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Welcome everyone to the Ubers Player of The Week! For those who don't know what this is,it's a project where I interview top Ubers players who are well known and respected by the community, and have performed consistently well at a very high level. In addition to that you, will also have the chance to ask some questions to the interviewed person.
If you have a suggestion as to who I should interview, feel free to shoot me a PM. Anyways, lets get to it!
Transcendent God Champion
Most Known For
Being Leader of Dragon Rush, Dragon Masters and Heavenly Dragon Gods, as well as the Greatest Pokémon Master to have ever walked under the Sun.
Favourite Pokemon
My favorite Pokémon is Dragonite.
Back in 1999 or so... I had just beaten the Pokémon League in Pokémon Red. I entered the Unknown Dungeon and captured Mewtwo, which I had already known to be considered to be the world's most powerful Pokémon, since I had seen Mewtwo Strikes Back and all.
With the Ultimate Pokémon under my control, I was naturally very excited. I headed back to Indigo Plateau in order to test its powers, by challenging the Elite Four again. I easily swept my way through Lorelei, and especially Bruno and Agatha, given Mewtwo's natural type advantage over them, before standing face-to-face with the dragon master himself. Under my command, the Psychic-type Pokémon easily slaughtered the fourth Elite Four member's Gyarados, Dragonair, Dragonair and Aerodactyl, before the Dragon/Flying-type behemoth appeared before my eyes. At that point, my Mewtwo was at least nine levels higher than my opponent's Dragonite. It used its most powerful attack, Psychic... which, in accordance with my opponent's claim that his Pokémon was "virtually indestructible"... failed to knock out its foe. After that, the mighty Dragon Pokémon fired its Hyper Beam at my Mewtwo, knocking it out in a single blast despite the fact that it was at near full health.
Thinking back, my at least level 71 Mewtwo taking that much damage from a level 62 Dragonite's Hyper Beam could only have been a result of a critical hit... but my eight-year-old self did not know what critical hits were or what they did. As such, I was thoroughly impressed. At that moment, Dragonite became my favorite Pokémon ever, and it remains as such even up to this very day, while Hyper Beam also became my favorite Pokémon move ever, up until I learned about how bad it was competitively in 2003 or so.
However, as powerful as the aforementioned experience was... it would be ridiculous to believe that the impact of such alone would be enough to allow Dragonite to continue remaining as my favorite Pokémon, especially with the release of newer generations of Pokémon, and along with them, extremely cool and badass Pokémon such as Tyranitar, Rayquaza, Garchomp, Kyurem-W, Xerneas and Solgaleo. Obviously, for Dragonite to remain as my favorite, certain factors had to exist to perpetuate its position. Such factors that make it so incredibly cool in my eyes are:
I am a 25 year old male who lives in Sydney, Australia. I studied in the University of New South Wales, in which I took the Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Philosophy and Film Studies. I worked in various jobs after I graduated from University in 2015, but ultimately grew tired of them and quit them (I really dislike having to deal with people and having a boss over my head - in fact, I dislike entertaining the idea that there is anyone "above" me, in general) after I finished writing my first fantasy novel, a fighting-focused story known as Purity Before Existence (you can buy the book by clicking here. If you are considering buying this book, you can ask user Aquasition to tell you a bit about how the experience in reading it was like). At the moment, I am unemployed, but I don't really mind since I saved up quite a lot of money from when I worked, receive money on a fortnightly basis from an organization known as Centrelink, and I also don't spend much at all, since I live with my parents.
I consider myself to be a rather simple individual. The ultimate mottos that sum up my views on life are "all's for fun," "life is random," and "living life is like creating a work of art," meaning I basically try my best to view any situation I encounter in life as one to entertain myself with. A great majority of things that I do in life are done mostly, if not entirely to entertain myself, or as a form of art with the ultimate goal of satisfying my own personal sense of aesthetics. I do make serious efforts to achieve things in some situations, such as when participating in Pokémon battles (in which I always try my absolute best, no matter what, although I guess this is just my way of living up to my own ideal of "Pokémon Mastery"... something I ultimately do for fun and aesthetics), and in writing stories such as Purity Before Existence.
However, my "need" to make such serious efforts are mostly self-imposed - I have never really cared about impressing others, or given much thought about the opinions that others hold about me, unless caring about such serves a means to a very practical end such as making money, of course. In this way, I do not really view myself as a part of society or any community, but rather, just a person who is in this world to enjoy himself in his own way, without feeling obligated to live up to anyone's expectations, or being attached to any other person or community on anything more than a superficial level. This is partially because I have realized since a long time ago that in this world, every man is ultimately for himself, and the "positive connections" that people have with one another are mostly just people using each other for their own benefits anyway, meaning that being too attached to any person or group is never a good idea. Although, I do abide by a rather strict set of moral principles that dictate not only the limits of my own actions when it comes to dealing with other good people, but also my own obligations when it comes to dealing with those who are immoral.
My interests besides Pokémon include:
How did you come up with your name?
My username has a very, very long history. Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to the story I have given above, about how Dragonite became my favorite Pokémon. The experience I recounted in that story was also what made Lance my favorite character ever in the Pokémon series. Other factors that further solidify the Indigo Plateau Pokémon League Champion's position as my favorite Pokémon character include his use of Hyper Beam on literally every single one of his Pokémon in all games prior to Generation IV (with the exception of Pokémon Stadium), his incredibly awesome battle theme in both Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal as well as Pokémon Stadium 2, the fact that my favorite Pokémon is his signature Pokémon, and the fact that the stage on which he is battled in Pokémon Stadium 2 simply looks incredibly awesome, grand and awe-inspiring to my eyes, with the gigantic dragon statue in the background on his side of the stage. Furthermore, in Pokémon Stadium 2, the dragon master also gave me an experience very similar to the one he gave me in Pokémon Red - I had swept through the Gym Leader Castle mostly with Mewtwo, defeating even Karen with it... but for a long time, I could not defeat Lance at all, simply because his Tyranitar always overwhelmed my Mewtwo, while the rest of my team struggled with his remaining Pokémon.
Because Lance is my favorite Pokémon character, I once decided to roleplay as him sometime in early-mid 2009, during the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl days, on an online Pokémon battling simulator known as Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy. I created my own server, known as the POKéMON LEAGUE, and modified the server's database in order to give some Pokémon some moves and Abilities they cannot normally possess. These were the Ability Huge Power as well as the moves Extreme Speed and Flare Blitz for Dragonite (Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver were not out yet at the time, so Extreme Speed was illegal on Dragonite in Generation IV back then), the Ability Magic Guard as well as the moves Flare Blitz and Head Smash for Aerodactyl, and the Ability Magic Guard as well as the moves Head Smash and Wood Hammer for Charizard (I imagined Charizard using Wood Hammer in a manner similar to the way it uses Rock Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, except with a large chunk of wood instead of a boulder).
Inspired by the way Lance is known for using illegal Pokémon and moves in the Pokémon games, such as a Barrier Dragonite in Pokémon Red and Blue, a Rock Slide Aerodactyl in Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, as well as underleveled Dragonite across many games, I decided to throw together a team consisting of Gyarados, Dragonite, Dragonite, Aerodactyl, Charizard and Dragonite (the team Lance uses in Generation II, as well as in the first battle against him in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver), with every Pokémon except for Gyarados (in part due to the fact that I personally find the act of leading with a Pokémon with the Ability Intimidate to be extremely awesome aesthetically) utilizing the illegal moves and Abilities I gave them by modifying the POKéMON LEAGUE server's database. Under the name CHAMPION LANCE, I stayed on that server for a few weeks, accepting any battles from trainers who challenged me, and stood as a completely undefeated trainer on that server (I actually participated in way more than 20 battles, but most of them were unrated), thanks to the unnatural powers that my dragons possessed. While roleplaying as LANCE on that server, I also typed in a way similar to the way in-game characters in the first three generations of the POKéMON games speak, by completely capitalizing the same words or terms that those characters do, including DRAGONITE, EXTREME SPEED, HUGE POWER, etc, as exemplified by this very sentence.
Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy was also the very same simulator on which I later met my long-time friend aLiEn Mw, the sole leader of a Brazilian clan known as Dragon Rush at the time. After winning a DPP OU tournament on the main server (without using any illegal moves or Abilities, of course) on New Year's Eve at the end of 2009, and having a battle with aLiEn Mw himself shortly after that, I was made his fellow Clan Leader of Dragon Rush. I joined the Dragon Rush forums under the name CHAMPION LANCE, as carried over from my Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy name.
Later, in 2010, I joined the Pokémon Online forums under that name as well. However, as time passed, I got bored of the name CHAMPION LANCE, thinking it was too mundane-sounding, so I started using the cooler, grander, and more badass-sounding, yet similar name Ultimate Champion, which was also the name I later used on the Dragon Masters forums after fusing my Dragon Rush clan with sasha the master's Masters clan. Actually, "Ultimate Champion" was a title I had used to refer to myself in some fanfictional Pokémon stories I had written long, long before I even started playing Pokémon on online simulators, but still.
However, I later thought that even Ultimate Champion was too mundane a name, and I wanted something that transcended even that name in terms of grandeur, while at the same time retaining roughly the same idea. Inspired by a chapter title of Bleach (my favorite manga ever), "Deicide 21 [Transcendent God Rock]", I came up with the name Transcendent God Champion, which I used on a simulator that existed in 2014, known as PokeBattle (random fact: the name of my most famous Übers Rate My Team ever, The Blazing Glaciers, is also a Bleach chapter title). Later, I simply decided to reuse my PokeBattle username for my current Smogon forum account.
