Pokémon OU Player of the Week #35: AM

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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!

AM​

Most Known For:

OU Forum Moderator, Competitive Tutoring Co-Owner, sarcastic nature, saying "yeah" a lot, being involved with viability rankings, one of the OU tier leaders.

Favorite Pokemon:

Jokingly its Diglett and Spinda, but a nod goes to Hippowdon and Latios, which I use a ton on builds for their consistency with most builds I make.

Most used Pokemon:

Probably Hippowdon. It provides a lot of role compression that I love to have, Stealth Rock, recovery, defensive capability with decent firepower and utility. A masterpiece of Balance staple. We really need female Hippo black model though.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I'm a 23 year old dude, working fulltime as a warehouse worker. On my free time I like to go see movies with family, listen to music, sleep till the afternoon on weekends, and obviously play Pokemon, more specifically team-building. I also like subtly trolling the OU room auth, they seem to enjoy it though I haven't gotten muted too many times hahaha.

Where did you get your name from?

First and last letter of my name Adam, nothing else.

How and when did you get into competitive battling?

I've been playing the games since Yellow Version, old school I know. I was into a lot of teambuilding around the time of Gen 3, breeding a lot, getting perfect natures, perfecting teams and it sort of lingered on for awhile until XY. The story of me coming into "competitive battling" which is more like joining Smogon these days, was myself using a Mega Gengar to 6-0 someone in-game. He said that Mega Gengar was Ubers and while I laughed I figured it was time to check it out for real. I started off in Competitive Tutoring, where I guess you could say my claim to fame amongst the regulars was being room mod within 3 weeks of joining. This was about a year and a half ago when I joined. I got involved into OU cause it was pretty similar to in-game so I understood a lot of the concepts right away, and a whole lot not so much as I angrily laddered for the first time hahaha.

How do you feel about how ORAS plays compared to XY?

It's really tough to say. I think XY was basically the strongest symbol of 6th gen balance that we'll ever get to witness while ORAS took a more offensive approach in the long run due to the nature of the strong forces currently in our metagame. I personally enjoy ORAS more, although XY was a very solid metagame as well.

To add onto the above, thoughts on the team matchup issue?

One of the most overblown aspects to justify ones loss. Matchup is prevalent of course but to the point where you're 6-0'd straight from the gate is simply from poor team-building and or unawareness that the archtype / build you thought was safe is far from it.

Do you feel that there is anything that is suspect worthy at the moment?

If anything gets suspected in the long run, cause it's not happening now I can say that much, I want it to be Manaphy. Regardless of its placement in viability rankings or other peoples opinions on the matter I believe it is the best, if not that at least top 3, balance breakers we have in the tier right now. Its capabilities isn't so much its individual traits that push it to the limits but its presence provides a restraint to battling and team-building that can dictate the way an opponent is forced to play, thus making the users end game easier. I don't know if the meta will get better with its presence gone, let's face it "better" is an extremely subjective term these days where questionable aspects such as Scald are being thrown on the table as a suspect point, but long term I think it would be wise to keep an eye on Manaphy.

What's your favorite playstyle and why?

Bulky Offense, Balance, and Hyper Offense preferably the two former. The logic most people use in regards to preference of these two playstyles is based on maintaining consistency but most times I'll stick with Bulky Offense as opposed to Balance that has an over dependency on defensive cores. I enjoy keeping offensive pressure with Pokemon that have some sort of defensive utility. Tyranitar, Raikou, Latios, Charizard-X, Mega Altaria, Mega Scizor, things such as those.

What's your favorite generation of OU and why?

6th gen for the fact I've gotten quite involved in the meta. 3rd gen cause nostalgia trip, looking forward to one day learn ADV when I'm not so busy >_>

How do you go about preparing for tournament matches? Does the process differ depending on the tournament?

I haven't really played in too many big tournaments but as far as the tournaments I do play in, normally I'll look into replays of my opponent just to get a feel of what they like to use, moments where they're likely to "panic" is what I call the term, consult with my competitive tutoring peeps to gauge ideas (inevitably turning into a shitpost session with insults by me), then test with a couple of people I'm cool with.

Sort of, but mostly it has to do with the current rules of that tournament. For example in the RMT tour awhile back I just watched replays of some of my opponents, see what teams they liked to use and went off of that to pick an appropriate team to counteract their style. With Gods Among Us though, I'm pretty relaxed. For Round 1 I just built one Genesect team I wanted to use with M-Gard and then used a Hyper Offense team that I thought would do ok against the opponent. Depends on mood and opponent I suppose.

What is it like playing in a team tournament?

