Approved by sleid and Tuthur | Amazing Art by Albatross and butchered by me | Thread formatting stolen from Jett, who I thank for starting this project in the first place
(Interview Date: 10th of October, 2025)
Hey friends and welcome to this edition of ZU
BaitWiz !!
Favorite Pokémon:
(ZU Room Moderator, ZULA Champion and ZUPL VII player for the Cramorants)
Ditto used Transform!
Ditto transformed into Zorua-Hisui!
*zoruuuaaa*
Hey Baitwiz! Welcome to ZU player of the week and I'm really happy you are my second guest after the project's revival! Let's start with the most basic question ever, how are you doing today?
Hey there Czim, glad to be here as well! I'm doing pretty well so far, just woke up pretty recently and enjoying an off day from college. Hopefully you're having a solid day as well!
Great to hear. I'm also doing great today, just had a nice lunch at home! Better to do this on a chill day so the interview can run even longer haha! What can you tell us about the real life Baitwiz? What are you studying in college?
I'm a 25 year old guy named Alex from the United States, based in Colorado, and I've lived here for basically all my life. I've got a lovely black cat named Daifan and I spend a lot of my free time either gaming or spending time with family and friends. As far as what I'm studying in college, at the moment my main focus is on chemistry, though I haven't figured out anything more specific than that just yet.
Nice! I personally dont know much about Colorado except that it's more on the western side of the US. Do you enjoy living there? Most importantly though, you can't just name a cat and not share a pic of it for our readers. We all want to see Daifan in all his/her glory! Also what does their name mean? It sounds cool
Colorado's a nice place to live! It's one of the more progressive states in general and it's got a lot of cool stuff, from the mountains to Red Rocks, one of the coolest national parks and concert venues in the country! Also, of course I have to share a picture of my cat; he's an absolute sweetheart and I love him to death! His name actually comes from a book series by Steven Brust, which focuses on a human assassin in a world mostly dominated by elves.
Cute pic of Daifan, BaitWiz's cat
He's a very cute cat, I love his eyes and his name also makes him even cooler! What do you usually like to do in your free time?
Like I alluded to earlier, gaming and hanging out with friends takes up a pretty heavy amount of my free time. I've been on a huge Balatro kick recently, and I've been enjoying Aethermancer, a monster battler that went into open beta recently. As you're aware from previous conversations regarding it I've also been playing TCG Pocket for a while, and I was also many of the individuals waiting on Silksong, which was an absolute blast. When I'm out with friends, I love shooting pool, swimming, and karaoke, though it's been a minute since I've done that last one! Shooting pool's a ton of fun in general and it's something I want to keep getting better at - I sometimes just go out on my own to shoot pool as well.
Yes, I wanted to expand on your answer from before, so this is good! We share a lot of gaming interests so I'll follow you up on those. I also played Silksong on release and am an avid TCG Pocket player (as you know since you always complain about my packs being portuguese in wonder pick lol). I wanna focus on Silksong first though, considering it is a huge cultural phenomenon at the moment. What were your thoughts on the game? What were your top 5 bosses? I'll hide those on a spoiler tag probably so my readers don't kill me for spoiling anything
As someone with almost 300 hours in the original Hollow Knight, Silksong was just about everything I was wanting and more!
I enjoyed almost every single boss fight in the game, only being frustrated by the second and third Lace fights, and as such it's hard for me to create a top five; I'll try anyway, though. Phantom is definitely my favorite fight by far, just due to its overall theme and the fight itself essentially playing kind of like a 'Hornet 3' of sorts. The rest of my top 5 would go something like 2. Skarrsinger Karmelita, 3. First Sinner, 4. Clover Dancers, and 5. Trobbio (both fights)
I am on the same boat, loved pretty much everything about it and, in my opinion, it is even better than Hollow Knight. Pharloom feels incredible and I loved exploring every corner of it and meeting every NPC. My top 5 would be very similar with the exception of
Cogwork Dancers being my top 1, and you know why it is.
