Approved by Nayrz with idea from Arii Stella
Banner by my good friend Six
Welcome to Ubers Player of the Week! I'll be interviewing top Ubers players that have had success and are respected in the community. You will be able to ask questions to the player I interview by commenting on this post. Everyone cannot be interviewed but you can VM me or DM on Discord suggestions, hope you enjoy!
Manaphy 
Favorite Pokemon?
Most known for?
I was a well-known BW Ubers player back in the Pokemon Online days and I moved over to Smogon during the XY Ubers meta. Once ORAS came out I quit mons and I came back for SS (although I came back a few times before for a lil bit, nobody cared lol). I got some attention for doing well in SS tourneys as all as some DPP Farceus tourneys, I also made posts on the forum just posting my general meta thoughts and cool sets which people seemed to like a lot. I also had some of the most famous RMTs of the BW area, you can see them (click me). Besides mons, I’m known for being an ascended weeb as an American who moved to Japan, which makes me one of the most powerful users on Smogon dot com. I am known for talking about Japan, Gaurs, politics, posting dumb memes, whatever interests me really.
How did you get into competitive Pokemon?
I’m 23 and I have been playing probably since I was 9, I used to watch Pokemon on youtube, people like Marriland and Jimmy31428 (only the true boomers know), and from there I moved to smogon. I also had some interest in competitive mons after playing Battle Revolution on the wii. I was playing shoddy battle once I got my own laptop, probably in 2009. I always gravitated to ubers mainly although I did play OU and UU for some time as well. Once BW came out I was playing the Dream World Ubers tier, and I topped the ladder for a solid month or two. These days were like the wild west of Ubers, and there wasn’t many tournaments I was actively participating in, it was all focused on the ladder. I had some good friends during those days like Col. Roy Mustang and Donkey. I even had Borat of GSC fame tutor me a little bit. When BW2 came out I started getting more serious into tournaments and such, and I also started venturing more into Smogon then. Starting in XY, I was fully into smogon as Showdown had been developed by that point, and I was really into tournaments then, the big one I remember being in was SPL. I remember players like Problems and Melee Mewtwo a lot during those days. It was after SPL that I fell out with mons for a long time, it was a stressful time IRL and my SPL team gave me 0 support the whole tournament so I was expected to build a new team every week, which was really nerve-wracking. Keep in mind this is early XY days when Mega Gengar and Xerneas were running things nearly unopposed. I even remember this crazy backlash by many top Ubers players at the time, with many of them saying Xerneas was overrated, and I was the only one to defend it in a Smogcast lmao. Looking back it’s crazy that such a thought even happened. Anyway, ORAS really diminished my interest in the tier because I love weather. I would come back every now and again to post my thoughts but nothing much came out of it. However, the SS meta seemed really fresh which is why I came back.
I think I started liking Manaphy because I used to play Pokemon Battle Revolution a lot, and the hardest boss in the game, Mysterial, had a team with Scarf Kyogre and Calm Mind Manaphy on it. My favorite types are Grass types, but I think I liked how a small cute mon like Manaphy could be a beast in DPP Ubers. I got the name originally from using it on Shoddy Battle; my current name on showdown is Manaphy-- smog. Basically what happened is, while laddering on Pokemon Online back in the day, I would add dashes to my name for ladder alts, which became -Manaphy-- over time. The smog got added once I moved to Showdown because I think at the time dashes didn't count for usernames or something like that. At some point in 2010 I had created an account on Smogon too (great for showing off my boomer power level nowadays), even though I was playing PO at the time. During the XY days as one of the leading Ubers users I had Melee Mewtwo help me get the username Manaphy on the forums, but I just haven't been bothered to ask the Showdown admins yet (I should really get around to that at some point). There is even more confusion because there is a well-known player in other tiers called Ban Manaphy, and I get confused for him all the time. I AM NOT BAN MANAPHY!
Favorite Gen traditionally would have to be Black/White but I am liking SS recently despite all the nonsense. I dislike ORAS cuz thats when I got out of touch with mons and I hate the lack of weather.
You got the chance to play Ubers in SPL, how do you feel about the tier being taken out of officials? Do you think it has potential to be added back in the future?
I wasn’t around when it was taken out but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be in nowadays, as long as dynamax goes. The tier is one of the most played and through it’s history most of the metas have actually been quite good. I heard it was due to players cheating and while that was a real concern in the past I think it’s dumb to punish a whole community because of that. Hopefully if/when dynamax goes we’ll get it back in. I also noticed that there’s little cross between Ubers players and other tiers player now and it wasn’t always like that (well I mean it was but I don’t think it was to this degree). I think there’s also the perception from many that Ubers is always an inherently unbalanced meta because of the nature of us using the strongest mons available, many Pokemon getting 40%+ usage, etc. If anything I don’t think it’s a fair perception to have (save dynamax) because the other metas are always inherently built upon a arbitrary power level, which is why OU bans stuff so often. But anyway, I’d love for it to be back into officials and we’d get more players and respect that way.
