Lauren “Pansy” Scott and Michael “Hypoc” Robins are two of Valorant's most storied casters. Both came into the Valorant scene with tons of esports baggage hailing from differing fields, eventually forming an unlikely casting duo that is now considered one of the best, if not the best, in the current landscape.

The two first linked up in the Ignition Series' Mandatory.gg Cup after just missing each other in years past, and have grown to be a staple of the EMEA and international broadcast since. As a result, they were privileged to do one thing not many casting duos get: cast grand finals.

But not just any grand finals. International grand finals.

In 2021, Panpoc — as the duo is famously named — casted three major back-to-back finals: Masters Berlin, the EMEA LCQ, and Champions. In 2022, they took it a step further by casting at Masters Copenhagen in front of Valorant's first-ever international crowd.

Panpoc's track record when it comes to grand finals makes the duo two of the most qualified people to speak about Copenhagen, expectations for Champions 2022 in Istanbul and Riot's higher-than-ever bar for 2023.

This is the first in a three-part series of feature articles about Pansy and Hypoc. The remaining parts will be published in the coming days.

Photo by Michal Konkol/Riot Games

Valorant's first taste of what the future could hold came as early as 2020. When Riot ran their first event, First Strike, the world got to peek into the future. The LEC production team lent the European Valorant team their Berlin studio and flew six on-air talent members there for the First Strike finals.

“For me going to the studio was great because we got to see everyone in person and get that real kind of atmosphere going and build through it,” Pansy said. “Quickshot was fantastic at facilitating a good launchpad for a lot of people who hadn't had that structure before or hadn't been told to look at their cast in that way.”

The fabled caster went on to say that Quickshot did by himself what she had been used to doing alongside ESL talent in the years prior. He cushioned the talent's first in-site transmission by easing and preparing structure, guidelines, topics to hit, and more. Alongside Kevin Bell, senior broadcast for EMEA at Riot, they made everyone's lives much easier and manageable — including Hypoc's. Being present in the LEC Studio was also , for Hypoc, an experience unlike any other due to its level of detail and broadcast scrutiny.

“I had two conversations with Quickshot that impacted me more than anything I've learned in the previous, what, two and a half years of working in esports. Even just having somebody tell me the creative aspects of casting that he, inherently, has measured against but also [the aspects] that are important in terms of the mechanical side of casting, is something I'd never really even thought about to be honest,” Hypoc said.

Hypoc went on to say that Quickshot went to the trouble of doing a round-by-round analysis of the duo's casting and pointing out key details they were doing right or wrong. Pansy and Hypoc were still trying to find their casting style as a duo, and Quickshot's analysis gave the latter “an extra 200 things” to think about when they were still wanting to get to know each other to become a more conversational duo.

“And I didn't even know I was doing that, do you know what I mean? It completely changed my perspective,” he said.

However, as Pansy put it, the First Strike broadcast was a double-edged blade. While a great show was put on, it set the bar exceedingly high way too early on. While a studio was eventually built exclusively for Valorant, talent didn't set foot in it for a couple months. That changed in 2022, as every headliner of the European VCT was featured in its own studio.

But one key thing was lacking between February and July: people.

OpTic had to qualify to Masters Reykjavik and claim their first international trophy in front of… nobody. They lifted that famous purple block inside an empty Laugardalshöll.

However, everything changed in June. Riot announced that Masters Copenhagen would, for the first time, feature a live audience. It was an entirely different ball game that no one could foresee.

“On day one that the crowd was in there, me and Lauren actually went and sat right at the back of the rafters, hidden away at the top to see the stage reveal,” Hypoc said. “We weren't at the rehearsal the day before because we weren't on day one of the show for when the audience came in, so we wanted to go off and see the stage reveal from the audience and experience it that way.”

The overall community was critical of the days leading up to Masters Copenhagen. The collective opinion was that Riot did a poor job of properly promoting ticket sales and that led to a small opening audience. Hypoc's estimation placed about 600 people in the crowd.

“My expectations were so low, and certainly checking the ticket sales the week or two weeks leading up,” he said as Pansy jumped in to say it hadn't been looking good. “Everybody was shitting on it on social media. Mentally coming into that, I remember saying to Lauren, 'I don't know how much I want to lean on the crowd if it's gonna be shit. I don't want to try to switch up what we're doing, because I just want to feel comfortable doing it.'”

“But even before the game started they were getting rowdy,” Hypoc continued. “They were actually making noise not even prompted by the desk. They started chants and I remember turning to you and I was like ‘thank fuck, they're driving this themselves.'”

“Then literally, the first map, I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, cool, let's ride this wave,” Hypoc said. “They're wild, let's go,” Pansy replied.

Pansy jumped in to say that in all her years of casting, she has seen larger crowds at larger events that were less involved. Some operators have gone as far as to add screens that will give the crowd chant and applause cues.

Copenhagen didn't need that. The famous “Ace” chant directed to f0rsakeN in his Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #3 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov 's match against OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming Inactive was purely the people's work.

While she was also worried a FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #3 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder loss might weaken the crowd, the opposite happened.

“Day two was fucking mental,” Hypoc said. “FPX didn't have a good turnout in terms of fans. But a lot of the people that came to support FNATIC ended up converting to FPX. I'll actually give a little bit of credit to some of the FNATIC guys that came into the crowd and Boaster was down there on the front line — obviously he had a Paper Rex flag — but actually a lot of the fans stayed.”

“One thing about that crowd was that there wasn't any bias. They were all just there for Valorant,” he finished. “And that's what it's about man,” Pansy immediately chimed in, just before saying how gratifying it was to finally meet Valorant fans.

