Project Ubers Player of the Week #9: Orch

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byulharang

formerly Holy Ghost
is a Tiering Contributor
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!

:calyrex-shadow: orch :zacian-crowned:

Favorite Pokemon?

:Bronzong:
I liked how it looks when I played Diamond. I was also impressed by how it was able to wall stuff and put stuff to sleep with Hypnosis. It was the gateway pokemon to competitive pokemon for me.

Most known for?
I'm mostly known in the community for being Gothitelle user and kinda an Ubers meme user, and to be clear I don't see myself that way lol. I started playing competitive pokemon in DPP on Shoddy. I didn't play much back then. At ending of BW2, I decided to play competitive pokemon much more and I started to really analyze the game. I was able to apply my analysis for XY and that's when I became more widely known in the community. I won an UPL game in three turns, and that gave me some notoriety.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-10405
I kept up my competitive drive throughout XY and I became friendly with many people in the community. Looking back, XY was a great time and I had a lot of fun with my circle of people playing eachothers. Genesects was a blast. I was also very active through ORAS. I spammed Hypnosis Gengar a lot towards the ending of ORAS. I'm pretty sure that I was responsible for the sleep clause change. I'm most known for my ORAS abilities and that's the primary metagame that I play for team tournaments.
I also was pretty competent in SM. I was able to make to top 16 in seasonals when STAG clan was in the full force with their conspiracy to rig tournaments. I managed to beat 3 STAG members in row before losing to Thimo and Leru. I think that my SM is really good, but it's a shame that mid-gens are dead metas.

Any backstory on your name?

I like orchids.

What are your thoughts on the SS current meta? Do you have a stance on the current suspect test for Dynamax and do you think anything else such as
calyrex-s is deserving of a ban/test?

My thought is that SS current meta has a lot of potential. I think that a lot of people are not valuing the role of protect in this metagame properly. It gives you ability to massively weaken Dynamax at cost of one slot along with other general utility. However, protect techs don't address the behemoth in the room: Zygarde. Right now, I think that it's worth to get rid of dynamax just to nerf Zygarde because my god, that thing is truly uncompetitive. There is basically only two pokemon that has any chance of beating Zygarde: Whimiscott and Tapu Bulu. Even these pokemon can be cheesed by glare parahax or pp stalled by Eternatus teammate. I don't think that Calyrex-S is deserving of a ban, but I think that it should be given a test. The community has strong feelings about Calyrex-S, and I think that it's a good idea to give community an outlet to express their feelings. Calyrex-S has a bunch of viable switch ins and it is limited to offensive techs with limited utility as cleric. Some people compare Calyrex-S to Mega Rayquaza, and I think that Mega Rayquaza ban was a mistake. I would like to see more inclusivity in the future direction of tiering rather than excluding mechanics/pokemons. I think that inclusivity is the spirit of Ubers while making sure that the meta is the titans of pokemons. So, I would love to see a suspect test for species clause. Removing species clause would fix a lot of issues with MU in SS imo.

Favorite and Least favorite gen?

My favorite gen is 6th. I really liked XY and ORAS. I liked weak mega mechanics and I enjoyed the wide range of choices. Defog buff absolutely changed the game of pokemon, and I love the change. XY metagame was a slow burn metagame and I enjoy playing the long game. Although in hindsight, XY was an immature metagame. ORAS is quicker paced. I really like how bulky offense is the peak archetype in ORAS which is one of the most fun playstyle to play. I also find the back and forth changes in momentum in ORAS to be exciting and I enjoy spectating ORAS games.

My least favorite gen is 5th. I don't like how strong spikes is in BW. If you click spikes in BW in early game, then you will be in the top 1 percentile of the game lol. I dislike how BW games are largely decided in first 5 turns due to the spikes metagaming. Rest of game is mostly hoping for chokes/haxes/lucky doubles. I gotta give props to BW for the sleep mechanics. BW definitely has the best sleep mechanics out of all gens. I like how you can reliably keep your pokemon asleep and spamming sleep talk.

What is your favorite type of team to use in oras and why is it your favorite generation?

