Interview with Vileman, NU Open Winner

Interview by aim. Art by elcheeso and ium.

Why would they even have a Babies "R" Us in the middle of some jungle in Chile? “Argh, I'm late,” I thought to myself as I cut through the leaves and underbrush of the thick forest. Finally, I could see him sitting in the parking lot. How did they even make this? WHO COMES HERE!??

Hey, sorry I'm late; thanks for doing this!

Haha, no problem.

He was wearing Wynaut Shades and seemed to be enjoying himself. These LC Players and their baby Pokemon...

Congratulations on winning the NU Open!

Thanks a lot n__n I didn't really expect to get this far, but I'm happy I did.

I didn’t even have to ask if he thought he’d make it all the way. Haha.

Ah, you answered my next question too. Haha. How did you prepare for this tournament?

I was very interested, seeing as he is new to the NU metagame.

Well at first, I didn't knoww the metagame at all; all I did was build a team based on the Viability Rankings, and then got 2 more teams from friends.

So you did your research on the tier and went from there?

Basically that, yes. I theorized a bit about what sets / Pokemon I wanted to use and built around that.

This was very smart answer. He did his research so he knew what was up. I can respect that.

Ah, interesting. Was there any team in particular that performed better than expected in this tournament for you?

Yes, a team made by Rowan which was made pretty early in the metagame did outstandingly well; it has Pokemon that were hyped back then but not as much right now, such as Barbaracle and Choice Specs Dragalge. I think i used it throughout all of the Open and can remember it losing only 1 battle!

He used the same team during the entire open? Extremely impressive and risky, considering counterstyling and counterteaming are both very prevalent in these tournaments.

That's very impressive, especially considering that you used that team even in the Finals and won with it. How did you prepare for the Finals?

Well the time lapse between the Semifinals and the Finals wasn't much; it was just a day. Haha. But before the Semifinals, I tested a lot with Iteddeh and JirachiCelebiMew, who are both amazing players; this helped me learn a lot more about underrated Pokemon and team archetypes which I could potentially face.

I smirked. #Hashtag No Johns.

All of that testing definitely paid off. So, seeing as you are an avid LC player, was it hard to transition from "the babies" to fully grown Pokemon?

Haha well, I'm known for being a Little Cup player, but I've been playing other tiers for a while now (I started playing on PokeLab in 2010), so I am used to using Level 100 Pokemon.

So he did have a bit of experience. PokeLab started bringing back some nostalgia. Gotta stay focused, though.

Ah, so like you said before, you just had to find out the "best" Pokemon and movesets based on the Viability Rankings and then work from there? With your friends, of course, helping along the way?

Yeah, lurking on the NU forums really helped me learn about good sets and about what was being used commonly in the metagame. My friends helped me improve a lot by helping me build and test teams.

Lurking? They don’t call him Vile for nothing. Hehe.

Ah, and all that hard work has paid off! Once again, congratulations on winning the entire Open! Thanks for having me, man. Is there anything else you'd like to add before I go?

Well I'd just like to say that NU was a much better tier than I expected; there are a lot of playstyles and Pokemon that are really fun to use. Shoutout to all my "frens" for all of the support you gave me throughout the Open :]

Alright, then. Thanks again for the interview, and hopefully we'll see some more great matches in the Ubers Open!

I thanked him before running as fast as I could; an Andean Condor was chasing me! Why is this the national bird? I could hear him laughing in the background. Finally, civilization! I boarded the next plane to New York and was gone.