Update: UK org Rix reached the final of this tournament, but fell to Team Queso again. However, they have qualified for the Icons Global Championship 2022 play-ins stage.
Original article:
“People have known me for having a ‘caster curse’ already!” Stuart ‘iTzSTU4RT’ Gilson laughs. “I’ve only been casting for a few months, but I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the first time I’ve travelled to a LAN event as a caster.”
British Wild Rift caster Stuart is a part of the broadcast talent line-up for the Wild Rift EMEA Championship (WREC) finals, which got underway today (May 5th 2022) in Barcelona and runs until May 8th.
Before this event began, however, we managed to sit down with Stuart in a live Twitch interview all about his story from Excel Esports superfan to content creator, Wild Rift esports and more.
Who does he think will do well at WREC?
“In terms of expectations, it’s hard to say, when players jump from home to LAN it’s a big change, you get the adrenaline pumping…” Stuart says. “I think the team that settle in the most will do the best. I think the two favourites are UK org Rix.GG (which has UK player Snitch) and Game-Lord. I think they’re the big European organisations.
“I don’t want to say too much… I’ve had a caster curse with Rix! In the Origin Series last year, they won every single monthly final, but when it got to LAN and the Wild Rift final vs Team Queso, Rix completely flopped.
“I just hope they don’t flop this time! I know them, I talk to the players and some of the staff from Rix and they’re really nice people, so I hope they have the chance to go to the World Championship!
“The good thing about the WREC is the top three teams go to this Icons Global Championship.”
Rix are off to a good start so far, going 2-0 at the time of writing this article.
On going from an esports fan to caster, he says: “It feels weird as I’ve gone from travelling to a LAN as a fan to travelling to a LAN as a caster. I think the tournament overall will be fun, there were a few upsets in the regular season. The stage is good, it’s exciting.
“It feels weird as I’ve gone from travelling to a LAN as a fan to travelling to a LAN as a caster. I think the tournament overall will be fun, there were a few upsets in the regular season. The stage is good, it’s exciting.”
iTzSTU4RT
“I’ve been in good hands [going into casting and content creation, thanks to] people like Stress and Excoundrel – I owe it all to them really. They’ve given me good guidance.”
Wild Rift Challenger ADC Stuart started out doing community tournaments before getting recognised by Riot and the wider community, before signing to Excel. But before that, he was already a huge fan of the UK-based esports organisation.
Back in 2019, Stuart ‘iTzSTU4RT’ Gilson flew from the UK to Germany to watch the team he supports, Excel Esports, in the LEC. He ended up bumping into Excel co-founders Kieran and Joel Holmes-Darby, as well as Caedrel – who was a player back then but is now a content creator for Excel.
Shortly afterwards, Valorant host and journalist Yinsu Collins wrote an article for Red Bull, titled ‘meet the superfan who spent nearly £500 to watch Excel at the LEC’.
And prior to all this, Stuart had been playing League of Legends on PC since the early days, reaching DIamond.
Now he streams, produces YouTube content and casts Wild Rift. It’s been quite the journey so far, and we look forward to seeing what’s in store for Stuart in the future.
Follow iTzSTU4RT on Twitter, iTzSTU4RT on Twitch and iTzSTU4RT on YouTube here
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
