Interview with TSL caster Chill: A History Lesson

Blake “Chill” Muzar is one of the most respected members and casters of the Team Liquid community, and StarCraft is nothing without the community. I had the pleasure of talking with Chill about previous experiences with E-Sports, Korea and the community. Chill has been around for what seems like forever and has plenty of stories to tell.

 

Hi Chill, how are you doing?

Chill: Good. Tired, as usual.

 

So with StarCraft and other E-sports you’ve been around for a while, what first drew you to the scene?

Chill: It was a natural progression,especially when a scene was just developing. You play a game because it’s fun and you naturally get drawn into a community, be it Big Game Hunters (BGH), map making and Use Map Settings (UMS), or the competitive scene. Now that the RTS scene is established, this progression happens much more quickly, but back in early 2000s people had no idea where StarCraft was going to end up.

 

So how did you become involved with Team Liquid?

Chill: Teamliquid.net and Gosugamers.net were just kind of where you ended up after you spent enough time playing StarCraft. Honestly, I have no idea how I found these websites, but I remember being on them in 2003. I was never a big poster, but I read a lot. I started posting a lot more in 2007. I naturally gravitated to the strategy forum and posted quite a bit there.

I remember, very specifically, that I was getting frustrated with the replies. This was the thread that threw me over the edge and made me PM  Manifesto7 for some form of moderating in the strategy forum, I even created a troll account and started posting on it (Blayse). This was before TL had all the user-tracking tools we have today. Eventually Manifesto7 just suggested I moderate the forum myself and I guess no staff objected. Then I just started moderating other forums and no one objected to that too. And now here we are.

 

Do you have any favourite players, either old or new?

Chill: I like to say I can play all the races, but when it comes down to it I’m a Zerg player in both BW and SC2. Because of that I tend to gravitate to Zerg players. I was a huge Ma “sAviOr” Jae Yoon fan, but let’s not go there. Lee “Jaedong” Jae Dong has probably consistently been my favourite player.

I’ve had brief love affairs with Kim “Effort” Jung Woo and Han “Kwanro” Sang Bong. I appreciate Lee “Flash” Young Ho’s play, but when I watch him I don’t really get the same feeling, I just think to myself “He’s really, really good.” Flash doesn’t touch my heart. In SC2 I’ve found it harder to be a big fan of anyone yet, but I do like Park “DongRaeGu” Soo Ho and Song “HerO” Hyeon Deok.

You spent some time in Korea in 2009, Do you have any particularly fond memories or any negative ones?

Chill: I was actually in Korea for 30 days in 2012 as well. I spent 70 days in Asia in 2009, the majority of it was in Korea. I like Korea, a lot, but I think it gets oversold. A lot of people seem to have their first adventure travelling alone in Korea and declare it the best place in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredible place, but there are so many places in the world to see. I always feel bad when I read people spending 30 days in a PCBang and eating fast food and attending the GSL and then going home. There’s so much more to do. Okay that’s my rant.

Korea is awesome to me because it’s the only place in the world I can travel to and speak another language well enough be understood. I like that aspect of it. Dan “Rekrul” Schreiber is an awesome guy and I owe a lot to him for the experiences in 2009. I lived with Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski and Joseph “Ret” de Kroon for a week, which was awesome. Artosis and Nick “Tasteless” Plott are exactly the same people off camera and really outgoing, great guys. I had fun just going around with SC people. The best StarCraft experience was going to IEG, playing in the tournament, watching Aleksey “White-Ra” Krupnyk beat Lim “Boxer” Yo Hwan, and going out with the players afterward.

 

Now I know you aren’t as interested in StarCraft as you were , is this simply due to a lack of time? Or are there other reasons?

Chill: Just lack of time. My love for Brood War isn’t something that can be easily replaced. Maybe if I had the time to play StarCraft 2 half as much as I played Brood War it could rival my favourite RTS. I have a career and there are only so many hours in the day, unfortunately. I will say that I certainly felt more interested playing and watching Brood War.

Are there any other games which you are interested in at the moment?

Chill: I played enough StarCraft 2 to get to Masters before casting the TSL4. I was worried I would embarass myself, leading to critics finding my account, leading to comments of “No wonder, he’s only Gold/Silver/Platinum league.” I haven’t touched the game since. I play a couple games of League of Legends a day. That’s about it. Hot_Bid tried to get me into Dota2 but it hasn’t bitten me yet.

 

Now I know that E-sports can be quite harmful to some respects of your life, for players, casters and hosts alike. Has it ever affected you? And if you are comfortable talking about it how?

Chill: Never anything harmful, quite the contrary actually. E-Sports opened the door to about 90% of the experiences I had in Korea. I get comments from friends of friends “Oh hey you’re the StarCraft guy? I saw your video.” Hell, I was a shy nerd at the start of university and only started meeting people because I was playing StarCraft and someone saw my APM (which was 70 at that time haha) and wanted to see what was going on.

That led to people on my floor getting introduced to StarCraft and often coming in to watch a game while we assembled people for dinner. I’ve had some strange experiences but never anything I would call harmful. I’d suggest that people not go “all-in” on StarCraft in their lives. For 99.9999% of us, StarCraft should be treated as an awesome hobby. You wouldn’t risk your livelihood for a hobby.

 

I’ve only ever seen you cast TSL 3 and TSL 4, which has been your favourite tournament to cast?

Chill: TSL2. The “final” Brood War tournament. The TSL ladder rush which basically every active BW player was part of. Greg “IdrA” Fields being the only ‘Korean’ progamer and smashes Tyler “Nony” Wasieleski. Nony comes back in the later rounds to get revenge. The Command Center cancel. A “washed-up” Christoph “Mondragon” Semke coming back into the scene and smashing the tournament. On top of that, StarCraft commentary was starting to follow a pattern and people were finding their styles. The production was getting better as well. Wrap that all up in a shiny bow of nostalgia.

On top of that do you have a favourite caster to work with? Someone who you have great synergy with?

Chill: Artosis and Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham. Both give me the feeling that you’re getting their raw, real personalities. Artosis is basically the most passionate StarCraft fan on the planet, you only need to hear him speak for an hour to understand that. djWHEAT is a professional. When you work with him you know you won’t have to handle any aspect of the flow of the broadcast because he will handle that. It’s a huge load off your shoulders when you’re trying to keep your head inside the game.

 

Thanks Blake, have you any final words?

Chill: Thank you to the Calgary Caelis Barcraft team for continuing to run their awesome events. Thank you to Chromate and Galleon for hosting the sick Toronto broadcasts. Thank you to Artosis and lilsusie for housing poor Chill when he visited. Thank you to Zatic and Plexa for being awesome.