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Welcome to the OU Player of the Week Project: Rebooted! For those of you that don't know, this is a project where I interview a tournament player and have you, the readers, leave any questions you may have down below for them to answer. The ultimate goal is to gain insight as to how they play this skillful and strategic video game. If any of you have a suggestion for who I should interview, feel free to VM/PM me, and I will take your suggestion into consideration. Now, enough of this boring intro. Let's get to it!
Finchinator
Most Known For:
In recent times, I'm probably most known for being a tryhard of epic proportions in team tournaments such as WCOP and SPL (for US Central and the Bigs, respectively) and having (or at least trying to have) a "nice guy" persona on forums and around the community despite being quite immature at times. I've tried to improve my overall reputation around Smogon (specifically the tournament community) recently after not being very well known (or liked) before late 2014 when I made Smogon Tour Playoffs during season 18 and lost to McMeghan in a close series.
Historically, I'm known for being a PO user ("PO (BAN ME PLEASE)") who leads ORAS OU over on PO alongside MetalGross and for being an avid player of tournaments over on PO. Despite having a 2011 join date (I started playing in September 2011 iirc), I was irrelevant on Smogon until November of 2014, so there's not much else to say except for the fact that a lot of people disliked me as I was a crybaby on the Pokemon Online ladder in late BW1 and early BW2 back when the ladder was decent and a lot of people who are now solid tournament players were developing on it. To this day I remember spamming the "Find Battle" button with my BW1 Rain Volc team with no steel type and my Yache Landorus team with random ass EVs under the alt [IMP]Finchinator and cringe just thinking at how I played and acted.
Overall, many people now regard me as a BW2 OU and ORAS OU player who took up NU for SPL and this is, more or less, true as BW2 OU, ORAS OU, and ORAS NU are the three tiers I currently feel the most competent in, but in later BW2 I mained in UU for a while and I also have a soft spot for BW2 NU.
Favorite Pokemon:
Tough one, but I'd have to say that Empoleon takes the cake because I used it in my first ever run through of a pokemon game (Pearl back in like 2007 when I got my first DS). As I've played more and more pokemon over the years, Keldeo, Tyranitar, Heracross, and Tauros have also became my favorite pokemon for their design and for what they offer in battle.
Most used Pokemon:
In ORAS OU, Clefable for sure. Honorable mention to Hippowdon, Mega Charizard-X, Mega Manectric, Starmie, and Latios.
In BW OU, Tyranitar is easily my most used pokemon. However, I find myself using one of Skarmory or Ferrothorn very often and Alakazam, Keldeo, and Garchomp individually quite a lot, too.
If I had to list some less common or conventional pokemon that I find myself using a fair amount of the time (all of the pokemon I listed above are pretty standard :x), I'd say that a few of these for me are Nidoking (ORAS OU), Slowking (ORAS OU and BW2 OU), Tangrowth (ORAS OU), Moltres (BW2 OU), and Mienshao (BW2 OU).
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I'm a 16 year old High School student (going into my Senior year this September) living in northern New Jersey and I have previously played Baseball and Basketball (dating back to last year). Outside of Pokemon, I enjoy spectating sports (big fan of the Yankees, Steelers, Rangers (Hockey), and Knicks) and having a semi-active social life.
I guess it's also worth noting that because I started playing competitive pokemon in late August or early September 2011 (I didn't turn 13 until the end of September that month) and COPPA was (and still is, iirc) a thing on Smogon, I lied about my age, saying I was 10 years older than I was and even making a whole backstory that stuck with me for ~2 years on PO until I eventually admitted who I was to most people when I won the Community Well over on PO (if anyone is truly interested, this sums it up well). Now I hope everyone thinks I'm a bit less crazy when someone like Cased makes fun of how I'm a 26 year old accountant at Rutgers who plays baseball and rages on the ladder n_n
Going back to a major aspect of who I am, I've always had a desire to win whatever game(s) I played - pokemon included, of course. When I was younger, I was so hardheaded about this that I got physically upset when I lost at something, even if it was as trivial as a fun game of Monopoly or some other board game with family or friends when I was younger, but the more I've played pokemon at a competitive level with other players, the more I've noticed that instead of dwelling over a loss, I need to learn from my defeats and work on improving in order to win more in the future. This is something "about myself" that relates directly to my experiences playing this game, so I figured it'd be worth mentioning, but otherwise I don't have much else to say.
