Welcome To UnderUsed...The Room!

Why did you pick UnderUsed as "your tier"? What drew you to it over the other tiers?

I started playing UU when XY UU beta showed up. I remember it being a completely insane metagame with stuff like Deoxys-S and Keldeo running free. I've always been a pretty offensive player, so it stuck out to me as something fun to try out, and eventually when it settled down a bit I felt pretty well informed about what was going on to where I felt comfortable there. When I came back from quitting a second time, I just came back to UU and haven't really left.

What is your favorite UnderUsed Pokémon competitively? Why?

My favorite and most used Pokémon is definitely Lucario. I love how quickly Lucario can just take over a game and force your opponent to play a certain way or risk losing based on a single play. Also, I enjoy that you can use Lucario a few different ways that are all good choices and leave it with different checks and counters. This combines with the fact that your opponent can never really tell your set until you decide to show it to them, which ends up in a fun little mind game where they have to guess your set and guessing wrong can be fatal. For a reference of how often I use Lucario, I just searched through my UU teams and it's on 20 of them, and this doesn't include all the terrible teams I've deleted that also feature Lucario. Honorable mentions go to Mega Sharpedo, both Mega and non-Mega Swampert, and more recently Alakazam.

What is your favorite part of the UnderUsed room? Why?

I like the constant roomtours that we do. For me, they provide a pretty decent way to test out basic teambuilding ideas and cores that I might want to incorporate into a more serious team. They also provide a good avenue for me to use some of my more fun teams that I have. Of course, the main reason I like them is getting to establish my dominance as the supreme overlord of the room >:)

How long have you been playing competitive Pokémon? More specifically, how long have you been playing UnderUsed competitively?

I first started playing competitive mons back around early BW RU when Yanmega and Cresselia were still allowed. I remember using Choice Band Punishment Sneasel and just loving life. After that, I quit for a long time and came back around two and a half years ago and played for about six months. I quit again around summertime that year and came back around September or so. I started playing UU before I quit the second time and pretty much stuck with that since I came back.

Why did you pick UnderUsed as "your tier"? What drew you to it over the other tiers?

I picked UnderUsed as my tier a little bit before I even joined PS! nearly four years ago. Back then, I had messed around with Wi-Fi battles a lot on Smogon's Battle Finder, and I really was tired of OU. UU had some of my favorite Pokémon in it (such as Crobat), and I was naturally drawn to it due to the balance and variety it had compared to OU, which at the time in Generation 5, was too centralized on weather for my liking, and I hated seeing the same Pokémon over and over. I found it much harder to get into RU and NU back then, since I wasn't familiar with many of the Pokémon there, so I just stuck with UU and have been sorta...stuck ever since, lol.

What is your favorite UnderUsed Pokémon competitively? Why?

My favorite UU Pokémon competitively, without a doubt, has to be Cobalion. I've used the thing so much last gen, I found it hard to even make teams without it. This gen hasn't been much different, I was dead set on using it in UU even back when it was in RU. And nowadays, since it has risen to UU, Cobalion's too valuable not to use when it's capable of checking threats like Mamoswine, Mega Aerodactyl, Hydreigon, Snorlax, etc. I also give special mentions to Zapdos, Crobat (of course), and Aerodactyl.

What is your favorite part of the UnderUsed room? Why?

My favorite part of the UnderUsed Room is "unleashing the Donald Trump" interacting with the users in the chat. UU is a big community, and it's nice to talk, trade ideas, help out, or just chill with the variety of interesting people we have in that community. It also helps take some of the edge off on stressful days and helps you remember that despite its stature in the world of competitive Pokémon, PS! is just a game site, and like any other game, you can't take it too seriously or you'll burn yourself out. Plus...a tyrannical dictator has to understand his subjects in order to more effectively break them, am I right? :]

How long have you been playing competitive Pokémon? More specifically, how long have you been playing UnderUsed competitively?

