ELEAGUE: Anders Blume talks casting growth and theorycrafting

Anders Blume is the most iconic caster in Counter-Strike, and the ELEAGUE veteran spoke to FanSided about evolving his casts and his theorycrafting.

If there’s a voice of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, it’s undoubtedly Anders Blume. The Danish commentator has the best voice on the microphone and a history as one of the top casters on the CSGO scene for years.

He’s also one of the casters for Turner and IMG’s ELEAGUE, and before he called the ELEAGUE CSGO Premier Grand Final, FanSided spoke to Anders about how he’s changed up his casts this season and his brilliant theorycrafting.

FanSided: You’ve been a part of every ELEAGUE event. When you keep coming back, do you feel the need to do something new, or does your casting evolve?

Anders Blume (AB): It does. Especially this season, where we’ve had a lot more rotation between the talent. We usually have very strict rules about who casts with who, but they’re not really rules, they just happened to evolve that way. This time we were like, can we try to change it up a bit?

That, from my point of view, is actually really refreshing. I notice that my vocabulary is different when I cast with different people, I don’t think about it, it just sort of happens. It breaks up some of the monotony so I quite enjoy it. I find it pretty cool.

FanSided: How much does who you’re partnered with change how you personally cast? Are you different when you’re working with someone new?

AB: I think even if you don’t intend to, that happens. People have different speech patterns and people have different ways of structuring every round. But everyone here is at such a high level that it’s not a big issue.

And you can look at each other [in the casting booth], so you can see when someone is about to be done talking. You can look at their body language and sort of feel that they’re coming to the end of a conversation or the end of a sentence. I think that really helps a lot.

FanSided: Now that platforms like ELEAGUE are exposing Counter-Strike to a wider audience, are you finding that you have to explain more for newer audiences? Or maybe even explain less as the game becomes more well-known?

AB: It’s always a really difficult balance to have. If you explain things too much, you will get your social media feed filled with people saying you don’t know the game well enough, you’re just explaining the basic stuff. The reason we’re doing that is because we expect you don’t know the game well, and that actually does a lot to [help] people.

It’s hard to do both right. I actually think it’s best to not be too affected by social media, because once you go down that path, you’ll never sleep.

FanSided: Speaking of explaining things, the true genius of Anders Blume is the theorycrafting videos you do exploring these maps and pointing out all these little details and quirks. How’s that going for you?

AB: I still think it’s amazing. I think one of the really fun things about commentary is how relatively unexplored it is. There’s still lots of little details, lots of little tricks that can be perfected. It’s just  that a certain sort of style becomes the best one to play at a certain time, and then people figure out a way to play against that, and that’s how things evolve. There’s lots of stuff people haven’t tried because it doesn’t fit into the current style.

FanSided: Are there certain teams that you know are going to be more challenging or busier to cast, because of their playstyle?

AB: I think there are some teams that, not on their own, but if they play another team that has a similar style. Like Na’vi for example. When Zeus is the in-game leader, they’ll play a very slow start. The problem is if they’re playing another team that’s also very passive, then you can end up with nearly 30 rounds where the rounds are the full round time and you’ll have to talk for a minute where nothing much happens and they’re all just sort of setting it up.

It’s very interesting but it’s only interesting for people who really like that deep level of Counter-Strike. You can’t create the same level of excitement that you can if it’s really crazy and fast and face paced. That kind of Counter-Strike is better suited for a new audience, and the other is for people that have watched for a long time and don’t need the excitement all the time. You just have to be aware of it, and see it coming and enjoy that part of it.

FanSided: What is Anders Blume focused on in the Counter-Strike world right now?

AB: I would put it two ways. It’s bad for the overall story of Counter-Strike if only one team is winning everything. We had it in the beginning with Ninjas in Pyjamas. That can be bad because it puts people off of watching. They sort of know what they’re going to get.

But it can also be a bit strange if it’s rolling the dice every single time, there’s no consistency. Which I don’t think is quite the case now, but we’re definitely at a point where there’s a lot of chaos and it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what the best style of Counter-Strike is. Even betting who’s going to make it to top four at the next Major is really difficult.

I would say from a casting point of view, you sort of have to remind yourself that you’re there to enjoy sort of every game on its own merits and not always in a historical context. The historical context can be applied later. I just try to enjoy that game and not think about whether or not it’s a big upset.

I think most of my time is spent thinking about the future of esports and the bigger picture of Counter-Strike. I used to say a while ago there were at least three stages of development that were going on in the Counter-Strike world. The first one was bringing the overall level of Counter-Strike to a higher level, so it wasn’t just one or two teams that were good. I think we’ve seen that more or less.

The next thing was the Asian/Chinese market, and that’s starting to have a real impact. I think that’s the stage that’s going to be super-measurable, when we start to see Asian teams compete with the best in the world. I think about that and what it will do to the world we live in. How much calendar space do we have? Do we even have time for 10 more tournaments?

FanSided: What we really want to know is how many times have people asked you to record their voicemail messages?

AB: (laughs) Not that, but I’ve had a lot of other requests for like birthday-type stuff. Every time I go to an event, I get like a YouTuber who says can you record a quick intro to my YouTube channel. That’s happened on a regular basis.

Next: ELEAGUE's Semmler discusses the business of esports

For more with Anders Blume, follow him on Twitter or check out his work at Room On Fire. For the latest gaming news, check out the Gaming category at FanSided here.