Playing in a team tournament is suuuuuper weird but it's been so rewarding in terms of insight to see how they work, and the amount of work these guys invest, Team East, to study their opponents is just nuts. I've been pretty quiet, offering just small tips here and there due to the daily schedules these days, but I'm really glad I got to be part of it. Great group of people.

Thoughts on the newly introduced Smogon Classic? Favorite to win?

It was a great idea and was super looking forward to it when it was announced. Love watching old gen games when I'm free especially with friends to watch. I haven't been really following it though with the exception of trc's beautiful acknowledgement of Valentine's justification for his loss. That was simply amazing haha.

If you could change one thing about OU, what would it be and why?

Meh, I think suspect testing is flawed as shit but you can read on Reymedy's PR thread about it. Some aspect about it needs to change, it's a process that accommodates way too many people for it to provide a real value in terms of acknowledging both tiering philosophy and maintaining objectivity for OU's sake. Not so much limiting the pool of voters, but encouraging higher quality players to actually give a shit, a lot of them really don't which is understandable at times so a more fluid suspect process.

What is it like being the Co-Leader of the OU Forum?

Love and hate thing I suppose.

Like the majority of its more invested community who have a head on their shoulder, hate some of the stigma people establish upon themselves about me just cause of an arbitrary title. I've been scaling back duties as some have may noticed for the sake of my own sanity and the fact solo leadership roles are an absolute nightmare, so having ginganinja co-lead and the others being involved help a lot in the decision making process. It's nice to be able to delete posts I guess and gain acknowledgment once in awhile that you're doing something right.

I think in the end what I hate most about leading the OU forum is that my word is considered some sort of law, as such people bandwagon this mentality and follow the leaders or central figures way too closely without any sort of self thought about their own ideas. This is what I believe caters to the lack of quality sometimes because users will just ride the opinions of more informed users instead of investing time to apply the practicality of it all for themselves, which is the whole point of learning the game in the first place. I looked up to people like alexwolf coming in as a new user but what made me stand out amongst guys like ben gay, or at least what I think did when he told alexwolf to put me on ranking team, was that I had a practical understanding behind my logic outside of all the calcs and bandwagon. Leading the OU forum is pretty much seeing this perspective in terms of its competitive level and its social hierarchy in where you see the informed and less informed players colliding with each other, fighting against each others social dynamics. Guess you can say there's no true middle ground, so that's what leading the OU forum is like, seeing all that and delegating decisions based on that.

I like badge noms though so there's that haha.


Do you have any advice for newer players for playing, and for Smogon in general?

Lurk, lurk, lurk no matter what position you may be in. I can't stress this enough and maybe it's cliche as hell, but it's going to save you in the long run. Don't get distraught over trivial matters, bad plays, bad teambuilding, stupidity you see in general, etc. You learn more from your mistakes and losses than your success and wins, it's part of the game, it's part of life. Acquaint yourself with some people, you learn a lot more as a group than just going solo, as they'll make you aware of aspects you may have never considered. Find your interest and stick with it. If you like team-building such as myself emphasize on that, if you like battling engage yourself in a setting where you can improve on this. If you like roleplaying or something that has been established as weird by an already socially awkward group known as Smogon community, stick with that.

If you could change one thing about Smogon as a whole to make it better, what would it be and why?

More PS related, but a lot of the policy of PS is bad cause it's trying to cater to a competitive player base from Smogon but is run pre-dominately by non competitive players who focus on matters that are truly pointless, trivial, or a massive waste of time most times. So I guess maybe put people into position of powers that can actually address the issues that matter appropriately due to their experience with userbase. The established hierarchy while a thing with a lot of communities, has created this huge rift that globals have put upon themselves which is a shame.

What players do you look up to / are good friends with?

Oh man. I'm good friends with a lot of people from Competitive Tutoring, Challenges, and Overused room so I won't spend 3 paragraphs doing individual shout outs hahaha. I look up to guys like McMeghan, ben gay, TDK, and my favorite butt head TheEnder. McMeghan is a solid as hell player who is also a strong policy guy which you really want more of these days. ben gay is a big teambuilder inspiration to myself and granted he's pretty quiet but he's so influential behind the scenes in terms of analysis and rankings I don't think a lot of you realize how much work this guy puts in. TDK I consider one of the best ORAS builders we have right now. He just knows how to make such consistent teams for whoever and even if there's an inconsistency in it, it's easily accommodated for through playing anyways. TheEnder gets a special mention cause like TDK he's a really solid builder and like myself likes to make stupid emoticons. He's also a Tangrowth in real life so there's that to.

