Rockhart is a ‘low-key, introverted fun spirit’

Rockhart grew up envious of his cousins, watching them play on consoles. He never realized watching people play games would be his career.
by Mario Alvaro Limos | Sep 25, 2023

On the countless times we passed Rockhart in the hallway in Season 9, we were awed by the coolness he exuded: His hair was a perfect ash-gray blonde intentionally disarranged in a wavy coif. His face had a perpetually bored expression—similar to those asocial protagonists you see in anime. He looked like he did not give a fuck about the world, and probably wouldn’t act surprised if an asteroid struck the MPL venue. We imagined him going “Oh,” and he’d continue walking with his hands in his pockets.

That was the Rockhart of our first impressions.

When we finally became friends one season later, we were glad those impressions turned out to be true: Rockhart is a living anime character. You know, the cool one.

Karl To, aka Rockhart

Karl To, aka Rockhart

Born on June 28, 1990 and raised in San Juan, Karl To, aka Rockhart, put up with a lot of bullshit growing up. Domestic issues at home and bullying in school tinctured his childhood and adolescent days, he had to be fostered by his aunt.

“I transferred to a Chinese school after Grade 6 because my aunt took me in. My aunt raised me after grade school because they saw the condition at home, it wasn't really good. They were like, ‘We'll take you in.’ We moved around a lot because of domestic issues with my parents. It was not really ideal for someone who was trying to study and everything,” Rockhart told SPIN.ph.

The shift from public school to private school wasn’t so smooth as Rockhart had to contend with rich Filipino-Chinese kids who often bullied him.

Ironically, the esports shoutcaster never really talked a lot in high school and college.

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“Contrary to how I am now, I didn't really talk back then. Some people were afraid that I completely did not talk. They were afraid I was mute, except for times when I would obviously talk during class. But other than that, people knew to stay away from me for some reason. I was a bit of a loner back then,” Rockhart told SPIN.ph.

PHOTO: Rockhart

At lunchtime, he would avoid the cacophony of the cafeteria and spend time alone eating in the library.

“I transferred to Chinese school that was a school attended by some rich Filipino-Chinese kids, which I was not,” said Rockhart. “I wasn't really popular in high school. My lunch hour was spent in the library where I would eat and read on my own.”

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When we pointed out that eating in the library alone at lunchtime was not exactly a very normal thing to do, Rockhart screwed up his face and asked, “Is it not normal?”

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Maybe Rockhart was hiding from his bullies.

“Shout out to my bullies back in high school! They knew that they could use me, so they weren't super rough on me. They were like rich kids who needed someone to do their homework and stuff like that,” Rockhart said.

Images of a young Rockhart raced through our mind, eating homemade baon in the library, avoiding interaction with classmates, and never really talking to anyone. But we knew he was intelligent: He told us he was a stellar student until he got bored and decided not to give a fuck about grades anymore.

“I was pretty smart. I was a valedictorian in grade school. I kind of kept that up in high school but I reached a point at the very end when I didn't care. I could get by through classes without reviewing.”

It’s not the typical answers you’d expect of esports talents, whom you’d often hear trumpeting the importance of school and high grades, studying and playing. Rockhart does not sugarcoat but it did not seem that his answers were intentionally rebellious.

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“At an early age, I knew there wasn't any use being an overachiever. I was already at a point where I saw stuff on the Internet and I thought people could do different things without actually being super good at school. So I didn't really make an effort after a few years of high school, and I think that carried over to Nursing.

“You took up Nursing in college?!”

“Yeah, big stretch!”

Rockhart graduated high school in 2007. At that time, there was a huge demand for Filipino nurses in the U.S., and many Millennials took up the course hoping they could ride the wave and earn big salaries abroad.

But when he saw the conditions at the hospitals in the Philippines and experienced actually working in them as a Nursing student, he changed his mind about pursuing a career in that field. In the Philippines, private hospitals are notorious for pushing their nurses to the limits, often with very low pay and very long shifts.

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“I kind of got caught in the hype with my family and I wanted to go to Medicine. That was my childhood dream, to be a doctor. I thought maybe I could do it after I went to Nursing. But then I got to experience the hospitals! I was like, no, I don't want to grow up there. I don't want to spend my days in a hospital!”

For Rockhart, working in the hospital is an intensely heroic duty that was not for him.

“Obviously, you would help people, but I'm more of a fun spirit, you know? A low-key introverted fun spirit. I don't know how to describe it. But no, I can't imagine myself being stuck in an operating room or whatever. I love helping people, but this is not the way I want to spend my life, unfortunately!”

As he said those words, his face was painted with an expression of relief as if he dodged a bullet.

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But what did his family say when he went against their wishes and pursued something else?

“To be honest, I haven't really been in contact with my family at all. I've been kind of living on my own since after college,” said Rockhart.

“I worked in a call center right after college, and I shifted to IT. IT work. Literal IT work, where you'd be on the back end, so you'd be stuck in servers and shit!”

That was quite a curve ball we did not expect. Apparently, Rockhart literally spent his free time in his uncle’s computer shop, working as an assistant and troubleshooter.