I kinda answered this in Question 1, but I've been playing competitive Pokémon since 2011. Or, at least, "trying" to. I played strictly off my Black cartridge and eventually learned how to EV train, breed, and get IVs on Pokémon, and then made teams of the stuff I bred. At first I just played close friends of mine from another Pokémon site I used to moderate, but not many of them were really "competitive" players, and I started to feel like a big fish in a small pond. Then, as I said in Question One, I started using the Smogon Wi-Fi battle finder, which was cool, but I couldn't really "learn" anything from games that were so far apart and widely varied in skill levels. Then, a year later, a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in years showed up online, asked to play me in a round of 'mons, and thoroughly slayed me twice. He told me to check out Pokémon Showdown if I wanted to both improve my skills and face real competitive people. That was how I came to PS!, and basically I've been playing UU all the way since then, with a few breaks here and there.

Why did you pick UnderUsed as "your tier"? What drew you to it over the other tiers?

I picked (DPP) UU because I was tired of my mediocre performance on the OU ladder on Shoddy Battle and didn't like Ubers. Back in those days, we only had those 3 options on the main server. I really wanted a high ranking, and I was going to reach it somehow.

After changing tiers, I quickly found OU wasn't the problem, I was just bad at Pokémon. However, I ended liking the UU tier more, because it had more diversity, had cooler Pokémon like Mismagius, and the forum playerbase was more entertaining and had a bunch of players I looked up to.

After grinding for a long time, I peaked top 7 on the ladder and considered it success. On that day I created my Smogon account, because I decided my next goal was going to be reaching the levels of the players I used to idolize.

"started from the bottom and now we're here"

What is your favorite UnderUsed Pokémon competitively? Why?

My favorite Pokémon is Mega Aerodactyl, because it does so much. Best Pokémon against offense, checks tons of threats, can Pursuit trap stuff like Alakazam and Mega Beedrill, bulky enough to reliably use Roost, can wallbreak with Hone Claws, superb late-game cleaner, and can use both Taunt and Stealth Rock.

I use it on almost every single one of my teams and I run it on every playstyle, from hyper offense to hard stall.

What is your favorite part of the UnderUsed room? Why?

The playerbase. I'm not the most talkative person in the room, but I like lurking, sometimes under alts, to watch people interact. I try pleasing the public as much as I can with suspects, forum projects, and even things like the "Tiering Megas Separately" policy change, which I strongly supported because that was what most people wanted.

If the playerbase is happy, I'm happy. I might be a "big fish" now, but I haven't forgotten I was just like them when I started.

How long have you been playing competitive Pokémon? More specifically, how long have you been playing UnderUsed competitively?

I started playing competitive Pokémon eight years ago, around the time Deoxys-S was being tested in DPP OU. I got into UU a long time after that, so about six or seven years ago. I made my account on June 6th of 2010.

Why did you pick UnderUsed as "your tier"? What drew you to it over the other tiers?

I picked UU because it just seemed like the most fun. Also, when I transitioned from PO to PS!, my team just happened to fit into Smogon's UU tier, so I stuck with it. Also, it's not as competitive as OU, and the Pokémon aren't as ugly as RU.

What is your favorite UnderUsed Pokémon competitively? Why?

My favorite UU 'mon competitively speaking has got to be Cobalion. Bulky, fast, Swords Dance, decent movepool, and mostly all 100% accurate moves.

What is your favorite part of the UnderUsed room? Why?

My favorite part of the UU room is probably the activity of "the regulars". There's the people who just always seem to be online and contributing to chat (for better or worse). It makes it easy to just join the room whenever and start talking about stuff.

How long have you been playing competitive Pokémon? More specifically, how long have you been playing UnderUsed competitively?

I started watching BlameTruth upload Wi-Fi battles back in the day, but I don't know if that's considered competitive or not. That was probably five or six years ago, and somewhere along the line I made the aforementioned switch from PO to PS UU. I don't think I have ever really played the tier "competitively" apart from that one time I entered an actual UU forum tourney and got 6-0ed by Fat Lenny.