The current meta is fun but in a dumb way. I think Dynamax needs to go and I also think that after that Calyrex will probably need to go as well. I don’t see a timeline where Calyrex gets anything but stronger after dynamax hopefully goes away. Since the meta is so volatile atm I can’t really give too much advice, I think Yveltal + Ho-Oh is a really strong core and people have yet to really abuse Trick or Will-o-wisp or Subseed Calyrex yet. I am expecting the meta to shift more to a bulky offense/balanced meta if Dynamax and Calyrex get banned and I think that is for the better, SS in UPL got marred by the over-prevalence of Screens, which, while fun, get really repetitive and dumb to play with/against.
Now that I think about it, I think my most unpopular opinion historically would be my hatred for ditto, it’s just a mon I would never use as it’s entirely dependent on the opponent’s team and is way more useless against balance and stall than offense. Even in an offensive meta like this current one I would always go with a much more consistent scarfer. People also need to realize the power of Wacan Berry Manaphy in Black/White instead of running dumb things like leftovers on it.
Maybe it's because I was like, 12 when I topped the BW Ubers ladder, but I feel like people played a lot more just on instinct back then. Even though I was so young I could recognize how the majority of players were absolute trash and how good players were who actually analyzed the game, like Hack and donkey. I feel like that happens a lot more commonly nowadays even among the newer and younger players. That being said I think it's unfortunate how so few players remain from back then, I think the XY/ORAS split really pushed a lot of people away from Ubers, which is sad because I think SS is a really fresh and exciting meta. Donkey actually VM'd me with some interest in SS at the start of the gen although that went nowhere, and Hack was pretty good at SS pre-home, although he's just now retiring (I just got to know him this past UPL too, rip Jordan Peterson).
Playing for the Dialgas was probably the most I was into mons in a long time, I spend so much time at work making teams and talking to people on discord haha. That being said it was also very stressful, especially at the beginning, because I was paired with legendary players like Mr. 378 (THE IRON MAN OF UBERS), hack, reje, tape, terra the demigod. Lasen was also on the team.... anyway, there was a lot of pressure on me to perform, and I remember the first two-three weeks being very stressful because Hack would absolutely lose his shit anytime I lost. I'm talking messaging me in full caps levels of shit... yeah, I'm into competitive mons but not to that levels of taking it seriously. Hack kinda chilled out after that though and it started to become really fun, 378, tape, and Lasen are total bros to talk to, reje is very intelligent in regards to mons and his general negativity throughout the whole tour was really a fantastic sight to behold. After week 4 I started playing SS and got into the teambuilding for that, which at that time our SS game was lacking a little bit.. and from there I'd like to think we did slightly better in SS lmao. Reje got to the point where he wanted to just run dumb shit like Rillaboom so there was a point I made a rillaboom team at like 3 am on a workday and named the Pokepaste "REJE PLS I HAVE A WIFE AND KIDS I CANT KEEP TEAMBUILDING". Terra is also great to work with, I really think he is a genius at teambuilding when he is not suggesting you use Chandelure lmao. I ended the tour overall with a 5-4 record, which I'm happy about but I know I lost my 2nd game in DPP vs ham and my second game with cro because of luck, but thats mons. By the end of the tour the power of Screens Offensive teams in SS was really starting to show and it was starting to get ridiculous, so I'm glad we're getting a fresh meta now. Also huge shoutouts to GXE for holding down the 2nd SS slot while I was DPPing, Loving for his chinese stall magic, and Heysup for being an absolute chad at ADV. We were known as the "Boomers" team because all of us were like 23 years old or over, which was really great too. We definitely should have won the whole tour overall and that last game with tape was super unfortunate but at the end of the day it's mons and you can't let it affect your life too much. Before UPL I really had a dislike for team tours because of the pressure I remembered having in SPL, but by the end of the this UPL I could learn to appreciate the appeal of team tours when you're on a team with a bunch of great guys. There was a couple of times we had some drunk calls and overall just a lot of memorable moments from me calling hack out for not knowing how to pronounce any pokemon name correctly with his swedish accent (GRUU-don), to reje not knowing what ngl means (ask him). Definitely guys I'll want to work with in the future.