The main deck I always keep coming back to as of recent is a bit of an oddball one; it's a Silvally/Altaria aggro deck which utilizes five total types of energy! It uses two of magby/mantyke/pichu to generate energy and then generates three other energies to create as much random energy as possible to ensure Altaria is online - it's a really cool deck that I regularly find success with! My favorite card art has to be the Suicune immersive, Suicune's a Pokemon that I've always loved and its immersive art is just done excellently in my honest opinion.
This deck is actually really cool. I like the ones that use more than 1 type of energy, which is hard to pull off in TCG Pocket. My favorite art is probably the 1 star Lapras from Genetic Apex! Since we're talking about games, do you have a favorite Pokémon game?
If it wasn't such an unoptimized mess on Switch 1, Scarlet and Violet would be my snap answer; unfortunately, that's not the reality we live in. I think the Pokemon game that stands out most to me probably has to be Black and White. It has an amazing story, it has some of my favorite Pokemon in Zorua, Pawniard, and Serperior, and it also has characters I really connected with like N.
Black and White was a nice soft reboot for the series, I liked it when I played it too. I like some of the designs but some of the Pokémon kinda feel like Kanto but slightly different, you know? So not everything hits for me. Let's change the topic from gaming a bit. What are your favorite movies and TV shows? What kind of music do you listen to? Any favorite artists?
I totally get not all of Black and White's Pokemon landing well; I think I was a lot more open to new designs at the time for sure. I've never been much of a movie guy, but for TV shows I watch a fair amount of anime; some standouts include Hunter x Hunter and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and I loved Mythbusters when I was younger as well. As far as music goes, this is a topic I could discuss for legitimately days. I'll suffice it to say that the artists I most regularly listen to at the moment are Grabbitz, San Holo, and Half An Orange, the last of which sadly has moved on to focusing on other projects these days.
Some nice anime picks. Why not talk about it for days? That's why we are here! Let's go a bit deeper on music then. Can you give us a bigger list of stuff you like and some recommendations for our readers?
In general I really have an appreciation for EDM; San Holo and Half An Orange are projects that are definitely a lot more 'chill,' while Grabbitz is an artist who rides the line between rock and EDM. Puppet is another artist who similarly rides the line between rock and EDM, though on the rock side of things. Outside of EDM, I've appreciated a lot of other genres through artists like Sleep Token, EDEN, blackbear, and Starset.Misc. EDM recommendations: Madeon, Tristam, Daft Punk (obviously), Knife Party, Grey, Virtual Riot, deadmau5, Pegboard Nerds, The Glitch Mob, Nigel Stanford, Tokyo Machine, Porter Robinson, Avicii
Cool, that's what I was aiming for! Of the stuff you mentioned I only know Daft Punk (which is one of my favorite artists), Avicii and deadmau5 so I'll check the rest later! Are there other genres you like listening too as well?
As alluded to by the mentions of Sleep Token and Starset, I'm also a huge fan of rock stuff in general; I really enjoy a lot of more mainstream stuff like Linkin Park (not the newest album, lol), System of a Down, Shinedown, and Thousand Foot Krutch. I also like some nicher rock artists like Lost Stars and a post-rock band named This Will Destroy You, the latter of which is one of my favorite recommendations to give in general!
Why don't you like the new album? I'm a Linkin Park fan and I rate the new album only below the first 4 to be honest, I liked it! A Thousand Suns is my favorite one though! Shinedown and SOAD are great bands too!
For some reason the newest album just doesn't really have many standout songs to me; the only two songs I really liked at all are The Emptiness Machine and Heavy is the Crown, with nothing else really standing out too much to me. Even those two songs I rate below a lot of older Linkin Park songs like Breaking the Habit, Lost in the Echo, and Castle of Glass. Outcome of different tastes, I suppose.
I like some others like Two Faced and Overflow, but The Emptiness Machine is the best song in the album! Let's shift the topic to mons now. How and when did you start playing on showdown and smogon? And most importantly, how did you end up in ZU of all places?