:arceus-ground: :ferrothorn: :xerneas: :ditto: :gothitelle: :salamence-mega: (click for import)
This is my favorite team to use in ORAS because it wins. Classic Dittelle is a powerful team that revolves around supporting a Groundceus to sweep. Groundceus is criminally underrated in ORAS and it is definitely one of top three pokemon in metagame. This team is so good that people are forced to theorize incredibly fringe sets such as Calm mind Ghostceus with Fire blast to beat this team. Even then, these theories still have ~30-40% chance of losing to this team. Gen 6 is my favorite generation because I find metagame to be endlessly rewarding for innovators. People who choose to believe in the memes of standard offenses being the best team will quickly find themselves losing to simple anti-meta teams. Gen 6 is a generation where if you put in effort of creating new teams, you will be quickly rewarded for doing so. I like that.

Do you agree with the Mega Rayquaza ban in Oras? Do you think anything deserves a ban or is the meta as fine at it'll get?

I don't agree with Mega Rayquaza ban. There are excellent and highly viable checks and counters for Mega Rayquaza. I think that it should have had a chance to be tested by Ubers community. I would have voted Don't Ban personally. I think that ORAS Ubers is fine as it is now, but it would be interesting to see inclusive suspects such as a Species clause suspect, Mega Rayquaza suspect, and so on.

What are the most overrated and underrated Pokemon in Oras in your opinion?

Oh geez, that's hard. There's a lot of overrated pokemon in ORAS imo. I think that all but one in A+ ranks in the final ORAS ubers viability thread are highly overrated: Ho-Oh, Deoxys-Attack, and Arceus-Water. They're all B+ at maximum in my personal opinion. I think that Ditto is the most underrated pokemon. It's currently ranked at C+ but it should be at least A+.

Do you think ORAS is unfairly hated?

No. I just think that it isn't the cup of tea for everyone. My intuition is telling me that ORAS ubers has some of the most watched and commented on ubers games. I'm not worried about haters.

How do you think Oras's skill cap fares to other Uber generations? Do you consider it a harder generation to be good and consistent in or not? Would you say it is a solved meta?

I don't think that ORAS is any harder than any other Ubers generation other than current generation Ubers. It's usually just a matter of effort, time, and networking for people to learn new Ubers generation. I think that the current generation Ubers will always be the easiest generation to break in because of massive networking happening in real time. I don't think that ORAS is any harder than any other generation to be good and consistent in. ORAS is far from being solved, and I'm confident that it will never be solved. All teams have their own weaknesses that can be exploited ad infinitum which leads to constantly changing trends. I believe that 2020 ORAS in UPL shows clearly that ORAS Ubers is a constantly evolving metagame.

Congratulations on winning UPL with the Dapper Dracovishes! How was your experience throughout the tour and what was your prep like?

Thank you! I really enjoyed my time on Dapper Dracovishes. I had a lot of fun with playing with my teammates. Shout outs to Dave for drafting the winning team! I prepped a lot for my games and my teammates' games. I gathered my opponents' usage data and replays from previous PL's. I would watch their games and try to observe their patterns. Then, I built teams from scratch and playtested with Abs, Carl, and PG and apply their feedback to improve my teams. I also built most of PG's ORAS teams for his BO3's.

You played in Most Wanted with the Cutthroat Corviknights, how did you feel about the new tournament format? Did you have a fun season?

I did have fun. I know that my record in the first installment of MW is garbage. I intend to improve my record. I played and theorymonned a lot with terracotta and absdaddy to push the boundaries of Pre-DLC meta. I think that Mr. 378 drafted a great team and I had tons of fun. I would like to play again. The format has potential to be an interesting format. The format just needs some refining for the rough edges. Minority has proposed fixes which I think are great and will improve the format for the next installment.

How do you feel about Ubers tiering decisions as a whole across the generations? Do you think any stick out in a negative way?

Generally, I think that Ubers tiering direction has been too exclusionary since BW tiering. I would like to see a balance between exclusionary and inclusive tests rather than extremes of either side. I think that ORAS Mega Rayquaza sticks out for me because it was not decided by community and it was incredibly dramatic. It was triggered by a salty BW player posting in secret badged only forum and escalated out of the control right after Ubers leadership rigged STAG suspect to ban STAG. I'm really happy with how Ubers tiering has been since ORAS. The votes have been handled well and I feel like decisions that have been made are well justified.

Favorite game you've witnessed?

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ubers-733139613
It was a really thrilling experience to watch my UPL teammate terracotta sweep 6 pokemon with 1 HP left in real time!

What do you love and hate the most about ubers?
I love building Ubers teams the most. I like to think about what can win and seeing it actually winning the games. I don't really hate anything about Ubers lol. If I hated something about Ubers, I wouldn't be here.