Also, I know that I have already answered the question at this point, but just for fun, I'd like to link to this page, which explains the creation of the username Immanent God LANCE, which was made after the name Transcendent God Champion, and which I use on the Heavenly Dragon Gods forums, with this name having also been used by me on both Discord as well as Pokémon Showdown!.
Also, just for fun as well:
Pokémon Trainer R (the name of a Smogon account I used in the past) -> R The Resurrection (the username I used in the days of Ubers Premier League III) -> Auferstehung【天龍神】(the name I used in the days of Ubers Premier League IV. "Auferstehung" means "resurrection" in German, and the rest of the name is the Heavenly Dragon Gods clan tag) -> Oppstandelse【天龍神】 ("Oppstandelse" means "resurrection" in Norwegian")
LLW -> LivingLegendWataru (Sasha and I are considered to be the two Living Legends in the world of competitive Pokémon. Also, Wataru is the name of the character Lance in the Japanese version of the Pokémon games) -> 1337 Legend ワタル (this username is pronounced "Leet Legend Wataru")
How and when did you get into competitive Pokemon and the Ubers tier?
In the most technical sense, the beginning of my competitive Pokémon battling career was in 2000. When I first bought Pokémon Red in 1999 and completed the game, I already developed a strong desire to possess a team of six Pokémon which together are able to battle and defeat any trainer not just within the Pokémon games themselves, but in real life as well. After all, the Pokémon series strongly promotes the idea of becoming the very best, like no one ever was, and I personally found, and still find the whole idea of Pokémon Mastery to be incredibly glorious, epic and awe-inspiring. And because I already had that desire by that point, the start of my competitive battling career was technically marked by the first time I battled my best friend in Pokémon Stadium, since competitive battling is defined as the act of battling other real people and doing everything within one's power to win.
When the Generation II Pokémon games were released in my country, the competitive battling careers of me and my best friend (as well as some other friends of mine, who later also started playing Pokémon Stadium with me as well) moved to Pokémon Stadium 2. Back when I used to battle with my friends, I was considered to be the most powerful trainer among the group, although looking back, I wouldn't say that I was overall any good at battling at that point, as the teams I used all consisted of six Pokémon which all know Hyper Beam. However, despite the bad strategies I used in my battles against my friends, I was able to beat them all simply because they used even worse Pokémon, moves and strategies than I did, and also because they were not as familiar with the mechanics of the game as I was (although my knowledge of Pokémon wasn't that great either, as there were certain mechanics such as DVs and the way Hidden Power types work which I had absolutely no clue about. But of course, none of my friends knew anything about them either).
Later, when most of my friends lost interest in competitive Pokémon battling, I moved on to my very first online Pokémon battling simulator, Pokémon NetBattle, which another friend of mine introduced to me in late 2003. I participated in Generation II battles when I first started battling on Pokémon NetBattle, as that was the most recent and popular generation available on the simulator at the time. I lost some battles initially due to my lack of knowledge of the game compared to most of my opponents. However, I quickly learned more about how to battle effectively, and thus for the first time in my five years of playing Pokémon, I actually became a genuinely good battler in early 2004. This prowess only grew throughout the first half of that year, as I later managed to develop one of the greatest win-loss records in the history of Pokémon NetBattle on numerous servers, including Blue Heaven, Tafop, Ultimate Arena and Battledome, having achieved about 200 victories and only about 10 defeats in each of those servers under one name. My skill at battling in Generation II had reached such a high level that I was matched only by a handful of other trainers back then, such as Veteran In Love, DaElite, Master Sun Elite and Moonlight.
Having known about Pokémon NetBattle... I had already established a connection with the Pokémon battling community. Through word of mouth, I naturally discovered all the other Pokémon websites and online Pokémon battling simulators that came after that, including Ignazio's Arena (established in mid-2004), Smogon (established in December 2004), Shoddy Battle (created in late 2008, though I barely used that simulator), Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy (created in early 2009), Dragon Rush (New Year's Eve at the end of 2009 was when I discovered this community, though it has existed since 2006), Pokémon Online (created in early 2010), Pokémon Showdown! (created in mid-2012), Dragon Masters (established in June 2013), PokeBattle (created in early 2014), Heavenly Dragon Gods (established in June 2014), and possibly more I may have missed.
There are three reasons why I got into Übers:
1. The first reason is because although rules such as the Sleep Clause and Species Clause have existed in every Übers metagame so far, Übers has nonetheless traditionally been the single metagame that is closest to Pokémon battling in its purest form, since it has the fewest number of bans and clauses. I am a person who dislikes the idea of a metagame having too many rules or things banned from it, while I do not mind the chaos embodied by a tier in which all or most of the "overpowered" Pokémon are usable. In fact, on the contrary, I actually love that very idea.
Ironically though, this is also one of the reasons why I never got too much into ORAS Ubers for most of the time when this metagame was played, since Anything Goes - the metagame which I have personally always wanted Übers to be - was created shortly after ORAS Ubers came into existence. Since I have traditionally played Übers because it was the closest thing to Anything Goes, I for a long time saw no reason to keep playing that metagame after Anything Goes was introduced.
2. Übers has traditionally been the only metagame in which the strongest legendary Pokémon, such as Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh and Rayquaza are usable. Since such powerful legendary Pokémon are considered to be deities within the Pokémon universe, I feel an immense amount of power and satisfaction in controlling them in battle and using them to defeat other legendary Pokémon of similar god-like abilities, especially with epic and gloriously destructive attacks such as Aeroblast and Sacred Fire. Such satisfaction is akin to the feeling one experiences upon catching any legendary Pokémon in the main Pokémon games. Since they are extremely rare and possess incredible power, having them under one's own control creates a great sense of empowerment.
What I am about to point out in this and the next paragraph may be a bit off-topic, but I would nonetheless like to proceed anyway since it gives more insight into the positive feeling that I am describing here. I have never, in any generation of Pokémon, played any tier below OU, at least seriously. And the reason why has to do with what I described above. Pokémon that are often used in tiers below OU tend to be Pokémon that are commonly-found and mundane within the Pokémon universe, and they do not possess a high degree of power. This makes the act of both controlling and defeating such Pokémon to be unsatisfying to me, hence why I have never played such tiers.
Many people may also know that I am a quite avid Balanced Hackmons player. The reason why I like that metagame so much can be considered an extension of the second reason why I like Übers so much. If controlling rare, powerful and god-like Pokémon and using them to defeat other Pokémon of similar grandeur represents a form of immense satisfaction and empowerment for me, then the same would apply even more so to controlling almost any Pokémon - including the aforementioned super legendary ones - while at the same "transcending" the "legal limitations" of the game by allowing such Pokémon to possess almost any move or Ability, in order to push things to the limit and utilize powers unseen in legal play. (this is aesthetically awesome to my eyes as well, as it reminds me of the in-game Lance using illegal Pokémon). When one is capable of utilizing powers that are "special" or defy normal laws and rules, it is only natural that one feels like an omnipotent deity.
To put things into simple TV Tropes terms: I like Übers for the feeling of empowerment that comes with playing with Olympus Mons, while I have always avoided tiers below OU exactly because such tiers subvert this, and I like Balanced Hackmons because it takes what Übers is to me Up To Eleven.
3. The simplest reason of them all is the fact that Übers has traditionally been the metagame in which the highest number of my favorite Pokémon see common use. Mewtwo, Arceus, and the cover legendary Pokémon are all among some of my favorite Pokémon ever, largely for reasons explained in the previous section.
What's your favourite generation of Ubers, and why?
I find it very difficult to decide between ADV, XY (if that counts as a generation) and SM, so I guess I'll explain my views on each of them.
ADV Ubers:
Admittedly, my love of ADV Ubers is based a lot on nostalgia above all else. It is the metagame I spent the most time playing on Pokémon NetBattle in 2006, and I found it incredibly fun to destroy my opponents with immensely powerful moves (by that generation's standards at least, anyway) such as Choice Band Lugia's Aeroblast, Rayquaza's Choice Band-boosted attacks, Mewtwo's catastrophic special attacks combined with its Selfdestruct technique, Kyogre's immensely destructive attacks, and other things like that. Also, I think I had less worries on my mind in general at the time when I played ADV Ubers, in terms of both life and Pokémon, as I was much younger back then (at that time, I certainly did not think of many practical but restraining concepts that are central to me as a Pokémon trainer nowadays, such as hax-resilience in teambuilding), making it seem more pleasant when I look back at it.
I think I liked this metagame even more when I reflected upon it in 2012 and 2013, at the time when BW2 Ubers was the latest Übers metagame played. I remembered how back in Generation III, things were much simpler, as extremely annoying things such as Stealth Rock, Arceus-Normal and Darkrai did not exist to limit teambuilding so much. I particularly loved the fact that Spikes was the only entry hazard back then, meaning that if I had a team with many Pokémon immune to it, I could get away with using a team with no countermeasure to entry hazards at all. This was in stark contrast with BW2 Ubers, which I played at the time of my reflection, as in that metagame, I either had to go out of my way to include an Espeon on my team, or take for granted that every one of my Pokémon had to suffer from at least Stealth Rock damage every time it switched in (and even if I had Espeon, the opponent could sometimes get entry hazards up anyway, through either prediction or things like Mold Breaker Stealth Rock Excadrill). This was something I did not like, because I have always disliked the idea of playing with entry hazards on my side of the field, since they restrict my freedom of switching so much, and turn many would-be safe plays into 50/50s, making things more random and giving less skilled trainers a better chance at defeating me.
