How Vansilli went from working in the corporate world to casting VALORANT

Every day around 2 p.m. ET, Alex "Vansilli" Nguyen texts his wife, who lives in Vietnam, goodnight. He hasn’t seen her since their wedding in December 2019, but their support and love for each other has enabled Vansilli to exit the corporate world and pursue his dream job full-time.

The couple lives apart due to visa issues, and moving to Canada from Vietnam during COVID has slowed just about everything down for her. Because of border closings and travel restrictions, he hasn’t seen his wife since their wedding outside of video chat.

When Vansilli first started working full-time in esports, he had a conversation with his wife about the prospect of pursuing a full-time on-air talent career in esports.

Photo credit: Vansilli

“The wife said, ‘Look, you love doing this esports stuff, you love broadcasting and you're good at it. Whenever you get a shot, if it works out, it works out. If it doesn't work out within the next X amount of years that we give each other, then at least you can always go back into the corporate world,’”Vansilli said.

Vansilli started his casting career in 2002 as a passion project. He had been doing it on and off at first, since there wasn’t much money in esports in 2002. In order to pay the bills, Vansilli worked full-time for Philip Morris, a tobacco company, in Canada where he resides. He worked there for several years and eventually moved over to Juul.

In April 2020, Juul started to downsize and Vansilli was one of the first people laid off. VALORANT was just settling into its beta at the time, and because of his background in CS:GO and Rainbow Six, he had a choice to make: stay in the corporate world, or take a leap of faith.

Vansilli took the severance package Juul offered him and put the money toward a new computer, microphone and mixer. Then, he started working events until he got to where he is today.

Photo credit: Nerd Street

VALORANT took Vansilli on his first ever trip to Philadelphia

Recently, Vansilli, Loviel "Velly" Cardwell and Mark "Boq" Wilson all gathered in Philadelphia to cast the Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs. They worked in the Nerd Street studio for the week in partnership with Riot Games and were able to be there in-person to interact with each other during the event.

It was his first time in Philadelphia, so he went around to all of the landmarks and got to see all of the things, right? Well, not really. At the conclusion of our meeting, Vansilli told me he was invited to compete in a VALORANT tournament as a player.

He did have a Philly cheesesteak though, from Delissandro’s. He had some Philly pizza too, though he eats the crust first like an absolute heathen.

A day in the life of a VALORANT caster

Event days are busy days for just about everyone involved in the VALORANT Champions Tour, and it is no different for the casters. Because they are the ones viewers look to for analysis and information, they have to know everything about the teams, their strategies and how a match might play out.

During Challengers Playoffs, the casters arrived at the Nerd Street studio at around 1 p.m. Call time was at 2 p.m., and the production went live at 3 p.m. The matches go until late into the night, but their work isn’t done when the cameras shut off and everyone goes home. When there are matches happening simultaneously, there is so much more work to be done after the broadcast is over for the day.

“I'm really hard on myself when it comes down to my craft and my work,” Vansili said. “So, once the event is done, I go home, and then I watch all the matches that I've missed on the other stream, so I can catch up to that so I know what they're talking about on the next day.”

Photo credit: Nerd Street

VALORANT casters and hosts do way more behind the scenes than on-screen

There is a common misconception that casters don’t do much, because they are only on the screen for a short amount of time. But being able to analyze the way they do, and get all of the facts right, and give fans the most informed outlook they can give involves a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

“We're on five minutes at a time, but we're still in the greenroom watching all the games live throughout the whole day. … So for the live days, it's some long days, but the preparation that goes into it as well. I haven't really counted the amount of hours that I put into getting ready for the opening days, but it's a lot, I think, even for me, when I do color commentary, I do the same amount of work,” Vansilli said.

For six hours of airtime for a live event, Vansilli estimates he spends somewhere between 40-60 hours preparing for the first day, and that is only for one region. He doubles up his research by streaming his VOD reviews in order to maximize the time he spends on the research while also interacting with his community.

“Sometimes it could take me a good hour and a half or two [hours] just to finish one map, because what goes into the preparation is not only watching the game, but it's to understand why certain teams are playing this way. So, especially with a game like VALORANT, you theorycraft a lot of things before going into a game,” Vansilli said.

It is the talent’s job to craft stories around the teams

Although things can change from game to game, teams have a playstyle for the most part. Those playstyles change over time and it also is tweaked based on who they are playing against. It is up to the desk to pick up on that and craft a story around each team and how they are evolving.

A lot of work goes into figuring out what makes a team tick and predict what might be successful or unsuccessful due to previous performance or what changes the team has made from match to match.

“The more you watch the evolution of these matches, and the evolution of these teams, then it helps you get into the live portion to be like, ‘This is how he played before. [This is] what was successful, what was not successful going into this stage.’ And now you’re like OK, I’m smart as f---,’ because I was able to predict all that,” Vansilli said.

What’s ahead for Vansilli?

Unfortunately, Vansilli hasn’t heard anything from Riot about broadcasting for the Masters: Berlin event yet. But there’s no mistaking that he’s made a name for himself in this space, and fans are eager to see him at future events.

The on-air talent is always passionate about their craft, and Vansilli is no exception. He has been in the esports scene for a very long time, and he has worked hard to get where he is. Fans are hoping that they’ll see Vansilli at the North America Last Chance Qualifier in October and then again at the conclusion of the season at the VALORANT Champions tournament.

For now, Vansilli still resides in Canada while he awaits his wife’s visa so that they can live their lives together. He doesn’t know when he will see her next, but until then, he is still pursuing more events and tournaments while she supports him from overseas. Fans can catch Vansilli on Twitch and keep tabs on where he’s going next on Twitter.

Lead photo credit: Nerd Street