Technically my start in showdown was all the way back in the middle of 2013 with an old username that I stopped using a while ago, but I ended up getting back into showdown starting around the beginning of 2021. I never spent much time on Pokemon Showdown or Smogon until around June of 2022 when a certain former ZUTL, Xayah, ended up introducing me to the tier. I was welcomed by a lot of the lovely individuals in the tier, kinda helped support the Butterfrees to the first of their three highly successful seasons, and from there the rest is history!
ZU is a welcoming place and we are glad you stuck around! Do you have a favorite ZU metagame? Or any favorite metagame from any other tier too?
My favorite ZU metagames are probably SM and SS at the moment. SS definitely still has a lot of room for innovation (when sun isn't ruling the tier), and SM is just an explosively fun time overall. I haven't really explored many other tiers in depth in the same way I've explored ZU metagames, so the only other metagame I'll really mention is LGPE OU, which is a very silly and heavily centralized metagame I found myself loving last year.
I'm happy you mentioned SS because I wanted to discuss it. You recently made a post about the current state of the tier and how the current sun playstyle may be broken. How do you think the SS ZU council should approach this situation? Also if you could get a pokémon dropped from PU, which one would you want the most?
From my own perspective, I think the safest way to address sun is by removing the playstyle altogether through the banning of Heat Rock from the metagame. I think banning Ivysaur would definitely knock sun down a peg, but my post has already pushed people to experimenting with replacements like Maractus and Exeggutor who are still able to put in plenty of work themselves, even if they aren't at the same level as the 'saur. I would kill to have Wishiwashi added to SS ZU, this tier would appreciate a bulky water type so unbelievably much (as shown by Seaking of all Pokemon being borderline viable) and I think it would fit right on in with a lot of the Pokemon currently present in the tier. It'd also be able to serve as a specially offensive water-type, which we're woefully missing from the tier (unless you count Silvally-Water or Golduck, I guess).
That's a good take, I think banning Heat Rock is valid even if I'm more of a Ban Ivysaur kind of guy. I think sun just can't replace Ivysaur and will be very manageable without it. I miss Wishiwashi and Eldegoss so much as well. Now let's talk about ZULA (ZU ladder achievements for those who do not know). You blazed through the challenges really quickly and became the champion of the project! What was your secret for doing the challenges this consistently?
I think my success with ZULA is an outcome of the time I've put into the last two or three years into becoming the best builder I can possibly be. My approach to a lot of the challenges was essentially trying to build a team that met the conditions of the challenge while maximizing the likelihood of winning, which sounds pretty obvious when I say it aloud but it's what I did lol. I think I definitely had some degree of luck (especially with that metronome game, jesus), but mostly focusing on one challenge at a time also let me use the strongest Pokemon I could for every challenge, which made a lot of challenges only take a couple tries at most where other approaches could take dozens of attempts at times.
Yeah, there's a lot of optimization that can be done, especially on the hardest challenges! Let's say Apagogie vanished in shame after losing to mono Metronome and you are the one who is now in charge of ZULA. Which 3 new challenges would you add to spice things up?
I'd hate to see Apa go again; his presence in the tier's brought me some of the most enjoyment I've had in this tier, but sometimes Banded Perrserker locks in and collects four kills. Alas, we've gotta create some new challenges in his place. I think it'd be fun to create some simpler challenges like "inflict a status condition on every member of your opponent's team", "have a terrain present for more than half of the battle's duration", or the one I've bounced back to the most, "set all four weathers in one battle." I think all three of these would create some interesting teambuilding challenges while not being too difficult.
I agree those are interesting ideas and I hope Apa implements similar ones! What were your favorite challenges overall? Give me a top 3 or top 5, up to you!
I'm definitely biased towards Blessed by Arceus just because that fateful battle against the ZU Masked Hero was absolutely hilarious, so that's gotta be my number one pick for favorite challenge, even if it's ultimately an RNG fest. I think LC main is a great pick for second place, as I got to use some of my favorite Pokemon like Pawniard and Sneasel while combining it with Mono Dark for a little bit of extra challenge. I also just love using little guys in tiers. I think my third favorite challenge will probably end up being a bit of an odd one in Good Old Time (Gen 5) specifically. Banded Slaking is a hilarious and surprisingly effective Pokemon in the context of ZU ladder and my game for that particular challenge had Slaking take four out of six KO's, even knocking itself out on the final KO.
