to get back up to speed after a very anxious offseason, such is the way of being a freelancer in esports. Stuff gets sorted out in very, very spontaneous bursts at times so getting past that and getting back into the casting mindset was a challenge but one I’ve been enjoying so far. The LPL team’s been very welcoming, and having a guest week back in the LEC was as enjoyable as always.
As the resident LJL Expert, have you been able to keep up with the League this year, even while covering LPL and LEC?
I’ve kept up with what I can. One of the most key skills you can develop as an analyst is how you trawl through vods effectively, whether that’s on your own or piggybacking off of other experts’ thoughts that can supplement your own - something like MonteCristo’s Bangers Only streams or the various podcasts out there that recap regions are a good example of this.
Any thoughts you'd like to share on a possible favourite to represent the region in the much improved MSI 2023?
With regards to the LJL, I’m very excited to see how Reapered’s Sengoku Gaming have burst into 2023, not missing a beat from 2022 alongside the SoftBank Hawks who’ve also built on previous successes. I think this could be a rare split where regional titans DetonatioN FocusMe can’t be even considered favourites. We should be seeing a fresh Japanese org in London for MSI by my eyes, and my money would be on Sengoku. SG were close to DFM in 2022 alongside Rascal Jester, and now they stand alone at the top - at least for now.
DFM show some of the magic they’ve brought to the league over so many seasons, but the loss of Evi is so hard to adapt to; teamfighting their way out of difficult situations is much harder when you don’t have the leviathan of the top lane on speed dial.
You're now casting the LPL on the official broadcast. How has that been going?
LPL’s a hell of a region, Bo3’s are very fun to cast and the broadcast does a wonderful job of giving feedback for my work which I’m already taking on board. The team has a large set of pool skills to draw from for advice, which is invaluable when you have to adapt to the relentless schedule of 7 day game weeks to catch up on.
The games themselves are such a high level too, even bottom teams who are very definitely flawed can show top-level understanding of certain gameplay aspects that I find myself becoming more and more invested in, and that’s before we talk about casting the top teams who are just a joy to see on the rift.
The LPL hasn't had enough time to play that many games, but what are your thoughts on the region this year so far? Top 3 teams, most surprising roster and most disappointing one?
Top 3 teams are very hard to call, especially with JDG’s shocking 0-2 week 4. TOP Esports, LNG and EDG I’ll call out for now, with the most surprising roster being IG, and the most disappointing being RNG’s collapse of a 2023 intro. The way that the LPL is structured is that each team only plays each other team once in a Bo3, so strength of schedule makes teams look VERY variable. JDG have absolutely stomped bottom teams, but have struggled against top tier opposition like EDG and Weibo, losing to EDG 0-2 and WBG 1-2. I believe they can be the best team in the league but need to make up ground now to settle worries on that front.
TOP have incredible lanes, having parted ways with Knight but picking up the incredible Rookie in his place, LNG’s mid-jungle of Scout-Tarzan are perhaps the best in the league, and EDG despite not having clear star players have performed far better without that same star mid laner Scout than I’d have ever thought they’d do, though their next matches including TOP and LNG will be huge as a proof of concept that a Scout-less EDG can hit with the heavyweights in the league.
The same cannot be said of shock disappointment RNG, who, without Xiaohu (who’s moved to Weibo Gaming, who I would say are on the cusp of top 3 but are held back by inconsistencies) have attempted to play that very same Xiaohu-style League of Legends but to no avail, they have much to work on to reinvent themselves. IG have done just that, with their roster of misfits massively overperforming, particularly with YSKM (You Should Know Me) and his small but lethal champion pool of top lane fighters demolishing many opponents while still retaining a brand identity with it’s crazy teamfighting power.
The LEC has a shiny new format which seems to have been really well received. What are your thoughts on it?