Where did you get your name from?
My last name IRL happens to start with "Finch" and a childhood nickname I developed as I played baseball was Finchinator. Sure enough, it stuck with me as I grew older and did fairly well in games and eventually even transferred to be my go-to username on the internet when I got a bit older. There's nothing really deep or meaningful behind it, unfortunately, but it is good enough for me n_n
How and when did you get into competitive battling?
Well, I was a big in game player from 2007 to 2011 - I probably played each of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Soul Silver, Black, Emerald, and FireRed 5 times with different pokemon, conditions, etc. set for myself just for the fun of it in that time, but eventually I started to watch guys on YouTube play the games - a guy who used to upload and went by the name Slowflake also discussed Competitive Pokemon and Smogon in some of his videos while he played and didn't need to narrate simple events going on during the game. His website introduced me to the competitive aspect of pokemon and given my natural competitive instinct, I searched more into this and downloaded PO in late August 2011, started playing around on the ladder for a while, developed as a player, and here I am today :]
How do you feel about how ORAS plays compared to XY?
Late XY was solid, in my opinion. Despite things like Landorus-I, Mega Charizard-X, and Mega Gardevoir being hard to deal with, none of them where too bad and there weren't a surplus of threats that required specific counterplay and made teambuilding properly a major challenge full of restrictions. ORAS, however, is lackluster currently, in my opinion, given that you have to cover so many threats that are capable of doing so well offensively and you cannot risk being too weak to any one of them. I tend to call the metagame "cluttered" or "congested" with top tier threats.
To add onto the above, thoughts on the team matchup issue?
Match-up is present to some extent in pretty much every metagame; there is no denying this. However, I think anyone using match-up as a major excuse as for why they lost a game (especially a tournament game) is a fool. In tournaments, it is your job to prepare for your opponent to the best of your ability and assure that you do not get a poor match-up, so anyone complaining about match-up in a SPL or WCOP battle should reevaluate their preparation and mindset going into the game, in my opinion. In a ladder or live tournament environment, I can at least see why people would bitch about losing to a poor match-up (being that you don't know who or what you will end up facing), but anyone can enter a live tournament (like SmogTour) or play on the ladder, so a lot of opponents have lackluster teams/plays and you should be able to get by regardless (assuming your team is decent overall, otherwise the fault lies there, not with match-up) and by the time you face someone decent, losing is (arguably) acceptable, so this is sort of a moot point on the matter I guess.
Do you feel that there is anything that is suspect worthy at the moment?
I'll pre-cursor this by saying that every player of the week after tele (tele's was during Lando suspect, so every player since the metagame reached the state it is currently at) has said "no" to this question, with marshall and wqueen saying the metagame is fine while Dice said something going would improve the meta, but nothing is over the top. In addition, when speaking with other players, the general consensus is that the there is nothing worth banning currently.
I'm of the apparently minority and radical opinion that despite there being nothing that fits under the conventional "broken" definition in the current metagame, something needs to go for sure. With every generation introducing more and more pokemon and the ability for teambuild properly being compromised more and more, something has to give in if we wish to continue playing in a metagame which we can label as "competitive" and the thing that should give in is the definition of "broken" or "banworthy". Essentially what I'm saying is that in the past we only banned things that made gameplay incredibly restricted (i.e: you had to have 1 of 2-3 counters or you had to play around something incredibly well to not get beaten or significantly hurt by it every time). Now, maybe that can change to a bit more lenient and pro-ban definition so that the metagame can ease up a bit on top tier threats and open up teambuilding. This could potentially backfire, but given that suspect tests allow players to see if the tier is better with or without the suspect, it's a pretty foolproof way of doing things (I have a whole other problem with public suspects, but maybe I'll post in Reymedy's PR thread at some point on that and it's off topic, so for now I'll just assume they stay the same and go along with discussing this topic).
