The VGC Spotlight: Featuring 2011 Regional Champion Robbie "biffsterPKMN" Miles!

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A great interview to come back with, Cybertron!
Ruben is truly one of the best ever and I wish him the best of luck with his situation. :D
 
Really nice interview Cybertron. All these interviews with people talking about Worlds makes me want to qualify more than ever haha.
 

Dozz

Has anyone in this family ever seen a chicken?
is an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Is it just me who is now even more curious as to what Habak means? I had never really thought about it too much, but now it's been discussed, I really want to know. Maybe that's just me being inquisitive, but oh well.
 

Huy

INSTANT BALLS
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
Habak means family, and family means no one gets left behind. In Spain. Cause they all travel to other places to play Pokemon.
 
You are amazing Cybertron, wind up the great work I drop the tears of the eyes, a fantastic interview!!!!!

thank you all for
your support, and thank you all for commenting my interview friends.

NIIINAAAHAAAZAAAAA:D, keeeeefkaaaaaa!!!! jajajaja:')

I hope to see you all soon ^________^


( I prefer play VGC 2010 * )
 
you should think about an interview with Sarah lakehale. She was able to win french vgc 3 times in row as a junior and made it in the worlds semifinal last year.
 
This is really great. I love reading about the pokemon masters. Maybe I'll be interviewed for this when I win the event on April 15th!
 
Nice interview Cybertron, nice job!
Ruben you are one of the best players in the world and one of the best people I met in San Diego, hope to see you soon!
PATRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!
 

Pokeguru01

Guest
This is another really good article and I was smiling when I saw the shout out, thank you george for making my day even better. :D
 
Don't worry, I'm still alive. I have so many interviews in the works currently, and will be getting to the bulk of them this weekend. Hope Regionals was good for you guys, stay tuned!
 
The one, the only, B-CAR-ALARM


Mohysn on the left after winning the 2011 France National Championships.

Accomplishments

2011: 1st Place France Nationals, 11th Place World Championships
2012: 1st Place France Nationals

Total Winnings

2011 Nationals: Medal, 3DS, invitation and trip to compete at the World Championships in San Diego, California
2012 Nationals: Trophy, invitation and trip to compete at the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii

Biography and History

Mohsyn "bharmalm" Bharmal is a name familiar to all Europeans for his incredible accomplishments in the past two years. He is the only Senior to ever successfully defend his National title while staying in the same division, and one of the only two people in the entire world to ever do so (Ruben is the other, winning UK Nationals in both '11 and '12.) He swept through last year's National Championships with ease, and qualified for Worlds. At Worlds, he finished with a 3-2 record, where he played myself, 7014gree, and AlphaOmega in some tough matches. He placed 11th overall at the World Championships. He then attended both the UK and France National Championships last month, where he suffered a bitter Round 1 loss in the UK. However, he would not let his season end there as he rallied his way towards a victory in France, becoming the France Seniors National Champion two years in a row. You can watch this finals match against Jamie "Repr4y" Martinez here. Mohsyn will represent the UK and Europe at this year's World Championships, and he will be a name to watch out for!

Interview

Hello bharmalmalmalm! Why don't you introdice yourself?

My name is Mohsyn (Marvin) bharmal I'm an 14 year old brit and very strong at Pokemon.

Yes, you are quite strong indeed. What got you into Pokemon? How about VGC?

I started playing Pokemon from the TV show, which I used to watch every day (who didn't!). Then the school TCG craze came along and sooner or later, I found myself with a borrowed Sapphire and just didn't stop playing. Around '09, I started thinking about the game more seriously rather than the "GO SWAMPERT USE HYDRO CANNON!!!!" I found myself around Serebii and sooner than later, Smogon. I was lurking for about 8 months before I decided to make an account, but I found myself playing a lot on Shoddy Battle, generally playing DPP OU and Ubers and when the short-lived Pokemon Lab came out, I transgressed to doubles and was hooked. So when VGC '11 rules were announced, I quickly began playing with ideas.

