This post is the first in a new series of interviews with the supremely original title “Questions & Answers.” For those of you who do not already know, Ryanne “Froskurinn” Mohr (Twiter: @ lolFroskurinn) is the host of the show China Talk as well as one of LPL’s English language shoutcasters. We talked a bit about China, shoutcasting, Worlds, Batman, and more! Hit the jump for the full interview.

Where did you get the name “Froskurinn”?

I was seriously considering moving to Iceland for a period (hope to one day make the trip) and so I started to learn the language, which only, like, 500,000 people know. I got to animals and colors and and was deciding a name change between Fish and Frog. I decided on Frog – so “Froskurinn” is Icelandic for frog.

How did you get your start as a caster for LPL?

I haven’t actually been casting that long so it was by pure grace and chance that I got this amazing opportunity handed to me. I used to be very competitive in grinding my solo queue in chasing the “pro dream”; I never made it far – Diamond II at my highest – but I ran a teaching stream where I would invite viewers to add-me in client, then use the spectator feature to comment on their gameplay in real-time.

I started to build this huge library of champions/elos/matchups of thinking about how certain things work and mistakes in individual performance and thought I might be a good suit for casting. I auditioned for the Electronic Sports League (ESL) and was accepted then vetted by amazing casters like “Tasty Nubbinz” and “SpellRuler”.

From there, it came down to social circle. I was friends already with a lot of the “Chinese Analysts” for the Western Audience and there wasn’t a LPL cast. I joined on early and was awful, just really bad, but this slowly evolved from this grassroots 8 people watching, into this massive 40K viewer monster.

A lot of that success isn’t on my part. Most of this was due to “Garvey” at Twitch and people like Kelsey Moser really driving the project home. I was just in the right place at the right time with the right dream. Make no mistake, these massive broadcasts and numbers are supported by the same grassroots movement of three people.

LPL in English is brought to the West by fans on their time and energy. Only three people run the stream – two are casters – so when people compare the massive production value of LCS to LPL English, that’s a whole production crew; what we’ve accomplished and how we’ve grown from where we started is astronomical.

But now we’re getting more involved with Tencent and getting better feedback and hopefully looking to improve by next split, especially if CN does well at World’s and drums up interest.

What has been your favorite moment as a caster thus far in your career?

Finding my own style and voice has been a serious challenge. Again, I haven’t been casting for an enormous amount of time. I am incredibly new to the field and technique of the greats but I took a lot of queues from my peers and my idols. It is very apparent that I pay attention to “Montecristo” and respect what he has to say, but I also love the technique that “Deficio” brings.

I think my favorite moment was when I felt I’d truly defined my style with my casting partner: “PiraTechnics” in the LPL Playoffs that we got to do in San Fran. It was very cool to be next to him and just feed off our physical energy in a cast, because again – 99% of amateur casting is done remotely and rarely with the same co-caster. Pira and I are so incredibly lucky that we’ve built this structure where we get to continue and hone our performance together.

Do you have a particular approach or method that you use to analyze teams or players?

I cast two “regions”, so I’m going to speak to those. I cast NA Challenger and I cast LPL; these are vastly different styles and require vastly different methods and techniques – so a fault of mine is holding one region in context of the other and crossing that far too much in being overly critical.

In LPL, it’s an amazing region to cast because constantly you’re stepping back as a caster and examining the overarching movement of the game, which isn’t the case in LPL. Take LCS for example – follow my thinking – it’s more a “story-teller” based style of casting in which there’s analysis but its punched to sweeten this driving story-line of one team sprinting across the game to the finish line .

You’ll constantly have casters break down fights but on the stepping stones of this larger, strategic movement – which happens in LPL, don’t get me wrong. But due to their meta, there’s so much more emphasis not on side movements and pressure points, but in the smaller facets of teamfights and cooldowns and how specific champion matchups or synergies interact with each other. It’s more…”intricate”, I think is the best word to their strengths.

So in talking about really creative compositions in LPL versus really smart map movements in NA Challenger. In the Challenger scene, I try to play more to the story of the game and the season, where as I get to flex a bit in matchups for China.