I would say the style I like best is balance, but also I think I'm known for playing every type of style. I really like teambuilding, it's an interest problem to solve and I think balance teams tend to have the most unique answers. HO and Stall teams are still fun to make and I do make/use them all the time, especially when I'm just starting in a tier because HO's goal is typically very simple, to set-up hazards or screens or whatever and then sweep, while stall needs to cover all the threats in the meta. Typically when I play tier I'm not as comfortable in I will run HO because they typically don't require that much metagame knowledge to run, while if I play someone who I don't really have that much information about, I will usually stall because that sort of playstyle tends to catch people off-guard and you can play very reactively which is nice and low-pressure. I will use balance teams in other cases. If anyone's into teambuilding for ubers, just message me and I will try to help you out or give you some teams. You learn a lot about a tier from teambuilding with other people.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oriserver-ubers-66697
I love this replay because it shows so much of the past Ubers so well, and it's also really fun. This is from the first game of SPL Ubers for XY Ubers (right after launch and no ORAS in sight), and you can see how crazily the teams are designed in comparison to any other meta. If you don't know anything about the XY Ubers meta, T-wave Palkia was everywhere and Xerneas could geomancy without Pdon or Necrozma to stop it, let alone other threats like Kyogre and Ho-oh running around. Notably, I'm running Arceus-Rock and Amoonguss! There are so many people watching and most of them lost their shit when I came in on the opponent's Arceus-Electric to hit it with the Toxic from Scarf Dialga lmao. I also got called out for apparently making an offensive GG, which I have never heard of to that point and I have never heard of since then, so I remember being surprised and found the reaction really funny. Some great older players like donkey, CrashinBoomBang, and Melee Mewtwo make cameos in this replay as well. Since it was the first week this was probably one of my better teams I bought for that tournament before I really started getting worn down.
Definitely be around at least a bit on the forums and play some games, but yeah I think the biggest thing is knowing other good players in the community. They will be the people who will notice/know more metagame threats or opportunities than you are going to by yourself. In the first place, it’s immensely useful to have good players to look over your team and say what threats your team loses to, let alone the other things that are more difficult to master such as what value you put in each mon during certain matchups, making choices between small item and moveset changes, etc. I always try to make good posts on the forum to encourage people to come in and try out Ubers, because I do think Ubers can definitely be a little clique-y; as somebody who came back just in the past year I still see players make regular references to events/people in the past that I have no idea about, and people are in general a little reluctant to give away good teams, especially in a new meta. Overall though I think most Ubers players are pretty chill so there’s not much to worry about in that aspect
It shouldn’t have been banned. The way I see it, the two most relevant questions are 1.) If Arceus is broken and 2.) why it was banned in the first place. Clearly it isn’t broken at all in the tier and it was originally only banned due to Shoddy Battle’s shoddy programming. The way the vote went was simply because people enjoyed or were more used to the old no-arc meta, and I just don’t think it’s a good justification to ban a not broken mon. As much I would love to go back to Gen 6 and ban Pdon and Pogre to bring weather back, since I think that meta would be fun, I can’t do it. I think it sets a bad precedent for the future. That being said, I do respect the vote and the wishes of the community overall, although some people do have problems with the way the vote was done in the first place. In my opinion it should be an issue that should be revisited some years down the road considering how the result was decided by barely 1 or 2 votes.
Normally I don’t do anything in particular BUT starting this past UPL I have developed a tradition of taking a shot of nice Japanese whiskey before big games lmao. It just helps take the nerves off which can be huge for keeping your play logical (it also helps you care less if you lose!). I honestly unironically recommend it. Our UPL team basically became the drunk boomers as the tour went on.
Most Wanted was a fun tournament but I wasn’t nearly as into it as I was into UPL, maybe because I had just gotten back into mons and I really didn’t know anyone around. Because of that I didn’t pay much attention to the rules, I just focused on the SS matches I had to play. Skysolo is a total beast though, although I had to deal with a lot of “cmon manaphy use the sirfetch’d/cinderace team” lol.
Maybe this sounds a bit biased but honestly speaking the players I respect the most were players I was on a team with in the past, so tape, Hack, Skysolo, 378, heysup, reje, and terra. Other users I respect quite a bit are kebabe, SiTuM, Aishia, absdaddy before he retired, and the SEXILINE. Cynara, jackie, Minority, Lasen, Lucos, Nora, and benbe (cursed user) are fun to talk to as well. Orch and dream also always make things interesting even if I don't always approve their shenanigans lol. There are some players I don't care for/don't like but eh what you gonna do
My general philosophy is that we should try to minimize luck as much as possible while not interfering with the core game mechanics. Evasion falls into that category, it’s a very easy ban to implement and understand and it doesn’t change any fundamental mechanics of the game (i.e. like banning Scald would). It should and most likely will get banned. I might be a boomer but I definitely do not fall into the old purist mindset, that has went away with Mega Ray and especially now with Farceus gone. Unbanning/banning something because it fits your arbitrary definition of fun is not good policy.
