dusT: "Teams are going to have to start taking a serious look at how many events they decide to take part in"

The American caster talked to us about his casting experience, qualifier formats, and broadcast talent work.

dusT's casting traces back all the way to ESEA Invite Global Finals

At the ZOTAC Cup Masters Americas Regional Finals, Dust2.us' very own Danish "Nohte" Allana sat downn with Dustin "dusT" Mouret, who will be casting the action in Santa Ana. In the interview, dusT discussed the casting, the formats, and the saturation of events and qualifiers.

You’ve been on the road for the last three weeks or so. You were at DreamHack Summer doing analyst work and then you swung by ZOTAC in Europe, and now you’re here. Do you think the event schedule is getting more and more packed as the years go on and do you think it’s offering more opportunities for people like you who want to get into more talent work and getting more opportunities to do so?

It’s definitely one of those things where I’m split on the issue, because on the one hand, I can see as to where the schedule is getting a little bit out of control, which for the community overall might be a problem that we kinda need to look at with oversaturation and viewer fatigue and all the different things that go around that. But, on the other hand, for me personally, it definitely opens up opportunities for work that I might not otherwise be able to get. Y’know, if it wasn’t for the fact that we had events happening side-by-side, then I would’ve had a lot less opportunities to earn a living basically being a commentator in this industry, so I’m definitely torn. I can definitely see overall how we could use changes for the overall health of the community, but for me personally, I definitely benefit from it.

There’s a lot of different formats being used in the qualifiers these days: there’s best-of-three swiss, there’s best-of-three round-robin, there’s best-of-one GSL, et cetera. What do you think of the multitude of formats that are used? Do you think there needs to be a standard that gets applied or do you think the differences in formats for online qualifiers is a healthy thing?

I mean, as far as teams competing in multiple qualifiers, it’s really on the teams to decide what to sign up for and what they decide to pass on and I think teams are going to have to start taking a serious look at how many events they decide to take part in and taking time to skip to either focus on practicing or giving people a break from travel or what have you, so I think that’s going to come down to the organizations and the players to decide that. As far as formats being used, obviously everyone wants to feel like the best teams are the ones that actually qualify, so certainly using things like best-of-threes are giving teams multiple chances in some type of double-elimination system is always what’s going to be preferred, but at the same time about how many hours you’re going to have to play in a day just for one qualifier and if it’s over across multiple days depending on if you quickly make it out or have to play through a lower bracket, again I think that’s something that teams are going to have to think about how much time they really want to commit to X event, whatever that might be. Again, that’s one of those things where I feel as though we’re getting to a point where there’s so much going on that, to some degree it’ll be survival of the fittest, like whoever has the best product, people might skip out on smaller stuff. But, it’s one of those things where unfortunately for now, unless Valve does something, it’s just going to be something that’s up to the teams.

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Ghost and Swole Patrol both had format woes recently in the qualifier for DreamHack Masters Stockholm and the Americas Minor Closed Qualifier. With issues like that, do you think that’s a bigger issue that really needs to be touched on for these sort of big tournaments like the qualifier for the Americas Minor?

Yeah, I definitely think that just having a veto advantage isn’t really enough, like typically I think that if you’re the upper-bracket team and you’re not gonna do some type of bracket reset where you could play multiple best-of-threes if the lower bracket team wins the first best-of-three, which takes way too long. So, I think at the very least they should be getting map advantage. I know that’s a little bit tough in a best-of-three because the series can end in one map, but especially if it’s best-of-five one map advantage that’s preferred. I don’t think it’s fair to have just a veto advantage; I think you should get more than that from being the upper bracket team. As far as this whole situation with best-of-three swiss, I actually don’t understand that. Like, the whole point of a swiss system is not to have tiebreakers, like for round differential. You’re supposed to play a team that has the same record as you or what have you and then you come through, so I’m not exactly sure how that happened that way. I didn’t hear about it until just now, so I don’t really have a comment on that I guess unfortunately, because I don’t even know what happened.

Swole Patrol just barely managed to make it into the Americas Minor with map and round diff. advantages

Do you think merging the Minors and Majors into the same location is a good change towards the Majors and their format going forward?

Yeah, I definitely think that it’s the right choice because again, you get to make sure that whoever makes it through the Minor can actually attend the Major, there’s no extra visa issues that you have to worry about. It’s certainly unfortunate a team has visa issues and can’t even make it to the Minor, but what’s really the alternative? Like, they do the Minor in the CIS region where they won’t have visa issues, but then that team you’re talking about does wind up winning it and can’t go to the Major itself because they can’t get a visa? So, it stinks, but it’s better to happen now than to happen when you actually get to the Major itself. I don’t really know what the solution to visa issues are. I don’t really know the legality behind all of that, but it definitely always hurts to see a team that’s good enough to be there not be able to get there because of an issue like that. I’m not sure who to really put the blame on, but again, better now than later on deeper into the tournament.