Do you think that current or former professional players provide better analysis than some casters simply because they played the game at the highest level?

Very loaded question. I think there is a very valid position that a former or ejected professional player can aspire to and make a great analyst, but I do not think that one equates the other. So let me back this up in just the context of esports first –

It should not be expected that a professional player has time to be a pro and an analyst just from a math standpoint – and I can’t do math but even I can see that a guy that spends 16 hours of his day practicing, is not going to spend the other 8 analyzing the competitive scene – not just domestically, but globally. So, I love Krepo (have to say it), BUT it was very apparent that his information on China on the Desk was incorrect and not valuable; which is to be expected.

This is a guy that isn’t performing top tier in his own region, he shouldn’t have the time to devote to studying the global scene. And he shouldn’t be held to that responsibility, that’s why teams have coaches and analysts to feed them this data so they can focus on their performance.

Which isn’t to say that a professional player can’t look at a situation and break something down, but that comes from game knowledge and not their specific professional experience – does this make sense? It can come from their professional experience, like if Link makes a comment about Faker, he can talk about his actual experience in game facing him, but a lot of these players have never had in-game experiences with each other – does that disqualify them from analytically speaking on the topic? No. Why? Because they can fall back to the game knowledge built from their time playing. But you can gather knowledge about the game not by just playing – I have an unpopular belief, but I’ll explain it.

I believe that a Bronze V player can have the same knowledge as a professional player. The difference is in how they acquire this knowledge. A pro player is gaining his knowledge from the game by physically playing it – and yes, there is certain information that the guy not playing in that position will never have. The Bronze player cannot get his information through playing – he will never experience the level required to speak intelligently about the game from only playing. He has to watch, he has to study, he has to think and talk and read about the game. He can achieve the same goal, but on different roads using different techniques.

The argument is always then that the Bronze V player should be able to use that information to not be Bronze V. What if I told you there were people who cannot physically play this game – they just can’t control the UI but are brilliant minds analytically? And the thing that I completely glossed over is in the definition of this question: a “caster” is not an “analyst”, they can provide analytical content, but there’s a whole different set of techniques that an analyst has to apply to be a caster.

Any idea on why this criticism is so prevalent in the LoL eSports community?

The professional player in eSports has a bit of a paragon built for him in being the only “valid” source of information. Take Riot as an example – historically, when Riot kicked over to their “analysis” desk, it was typically interviews about the game. Occasionally they would ask a player to break down a play, but there wasn’t a lot of critical discussion. This has been a trending change as they’ve brought on people like Pr0lly to have a more open discussion/third party view; which I love.

But again, it’s this emphasis on propping the professional player up in Riot. They are the experts and I don’t believe any Rioter gets the claim of being “an expert” if they aren’t a pro player. Which, I have no problem with – some of these players (like Hai) are incredibly eloquent and well-spoken on the game and offer great insight, but the fact that Riot doesn’t put anyone else in that category is a big issue, I think, subconsciously for the community.

The closest Riot has for “analysts” are their color-caster[s]: Kobe, Jatt, Deficio, and Zirene. Again, they don’t get this title of being “experts” and some of them were professional players. But again, there is a huge difference in what a caster versus an analyst sells; I assure you that the casters don’t think that a 50 to 4 game is winnable but they have to sell this storyline and keep the energy up – they’re storytellers, not analysts. And I don’t think this is an issue of Jatt or Zirene couldn’t be good analysts, just that the structure and the story Riot is selling doesn’t give them that platform.

Now of course I’m speaking to the context of comparing LCS to OGN, which I think is the most glaring argument for: LOOK AN ANALYST THAT ISN’T A PLAYER- Monte. But again, that’s not Riot. So you have the majority of the Western Audience not realizing that their being fed this belief that the only information worth hearing is from a professional players mouth; which, again, I’m not saying they don’t know what they’re talking about, but that ideal is excluding a very prominent and large conversation from this industry.

