Ovilee May is the current Host and interviewer for Riot Games working out of NA LCS. She has been covering worlds for the Play-ins and Group stage. Her energetic aura has transferred from the screen onto most of the audience through her friendly yet informational interview style.

Hi Guys, I’m Ovilee May. I worked Worlds as a broadcast interviewer for Riot Games and I talk to all the players.

Q: It’s your first time at worlds in front of so many fans, although some people may not be familiar with you, how would you want to introduce yourself?

I am Ovilee May, I just graduated from college this year and I just started working for Riot Games as their broadcast host and interviewer. That means I get to interview the players before and after the games, talk to the coaches and act as a proxy between the audience and the players.

Q: What were you expectations of Worlds before and were how did they differ after you arrived?

I started watching Worlds from Season 2. My first actual Esports event ever was attending the Season 2 World playoffs in the Nokia Plaza in LA live. I had no idea what to expect coming into Worlds, I just knew it was gonna be amazing, it was in Korea and it was going to be incredibly hype. When I got here all of those expectations were met. I’ve had such a good time here, Korea’s been amazing and I just love all of the work I’ve been doing.

Q: I believe this is your first time in Korea, is it everything you expected it to be?

I didn’t know what to expect in Korea, because of Esports I just knew Korea is the global hub for Esports and that everyone was into Esports and games and PC bangs. Speaking with the Korea players in NA, they told me to enjoy the nightlife, drink a lot of soju so that’s what I did and I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed the nightlife, no details, but you can look at Reapered’s Twitter (laughs).

Q: You once said your goal was to work at Riot while at Yahoo, when did you first have this goal in mind?

I actually had the dream of working at Riot when I was in high school. I had just started playing LoL, I was completely addicted to the game, I was addicted to the community, the players, the champions, the pros, literally everything. I was not alone as an awkward 16 year old going “When I grow up, I want to work for Riot games”, or “I want to be the NA Sjokz”. So when I started working for Yahoo, doing interviews for them, I was blown away by that because I never thought I would have the opportunity to do something like that. When Yahoo was gone, suddenly Riot was asking me to come work and do interviews with them. I was so excited about it I almost passed out.

Q: Speaking of Sjokz, she was praised for being able to read the room well especially in the Doublelift and YamatoCanon interviews, do you hope to receive a similar praise someday too? Perhaps an appreciation thread?

I don’t think I need an appreciation thread to say I did a good job. I just want make whatever the players want to tell the audience as smooth of a process as possible. Sjokz is absolutely incredible, if it weren’t for all the amazing work she’s done over the years working for Riot, for ESL, I would definitely not be where I am right now. I look to her for inspiration, for guidance and direction and she is just absolutely incredible. I think she deserves all the praise in the world for the work she does. I saw the appreciation thread on Reddit and it will be hard to find anyone who’s a bigger Sjokz fan than I am. I absolutely love her, I hope someday I can just be a fraction of how amazing she is but until then I’ll just keep working hard.

Q: What is it like interviewing players you are familiar with in the LCS and international players?

It’s very different because in NA I know almost all of the players very comfortably. I feel fine with joking with players and I can say “Oh I saw you picked Lissandra and you suck wither why did you pick her?”. I can’t do that with international players because they will think I am mean to them. In that sense I am more comfortable asking my platyers something that I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking someone on the first day of meeting them.

Q: Who has been your most memorable interview at worlds so far?

I’ve just been blown away by everyone but, my most memorable interview which is sad because I don’t think it was aired due to time on the broadcast, was Ceros after DFM’s first win and I just asked him “Ceros, this is already been one of the most successful starts the LJL has ever had at Worlds. You guys have a good chance judging from your performance of making it out of Groups. Tell me about what you’re looking to improve, tell me about what it’s like trying to show that the LJL is a region to be reckoned with at Worlds and to be taken seriously and what you’re hoping to show the world” He told me “What DFM wants to do is to show that we have our own playstyle, that’s why we are bringing out the Ziggs, Heimerdinger” That’s why Evi was beasting on Urgot and everyone had their own specific playstyle from Japan. That’s why it was so fun to watch, a team that no one expected anything from pull off wins from against some bigger competitors.

Q: Do you think of your own interview questions?

Yes of course, I write all of my own interview questions for both on and off broadcast work, they all come from my brain.

Q: Does that mean you have to pay extra attention to the games going on, is it hard for you?

I don’t think it’s hard at all, I love watching these games. If I wasn’t here interviewing, I would still be at home watching these games and cheering on my favorite players, teams, and I just love Worlds, I love LoL. I am always gonna be trying to keep up with the scene as best as I can. Honestly the questions I ask are what I hope what the audience is thinking at home. When I see Doublelift flashing into 3 or 4 people, “What were you thinking Peter?” and just get the questions out to you guys.

Q: Is there a team you are particularly close to?

I can’t say that I am particularly close to whatever team. When it comes to these international competitions, I’m always closer with the NA teams like C9, 100T and TL. However that doesn’t mean I don’t want anyone else to beat them or to win against them because that’s disrespectful to all of the work the other teams putting in.

Q: You also worked with TL for a short while, how did their disqualification affect you?

I was so sad. When TL dropped, I wouldn’t say it was very much expected but we knew that it would be a very difficult fight for them. All they needed to do was beat EDG, but the fact that they were dropped before they got a chance at the tiebreaker against EDG, that hurt. You spend so much time with these players, talking with them, getting their story out to everyone and then seeing all of their work not producing the results they were expecting is crushing. I did an interview with Steve and Olleh just after their disqualification and before we did the interview we just saw the Doublelift interview with Sjokz. When he said he started to get emotional, I almost started tearing up and crying. When I went into the interview with Steve I had to restart my intro because I choked up a little bit. I love all the players, there’s no regional, team or player bias. I just want to see all the players succeed.

Q: After the games today Tyler (analyst) said C9 and FNC are actually better than KT, what do you think?

You can’t listen to Tyler /s

Q: You’ve expressed your love for games before, do you still play games?

Of course I still play games! I’m a gamer, I will always be a gamer for the rest of my life. It’s been a little harder trying to find games to play in Korea because I left my Switch at home. I went to a PC bang the other day and played a lot of LoL and OW. I tried getting into Blackout but I couldn’t figure out how to work it at the PC bang. The one game I really want to play was Mabinogi which is a Nexon game from Korea that I played years in Middle School but I needed a Korean account.

Q: If you were to compare the current teams at worlds to Anime characters, how would you describe them?

That’s tricky. I feel like it would be easy to relate everyone to sports anime but I don’t watch too much sports anime. So the most basic I could think of is C9 is a team full of absolute trolls that you don’t expect to do well but somehow they end up pulling stuff off so they may be related to Naruto. You have a team of goofballs and somehow they just keep pulling off wins against all odds.

KT you would imagine as the character that comes in and they are the best and are expected to be the best. They would come in and be pushing up their glasses on their nose. However they just dropped 2 games against IG pretty badly so it’s like they fell on their face.

People have asked me to compare NA teams to anime characters and that’s easier because I know their personalities more. I will just say that Doublelift is the protagonist of the NA LCS anime. 

Interviewer: Yunming Chen @Gysophila

Transcribed by: Benson Cheng @1337s1nper