Interview with Acre The Dog, Valorant Cypher Content Creator

Yoann: Hey, hello everyone! Today I’m with Acre The Dog, he’s a Valorant content creator! 

How are you, and how would you introduce yourself?

Acre: I’m doing well, thank you! I’m Acre, I’m a Siberian Husky that plays Valorant! I’m from the UK, but I guess my roots are in Siberia!

Yoann: Nice, awesome! When and how did you get into content creation?

Acre: I was good friends with Average Jonas, who is a popular streamer, and we played together a lot. After seeing us playing together for a while, his audience convinced me to start streaming, even today we share an audience overlap, and people watch us both!

Yoann: When did you post your first-ever video on the internet?

Acre: My first long video on YouTube was on the 6th of October 2022, I think I had a few TikToks before then, but I just made them for fun. My first video did very well, and I thought maybe I could do this full-time, my whole mindset changed!

Yoann: Nice! What kind of content are you creating today on Valorant?

Acre: Last week, I started my first variety game. It has always been Valorant, Valorant live streams every day, YouTube videos every week, and in 2024 I’m trying to post a short form video every week too. 

But more recently, I’ve been doing more variety, I’ve been playing Elden Ring!

Yoann: That’s great! You are the creator of the Cypher corner cage, how well is the trick working today?

Acre: It works a lot less effectively now. When I was using it at the start, I was Platinum, now I mainly play between Immortal 1 and Immortal 3, it does work on certain maps like Lotus, but other than that, it’s not as reliable except for eco rounds, where it’s still a valid strategy. 

Yoann: What's your preparation routine before a live stream?

Acre: I don’t do anything in particular, I try to eat something, so that I’m not hungry during the stream and have to run away to get food. I open OBS, the game, and FaceRig, and that’s pretty much it! 

Yoann: Cool! Let’s move on to the Quick Questions part, I’ll ask you 10 quick questions, and you'll have to answer as fast as possible, ready?

Acre: Yeah!

Yoann: Phantom or Vandal?

Acre: Phantom!

Yoann: What's your favorite map?

Acre: Breeze at the moment!

Yoann: What's your favorite agent?

Acre: Cypher!

Yoann: Of course! What's your favorite skin collection?

Acre: The Oni collection with the white variant!

Yoann: What's your favorite team?

Acre: Team Liquid!

Yoann: Who are your favorite players of all time?

Acre: The main players that I watch are BabyJ, and nAts, of course, and I like to watch Jamppi as well! 

Yoann: Can you name the eight teams that won an international event?

Acre: Honestly, I cannot! I’m so bad at following the esports scene, I don’t read up on it as much as I should.

Yoann: That’s okay! How often do you play Valorant outside of streaming?

Acre: I usually don’t play when I’m not streaming, I sometimes go in custom games to test things, try new setups, or record clips for videos. Other than that, I don’t play off-stream. 

Yoann: What kind of music do you listen to while working?

Acre: I’m using Lupus Nocte music for my videos, he’s an artist from the website I use for music. I also sometimes listen to brown noise, it’s like white noise, and it helps you focus. 

And if I’m playing games off-stream, I listen to pop, and K-pop sometimes.

Yoann: Can you quote a voice line from your favorite agent, Cypher?

Acre: He has so many good ones! I like the ones either when he’s against another Cypher, or when he’s playing with a Killjoy because he calls her “little engineer”!

Yoann: Alright, that’s cool! Let’s now get back to the standard questions. 

What are your hobbies or passions aside from gaming?

Acre: Since creating content, I haven’t had much time to do other things. I haven’t been good at balancing my time. I like to learn new languages, I like watching Twitch streams from people speaking other languages and taking notes! I’ve been trying to learn Japanese for a while now. I also have a keyboard, but I don’t play as much as I should. And I like to play with my dog!

Yoann: Great! How do you feel about the current meta?

Acre: Cypher’s pretty strong in the current meta, which is good for me in one sense, because more people play him and more people are interested in the Cypher content! But another part of me is kind of sad because I always liked playing the niche agent that no one plays and to draw strength from that. 

But I think the meta is in a good place right now, overall it’s alright!

Yoann: What would you change to Valorant if you were a developer?

Acre: There are a few quality-of-life things with Cypher like some buggy textures that don’t work in his favor, for example. I’d also add a replay system, new game modes, or even an extended cheat menu in custom games. More agents, more maps, more content in general!

But I think they’re doing a pretty good job at the moment!

Yoann: What are your short and long-term ambitions on Valorant?

Acre: My short-term would be to get back to Immortal 3 and stay there! I want to play more consistently. 

In the long term, I’d like to be able to play other agents and make content from them. I hope that I can eventually do videos on my channel featuring other agents, that people want to watch!

Yoann: That would be great! What advice would you give to someone aspiring to become a content creator on Valorant?

Acre: Short-form content is the answer you’ll get from any content creator today.

Take two content creators for example, the first one streams every day for 6 months, and the other one makes TikToks every day for 6 months and then starts streaming, the creator making TikToks is going to have more viewers on their first stream than the other does after 6 months. 

Short-form content is pretty much essential these days, it feeds into the long form, which feeds into the streams, that’s the pipeline I’ve observed from my channels. 

Yoann: That’s so interesting! Is there anything else you would like to say?

Acre: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me! Anyone interested in joining our community can join our Discord, where we discuss Cypher setups, I hope to do more guides in the new year!

Yoann: Awesome, thank you so much for your time! I wish you the best in 2024!

Acre: Thank you!

Acre’s Socials:

Twitter (X): @acrethedog
Twitch: twitch.tv/acrethedog
Linktree: linktr.ee/acrethedog

Discord: https://discord.gg/qf9vvcxAx9