I love the new LEC format as a viewer and a fan of top-tier competition. No other Major Region in League features Bo1, Bo3 and Bo5 series, and the use of the regular season of 9 games to quickly eliminate 2 teams gives pseudo-relegation pressure to underperforming teams as an incentive to keep up with the rest of the league - there are no free rides in the LEC now. Going straight onto Bo3’s in a double elimination format once again really sorts the wheat from the chaff in regards to how well teams can go beyond one sucker punch Bo1 win, and then a good old Bo5 playoffs bracket to finish things off allows us to very clearly see who the best teams in the region are.
I do think that the shortness of the regular season means that teams that start off in a poor state have little to no time to readjust to address their issues, with 3 game days per week being brutal on weekly scheduling for scrims and needed relaxation, however it does only last for 3 weeks until the group stage changes the pace of life somewhat.
Time will also tell how teams will approach the mini offseason in between 3 splits of winter, spring and summer which do not align with the ERLs or other international regions if teams look to make roster changes. I am very supportive of the LEC making innovative changes despite these issues that could crop up, and do hope that whatever logistical roadblocks present themselves can be navigated well.
Everyone was shocked and surprised with FNC and Excel exiting the split in the first phase. Are there any positive surprises that you'd like to highlight from this first phase of the tournament?
SK and BDS have been highlighted on broadcast and for good reason, both teams came in with talent that most of the community would have called mid-table at best, but with the challenge of both teams needing to find leadership has been met with real effect. Markoon and Sertuss for SK, and the promoted members of BDS Academy have found their feet in ways that the 2022 Karmine Corp members of BDS could not.
I’d also spare a thought for the imported top laners who’ve made their way into Europe for this spring. Photon has looked like the best top laner in the league, with both Evi and Chasy overperforming to my expectations given their language barriers and their steps up in competition they’d be facing. They aren’t perfect by any means but LEC’s top lane has had a breath of life from their knowledge of individual matchups really testing more veteran players for the league in their role, and that’s an important development for the region due to our weakness there internationally as of recent years.
The last positive I’ll leave here, which is a strange one, is that XL and FNC will have an absolutely massive kick in the butt to sort themselves out if they want to avoid similar results for the rest of the year. Many orgs have coasted in the regular split in the past only to sneak into playoffs and make the most of that later in the year, there’s no such safety net here and I think that is actually a positive in the grand scheme of things. If you want your favourite orgs to stop sucking, this is a hell of a motivation to put plans into motion.
Continuing with the surprise theme, do you think Group Stage will bring a few more unexpected results, or will the BO3s be smooth sailing from here on out?
Bo3’s are such a different beast, especially with some runup time for a single opponent that I’m not ready to say there won’t be upsets. I think a team like Vitality could be upset by either Heretics or SK Gaming depending on how well both teams prepare from them, KOI dealt them a heavy blow and further exposed some of their flaws that showed through in the regular season which could prove as a blueprint for beating them.
I think Heretics vs SK should prove to be a real coinflip in itself given the inconsistencies of both teams, which makes the entirety of group A still in flux in my eye, whereas group B probably has more clear cut results. AST are still struggling to show results when Dajor, Finn and 113 are struggling, whereas BDS seem much more solid in the way they want to play the game, but MAD are a level above the remaining teams based on what we’ve seen so far.
As renowned Ahri stan, are you happy with the ASU (Art & Sustainability Update) that is coming this patch?
Oh my word, I could do an entire article on just this question. I've just crossed 1.2M Ahri mastery points on my main account so I’m intimately familiar with how Ahri’s changed even on smaller levels, where do I start?
One of the issues plaguing Ahri was her very outdated model, rig and voiceover for all of her skins outside of Star Guardian and Spirit Blossom. The Ruined King and Wild Rift among other Riot media have done a great job of reviving what Ahri should be to her audience and playerbase, and I think the ASU’s done a decent job of bringing that to the League of Legends game again.
Ahri has much more character in her voice lines and many of her animations than she did before, and some of her basic skins like Coven and Midnight really benefit from her new VFX and models, and every skin now has much needed tail-tech to match SG and Spirit Blossom which helps her feel much less static when moving or in animation.