I don't want to give a SS team atm because the tier is so volatile, so I'll give a team that was successful this past UPL in the DPP Farceus Ubers part of the tour. I built this team together with hack, 378, and tape, and it's pretty fun to use. It's built around letting Lum Berry Ekiller have the best chance it can have to sweep, so the rest of the team is focused on weakening it's checks. Ekiller is vulnerable to tspikes, so we designed this Deo-S lead to help anti-lead Tentacruels; Psycho Boost with that amount of investment nets you the KO. This does make this Deo-S set vulnerable to Forry, but nobody was running forry recently for whatever reason. Next, we added Specially Defensive Groudon; our DPP part of our team got a reputation for spamming Ekiller Sun during UPL, but there was a reason for it. As hack pointed out to me, most players play absolutely spaghetti against Specially Defensive Don (which works in No-arc meta too). We gave it Fire Punch and Dragon Claw to help weaken Skarmory and Giratina-O; most players wouldn't expect a defensive Groudon to have both moves handy. Finally, one tech that I made myself specifically for the Farceus meta was Psychic Darkrai; this was because Arceus-Fighting was extremely common to the balance cores in the Farceus meta. Arceus-Fighting provided teams a nice general check to a myriad of threats, importantly to Arceus-Steel, Ekiller, and Darkrai. With Psychic Darkrai, however, Arceus-Fighting gets 2HKOed by Focus Blast if it switches into it, followed by Psychic with Spikes up. It's an idea I got from absdaddy who happened to mention how Psychic coverage could become decent with Arceus-Fighting around. The rest of the team is fairly straightforward, Scarf Dialga providing an extra water resist and a Ekiller check, while Latios is our main Kyogre switch-in and is insanely strong. In my battle with staxi, he lead with Scarf Darkai, so I was unable to get a layer of Spikes up. What followed was careful play by the both of us to see what each others teams are, without any of us making any too major plays. I did manage to get up Rocks, but not Spikes, so when Darkrai came in, it was able to do big damage to Arceus-Fighting with Psychic, but barely not enough to KO it. Still, it did enough damage so that my Ekiller could kill it later in the match. Special Defensive Groudon also did it's job well by weakening Giratina-O. By the end of the match, when I send my Ekiller out, I know that I can kill his whole team even if he happens to have Wil-o-wisp Giratina or Dracos my Giratina for damage. Overall a very fun team to play.
I like kpop but I’m more into Jpop, I hear more of it from anime and from the kids where I work. I am conversational in Japanese but definitely not fully fluent, so it’s better for me to get all the Japanese language practice I can. I am a beast at Japanese karaoke, I sing better in that than I do in English lmao. That being said Kpop girls are top tier for sure
Banner by my good friend Six
Welcome to Ubers Player of the Week! I'll be interviewing top Ubers players that have had success and are respected in the community. You will be able to ask questions to the player I interview by commenting on this post. Everyone cannot be interviewed but you can VM me or DM on Discord suggestions, hope you enjoy!
Manaphy Favorite Pokemon?
Most known for?
I was a well-known BW Ubers player back in the Pokemon Online days and I moved over to Smogon during the XY Ubers meta. Once ORAS came out I quit mons and I came back for SS (although I came back a few times before for a lil bit, nobody cared lol). I got some attention for doing well in SS tourneys as all as some DPP Farceus tourneys, I also made posts on the forum just posting my general meta thoughts and cool sets which people seemed to like a lot. I also had some of the most famous RMTs of the BW area, you can see them (click me). Besides mons, I’m known for being an ascended weeb as an American who moved to Japan, which makes me one of the most powerful users on Smogon dot com. I am known for talking about Japan, Gaurs, politics, posting dumb memes, whatever interests me really.
How did you get into competitive Pokemon?