But as I mentioned though, my idealized view of ADV Ubers is definitely largely influenced by nostalgia, because as I watched many ADV Ubers battles in this year's Ubers Premier League, I noticed that battles in this metagame are very, very commonly decided by hax - much moreso than in any other Übers metagame barring possibly ORAS Ubers in my opinion. For example, take a look at my team member Melle2402's ADV Ubers run in the fifth Ubers Premier League. I do not recall him playing a single clean set in that entire tournament - every set, he either won or lost as a result of hax. And this is only natural when I think about it, as ADV Ubers was a metagame dominated by Thunder spam, Thunder Wave, Calm Mind wars, and many other things that made it very RNG-based. This aspect of the ADV Ubers metagame does bother me nowadays due to my current mindset, as I strongly dislike metagames in which consistent success cannot be achieved (I'll talk more about that later in this interview), but I guess it meant absolutely nothing to me back in 2006, especially since I didn't take this game as seriously back then.
XY Ubers:
As a metagame, XY Ubers was definitely a rollercoaster ride for me, but one that I ultimately loved. Entering this metagame fresh from BW2 Ubers towards the end of 2013, I initially absolutely loved the Defog buff. No longer did teams need an Espeon in order to be able to expect to even have a decent chance at playing a game without having at least Stealth Rock on one's own side of the field. Not only was Espeon far from a foolproof method of keeping entry hazards off the field in BW2 Ubers, as mentioned before, but it was also a Pokémon that only fitted on one playstyle - Sun offense. So in BW2 Ubers, I was forced to either only use Sun offense, or use other playstyles while accepting that having at least Stealth Rock on my side of the field was a given - something I really disliked. But with the Defog buff in XY Ubers, I felt, at least initially, that all playstyles could equally viably play without having to take for granted that Stealth Rock will be on the field.
As someone who specialized in the use of Sun offense in BW2 Ubers, I started off XY Ubers with a Ho-Oh balance team known as Heaven-Defying Immortality, which had Defog Arceus-Rock as well as some other Pokémon I was comfortable with using in the previous generation, such as Groudon, Palkia and double status Lugia, as that felt most natural to me. My team saw amazing success for the first few months of XY Ubers, but fell flat on its face when the metagame developed. When people started putting Toxic on their Stealth Rock users to wear down Defog Arceus, and when Taunt became omnipresent on Mega Gengar and all forms of Mewtwo, my team no longer worked.
The fall of my Heaven-Defying Immortality team made me explore some other playstyles, including Mega Blaziken hyper-offense (something Ubers leader Hack once complained about being "broken" in the XY Ubers metagame, which inspired me to use it, thinking it was good); Mega Mewtwo X/Choice Specs Kyogre balance (a team I made together with Sasha, with some ideas taken from Sheetanshu); SwagPlay (culminating in my creation of In Luck We Trust); a Scolipede hyper-offense team made by Arsenal/Astounded, about which Level 56 created a Rate My Team thread; various teams made and given to me by Arsenal, as well as various stall teams I took from Chinese Master Seele. For a long time, In Luck We Trust was the only team with which I had even decent success in this metagame, as I found teambuilding in this metagame to be unbelievably difficult, due to the myriad of threats that exist in it, including the extremely centralizing forces embodied by Stalltwo and Geomancy Xerneas. Furthermore, once developed, XY Ubers as a metagame looked completely unlike BW2 Ubers, meaning that most of the experience I had developed in playing BW2 Ubers were completely irrelevant in this new metagame. Things became even worse for me after Swagger was banned, leaving me with no good teams at all, something that made me leave for some other metagames such as Balanced Hackmons and Almost Any Ability for a few months.
However, I regained my love for this metagame towards the end, when I took a certain rain stall team made by Seele (which was actually a modified version of a team initially made by ZoroDark) and made various changes to it, such as replacing Arceus-Fairy with Arceus-Rock, as well as Giratina's Sleep Talk with Shadow Ball in order to deal with Taunt Mewtwo. In doing so, I created not only the single best XY Ubers team ever, but also the single best, most consistently successful and most hax-resilient team in any Übers metagame I have ever played up to that point in time.
A large part of my love for XY Ubers also comes from the fact that I am particular fond of neither the Übers metagame that came directly before it (BW2 Ubers), nor the Übers metagame that came directly after it (ORAS Ubers). BW2 Ubers had problems with entry hazards (as I already explained) as well as game-deciding 50/50s (which exist mostly as a result of the aforementioned overpowered entry hazards). As for ORAS Ubers, it was a metagame which I have intensely disliked for a long time, to the point where I quit it for a long time in favor of ORAS Anything Goes (although to be fair, this wasn't the only reason why I quit ORAS Ubers, as I mentioned earlier. And in all honestly, looking back, ORAS Anything Goes was actually infinitely worse than ORAS Ubers as a metagame). This was because I have always thought that ORAS Ubers was a metagame in which a consistently successful and hax-resilient team, let alone one to the same extent as my XY Ubers rain stall team, could not possibly be made at all. I thought that the best teams in that metagame all depended on things like Intimidate, Mega Gengar's Focus Blast or Giratina-O's Dragon Tail to not be swept by Arceus-Normal (the last of those requires +2 Shadow Claw not scoring a critical hit on Giratina-O, and a 90% accuracy move hitting!), Precipice Blades hitting Geomancy Xerneas in order to not be swept by it, and extremely shaky and unreliable stuff in general, such as Dark Void, Focus Blast, Thunder, Precipice Blades and Stone Edge.
Although, to be fair, I had begun to reconsider my stance on ORAS Ubers after creating GaiaForce and achieving a 58-2 win-loss record with it, with my reconsideration of such being recently solidified upon witnessing the ORAS Ubers stall team Pohjis used in two of his tie-breaker matches in the previous Ubers Premier League. I believe there is a very, very high chance that the team Pohjis made may be the single best ORAS Ubers team ever, as I have battled many times with it against various people, without a single loss. Had I come up with such an incredibly awesome, consistent and hax-resilient team in early or mid-ORAS Ubers, I actually think I could have enjoyed this metagame a lot.
SM Ubers:
I love this metagame, as it seems to be so easy to make consistent and hax-resilient teams in it. While it may have been true that such consistent and hax-resilient teams in the first half of SM Ubers were mostly limited to stall teams, I think the release of Marshadow has changed this. Marshadow can now make offense a lot more consistent than it ever was in the past in Übers, for reasons I'll explain in the appropriate section of this interview.
How do you feel SM plays compared to ORAS, and if you could change anything about the current metagame, what would it be?
I think the difference between SM Ubers and ORAS Ubers is far less than the difference between any other two consecutive generations of Übers, due to the lack of extremely significant changes in game mechanics, such as the Special split as well as the advent of the Dark and Steel types between RBY and GSC, the introduction of EVs, Natures and Abilities between GSC and ADV, the change in the way physical and special attacks are determined as well as the introduction of Stealth Rock (and to a lesser extent Toxic Spikes) between ADV and DPP, the introduction of Team Preview as well as various game-changing Dream World Abilities between DPP and BW2, and finally, the Defog buff, the advent of the Fairy type, as well as the introduction of immense power creep in the forms of Geomancy Xerneas and Primal Groudon between BW2 and ORAS. However, the transition from ORAS Ubers to SM Ubers has definitely benefited defensive playstyles overall, with the departure of Darkrai, Latios and Mega Diancie, combined with the fact that Alolan Muk serves as such a powerful Mega Gengar check. With that said, I personally think that in both metagames (at least before Marshadow was released, in the case of SM), stall is by far the most consistently successful playstyle, contrary to what many people may think about it in ORAS. It's just that in ORAS, the number of viable stall teams was vastly eclipsed (probably at a ratio of about 99:1) by the number of viable balance and offensive teams, but I'd say that the 1% of viable teams in that metagame that were stall teams were still better than the 99% of viable teams that were not. I personally do not think that the transition from ORAS to SM has made the best stall teams in the metagame any better. But rather, it has helped stall in the sense that it has vastly increased the number of different types of viable stall teams.
However, I personally very much welcome that which may have probably been the single most significant change in the transition from ORAS Ubers to SM Ubers, and that is the departure of Darkrai. I believe that Darkrai was an incredibly unhealthy presence in ORAS Ubers (as well as in any pre-SM metagame, really. Remember when I said, "ORAS Anything Goes was actually infinitely worse than ORAS Ubers as a metagame" earlier?), for this reason:
When measuring how "good" a Pokémon is in a metagame, there are two metrics people often consider. The first is the question of how much consistent success a Pokémon can give you if you were to participate in countless battles using an optimal team containing this Pokémon. And the second is the question of how much the presence of this Pokémon in the metagame shapes teambuilding, as well as the metagame itself. Generally, the more consistent success a certain Pokémon gives people, the more often it is used, which increases its impact on the metagame and teambuilding. However, the correlation is not linear, as can be observed through this example:
Consider an incredibly versatile Pokémon, with an extremely huge movepool, as well as the ability to run countless viable movesets in one metagame, with all of those movesets demanding different checks and counters. This Pokémon's impact on the metagame and teambuilding is absolutely massive. However, in reality, it still can only run four moves and one moveset at a time. While the element of unpredictability (in the sense that the opponent will often not know how to react due to them not knowing exactly what moveset it runs) certainly increases the success that its user can achieve, the effect of such an element is minimal when looking at the Pokémon's ability to give its user consistent success. This means that this Pokémon's ability to give its user consistent success is not on par with the extent to which it influences the metagame and limits teambuilding.