Given this mindset, I think that Mega Charizard-X, Mega Altaria, and Manaphy warrant a suspect and a potential ban from ORAS OU as they all are top-tier threats that have a fairly limited list of counters and means of reliable counterplay. To say that one or all of these threats being eliminated from the metagame would help "fix" matters would be pure theory and theorymoning is a silly thing to resort to, so I will not say this. However, the suspecting and prospect of banning one, multiple, or all of the above shows a lot of promise, in my opinion, and I think this opinion should be something that a lot of people open up to and consider in the future if they wish to see the metagame progress instead of deteriorate in the future.
What's your favorite playstyle and why?
I have no single favorite playstyle - I tend to fallback on balance in bw2 ou because I feel it maximizes my chances of winning regardless of the opponent's team at times, but I have successfully used both offense and semi-stall (not full stall, tho, and I don't intend on ever using full stall). In ORAS OU, I try to build a lot of offense, but my main attempts end up going nowhere given the volume of things that must be checked being so substantial and offensive teams being incapable of checking everything often (usually they have to give in somewhere, which most of my offensive builds do, but I find my 'best' and most consistent builds to end up being bulky offense or semi-stall because of this, unfortunately, which ties right back into why I call the metagame cluttered and congested and why I think something needs to get suspected).
What's your favorite generation of OU and why?
Generation five, for sure. Despite a lot of people disliking this metagame due to the emphasis on weather and "matchup" (I beg to differ, but this isn't the time and place for that argument), I personally find teambuilding and gameplay in BW OU to be quite fun. Maybe it's because my roots are in this tier, maybe it's because I happen to excel moreso in this tier than I do in DPP or in ORAS, etc...but you also have to take into consideration that BW OU actually has a lot of quality matches every big tournament and then a small few that have a lopsided Volcarona or Reuniclus sweep due to the opponent being underprepared or someone having the perfect variant of Volc for a team (which can be an issue, even I'll admit that - fuck volc sometimes) and suddenly everyone calls the metagame a joke and hates on it. I really feel that the public opinion on BW OU has been negative and that this being ingrained in the minds of many players has pretty much ruined BW OU's reputation despite it actually being a decent metagame, in my opinion.
How do you go about preparing for tournament matches? Does the process differ depending on the tournament?
Usually, I prepare a TON for tournaments. I'll go through my general process without overwhelming everyone so ya'll don't think I'm anymore crazy than you guys think I am already.
First thing I do is research the opponent - this is obviously important so you know who and what you're up against. I tend to only look at relevant games - things like past wcop, spl, stour, or big official tournament games (as opposed to something like a ladder match or a minor tournament game, but this varies depending on opponent, I'm just assuming it's an experienced / veteran opponent for the sake of this example). Looking at their past big games doesn't only give a more accurate idea of what they are capable of using, but it also shows their gameplay tendencies. For example, some players tend to take a more conservative and optimal route with their play while others make bigger risks - if you can catch onto a consistency in how someone plays, then you can keep this in mind and if you're stuck between making one play and another, knowing this information may help you act properly.
Next thing I do is generate ideas - this can be anything from a single pokemon to a 2-3 pokemon core, but having a couple ideas that you feel will match-up well are key for the eventual building of a team. This step isn't too overcomplicated, but I tend to avoid using ideas over again, but I'll tackle repetitive playstyles and tendencies in the next step.
Third off is what I like to call a "self scout". Essentially, I know if I'm playing a high level tournament match, my opponent will probably scout me, too, so I will want to steer away from my norm and try to use something less predictable that is still effective vs my opponent. Finding that balance between "unpredictability" and "effectiveness" is key and hopefully, one of the ideas you formed in the second step is somewhere in that balanced vicinity. With that being said, now that you've scouted yourself out a bit (generally, I just keep a running tab on what I use in all my spl and wcop and other major tour games as I play them to make matters easier), you should know what to try and avoid to some extent. For example, I used skarm+ttar+alakazam in my first two WCOP games, so I made sure not to use spikes+magic gaurd on balanced sand in any of my remaining matches and I also kept in mind that my opponent would likely craft a team with a spinner and some sort of answer to magic guard psychic types when preparing for me, so I made teams that didn't rely upon hazards being up and a team that took advantage of the opponent having something like scizor or sdef jirachi, which are common checks to zam.