Henry I'll put here as well cause he's a good as hell as ranker on the viability ranking team and he's got spot on analysis when it comes to that and team-building. He's good at exploiting meta trends, which makes some of his teams really hard to beat.

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?

Ok

Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 64 Atk / 192 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm
- Earth Power
- Protect

Manaphy @ Rindo Berry
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Scald
- Psychic
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Tail Glow

Latios @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Draco Meteor
- Roost
- Defog

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Volt Switch

Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 12 HP / 244 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Seed Bomb
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Swords Dance

Hippowdon (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 240 HP / 192 Def / 72 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Crunch
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock

Team is pretty basic, sort of just to test stuff and I felt like using M-Diancie. That last sentence is pretty much how most of my builds start, just feel like using stuff. Anyways Diancie set is the most basic of basic nothing too special acts as teams TFlame, check, Zard check, heavy hitter, you know it by now. Manaphy is the balance breaker on the team, with a set catered to beat M-Diancies normal checks in M-Venusaur, Amoonguss, Ferrothorn, and M-Scizor along the way. Latios is hazard removal with another basic set. Magnezone serves as a check to Mega Scizor and to supplement M-Diancie in trapping steels. Toxic Orb SD Breloom serves as the Rotom-W Counter, status absorber, and set up sweeper against weakened offensive teams. Hippowdon provides rocks, electric switch in, with sand stream to circumvent opposing weathers along with compensating M-Diancies drop in SpDef from nature with 50% boost in sand. Remove steels, then get to work with M-Diancie, Latios, and Breloom. Fairies are annoying for this team so keep pressure on them through doubles. Gengar weak as well so careful with that.

---

Feel free to leave questions below. See yall next week!

 

[MikeDawg]

How is working in a warehouse? Do you have career aspirations for later? Are you pursuing those right now?

 

[Kreme]

Why did you leave global staff? Do you plan on winning The Voice with that amazing voice anytime soon? How do you feel about CT's invasion of PS? What are your feelings of the hippo / lizard hybrid living there? Will you betray CT for Challenges again in next years PSPL? Fucking traitor

Edit: What are your views on the Asian demographic in CT auth?

 

[Blazikarados]

Can you elaborate on this quote?

+AM: I am not going on the level of using shit ass tele balance with m-sab and that caca spread he calls physically defensive

I don't know what that means but it sounded good enough to go in my sig so there we go :p

 

[ssjjynx]

Favourite song/taste in music?

 

[Analytic]

We haven't we seen a breakthrough in the tour scene from you, aside from WCoP, why so? OLT is definitely out of the question because you absolutely hate laddering lol.
And you're bad it too :P

Thoughts on the Grand Slam? What lower tiers do you play?

Thoughts on cute users: Analytic and DarkNostalgia

Who do you think are the 'diamonds in the rough' when it comes to the OU Tours scene?

Thoughts on Celticpride being confused with an OU mod? :P

 

[AM]

How is working in a warehouse? Do you have career aspirations for later? Are you pursuing those right now?

The work is good, I stereotypically don't like my job but I get up at 5:30 every morning for lots of labors that can be exhausting at times so obviously something keeps me going besides paying my bills. Career aspirations is to make more money than I am now ha. In all seriousness Idk if I can do an office job, having an active job has kept me in shape with all the hours of sitting here and eating food so maybe something blue collar. I contemplate different choices here and there but a lot of times I'm just going with the flow. I don't really have enormous long term goals I guess you could say.

Why did you leave global staff? Do you plan on winning The Voice with that amazing voice anytime soon? How do you feel about CT's invasion of PS? What are your feelings of the hippo / lizard hybrid living there? Will you betray CT for Challenges again in next years PSPL? Fucking traitor

Edit: What are your views on the Asian demographic in CT auth?

I left global staff cause myself and I guess I can speak for a few others I've spoken to think Global Staff policy in regards to PS is on a slow down hill. As enormously terrible as the Haunter situation was, he at least kept stuff in check and his position of power stopped other individuals to have more clout in the decision making process. You could say there was a sort of balance in the hierarchy. After haunter left, it sort of fell into shambles with Jasmine making a lot of the mediating decisions, a lot of these that global mods were either impatient on or disagreed with due to a disconnect to the PS community. The "Lobby Rework" took forever to implement just to give you an idea. More or less after awhile I got tired of it, and you can see with some mods they're not even feeling obliged to contribute anymore globally, more so dedicated to their own rooms. Separate entities under the guise of one server.

The Voice is a terrible show and you should stop watching it Kreme.