The above is one example, but I believe Darkrai in any pre-SM metagame is another huge example. When preparing for Darkrai in teambuilding, it is always assumed that Dark Void always hits... just for the benefit of the person facing it. After all, this move does hit most of the time. However, if you were to use Darkrai yourself, you would realize that its actual level of viability is not actually on par with how much it restricts the metagame, since at the end of the day, Dark Void does, on average, miss once in every five uses. A Dark Void miss is usually incredibly costly given how frail Darkrai is, being game-changing a significant portion of the time, which results in the use of this Pokémon being quite detrimental for one who seeks consistent success. Just imagine succeeding in getting Stealth Rock past the opponent's Mega Sableye thanks to the use of Deoxys-S's Skill Swap. Then, sometime after Deoxys-S faints, the opponent sends out their Arceus-Water, a move you read and respond to by double-switching to your Darkrai. A whopping 20% of the time, Arceus-Water succeeds in using Defog in this situation. Of course, I am aware that many Pokémon trainers like to think under the mindset that "any loss as a result of hax should be completely disregarded, as if they did not even happen at all"... but the reality is that Pokémon does not work this way, both in measuring team quality as well as trainer skill.
Long story short, Darkrai in all pre-SM metagames is a Pokémon whose presence places incredible amounts of restrictions on teambuilding, limiting the metagame a lot. But at the same time, the reward that comes with actually using it is not on par with all the damage it causes. Thus, the existence of this Pokémon in any pre-SM metagame lowers the consistency of teams, making everything more random.
As for what I would change about the current metagame... I know this may sound controversial, but I'll say it anyway as it's my honest opinion:
While SM Ubers in its current form may undeniably be an absolutely wonderful metagame... I personally think that SM Anything Goes is an even better metagame. Both offense and stall seem more consistent in it than in Übers. Offense's increased consistency in Anything Goes owes itself to the fact that Mega Rayquaza and Arceus Formes (Arceus spam is the single most common archetype in SM Anything Goes, though to be fair, the introduction of Marshadow probably hinders it a lot) do not really use many inaccurate moves, as well as the fact that multiple Extreme Speed Arceus makes it much easier to check opposing sweepers (as opposed to having to do things like relying on a Precipice Blades hit to prevent a Xerneas sweep). On the other hand, stall's increased consistency in Anything Goes comes from the fact that Mega Rayquaza's very existence in the metagame completely invalidates Mega Salamence, while pushing Mega Gengar's usage down to a far, far lower percentage than in Übers, as a result of opportunity cost. And Mega Lucario is non-existent in that metagame due to a combination of Mega Rayquaza's existence (in other words, opportunity cost once again), combined with the fact that Mega Lucario is slower than Arceus and cannot boost its Speed with any viable move, which is just bad in a metagame dominated by Arceus spam. Despite the fact that Mega Rayquaza as a Pokémon is infinitely more threatening than Mega Salamence, Mega Gengar or Mega Lucario... I think stall would rather have to deal with Mega Rayquaza along with Mega Gengar (which I again emphasise, has significantly less usage in Anything Goes) than to have to deal with three different and threatening Mega Evolutions which all have roughly the same usage, as well as requiring vastly different checks and counters. Furthermore, the dominance of Arceus spam in Anything Goes also makes things easier for stall, as Arceus as a Pokémon rarely possesses the tools necessary to threaten stall, whereas Übers teams are generally much more adept at pressuring stall.
SM Ubers has many bans and clauses for various reasons, many of which were policies that were implemented in previous generations of this tier. And that's understandable. For example, I would never even dream of allowing the Sleep Clause to be lifted in DPP, BW2 or ORAS Ubers, for reasons I have explained a few paragraphs ago. But honestly, considering just how incredibly balanced SM Anything Goes is, even if you may not agree that it's a better metagame than SM Ubers... do many of these clauses, such as the Species Clause and the Mega Rayquaza Clause even need to exist (the fact that the use of multiple Arceus is allowed in Anything Goes significantly helps in keeping Mega Rayquaza in check, though I know of many Übers-legal Anything Goes teams that handle Mega Rayquaza just fine)?
Stuff that are banned from Übers for being uncompetitive rather than overpowered, such as one-hit KO moves, Evasion-boosting techniques, Swagger, Moody and Hypnosis Mega Gengar are almost never seen at high levels in Anything Goes, simply because it's not worth it to use these inconsistent things in the long run. And if they were unbanned in SM Ubers, I'd say the same story would apply after the initial hype surrounding them dies down (there is a reason why Moody Glalie was used in early Anything Goes significantly more often than at any other point in that metagame's lifespan). Although, I wouldn't mind keeping them banned under the logic of preventing someone from gambling with them in a single tournament match against an opponent they perceive to be far more skilled than themselves, in the belief that it is their best chance of winning, and then getting lucky and winning via the use of such things.
What are your thoughts on Marshadow? Has it impressed you so far?
I absolutely love the introduction of Marshadow in the SM Ubers metagame, due to the fact that, at least based on what I can observe, this Pokémon has contributed immensely towards allowing offense to be a consistently successful playstyle. To give you an idea of how much this means to me, BW2 Ubers was literally the last Übers metagame in which I ever liked offense of any kind. And even then, the reason why I preferred offense over stall in BW2 Ubers was simply because offense was better than stall in that metagame, despite still being significantly less consistent than the best stall teams seen in later generations.
One of the biggest problems with offense traditionally, as well as one of the greatest reasons why I use stall almost exclusively in XY, ORAS and pre-Marshadow SM Ubers is because of offense's lack of solid methods for checking Extreme Killer Arceus. When dealing with an incredibly dangerous offensive threat capable of sweeping entire teams if one fails to check it... using extremely soft checks to it such as Intimidate Pokémon, or stuff that easily lose to a Focus Blast or Will-O-Wisp miss or a single critical hit (often from a move with an increased critical hit ratio, too) is simply unacceptable, and not to mention that a lot of these "checks" don't even work if Arceus-Normal has something unusual like Recover or Lum Berry. However, offense also cannot afford to use more solid checks to this Pokémon, such as Clefable, Lugia, Giratina-A or Skarmory, due to the way these Pokémon disrupt the team's own momentum due to their lack of offensive presence.
To be honest, Arceus-Normal is hardly the only sweeper offense traditionally uses flimsy ways of "checking," but at least Marshadow existing makes the problem presented by Arceus-Normal pretty much irrelevant now. Offense now has a very solid, reliable and consistent way to deal with Arceus-Normal, and while Choice Scarf Terrakion has always existed... it is obviously not a good idea in a metagame in which Mega Gengar, Mega Salamence and Xerneas all exist. I think that, thanks to Marshadow, there is a very good chance that I will like offense again for the first time since BW2 Ubers.
As we all know, Baton Pass recently got banned in Ubers, how do you feel about this? Did you support it or not, and why?
I do not support the Baton Pass ban at all. Thimo's infamous Eeveepass team was not close to an excellent team in my eyes, at least when used by the vast majority of people, for reasons I explained here. Although this does not prove my point, I think the fact that even someone as skilled as Ubers leader Hack could not succeed in climbing significantly above the 1500s on the SM Ubers ladder using this team strongly supports my stance as well. And even if you could justify banning Eeveepass for the reason I gave in the final paragraph of the post I just linked to, I think it would make more sense to ban the move Extreme Evoboost instead, since the move Baton Pass does have various legitimate uses, as can be observed in the team HunterStorm used in this Ubers Premier League battle of his (though granted, it didn't actually work there).
Banner by NicoReaper
Welcome everyone to the Ubers Player of The Week! For those who don't know what this is,it's a project where I interview top Ubers players who are well known and respected by the community, and have performed consistently well at a very high level. In addition to that you, will also have the chance to ask some questions to the interviewed person.
If you have a suggestion as to who I should interview, feel free to shoot me a PM. Anyways, lets get to it!
Transcendent God Champion
Most Known For
Being Leader of Dragon Rush, Dragon Masters and Heavenly Dragon Gods, as well as the Greatest Pokémon Master to have ever walked under the Sun.
Favourite Pokemon
My favorite Pokémon is Dragonite.
Back in 1999 or so... I had just beaten the Pokémon League in Pokémon Red. I entered the Unknown Dungeon and captured Mewtwo, which I had already known to be considered to be the world's most powerful Pokémon, since I had seen Mewtwo Strikes Back and all.
With the Ultimate Pokémon under my control, I was naturally very excited. I headed back to Indigo Plateau in order to test its powers, by challenging the Elite Four again. I easily swept my way through Lorelei, and especially Bruno and Agatha, given Mewtwo's natural type advantage over them, before standing face-to-face with the dragon master himself. Under my command, the Psychic-type Pokémon easily slaughtered the fourth Elite Four member's Gyarados, Dragonair, Dragonair and Aerodactyl, before the Dragon/Flying-type behemoth appeared before my eyes. At that point, my Mewtwo was at least nine levels higher than my opponent's Dragonite. It used its most powerful attack, Psychic... which, in accordance with my opponent's claim that his Pokémon was "virtually indestructible"... failed to knock out its foe. After that, the mighty Dragon Pokémon fired its Hyper Beam at my Mewtwo, knocking it out in a single blast despite the fact that it was at near full health.
Thinking back, my at least level 71 Mewtwo taking that much damage from a level 62 Dragonite's Hyper Beam could only have been a result of a critical hit... but my eight-year-old self did not know what critical hits were or what they did. As such, I was thoroughly impressed. At that moment, Dragonite became my favorite Pokémon ever, and it remains as such even up to this very day, while Hyper Beam also became my favorite Pokémon move ever, up until I learned about how bad it was competitively in 2003 or so.
