CaptainFlowers has declined to cast MSI 2022

One of League of Legends’ most recognizable casters will not be attending the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational.

Clayton “CaptainFlowers” Raines has officially declined to cast MSI after he learned that the English casting team for the event will be working from the LEC Studio in Berlin, Germany, which is a ways away from the actual location of the event in South Korea.

The 31-year-old explained that working away from the event would “[mean] all the difficulties of long travel and all the troubles of remote shows all at once.” Last year, MSI’s game days started at around 1pm GMT in Reykjavík, Iceland. If this year’s starting times are similar, then the games will begin at around 1pm KST, which means that the casters in Berlin would have to start their schedule before 6am due to the seven-hour time difference.

Flowers also made the tough decision to miss out on casting Worlds 2021 due to similar issues. In his statement last year, he said that he struggled with the difficult schedules that came with remote settings and that the lingering problems ended up affecting him even after the end of the tournament.

“Even before everything shut down in 2020, international events were largely remote for on-air talent and it’s always been tough on me,” he said. “Previously, I played around an imaginary version of myself that could deal with that. I’d tell myself, ‘It’s okay, this month will be rough then you can go right back to normal.’ But I never got back to normal. I struggle a lot with the upside-down schedule and just feeling super exhausted all the time.”

Riot Games hasn’t revealed the full on-air talent lineup for MSI 2022, but it’ll be missing one of the most iconic voices in esports. MSI 2022 is set to begin on May 10.