The CT Takeover is at large and has settled into every PS and Smogon section.

I hope that the hippo and lizards can live in peace and harmony but from my understanding there has been too many snakes in our garden so it's time I call up my spanish brothers to hunt them down. This will be resolved shortly enough.

Idk if I'm going to manage PSPL next year if it happens. Not gonna lie, it kind of sucked, not really the concept more so the management part itself. Rather just make teams for both the rooms cause watching matches and making / rating teams for different teams was the best part.

The Asian demographic is pretty cool. Got a little kung fu, a little bit of genies, bit of Eyan with his ninjitsu doing all his chakra shit in the policy department. Good times with my asian people.

Can you elaborate on this quote?

+AM: I am not going on the level of using shit ass tele balance with m-sab and that caca spread he calls physically defensive

I don't know what that means but it sounded good enough to go in my sig so there we go :p

fully physical defensive m-sableye is just dumb. There is so much more utility in running a mixed spread for traits such as missing 2hko benchmarks on heatran and gengar that a 252/252 spread is inferior. The root of all of this was that the team itself, now sort of known as tele balance in ORAS with the m-sab, tflame, hippo, starm, ferro, fairy somehow made team showcase. I think the build itself is pretty mediocre, then again it does put emphasis on player ability as I've seen some people do really well with it and others....not so much.

Favourite song/taste in music?

Cocaine 80s I really enjoy, this song being one of my favorites. James Fauntleroy the main singer / song writer does a lot of writing and hook for guys like Common and Nas, worked with artist like Jhene Aiko, and so on. The sidebar will just lead you to more stuff. Also enjoy listening to stuff from guys like Ohbliv, Mndsgn, Knxwledge, a lot of the instrumental hip-hop scene. I like a LOT of Flying Lotus' old material, Los Angeles and Cosmogramma along with some of his EP releases. His new stuff is pretty lame though. Small taste of what I enjoy, could probably go on for awhile hahaaha.

We haven't we seen a breakthrough in the tour scene from you, aside from WCoP, why so? OLT is definitely out of the question because you absolutely hate laddering lol.
And you're bad it too :P

Thoughts on the Grand Slam? What lower tiers do you play?

Thoughts on cute users: Analytic and DarkNostalgia

Who do you think are the 'diamonds in the rough' when it comes to the OU Tours scene?

Thoughts on Celticpride being confused with an OU mod? :P

I've only been here for a year treading the waters, getting to where I am now. Also the tour scene was a big turn off for me by the negative stigmas associated with it, so I stayed clear from it until now where I've gotten to a point of confidence and understanding that it's just a game and I got a good group of people supporting me and able to help out. OLT I might give a shot when it comes around as I'm excited for it. Big tournament scenes like that give us a good screenshot of the real metagame so it's always fun to watch and with ORAS find the creativity of it all come full circle. Also yeah I'm pretty bad hahaha.

I'm still getting accustomed to all the tournament formats and so forth, although looking from the outside in it looks like a blast but work and other endeavors unfortunately will get in the way. I like playing LC and have been starting to enjoy casually playing UU. They're more controlled metas I feel so it's fun to take a break from the chaos and intricacies required in OU and clear your mind with something new. In the long run I want to learn or relatively know OU, UU, LC, and the last thing might be Ubers although that's not even remotely close to the list considering its community at large.

ArchPhantom is one of those guys. He's really low key but he's a good builder and consistent player, always a pleasure to face him and the mindgames involved. Fortune, shartruce, daftmau5 are a few others I can't remember everyone right at this point. There's a lot of talent being overlooked I can say that much.

Lol its not surprising, they should probably distinguish who mods what more clearly, either by a color banner for a certain section or simple text.

DarkNostalgia is cool I think he gets overhyped about some of the stupidity he reads and could maybe relax and realize at the end of the day both people won't care lol.

Analytic you were at first annoying cause I didn't know who you were and you kept pm'ing me about contributing and other stupid stuff I'd be sadly sipping my coffee over. It seems like you've paved yourself some recognition and made yourself more approachable so props to you and hopefully someone, aka a lot of people who need to, follow your lead.

 

[Creator of Chaos]

Hey AM big fan of yours and i appreaciate the work you do here on smogon and ps. Maybe thankless at times but trust me when i say people do appreciate your work.

Anyway onto the questions

Thoughts on DarkNostalgia irrational fear of fairy typed pokemon?
Is Recreant crazy and will she ever get a niche?
Opinions on T-wave clefable, specs gothitelle and the nasty pass celebi + mega diancie combo?

Are you looking foward to having an NPC based on you in the Smogon OU game? Any specific quote requests?