However, as powerful as the aforementioned experience was... it would be ridiculous to believe that the impact of such alone would be enough to allow Dragonite to continue remaining as my favorite Pokémon, especially with the release of newer generations of Pokémon, and along with them, extremely cool and badass Pokémon such as Tyranitar, Rayquaza, Garchomp, Kyurem-W, Xerneas and Solgaleo. Obviously, for Dragonite to remain as my favorite, certain factors had to exist to perpetuate its position. Such factors that make it so incredibly cool in my eyes are:
- The fact that it possessed the single highest Attack stat of all Pokémon in Generation I. In Generation II, it was tied with Tyranitar for this position. Possessing a high Attack stat was something that meant a lot to me in my early days, because I knew that having a high Attack stat was proportional to possessing a strong Hyper Beam, which I used to consider to be the single best move in the entire game. It should also be noted that I had no idea what Same Type Attack Bonus was back then, meaning I literally did believe that Dragonite had the strongest Hyper Beam in the entire game.
- Dragonite possesses amazing stats, surpassing or rivaling those of all but the most powerful of legendary Pokémon. The fact that it is technically not a one-of-a-kind legendary Pokémon, and yet still possesses the strength of one is also cool, as it not being legendary makes it feel more realistic when I battle with one.
- It learns all sorts of elemental attacks, from Thunderbolt to Ice Beam, Flamethrower and Surf, making it in my opinion superior to most Pokémon, which at best can only use one or two of those moves. It also has an amazingly diverse movepool in general.
- It is of the Dragon type - presented as a very special, legendary and almost divine type throughout the series, especially in Generation II. Furthermore, in that generation, it was one - and the stronger - of the only two fully-evolved Dragon-type Pokémon in the game.
- The fact that Dragonite was often portrayed (much moreso in extremely early media in the Pokémon franchise) as a god-like Pokémon, such as when a giant one appeared before Bill's Lighthouse in the Animé, when Drake's Dragonite demonstrated its immense power in its battle with Ash, as well as the fact that this Pokémon is considered to be "Legendary" alongside Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres in the Pokémon Trading Card Game for the Gameboy Color.
- It learns Extreme Speed, something which was more "special" back in Generation II than now, considering the only other Pokémon which could learn that move back then was Arcanine, a similarly majestic Pokémon. Although, the move became cooler in my eyes when I later learned that Extreme Speed is known as God-Speed in the Japanese games.
- It learns Horn Drill, an unbelievably powerful attack which, for a long time, replaced Hyper Beam's position as my favorite move ever, after I learned that the latter was a bad move competitively. I began idolizing this move after someone on a website known as Neoseeker pointed out to me long ago that that which I used to consider to be my unbeatable Pokémon team (consisting of Aerodactyl, Charizard, Gyarados, Kingdra, Tyranitar and Dragonite - all knowing Hyper Beam) gets 6-0'd by Curse Snorlax, to which I responded by putting Horn Drill on my Dragonite, which allows it to defeat Snorlax in a single hit regardless of the number of times it boosts its Defense with Curse. My love for the move Horn Drill only grew as I began battling online on a simulator known as Pokémon NetBattle. At the time, Generation II was the main generation played on that simulator, and everyone was spamming stall teams with Skarmory, Blissey, Snorlax and Suicune... so I thought it would be fun to destroy them with one-hit KO moves, since there was no ladder back then, and people only battled each other via direct challenges. So nothing prevented me from challenging people while having the OHKO Clause unchecked. Even up to this very day, in which it no longer has any notable niche competitively in any metagame, Horn Drill Dragonite still holds a very, very special place in my heart, and I consider it to be one of my signature Pokémon when looking at the entire history of my Pokémon battling career - even while taking into account my current extreme distaste for inaccurate moves. DRAGONITE for the win!
- The numerous cool and badass tools it gained in later generations, such as Dragon Dance in Generation III, Draco Meteor, Superpower and a 120-power physical Outrage in Generation IV, and Multiscale and Hurricane in Generation V.
I am a 25 year old male who lives in Sydney, Australia. I studied in the University of New South Wales, in which I took the Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Philosophy and Film Studies. I worked in various jobs after I graduated from University in 2015, but ultimately grew tired of them and quit them (I really dislike having to deal with people and having a boss over my head - in fact, I dislike entertaining the idea that there is anyone "above" me, in general) after I finished writing my first fantasy novel, a fighting-focused story known as Purity Before Existence (you can buy the book by clicking here. If you are considering buying this book, you can ask user Aquasition to tell you a bit about how the experience in reading it was like). At the moment, I am unemployed, but I don't really mind since I saved up quite a lot of money from when I worked, receive money on a fortnightly basis from an organization known as Centrelink, and I also don't spend much at all, since I live with my parents.
I consider myself to be a rather simple individual. The ultimate mottos that sum up my views on life are "all's for fun," "life is random," and "living life is like creating a work of art," meaning I basically try my best to view any situation I encounter in life as one to entertain myself with. A great majority of things that I do in life are done mostly, if not entirely to entertain myself, or as a form of art with the ultimate goal of satisfying my own personal sense of aesthetics. I do make serious efforts to achieve things in some situations, such as when participating in Pokémon battles (in which I always try my absolute best, no matter what, although I guess this is just my way of living up to my own ideal of "Pokémon Mastery"... something I ultimately do for fun and aesthetics), and in writing stories such as Purity Before Existence.
However, my "need" to make such serious efforts are mostly self-imposed - I have never really cared about impressing others, or given much thought about the opinions that others hold about me, unless caring about such serves a means to a very practical end such as making money, of course. In this way, I do not really view myself as a part of society or any community, but rather, just a person who is in this world to enjoy himself in his own way, without feeling obligated to live up to anyone's expectations, or being attached to any other person or community on anything more than a superficial level. This is partially because I have realized since a long time ago that in this world, every man is ultimately for himself, and the "positive connections" that people have with one another are mostly just people using each other for their own benefits anyway, meaning that being too attached to any person or group is never a good idea. Although, I do abide by a rather strict set of moral principles that dictate not only the limits of my own actions when it comes to dealing with other good people, but also my own obligations when it comes to dealing with those who are immoral.
My interests besides Pokémon include:
- Writing stories (the sequel to Purity Before Existence at the moment)
- Listening to music while daydreaming (this could be about various scenes, characters, powers, abilities, weapons, locations or ideas that I could incorporate into my story, or about random stuff completely unrelated to my story, such as philosophies that apply to life)
- Bushwalking (and daydreaming while doing so)
- Surfing the internet (this often involves reading about and researching a topic I'm really interested in, with this topic constantly changing over time, like phases. For example, at the moment, I am very interested in reading about and researching lions and tigers, as well as topics related to them, for some reasons. A few months later, this topic will most likely change to something else. I'd say this is the #1 factor contributing to why I may seem like a very knowledgeable person)
- Watching various stuff on my computer, such as movies, Animé, as well as YouTube videos relating to the topic that interests me at a given period in time
- Playing video games
- Chatting on Pokémon Online, Pokémon Showdown!, Discord or other places, about topics relevant to my interests
- Rereading old conversations I have saved onto WordPad documents on my computer (I literally save every single conversation I ever have. If I ever fail to save a conversation, I always ask someone to give me a PasteBin of it later)
- Writing down quotes and other thoughts on WordPad documents
How did you come up with your name?
My username has a very, very long history. Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to the story I have given above, about how Dragonite became my favorite Pokémon. The experience I recounted in that story was also what made Lance my favorite character ever in the Pokémon series. Other factors that further solidify the Indigo Plateau Pokémon League Champion's position as my favorite Pokémon character include his use of Hyper Beam on literally every single one of his Pokémon in all games prior to Generation IV (with the exception of Pokémon Stadium), his incredibly awesome battle theme in both Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal as well as Pokémon Stadium 2, the fact that my favorite Pokémon is his signature Pokémon, and the fact that the stage on which he is battled in Pokémon Stadium 2 simply looks incredibly awesome, grand and awe-inspiring to my eyes, with the gigantic dragon statue in the background on his side of the stage. Furthermore, in Pokémon Stadium 2, the dragon master also gave me an experience very similar to the one he gave me in Pokémon Red - I had swept through the Gym Leader Castle mostly with Mewtwo, defeating even Karen with it... but for a long time, I could not defeat Lance at all, simply because his Tyranitar always overwhelmed my Mewtwo, while the rest of my team struggled with his remaining Pokémon.
Because Lance is my favorite Pokémon character, I once decided to roleplay as him sometime in early-mid 2009, during the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl days, on an online Pokémon battling simulator known as Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy. I created my own server, known as the POKéMON LEAGUE, and modified the server's database in order to give some Pokémon some moves and Abilities they cannot normally possess. These were the Ability Huge Power as well as the moves Extreme Speed and Flare Blitz for Dragonite (Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver were not out yet at the time, so Extreme Speed was illegal on Dragonite in Generation IV back then), the Ability Magic Guard as well as the moves Flare Blitz and Head Smash for Aerodactyl, and the Ability Magic Guard as well as the moves Head Smash and Wood Hammer for Charizard (I imagined Charizard using Wood Hammer in a manner similar to the way it uses Rock Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, except with a large chunk of wood instead of a boulder).