And lastly, for the Major, you’re seeing events like StarSeries using best-of-three swiss systems to qualify teams into their playoffs, but the Major still uses a best-of-one swiss system, which is a welcome change from what they used to do. But, do you think there’s still room to improve upon the Major format, or do you think it’s still good as it is?

I think you can always try to look to make improvements. More best-of-threes are always good, but you have to think about the length of the days and how many days you’re actually doing it because now that it’s all one thing. It’s all now the Major, they’re not splitting it between the Major qualifier and the Major anymore. The whole thing lasts several weeks, so you have to think about all of that. If you’re going to do best-of-threes, it might be better to do some type of bracket system. If you’re going to do some type of swiss, swiss best-of-three does take a really long time and it takes a lot out of everyone. I think, as it stands with best-of-one swiss, I don’t think anyone really gets shafted by that. Like, you have so many chances to qualify through a best-of-one swiss that I don’t think really any team gets shafted by it. Like, even if you get upset once or something like that in a best-of-one, you still have ways to come back through. So, I definitely think it’s an improvement upon what Majors have been in the past, but I think moving to best-of-three swiss… I don’t know how much strain that puts on the staff and on the teams and if it’s really worth it in the end to sacrifice those stresses that’s going to be put on everyone else to make that work and the end product at the end of the day.

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If there’s one thing that you could change in Premier events of your choice, what would you think you would want to change in terms of format, staging, teams, et cetera?

I think one of the things that could really help out the scene, and we’ve already seen some people doing this, is just having more talent at the event to put a little bit less strain on everyone that’s there. It’s definitely difficult when you’re an analyst for example at an event and you don’t get half-days like a caster might get or obviously the desk host, who’s in the same exact boat. I think we did see StarLadder actually doing it where they had two desk hosts and rotated and I think that’s amazing because it basically gives everybody an actual break. Some people would think, “oh, analyst gets breaks between games,” but really you have to watch the game and be able to know what you’re talking about and you go back on the desk and you’re basically locked in for the entire day whether it’s a short day or whether it lasts twelve to fourteen hours. And at the end of the day when you do it like that, you’re going to get a worse product. Like, people are going to get tired, they’re not going to be as sharp with their analysis or with the use of their words. Y’know, you’re going to spiral into something where people are just kinda on autopilot trying to coast through because they’re just tired, they’re worn out. So, if you want a better product, having more staff, having more rotations available to let people focus on a specific set of matches for the day where they can be really detailed with that and feel like they’re not worn out at the end of the day because then it affects you the next day too. Whenever you’re getting home late, you gotta go to bed, you gotta get up early the next morning to go right back to it. Y’know, while it’s not physically laborious, it’s certainly a mental strain on you to keep up with everything if you want to do a good job. So I think I would say that probably.

John "BLU" Mullen is dusT's casting partner at the ZOTAC Americas Final in Santa Ana

You’ve done both analytical and casting work recently. Out of the two, which do you prefer? And, you’ve also been working with BLU, do you enjoy working with him as a commentating duo?

Yeah, I think that I’m pretty flexible. I don’t necessarily have a preference. I mean, I like talking about strategy and tactics the most and I feel there’s probably more room for that inside a broadcast and on the desk where you’re focused more on just results, recent form, and map pick bans. You’re just focusing on different things on the desk. Also, you don’t have a lot of time on the desk, so I feel like I’m always not really able to get as much insight as I want to based on all the research that I’ve done. So I guess I would say I prefer casting, but at the end of the day, being flexible is what gives me the best chance at getting opportunities to do work. You know, if I was only willing to do one role and turn down work with another role, I would obviously wind up with a lot less work on the table. As far as duoing goes, I’ve been working with BLU. I think that he’s a good play-by-play commentator, I think we get along pretty well. I mean, if I had it my way, I’d still be commentating with vince, but obviously that’s really difficult; that’s living in different continents and he’s had some issues he’s had to work through which has kind of kept him from working as much as he’d like to. Hopefully, maybe one day we’ll sync back up again. But, right now, I’m kind of in a boat where I don’t think I’m in a position where I can really enforce a set partner. I feel like where I’m at, I just have to be flexible and willing to do whatever to make sure I’m staying out there doing what I love to do. And certainly, I enjoy working with everyone and I feel like I work well with anyone and so that’s kinda how it’s gonna be.