Great! What was your first VGC tournament like?

My first VGC tournament was London II (if anybody knows what that was 9.9). It was a tournament with VGC '09 rules, where I got a bye of sorts round one and had to play 7014gree round two, needless to say I completely haxed outplayed him (with scarf Moltres) and promptly got crushed by the great VirtualKnight in round 3.

Scarf Moltres is pretty strong. Let's talk about VGC 2011. What was winning France Nationals like? How about Worlds? Tell us everything you can about last year!

Now here's one I really wanted to answer! I detest how much hate '11 gets, it's ridiculous (I'll come on to that later...). The season started okay for me, I was testing the same kind of Pokemon as most people were at the time. I found a strong team in Eelektross/Landorus/Musharna/Scrafty that got me to fairly high on Skarmbliss. This was when we thought there would be no team preview. Then, when team preview was announced, I took a break for a few months, as it was unclear if I would be able to attend Nationals as the dates were horrible. It turned out that I wouldn't be able to play in UK Nationals, but I was able to attend French Nationals.

Fast forward to the the weeks before Paris. I found myself using what everybody was using. (Chandelure/Thundurus/Tornadus/Jellicent/Terakion/Amoongus 9.9) I then found that Scarf Chandelure/Scrafty was a strong bluff lead, and built my team around that. 7014gree used a similar team for UK and Spanish Nationals, so I knew it was able to do well. The day before Nationals at Paris, I was missing 3 Pokemon and hadn't decided on the last. Thankfully ABC (Dillon) was able to get me 2 of the pokes I needed, meaning that I was only one short. I found a Pre-RNG bred Haxourus on my Japanese Black, so I decided to use a DD Haban Set, as it worked in theory with Rage Powder Amoonguss... So my team ended up being Chandelure/Thundurus/Terakion/Amoongus/Scrafty/Haxorus. I ended up winning a fairly easy tournament, with the only really close game being top 16, only pulling out 1-0. I had earned a free trip to Worlds later that year in San Diego.

As the months proceeding Worlds went by, I my teams became increasingly inconsistent, it was almost as if every game I played was losing, and it seemed like I was unable to win a game without using my Nationals team. I branched out, and my teams changed, I found love in Stoutland and LO Hydregion, two extremely strong Pokemon and began molding my team around them. My Worlds team looked like Thunderus/Stoutland/Hydregion/Whimsicott/Terakion/Chandelure. I was confident in the teams ability as it was able to keep up with the traditional fast strong attackers by either slowing down my opponent's Pokemon with Thunder Wave or increasing the speed of mine with Tail Wind. Come the day of Worlds, I was paired Round 1 with 7014gree, which kind of ruined my day as he knew my team and would easily be able to outplay me, and to add insult to injury, my Stouland had Frustration, not Return, meaning that it would it have a base power of 1... (I think). I then went on to lose in some good games to Jeremy Fan (AlphaOmega) and had to play you in round five, which I got a crit Rock Slide on both games which really mattered and completely changed the course of both games. I ended day one with a 3-2 record, not being enough to qualify the next day with 11th place.

Heh, I still have nightmares about our battles... anyway, to put things in perspective, let's talk about VGC '12. When did you start practicing? How was UK Nationals? And France Nationals?

I started playing VGC '12 much later in comparison to last year. I think I started playing around mid-January using some standard-like teams. I toyed around with some Rain, as it seemed in theory a really solid choice for Nationals with low skill, medium pay-off strategy. I eventually started using some less common Pokemon, such as Togekiss and Manectric. And as such, team MANECTRIC was born. I used this team for UK Nationals, as it had a great run on PO and was consistently able to crush any team with Zapdos/Thundurus. In Round 1, I faced a fairly simple double Dragon / Sandstorm team, and was quickly eliminated ... whilst I may have not used the best leads I felt as if there was nothing I could have done after turn 1.

