Jason “Moses” O’Toole is a former CS:GO pro turned caster and analyst, and he's one of the featured personalities for Turner’s ELEAGUE, which starts this week. At media day, Moses sat down with theScore esports to talk about his relatively new career as a caster, as well as joining up with RoomOnFire and ELEAGUE.

What was your first impression when you saw the ELEAGUE set?

It was pretty jaw-dropping. This is the kind of stuff that just goes into a weekend event, but imagining having a whole season in this environment is really awesome.

You’ve had at least one rehearsal at ELEAGUE. Were there any big adjustments for you in doing the ELEAGUE rehearsals?

The rehearsal was just insane. They brought in an audience, they brought in 10 people from Georgia Tech to form actual teams, and it was just insane to have this rehearsal. We were sitting in the green room and all getting ready and just chilling, no one really knew what to expect, and then they’re like, “Alright guys, let’s go get makeup done.” I was like, “What do you mean makeup? It’s just a rehearsal.” Then they’re like, “Oh yeah, it’s a full broadcast today.”

It was a seven-hour rehearsal for the entire run of the show, which just never happens. But the big thing to take out of it was, even during the rehearsal they would just say to us, “Do your thing, it’s our job to capture it. We don’t want you changing anything. Just act like you normally would on the desk, just have a conversation and we have enough cameras and enough people to get the proper angle. Don’t worry about anything, just do what you normally do.”

That was really cool. And that was really the philosophy they’ve taken: Do what you normally do when you’re at an ESL event or a DreamHack event, and we will capture it whichever way we think is best.

So is all your time for ELEAGUE going to be here? Or do you have time for a DreamHack in between?

I’m not quite sure yet, I’m actually only contracted for the first two weeks right now, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m not quite sure, because I know a lot of tournament organizers cleared their schedule for this first season to happen, when teams would to be out here for multiple weeks. It will be interesting to see if any events crop up really quickly.

I know there’s DreamHack Summer and then there’s Cologne, which [ELEAGUE] will be off for. So yeah, I don’t know. Obviously [ELEAGUE] takes priority.

So will the ELEAGUE casters and analysts be swapped out? Or will you guys be the fixed cast?

I believe the analyst desk will be a bit interchangeable throughout the season. I think the casters are going to be set, Semmler and Anders are one duo, then Bardolf and DDK are the other duo. I’m not quite sure what their schedule is in terms of switching.

How do you feel about m0E being on the analyst desk?

I’m excited for it. Here’s the thing, he has knowledge, but it’s not even about that, it’s about personality. He’s fun to be on the desk with, he keeps it light. If he brings his personality, it’s just going to be a really fun time. That’s when the analyst desk gets really fun, when you’re mixing that personality and that excitement and energy into analysis, and you can do both. I think he can do some cool things up there.

You were recently picked up by OnFire, right?

“Picked up by” is one way to put it. Really we just talked and I was just the right fit at the right time. We've done all these tri-casts together, we like working with each other casting as duos. I’m pretty interchangeable with both of them. You can’t replace them, but all three of us work together. It was just a decision to become an independent caster at that point, and OnFire was the logical place to go.

It’s crazy because you’ve been casting for... how many years again?

Just one.

Just one!? So…

It’s a little bit insane. Yeah, it’s been cool, it’s been very much like a trial by fire. When I started casting, the one thing that I noticed then is, there was no real tactical casting. There was never any former player going into casting because at that point, why would you? You can compete, you can win prize money or whatever. Maybe you get that popularity, that fame. But in casting it was hard to make a living at that time, so when I switched over I was just, “Let’s see if we can make this work.” Then obviously it worked out very well, it’s been crazy, it’s been a lot of help from a lot of different people.

Very much it’s been a trial by fire this past year, and I’ve been learning as I go.

When you first got into casting, was there any specific training that you put yourself through? Or was it more just, "I’m going to go in front of the camera and just cast some games"?

Hahaha, oh man. No real training, like I said. When ESEA first started broadcasting their league, us as casters would have to do any game that they had on the schedule, so it could have been a match in ESEA Open, which is essentially matchmaking, in Intermediate, Main and Premier, then maybe every once in awhile there was a Invite-level game, professional level game.

That’s the cool thing, I got to learn how to be a caster, do broadcasting on games that were in Open and only have 80 viewers, then Intermediate which only gets 150 viewers. There weren’t a whole lot of eyes on me when I was making mistakes early on, so I got really really fortunate in that sense.

Most of my difficulty with broadcasting that I had to get over was really… You see these popular duos and there’s not really a well defined play-by-play versus color commentator anymore, they just mesh very well together. My biggest thing that I had to get over when I started was learning how to do more play-by-play, or get willing to do play-by-play if I had to. I’m not the greatest at it, it’s not my strongest suit, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m explaining a concept or an idea that I’m talking about and some action just sporadically happens and I can at least just get through and pass it off to my co-caster.

I think you’re well on your way, as far as the play-by-play, though I wouldn’t say that you’ve quite gotten that moment yet, like Semmler has...

The Happy moment?

Of course the Happy moment.

Yeah I got chills during that. I still watch that and get chills.

Then there’s Anders who has so many of those, that son of a bitch.

Haha. But you’re OnFire now, you’re part of that.

And those two guys have been some of the biggest help to me. I got really lucky as well, my first three or four events, I had either both Anders and Semmler with me or Anders or Semmler with me. I had one of them with me at the event at all times, and that was awesome, getting advice from those guys, not just in terms of casting, but also the business side of things, negotiations. They’ve essentially been holding my hand every step of the way, so it was a very natural progression to getting in to OnFire. Very easy conversation to have.

What do you think they see in you?

Umm, haha… god knows. I like Gin and Tonic, so that’s why Semmler and I get along.

Haha, fair enough.

But no, I work well with both of them. I think they noticed as well. All of us have the idea that the game is the first priority, so none of us have that ego where we’d want to inject ourselves over the game during a cast. We really facilitate the game.

It’s mostly just working together, getting along outside of the event. It’s with our whole group of casting, it’s not just the three of us, everyone gets along so well and everyone hangs out. We’re just people that want to keep working at events together, it’s the chemistry we have on the desk and off the desk and casting, so… I don’t know. I don’t know what they see in me, to bring it into full circle after that tangent.

I think it’s because you had the “GG mother fucker” moment and they were like, "we have to bring him on."

I’ve actually had a meme at like every event, San Jose was the Creamy Moses, MLG was the GG motherfucker, I had a popsicle very early on, there’s a picture of me sucking off a popsicle. That’s one thing I bring to the table I guess, front page of Reddit here and there.

You’re like the Shroud of casters basically.

Hahaha.