Any advice to new players looking to break into Ubers?

If you're totally new: my advice is to grab a sample and ladder until you hit ~1500's. 1500's is when people on ladder generally start to play the game. Befriend with other people with 1500+ rating. Try to figure out why you've lost game and ask yourself if you could've done anything to change the outcome. Ask questions in Ubers room on PS. Don't shy from the discussions and don't be worried about being wrong. If you know how to play competitive pokemon in general, then you should join Ubers discord and just join the conversation. Watch and talk about the tournament games. Become friends with people who plays Ubers a lot. They'll tell you the right ideas to shortcut a lot of trial and error.

Could you provide us with a team and explanation behind it?

:arceus-ground: :ferrothorn: :xerneas: :Ditto: :gothitelle: :salamence-mega: (click for import v2)
This is my favorite team to use in ORAS because it wins. Classic Dittelle is a powerful team that revolves around supporting a Groundceus to sweep. Groundceus is criminally underrated in ORAS and it is definitely one of top three pokemon in metagame. This team is so good that people are forced to theorize incredibly fringe sets such as Calm mind Ghostceus with Fire blast to beat this team. Even then, these theories still have ~30-40% chance of losing to this team.

Personal Question: Most unpopular opinion?

I don't like eating Tuna.


=


Thank you Orch for answering these questions! Feel free to ask more questions in the thread below! This is the final interview I will be uploading, maybe more in the future. Thanks everyone for participating in both answering questions and asking. Unfortunately I cannot interview everyone as it would be pretty impossible, many people deserve one. More down the road? :)
 
why do you disagree with the mega rayquaza ban? how would it be checked?

why do you rate ditto as highly as A+ in oras?

why are you anti-dynamax ban? edit: this was based off the post you made in the suspect thread, but now I see you voted ban. can you explain your thought process?

top 3 of your own tournament games you're most proud of?

top 3 teams your teammates used you're most proud of?
 
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shadowpea

everyone is lonely sometimes
is a Tiering Contributor
What was XY Ubers like? (like the time without Pdon's oppresive reign but with megas and Xerneas and whatnot)

Most viable non-Uber in Ubers?

Thoughts on Mega Blaziken and Mega Kangaskhan?

Also should Kirby be a Pokemon? :D
 
What was XY Ubers like? (like the time without Pdon's oppresive reign but with megas and Xerneas and whatnot)
XY Ubers had a lot of new mechanics such as fairy typing, defog, new pokemons, etc, so it was a lot of exploration for everyone. I think that it was mainly a time of just trying all different sort of things to see what works. I think that it was a lot of fun back then cuz nobody really had any idea nor any solid theory as to what to do. I think that Xerneas was really overrated in XY looking back. Gengar Mega was very highly rated, but it's definitely still underrated looking back lol.
Most viable non-Uber in Ubers?
Ditto
Thoughts on Mega Blaziken and Mega Kangaskhan?
Mega Blaziken is okay but it relies on very specific balances that can give you free turns to excel. Other archetypes deal with Blaziken much better cuz they either just kill it before it does too much damage or it just doesn't do enough damage. It's kinda too one dimensional and predictable for me.

Mega Kangaskhan is a pretty cool pokemon that is very strong against offenses with its fake out. It also excels versus other teams with various move picks. I think that it's a great mega, but that's the problem. It is an opportunity cost for not using Mega Gengar or whatever. I like how it has many viable sets and can still serve its purpose even if your opponent anticipates its set.

Also should Kirby be a Pokemon? :D
Idk

hi
a lot of people say the classic deo-s/darkrai/salamence/ekiller/xerneas/pdon team is "the only viable" one in oras
do you agree? why/why not?
I don't agree because it's not that great of a team lol. Any ORAS team with any sort of anti-offense tech will have at least 70-80% MU. Even if you have zero anti-offense tech, you still have 20-30% chance of winning due to that team relying on tons of inaccurate moves. I think that most people who think that standard HO is the most viable team are sticking their head in the sand for some reason and I hope that they keep bringing this team against me.
why do you disagree with the mega rayquaza ban? how would it be checked?
Because it's broken but not uncompetitive. It's pretty clear that better player do win significantly more than worse players with Mega Rayquaza enabled. Klefki, Xerneas, Lugia, Arceus-Dragon, Yveltal, Rockceus, and a plethora of revenge killers are able to check it.
why do you rate ditto as highly as A+ in oras?
Empirical reason: Ditto had the best statistic in the recent UPL out of all pokemon (#8 used with 70% winrate).
Theoretical reason: Ditto is just really good. It will always have offensive and defensive uses versus any match ups. It's extremely versatile pokemon that can fit in any archetype. It also gives you access to scouting your opponent's movesets which is a really unusual mechanic that no other pokemon can do. Improofed teams have opportunity costs and it's easily traded with your other 5 pokemon. Ditto is basically an ultimate insurance that buffs your other 5 pokemon for any match up.

