Brandon “BDog” Rawlings took time from his packed casting schedule to attend EPIC.LAN 43, this time as a player. The Brit colour-commentator and his Aussie casting duo Lucy “LucyLuce” Eastwood have quickly established themselves in the scene, bringing their talents to ESL Impact from its inaugural season. Since then they have casted at many of the most auspicious events in the CS world, including Cologne, ESL Pro League and the Rio EU RMRs.
Coming back to the halls that BDog learned his chops, we talked about his start in the UK CS scene, taking a chance on a dream and the future of the UK and global CS scenes.
How did you get your start in casting?
My start in casting, to be honest, goes back to before I was even in the scene. I was friends with Harry and Hugo, and a lot of the other tier 1 guys back when I was at uni. I met them online just playing Counter-Strike itself. So I’ve always been in and around esports to a certain extent, but I never thought I could do it. I didn’t think I had the voice for it, I didn’t think I could think on the fly. So I always had it in the back of my mind “Oh maybe one day it would be nice to try and do it.” but I didn’t think too much of it. I was doing accountancy, I got my degree in that, and then I went into auditing for a little bit.
Then I was between jobs – I was moving into a different role and I had a month off in 2022. Freddie “GrimyRannarr” approached me, and I saw his tweet where he said he was looking for a duo and I said “Look, I’ve got a month, let’s give it a go. Why not?” I spoke to Harry “JustHarry” Russel and Hugo Byron, they were very supportive of me and we got a couple of events, and that’s how it all started.
What events were you casting at the time?
We did ESEA, we were doing Open, we did casting for a lot of the UK orgs. A big thank you to TLR [The Last Resort], Esports Wales as well because those guys were letting us broadcast on their twitch channels, giving us a lot of control over there and letting us produce the streams. It is really valuable when you just start casting to have that community outreach and Freddie was very good at knowing the org owners and had been in the scene a little bit, whereas I had been sort of on the outskirts. So Freddie was a big part of that.
We also did a couple of SCL League games. It was mainly that and ESEA really. We just tried to do as much as we could, but early it was a lot of UK.
When did you realise casting could be a career?
When I thought it could be a career was probably in Cologne 2022. Myself and Lucy [LucyLuce]. who I still duo with now, we had done some work for ESL Impact, we had been asked to do some work for the qualifiers. It got to the point where we were being booked pretty consistently. A couple of other TOs [Tournament Organisers] started reaching out and asking if we could commentate some games.
So it was January when I first started doing it, and then it was Cologne in August of 2022 and it got to the point where it was sort of overlapping with work. It was like “Okay, do I want to take a chance on it? Say have like a year, give it a go and see where casting can take me and still have the degree to fall back on.” I spoke to my mum who was really supportive so I thought “Why not? Let’s do it for year. Let’s see what happens!” That was 2022 and we’re here now near the end of 2024.
So I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been put in and the opportunities I’ve had in the past and I’m glad I took the risk.
Well shoutout to BDog’s mum.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I wanted to ask about LucyLuce. How did it come about that you guys became a duo?
So I met Lucy when she used to stream. She used to stream a lot during Covid and lockdown, and I at the time before I was in casting thought “Well I could stream a little bit.” So you would get people recommended. So Lucy was originally a twitch streamer just playing CS, and when ESL Impact came about she decided she wanted to give casting a go. So she did it. We did a game, and covered it together on her twitch channel and ESL hosted it and tweeted about it, and then they approached her to see if she’d like to cover the broadcasts. Then I got offered an opportunity to stand-in because the duo Lucy was working with couldn’t make it. She recommended me because we knew each other loosely.
That’s how it all started really, and from there we kind of all got caught up in it together and we just rolled with it. I’m glad we rolled with it, because it’s going okay. *laughs*
In CS it can be hard to even play a game without experiencing sexism in pugs. As a duo with a woman, do you think it’s helped you, hindered you or not really made a difference to your opportunities?
I don’t think it really makes a difference. If you’re good at what you do, if you’re passionate about a game or passionate about anything it shouldn’t stop you. I think esports obviously has a lot of learning to do, but I think the community has definitely grown especially in the women’s scene especially with ESL Impact. I think the community is very strong there. I don’t think it has hindered our opportunities whatsoever. I think so long as you care and as long as you are passionate then you can do whatever you want really.
The UK seems to generate a lot of casting talent. Do you think LANs like EPIC.LAN help develop casters. Did it help you specifically?
Yeah, definitely. I think EPIC is sort of like a right of passage now for some of the top guys. A lot of casters have done EPIC.LANs in the past, also Insomnias. Obviously, Freddie, Ne0kai, Shriv and myself have all done EPICs. It’s really good because it kind of gives you a blank canvas where you can have these opportunities and experiences. I think that’s why it’s really important especially that EPIC exists for casters as well as players. Obviously the UK scene needs competitions, but for casters to have the opportunity to cast in front of a crowd, cast and go to a studio environment. It is really valuable knowledge. The skills that you get from casting here, for example, carry over when you move up and progress. So it’s extremely valuable.
You mentioned Insomnia. This is a record-breaking EPIC.LAN but Insomnia has ceased operations. What’s your overall feeling on the strength of the scene at the moment?
You can look at the record-breaking [attendance] here, so I don’t think the scene is weakening at all. I think it would be beneficial if the UK scene had more tournaments but whether we get to that stage I’m not sure. I heard rumours about this other LAN that is being formed from creators of Insomnia and the like but I’m not sure what’s happening there.
No, I don’t think it’s weakening. I think it’s in an okay state right now and hopefully it continues to keep growing and hopefully we continue to get the support we have had at this EPIC and it’s not a one-off.
You have a series on YouTube with Tech Girl where you sell her a pro. Are there any prospective talents you have your eyes on in the UK scene?
Obviously Godku, I think he’s got potential. You’ve got Byfield’s team as well [Flowstate]. You’ve got the Belfast Storm guys as well. I think as we’re recording this they’ve just got knocked out actually, but I know they’re very good and have a lot of potential and are working very hard so probably those guys.
Finally, I wanted to ask about the 2025 scene. Obviously, it’s completely different. Do you think it will be possible to come from a lower team and climb or are you skeptical of that?
No, there should be opportunities because it’s all based on Valve ranking. So no matter what competition you play at there will be Valve Ranking Points, in terms of the top echelons of CS. So I think there will be ample growth for tier 2. The tier 3/tier 4 landscape will be interesting, not too sure about that. To be honest with you there are just so many unknowns with it that I think we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s one of those where I wish I could give more info, but I genuinely have no idea.
I’m not even sure what the future looks like for me at the moment. So I live in a world of hope, I live in the hope that because we will have an open circuit it means that we will have more opportunities. But that’s in theory how it should work, but we’ll have to wait and see.