Slaking is the true king of ZULA. You also recently had a very successful season in ZUPL reaching finals with the Cramorants, usually being regarded as their shadow manager due to your contributions. How was the experience of teaming up with them?
Going into ZUPL I knew that the Cramorants weren't necessarily the favorites, especially considering the monsters that the Morpeek-A-Boos were coming out of the gate, but I also felt like we had a lot of players able to make rankings lie, especially considering we were rated last in SV ZU. Getting to team with my partner in crime in SS once more, Pokeslice, was a ton of fun and I got to do fair amount of cooking in SV and ORAS as well. We had a lot of strong players who pulled through and while we had varying luck throughout the season I think we had a super solid showing overall, even if we don't have a trophy to show for it. I also have to say that SEROO was a lovely manager to work with and overall the team atmosphere was one that was hugely successful. I also put a crazy amount of activity into the discord over the course of ZUPL, probably the most active I've ever been in any team tournament - I ended up with almost 8500 messages in the discord by the end of the tournament.
The Cramorants had a really strong showing, and your 8.5k messages probably helped that! Time for the fun question, even if you already kinda had one with the new ZULA challenges! If you could have 3 Pokémon as pets, which one would they be and why?
Hisuian Zorua has to be an instant pick, as I think it's gotta be just so unbelievably soft and cuddly, and similarly I love normal Zorua as well! I think I have to get an Eevee as a pet because if I didn't my mother would probably kill me, and also it seems like a fun/cuddly pet who would eventually make for a great pet Umbreon down the line. For the final pet, I think that I'd have to go for a bit of a non-cuddly pick in Flygon - I'm no exception to the majority that thinks dragons are cool and having a dragon that can fly just sounds hugely useful in general for everyday life.
Good picks, I'd also pick something that can fly and maybe one that could surf. A Rotom would also be very useful to do chores anywhere lol! Do you have a team you would like to share with us? Adding a description would be cool!
(poison)
If there's one team that I have to share, it's gotta be the Choice Specs Exeggutor offense that Stories, Pokeslice and I built in ZUPL VI for SS. This team has a 100% winrate in team tournaments, requires precise play, and just feels amazing to play well. It definitely has its struggles into hazards and the like since it doesn't have any defog or rapid spin support, and as such it forces you to play pretty aggressively into stuff like Rosepawn, but it's honestly just such a treat to see in action every time it's played and is probably one of my favorite teams I've ever used overall.
Seems like a good team, Exeggutor is a fun breaker in SS, like most offensive Psychic-types! Can't you fit Defog on Silvally to fix the hazards issue? We are nearing the end of this interview, is there anything you want to say? Is there anyone you want to shout out?
By slotting Defog onto Silvally you lose a coverage move where all four of its attacks are crucially important; maybe you can drop U-Turn, but then that’s a turn when you aren’t putting pressure on the opponent through getting your big threats like Exeggutor in. Similarly you could make a case for dropping Thunderbolt on Rotom for Defog, but I think you could get into similar issues there as well.
I’m super excited to see this project back in action, as ever since I first heard about it during my first few months in ZU I’ve always wanted to see it come back, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it continues in the future! I want to give some shoutouts to just a couple of my closest smogon friends in Jett, Drud, and Pokeslice all of which are fun individuals to chat with. I also want to shoutout some of the people that have been putting in overtime with the tier like sleid and Apagogie. I also want to thank you, czim, for also being a big part of my enjoyment of ZU as well as having me on as the second guest of this project’s return. Lastly, I want to thank the ZU community as a whole, especially the other friends I haven’t already mentioned here - it’s been a great time being part of ZU over the past three years and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next!
That's a very nice shoutout post! I'm really happy to bring this project back and it was great having you as my second guest in this new iteration of Player of the Week! I hope you enjoyed being here and that the questions weren't too whacky! This concludes this interview! Until next week, everyone!
we did it Reddit
Feel free to ask BaitWiz any questions you want! See you all next week!