I’m 23 and I have been playing probably since I was 9, I used to watch Pokemon on youtube, people like Marriland and Jimmy31428 (only the true boomers know), and from there I moved to smogon. I also had some interest in competitive mons after playing Battle Revolution on the wii. I was playing shoddy battle once I got my own laptop, probably in 2009. I always gravitated to ubers mainly although I did play OU and UU for some time as well. Once BW came out I was playing the Dream World Ubers tier, and I topped the ladder for a solid month or two. These days were like the wild west of Ubers, and there wasn’t many tournaments I was actively participating in, it was all focused on the ladder. I had some good friends during those days like Col. Roy Mustang and Donkey. I even had Borat of GSC fame tutor me a little bit. When BW2 came out I started getting more serious into tournaments and such, and I also started venturing more into Smogon then. Starting in XY, I was fully into smogon as Showdown had been developed by that point, and I was really into tournaments then, the big one I remember being in was SPL. I remember players like Problems and Melee Mewtwo a lot during those days. It was after SPL that I fell out with mons for a long time, it was a stressful time IRL and my SPL team gave me 0 support the whole tournament so I was expected to build a new team every week, which was really nerve-wracking. Keep in mind this is early XY days when Mega Gengar and Xerneas were running things nearly unopposed. I even remember this crazy backlash by many top Ubers players at the time, with many of them saying Xerneas was overrated, and I was the only one to defend it in a Smogcast lmao. Looking back it’s crazy that such a thought even happened. Anyway, ORAS really diminished my interest in the tier because I love weather. I would come back every now and again to post my thoughts but nothing much came out of it. However, the SS meta seemed really fresh which is why I came back.
Any backstory on your name?
I think I started liking Manaphy because I used to play Pokemon Battle Revolution a lot, and the hardest boss in the game, Mysterial, had a team with Scarf Kyogre and Calm Mind Manaphy on it. My favorite types are Grass types, but I think I liked how a small cute mon like Manaphy could be a beast in DPP Ubers. I got the name originally from using it on Shoddy Battle; my current name on showdown is Manaphy-- smog. Basically what happened is, while laddering on Pokemon Online back in the day, I would add dashes to my name for ladder alts, which became -Manaphy-- over time. The smog got added once I moved to Showdown because I think at the time dashes didn't count for usernames or something like that. At some point in 2010 I had created an account on Smogon too (great for showing off my boomer power level nowadays), even though I was playing PO at the time. During the XY days as one of the leading Ubers users I had Melee Mewtwo help me get the username Manaphy on the forums, but I just haven't been bothered to ask the Showdown admins yet (I should really get around to that at some point). There is even more confusion because there is a well-known player in other tiers called Ban Manaphy, and I get confused for him all the time. I AM NOT BAN MANAPHY!
How was the change from living in NY to Japan? Did you face any major cultural differences?
I studied abroad in Japan during my first year of college in America (btw, did you know me and orch went to the same college and we never met irl? true fax) and I really fell in love with it, so I pulled a slick move and transferred over to Japanese university. I graduated now and am working in Japan full-time. Even without considering my crippling addiction to asian women, there's a lot to like about Japan compared to America. For one, since the american election is happening rn, everyone is losing their mind in America; nobody here in Japan is into politics nearly as much, and it's really nice and refreshing to be able to talk to people without having politics blow up so many conversations (although Japan does definitely go more conservative which I like). People here are WAY healthier which is really nice as well, you really notice how messed up America is in that way when you come back to visit. People are also way more polite, something you don't see that much in New York lol. Of course I like all the anime/gaming stuff although that is honestly more of a tangential reason than anything. The country is super safe, if you are a single woman walking alone in Tokyo in the middle of the night you have nothing to worry about. Not to mention, the food is amazing, I especially am into wagyu beef and bluefin tuna. I know there are a lot of people on smogon who like japan and have dreams about moving there, so if you do just hit me up and I can give you all the info you need, it doesn't just have to be a dream of yours if you take initiative and make moves. Additionally, there are many people who have mentioned to me that they are interested in coming to visit Japan after the coronavirus stuff ends, and so I am totally open to meeting any smogon users that end up coming out here.
Favorite and Least favorite generation?
Favorite Gen traditionally would have to be Black/White but I am liking SS recently despite all the nonsense. I dislike ORAS cuz thats when I got out of touch with mons and I hate the lack of weather.
Favorite teamstyle to use in BW Ubers? Also why is it your favorite generation to play?
My favorite style in BW is balance/bulky offense, although recently I've been liking more HO teams. But I think it was Melee Mewtwo that put it best awhile back: "The true best style in BW is Spikes". As for why I like Gen 5, it's an old tier that I have the most experience with over the years, and I like how most of my favorite mons, like Kyogre, Dialga, Manaphy, Ferrothorn, Arceus, etc., are viable in it. There are also certain factors that make me like BW; I am a big fan of weather, the Sleep mechanics actually make Darkrai more manageable (you will be clicking Sleep Talk on a turn you wake up a lot less than in Gen 6), and games don't tend to be too stally because of the prevalence of entry hazards. But to be honest with you, if SS stayed the way it was pre-home it could have overtaken BW as my favorite, and I am becoming more of a fan of GSC (BRING IT TO UPL!) over time too.
You got the chance to play Ubers in SPL, how do you feel about the tier being taken out of officials? Do you think it has potential to be added back in the future?