I have a few gripes: Ahri’s homeguard and autoattack animations feel like they have a ton of excess movement in them which is a bit jarring to look at, and that theme also continues over to her Charm animation - the heart particle spins now which is… just a little weird to look at after seeing 10+ years of the same animation - and that’s before we get onto I suppose my main issue with the ASU despite it’s overall improvement to Ahri as a champion.
Foxfire Ahri was the first skin I ever bought in League of Legends and also my favourite, it’s an intuitive, classic design for a Kitsune/Kumiho-like character with an instantly recognisable splash art. I think in particular this skin in the ASU highlights an issue I have with the art direction of League of Legends, the new Foxfire skin feels flat, there’s no depth in her tail textures and the model and splash has lost a lot of their initial charm that brought me to the skin despite it feeling more modern on the whole, which is highlighted across several of her skins (excluding Coven actually! That one’s really benefitted as I mentioned before, and has retained some depth and detail on the tail textures and elsewhere which is what you tend to notice first when you look at Ahri on the rift). The composition of the splash arts of Popstar and Foxfire also lost a lot of expression which I thought set them apart from others in the game, and are now kind of sitting in this generic middle ground where they could be compared to dozens of others. Where’s that uniqueness gone?
Anyway those are my fairly raw thoughts on the ASU with the days I have on it, I’m still very pleased with the changes but it hasn’t been without it’s negatives for someone who’s probably spent more time than is healthy playing the champion. I love the references to The Ruined King in her new VO and I love that Laura Post came back to record the champion again after all this time!
From casting the "LJL Officially Unofficial" with your brother Initialise in your bedroom, to being a main part of the NLC broadcast and an LEC guest, to now casting one of the best regions in the World in the LPL. What are your thoughts on your exciting journey, and what's next for Nymaera?
The journey I’ve been on is one that’s hard to really put into words, I don’t even know if I could bullet point out everything I’d want to on the topic. Casting came to me at a very important time in my life, when I was very, very low and needed a change - any change - to take me to a better place mentally and to put me on a path I could actually see myself enjoying however many years into the future instead of applying a physics degree I barely made it through to a job that I would grind myself into nothing for. Having Sam with me as my brother and my best friend to start out trying to make things work in esports is something I wouldn’t have changed for the world, we’ve spent years perfecting our craft, taking the successes and knocks together and trying to make things work out for ourselves to try and find a brighter path forward for us both in an industry that we both live, breathe and love.
2023’s had plenty of those successes and knocks already, the NLC broadcast sort of exploded over the offseason which was a painful process for all of the NLC casters from 2022, and in the aftermath of that, Sam and I find ourselves not on a regular broadcast for the first time since we’ve started. Hell, I was a few days away from not having a regular broadcast at all so I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunities that have come my way so we can both support each other after moving to Berlin to keep our dream alive.
I’m not going to lie, I’m tired, and I’m still burned out from doing everything I could to give the best first impression I could last year as my first time in the spotlight of the top leagues in the world, so my next steps are largely going to be making sure that I’m ok, that I can keep building on the work I’ve done so far and be healthy at the same time. There’s a lot of talk about regarding mental health within esports, and within the casting profession, and I think there’s a long way to go from both the industry and us in it to take care of ourselves and look out for others when we’re struggling, so I’m going to do a bit of learning on that front myself I think alongside leaning on the experience of those older and wiser than me to improve my craft and look towards what is actually a very exciting future I see in front of me.
Thank you for the interview! Anything else you'd like to add?
Thanks for the interview too! I sort of ramble a bit when I have open-ended questions so I’ll try to keep things constrained this time. I’d like to give a big thanks to the League community on various socials for their reception to my work over the last year. It’s always a little unnerving waiting to see what responses to more ‘out there’ content will be, but largely you’ve all been very kind to me which I appreciate a lot. Even the negative comments out there I value, as they’re a great source of feedback to stuff that doesn’t land well to take onboard and use to make things a little better the next time.
Here’s to more cringe, more Ahri-rants and more LJL flag-waving in the years to come, see you on stream soon!
Featured image courtesy of Michal Konkol.
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Mush
2023-02-16 04:46:33