Yesterday, BLAST announced the Dota 2 broadcast talent that will be present at BLAST Slam 4 in Singapore this November, and one name stands out among the crowd of usual suspects: Quinn “Quinn” Callahan. The recently retired mid laner, who found the highest level of success in his career playing for Gaimin Gladiators from 2023 to 2025, will be on the analysis desk of a major LAN for the first time — at least while not also being an active professional player.

BLAST Slam 4: Why Quinn’s presence as an ex-pro turned analyst is a great thing

Of course, this is no surprise given that Quinn announced his intention to full-time broadcast work at the same time that he announced his retirement. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon after he posted the video in the wake of The International 2025 (TI14) — but this is a great development in such little time nonetheless.

The mind of a pro

Ex-pros becoming analysts is absolutely nothing new in both Dota 2 and esports as a whole. People like Clinton “Fear” Loomis, Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann, Kevin “Purge” Godec, and Andrew “Jenkins” Jenkins all used to play at the highest level, but eventually opted to talk about the game rather than compete.

TI14 analysis desk
Image credit: Valve

And for the most part, it’s turned out really well across the board for many such former players. We as a community have got used to their presence at tier 1 tournaments, to the point where they might even be taken for granted at this point. We get high level analysis basically after every map in any given series at a major tournament, which of course greatly enhances the viewing experience and allows us all as Dota players to learn what makes pros’ brains tick on a game-to-game basis.

Quinn is just the latest addition to the cast of talent and you really couldn’t have asked for much better in this regard. He is a multi-time tier 1 tournament winner, and arguably one of the best Dota mid laners of all time just by his accomplishments alone. He is also quite well-spoken, which is a vital quality to becoming an effective analyst.

It’s not for everyone

After all, you can’t just be good at Dota and expect to be just good at talking about it at the same time. I’m not going to name names, but as a basketball fan, I can tell you with confidence that there are a lot of retired pros that eventually made the transition to the analysis desk, who positively suck at articulating their thoughts about basketball. I’m not saying that Quinn will turn out this way as a Dota analyst, far from it, but we’re eating good with Dota talent and shouldn’t take this for granted.

Eventually, we will all come to see it happen, though. Dota is an old game with old professional players by esports standards, and many of them will have to retire once they decide that they are finally too old to keep grinding and grinding. Not everyone is destined to be a great talking head after their playing days are over — even those that might be considered the very best in the history of the game.

I have every faith that Quinn will avoid this pitfall. He is a genius at Dota, and has the speaking chops to go along with it. Yeah, he does have a long history of toxicity, but I know he’ll be professional enough to rein that in when giving his thoughts about how a team could have done better in the draft, for example.

Personally, I can’t wait to see him break games down at BLAST Slam 4. It’s a whole month away, but I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait.