When you think of the English casters employed by OGN, the first two that probably come to mind are Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles and Erik “DoA” Lonnquist. But there is another caster with excellent game knowledge, a deep history in the League of Legends scene, a smooth voice to go along with it. Obviously, we’re talking about Chris “Papasmithy” Smith. With the absence of MonteCristo and DoA, Riot drafted Papasmithy as one of the resident experts on the LCK scene. If you didn’t know a whole lot about Papasmithy before this interview, you will by the end of it.

Amanda: You’re used to the OGN broadcast, which is you guys don’t really have a producer. How does it feel to do the Worlds broadcast, with someone telling you when you are starting to talk, and when the camera’s on you?

Papasmithy: It’s pretty daunting actually. It’s just such a different skill set. At the end of the OGN feels kind of like sketch comedy, in that this is what’s happening. It starts rolling and you just deal with it, whether it’s a technical delay, or just the standard form of the show. It’s a different skill set, but you’re certainly prepared for the scenario. It’s a bit overwhelming at times how much there is. You have a stats guy you can talk to at any point, you have prompters -- something we don’t use in Korea. You feel a bit spoiled; even then sometimes it feel likes it’s too much, and you yearn to go back to having full creative control basically. There’s always pluses and minuses in every situation. But certainly I'm having my first chance being at a big international event, being at a Riot event, really enjoying the ride, and there’s still more to go.

A: So with that, usually you’re working with Monte, Doa, and Achillos. What was working the bootcamp like, getting to work with a bunch of various different personalities from multiple regions?

P: It was super exciting for me. I’ve been in the League scene on and off for the past 4 years now. A lot of these people I’ve had Skype conversations with, whether written or voice. A lot of these people I’ve known from afar, but never had the chance to interact with them. I’m a big believer in coming and shaking hands, getting to know someone, grabbing a beer, and that’s what bootcamp was -- kind of the opportunity to really put names to faces. It was really a rewarding experience. Also, sharing about the Korean region, and hearing about the other regions. It was a good way as an icebreaker for what Worlds would entail afterwards.

A: Going into your Worlds prep, you were starting to formulate opinions. Was there any team that impressed you, and was there a team that let you down as far as their Worlds performance went?

P: In terms of gaps and expectations, Samsung I think have really overperformed. The stats just bore out that they would lose to the teams above them. They beat Rox Tigers in the first match of the season, and from there took no games from Rox, SKT, and KT. [They] got swept by KT as predicted going 19-0. In the playoffs, the moment you saw them in regionals, you saw something different about them. Part of that was CoreJJ gelling with the team, and part of that was a belief that they didn’t have before.

And now on the Worlds stage, seeing a player like Cuvee who might have been a 5th or 6th of Korean top laners, to edging towards the top three that everyone talks about -- the Smeb, the Ssumday and the Duke. Which is really great to see, because especially for Samsung, a lot of rookies, both new to their position, and people who just haven’t been to worlds or international tournament. Ambition has a bit of experience going internationally, but obviously not to Worlds.

I thought they’d get out of groups, but dominating group D, going into a very impressive quarter finals is definitely a big over performance for them. And who’s to say they don’t win the tournament? There is a world where we haven’t seen this Samsung together much, there’s so little tape for people to review outside of just this Worlds, and that they do have a bit of an information edge there.

And in terms of disappointing performances, I think Flash Wolves were very disappointing because you definitely could see they had a lot going on, they had some early games, great first 25 minutes. I thought they would get it together for this tournament, and LMS getting no one out of groups is a big surprise, and Flash Wolves... some of their tools are so potent, that for them to crash and burn the way they did was a pretty big disappointment.

A: So, as you’ve said, you’ve been part of the League scene for 4 years. What attracted you to the scene, as far as becoming a caster, and being involved in the more professional side of the scene?

P: I started playing around 2010, just after beta ended. Friend of mine I used to play DotA with recommended to give it ago. Enjoyed it, played it pretty regularly, but nothing special from there. Around 2012, I started interacting with more Australia players, I was living in Australia at the time. I started playing professionally in Australia (which is kind of air quotes); it was more like pub tournaments. There was no league circuit, this was way before LCS, it was even before LCK and OGN Champions.

