Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett is a Canadian CS:GO caster and, alongside Henry "HenryG" Greer, one of the most well-known personalities in the scene. Sadokist took the time to chat with theScore esports on the final day of the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major and talked about his third Major and how he became a duo with HenryG.

How was the Major for you?

It actually went really well, we’ve had a pretty good schedule. Starting off in the group stage, there were some long days, we did have two days with four best-of-threes, but we got through them. The games were exciting and we’ve had a lot of interesting stories: NiP's first time ever not making it through the groups [at a Major] and Liquid in the finals, among other things.

Yeah, it’s been pretty awesome. On a personal stand-point, Henry and I have done some of our best casting. I think we went to more of a defined role and it worked out very well.

What were some of your favorite matches that you casted?

It would have to be both of the playoff matches, I would say the Liquid vs. Na`Vi one for obvious reasons, that was excellent. Liquid played amazingly against Fnatic as well, but Liquid vs. Na`Vi was next level, that was some of the best Counter-Strike I’ve ever seen them play.

Then the best-of-three with Virtus.pro and SK. Now, I still can’t believe VP picked Nuke, that backfired on them, but that first map on Cobblestone was awesome. That was one of the best individual maps that we’ve casted in a long time, so that was a pretty big highlight.

Yeah, going back to the Nuke pick. Speaking to the SK guys, they said that VP probably picked Nuke because they saw SK struggle on it against FlipSid3 Tactics.

Yeah, that and they also used to be very good on the old version of Nuke. VP and NiP were considered two of the best teams on that map, they were the teams capable of picking up T rounds when other teams couldn’t. But it’s SK, they’re super tactical and no one’s put time into Nuke, you can guarantee SK’s put at least enough in to be competitive.

It was a curveball from VP, but they’ll probably regret that.

Regardless, VP made it to the semis, which is pretty good considering they’re still arguably in the middle of their slump.

Yeah, to be fair they are, but LANs have never been their issue, they’re still making playoffs at LANs quite consistently. The interesting aspect of that is how far Astralis pushed them with two stand-ins and same with Astralis’ match against Dignitas. We were kinda shocked at how far Astralis pushed, it just didn’t add up. It should have been a straight-forward match, but Astralis kept their Legend spot. And to see them push VP like that, it was a shocking surprise and revealed a bit of weakness in VP.

Shifting gears, speaking to BLU, one of the difficulties he’s having right now in his formative years as a caster is finding his own caster partner, so how did you come to be partnered with Henry "HenryG" Greer?

Originally, with Moses [Jason "Moses" O'Toole] coming on the rise in North America, I thought that there was going to be a pretty good chance that him and I would become a duo, but we kinda got torn apart when I left ESEA to go overseas and he stayed and signed with them.

Partnering with Henry was never planned. PGL hired me, they wanted me back for the next season, while Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson recommended Henry and that’s how it all started. He kinda just showed up on the apartment doorstep, I think it was Aug. 2 of last year — so we’ve been together for almost a year now, and within the first week or two we realized that this could work, so we went as hard as possible with it and it’s worked out very well.

What was that first cast like?

So this is the funny thing, so I did an entire season with Toby "TobiWan" Dawson at PGL, the Kick-Off Season. I respected Toby tremendously, he’s my favorite Dota caster, I thought that he was one of the best casters in esports. But we were both doing the same role and so we ended up tripping over each other a lot.

Toby does like to run with the mic when he gets the chance, because I was the new guy, I didn’t think it was my place to speak up so it wasn’t until the LAN Finals, after two months of casting together, when I finally said, “Dude, come on, give me some space.” Whether that was right or wrong, I don’t know, but it worked out.

But with Henry, because of that situation with Toby, from the very first match I was like, “Alright, I’m gonna tell him how I feel.” So we finish the first map we ever casted together, I took off the headset, I made sure that the mics weren’t hot, I looked at him and said, “You need to talk way less, 45 seconds is the rule of thumb for you and then you’re done.” He talked through an entire round at one point.

