Dota 2 caster Ares: “TI finals is the ultimate goal for every Dota 2 caster out there”

Just like in the case of esports players, becoming an esports talent requires countless hours of practice, grind, and putting yourself out there for others to notice you. It’s not an easy process, about which we spoke with Lachlan “Ares” Williams — an upcoming casting talent in Dota 2 scene.

Ares went from casting matches from his own bedroom in 2018 to being a part of the talent crew at The International 2022. He first came into the scene as part of the EPICENTRE Major 2019 group stage caster.

In this interview, we spoke with Ares about himself and his journey to becoming a Dota 2 talent, as well as about the outlook for the teams in the upcoming 2023 DPC season.

From bedroom casting to The International 

Fragster: So Ares, you’ve been casting Dota 2 matches for three years now. How did you first discover Dota 2?

Ares: I first started playing with my cousin who actually got me into Dota around 2013.  Every second year, my parents would take me around Australia and my cousin would come with us as well, but this was the year when we got laptops from school. He had a brand new laptop and he brought it with us, while we were traveling in Tasmania.

His step-brother showed him Dota prior to that and he was really obsessed with it at that stage, while I had no idea about it. I was just playing a bunch of Playstation games, I never really ventured into the PC world before he showed me the game. At first, we were just playing against bots and taking turns. Any opportunity we had to play, we’d play. 

And how did you come across esports?

I am a very competitive person, I played sports when I was younger but I’ve been a gamer for pretty much my whole life as well. I wanted to try to compete in Call Of Duty, I was very good at it, but not good enough. I did some very minor tournaments in CoD so I was kinda already into the esports scene when I was introduced to Dota 2 esports. 

You went from casting in your own bedroom back in 2018 to working on your very first The International this year. What do you consider your best experience so far? 

My best experience is probably the opportunity to cast with Fogged for the Eastern Europe regional finals of the last DPC — that was definitely a memorable experience, cause I very much look up to Fogged. He is an incredible talent in the scene. 

Another time was probably recently when Danog and I got to cast the OG vs Liquid game at TI, that 2-hour break was pretty crazy. 

There are a lot of really good memories, it’s hard to pinpoint one. I’m sure there are many more that I would be able to think of but we’ll just go with those two. I am just blessed to be able to cast, to yell at a videogame and do something I really enjoy. 

Your name is Ares, what’s the inspiration behind it? Were you inspired by the Greek God Of War and Knowledge or something like that? 

I have swapped my name so many times since I started playing games from a very young age. I had a lot of name swaps and nothing had really stuck, I just went back and forth. I have always been fascinated with just Gods in general — Greek Gods, Roman Gods, Norse Gods — but I think the first time I had a god name was when I was playing SMITE.

It used to be an incredible game, I had a lot of fun playing that. And I think SMITE influenced me to change my name to Odin for like a little bit, and I really liked it. Then I just kinda decided on Ares. I don’t particularly know why, again I do really like the whole Greek God aspect and all of what comes around with that. 

Do you play DOTA currently? If so, what’s your favorite role?

I don’t play currently, I work full-time in a warehouse job and I also do a lot of commentating. I’m also very fitness and health-heavy, so I go to the gym 7 days a week and also try to learn a lot of new things, so I just don’t have time to play Dota.

My peak was like 5.3K hours and I got there playing position 3 so that’s probably the role I enjoyed the most. But ever since I started casting and really getting into it, I started enjoying all the roles. 

Many people dream of becoming professional players and TI champions, the next Miracle- or N0tail. What made you want to pursue a career as a Dota 2 caster, what was your inspiration?

I did want to become a Miracle- or N0tail, I really wanted to become a player. I tried a little bit after I graduated from high school, but honestly, a big thing for me at that stage was just the mental aspect of Dota. Everyone knows how toxic it can be, I was very young and I wasn’t able to handle the grind. Rank is incredibly important, that’s how you get noticed and it’s very difficult if you don’t have the mental fortitude to be able to get through games and be able to recover.

I knew that I wanted to be in the scene — be in esports in whatever aspect I could and I saw this opportunity to join the scene as a talent. I wanted to become a talent to get in the scene, because once I’m in the scene, who knows what could happen from there. But I fell in love with casting. 

Is there any advice that you’d like to share for people that want to pursue a career as talent?

I think, unfortunately, it’s a bit more difficult now than when I started casting. I think DPC is really important for the whole scene but it gets difficult for the new talent to get noticed because there are not that many third-party tournaments. But regardless of what I would recommend, if you’re looking to try to enter the scene as a talent, just do your best to stream and comment on as many matches as you can.

A couple of times I got a nice boost when I was casting some Major games on my channel. Suddenly the main broadcast went down and everyone was trying to find a different stream. They came to me and I gained some followers and it goes from there. It really is about putting yourself into a position where you’re casting as many games as possible.

I also recommend trying to edit your videos, I honestly recommend putting them on TikTok, with how crazy that’s going off at the moment. There are a lot of eyes over there and being able to gain followers is important. Just stream yourself commentating, also go YouTube — Capscast has videos on casting critics, I constantly go there and watch them, take notes and learn from them.

To tie it all together, go watch Caps videos, watch known talent, see what they do and see what you lack. Stream as much as you can on your own channel if you’re self-casting, and upload little highlights of team fights and stuff like that to TikTok.

The roster shuffle deadline has ended, can you share your thoughts on the teams going into this new DPC season? Which team do you think will become stronger this year?

We could be here for half an hour and I could list every team, but I will try to do a couple from each region. I am a REALLY big Liquid fan, anyone that knows me knows that. I’m incredibly excited to see how Nisha is gonna be able to shape up with Liquid, hoping for the best for them. I’m also excited to see how Ammar looks on Pos 1 on Nigma, of course, you can’t really forget Old G.

For Eastern Europe, you have this new powerhouse with Bet Boom Team with TorontoTokyo playing position 5, which is crazy. That’s a stacked lineup, anyone would look at that roster and be so fearful of having to play them. Another really stacked team is Darkside, they got like RAMZES666, RodjER, Sonneiko.

China, I hope the best for PSG.LGD, they got some pretty good players. That’s always been a really dominant organisation so there’s potential to see them grow strong as well. Also Xtreme and Vici Gaming coming from Divison II.

All the eight teams in SEA are stacked and could potentially take a game off each other but I’m excited to see the new Blacklist Team I suppose.

It’s awesome to see new organisations coming into the scene. We see people moving around and building these powerhouses. Some will fall, some will rise, I think this is gonna be such an incredible year for Dota 2 with all the teams that are set up. 

Which players do you think people should keep an eye on this season? 

I’m really excited to see how Kordan looks on Bleed. This is a name that I’ve been hearing a bit and he’s incredibly highly ranked on the Dota ladder. It’s a great opportunity for him with this Bleed esports roster with JaCkky, Masaros, PlayHard- and Dubbo. 

And then Entity’s Watson. Watson’s a really high-rank player as well and I think Entity are an incredible team also backed by a great coach. So I’m excited to see Watson in Division I for Western Europe and see if he’s going to be able to fit into Entity or not, if he can fill Pure’s shoes. Also Ego in China, who is on Knights. 

Is there a series that you wish to cast in the future? 

Yeah, TI finals. Next year I aim to cast TI main stage, that’s the goal. And then after that it’s the TI finals. That’s the ultimate goal for every Dota 2 caster out there. Everyone wants to reach the pinnacle and be on that stage and have their voice going live and be able to describe the moment when one particular team is lifting the Aegis. That’s kind of what we’re all striving for.

Header: Twitter/ Ares|Lachlan