I wasn’t around when it was taken out but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be in nowadays, as long as dynamax goes. The tier is one of the most played and through it’s history most of the metas have actually been quite good. I heard it was due to players cheating and while that was a real concern in the past I think it’s dumb to punish a whole community because of that. Hopefully if/when dynamax goes we’ll get it back in. I also noticed that there’s little cross between Ubers players and other tiers player now and it wasn’t always like that (well I mean it was but I don’t think it was to this degree). I think there’s also the perception from many that Ubers is always an inherently unbalanced meta because of the nature of us using the strongest mons available, many Pokemon getting 40%+ usage, etc. If anything I don’t think it’s a fair perception to have (save dynamax) because the other metas are always inherently built upon a arbitrary power level, which is why OU bans stuff so often. But anyway, I’d love for it to be back into officials and we’d get more players and respect that way.
What are your thoughts on the current SS meta? Do you have any unpopular opinions or tech that you would like to share? Do you think anything is over or underrated?
The current meta is fun but in a dumb way. I think Dynamax needs to go and I also think that after that Calyrex will probably need to go as well. I don’t see a timeline where Calyrex gets anything but stronger after dynamax hopefully goes away. Since the meta is so volatile atm I can’t really give too much advice, I think Yveltal + Ho-Oh is a really strong core and people have yet to really abuse Trick or Will-o-wisp or Subseed Calyrex yet. I am expecting the meta to shift more to a bulky offense/balanced meta if Dynamax and Calyrex get banned and I think that is for the better, SS in UPL got marred by the over-prevalence of Screens, which, while fun, get really repetitive and dumb to play with/against.
Now that I think about it, I think my most unpopular opinion historically would be my hatred for ditto, it’s just a mon I would never use as it’s entirely dependent on the opponent’s team and is way more useless against balance and stall than offense. Even in an offensive meta like this current one I would always go with a much more consistent scarfer. People also need to realize the power of Wacan Berry Manaphy in Black/White instead of running dumb things like leftovers on it.
Do you think the playerbase was more skilled in the past than it is now? What do you think about how the Ubers community has evolved to what it is today?
Maybe it's because I was like, 12 when I topped the BW Ubers ladder, but I feel like people played a lot more just on instinct back then. Even though I was so young I could recognize how the majority of players were absolute trash and how good players were who actually analyzed the game, like Hack and donkey. I feel like that happens a lot more commonly nowadays even among the newer and younger players. That being said I think it's unfortunate how so few players remain from back then, I think the XY/ORAS split really pushed a lot of people away from Ubers, which is sad because I think SS is a really fresh and exciting meta. Donkey actually VM'd me with some interest in SS at the start of the gen although that went nowhere, and Hack was pretty good at SS pre-home, although he's just now retiring (I just got to know him this past UPL too, rip Jordan Peterson).
You played this UPL on the Dialgas, how was the experience like this season?
Playing for the Dialgas was probably the most I was into mons in a long time, I spend so much time at work making teams and talking to people on discord haha. That being said it was also very stressful, especially at the beginning, because I was paired with legendary players like Mr. 378 (THE IRON MAN OF UBERS), hack, reje, tape, terra the demigod. Lasen was also on the team.... anyway, there was a lot of pressure on me to perform, and I remember the first two-three weeks being very stressful because Hack would absolutely lose his shit anytime I lost. I'm talking messaging me in full caps levels of shit... yeah, I'm into competitive mons but not to that levels of taking it seriously. Hack kinda chilled out after that though and it started to become really fun, 378, tape, and Lasen are total bros to talk to, reje is very intelligent in regards to mons and his general negativity throughout the whole tour was really a fantastic sight to behold. After week 4 I started playing SS and got into the teambuilding for that, which at that time our SS game was lacking a little bit.. and from there I'd like to think we did slightly better in SS lmao. Reje got to the point where he wanted to just run dumb shit like Rillaboom so there was a point I made a rillaboom team at like 3 am on a workday and named the Pokepaste "REJE PLS I HAVE A WIFE AND KIDS I CANT KEEP TEAMBUILDING". Terra is also great to work with, I really think he is a genius at teambuilding when he is not suggesting you use Chandelure lmao. I ended the tour overall with a 5-4 record, which I'm happy about but I know I lost my 2nd game in DPP vs ham and my second game with cro because of luck, but thats mons. By the end of the tour the power of Screens Offensive teams in SS was really starting to show and it was starting to get ridiculous, so I'm glad we're getting a fresh meta now. Also huge shoutouts to GXE for holding down the 2nd SS slot while I was DPPing, Loving for his chinese stall magic, and Heysup for being an absolute chad at ADV. We were known as the "Boomers" team because all of us were like 23 years old or over, which was really great too. We definitely should have won the whole tour overall and that last game with tape was super unfortunate but at the end of the day it's mons and you can't let it affect your life too much. Before UPL I really had a dislike for team tours because of the pressure I remembered having in SPL, but by the end of the this UPL I could learn to appreciate the appeal of team tours when you're on a team with a bunch of great guys. There was a couple of times we had some drunk calls and overall just a lot of memorable moments from me calling hack out for not knowing how to pronounce any pokemon name correctly with his swedish accent (GRUU-don), to reje not knowing what ngl means (ask him). Definitely guys I'll want to work with in the future.