Now, the rule doesn’t apply. Now we know each other well enough that it’s easy, but at the start it was: 45 seconds, keep the throws simple, let’s get to know each other. And Henry was like, “Uhh, uhh, uhh, OK,” super hesitant, like, I just met this guy yesterday and he’s already yelling at me. But no, it worked out well. That was just to lay down the foundation and now we don’t have rules, we go with it.

That’s funny. Has he spoken to you about that first moment, like over drinks?

No, not really. We never really brought it up again, he just kind of understood. I think he respected me because I’ve been casting for a little longer and maybe he thought, “Okay, if this is going to work, I’m going to have to do this.” Obviously now, if he would yell at me I would respect him in the same way, so it’s fair game.

Yeah, you guys have a good flow. A lot of your moments are about your hype, with it being capped off by Henry as sort of an undertone, or something.

Yeah, and the advantage that we have as a duo is that we’re the only one with a former pro player, so we bring a lot more tactical insight. Obviously when Anders and Semmler bring in the tricast and bring in Moses they get up to that level as well, but just in the offset, on the analytical side, we bring a little bit more. Henry has played against a lot of these players in his career, that’s an advantage for us.

Among those duos, you mention Anders and Semmler, and to a lesser extent I guess Moses and Pansy, though neither of them have really found their real casting partners yet.

I guess you’d have to ask his opinion on that. For a while he definitely did want to duo with me, I think he was as disappointed as I was when it turned out that we weren’t going to be a duo. If he could get a duo, I think he would take it, but this is where you have to ask him.

My opinion now, he does the tricast with Anders and Semmler, a lot of people enjoy that, and he’s on the desk a lot, which he’s also good at. So he’s in a good position and I don’t think he’s as pressured to find a duo, but like I said, he would probably take one if he could find one.

Is there maybe a friendly rivalry? You’re here, it’s the Grand Finals, you’re sitting here as a spectator and not as a caster.

I think “friendly” rivalry is the key. We’re all very supportive of each other, Henry and I understand that Anders and Semmler have been doing this a little bit longer, they’ve built up that rapport and for a while it’s been clear cut that they should be doing the final. But I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and say, “Oh yeah, that’s great.”

We definitely want to cast the finals at some point as well, but like I said, it’s not like we’re upset that we’re not. We’re totally supportive of each other and I think that would be expected, same as if Dan [Daniel "ddk" Kapadia] and James [James "JZFB" Bardolph] were doing it we’d support them, and I’d like to think that if we got it they’d support us. It’s all part of it, yes we want to be the best that we can be, but we do work together, so we have to keep that in mind.

You’re at Major number three now, has it gotten any easier?

There’s less stress for sure. Cluj [DreamHack Cluj-Napoca] was... we were kind of thrown into it. Henry and I were three months into the duo at the time and we were the last duo to be hired at that event. It wasn’t so much the pressure to perform, it was just the professionalism around it, the scale of the event and the politics that clearly gets uncovered at that level. There is definitely more there than people think and it made me realize that there’s a role to play. We can’t just all have fun, everyone has their place, but you have to work through that.

The second one at MLG [MLG Major Championship: Columbus] was amazing. By then we were well established, there was no stress, it was very easy going and I was fortunate enough to have a week at home before the event, which calmed me down a lot. I travel a lot, so being at home relaxes me so much and I also had my parents at the Major with me, which was very cool because they got to see esports in first-person.

That Major was relaxed and same with this one. I hate to say this because it’s the Major so don’t get me wrong, but it’s just like every other event in terms of the working — we know what to expect so we just go with it.

So what’s next for you then?

I posted a tweet a few months ago saying that we would be taking some time off, but we had three events lined up. So we did DreamHack Summer, ECS and now the Major, then I have four weeks at home, which is amazing. I’m not really allowed to reveal what comes after that, but we’ve got some things in the works that will be some long-term stuff, so not so much LAN stuff, but studio-related stuff.