On a scale of 1-10 just how evil am I (omega blames me for popularising t-wave clef lol)?

 

[Karxrida]

Oh my god it finally happened.

Chances of me getting a badge before the end of time?

Who's better, me or Recreant?

Thoughts on me in general?

When will you visit my achievements thread and get some achievements?

Do you have Team Fortress 2? If so wanna play sometime?

 

[Luckstard.]

Do you have any idea about how to improve tiering process?

I remember Ubers council asking voters to explain why they vote to ban/unban alongside their votes to know who was actually smart and who was not, could it be implemented to OU as well?

 

[Karxrida]

Do you have any idea about how to improve tiering process?

I remember Ubers council asking voters to explain why they vote to ban/unban alongside their votes to know who was actually smart and who was not, could it be implemented to OU as well?

I know this is for AM, but I wanted to say something.

Please don't. It adds an unnecessary degree of subjectivity to the voting process that gives too much power to the mods, which can easily be seen by the controversial/disastrous Gengarite Suspect Test that took place in Ubers at the beginning of ORAS/late XY (can't remember which). Getting suspects requirements is already time-consuming enough, we don't need to force people to write a short essay on top of that.

Plus if they got requirements they're probably good enough to vote anyway. If you think that that's not enough then the OU leaders can make getting requirements harder or add more of them like having a certain W/L ratio on top of the COIL requirement (which they did for Metagrossite or Aegislash iirc).

 

[Wheezer]

Where is the best place for someone who only lurks on smogon to become active in right now? I know that most of the analysis are done, so I don't think it would be very useful for someone to start there.

 

[bludz]

When are we ever gonna re-build that Screech Sharpedo squad? Or anything else really stupid for that matter, it's time to innovate a hot mess again.

Opinion on Hoopa-U? Overrated / underrated / hard to build with?

Return to Viability Ranking thread IMO because we need Tauros in E rank and none of the other VR staff will listen.

 

[DarkNostalgia]

mfw getting tagged twice.

Can you not answer Chaos's question?
Thoughts on Mega Sharpedo in this metagame?
Tornadus-T to S opinion?
Why did you quit the OU C&C Mod position? What was it like being at the head of QC?

 

[Baharoth]

I think in the end what I hate most about leading the OU forum is that my word is considered some sort of law, as such people bandwagon this mentality and follow the leaders or central figures way too closely without any sort of self thought about their own ideas. This is what I believe caters to the lack of quality sometimes because users will just ride the opinions of more informed users instead of investing time to apply the practicality of it all for themselves, which is the whole point of learning the game in the first place. I looked up to people like alexwolf coming in as a new user but what made me stand out amongst guys like ben gay, or at least what I think did when he told alexwolf to put me on ranking team, was that I had a practical understanding behind my logic outside of all the calcs and bandwagon. Leading the OU forum is pretty much seeing this perspective in terms of its competitive level and its social hierarchy in where you see the informed and less informed players colliding with each other, fighting against each others social dynamics. Guess you can say there's no true middle ground, so that's what leading the OU forum is like, seeing all that and delegating decisions based on that.

I like badge noms though so there's that haha.

This is probably not the right place to address this but i will do it non the less. I honestly find this kinda funny coming from one of the "smogon elites"/"higher ups"/"central figues" or however you wanna call it because imo you guys are to a good extent responsible for that bandwagon mentality.

From my experience here, if you are an unknown user and dare post an opinion that diviates from the mainstream, people will shit all over you, starting with the higher ups followed by their bandwaggoners. For the most recent example we just have to look at page 96 of the viability ranking thread where you called all the drop nominations that have been made shitty. And thats still somewhat polite going by smogon standards, i have seen comments that were alot worse. When faced with that kind of attitude and response most people will either stick to bandwaggoning or stop posting all together. Posting your own thoughts is probably the most unrewarding thing to do here on smogon as a unknown player, informed or not. I remember a post from a more recent user of the viability ranking thread where he said something along the lines of: "I've been lurking for a year before i felt confident enough to post here". It took him 1 freaking year to even dare to post his opinion, and we aren't talking about some kind of complex science here, its just a pokemon forum and you got people to think like that. Its no wonder you rarely see anything aside from bandwaggoning as long as that kind of mentality is so prevalent among the central figures of the community.

Feel free to delete this post if you think it doesn't belong here, its mostly food for thought for you anyway.

 

[Force Majeure]

AM has pretty good taste in music.

Here a couple of Qs; thanks for reading.

Do you have further educational aspirations? You're pretty well-written and clearly studious.