Inspired by the way Lance is known for using illegal Pokémon and moves in the Pokémon games, such as a Barrier Dragonite in Pokémon Red and Blue, a Rock Slide Aerodactyl in Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, as well as underleveled Dragonite across many games, I decided to throw together a team consisting of Gyarados, Dragonite, Dragonite, Aerodactyl, Charizard and Dragonite (the team Lance uses in Generation II, as well as in the first battle against him in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver), with every Pokémon except for Gyarados (in part due to the fact that I personally find the act of leading with a Pokémon with the Ability Intimidate to be extremely awesome aesthetically) utilizing the illegal moves and Abilities I gave them by modifying the POKéMON LEAGUE server's database. Under the name CHAMPION LANCE, I stayed on that server for a few weeks, accepting any battles from trainers who challenged me, and stood as a completely undefeated trainer on that server (I actually participated in way more than 20 battles, but most of them were unrated), thanks to the unnatural powers that my dragons possessed. While roleplaying as LANCE on that server, I also typed in a way similar to the way in-game characters in the first three generations of the POKéMON games speak, by completely capitalizing the same words or terms that those characters do, including DRAGONITE, EXTREME SPEED, HUGE POWER, etc, as exemplified by this very sentence.
Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy was also the very same simulator on which I later met my long-time friend aLiEn Mw, the sole leader of a Brazilian clan known as Dragon Rush at the time. After winning a DPP OU tournament on the main server (without using any illegal moves or Abilities, of course) on New Year's Eve at the end of 2009, and having a battle with aLiEn Mw himself shortly after that, I was made his fellow Clan Leader of Dragon Rush. I joined the Dragon Rush forums under the name CHAMPION LANCE, as carried over from my Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy name.
Later, in 2010, I joined the Pokémon Online forums under that name as well. However, as time passed, I got bored of the name CHAMPION LANCE, thinking it was too mundane-sounding, so I started using the cooler, grander, and more badass-sounding, yet similar name Ultimate Champion, which was also the name I later used on the Dragon Masters forums after fusing my Dragon Rush clan with sasha the master's Masters clan. Actually, "Ultimate Champion" was a title I had used to refer to myself in some fanfictional Pokémon stories I had written long, long before I even started playing Pokémon on online simulators, but still.
However, I later thought that even Ultimate Champion was too mundane a name, and I wanted something that transcended even that name in terms of grandeur, while at the same time retaining roughly the same idea. Inspired by a chapter title of Bleach (my favorite manga ever), "Deicide 21 [Transcendent God Rock]", I came up with the name Transcendent God Champion, which I used on a simulator that existed in 2014, known as PokeBattle (random fact: the name of my most famous Übers Rate My Team ever, The Blazing Glaciers, is also a Bleach chapter title). Later, I simply decided to reuse my PokeBattle username for my current Smogon forum account.
Also, I know that I have already answered the question at this point, but just for fun, I'd like to link to this page, which explains the creation of the username Immanent God LANCE, which was made after the name Transcendent God Champion, and which I use on the Heavenly Dragon Gods forums, with this name having also been used by me on both Discord as well as Pokémon Showdown!.
Also, just for fun as well:
Pokémon Trainer R (the name of a Smogon account I used in the past) -> R The Resurrection (the username I used in the days of Ubers Premier League III) -> Auferstehung【天龍神】(the name I used in the days of Ubers Premier League IV. "Auferstehung" means "resurrection" in German, and the rest of the name is the Heavenly Dragon Gods clan tag) -> Oppstandelse【天龍神】 ("Oppstandelse" means "resurrection" in Norwegian")
LLW -> LivingLegendWataru (Sasha and I are considered to be the two Living Legends in the world of competitive Pokémon. Also, Wataru is the name of the character Lance in the Japanese version of the Pokémon games) -> 1337 Legend ワタル (this username is pronounced "Leet Legend Wataru")
How and when did you get into competitive Pokemon and the Ubers tier?
In the most technical sense, the beginning of my competitive Pokémon battling career was in 2000. When I first bought Pokémon Red in 1999 and completed the game, I already developed a strong desire to possess a team of six Pokémon which together are able to battle and defeat any trainer not just within the Pokémon games themselves, but in real life as well. After all, the Pokémon series strongly promotes the idea of becoming the very best, like no one ever was, and I personally found, and still find the whole idea of Pokémon Mastery to be incredibly glorious, epic and awe-inspiring. And because I already had that desire by that point, the start of my competitive battling career was technically marked by the first time I battled my best friend in Pokémon Stadium, since competitive battling is defined as the act of battling other real people and doing everything within one's power to win.
When the Generation II Pokémon games were released in my country, the competitive battling careers of me and my best friend (as well as some other friends of mine, who later also started playing Pokémon Stadium with me as well) moved to Pokémon Stadium 2. Back when I used to battle with my friends, I was considered to be the most powerful trainer among the group, although looking back, I wouldn't say that I was overall any good at battling at that point, as the teams I used all consisted of six Pokémon which all know Hyper Beam. However, despite the bad strategies I used in my battles against my friends, I was able to beat them all simply because they used even worse Pokémon, moves and strategies than I did, and also because they were not as familiar with the mechanics of the game as I was (although my knowledge of Pokémon wasn't that great either, as there were certain mechanics such as DVs and the way Hidden Power types work which I had absolutely no clue about. But of course, none of my friends knew anything about them either).
Later, when most of my friends lost interest in competitive Pokémon battling, I moved on to my very first online Pokémon battling simulator, Pokémon NetBattle, which another friend of mine introduced to me in late 2003. I participated in Generation II battles when I first started battling on Pokémon NetBattle, as that was the most recent and popular generation available on the simulator at the time. I lost some battles initially due to my lack of knowledge of the game compared to most of my opponents. However, I quickly learned more about how to battle effectively, and thus for the first time in my five years of playing Pokémon, I actually became a genuinely good battler in early 2004. This prowess only grew throughout the first half of that year, as I later managed to develop one of the greatest win-loss records in the history of Pokémon NetBattle on numerous servers, including Blue Heaven, Tafop, Ultimate Arena and Battledome, having achieved about 200 victories and only about 10 defeats in each of those servers under one name. My skill at battling in Generation II had reached such a high level that I was matched only by a handful of other trainers back then, such as Veteran In Love, DaElite, Master Sun Elite and Moonlight.
Having known about Pokémon NetBattle... I had already established a connection with the Pokémon battling community. Through word of mouth, I naturally discovered all the other Pokémon websites and online Pokémon battling simulators that came after that, including Ignazio's Arena (established in mid-2004), Smogon (established in December 2004), Shoddy Battle (created in late 2008, though I barely used that simulator), Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy (created in early 2009), Dragon Rush (New Year's Eve at the end of 2009 was when I discovered this community, though it has existed since 2006), Pokémon Online (created in early 2010), Pokémon Showdown! (created in mid-2012), Dragon Masters (established in June 2013), PokeBattle (created in early 2014), Heavenly Dragon Gods (established in June 2014), and possibly more I may have missed.
There are three reasons why I got into Übers:
1. The first reason is because although rules such as the Sleep Clause and Species Clause have existed in every Übers metagame so far, Übers has nonetheless traditionally been the single metagame that is closest to Pokémon battling in its purest form, since it has the fewest number of bans and clauses. I am a person who dislikes the idea of a metagame having too many rules or things banned from it, while I do not mind the chaos embodied by a tier in which all or most of the "overpowered" Pokémon are usable. In fact, on the contrary, I actually love that very idea.
Ironically though, this is also one of the reasons why I never got too much into ORAS Ubers for most of the time when this metagame was played, since Anything Goes - the metagame which I have personally always wanted Übers to be - was created shortly after ORAS Ubers came into existence. Since I have traditionally played Übers because it was the closest thing to Anything Goes, I for a long time saw no reason to keep playing that metagame after Anything Goes was introduced.
2. Übers has traditionally been the only metagame in which the strongest legendary Pokémon, such as Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh and Rayquaza are usable. Since such powerful legendary Pokémon are considered to be deities within the Pokémon universe, I feel an immense amount of power and satisfaction in controlling them in battle and using them to defeat other legendary Pokémon of similar god-like abilities, especially with epic and gloriously destructive attacks such as Aeroblast and Sacred Fire. Such satisfaction is akin to the feeling one experiences upon catching any legendary Pokémon in the main Pokémon games. Since they are extremely rare and possess incredible power, having them under one's own control creates a great sense of empowerment.
What I am about to point out in this and the next paragraph may be a bit off-topic, but I would nonetheless like to proceed anyway since it gives more insight into the positive feeling that I am describing here. I have never, in any generation of Pokémon, played any tier below OU, at least seriously. And the reason why has to do with what I described above. Pokémon that are often used in tiers below OU tend to be Pokémon that are commonly-found and mundane within the Pokémon universe, and they do not possess a high degree of power. This makes the act of both controlling and defeating such Pokémon to be unsatisfying to me, hence why I have never played such tiers.
Many people may also know that I am a quite avid Balanced Hackmons player. The reason why I like that metagame so much can be considered an extension of the second reason why I like Übers so much. If controlling rare, powerful and god-like Pokémon and using them to defeat other Pokémon of similar grandeur represents a form of immense satisfaction and empowerment for me, then the same would apply even more so to controlling almost any Pokémon - including the aforementioned super legendary ones - while at the same "transcending" the "legal limitations" of the game by allowing such Pokémon to possess almost any move or Ability, in order to push things to the limit and utilize powers unseen in legal play. (this is aesthetically awesome to my eyes as well, as it reminds me of the in-game Lance using illegal Pokémon). When one is capable of utilizing powers that are "special" or defy normal laws and rules, it is only natural that one feels like an omnipotent deity.
To put things into simple TV Tropes terms: I like Übers for the feeling of empowerment that comes with playing with Olympus Mons, while I have always avoided tiers below OU exactly because such tiers subvert this, and I like Balanced Hackmons because it takes what Übers is to me Up To Eleven.