why are you anti-dynamax ban? edit: this was based off the post you made in the suspect thread, but now I see you voted ban. can you explain your thought process?
Firstly, I want to explain that my view of the game is that the game begins in teambuilder and ends in win/loss in any given game. Initially, I was enjoying the dynamax enabled metagame. Whenever I lost, I thought that it was justified cuz of my misplays and mistakes in teambuilder. Eventually, I realized that Dynamax Zygarde especially with Eternatus literally beats everything from preview lol. So yeah, this was the first pokemon that I thought actually went over the line between broken and uncompetitive. I would prefer if Dynamax Zygarde was banned under Dynamax clause, but the Ubers leadership has made it clear that it was not an option. So yeah, I voted for ban.

top 3 of your own tournament games you're most proud of?
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6ubers-745782068
UPL ORAS vs gastrik

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ubers-324569
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ubers-324570
SM seasonal vs FLCL

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-456358216
some subforum ORAS tour vs lacus clyne
 

Sijih

game show genius
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributor
[with reference to megaray] it's broken but not uncompetitive.
This is a cool take.

As a whole, what's your opinion on metagames that force you to use a specific pokemon/gameplan in order to win consistently? Is this a good, bad, or irrelevant thing? I'm not referencing any metagame in particular here.

Also, based off of the OP, it seems that you would agree that a metagame which is not solved, and a metagame which continues to evolve, is a generally more desirable metagame.

Do you think that Megaray could make the ORAS metagame more solved/stale? If you would agree, then do you think that having a highly competitive metagame outweighs the problems caused by staleness/?


Now for a less serious question:
Any underrated Arceus formes you've enjoyed on the ladder?
 

AM

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
LCPL Champion
I know you made mention of it a bit regarding the ubers room and asking around but what resources do you believe are good to learn Gen 6 in depth a bit more? I played some games with a pal with some of the sample teams I just c/pd into builder to find most of them are the typical offenses and a bit outdated perhaps as some of them looked like builds from the start of gen 6 and werent too great in practice. Do you believe analyzing current replays would help here?

For as long as I can remember you’ve always advocated Goth and Ditto so at least you’re consistent lol, but to build on the previous question do you think there are other underrated mons, cores, concepts that can or should be explored in Gen 6 Ubers?
 
This is a cool take.

As a whole, what's your opinion on metagames that force you to use a specific pokemon/gameplan in order to win consistently? Is this a good, bad, or irrelevant thing? I'm not referencing any metagame in particular here.
I think that this is true for all metagames by default, so I think that it's an irrelevant question. I believe that tiers where you don't feel like you need specific pokemon/gameplan to win are highly unoptimized metagames and that people are looking the metagame through cloudy lens.

Also, based off of the OP, it seems that you would agree that a metagame which is not solved, and a metagame which continues to evolve, is a generally more desirable metagame.
That's correct. Metagame can't be solved, it only can approach to more reliable techs with wider reach.

Do you think that Megaray could make the ORAS metagame more solved/stale? If you would agree, then do you think that having a highly competitive metagame outweighs the problems caused by staleness?
I don't agree with the idea of MRay making ORAS more stale. I think MRay would encourage more reliable anti-meta trends because of its blatant brokeness and centralization which will lead to further evolution of metagame. From what I've seen from ORAS AG, it's not stale at all.

Now for a less serious question:
Any underrated Arceus formes you've enjoyed on the ladder?
ORAS: Psyceus - rocks pokemon that checks deoxys and mewtwo with neutrality vs xern
USUM: Bugceus - rocks pokemon that beats zygarde and can't get trapped by gothitelle
 
I know you made mention of it a bit regarding the ubers room and asking around but what resources do you believe are good to learn Gen 6 in depth a bit more? I played some games with a pal with some of the sample teams I just c/pd into builder to find most of them are the typical offenses and a bit outdated perhaps as some of them looked like builds from the start of gen 6 and werent too great in practice. Do you believe analyzing current replays would help here?

