Nicolas Plott (born August 11, 1984), known by his alias Tasteless, is an American eSports commentator. He has provided commentary for multiple Starcraft and Starcraft 2 tournaments. Together with Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, he currently provides commentary for Global StarCraft II League and AfreecaTV StarLeague games.

Early life [ edit ]

Plott grew up in Kansas City, Kansas.[4] Upon graduation from high school, he attended Regis University in Denver studying philosophy and psychology, and was a member of the parliamentary debate team.[4][5] He considered law school and philosophy dual Ph.D. programs but instead pursued StarCraft full-time.[4]

StarCraft career [ edit ]

Player [ edit ]

Plott and his younger brother Sean bought a copy of StarCraft from a local video game store in 1998 after hearing about the game's popularity.[4] The brothers would watch each other play while offering gameplay advice.[4] They played casually online, but were hampered by a slow Internet connection.[4] They visited a nearby Internet café where they met players about five years older who would play and beat them.[4] This loss and the ensuing trash-talk were an early inspiration for the brothers to hone their skills, though they never returned to the café.[4]

With the advent of high-speed Internet, the brothers played StarCraft competitively on Korean servers.[4] They entered and won tournaments while in high school.[4] Plott became uninterested in school when it did not let him incorporate StarCraft into his studies.[4] He played the game through high school and college.[4]

Upon losing to his brother early in the World Cyber Games 2005 finals, Plott watched the rest of the games as a spectator.[4] He became frustrated by the tournament commentator's inexperienced handling of in-game nuances and requested to co-host the commentary, which was a success.[4] He received offers to commentate without pay in Europe, Japan, and Singapore.[4]

In Plott's last semester of college, Korean broadcasting company GOM TV invited him to provide English commentary for the recently announced StarCraft II as part of a strategy to extend their reach.[4] This did not guarantee a career or easy move, but offered Plott an opportunity to make a career of his StarCraft commentary and become the first Western StarCraft commentator, or caster, in South Korea. He dropped out of college and arrived in Seoul within a week.[4]

StarCraft tournament Stemkoski and Plott at a 2011 South Koreantournament

In Korea, Plott slept on friends' couches and worked as a caster where he could.[4] As StarCraft II's launch neared, Plott and another American commentator living in Seoul, Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, had individually amassed significant followings, and had the interest of commercial broadcast networks.[4] The two began casting together and became known by a portmanteau of their nicknames, Tasteless and Artosis, as Tastosis.[4] Before this partnership, the two knew each other through their former competitive gaming careers, but became friends in Korea.[4] Polygon attributed their success to their "magic" dynamic from complementary personalities, with Plott bold and sociable, and Stemkoski encyclopedic and analytic.[4] In July 2013, Polygon reported Tastosis to be "the most well-known StarCraft 2 casting duo in the world", both broadcasting for GOMTV Global StarCraft II League.[4] PC Gamer's Rich McCormick cited the pair in 2011 as examples of how the electronics sports profession is developing celebrities.[6] The Verge's Paul Miller referred to Tastosis as "the primary practitioners of StarCraft casting".[7]

A crowdfunded documentary about their careers, Sons of StarCraft, was released in 2014.[8]

Plott and Stemkoski prepare separately, with Stemkoski constantly watching StarCraft matches and Plott studying commentary from non-traditional sports and major StarCraft news.[4] Together, they incorporate team histories and their respective strategies into their commentary.[4] Plott has said that he considers Tastosis' nuanced readings of player tactics and their eventualities as a "gateway" for bringing unfamiliar crowds into StarCraft.[4]

Plott cast alongside Stemkoski at the 2012 StarCraft II World Championship Series Europe finals,[9] Australian and Oceania finals,[10] and UK nationals,[11] DreamHack Winter 2011,[12] IGN Pro League Season Two,[13] and Major League Gaming 2012 Spring Arena,[14] Raleigh,[15][16] and 2011 Orlando.[17] Plott was among the first group to sign to the electronics sports agency eSports Management Group in 2012.[18]

In a StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Easter egg, two in-game characters are named after the casters.[19]

In an interview with the Korea Times, Plott stated: "Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to come to Korea because this is the place where the StarCraft tournaments were started."[20]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Media related to Nick "Tasteless" Plott at Wikimedia Commons