What is your favorite playstyle to use among the generations?
I would say the style I like best is balance, but also I think I'm known for playing every type of style. I really like teambuilding, it's an interest problem to solve and I think balance teams tend to have the most unique answers. HO and Stall teams are still fun to make and I do make/use them all the time, especially when I'm just starting in a tier because HO's goal is typically very simple, to set-up hazards or screens or whatever and then sweep, while stall needs to cover all the threats in the meta. Typically when I play tier I'm not as comfortable in I will run HO because they typically don't require that much metagame knowledge to run, while if I play someone who I don't really have that much information about, I will usually stall because that sort of playstyle tends to catch people off-guard and you can play very reactively which is nice and low-pressure. I will use balance teams in other cases. If anyone's into teambuilding for ubers, just message me and I will try to help you out or give you some teams. You learn a lot about a tier from teambuilding with other people.
Favorite game you've witnessed?
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/oriserver-ubers-66697
I love this replay because it shows so much of the past Ubers so well, and it's also really fun. This is from the first game of SPL Ubers for XY Ubers (right after launch and no ORAS in sight), and you can see how crazily the teams are designed in comparison to any other meta. If you don't know anything about the XY Ubers meta, T-wave Palkia was everywhere and Xerneas could geomancy without Pdon or Necrozma to stop it, let alone other threats like Kyogre and Ho-oh running around. Notably, I'm running Arceus-Rock and Amoonguss! There are so many people watching and most of them lost their shit when I came in on the opponent's Arceus-Electric to hit it with the Toxic from Scarf Dialga lmao. I also got called out for apparently making an offensive GG, which I have never heard of to that point and I have never heard of since then, so I remember being surprised and found the reaction really funny. Some great older players like donkey, CrashinBoomBang, and Melee Mewtwo make cameos in this replay as well. Since it was the first week this was probably one of my better teams I bought for that tournament before I really started getting worn down.
Any advice to new players looking to break into Ubers?
Definitely be around at least a bit on the forums and play some games, but yeah I think the biggest thing is knowing other good players in the community. They will be the people who will notice/know more metagame threats or opportunities than you are going to by yourself. In the first place, it’s immensely useful to have good players to look over your team and say what threats your team loses to, let alone the other things that are more difficult to master such as what value you put in each mon during certain matchups, making choices between small item and moveset changes, etc. I always try to make good posts on the forum to encourage people to come in and try out Ubers, because I do think Ubers can definitely be a little clique-y; as somebody who came back just in the past year I still see players make regular references to events/people in the past that I have no idea about, and people are in general a little reluctant to give away good teams, especially in a new meta. Overall though I think most Ubers players are pretty chill so there’s not much to worry about in that aspect
How did you feel about the Farceus getting banned and the suspect as a whole? Do you think the meta is better with or without?
It shouldn’t have been banned. The way I see it, the two most relevant questions are 1.) If Arceus is broken and 2.) why it was banned in the first place. Clearly it isn’t broken at all in the tier and it was originally only banned due to Shoddy Battle’s shoddy programming. The way the vote went was simply because people enjoyed or were more used to the old no-arc meta, and I just don’t think it’s a good justification to ban a not broken mon. As much I would love to go back to Gen 6 and ban Pdon and Pogre to bring weather back, since I think that meta would be fun, I can’t do it. I think it sets a bad precedent for the future. That being said, I do respect the vote and the wishes of the community overall, although some people do have problems with the way the vote was done in the first place. In my opinion it should be an issue that should be revisited some years down the road considering how the result was decided by barely 1 or 2 votes.
You have a lot of tournament experience ranging from SPL to circuit tours, do you have any pregame rituals you go through?
Normally I don’t do anything in particular BUT starting this past UPL I have developed a tradition of taking a shot of nice Japanese whiskey before big games lmao. It just helps take the nerves off which can be huge for keeping your play logical (it also helps you care less if you lose!). I honestly unironically recommend it. Our UPL team basically became the drunk boomers as the tour went on.
You participated in Ubers Most Wanted with the Slaying Sirfetch'ds, how was the new styled tournament? Any critique on the format you want to give and overall thoughts on the season?