What are some of the characteristics of LoL eSports in China that distinguish it from the other major regions?

eSports is very shady as an organization already due to how young it is, and the caliber of professionals that dominate the scene. China [is] maybe a bit more so than other regions just due to the shift of presence Riot has in the region.

Are there any subtleties to the Chinese meta that may go unnoticed to a casual viewer of LPL?

China is incredibly gifted in their compositions and how they think and execute team fighting. Which is some pretty higher level discussion. These comparisons and conversations require vast knowledge about every champion, identifying win conditions, and understanding how execution of these events has to be perfect to get the results that China does; which all happens very quickly.

So, I think a lot of viewers are too broad in their analysis on China because they look at the “death” toll and write the teams off for poor performance. You have to look past the score and chaos to identify the true brilliance of China as a region – again, they’re a completely different meta than the subscribed Korean style, so it takes a different view.

China is widely considered to be the second best region in the World at LoL eSports, yet their viewership in NA and EU is quite low, do you have any thoughts on why this might be? Can, or should, anything be done to remedy this issue?

Most of our viewer issues are due to timezone and competing hype. We run alongside OGN on more than one occasion – and I’d rather listen to Monte/Doa than Pira/Froskurinn any day. And that’s before you’re even comparing the best region to the second best.

Other factors are, of course, time – though we do rebroadcast during the day, so that is lack of recognition. But also the inability to follow cohesive storylines of the LPL teams. It’s relatively easy to acquire information on these teams, but it’s not mainstream apparent, so there’s very little interest inherently to care about these players. Which is a shame because the storylines in China are amazing.

Any comments or insight on the situation with SHRC?

The only thing we know for sure is that Uzi has a history of being a bit of a diva, and that he was upset that his manager was fired.

What are your thoughts on the groups for Worlds this year?

I think Group B will be closer than Group C, but otherwise I find a lot of matchups to be extremely exciting and I’m happy to say that I think this group of teams will make the current World’s the best level of competition it has ever seen.

How many Chinese teams do you think will make it out of the group stage?

If OMG is playing at top performance, 3 – however, I’ve been very public in my expectation that internal drama will beat them before they get off the plane. SHRC and EDG for sure though.

Are there any Chinese players this year at Worlds that you think are poised for a breakout performance?

Corn will surprise a lot of people for how high a caliber of mid laner he is for being bookended by superstars like InSec and Uzi. I also think Korro, EDG’s Top Lane, will turn a lot of heads in what he’s able to do for his team.

How do you think EDG will fare against Samsung White in Group A?

My conspiracy hat makes me think that White may go a little more lax on their pick/ban phase against EDG than usual, but I don’t think EDG will win. I’ve also been public that I think all the Korean teams attending Worlds are superior than the Chinese, but that White would be the most brutal.

Who do you think will win Worlds?

Samsung Blue. Though I think White is the better team.

(NOTE: Froskurinn graciously accepted my interview request on the condition we talk about Batman. Those questions are included below!)

What is your favorite Batman story arc?

I’m a huge fan of the Batman Elseworld comics, which if you've never read are effectively published fanfiction. On crack. So much crack. My favorite is this steampunk/Victorian comic of Batman where his batwing is this Leonardo-esque contraption; the art is beautiful. But otherwise: “The Long Halloween” and “Year One” are staples of the series and character.

What is your favorite Batman movie?

This is. So tough. Most would say the The Dark Knight, but it wasn’t a standout for me in the horde of Batman films. I actually really liked Tim Burton’s take on batman, the second film a bit more because it was Burton let out of his cage; I’m gonna go with Batman Returns – followed very closely by Batman Begins.

Do you think Ben Affleck will do the role justice in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice?

I don’t think this is an issue of Affleck so much as an issue of which Synder we’re going to get. Is this going to be the majestic boom of “Watchmen” or the whimper of “Sucker Punch”?

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I want to extend my thanks to Froskurinn for taking the time to answer my questions. She was the ultimate professional and I strongly urge everyone to watch China Talk or the English language LPL casts if you do not already do so!

-Joseph T.

Twitter: JThorn_14