Any thoughts on the viability of Stall (whichever way you want to define it) this generation and in ORAS in particular?

 

[Alfalfa]

In your opinion, what is the most overrated Pokemon used in OU? The most underrated?

 

[Starmei]

Thoughts on Thunder Wave Clefable?
What impact do you think Hoopa and Hoopa-U have had on OU and do you think that they improve the metagame or the opposite (and why?)
ssssssssssssssss

 

[AM]

Hey AM big fan of yours and i appreaciate the work you do here on smogon and ps. Maybe thankless at times but trust me when i say people do appreciate your work.

Anyway onto the questions

Thoughts on DarkNostalgia irrational fear of fairy typed pokemon?
Is Recreant crazy and will she ever get a niche?
Opinions on T-wave clefable, specs gothitelle and the nasty pass celebi + mega diancie combo?

Are you looking foward to having an NPC based on you in the Smogon OU game? Any specific quote requests?

On a scale of 1-10 just how evil am I (omega blames me for popularising t-wave clef lol)?

It's justified

Not sure and lol do people have niches?

Twave Clefable is good cause it screws over so many of its traditional switch ins. I think gothitelle is a bad pokemon in general. Celebi + M-Diancie has always been a good combo albeit hard to pull off.

Haven't really followed it so if that's going to happen I don't mind what quotes are being used.

I'll put 6 just to be safe.

Oh my god it finally happened.

Chances of me getting a badge before the end of time?

Who's better, me or Recreant?

Thoughts on me in general?

When will you visit my achievements thread and get some achievements?

Do you have Team Fortress 2? If so wanna play sometime?

Idk, you got a lot of work to do.

You

Too many calcs x_x

I co-own a room that's basically the PS version of what you guys do there. Hate laddering though so probably wouldn't end up doing them anyways.

I don't

Do you have any idea about how to improve tiering process?

I remember Ubers council asking voters to explain why they vote to ban/unban alongside their votes to know who was actually smart and who was not, could it be implemented to OU as well?

Put more emphasis on a tournament requisite or make the process similar to UU kokoloko tiering. Unfortunately the tour one is difficult due to resources and the latter is bad for Smogon PR so kind of hard to revamp a tiering process that has been set in stone for awhile with no budge by many of the higher ups.

Read Karxrida's reply to you. It actually was one of the most terrible ideas implemented for a suspect test cause the end result turned into a nightmare. It was so bad Chaos had to step in and remedy the situation lol.

Where is the best place for someone who only lurks on smogon to become active in right now? I know that most of the analysis are done, so I don't think it would be very useful for someone to start there.

Metagame discussion threads really. That's usually the meat of where most contributions lie. Analysis threads you can just comment on stuff you know and help out, the reality is that most writers have a basic understanding of the Pokemon looking more advanced usage of it by informed players.

When are we ever gonna re-build that Screech Sharpedo squad? Or anything else really stupid for that matter, it's time to innovate a hot mess again.

Opinion on Hoopa-U? Overrated / underrated / hard to build with?

Return to Viability Ranking thread IMO because we need Tauros in E rank and none of the other VR staff will listen.

Lol I'm always around building stupid stuff so you know whenever.

Hoopa-U I think is underrated after the whole illusion of "offense beats it". It's somewhat hard to build with but by itself can sort of just destroy slower balance builds and when built well it's a super centralizing force.

I'm not returning to ranking thread. I enjoy talking to others about rankings though that's where the root of my contributions lie anyways but being in a leadership role for that thread is thankless and you can't really be honest with people cause then you get Baharoth's nice letter to me up above. I've officially designated him to give all my advice befitting of a sweet sweet grandmother, the best food for thought paragraphs I would ever be able to witness. 'Chime in sweet opera music'

Yep I'm an asshole, go ahead and quote me on that. I've helped tons of people through PMs and so forth and their appreciation is what matters in the end, nothing else.

mfw getting tagged twice.

Can you not answer Chaos's question?
Thoughts on Mega Sharpedo in this metagame?
Tornadus-T to S opinion?
Why did you quit the OU C&C Mod position? What was it like being at the head of QC?

Mega Sharpedo is good although it requires a sort of systematic approach when building for it. You don't see a lot of good M-Sharpedo teams mostly due to laziness I suppose.

The way the rankings look right now Torn-T isn't really S. trc and I talked about it amongst ranking team about expanding S make it more about Pokemon who are more centralizing forces than the A+ stuff like Manaphy, Garchomp, and Torn-T as examples and not make it so extreme. If S rank was expanded to reflect that I would agree. Also I think people really underestimate a well played Torn-T and the logic of "Mega Manectric beats it" or some U-Turn prone check that is used to justify not going to S is sort of shotty. Hurricane accuracy does suck though which is a legitimate concern as far as its placement goes.