Most Wanted was a fun tournament but I wasn’t nearly as into it as I was into UPL, maybe because I had just gotten back into mons and I really didn’t know anyone around. Because of that I didn’t pay much attention to the rules, I just focused on the SS matches I had to play. Skysolo is a total beast though, although I had to deal with a lot of “cmon manaphy use the sirfetch’d/cinderace team” lol.
Since you're more of an OG in Ubers, instead of players you looked up to are there any players that came after you who you respect?
Maybe this sounds a bit biased but honestly speaking the players I respect the most were players I was on a team with in the past, so tape, Hack, Skysolo, 378, heysup, reje, and terra. Other users I respect quite a bit are kebabe, SiTuM, Aishia, absdaddy before he retired, and the SEXILINE. Cynara, jackie, Minority, Lasen, Lucos, Nora, and benbe (cursed user) are fun to talk to as well. Orch and dream also always make things interesting even if I don't always approve their shenanigans lol. There are some players I don't care for/don't like but eh what you gonna do
How do you feel about the BW evasionpass discussion?
My general philosophy is that we should try to minimize luck as much as possible while not interfering with the core game mechanics. Evasion falls into that category, it’s a very easy ban to implement and understand and it doesn’t change any fundamental mechanics of the game (i.e. like banning Scald would). It should and most likely will get banned. I might be a boomer but I definitely do not fall into the old purist mindset, that has went away with Mega Ray and especially now with Farceus gone. Unbanning/banning something because it fits your arbitrary definition of fun is not good policy.
Can you provide us with a team and explanation?
(click for import)
replay of me using it in UPL vs. staxi: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ubers-1148955012-dwxtbm1hrl4dolvoqt3bivoknt48x3opw (click for import)I don't want to give a SS team atm because the tier is so volatile, so I'll give a team that was successful this past UPL in the DPP Farceus Ubers part of the tour. I built this team together with hack, 378, and tape, and it's pretty fun to use. It's built around letting Lum Berry Ekiller have the best chance it can have to sweep, so the rest of the team is focused on weakening it's checks. Ekiller is vulnerable to tspikes, so we designed this Deo-S lead to help anti-lead Tentacruels; Psycho Boost with that amount of investment nets you the KO. This does make this Deo-S set vulnerable to Forry, but nobody was running forry recently for whatever reason. Next, we added Specially Defensive Groudon; our DPP part of our team got a reputation for spamming Ekiller Sun during UPL, but there was a reason for it. As hack pointed out to me, most players play absolutely spaghetti against Specially Defensive Don (which works in No-arc meta too). We gave it Fire Punch and Dragon Claw to help weaken Skarmory and Giratina-O; most players wouldn't expect a defensive Groudon to have both moves handy. Finally, one tech that I made myself specifically for the Farceus meta was Psychic Darkrai; this was because Arceus-Fighting was extremely common to the balance cores in the Farceus meta. Arceus-Fighting provided teams a nice general check to a myriad of threats, importantly to Arceus-Steel, Ekiller, and Darkrai. With Psychic Darkrai, however, Arceus-Fighting gets 2HKOed by Focus Blast if it switches into it, followed by Psychic with Spikes up. It's an idea I got from absdaddy who happened to mention how Psychic coverage could become decent with Arceus-Fighting around. The rest of the team is fairly straightforward, Scarf Dialga providing an extra water resist and a Ekiller check, while Latios is our main Kyogre switch-in and is insanely strong. In my battle with staxi, he lead with Scarf Darkai, so I was unable to get a layer of Spikes up. What followed was careful play by the both of us to see what each others teams are, without any of us making any too major plays. I did manage to get up Rocks, but not Spikes, so when Darkrai came in, it was able to do big damage to Arceus-Fighting with Psychic, but barely not enough to KO it. Still, it did enough damage so that my Ekiller could kill it later in the match. Special Defensive Groudon also did it's job well by weakening Giratina-O. By the end of the match, when I send my Ekiller out, I know that I can kill his whole team even if he happens to have Wil-o-wisp Giratina or Dracos my Giratina for damage. Overall a very fun team to play.
Personal Question: Since you like Korean girls so much, what do you think about Kpop?
I like kpop but I’m more into Jpop, I hear more of it from anime and from the kids where I work. I am conversational in Japanese but definitely not fully fluent, so it’s better for me to get all the Japanese language practice I can. I am a beast at Japanese karaoke, I sing better in that than I do in English lmao. That being said Kpop girls are top tier for sure
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Thanks Manaphy for answering these questions! Feel free to ask more in the thread below!
Thanks Manaphy for answering these questions! Feel free to ask more in the thread below!
reje comes in close second for it's constant emotional support