Tsquared’s Amazing Transition From Competing to Casting

Once father time strikes, a veteran competitor and retirement slowly becomes the reality everyone must face. However, opportunities tend to rise for many as their relationships, experience and knowledge of the game continue to be useful. Tom “Tsquared” Taylor is a veteran player whose years of dedication to Halo has put him in a great position to transition from competing to casting. With competitive Halo on the verge of undergoing a major revolution and with great personalities being a necessary asset for this revolution to occur, Tsquaredcould very well play a major role in competitive Halo’s next revolution with his casting abilities. The ten-time event winner has worked very hard to build his reputation as a caster. Working withEsports Arena, he was a caster for their recent Halo 5 event, which was a smaller scale event that featured some of the top amateur competitors from California. Word about his great casting in the event quickly got around and opportunities started to flow around for Tsquared. He would soon start casting the Open Qualifiers,Legendary Cups and perfect his abilities. Recently, he was offered an opportunity to be cast alongside veteran player Kyle “Elamite” Elam for week six of the HCS ProLeague. He traveled all the way to Burbank, California to go to the ESL Studios and gain some extremely valuable experience casting in a professional environment. During his time casting withElamite, many, including myself, were amazed by how comfortable he was casting such important matches with thousands watching. EvenElamite was amazed with T2’s transition, with Elamite constantly agreeing with literally everything T2 said. Tsquared has a very uniqueability not many other Halo casters have. Being a competitor with years of experience, T2 is able to spot every big play that is made and he makes sure to highlight every single one, explaining how each play could be game changing. From something as big as a clutchsnipe, to something as small as a player’s movement around the map,T2 is able to spot it all and he always makes sure to break down every situation. This ability really came into full effect when he was casting the HCS Open Circuit Legendary Cup with Ryan “Towey” Towey in the Winner’s Bracketsemifinals match, which was Denial vs. 3sUP. T2 did a great job highlighting both Ian “Chaser” Contorelli and Abel “Rammy” Garcia’s individual plays. While most casters could have easily missed Chaser’s great plays since his teammate Gilbert “Munoz” Muñoz was performing significantly better than him in the first half of CTF on Fathom,Tsquared quickly pointed out how both Chaser and his teammateEzekiel “Prototype” Martinez were slacking significantly in the kills margin. Instead of highlighting everything that Munoz was doing, Tsquared was more interested in keeping an eye on both Chaser and Prototype since he knew that if either of them stepped up their game, 3sUP could get the ballrolling. This turned into a great decision on Tsquared’s part since Chaser would soon after significantly step up his game and make some very big plays for his team and in the end he would perform much better than Munoz. This is an ability that I love and although former pros, and now casters, Michael “StrongSide” Cavanaugh, David “Walshey” Walsh, Kyle “Elamite” Elam and Ryan “Towey” Towey do this very well, not many other casters can do this as good as they can. In one of my past articles, I talked about how Tsquared’s best years of competing are behind him and how it might be time to hang up the sticks and move on to something else. Although I doubt that my opinion alone was enough for him to move in, I am certainly glad that he was able to make this transition from competing to casting. T2 is quickly turning into one of my favorite casters of all-time and hopefully a long and lucrative career in casting is ahead of him. What do you think about Tsquared’s transition from competing to casting? Let me know in the comments section below. Image credits go to Elamite, Halo eSport Wikis and Forbes