TOP interesting facts about our valentine casters

We are a couple of days away from WePlay! Dota 2 Valentine Madness. Here are some facts about our casters, you might have never heard about.

RobAJG

There are many exciting tidbits of knowledge about RobAJG I gathered with my power of Google-fu or from the man himself.

My impression about RobAJG is that he’s a layered onion: the more you learn, the more the curious you get. After prying into his Twitter account (just a couple weeks deep), I found out that RobAJG is learning Russian, hoping to use it during the trip to Kiev.

And here is RobAJG saying “kicked my ass nicely” in Russian.

Hopefully, the Russian-speaking viewers will teach RobAJG another phrase or two through the Twitch chat.

There are some other interesting things about RobAJG:

• He is afraid of bees.
• He met, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire book series George RR Martin “multiple times.”

Earlier in social media, we posted 6 “facts” about our casters and indicated that three of them were false. In one of them, we said that RobAJG played in “Fifty Shades of Grey” and in “Game of Thrones” as an extra. Now you can find out if that was true.

The TOP fact about RobAJG:

He was an extra in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul AND starred as a member of Earth Space Defense in “Independence Day: Resurgence” (aka Independence Day 2).

Rob is not a pickup artist (at least, we can't confirm it ;) ), nor is he a huge fan of country music.

Kyle Freedman

In multiple interviews during his careers as a player or as an analyst, Kyle mentioned that he is a keen reader. He even Russian read classic authors like Anton Chekhov and considered reading Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The TOP fact about Kyle:

He would love to host a talk show, because “you get to do nothing other than bullshit with literally the people you want to talk to.”

Who knows, maybe Kyle Freedman is the next Conan O’Brien or Stephen Colbert. Nowadays, casting esports tournaments could be a good foundation for the future career of a talk show host.

We believe without a shred of a doubt that Kyle has the stamina to play 48 hours of Dota 2, but he hasn't done it live. Neither Civ 6, nor Pokemon Go are the games he likes or plays much.

BreakyCPK

BreakyCPK is probably the most experienced commentator in our WePlay! Valentine Madness crew. He began casting LAN events in 2009, so he is approaching the 10-year milestone of his career.

Here is the most adorable Tweet I’ve found in BreakyCPK’s feed. ‏

I guess, being a dad doesn’t excuse you from following Dota 2.

The TOP fact about BreakyCPK:

He once flunked speech class because he was “too nervous to speak in front of people.”

That fact impressed me, especially after I found out that throughout his career BreakyCPK did the commentary of both esports and traditional games like Football and Basketball. He doesn't work as an announcer in a martial arts club (we mentioned it in social media). Nor does he play  Yu-Gi-Oh! professionaly or is in friendly releationtips with Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory).

Another interesting trivia BreakyCPK shared with us was that he is half Greek and born in a city called Poway (California, not Greece). A group of friends he hanged out with called themselves "Crazy Poway Kids," and that is how he got the “CPK” part of his nickname.

ODPixel

As a person who started following Dota 2 closely at the beginning of 2017, I thought that ODPixel is an old-school Dota 2 caster from the crowd who started playing and making content since the first TI. I couldn’t have been more wrong since he only began the “professional” career around 2014.

The TOP fact about ODPixel:

He planned to be a musician, acquired the necessary equipment, and used it to cast Dota 2.

Many careers and businesses began in peoples garages or backyards. In ODPixel’s case, it was his bedroom, where Owen set up a studio to cast amateur Dota 2 games. He was using equipment initially assembled for music studies to make the studio look and function more professional.

Music skills helped ODPixel after he had become a full-fledged Dota 2 caster. Here is a fantastic video of him rapping during the Manila Major with Slacks:

My personal favorite spot in this video is the RedEye plug at 00:38.

These facts about Owen are fake:

• ODPixel first started playing Dota after a hard break-up with a girlfriend

• Unlike most of his fellow countrymen, ODPixel hates tea.

• He once took Dutch classes to impress Sheever.

Sheever

Unlike ODPixel, Sheever became known to the Dota 2 community early on; she was even a caster at TI 2012. I was astonished to find out that not only was she not a caster at TI 2013, but she also had to take extraordinary measures to get there.

The TOP fact about Sheever:

Sheever did a Kickstarter campaign to travel to The International 2013. She lived in a hostel for the duration of the event. That Kickstarter didn’t even go that well at first. It’s hard to imagine Jorien missing a Dota 2 tournament she wants to attend.

Another impressive thing about Sheever is that she beat a TI winner AdmiralBulldog in a 1v1 match of Dota 2. Very few casters can ever say that.

Also, in my search of interesting facts about ODPixel I stumbled upon this little tweet:

Turns out, Sheever has quite a big collection of RTS games.

By the way, Sheever doesn't have belly button piercing (as far as we know). She doesn't play poker professionally and her brother isn't in a band called “The Rotterdam Romance.”

Purge

I started admiring Purge as a person and as a professional long before my dive into the world of Dota 2. It seems like every time he opens his mouth it’s about the game. Even during interviews, he finds a way to steer the conversation away from his personality to the games that recently happened or will happen.

Unfortunately, that made my quest to find something interesting and unexpected about Purge difficult. Nevertheless, I’ll share what I’ve discovered.

The TOP fact about Purge:

He starred in a television show called Bull (Season 1, Episode 13) as an esports commentator.

In the episode, Purge was casting an FPS game, but the scriptwriters clearly didn’t understand how FPS games work. That made the job of fake shoutcasting very weird for Purge, and the expression on his face shows it.

Another interesting fact that I revealed was that Purge was the first person to provide proof that Valve was working on heroes like Legion Commander, Skywrath Mage, Underlord, and Abbadon. That’s just another thing that the old-school members of the Dota 2 community know, but “newcomers” like me don’t.

Fake facts about Purge

• Purge was a competitive StarCraft 2 player.

• He prefers Chocolate pancakes for breakfast.

• If the Dota 2 career didn’t work out, Purge had a backup plan to become a architect. 

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WePlay! Dota 2 Valentine Madness with $100,000 takes place between February 10th and February 16th.