At ESL One Birmingham 2024, Wade White had the chance to talk to UK Dota 2 casting legend Owen ‘ODPixel’ Davies about his history with casting UK Dota, his best moments and events, being back in Birmingham – and his favourite British foods.
How did ODPixel start his Dota 2 casting career?
“Initially, it started out with online casting for the smaller UK Dota 2 Lans. I can’t remember the exact brands and orgs were but they were tied in with ESL and Insomnia, which back then was by Multiplay. I was doing online stuff for them for smaller audience. It was very cozy with 30 to 50 viewers. People really enjoyed it.
“Then I would get invited to places like ESL’s small studio in Leicester which was very close to where I lived, quite conveniently. They would do little weekend tournaments and I’d get to go out to the studio and do casting on a proper setup, because up until that point I was doing it from my bedroom. Early days were with ESL and Multiplay getting to do stuff in studios and in front of small crowds.
“I didn’t find it very difficult to get into the community, everyone was really nice from my experience. I didn’t have any friends that played Dota before I started casting it, so it wasn’t like I was involved before I said, “hey, I’m gonna try casting these smaller tournaments’.
“My friend Wakey was also getting into it with me and we did a few events and online things together. There was another caster, JoShow, who I did a lot of early stuff with. He was very and gave me a lot of help with getting to these events because he was more in the scene, he knew a lot of the crowd and had been going to these events as a fan and he helped me get in, but for myself I was straight in on the casting front and everyone was super pleasant.”
ODPixel’s top UK Dota 2 memories
“With the early ones, like i53 in Coventry during the Multiplay days, it was really cool.
“It was one of the first times the players were on a stage, and there was a live crowd and there were multiple different games going on.
“I was casting and I remember a dad came up with his kid, and he said he had no idea what was going on, but he really enjoyed the casting. He didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t know the game but I thought it was really cool.”
ODPixel
“But then more recent, every time we come to Birmingham. All the ESL One Birmingham’s have been amazing, the crowds have been amazing. I really hope this continues to be a yearly thing, it showed signs of that when they did 2018 and 2019, obviously there was a break but now we’re back this year.
“It’s been a really good success, the viewers love it, the fans here love it, I’m sure ESL are very happy with how it’s been going, and I hope we come back every year.”
‘Everyone is super friendly here in Birmingham’
“I lived close to here when I was in the UK and have family and friends that went to University in Birmingham. My parents visit here a lot and watch musicals and they’ve come to the Dota events to see what I do in the flesh.
“I don’t really get to experience city life, I prefer to live more rural. I love coming to visit for the food options, there’s so many more options especially in Birmingham. You open up your app and you can order whatever you want whenever you want, there’s really some top tier stuff.
“I live in the Netherlands now and one of the things we don’t have is there’s not a lot of good Indian food and then we come here and we go Dishoom and it’s amazing, the quality of the food you can get, I love it. The crowd here in Birmingham is one of the best we’ve had. Everyone is having a great time, they’re super friendly, it’s such a pleasure to be here.
“Growing up I never really had Nandos, but I did get Greggs on my lunch break and my Greggs staple would be a steak bake, a sausage bean and cheese melt and then a roast chicken salad baguette – or the tuna one if they had it – and then a packet of crisps.
“It was a pretty big lunch, but we don’t get it at all outside of the UK, and the Netherlands doesn’t even have anything close, but when we come in at the airport, there’s a Greggs and that’s the first thing I grab.
“The memes are big here, people in the crowd love Greggs. I do hope we could get them at a sponsor next time but they probably won’t need it considering the crowd are already holding up signs for them, but they should 100% hit up ESL next time. I’ve seen PyrionFlax wearing the Greggs Christmas sweater. We need them to get in contact with ESL, throw some merch at talent and the crowd will love it.”
ODPixel’s favourite places to cast from
“Everywhere is very different and everywhere has good things going for different reasons, regardless the fans are always awesome. I’m super lucky to be able to meet so many different people from many different parts of the world.
“South East Asia is always cool, whilst Birmingham might be able to rival them, the SEA fans are always the loudest. It’s hard to pinpoint a single place, Birmingham’s great because it’s close to home and anywhere in Europe is convenient.
“One of the recent crazy ones was in Bali and it was a tournament hosted in a hotel resort, right on the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. That was definitely one of the most prettiest places I’ve been for a lan.”
See more ESL One Birmingham 2024 content on Esports News UK here
Wade ‘AggresiveDuck’ White is a tournament and event organiser for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in London and Essex, with events reaching as many as 250+ attendees.
Wade originally started in esports by entering in amateur Dota 2 leagues before moving into the FGC scene with Smash Ultimate in 2018, competing in offline events in the UK and Europe.