While First Strike set the bar for future Valorant production, Copenhagen set the standard for what its crowds can eventually become. After all, it was CS:GO country, making it an incredibly risky move by all accounts.

But even then, the crowd behaved like it wasn't anybody's country. It was its own living, breathing entity that didn't require a caster or host to be driven. It was filled with people from all kinds of backgrounds, from pro players to the average Valorant enjoyer.

“The fans who traveled for Copenhagen… I had Brits come up to me who were like, ‘oh, yeah, I got a flight like two days ago.' I'm like, ‘oh my god,'” Pansy said. “We met two people that had come from Australia,” Hypoc continued.

Few have done what Panpoc have. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

That's the crowd Pansy envisions and desires for the future of Valorant.

“Overwatch, I think, did not do it in a good way. It's building that tribalism that I have a favorite team. I don't really care about the game, I just care about my team. It's like that American sports concept,” she said. “And I don't want that to be esports. I know that it's the traditional model but I want to be able to watch that game and, if it's a good game, that's it. That's what it's about. It doesn't have to be my favorite team. I can still appreciate the game. Sure, I'll support my team. I'll turn up because they're playing there. But I'm not gonna go home if they lose. I'm still gonna watch some damn good Valorant.”

That's one of the things expected in Istanbul, Valorant's next stop. After 2021 ended with back-to-back shows in Berlin, Valorant is headed to somewhere new in Turkey for its capstone event of 2022.

After being surprised by the Copenhagen audience, Hypoc considers the move to Turkey a bold one, but necessary at the same time.

“We almost have to try and activate a lot of these diehard regional fanbases that have developed very, very quickly, which you can credit to the COVID era of esports. But I think it's a bold move,” he said.

“I don't. I think it's a slam dunk,” Pansy replied. Eventually, both agreed Hypoc is, by all accounts, a pessimist.

Pansy went on to say that if a Turkish team had qualified to Champions it'd be even better, but that's not the case. She wants Champions to be a landmark event that people will build entire holidays around and travel to from anywhere in the world, much like those Australians did for Masters Copenhagen.

“I hope that they keep that in mind that this isn't just League. It's not just these events where it's in this country, that's where 99% of the audience is going to be from. No, I don't care. Because I know people will get on flights if you give them the chance,” she went on.

“To be fair, I think they're going to try and focus it towards the Turkish audience, which is completely fine and they deserve an event. They deserved an event last year. So I don't mind that. But I still want to make sure it's accessible to the international audience who I know will travel. I hope they don't ignore that side. Because I know there's some really passionate fans who will do that,” she said.

Pansy wants an international crowd at international events. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

In 2023, the scene is changing. Riot is creating three international leagues, each with its own regional tier 2 foundations, from where a global scene will be built. EMEA, North America, and Asia-Pacific will each receive a partnership league where teams will enter in an agreement with Riot akin to LEC's franchising system.

Starting from next year, Riot's ability to produce a quality show will be held to a higher standard.

“As far as I'm concerned, next year, when we have teams locked in and they're on-site and talent are on-site and we have a production team on-site and everybody's in the same two-mile radius, there's no excuse not to be absolutely nailing the content side of things,” Hypoc said.

“I will hold Riot to very high standards, because they are talented,” Pansy said. “I think we should hold Riot to very high standards, because they can deliver them.”

When games move to franchised or partnership systems like Riot has, there is often backlash. Overwatch League is one critical example, as the community felt Activision-Blizzard jumped the gun and drove the game into the ground.

“But we don't need to instantly think they're gonna fuck it up. It was the same with the franchising thing that's kind of been clarified a little bit more, and it looks good,” Pansy continued. “I'm glad we held them to a high standard, but people also saying ‘ah you fucked up? Esports. You've ruined the whole thing.' It's like, well, give them a chance to fuck it up. If they do, then absolutely, rinse ‘em. But give it that little bit of time.”

Can Istanbul match Copenhagen? Panpoc say yes. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Both Pansy and Hypoc plan to improve on what they were able to do and not do in 2022. Both share the feeling that Europe, as a product, stagnated in terms of supplementary content despite building up Leo and using household names such as Boaster, Mixwell, or even ScreaM as easy and quick fixes when content is needed. Those were contrasted by ardiis and Alfajer, who Pansy pointed to as two of the most notable examples they did a disservice to, due to not building their talent up.

“Clearly the systems aren't there yet where it's like, these are the teams we need to focus on, these are the players, we need to build content, we need to really build them up,” Pansy said. “Let's start pushing this because us saying it as casters is one thing, but having like premade content to really drive that home is so imperative. Stuff like that is probably where the creative frustrations for us are.”

Both casters want to be able to work directly alongside Riot in building these storylines, pushing for supplementary content and promotion of player stories and background to give further context for good and bad events or performances. In fact, that's one of Pansy's demands were she to ever go exclusive with Riot.

“That's something that always interested me, in terms of telling players' stories and making players relatable,” Hypoc said. “And really connecting the dots to make people bothered about tuning in to see that person because of their story or because of where their aspirations lie.”

The time has come for Riot to step up to the plate. Valorant's scene is entering a critical stage where, good or bad, certain names will become broadcast mainstays. The general scene, and EMEA as Pansy specified, can't afford to remain static or feel safe to avoid any form of dropoff in attention.

“For 2023, I need to see, across the board, more growth, more dedication, more creativity, more push, you know, to really give this esport what it deserves,” she said. “It's saying, ‘okay, 2022 was a learning process, right? Like we missed a couple of times, we hit a couple of times, let's make sure, for 2023, we hit more than we miss on these,'” Pansy finished.