“I had an affinity for PCs because I worked part-time in my uncle's computer shop after school. I'd help maintain it. I'd help program the PCs and everything, and I kind of fell in love with IT after that,” said Rockhart.

While he did not have formal training in IT, he learned by watching hundreds of minutes of YouTube videos about programming, troubleshooting, and coding.

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“I just learned it through YouTube,” he said, casually.

“I was 14 years old. I'd program on Perl. I remember the Perl programming language.”

At that time, Ragnarok was all the rage in computer shops around the country. Rockhart learned how to program just so he could get ahead in the MMORPG.

“I would program my Ragnarok bots to do the farming for me.”

As he said this, it was as if it was the most practical thing to do.

Ang daya mo!” we protested.

He turned defensive.

“I'm not proud of it!” he said, laughing.

“Or maybe I am?”

“I was a kid, and I didn't know what I could do for money. I mean, who knew back then, right? I’d program 10 characters to farm for me.”

His face erupts in a mischievous smile as he recalls this bit of core memory.

“I would usually play after hours. That's where I got the habit of staying super-duper late because obviously, you can't play while you're working. And then you'd make a little something-something. And that's how the kids made money those days, you know?”

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Karl To, aka Rockhart

As a kid, Rockhart was barely allowed to go out, even in high school.

“I could barely go out and explore. And maybe go to the shops in Taft where people were playing. I was isolated in that little computer shop in San Juan. It was my experience in gaming. That was all of it. That's where I played all the games. Almost literally all the games. I would install these games on these PCs, and I would play them. And I would kind of get good at them: Rakion, Special Force, RAN, all that stuff. When I got too good, I would just move on to the next one. That's when I knew I was pretty good at gaming!”

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* * *

A couple of months ago, I invited Rockhart to dinner in BGC. I remember he asked me, “Sino tayo?” I chuckled at the thought of Rockhart worrying there would be many people coming. We know how socializing could be so draining, even with just a couple of people. When he said yes, I did not yet realize the weight of that confirmation.

Rockhart rarely went out to hang.

And unlike other people, I loved it!” His face was full of cheer when he said that, and I realized just how precious hanging out with this guy is.

He recounted how he was told to go straight home after classes in high school and college, and he did so with glee.

“I didn't have to go out. Even as a college kid, people would drink a lot. I didn't get the reasoning behind drinking that, drinking yourself to a stupor. I hated that,” said Rockhart.

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Rockhart has always been introverted since he was in high school.

“I don't really talk to people from high school anymore. Even from college. You could count on my hand how many friends I had in college that I could talk to. And those are the kids in college that I would play League of Legends with, we weren't really school buddies. But we weren't super-duper-developed close. Even now, we don't always talk. But they're still there. I still get in contact from time to time. With only five, four people.”

It’s a wonder how Rockhart ended up as a shoutcaster.

Although he was privileged to grow up surrounded by PCs when he was helping man the computer shop of his uncles, it was a different situation for Rockhart back in his primary school days.

"It was me literally standing over people, watching them play. That was how I grew up. Even as a kid, my cousins would have those Gameboys. I would just watch them play. They had PlayStations. I'd be behind. I had a cousin in Little Baguio, in San Juan City, where I would literally watch through the window. I was outside watching them play PS.”

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Was he ever envious of them?

“I was... That has kind of translated to me now, where I would collect handhelds,” said Rockhart. He now has an impressive collection of Nintendo and Sony handheld consoles such as PSPs, Gameboys, and Switch. He even has vintage models of the very first Gameboys on which he plays Pokemon.

“Back then, I would wait for them to be bored with playing, then I would play. I think I kind of grew up jealous of people playing…. But I got good at watching people play! So that probably translated to me being good at catching what they are doing wrong, what they are doing right, what they should be doing in the game,” said Rockhart.

Now, he’s carved out a career watching people play esports and shoutcasting their plays with a side of analysis.

From someone who barely spoke in college and high school, how did Rockhart come out on top of the shoutcasting job in the MPL?

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“I just look at the monitor and listen to myself. I record myself. I wish I had that clip from when I applied to Garena as one of their casters. Oh my god. As I look back at that, what the heck is this guy talking about? You just gotta do it. Like in anything, I feel like you just gotta do it and just fine-tune things in public speaking.”

And his tips for shoutcasting?

“Just talk about anything fun that you can talk about about the game that you love. What do I want to hear that these people should say about what's happening in the game, how do I improve? How do I apply this to my own games? Those are the things that I looked for whenever I would watch these games back when I was a kid.”

It took years for Rockhart to master his craft. He even disliked public speaking, but there is one thing he picked up from Marvel’s Dr. Strange that he carries with him to this day.

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“I was not a big fan of public speaking. As Dr. Strange would say, how do you get good at anything? Study and practice. Just years of it. Over and over again,” said Rockhart.

“I ended up in esports because I loved League of Legends, I gotta say. I'm in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang now, but I loved League of Legends way back then.

“It was a heyday of esports where you'd always hold out for worlds. You'd play in the computer shop, it was League of Legends, and you'd watch out for worlds all the time. And I loved their announcers, how they did that. I always wanted to be an announcer, although I didn't feel like I had the skill for it.”