Finally, I pick the idea from step two that suits me best given the circumstances, create a team around it that is generally solid overall (try to avoid taking shortcuts or having glaring weaknesses as your idea itself should be good enough to give you a good match-up, counterteamining is never ideal, but a soft counterstyle that can win vs other things consistently still is fine), and test it out until I'm comfortable or deem the team lackluster and move on to another idea or rebuilding around that idea. Rinse and repeat until you feel confident and then go kick ass!
Also, this process differs depending on tournaments as I tend to try much harder and go much further in depth for team tournaments than I do for individual tournaments, but if I manage to find myself deep in an individual tour, then I will start to try hard like this, too.
Who do you think will win WCoP?
East. They have a lot of friends and plenty of proven players on their roster. With that said, I wouldn't mind if Germany won as they also have some cool guys, but East is my personal favorite.
Thoughts on the newly introduced Smogon Classic? Favorite to win?
Classic was a cool idea and I'm glad to see it up and running smooth. Personally, I'd love to see big underdog ZoroDark take it home, but McMeghan would also be a cool winner if he finishes his playoff games before the deadline for each round ;]
If you could change one thing about OU, what would it be and why?
If I could change one thing about OU, it would probably be suspect testing Manaphy or Mega Charizard X (either would be fine, tbh). I wouldn't necessarily want to ban either, but seeing the suspect metagame without them and gauging how much better teambuilding and gameplay would be without them would interest me (and if this showed a better metagame without them, then I'd certainly be in favor of banning). As I said before (referring to the question about what I think is suspect worthy - it's the ninth one), I think we should take a different approach to suspecting in the future which could make the metagame a bit less cluttered with top tier threats - I don't think Mega Charizard X or Manaphy are broken in the conventional sense of the word. However, I think either of them being absent in the tier would lead to notable improvements in terms of quality of the metagame and players's ability to cover everything sufficiently in teambuilding (thus helping with the "match-up issue", which is still a bad excuse and exaggerated, too).
Do you have any advice for newer players for playing, and for Smogon in general?
Challenge yourself! One of the best ways to become better, even if it means losing a lot at first, is playing top players. Sign up for SmogTours, try to reach OLT playoffs, etc. - these can only make you improve. I remember I felt that I was an average player this time in 2012 and even in early 2013, but I've partook in the last 5-6 seasons of SmogTour whenever I could and I must say that simply being exposed to a plethora of other high level players improved me as a player (not to mention that I've followed tours like SPL and WCOP, which give an accurate representation of metagames and high level play, so these tours are always good to keep tabs on). Success doesn't come instantly to most people - for example, it took me from season 14 until season 18 to make playoffs of Smogtour and it took me 3 years to make SPL, but that doesn't mean you aren't improving, some people are just slower with progress than others and that's perfectly fine (I considered myself one of those players who took a while to reach a truly high level, but now I am content with myself as a player, so just stay positive and keep trying and you'll reach your goals eventually).
Another important facet of being a new player is establishing yourself as a user for good things, not for being a mediocre poster/forum presence. All I will say here is that lurking is your friend. I know this sounds boring, but if you can read around a bit and get a good idea about posting/forum etiquette, you'll at least be an informed poster if and when you want to voice your opinion. Once you have lurked and played a sufficient amount, your posts will be of a higher quality than they would be otherwise and you can gain a lot of respect among the community if you put your mind to it and present a valid opinion. With this said, it takes time to make it big, especially in OU given the volume of players, but it is certainly possible to start from the bottom of the ladder and end up a known and respected tournament player if you invest some time into it and try your hardest! Oh and before I forget, don't ever resort to personal attacks on other users - I know it's easy to say "this guy doesn't agree with me, he sucks" or "this guy haxed me on the ladder, fuck him", but you will only be making a name for yourself for the wrong reasons if you do this; it's just a game and despite it getting frustrating at times, just keep your composure!
If you could change one thing about Smogon as a whole to make it better, what would it be and why?
This is a tough one, but if all posts in suspect threads and policy discussions from non-moderatos could be made anonymous (at least until the suspect was over) to make bandwagoning, likewhoring your friends's posts, and other means of judging the user moreso than the post/argument itself without actually contributing to the discussion or giving the other side of the argument a fair chance could happen, I think that suspect discussions could actually be salvaged and it may even impact some votes, too, but this is a far-fetched idea and the effect it would have may be less than I'd expect it to be, so I don't know.
