DoA On VALORANT's Ignition Series, HotS, And More

When he’s not building meticulously well-crafted Warhammer models, donning a cheese hat to cheer on Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, or simply playing his favourite games in his free time, Erik “DoA” Lonnquist is making moves and bringing his iconic voice to the broadcasts of new games and esports scenes. A mainstay for some of the biggest esports in the past decade, DoA has spent most of the 2010s as a voice and integral part of the broadcasts that ushered in a new era of competitive gaming. As half of the duo that became the bridge to the worlds of South Korean StarCraft II, League of Legends, and Overwatch, DoA is once again entering uncharted ground and heralding audiences to new competitive scenes for upcoming and reemerging games.   

Ever since his reentry to freelance work at the start of 2020, DoA has been working on multiple opportunities that ping on his radar. Teamfight Tactics, VALORANT, and soon-to-be Heroes of the Storm, DoA has continued to be present as a consistent voice and personality in the industry. He sat with GGRecon to discuss his newest projects, and to weigh in on the news from games that he’s moved on from. 

Pop Flash 

In times of COVID where in-person events are impossible, Pop Flash’s use of a live studio and in-person desk, or lack thereof, made it one of the most refreshing tournaments of the season and crucial to helping VALORANT grow in such turbulent times. While he led the show alongside popular and well-known talents from other games, DoA wasn’t really supposed to be in that role, to begin with. 

“Originally I was going to be casting, but the original host wasn’t able to make it. So, I was asked to move over to the host role, which is more hours and more work but I was actually happy with that because it seemed like a better way for me to kind of ease into a VALORANT broadcast. It was where I can focus purely on the players and stories and not have to worry about the technical aspect that you kind of need to be a play-by-play caster.

“It worked out pretty well, and it was a ton of fun, I loved it. I had watched a lot of VALORANT before Pop Flash, even before I knew I was going to do the tournament, but really getting to dive into it was extremely fun, and I hope to get to do more of it”.

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Of course, diving into a new game is hard, especially one that doesn’t have a historical background to learn from. Breaking down his process, DoA explained what he had to do to get ready for the tournament.

“The biggest challenge was trying to talk with enough people and do enough research to get a sense of the tournament scene. What players were good, what were they good at, what different teams were good at. Just because there’s not a ton of data out there right now. The other thing was I watched pretty much the entirety of the FaZe Invitational and wrote down what every player played on every map, what weapons the preferred to buy in the pistol rounds and then the gun rounds later. I created a big document for myself that had all this data so I could kind of get a sense of the tendencies of the players who were going to be in this tournament. 

It was way easier than League… As far as the sheer road to memorisation goes.

When it came to learning about the players and teams, DoA shared his biggest takeaway from the tournament and who stood out to him the most. 

“Well, I suppose the biggest example and easiest choice is sinatraa. Where you’re talking about Overwatch League MVP, won the World Cup last year, got the MVP for both tournaments, Mr. 150k in Season 1. Seeing a player like that leave the Overwatch League was pretty shocking but to see him come into VALORANT and immediately be one of the top players and really play the game differently than anyone else right now. Very few people play the game as well as he does right now, maybe with the FaZe roster we’ll see a little bit more of that because it is a lot more Overwatch players going on. But even zombs doesn’t even play the way sinatraa does. He’s a great aimer, but he’s very abilities first. And he understands show to combo abilities and uses abilities in relation to the geometry of the map. Those are Overwatch skills… It’s cool to see sinatraa take his career in that direction and really look great, he has not missed a beat, that kid is like an amazing gamer”. 

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Overall, how was working on Pop Flash and the Ignition Series? For DoA, it was a great step forward for the newest scene on the block. 

“I’ve always said that esports does best when it doesn’t live under the shadow of its developer when the broadcasts are made by broadcasters. This kind of relationship that we’ve seen in the Ignition Series is a step in the right direction for esports overall. Even if there is a big-league someday, I would love to see the actual shows be produced by someone who is not the developer”.

Community Clash (HotS)

A surprising turn of events comes in the form of a new tournament for Heroes of the Storm, a game that in essence faced a catastrophic meltdown in 2018 after its esports scene at the top level was cancelled, almost Thanos-snapped out of existence. From the dust comes the Community Clash League Season 1, a new tournament with a user donated prize pool organised by Wisdom Media, a company DoA has been working with on the TFT side of things. Recently announced as part of the broadcast team, DoA explains his reason for joining.

“I love working with everybody over there. They approached me and asked if I wanted to cast a Heroes of the Storm league with Grubby”.

Grubby being Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen, a highly accomplished Warcraft III champion, StarCraft II player and broadcast talent. DoA and him go way back to when the both of them lived in South Korea, as residents in the same apartment building. 

“HotS is a game I played a lot of back in the day, I even filled in on a lot of the casts for Heroes of the Storm at OGN. But I feel bad about what happened to the Heroes scene, with their league being cancelled. I thought it was really cool to see that you had these people creating this pretty ambitious initiative to revitalise it a little bit. I think that’s the kind of thing that’s best in esports, when a community comes together and says ‘ We love this game we don’t care if everyone says its dead, we’re going to make a big thing for this game because we like it. I think that’s very pure. So that combined with me like to work with the people from Wisdom a lot this year made it pretty easy for me to say yes”.

To All the Esports I've Cast Before

Of course, with DoA, you have to ask about his thoughts on the news surrounding his former scenes. To close out he shared a few words regarding Overwatch and League of Legends, starting with the Shanghai Dragons.

"An 0-40 season to going to the Grand Finals weekend, that's pretty good". 

As a caster in that first season, of course, it's incredible to see the "losingest" team in sports history, actually have a shot at the trophy a mere two years later, and to see Byung-sun "Fleta" Kim finally be acknowledged for his incredible prowess in the game. 

"I'm glad Fleta finally got that [MVP Award]. I've been following Fleta since he was in Korea and I've always thought he was pretty good. So, I'm glad he's found success.

"Everybody could see that he was talented. It's just going to be weird for me to be cheering on the Shanghai Dragons".

Finally, DoA shared his perspective on the lack of a T1 presence at worlds and what it could mean for the Demon King himself, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok. 

"It is an interesting dynamic this year with Faker not being a surefire start. He's had such an amazing career, and it's interesting to see it kind of wind down. He's starting to kind of lay the groundwork for what comes next.

"I'm a Green Bay Packers fan, one thing we've always had on that team, or at least since I've been alive is, a very long-lasting Hall of Fame quarterback. We had Brett Favre for 16 years, and Aaron Rodgers for coincidentally 16 years. So, it's kind of like Faker, you have this superstar, and it's getting towards the end, and you're super excited to watch them play, but it's not quite at the same level that it was before. So, you're kind of starting to think about that with Faker. But, I think he's going to crush it no matter where he goes". 
 

Images via Blizzard Entertainment