We had the honor to interview ESL Rainbow Six Siege Pro League caster Parker Mackay aka Interro. Mackay has been with ESL since September of 2017. He's also a co-founder of an esports organization called POWERHAUS Gaming. Before his time of being a professional caster for Rainbow Six Siege, he was a professional Call of Duty player as well as casting Call of Duty through a league called MW2T.   How were you feeling in the moment when you knew you were going to be casting Siege PL games alongside a guy like KiXSTAr? My first time casting Pro League was exhilarating if not a bit nerve-wracking. I went from casting to 100 people from the comfort of my bedroom to casting alongside KiX in a Polish studio to 10,000 plus.    Based on what you’ve seen from these two, who is a better siege player, G2's Pengu or TSM’s Beaulo?  Beaulo is an exceptionally talented player but Pengu remains the greatest Siege player to ever touch the game. Pengu can play literally any role you ask of him at a level above most other players. It’s remarkable.   Throughout your entire Pro League broadcasts for Siege, which PL game was your favorite one that you have broadcasted? Excluding the 2018 Six Invitational Grand Finals, which technically weren’t considered “Pro League,” my favourite match was ENCE vs Black Dragons in the Season 6 Grand Finals. Watching ENCE finally win themselves a championship was a tremendously emotional moment.

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Also read: Ahman Green – from NFL star to esports student coach

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  In your opinion, do you think Ubisoft will reach the magic number of 100 operators for Rainbow Six Siege before the game gets too unlikable towards the playerbase? With the current pace of 4 operators per year I’d be shocked if the game reached it to 100 Operators. It was an ambitious goal at the time of its announcement but it seems less likely now that they’ve scaled back the amount of Operators per season.   What other video games are you a fan of besides Rainbow Six Siege and Call of Duty? Lately I’ve been consumed by Valorant, League of Legends, and a variety of single player games. For a brief period of time I was stuck in an endless No Man’s Sky and Among Us loop but I had to cut myself off so I could play other games.   Are you a fan of any teams whether it be football, hockey, or any other sport? I follow almost every major sport league somewhat casually but I’d have my Canadian citizenship revoked were I not to mention how hockey is my favourite sport. I follow baseball relatively closely, too, but I find it hard to watch all 162 games in a season.    What operator abilities do you want Ubisoft to add to siege in the near future? I’d love a proper Thatcher alternative. Kali was intended to shoulder some of the weight but she hasn’t quite worked out the way the Devs wanted. I’m just tired of Thatcher being banned every single game.   If you can think back to when Beaulo was first starting to play Siege and blew up on social media, do you think we’ll ever see someone as mechanically gifted as him? Absolutely we will. I’d argue Beaulo’s mechanical aim has been matched by a couple younger players. What really set Beaulo apart was his gamesense coupled with that aim. Beaulo was able to play a relatively slow game in a quick and flashy way. It was so unique that it spawned hundreds of Beaulo copycats.   What was your favorite memory that you had when you were a professional Call of Duty player? Esports was a totally different landscape back in 2009/2010 when I played competitive COD. We played on the PC which had a tiny playerbase in comparison to Xbox and PlayStation. Still, I think my favourite memory was mounting a comeback to beat a team we’d always struggled against. Playing on Skidrow, staring down match point, we won 5 rounds in a row with two 1vx clutches in the last couple rounds. The adrenaline you feel in a moment like that is unmatched.   If you didn’t have a passion for broadcasting or playing video games such as Rainbow Six Siege and Call of Duty, what career would you have pursued? I spent most of my adult life working in or around politics so that’s a relatively safe answer here but my real passion was always in policy work. I was in the process of going back to school for urban and regional planning until ESL came calling. In an alternative timeline I suppose I’d have graduated by now and would be helping to design neighborhoods and cities. What a different life that would have been.

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If you enjoyed this interview, follow the author on Twitter at @AC_32. Image courtesy of ESL