The first game I ever played was casted by a local casting house known as Gamster. One of my future games, probably the third game I played, was casted [by] Julian “PastryTime” Carr. At the time, he was a solo caster. He got roped by Esk (?) to come on and cast with him. And when I watched Kings of Europe, which was the tournament that Deman and Jatt -- I think it was the first tournament they ever casted together -- it really opened my eyes to colour casting.

I was always someone who deep dived into things. I was really into poker before League of Legends, I liked looking into the math before that stuff. When it came to League, I really liked looking into the AP ratios, theorycrafting and things like that. I thought, ‘Oh you know, I could give this a go.’ I casted with Julian -- that was my first ever cast -- and then he gave me good feedback, and I juggled that with playing. Eventually I retired because I was working a full-time job at the time. I was a bit older than most pros. People don’t know this, but I played professionally with Rusty, another caster who is at Worlds.

So in 2012, four years ago, I was 25, and he would have been 17/18, and I just decided to stick with the casting because it was something I could fit in with my full time work schedule. It was very much the gradual growing process. I cast near a thousand hours before I made a single dollar casting, different time now obviously, but it was just a passion that developed into much more than that.

IMAGE - Lolmatrix

A: What was it like? Because casting I assume is now your full time job. How scary was it for you to make that dive to go, ‘You know what? This thing I was doing beforehand -- it’s not what I love, and I love casting.’ That must have been a little bit scary; esports isn’t that stable a career, so to make that diver to fully commit to casting…

P: So I was a school counselor at the time, and while it was the job path -- or the career path that I had always looked at from when I was in highschool of what I wanted to do -- you fall in and out of love with things, and it became hard to juggle the casting. I was doing freelancing for Riot Oceania, and every time I came back to my desk job on a Monday, it just got [harder] and [harder].

I had a lot of money saved up at the time, and I was always someone who thought they had a path; this is what I would do, stick with this, 25 years as a school counselor. But one day I woke up and realized I didn’t have to stay in the box that my parents [and] school had led me to believe. I could take a risk. I was young enough to make mistakes. I knew if I didn’t try something, I would regret it later in life. So I took the plunge, and at the start, it was looking a little hairy, but I got the job with Riot Oceania into the job at OGN, and I was one of the lucky ones I guess. Things have definitely proceeded rather well in the last two years especially.

A: So you said you original job was being a school counselor. Something I always find interesting is seeing if skill sets transfer. Is there anything from doing that work that’s assisting you, or allowing you to have your own flair as a colour caster?

P: I think so to some degree, whether it’s social talking to the players, I feel pretty good at relating to people younger than me. One of my best traits as a counselor was rapport building -- the ability to meet someone for the first time and set them at ease. It’s definitely a skillset that translates to a social situation, and even to some degree, casting. I’ve always been someone that people would describe as a good speaker, use a pretty [strong] range of words.

I was lucky to some degree that my upbringing helped me into this situation, but I always looking to strike a conversation with people, and that’s what I needed to do. And it turns out casting is striking a conversation with thousands of people, which, again, I didn’t see things go this way, but it’s actually fun to track how things go together.

A: So with the boot camp, and now with doing Worlds, you've gotten to work with a variety of personalities. Was there anyone you worked with that surprised you that that was the type of personality they had? You had this image built up and you got to meet them, and work with them, and you weren’t expecting it to go that way?

P: That’s an interesting question. When it comes to casters, I’ve been in Skype chats, and watched a lot of their works; you kind of pick up what a caster’s about. In general, the caster you see on air is an extension of the person’s real personality instead of being completely false. I don’t know if I really have a great answer to that. Pretty much everyone was who I expected they were, and that’s a good thing. There was no smoke and mirrors about it. I went in there and met a lot of people in person for the first time, and it was a really nice natural fit. It’s been really comfortable; it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with the whole Worlds casting team.

A: Okay, a more fun version of the question I can ask: was there anybody you were super excited to work with?

P: So I’ve always wanted to work with Rivington; he’s obviously a great caster. Back in 2012, it was MLG Dallas, and right after, we went live with ESL Asia matches. It was a World Elite match, which was when we were doing Chinese League of Legends. Rivington was in the Twitch chat, and we modded him. And he modded for hours after he had worked a full day of casting. And I was like, ‘Damn this guy. I owe this guy a beer.” the chance to actually get a chance to cast with him at Worlds was really cool. It was really cool to pay off what was a 4 year storyline, or a thing I’ve been waiting to do. It was really cool to work with him and Kobe during the group stage.

