What is it about UU that makes it so appealing to you?
Heh, it's hard to pinpoint an exact reason; I just like it. Pokemon-wise, diversity is one of my favorite aspects: UU was generally less centralized than the suspect tests I participated in during the same time. I had the creative freedom to mess around with more random Pokemon and random sets than I would probably have gotten away with in OU. Another reason, this one related more to the ladder than the tier itself, was the community based around the UU ladder. A smaller playerbase meant most of the ladderers knew and were friendly each other. And lastly, I enjoy winning. :)
What is your biggest tournament regret?
Not predicting Snunch to win ST8 due to misinformation propagated by unsavory tournament director Earthworm. This cost me the prediction tournament win and an exclusive Smogon t-shirt.
In all seriousness, I don't really have any; most of my important losses either resulted from hax or were decided by more than just a single factor that could have been easily circumvented. My most upsetting tournament loss was against Delta 2777 for a gen 4 Ubers tournament, in which he came back from the Losers' Bracket to beat me in the finals. But regretting that I used an Arceus-Fighting weak team game 1 and got haxed game 2 seems kind of silly to me.
What is it about my IRC channel that interests you enough to keep it on auto join?
Well, I was originally hoping for more Zen logs, but that didn't happen. Now, I keep it on auto-join mostly so I can call you Kevin G. and pretend you are the character from Mean Girls who shares the same name and be amused by that.
what was your favorite dp uu metagame? did you prefer old uu or new uu?
Old UU was really cool because there were so many cool Pokemon that you could use but aren't really viable anymore (Mantine, Flareon, Vileplume, Poliwrath, Relicanth). It's definitely one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite. During new UU, my favorite metagame was right after Staraptor and co. were all banned.
do you have a particularly favorite dp uu team?
I really liked my old UU team (Froslass/Hitmontop/Clefable/Rotom/Wormadam-S/Mantine). Standard stall core + Leafeon/Glaceon/Ninetales insurance. I just loved being able to successfully use a Pokemon as ridiculous as Wormadam.
you stated that smogon influenced your choice in major? how so?
I didn't really have an outlet for writing until Smogon. My school didn't have a newspaper or anything, and I always had trouble motivating myself to write on my own, outside of classwork and stuff. Participating in C&C/GP gave me writing/copyediting experience I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And had I not gotten that experience, I don't know if I would have been confident enough to pick English as a major.
what do you plan to do with your dual degree in seemingly unrelated fields?
I'm not quite sure yet. All I know is that I have affinities for both programming and writing and would be content working as, well, either a programmer or a writer.
The development of one of my favorite video games, Braid, was based around the concept of the video game as an art form (literature), an application of these two fields. I would be interested in pursuing projects similar to that.
you said that you're sick of missouri, have you thought about where you'd like to live in the future?
I don't know. Somewhere bigger, maybe somewhere out of the country. I haven't traveled/experienced enough to be able to even consider where; all I know is that I have a strong urge to get out of here and see more of the world.
do you remember playing against me like 5+ times in a row at the top of the old uu ladder? addendum: is glaceon not the most majestic of all uu pokmon?
Specs Glaceon, so powerful...atticus also swept me with it about five years later, a very low point in my Pokecareer.
Why did you choose to ridiculize me in the Mock Smogon Awards? ;-;
User iconic is the person you should be asking. I'll answer on his behalf: it's because you make up words like "ridiculize."
If you had the chance to admin someone who would it be?
locopoke.
Best user overall on Smogon?
I really admire aesoft and Antar for their tireless work regarding the Showdown/the Smogon server.
you seem to "playfully" taunt a lot of users on smogon but it's usually just in good fun. are there any users that legitimately anger/displease you?
I was trying to think of a way to vaguely word this so as to not actually call anyone out but I couldn't come up with anything. So I'll just say that I think it's kind of silly how Firestorm comes into #pokemon and randomly devalues the VGC tournament / bashes the Tournament culture in general / criticizes the tiering process. On a completely different note, I also sometimes wonder if GP/aziki/Somalia are real people.
chances of la winning the world cup?
I really just can't see it happening. They're too angry to win...
chances of central winning a game?
The same chance that you'll win a game!
finally what has been your favourite moment on smogon up until now? it could be just a silly night on irc or a specific pkmn battle, anything.
One night, something happened involving a certain private social group and a certain phone number. The following details were released:
<folgorio> [22:03] <Earthworm> [13:00:16] <Earthworm> <censored> is <censored> <censored> him
<folgorio> [22:03] <Earthworm> [13:00:36] <Earthworm> for <censored> his <censored> to <censored> someone's <censored> <censored>
<folgorio> [22:03] <Earthworm> [13:00:40] <Earthworm> and <censored> <censored> to <censored> <censored>
So a group of us spent around four hours trying to figure out all the <censored>s, and we actually did (except worms is anal and we said "obtain" when the actual word was "get")
It was pretty silly all things considering but memorable.
best pkmn players according to champion eo?
I could honestly only do DPP UU because BW is a clusterfuck and I'm not that into DPP OU.
mind, pi face, Loki, LonelyNess*, Jabba, august, ToFu, xianglongfa, imperfectluck, bad ass, panamaxis, Folgorio, Bluewind, franky, FlareBlitz, thund91, am, IronBullet93, uragg, Heist
*before SPL2
I never really liked ranking people though. First of all, I know I'm likely forgetting a bunch of people. Secondly, I think too many biases get in the way to allow for accurate judgments of skill. I was never an avid spectator, so a lot of this is influenced by my actual matches, and people play differently vs. different people so yeah.