I quit cause of irl obligations and some obligations here, as such not being able to dedicate a lot of time to the OU QC department. Didn't feel dedicated to the cause like Jukain was prior to him leaving so figured it was best for me to quit being one of the QC leaders.

Being QC leader is alright a lot of it is just mediating discussion most times, similarly to most leadership roles you see on here.

AM has pretty good taste in music.

Here a couple of Qs; thanks for reading.

Do you have further educational aspirations? You're pretty well-written and clearly studious.

Any thoughts on the viability of Stall (whichever way you want to define it) this generation and in ORAS in particular?

Your entire life is going to be an educational aspiration but hypothetically speaking from a scholastic point of view no. It's not worth spending a lot of money on college for something you will probably not be using in the long run career wise. Find something that gets you a decent salary and know that the "dream job" you'll come to find is really just being happy with yourself and some complacency, whether you realize it or not.

A well built and well played stall is hard to come by but it's possible with the usage of stuff like AV Torn-T, Zapdos, Will-O-Wisp Zard-X and various win conditions used such as Mega Slowbro for example. I think stall is one of the most least viable playstyles simply because it's one of the hardest ones to use without being liable to hax and many strong forces in the meta. The joke is that stall nets you easy wins, while this is true from a laddering perspective, once you start facing somebody that knows what they're doing it's an entirely different story. I personally don't enjoy building for stall at all, but if you were to hand me a team and say "make it work" I'll most likely do it. With that said you got to respect primarily defensive players who do it well and understand the process behind it all. It's a sight to see.

In your opinion, what is the most overrated Pokemon used in OU? The most underrated?

Infernape has become one of the most overrated Pokemon in my eyes. I think offensive Infernape is supremely mediocre while its only niche now a days, or at least the one I think is worth it, is the defensive variant to check Weavile, M-Scizor, and Bisharp among others. Fast SD M-Scizor and Defensive Mega Venusaur I think are two underrated sets that when built around appropriately is going to net you a lot of consistent wins. Most teams are ill prepared for fast SD M-Scizor and some teams fail to break defensive M-Venusaur. It also helps that the defensive variant is less liable to flinch chances by Weaviles Icicle Crash which sucks for the offensive variant.

Diggersby is actually underrated as a wallbreaker to but its synergy and building around it can be hard to pull off. Paired with screens it's a monster though.

Thoughts on Thunder Wave Clefable?
What impact do you think Hoopa and Hoopa-U have had on OU and do you think that they improve the metagame or the opposite (and why?)
ssssssssssssssss

I answered this but when you use it I hate you.

Hoopa-C is fine, nothing too crazy will probably end up UU in the long run. Hoopa-U is unhealthy for the metagame because it's shifted the balance more towards heavy offense so teams aren't liable to its Life Orb variant. I'd like to see it suspected but with the nature of OU community it's hard to establish that point to any sort of offensive player who is strictly focused on finding the most blatantly broken thing to be banned more so unhealthy forces in the metagame.

Snakes in the Garden, sssss

Edit: Alfalfa, Mega Tyranitar is really underrated as well.

 

[AM]

Oh and Pocket was sad I have no interest in doubles, which I think is something I could learn in the long run anyways. I just forgot to mention it in one of my replies.

 

[Clone]

Why do you feel scald is healthy for the metagame? Or if I misunderstood your post in the thread, why do u wanna keep it?

Explain your feelings for the ou room

Thoughts on me?

What is your role in team east?

Favorite WCoP game you've seen?

 

[AM]

Why do you feel scald is healthy for the metagame? Or if I misunderstood your post in the thread, why do u wanna keep it?

Explain your feelings for the ou room

Thoughts on me?

What is your role in team east?

Favorite WCoP game you've seen?

I don't think scald is healthy for the metagame, but I can't just randomly say that without seeing a meta with scald not there from a theorymon standpoint. Maybe it was a misinterpretation on my part, but I question peoples justification as far as saying it's uncompetitive. I think the buzzword of uncompetitive has devalued a lot of ideas in regards to suspect testing. If it's broken that's really the only argument you should establish. Losing the appeal of defensive Starmie would be a travesty in a meta already lacking consistent hazard removers but disregarding that bias I wouldn't really mind reviewing a scald-less meta. You're not going to convince M-Dragon though, judging from the debate we had awhile back lol. BKC asked me to about this the other day so I'm pretty neutral right now on the whole idea based on those last points.