3. The simplest reason of them all is the fact that Übers has traditionally been the metagame in which the highest number of my favorite Pokémon see common use. Mewtwo, Arceus, and the cover legendary Pokémon are all among some of my favorite Pokémon ever, largely for reasons explained in the previous section.
What's your favourite generation of Ubers, and why?
I find it very difficult to decide between ADV, XY (if that counts as a generation) and SM, so I guess I'll explain my views on each of them.
ADV Ubers:
Admittedly, my love of ADV Ubers is based a lot on nostalgia above all else. It is the metagame I spent the most time playing on Pokémon NetBattle in 2006, and I found it incredibly fun to destroy my opponents with immensely powerful moves (by that generation's standards at least, anyway) such as Choice Band Lugia's Aeroblast, Rayquaza's Choice Band-boosted attacks, Mewtwo's catastrophic special attacks combined with its Selfdestruct technique, Kyogre's immensely destructive attacks, and other things like that. Also, I think I had less worries on my mind in general at the time when I played ADV Ubers, in terms of both life and Pokémon, as I was much younger back then (at that time, I certainly did not think of many practical but restraining concepts that are central to me as a Pokémon trainer nowadays, such as hax-resilience in teambuilding), making it seem more pleasant when I look back at it.
I think I liked this metagame even more when I reflected upon it in 2012 and 2013, at the time when BW2 Ubers was the latest Übers metagame played. I remembered how back in Generation III, things were much simpler, as extremely annoying things such as Stealth Rock, Arceus-Normal and Darkrai did not exist to limit teambuilding so much. I particularly loved the fact that Spikes was the only entry hazard back then, meaning that if I had a team with many Pokémon immune to it, I could get away with using a team with no countermeasure to entry hazards at all. This was in stark contrast with BW2 Ubers, which I played at the time of my reflection, as in that metagame, I either had to go out of my way to include an Espeon on my team, or take for granted that every one of my Pokémon had to suffer from at least Stealth Rock damage every time it switched in (and even if I had Espeon, the opponent could sometimes get entry hazards up anyway, through either prediction or things like Mold Breaker Stealth Rock Excadrill). This was something I did not like, because I have always disliked the idea of playing with entry hazards on my side of the field, since they restrict my freedom of switching so much, and turn many would-be safe plays into 50/50s, making things more random and giving less skilled trainers a better chance at defeating me.
But as I mentioned though, my idealized view of ADV Ubers is definitely largely influenced by nostalgia, because as I watched many ADV Ubers battles in this year's Ubers Premier League, I noticed that battles in this metagame are very, very commonly decided by hax - much moreso than in any other Übers metagame barring possibly ORAS Ubers in my opinion. For example, take a look at my team member Melle2402's ADV Ubers run in the fifth Ubers Premier League. I do not recall him playing a single clean set in that entire tournament - every set, he either won or lost as a result of hax. And this is only natural when I think about it, as ADV Ubers was a metagame dominated by Thunder spam, Thunder Wave, Calm Mind wars, and many other things that made it very RNG-based. This aspect of the ADV Ubers metagame does bother me nowadays due to my current mindset, as I strongly dislike metagames in which consistent success cannot be achieved (I'll talk more about that later in this interview), but I guess it meant absolutely nothing to me back in 2006, especially since I didn't take this game as seriously back then.
XY Ubers:
As a metagame, XY Ubers was definitely a rollercoaster ride for me, but one that I ultimately loved. Entering this metagame fresh from BW2 Ubers towards the end of 2013, I initially absolutely loved the Defog buff. No longer did teams need an Espeon in order to be able to expect to even have a decent chance at playing a game without having at least Stealth Rock on one's own side of the field. Not only was Espeon far from a foolproof method of keeping entry hazards off the field in BW2 Ubers, as mentioned before, but it was also a Pokémon that only fitted on one playstyle - Sun offense. So in BW2 Ubers, I was forced to either only use Sun offense, or use other playstyles while accepting that having at least Stealth Rock on my side of the field was a given - something I really disliked. But with the Defog buff in XY Ubers, I felt, at least initially, that all playstyles could equally viably play without having to take for granted that Stealth Rock will be on the field.
As someone who specialized in the use of Sun offense in BW2 Ubers, I started off XY Ubers with a Ho-Oh balance team known as Heaven-Defying Immortality, which had Defog Arceus-Rock as well as some other Pokémon I was comfortable with using in the previous generation, such as Groudon, Palkia and double status Lugia, as that felt most natural to me. My team saw amazing success for the first few months of XY Ubers, but fell flat on its face when the metagame developed. When people started putting Toxic on their Stealth Rock users to wear down Defog Arceus, and when Taunt became omnipresent on Mega Gengar and all forms of Mewtwo, my team no longer worked.
The fall of my Heaven-Defying Immortality team made me explore some other playstyles, including Mega Blaziken hyper-offense (something Ubers leader Hack once complained about being "broken" in the XY Ubers metagame, which inspired me to use it, thinking it was good); Mega Mewtwo X/Choice Specs Kyogre balance (a team I made together with Sasha, with some ideas taken from Sheetanshu); SwagPlay (culminating in my creation of In Luck We Trust); a Scolipede hyper-offense team made by Arsenal/Astounded, about which Level 56 created a Rate My Team thread; various teams made and given to me by Arsenal, as well as various stall teams I took from Chinese Master Seele. For a long time, In Luck We Trust was the only team with which I had even decent success in this metagame, as I found teambuilding in this metagame to be unbelievably difficult, due to the myriad of threats that exist in it, including the extremely centralizing forces embodied by Stalltwo and Geomancy Xerneas. Furthermore, once developed, XY Ubers as a metagame looked completely unlike BW2 Ubers, meaning that most of the experience I had developed in playing BW2 Ubers were completely irrelevant in this new metagame. Things became even worse for me after Swagger was banned, leaving me with no good teams at all, something that made me leave for some other metagames such as Balanced Hackmons and Almost Any Ability for a few months.
However, I regained my love for this metagame towards the end, when I took a certain rain stall team made by Seele (which was actually a modified version of a team initially made by ZoroDark) and made various changes to it, such as replacing Arceus-Fairy with Arceus-Rock, as well as Giratina's Sleep Talk with Shadow Ball in order to deal with Taunt Mewtwo. In doing so, I created not only the single best XY Ubers team ever, but also the single best, most consistently successful and most hax-resilient team in any Übers metagame I have ever played up to that point in time.
A large part of my love for XY Ubers also comes from the fact that I am particular fond of neither the Übers metagame that came directly before it (BW2 Ubers), nor the Übers metagame that came directly after it (ORAS Ubers). BW2 Ubers had problems with entry hazards (as I already explained) as well as game-deciding 50/50s (which exist mostly as a result of the aforementioned overpowered entry hazards). As for ORAS Ubers, it was a metagame which I have intensely disliked for a long time, to the point where I quit it for a long time in favor of ORAS Anything Goes (although to be fair, this wasn't the only reason why I quit ORAS Ubers, as I mentioned earlier. And in all honestly, looking back, ORAS Anything Goes was actually infinitely worse than ORAS Ubers as a metagame). This was because I have always thought that ORAS Ubers was a metagame in which a consistently successful and hax-resilient team, let alone one to the same extent as my XY Ubers rain stall team, could not possibly be made at all. I thought that the best teams in that metagame all depended on things like Intimidate, Mega Gengar's Focus Blast or Giratina-O's Dragon Tail to not be swept by Arceus-Normal (the last of those requires +2 Shadow Claw not scoring a critical hit on Giratina-O, and a 90% accuracy move hitting!), Precipice Blades hitting Geomancy Xerneas in order to not be swept by it, and extremely shaky and unreliable stuff in general, such as Dark Void, Focus Blast, Thunder, Precipice Blades and Stone Edge.
Although, to be fair, I had begun to reconsider my stance on ORAS Ubers after creating GaiaForce and achieving a 58-2 win-loss record with it, with my reconsideration of such being recently solidified upon witnessing the ORAS Ubers stall team Pohjis used in two of his tie-breaker matches in the previous Ubers Premier League. I believe there is a very, very high chance that the team Pohjis made may be the single best ORAS Ubers team ever, as I have battled many times with it against various people, without a single loss. Had I come up with such an incredibly awesome, consistent and hax-resilient team in early or mid-ORAS Ubers, I actually think I could have enjoyed this metagame a lot.
SM Ubers:
I love this metagame, as it seems to be so easy to make consistent and hax-resilient teams in it. While it may have been true that such consistent and hax-resilient teams in the first half of SM Ubers were mostly limited to stall teams, I think the release of Marshadow has changed this. Marshadow can now make offense a lot more consistent than it ever was in the past in Übers, for reasons I'll explain in the appropriate section of this interview.
How do you feel SM plays compared to ORAS, and if you could change anything about the current metagame, what would it be?
I think the difference between SM Ubers and ORAS Ubers is far less than the difference between any other two consecutive generations of Übers, due to the lack of extremely significant changes in game mechanics, such as the Special split as well as the advent of the Dark and Steel types between RBY and GSC, the introduction of EVs, Natures and Abilities between GSC and ADV, the change in the way physical and special attacks are determined as well as the introduction of Stealth Rock (and to a lesser extent Toxic Spikes) between ADV and DPP, the introduction of Team Preview as well as various game-changing Dream World Abilities between DPP and BW2, and finally, the Defog buff, the advent of the Fairy type, as well as the introduction of immense power creep in the forms of Geomancy Xerneas and Primal Groudon between BW2 and ORAS. However, the transition from ORAS Ubers to SM Ubers has definitely benefited defensive playstyles overall, with the departure of Darkrai, Latios and Mega Diancie, combined with the fact that Alolan Muk serves as such a powerful Mega Gengar check. With that said, I personally think that in both metagames (at least before Marshadow was released, in the case of SM), stall is by far the most consistently successful playstyle, contrary to what many people may think about it in ORAS. It's just that in ORAS, the number of viable stall teams was vastly eclipsed (probably at a ratio of about 99:1) by the number of viable balance and offensive teams, but I'd say that the 1% of viable teams in that metagame that were stall teams were still better than the 99% of viable teams that were not. I personally do not think that the transition from ORAS to SM has made the best stall teams in the metagame any better. But rather, it has helped stall in the sense that it has vastly increased the number of different types of viable stall teams.