For Paris decided to not risk using such a meta-dependant team, and decided to use team GREE FUCKCHOMP. With such a strong team, I knew the only chance of me loosing was to the several low accuracy moves. I could play well with the team and really felt at home using it. The team was capable of beating everything that I could see in Paris; the only real threat being Gastrodon which I could still beat if I play around it.

What are your thoughts on successfully defending your national title? Are you excited to have qualified for Worlds, with a free trip, again?

Winning Nationals was, like last year, amazing. it feels unreal winning again... I cannot wait for worlds. The excitement is getting to me.

Heh, who wouldn't be excited for Worlds? Having won two years in a row, how difficult was winning this year's Nationals compared to winning last year's? Which metagame do you like more, and why?

This year was much more difficult, possibly because of theSpanish guys being there. I felt as if i had to play at a much higher level rather than Scrafty/Chandelure, Fake Out and Over Heat. My round 2 match felt more like a top 16 game, and in general every single game I was playing at a higher level, especially in the finals, I played against a TerraCott in the finals (9.9!) last year, but this year I was playing a much stronger opponent and had to think hard about each of my moves.

In terms of metagame, VGC '11 is my favorite metagame for sure, and the amount of hate it was getting was unreal. So what if the pool of "OU" VGC pokemon is around 10? The more closed the metagame had become, well thought out gimmicks would become more effective. Even things like adding a few HP EVs on your Pokemon is completely unorthodox and in such an unsuspecting meta, could become very powerful. BlueCookies demonstrated this very well, by using Pokemon that were not seen much throughout the season, and using Pokemon that had more bulk, allowing them to survive things that the opponent wouldn't expect.

Well said! Moving into a more general question, what are your thoughts on the European scene, as a Senior? Who do you consider some of the best players over there? What's the environment at tournaments like? How do you feel about this year's single elimination format? Where do you stand on the debate on whether Nationals should be locked to its own country?

In my opinion, the best European seniors are Repr4y, PokeAlex and Plusle. Ive played these guys at events/tested with them, I think they're the best out of the bunch. However, players such as KobraTail, IceArceus12 and the the German guys (toasdt, billa's brother, Daflo's sister...) have done extremely well at their respective events, and they should also have a good showing at Worlds.

The single elimination is a pain, but to be honest I'm not sure what else we can do. Swiss would be a very long, and drawn out. I'm also not sure if it could be finished in the one day. Possibly double elimination? However, I'm against region lock, like many of the other European players who have done well abroad! I think it does ruin going to other countries especially for the social factor and meeting people you usually wouldn't. Additionally, you can't have region lock and say except for Belgiums or Sweeds! so I don't think this will happen.

Great, thanks for your input! What's your favorite Pokemon and game?
Favorite Pokemon's a tie between
and

Game... hurrr R/S I guess... the game I began with.

Cool! Any final words or shoutouts?

Shoutout to gec <3 (because he'll moan otherwise)
USE MORE MANECTRIC.
FREE GARCHOMP.
That is all
.
 
Sorry, but DaFlos sister won the 2010 regional in Germany and also won the german regional in 2011 :s She did not win in another country, but at least she defended her title ;)

Gonna read the rest of the warstory later :)
 
Wow lol, I had no idea Julia (That's her name right?) won 2 years ago. I guess it's a bit different since she was a Junior in 2010 and a Senior in 2011 I'm assuming, but still pretty impressive.
 

gec

pharos
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Shoutout to gec <3 (because he'll moan otherwise)

hahaha I was about to moan so badly until I saw this right at the bottom

b-caralarm <3 the winner's chant at worlds
BHARMLAMRLMALMRLMALMLTMLMAMRMLAMLRMLMAMLRML
 
Wow lol, I had no idea Julia (That's her name right?) won 2 years ago. I guess it's a bit different since she was a Junior in 2010 and a Senior in 2011 I'm assuming, but still pretty impressive.
Yeah, you are right. 2010 she was a Junior :)
 
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