I'm cool with the OU room, a lot more freedom of self expression and some funny regulars. Way better as a regular than an auth though.

You've gotten better I think as far as getting your point across and not cherry picking every single quote possible. Also judging by the creative sets thread you know how to keep your cool to mediate problems.

I look at ORAS teams mostly and just identify problems and provide suggestions. I also act as an emergency sub in the case we're tight on a deadline and I'm needed, as most times I'm available on these tight deadlines. It's only happened once though but basically that's what I do most times on the team.

I enjoyed august v phillip for DPP. It was unfortunate august lost but it was a great game to watch as far as DPP goes and how both players maneuvered through the switches and doubles.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Dang man, I remember when you first got started here, and now you're helping run OU. Makes me feel old rofl. Kinda proud of you, though, you've come a long way.

Anything you would ban/unban from OU if it were up to you? Moves, Pokemon, anything.
Rank the different Pokemon types from best to worst in OU. You can just do a top 3 and bottom 3 if that's too much.
Your top five best Pokemon in OU in order?
What's your ban philosophy? Do you prefer to ban whatever leads to a better metagame, are you more strict about only banning what is outright broken on its own, or are you somewhere in between?
Game Freak suddenly rips Swords Dance from Blaziken's movepool in Pokemon Z. Do you think it'd be balanced in OU now?
Random changes you'd make to low viability Pokemon or Megas to make them good in OU (can't use Bulletproof Mega Steelix, that's my idea)?
Best/worst movies you've seen recently?
Favorite non-Pokemon games?

That's all for now lol.

 

[AM]

Dang man, I remember when you first got started here, and now you're helping run OU. Makes me feel old rofl. Kinda proud of you, though, you've come a long way.

Anything you would ban/unban from OU if it were up to you? Moves, Pokemon, anything.
Rank the different Pokemon types from best to worst in OU. You can just do a top 3 and bottom 3 if that's too much.
Your top five best Pokemon in OU in order?
What's your ban philosophy? Do you prefer to ban whatever leads to a better metagame, are you more strict about only banning what is outright broken on its own, or are you somewhere in between?
Game Freak suddenly rips Swords Dance from Blaziken's movepool in Pokemon Z. Do you think it'd be balanced in OU now?
Random changes you'd make to low viability Pokemon or Megas to make them good in OU (can't use Bulletproof Mega Steelix, that's my idea)?
Best/worst movies you've seen recently?
Favorite non-Pokemon games?

That's all for now lol.

Thanks a lot man, appreciate it.

If it was solely up to me I'd consider removing M-Lopunny (one of the biggest constraints to Hyper Offense that's masked under the meta right now), Manaphy (questionable I still want to see a meta without it first), Hoopa-U (just unhealthy in general), and after that not entirely sure. Moves are a bit more subjective besides seeing a meta without scald can't really say for sure.

Top 5 best in no particular order: Fairy, Ice, Dark, Ground, Steel

Can't really think of worst but obviously it would be Normal as far as OU goes.

Top 5 best Pokemon in order: Clefable, Manaphy, Zard-X, Azumarill, and the last idk. Mega Altaria, Mega Scizor, Latios, or Garchomp probably would get that nod.

Somewhere in between. Better is subjective and can't be a standalone criteria for banning philosophy. People voted Landorus to stay OU which speaks volumes how the term "better metagame" is a shaky phrase at best.

Not sure, Blaziken still hits stupidly hard and the cleaning abilities is one of its biggest edges in the meta along with a mega evolution to boot. It's interesting to say the least though hahaha.

Softboiled Audino, SD Mega Banette, Roost Cresselia, Dragon / Poison Goodra, Adaptability Mega Latios (yeah I know people thought of this but would've been way better), Dragon Claw Zygarde, and maybe Agility Nidoking.

As far as recent goes Jurassic Park was really good. Worst maybe that mccarthy movie Spy with jason statham kind of blew but I was with family and they seemed to enjoy it so some part of it was nice.

Crash Bandicoot before wrath of cortex, Spyro before enter the dragonfly, and Kingdom Hearts.

 

[Celticpride]

Thoughts on rating teams? Just curious why someone such as yourself doesn't show too much interest. Is it the process, quality of teams posted, or some kind of other AM macro-philosophical high point?

What would be your idealistic / optimal VR thread, not in terms of specific rankings but general macro functioning?

Is Shadow Tag something you would look at in the form of a suspect?

Thoughts on user: Trinitrotoluene and his Rosalina, um, I guess attraction is the word?

Do you like my random bold? Does it make my opinion any more valid?