EonX / Molk / SilentVerse / atomicllamas
Not a mod for once
Hello and welcome to Player of the Week. This thread hopes to increase the visibility of prominent RU players to the community and the outside world while promoting both users and the strategies that they find to be effective in the metagame. If there is someone you would like to see interviewed, feel free to drop me a PM.
-Tsunami-
Favorite Pokemon: Mightyena
Most known for: "saying 'lol' a lot, going 15-1 in spl and wcop, and being really lucky"
Favorite playstyle: Hyper Offense
Most used Pokemon: Sharpedo
Leer: What got you in to RU?Not a mod for once
Hello and welcome to Player of the Week. This thread hopes to increase the visibility of prominent RU players to the community and the outside world while promoting both users and the strategies that they find to be effective in the metagame. If there is someone you would like to see interviewed, feel free to drop me a PM.
-Tsunami-
Favorite Pokemon: Mightyena
Most known for: "saying 'lol' a lot, going 15-1 in spl and wcop, and being really lucky"
Favorite playstyle: Hyper Offense
Most used Pokemon: Sharpedo
Tsunami: So basically, when I first started out on Smogon I wanted to get a badge. I started off doing RMT, which after a while I still didn't get a badge for, so I moved on to C&C. After getting contributor, I wanted to get TC, and RU was the only tier having a suspect test at the time, and my friend D4RR3N challenged me to get voting reqs in it even though I hadn't played it before. At that time, there was a council system in place, and there was about 1 day left to get requirements. All of the seats required actually posting in the forum, which i didnt have time to do. the 1st seat you could get just by getting #1 on the ladder. So while I was laddering, I came across a dude on PO who was using Snover + Solosis + Duosion, so i stole that half of his team, changed the other half, got #1, and got reqs. I've continued playing ru since then. That was in stage 3 btw, also, I also took Silentverse's council seat by getting #1 since he was #1 the whole round
Leer: How did you get as good as you are?
Tsunami: At the beginning, I laddered a lot, which definitely helped. After that and currently, I pretty much only do tournaments, which really helped me get better since you're facing the highest level of opponent possible. SPL 4 in particular helped since it was my 1st real team tournament that i got to play in, and that experience definitely helped. I play a lot of tiers and don't really 'main' RU, as I consider myself more of an OU player, so that gives me more opportunities to play and practice in high level atmospheres which in turn helps me play better in RU. tournaments like SPL also helped me with teambuilding in RU for tournaments and the like.
Leer: Could you explain the concept of RU Pride to players who may not be familiar with it?
Tsunami: lol, so basically one day I got bored and decided to ladder on the RU ladder with random Pokemon. The RU ladder has been known for being 'bad' at many times of the year, so i figured that using joke teams would make laddering actually enjoyable, and this was especially true for suspect tests. RU pride involves me asking random people in the channel to pick a team of 5 garbage pokemon, who are usually NU (unless the team im using is for another tier like OU, in which theyre just in tiers below OU), or the Pokemon could be RU but just be a completely terrible set, like defensive Sharpedo for example. The 6th pokemon is always Mightyena, my favorite mon, and this generation it always has the moveset of Crunch, Sucker Punch, Fire Fang, and then one of Play Rough or Iron Tail. This really helps me enjoy laddering and obviously makes it really fun for the people watching as well since they can see garbage sets like Agility Seaking sweeping teams. I even got reqs in OU a couple times with RU pride teams, which was pretty fun.
Leer: Outside of RU pride, what parts of RU have been most enjoyable to you?
Tsunami: The main reason I have still remained in the community is definitely because of the channel, it's definitely the most active of the metagame chats ive seen, and there's definitely a lot of cool people there who have remained over the years :] you should all check it out...but yeah, other than that RUgged mountain is also pretty enjoyable to both run and play in. It also gets some people who wouldn't normally play RU to check it out so thats definitely cool.
Leer: Which RU Pokemon would say is underrated, and which would you say is overrated?
Tsunami: I'd say Sneasel is probably pretty underrated, since its coverage and amazing speed stat can definitely make it a potent threat to offensive teams. It can even run SD to actually become a devastating sweeper. I've never actually found Delphox to be that amazing so maybe I would say thats overrated, especially with how good Moltres is now.
Leer: How does XY RU compare to other XY tiers and past gens for you?
Tsunami: Atm I'd say I like BW RU better, as i feel there was a lot more diversity and definitely more innovation especially with gems...they're still similar in some ways, like in BW there was the insane Druddigon vs Druddigon speed creep, and here we have the Doublade vs. Rhyperior speed creep. Also, Alomomola continues to be my #1 most hated pokemon in both gens. I think XY RU atm is balanced though, although idk what will happen with ORAS. I still think Moltres should be suspected, but i dont think I'd want it banned atm. I like XY OU better than XY RU atm from a competitive perspective, and I think that tier is more balanced now too with a lot of diversity.I havent really played XY UU or XY NU enough, but RU seems to be a lot less matchup reliant than Ubers from what ive seen, which is good. Overall I'd say the tier is in a solid place right now.
Leer: What advice do you have for new players?
Tsunami: Just continue practicing, play on the ladder but if you want to get good then definitely play in tournaments. They're the best way to gain experience and become really good at pokemon. Visit IRC and talk in the community chan you want to get involved in, or the Showdown rooms for those channels, as those can help you learn the metagame. The Battling 101 program can also be pretty nice. For RU specifically, I'd say just play in the tournaments that we have such as minitours or RUgged mountain, and definitely go to the RU channel since as I said before, its the most active metagame chan on irc. keep playing and you'll get better, dont worry frends :]
If you have any additional questions for -Tsunami-, you can ask him!
What did you think about this week's interview? And again, if there's a player you want see interviewed, feel free to PM me.
What did you think about this week's interview? And again, if there's a player you want see interviewed, feel free to PM me.