What players do you look up to / are good friends with?
Some of the players I look up to the most in the community would have to be Jirachee, Zebraiken, McMeghan, and Raseri. All of them are stellar battlers, users, or a combination of the two. In regards to good friends, I'd like to give a big shoutout to the SPL 6 Evergrande Bigs - this was the best team possible and you all are fucking amazing :pig: - and the USCentral 2015 WCOP squad - ya'll are a great group and I cannot wait for next WCOP to show everyone we mean business once more!
Finally, can you provide us a team that's a good fit for this metagame and reflects your playstyle, with a brief explanation of how it works?
I've actually done a lot of building for ORAS OU over WCOP and the past month in general, so it was pretty hard to pick one team to show, but this is probably my best team and it has won almost every battle I've used it in (although most were test games with people on Central or other friends and only a couple were serious tournament games).
Scizor (M) @ Scizorite
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Swords Dance
Talonflame (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 164 SpD / 96 Spe
Careful Nature
- Roost
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Brave Bird
Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Reflect Type OR Thunder Wave
- Recover
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Soft-Boiled
Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 104 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stone Edge
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 148 SpD / 112 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psychic
- Earth Power
- Recover
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 56 Def / 200 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Knock Off
- Roost
- Swords Dance
Talonflame (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 164 SpD / 96 Spe
Careful Nature
- Roost
- Will-O-Wisp
- Taunt
- Brave Bird
Starmie @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Scald
- Reflect Type OR Thunder Wave
- Recover
Clefable (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD
Calm Nature
- Calm Mind
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Soft-Boiled
Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force
EVs: 248 HP / 152 Def / 104 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stone Edge
Celebi @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 148 SpD / 112 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psychic
- Earth Power
- Recover
This is a semi-stall (or slow paced balanced, either classification works) team that I built primarily to help some teammates test during WCOP, but it turned out to be very solid and it has been my go-to-team for a couple weeks. The idea behind the team is this core of bulky win conditions - Bulky NP 2 attack Celebi (inspired by the set Ender used here, but with Psychic>Giga and probably more speed EVs) + Bulky SD Knock Mega Scizor + CM Tbolt Clefable. Scizor and Clefable both struggle with Heatran while bulky Celebi with NP and Earth Power is a fantastic Heatran lure, Celebi and Scizor both struggle with Skarmory and Talonflame while CM Tbolt Clefable lures Skarmory and Talonflame, and the three have solid defensive synergy. I guess from here I'll just go mon-by-mon to explain the sets, spreads, etc. since that core is the gist of the team. Scizor is a standard fat SD variant - I use impish to help tank mega lopunny and offensive landot better so I don't have to compromise momentum with Hippo too often and I run Knock over u-turn to wear down opposing threats (like Skarmory, Hippowdon, Heatran, etc.). Talonflame is a stallbreaker variant with speed for non-scarf max speed landot (after I knocked Scarf off with Scizor, for example) while it also outpaces +Speed Excadrill, neutral max base 100s, and most Kyurem-B; this is my primary check to things like Mega Charizard Y and a couple other threatening pokemon, but the ability to annoy a lot of teams and cripple things with Wisp is the biggest pro of Talonflame on this team. Starmie is a standard bulky spin variant; my team appreciates being able to stay in vs Ferro and spin/fish for burns (cripple it for cm tbolt clef or np celebi to clean easier), so I often use Reflect Type, but TWave is perfectly viable there, too. Clefable is a standard CM variant with TBolt over TWave or Knock or Flame to hit both Talon and Skarm, which are needed to be eliminated or weakened for Celebi and Scizor to do work. Hippo is also a standard variant; the filler is edge also to lure Talonflame for Celebi and Scizor, but it also hits the problematic NP Thundurus, too. Finally, Celebi is a bulky NP variant which is unexpected and quite underrated, imo, is the last; it hits 290 speed to outpace neutral natured kyu-b and everything slower while it still has special bulk to comfortably check keldeo and other special attackers.