But before League of Legends, his very first love was none other than StarCraft.

StarCraft is the OG that I fell in love with. StarCraft 1 and eventually StarCraft 2, which you had to pirate because it was very expensive, obviously.”

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Among the StarCraft shoutcasters he used to stan were Nick "Tasteless" Plott and Daniel Ray “Artosis” Stemkoski.

StarCraft hype was in Korea, the shoutcasting was hard to follow. But there was Tasteless and Artosis. Yeah, Doa took over after them. They were the only ones you could listen to. But after that, English became a predominant language now in League of Legends. So I shifted to that. I also personally played it.”

* * *

Part of what makes Karl To quite cool is his IGN: Rockhart. It is unique, catchy, and sounds fetching. It’s something he plucked out of Final Fantasy VII.

“Growing up, I watched all of my cousins play Final Fantasy. One of my favorite characters was Tifa Lockhart. She was a crush of mine in her pixelated days. While I was coming up with an IGN, I was watching Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Tifa was badass in that one. I used to love Tifa, back from her pixelated days. Pixelated everything! But Lockhart, that's too obvious. So I changed it up. Made it sound cool as a high schooler would want to be. And Rockhart sounded cool for me,” said Rockhart.

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Tifa Lockhart in her pixelated days in 1997. Rockhart had a crush on Tifa.

Tifa Lockhart

Rockhart’s IGN is nearly 20 years old, having been conceived in 2005 when Advent Children came out. It’s safe to say it will stay forever. But unlike his IGN, Rockhart knows his shoutcasting career at the MPL is not permanent.

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“I know it's not permanent. I count my lucky stars. I’ve been here for 12 seasons. I think Mobile Legends Bang Bang is the longest engagement I've ever had. The longest I've worked in a company is like one and a half years. Then I'd move on,” said Rockhart.

Even as esports has gained much ground in the Philippines over the last three years, Rockhart is still looking out for the next thing to do.

“Everyone always craves that stability. Obviously, even as an older person, I don't think I'm quite there yet. But I'm always looking and I'm always thinking about what's going to happen next. At the moment, I'm just trying to get up as much as I can,” said Rockhart.

Sometimes, he even takes gigs without getting paid.

“I will keep doing this, maybe even until a point where I'm not paid because I just like doing what I do. I feel like even on off-stream, I would play games. It's just my thing. I'm an absolute gamer, I think. I'm blessed to be in a position where I get paid to be in gaming. That was just a dream for me. Somehow, the dream came true.”

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Rockhart: 'Hindi ako maarteng tao.'

Although Rockhart has been a mainstay in esports for the past 10 years, he’s still as simple as he was when he was a kid. On days when we are early at the MPL, we would catch him eating one of those P50 sandwiches from a convenience store for breakfast and drinking a bright red energy drink.

“I'm very proud to say I'm not a spoiled person. I'm not super conscious of stuff. My most profound memory is from as a kid when I would sleep on the floor a lot,” said Rockhart.

He didn’t bat an eye when he said these things. He also shifted to Tagalog. “Hindi ako maarteng tao.”

“I didn't have my own bed. I think that helped shape me into who I am. I feel like I'm a better person because of that. Not having a lot growing up is huge for me. I was able to relate better to people. I don't make enemies. I'm not as boastful as I think most esports people would be. I can engage in conversation better now because I can relate with more people on a deeper level. I guess you could say I can appreciate the things that people achieve no matter how small because I didn't really have much growing up as well.”

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And that’s what makes Rockhart exceptional. He is perfectly comfortable disappearing into the curtains and making other people shine brighter than him.

“If someone did a very small thing, you can find a way to hype that up and make him be proud of it. Because you know it's not easy to get anything if you start from nothing. Starting from nothing was huge for me.”

Even though there are many hiccups and slow days in esports, Rockhart sees himself in gaming for many years to come.

"One of the reasons I think I stayed so long in this game, especially in Mobile Legends is when I wake up, that's the first thing I think of is what game do I play today? How do I get better at it? I feel like that's the essence of how people should be. In gaming, if you really want to make it to the top and actually be respected by people at the top, you got to know your shit," said Rockhart.

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Although games come and go for certain titles, Rockhart does not think gaming will ever be irrelevant.

"Even if Mobile Legends was gone tomorrow, I would probably still be gaming... The goal of my life right now is just to be in gaming for as long as I can be and I legitimately enjoy doing it. I enjoy the people that I work with."

Does he still have dreams he wants to see through?

"I dream of the days when shoutcasters can have year-long contracts so that we don't have to be so scared of our jobs all the time. Obviously, that can breed complacency for some people, which we've seen throughout the years. But I dream of having esports get to that point because I think esports is kind of big right now but it's not where it needs to be in terms of everything," he shares.

"Everyone knows esports isn't perfect right now. More stability in esports is something I'm looking forward to. It's a long way but I hope that I can be instrumental to making it bigger for years to come. That's just me. Esports is where I live now. I feel like it's where I live now. Wherever the next big tournament's gonna be, that's probably where you'll find Rockhart. Or he's gonna try to be in it no matter what."

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PHOTO: Rockhart

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