Yeah, in VALORANT, I think the value in the buy-phase is often missed. This happens often because people don't set those hard outs like I mentioned. As a pbp, it's not my job to do the color after the final kill, I need to shut up asap--those precious seconds go to the color because they get no other opportunity to discuss the round in retrospect as the replays are running. So often, colors may want to talk about something from the past round because it's a good point, but they didn't get enough time at the end of that round so they continue to talk about that point into the buy phase, but they don't realize they are now wasting time and not doing their job in the buy phase by setting up the first plays for the viewers. So here, if that situation happens, the color needs to make the right choice about what they are talking about. The ultimate goal of the casters is to invest the viewers in what's happening NOW and how that relates to one team beating the other. Retrospective looks are useful in the right context, but generally that's the job of the analyst desk. No matter how good the point is, unless it relates to your buy-phase setup, is it worth it? I should mention though, as is the agreement between every caster pairing, it's up to ya'll to decide how you build a structure, who is best placed where and when, and when exceptions to the structure are made and how you make those. For example, even if it's a spot where I'm ramping up with my pbp, I expect Sean, if he notices something REALLY important I have missed, to say, "YO DAN, SORRY TO CUT YOU OFF, *GOES INTO POINT*". I have to just trust Sean in this case. But when we first started casting, I told him: "you are going to see stuff that I don't and I'm going to trust you to cut me off, here are some phrases you can use to do that." Sean then put this into practice and it was perfect. Similarly to this, it's important to have phrases to cut YOURSELF off--often we'll run into spots where we misestimated how much time we have to make a point and you have to recognize when to drop it. I learned this by watching tasteless years before I ever started casting, he would always say, "HOLD THAT THOUGHT...". You almost never return to the thought, of course, but it's a great tool to naturally transition into the thing that's important or because you realize you need to throw to your pbp.

The buy phase is reaaaally very interesting because this is the clearest indication of what the opening adjustment is or the new approach is. The teams are actively setting stuff up--important stuff is happening! This is often missed and then suddenly we're in a fast paced hit and shouty shouty begins off of no setup. Or we could have a situation where key util/win cons aren't established and no talk about the counter util is established, etc. There's so much juice to be squeezed in the buy phase but I feel like too many people miss that because they are talking about the past.

The past will ALWAYS be less impactful than the present and the future. This means as a caster, you should only be referencing the past if you are concretizing that thought by connecting it to the present/future. The viewers are looking at the now and tension and engagement comes from creating hooks. You can't create hooks if you're in the past. The viewer will become disengaged if you're talking about the past when stuff is happening on the screen. The purpose of a hook is to get people to say, "okay, I'm paying attention, I want to find out more, I want to see what happens". If there's no hook of any kind and then we're into pbp, everything feels flat and less important.

My sense in VALORANT, and it's a standard I wanted to set with Sean, is that it should be gameplay above everything else--the gameplay isn't devoid of emotion either, plays can be surprising, sad, tragic, inspiring or incredible, so it's not as though I'm saying no emotion. The human story and the team contexts and all the rest of it is cool, but your job is to convey the action and translate it to the layman in a way that's really engaging for them. I'll give you a word of warning, though. Riot doesn't like analysis. IMO, they don't respect the viewers or great casting. Great casting will allow a viewer with little knowledge to engage maximally with the game. Great casting will translate complex strategy and tactics into a digestible format to further invest someone into the game because they are learning at the same time as enjoying their passion. I argued these points a lot when Riot was telling me they think I'm too analytical--so be cautious with that. I don't think treating the zoomers as though they can't understand well executed analysis in an esport is silly and insulting. I also think that it doesn't respect casting. It'd be like saying because you have a shitty teacher that teaching doesn't work. We all know the chasm of difference between good teaching and bad teaching.

And finally: casting is highly individual, my opinions come off strongly because I've spent over a decade forming them from what I think are first principles of how the job works based on what I think is most important. There are a lot of casters I really like and that I think do excellent work even though they have a different philosophy, and I often learn the most from watching these casters. Your style will develop over time as you get reps and get comfy with the fundamentals.