I know you were just dying to see your name up there, though, Mr. ToFu.
it's interesting that you say you regret not pursuing chess more -- i regret pursuing it as much as i did. chess has already reached the point where human players can't reasonably beat modern ai, which to me, means the game is just about dead. a game like pokemon is much more difficult for ai to keep up with. how do you feel about the relationship between chess and computers? is the game going to go anywhere from here?
i remember seeing your name on the sign-up list of the last tournament, but i don't believe we played.
That's an interesting view. I suppose the game is dead in a sense. GMs are still beating computers through anti-computer tactics such as out-of-book openings, but I'm guessing with time, computers will eventually become optimized to account for unorthodox plays. I guess that will end the battle between man and machine, but I don't think that will take away from human vs. human play.
I'm guessing if the game does die, it will be due to the evolution of human play to computer-esque levels (and perhaps the evolution of computer play is a symptom of that). I have no idea how realistic this prospect is, though.
also, how did you react to the great sage and the cicada incident (after the initial bewilderment)? i seem to recall you didn't find it as funny as some others did.
I felt like the joke got old pretty quickly, although I don't think I would have probably cared that much now. If my memory is correct, I think I was trying to talk seriously to GS or something, and he kept bringing up Cicada, which annoyed me.
why the fuck did you draft me in spl2
I (and Stallion) thought you were decent based on your ladder matches. And it took a year, but you actually proved us right.
what inspired you to start majoring in CS even though you hadn't planned on it
I was initially planning on minoring in it. I had taken a class on QBasic prior to that and had enjoyed it. During my first year, I took a couple of introductory courses and felt like I really meshed with the subject, so I decided to upgrade it to an actual major.
what word did you spell incorrectly in the spelling bee
Varioliform. I spelled it with an "e" instead of an "a."
He claims he will delete it if posted. I will only reveal that he likes to cook Mediterranean dishes, what a guy.
Who won the tour prediction thing?
Earthworm did. Do you think I actually listen to 50 Cent?
How do you feel about TeamUber?
No opinion really. It's no different from the rest of Smogon; some of its users are cool, and others are kind of lame (yondie).
When did you first discover you comedic writing style?
People I know tell me that I have a knack for coming up with one-liners at the right moments. I just applied that to my writing.
Who do you enjoy fucking with the most on Smogon?
I don't know about fucking around, but I sure enjoy taking care of Bluewind's menagerie of animal friends.
Probably winning my first tour. In the semifinals, I was embroiled in a bitter stallwar against the mysterious Lady Platina when the server disconnected. We rematched with different teams, and I triumphed over his/her strong Gligar/Cacturne Sand Veil abuse team. Then I beat bad ass in finals because he didn't use HeYsUpKeN.
What was the most frustrating moment of your Pokemon career?
Losing to Folgorio in ST10. Not that he didn't deserve to win; I was just frustrated at losing.
Any arguments that have made me question my involvement in Smogon.
are you saddened by the loss of #moo and its mainstay users
I must admit that I kind of lost track of #moo; I didn't know it was dead. I left before it completely collapsed (when it was just you / kd24 discussing wrestling lol). It was a cool channel, though. :(
Do you do any drugs / wanna do drugs with me some time
Drugs are bad for you, Mr. Amir...
Do you miss our late night phone calls?
NAH. I hate talking on the phone. Only the ones with kimotherapy415.
Remember the Magcargo clusterfuck in one of the New UU threads? What was your stance on Magcargo in UU and why?
Lol yeah. I supported Magcargo; I had actually been using it prior to that. It was a great counter to Moltres/Scyther, two Pokemon that were really popular at the time. And it's cute.
I can't believe Smogon is still doing well threads and that you guys were desperate enough for Eo....
Also whatever happened to your flowering love with the Cicada?
I beat him in that one UU tournament and never saw him again. I think I crushed his spirit...
can you summarize your relationship with user bluewind in under 100 words? (If so, please do so!!)
/me pets Fabio's Girafarig
Name a pokemon and I will do a battle just for you .
Meganium
You said you've always wanted to become a writer, so:
Favorite genre?
Favorite book?
Favorite author?
Genre - Mystery
Book -
And Then There Were None
Author - Agatha Christie
I'm a sucker for mystery novels. Adding to that, my favorite classic is
Don Quixote, since everyone who has asked me my favorite book seems to have always expected a classic as an answer.
What made you realize your love for writing?
Have you written anything at all yet, or is writing a novel just an unattempted dream so far?
In third grade, I got mad at my sister and wrote a story vilifying her for a class assignment. I had a lot of fun with it, even though I had initially been unenthusiastic about the assignment, and my class liked it.
I haven't written anything outside of short stories.
What is your fave 5th gen tier?
OU probably. I honestly don't mind the current state of OU, even though I'm in a very, very significant minority.
Which character do you play at Melee? Do you still play it, have you played big names, how is your local scene and would you beast me in a 5$ money match?
I main Marth/Jigglypuff. I started with Marth, switched to Jiggs because she was easier to learn, and then went back to Marth when I learned some tech skill. I haven't been able to play as much as I would like to (I was gonna attend a tournament except I wanted to do Tour lol), but I play fairly often. The biggest name I've played is DarkAtma, and my friend recently played Dart, IHaveSpaceballs, and Iori at a Rolla tournament (Pathways). The local scene is small, but it's recently hit a growth spurt, which is pretty cool to be part of.
I dunno if I would beat you lol. If Smash were Pokemon, I'd be like...Sir-level or something, if that gives you any indication.