However, I personally very much welcome that which may have probably been the single most significant change in the transition from ORAS Ubers to SM Ubers, and that is the departure of Darkrai. I believe that Darkrai was an incredibly unhealthy presence in ORAS Ubers (as well as in any pre-SM metagame, really. Remember when I said, "ORAS Anything Goes was actually infinitely worse than ORAS Ubers as a metagame" earlier?), for this reason:
When measuring how "good" a Pokémon is in a metagame, there are two metrics people often consider. The first is the question of how much consistent success a Pokémon can give you if you were to participate in countless battles using an optimal team containing this Pokémon. And the second is the question of how much the presence of this Pokémon in the metagame shapes teambuilding, as well as the metagame itself. Generally, the more consistent success a certain Pokémon gives people, the more often it is used, which increases its impact on the metagame and teambuilding. However, the correlation is not linear, as can be observed through this example:
Consider an incredibly versatile Pokémon, with an extremely huge movepool, as well as the ability to run countless viable movesets in one metagame, with all of those movesets demanding different checks and counters. This Pokémon's impact on the metagame and teambuilding is absolutely massive. However, in reality, it still can only run four moves and one moveset at a time. While the element of unpredictability (in the sense that the opponent will often not know how to react due to them not knowing exactly what moveset it runs) certainly increases the success that its user can achieve, the effect of such an element is minimal when looking at the Pokémon's ability to give its user consistent success. This means that this Pokémon's ability to give its user consistent success is not on par with the extent to which it influences the metagame and limits teambuilding.
The above is one example, but I believe Darkrai in any pre-SM metagame is another huge example. When preparing for Darkrai in teambuilding, it is always assumed that Dark Void always hits... just for the benefit of the person facing it. After all, this move does hit most of the time. However, if you were to use Darkrai yourself, you would realize that its actual level of viability is not actually on par with how much it restricts the metagame, since at the end of the day, Dark Void does, on average, miss once in every five uses. A Dark Void miss is usually incredibly costly given how frail Darkrai is, being game-changing a significant portion of the time, which results in the use of this Pokémon being quite detrimental for one who seeks consistent success. Just imagine succeeding in getting Stealth Rock past the opponent's Mega Sableye thanks to the use of Deoxys-S's Skill Swap. Then, sometime after Deoxys-S faints, the opponent sends out their Arceus-Water, a move you read and respond to by double-switching to your Darkrai. A whopping 20% of the time, Arceus-Water succeeds in using Defog in this situation. Of course, I am aware that many Pokémon trainers like to think under the mindset that "any loss as a result of hax should be completely disregarded, as if they did not even happen at all"... but the reality is that Pokémon does not work this way, both in measuring team quality as well as trainer skill.
Long story short, Darkrai in all pre-SM metagames is a Pokémon whose presence places incredible amounts of restrictions on teambuilding, limiting the metagame a lot. But at the same time, the reward that comes with actually using it is not on par with all the damage it causes. Thus, the existence of this Pokémon in any pre-SM metagame lowers the consistency of teams, making everything more random.
As for what I would change about the current metagame... I know this may sound controversial, but I'll say it anyway as it's my honest opinion:
While SM Ubers in its current form may undeniably be an absolutely wonderful metagame... I personally think that SM Anything Goes is an even better metagame. Both offense and stall seem more consistent in it than in Übers. Offense's increased consistency in Anything Goes owes itself to the fact that Mega Rayquaza and Arceus Formes (Arceus spam is the single most common archetype in SM Anything Goes, though to be fair, the introduction of Marshadow probably hinders it a lot) do not really use many inaccurate moves, as well as the fact that multiple Extreme Speed Arceus makes it much easier to check opposing sweepers (as opposed to having to do things like relying on a Precipice Blades hit to prevent a Xerneas sweep). On the other hand, stall's increased consistency in Anything Goes comes from the fact that Mega Rayquaza's very existence in the metagame completely invalidates Mega Salamence, while pushing Mega Gengar's usage down to a far, far lower percentage than in Übers, as a result of opportunity cost. And Mega Lucario is non-existent in that metagame due to a combination of Mega Rayquaza's existence (in other words, opportunity cost once again), combined with the fact that Mega Lucario is slower than Arceus and cannot boost its Speed with any viable move, which is just bad in a metagame dominated by Arceus spam. Despite the fact that Mega Rayquaza as a Pokémon is infinitely more threatening than Mega Salamence, Mega Gengar or Mega Lucario... I think stall would rather have to deal with Mega Rayquaza along with Mega Gengar (which I again emphasise, has significantly less usage in Anything Goes) than to have to deal with three different and threatening Mega Evolutions which all have roughly the same usage, as well as requiring vastly different checks and counters. Furthermore, the dominance of Arceus spam in Anything Goes also makes things easier for stall, as Arceus as a Pokémon rarely possesses the tools necessary to threaten stall, whereas Übers teams are generally much more adept at pressuring stall.
SM Ubers has many bans and clauses for various reasons, many of which were policies that were implemented in previous generations of this tier. And that's understandable. For example, I would never even dream of allowing the Sleep Clause to be lifted in DPP, BW2 or ORAS Ubers, for reasons I have explained a few paragraphs ago. But honestly, considering just how incredibly balanced SM Anything Goes is, even if you may not agree that it's a better metagame than SM Ubers... do many of these clauses, such as the Species Clause and the Mega Rayquaza Clause even need to exist (the fact that the use of multiple Arceus is allowed in Anything Goes significantly helps in keeping Mega Rayquaza in check, though I know of many Übers-legal Anything Goes teams that handle Mega Rayquaza just fine)?
Stuff that are banned from Übers for being uncompetitive rather than overpowered, such as one-hit KO moves, Evasion-boosting techniques, Swagger, Moody and Hypnosis Mega Gengar are almost never seen at high levels in Anything Goes, simply because it's not worth it to use these inconsistent things in the long run. And if they were unbanned in SM Ubers, I'd say the same story would apply after the initial hype surrounding them dies down (there is a reason why Moody Glalie was used in early Anything Goes significantly more often than at any other point in that metagame's lifespan). Although, I wouldn't mind keeping them banned under the logic of preventing someone from gambling with them in a single tournament match against an opponent they perceive to be far more skilled than themselves, in the belief that it is their best chance of winning, and then getting lucky and winning via the use of such things.
What are your thoughts on Marshadow? Has it impressed you so far?
I absolutely love the introduction of Marshadow in the SM Ubers metagame, due to the fact that, at least based on what I can observe, this Pokémon has contributed immensely towards allowing offense to be a consistently successful playstyle. To give you an idea of how much this means to me, BW2 Ubers was literally the last Übers metagame in which I ever liked offense of any kind. And even then, the reason why I preferred offense over stall in BW2 Ubers was simply because offense was better than stall in that metagame, despite still being significantly less consistent than the best stall teams seen in later generations.
One of the biggest problems with offense traditionally, as well as one of the greatest reasons why I use stall almost exclusively in XY, ORAS and pre-Marshadow SM Ubers is because of offense's lack of solid methods for checking Extreme Killer Arceus. When dealing with an incredibly dangerous offensive threat capable of sweeping entire teams if one fails to check it... using extremely soft checks to it such as Intimidate Pokémon, or stuff that easily lose to a Focus Blast or Will-O-Wisp miss or a single critical hit (often from a move with an increased critical hit ratio, too) is simply unacceptable, and not to mention that a lot of these "checks" don't even work if Arceus-Normal has something unusual like Recover or Lum Berry. However, offense also cannot afford to use more solid checks to this Pokémon, such as Clefable, Lugia, Giratina-A or Skarmory, due to the way these Pokémon disrupt the team's own momentum due to their lack of offensive presence.
To be honest, Arceus-Normal is hardly the only sweeper offense traditionally uses flimsy ways of "checking," but at least Marshadow existing makes the problem presented by Arceus-Normal pretty much irrelevant now. Offense now has a very solid, reliable and consistent way to deal with Arceus-Normal, and while Choice Scarf Terrakion has always existed... it is obviously not a good idea in a metagame in which Mega Gengar, Mega Salamence and Xerneas all exist. I think that, thanks to Marshadow, there is a very good chance that I will like offense again for the first time since BW2 Ubers.
As we all know, Baton Pass recently got banned in Ubers, how do you feel about this? Did you support it or not, and why?
I do not support the Baton Pass ban at all. Thimo's infamous Eeveepass team was not close to an excellent team in my eyes, at least when used by the vast majority of people, for reasons I explained here. Although this does not prove my point, I think the fact that even someone as skilled as Ubers leader Hack could not succeed in climbing significantly above the 1500s on the SM Ubers ladder using this team strongly supports my stance as well. And even if you could justify banning Eeveepass for the reason I gave in the final paragraph of the post I just linked to, I think it would make more sense to ban the move Extreme Evoboost instead, since the move Baton Pass does have various legitimate uses, as can be observed in the team HunterStorm used in this Ubers Premier League battle of his (though granted, it didn't actually work there).