#1 Quagg - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-quagg.3685214/
#2 Toto - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-temporal-totodile.3685701/
#3 Danny - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-daniysb.3686123/
#4 kay - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-kay.3686429/
#5 Tuthur - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-tuthur.3686746/
#6 czim - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-czim.3687175/
#7 Corthius - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-corthius.3687508/
#8 Apagogie - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-apagogie.3687889/
#9 a fruitshop owner - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-a-fruitshop-owner.3688282/
#10 DnB - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-dnb.3689002/
#11 S1nn0hC0nfirm3d - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-s1nn0hc0nfirm3d.3689319/
#12 5gen - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-5gen.3689990/
#13 Sawkasm - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-shwiftyshiftry.3689609/
#14 5dots - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-5dots.3690391/
#15 Greybaum - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-greybaum.3690756/
#16 btboy - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-thebtboy.3691088/
#17 Drud - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-drud.3691425/
#18 SBPC - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-sbpc.3691765/
#19 Twitt - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-twitt.3688630/
#20 DurzaOffTopic - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-durzaofftopic.3692243/
#2 Toto - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-temporal-totodile.3685701/
#3 Danny - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-daniysb.3686123/
#4 kay - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-kay.3686429/
#5 Tuthur - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-tuthur.3686746/
#6 czim - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-czim.3687175/
#7 Corthius - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-corthius.3687508/
#8 Apagogie - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-apagogie.3687889/
#9 a fruitshop owner - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-a-fruitshop-owner.3688282/
#10 DnB - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-dnb.3689002/
#11 S1nn0hC0nfirm3d - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-s1nn0hc0nfirm3d.3689319/
#12 5gen - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-5gen.3689990/
#13 Sawkasm - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-shwiftyshiftry.3689609/
#14 5dots - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-5dots.3690391/
#15 Greybaum - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-greybaum.3690756/
#16 btboy - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-thebtboy.3691088/
#17 Drud - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-drud.3691425/
#18 SBPC - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-sbpc.3691765/
#19 Twitt - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/zu-player-of-the-week-twitt.3688630/
#20 DurzaOffTopic - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-durzaofftopic.3692243/
#21 Jett - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-jett.3692357/
#22 Yovan33321 - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-yovan33321.3692632/
#23 Procrastinasian - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-procrastinasian.3692943/
#24 Landon - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-landon.3693291/
#25 OranBerryBlissey10 - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-oranberryblissey10.3693644/
#26 TBasedGod - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-tbasedgod.3693859/
#27 TheFranklin - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-thefranklin.3694462/
#28 Hitmonstars - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-hitmonstars.3694739/
#29 Terreitor - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-terreitor.3694926/
#30 Mirbro (Christmas edition) - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-mirbro.3695193/
-----------------------New Season-----------------------------
#31 Havocknight - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-havocknight.3772165/
#22 Yovan33321 - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-yovan33321.3692632/
#23 Procrastinasian - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-procrastinasian.3692943/
#24 Landon - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-landon.3693291/
#25 OranBerryBlissey10 - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-oranberryblissey10.3693644/
#26 TBasedGod - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-tbasedgod.3693859/
#27 TheFranklin - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-thefranklin.3694462/
#28 Hitmonstars - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-hitmonstars.3694739/
#29 Terreitor - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-terreitor.3694926/
#30 Mirbro (Christmas edition) - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-mirbro.3695193/
-----------------------New Season-----------------------------
#31 Havocknight - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/player-of-the-week-havocknight.3772165/
(super) 
are 
are 
(we'll make up for that with a crazy set of playoff appearances soon trust)
), 115 speed tier isn't really something anything in ZU can touch and depending on teambuilding trends it might even be able to get away with no protective pads since coal wouldn't even be in the tier anymore, plus fast encore has to be situationally good as well. Lycanroc would be a great suicide lead and would just be an excellent offensive threat as well, Midnight Lycanroc sees usage as a banded attacker so I don't really see a reason why a version of it with significantly better Speed wouldn't be solid.