A: Let’s ignore results. What would have been the best finals match that you would have liked to see to cast?

P: There’s two answers to this. Obviously, from the perspective of Riot, it would be great for NA to be in the finals -- SKT vs. TSM, Rox vs. TSM. That’s what the tournament producers would have liked to see. I would like to see SKT vs. ROX just because I love the storyline, and really the marked difference between the two teams and their histories, and their playstyles. We’ll get that in semis*, so that’s really exciting. In general you want the final to be not just Korea vs. Korea; you want to see the meeting of two great teams, but a lot of the Chinese teams especially, EDG underperformed, and the unfortunate emergency sub that made yesterday’s game a lot less titantic then it could have been.

I said it on the broadcast -- that was a dream match. ROX vs. EDG -- how could that not be amazing? But it almost felt like one of those summer blockbusters, where you think this movie is going to be amazing, but you get to the last trailer, which in this case is the group stages, and you’re suddenly not sure if you like it -- maybe the trailer’s bad. And it all went sideways with the emergency substitution. If you had asked me pre-tournament what I wanted the final to be, it would have been something like ROX vs. EDG, SKT vs. EDG, SKT vs. ROX, and while we won’t get any of those finals, it’s going to be a really weird world, where it’s an outside chance that it’s H2K in the final. But realistically, a Korea vs. Korea final with Samsung in that final is just insane to think about pre-tournament.

*Interview conducted prior to semis

A: Actually what did you think of Koro1’s performance? Because if you take away the unfortunates of him getting repeatedly dove, and his rusty decision making, I thought he played the first two games pretty well.

P: I actually think of it a little different. I thought game one, he was camped, obviously; he made some decision making mistakes, I could see he was rusty. That’s acceptable, he’s in an unfortunate situation, but overall I think he can still hold his head up high. His second Rumble game, he took the wrong keystone mastery, but his decision making in the game was good, given the scenario he was in. He clearly showed that with more polish, he could be a valuable contributor to Edward Gaming, and for the scenario, I think he deputised valiantly.

A: And kind of following that plot thread. Usually people talk about the most valuable player, but I’d be more interested in hearing from you who the most underappreciated player is that has performed so far at Worlds?

P: Most under appreciated player...Probably Ruler, the ADC of Samsung. His story this year started in the Challenger circuit -- came third in that league. Not much buzz about him. When it was announced Samsung were picking him up, ‘cause they did have two ADC’s in spring that were Stitch and CoreJJ, at the time his name was Bung, which sounds a lot like like Bang.

Even just listening to people in Challenger who watched him closely, don’t really see much in this player; he’s okay, he’s a role player. To go from a team that didn’t actually qualify for LCK, came third in straight sets in the promotion tournament to looking very controlled -- not out of place for Samsung -- but then again for a fourth or fifth place team... but then to come to Worlds and match and exceed, that level of play in his first year of competitive play is incredible. If you point out that he’s a rookie, you kinda have to tell people that a couple times, because you don’t see that in his play. When he started the season in lane swaps, he might have overstayed, but that was literally his only rookie tendency. And we haven’t seen it at Worlds, so for someone to do that in their first year of play, that’s pretty amazing.

A: Alright, as a last question, this is something I’ve been asking a lot of people lately. If you were to make a Korean World Cup Team, and don’t go, ‘you know, Rox plus Faker!’ What would your Korean World Cup squad be?

P: Korean World Cup squad...If it was just talking about the players, I think it would be interesting to see, probably the most fun to see, I’m going to leave Faker off to the side line to make this interesting. Faker’s the best player to play League of Legends, so this isn’t me in any way running down Faker. But I’d love to see the ROX Tigers, and you take away with their midlaner, and put in Rookie, and that’s kinda my team I want to see. I think having Rookie in that lane would make that very interesting. You could argue maybe they don’t need a more dynamic player, but I’m often left wondering what ROX Tigers with Rookie in the mid lane would look like.

But if that’s cheating, then it would be a team along the lines of Smeb, Peanut, Rookie, Bang and Wolf. I love Bang and Gorilla, I think they’re wonderful, only reason I specify BagG and Wolf, because they're more of a defensive bot lane, and if we know anything about how the meta plays, you can’t have a carry everywhere, because you then you have a carry nowhere.