For as long as I can remember you’ve always advocated Goth and Ditto so at least you’re consistent lol, but to build on the previous question do you think there are other underrated mons, cores, concepts that can or should be explored in Gen 6 Ubers?
Yeah I think that replays is the way to go. Lasen maintained an excellent replay thread for UPL 8. 2020 ORAS Ubers was a big improvement and a lot of creative teams won while standard offenses lost.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ubers-premier-league-viii-replays.3667093/

Underrated ideas:

Multiple defogs on a team to support Ho-Oh.
Pursuit + SR to shut down Giratina/Lati@s defog
Psych up + TWave to check CM Arceus + GeoXern. i.e. Klefki + Psych up Mewtwo
Ditto + Gengar - The idea is that Gengar is great at systematically eliminating threats from balance while Ditto is super strong vs stall and offense.
Mega Slowbro walls virtually all of the physical threats in the tier
 

Cynara

Banned deucer.
What a truly outstanding interview !

Why do you dislike Tuna? Regardless, there is plenty of fish in the sea.

What are your favourite plants to grow at home? personally I tend to things such as chives, basil, thyme etc for cooking, occasionally Lavendar, but the smell of lavendar gives me a headache for some reason.

What are your thoughts on roko's basilisk? Do you find these kind of thought experiments interesting?

How did you get into investing? especially cryptocurrencies. how do you project the future of cryptocurrencies? Do you have worries about the risks of trading cryptocurrency such as potential financial loss.

Do you listen to any kinds of music?
 
What a truly outstanding interview !
Thank you!
Why do you dislike Tuna? Regardless, there is plenty of fish in the sea.
I don't like how fishy Tuna tastes.
What are your favourite plants to grow at home? personally I tend to things such as chives, basil, thyme etc for cooking, occasionally Lavendar, but the smell of lavendar gives me a headache for some reason.
I grow orchids, carnivorous plants, african violets, assorted houseplants, and basil. My favorite plant to grow is carnivorous plants cuz it's fun to feed them and see what bugs they randomly catch.
What are your thoughts on roko's basilisk? Do you find these kind of thought experiments interesting?
I think that these thought experiments are kinda pointless cuz if any of these lines of thoughts come true, then it was just confirmation bias of a small set of predictions being luckily prescient. It's a nice way to engage some ideas but I try to keep a clear distance while focusing on stuff that are more rooted in current reality. I don't have opinions about roko's basilisk.
How did you get into investing? especially cryptocurrencies. how do you project the future of cryptocurrencies? Do you have worries about the risks of trading cryptocurrency such as potential financial loss.
I got a job a while back and I realized that it was much smarter to invest the money to work for me than literally throwing hours of my work into useless crap.

This is not an investment advice. I think that cryptocurrencies will have a bright future with many states creating their own digital currencies which may increase the amount of money flowing in and out of cryptocurrencies. This is not a guarantee.
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Article...s-of-change-the-case-for-new-digital-currency
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2020/html/ecb.pr201002~f90bfc94a8.en.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54261382

Yes of course, I don't want to lose the money that I put in my investments. Only risk with what you can afford to lose. Remember that the downside is limited to what you put in and the upside is who knows.
Do you listen to any kinds of music?
I don't.
 

Fusion Flare

i have hired this cat to stare at you
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
What’s your favorite mega evolution non-competitive wise? Personally I think mega ampharos is really cool even if all they did was give it some hair and a dragon typing

Favorite starter? I personally love Emboar cuz it’s the first mon I got to lvl 100

Which of the two do you think is more broken in the SWSH meta? Caly-S or Zacian-C? Personally I’m split on the subject, but have you been trying some techs in order to handle them for any other particular threats in the meta, like Xern, Kyogre, NDM, or Zyg-C?
 
What’s your favorite mega evolution non-competitive wise? Personally I think mega ampharos is really cool even if all they did was give it some hair and a dragon typing
I don't have a favorite mega.
Favorite starter? I personally love Emboar cuz it’s the first mon I got to lvl 100
Sceptile.
Which of the two do you think is more broken in the SWSH meta? Caly-S or Zacian-C? Personally I’m split on the subject, but have you been trying some techs in order to handle them for any other particular threats in the meta, like Xern, Kyogre, NDM, or Zyg-C?
I think Zacian-C is more broken. Caly-S is easier to check but it's way more dramatic of a win if Caly-S gets its sweep going.
 
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