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Doubles OU Player of the Week #41 - Stax
- Thread starter ryo yamada2001
- Start date
it was probably originally an azumarill that was on a tailwind team. so you would tailwind and then the azumarill would outspeed base 110's. you can add 8 speed evs :>
The new Doubles Player of the Week: SpaceBass
1. Hi, congratulations on getting Mods! Now lets start off, who are you and where do you come from?
A: Thanks, I'm SpaceBass and I'm from London, England.
2. When did you first join competitive Pokémon, and why did you?
A: I've been playing Pokemon in various different forms since its release in 1999, but I didn't find competitive mons until I saw VGC 12 videos on youtube. I'd always wanted to battle competitively but the cart games / wi-fi battles never interested me. Mainly because I believe that using a simulator, everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to event mons and EV training etc. (I know event mons are banned in VGC lol).
3. After all those years of battling, you surely have a favourite Pokémon. Which one is that and why? And what is your favourite competitive Pokémon?
A: My favourite pokemon has always been Dragonite, it was the original dragon and I love the way it looks. Unfortunately, Dragonite is garbage in Doubles OU so I never get to use it. my favourite pokemon to use is Mega Abomasnow, aesthetically it looks amazing and is quite effective.
4. Is there anything you think should be suspected, or retested?
A: I don't agree with the thing about not changing game mechanics personally. I definitely want Rock Slide nerfed to 10% flinch chance as I feel its too much to be able to spam a less than optimal move choice if the battle isn't going your way. On the more jokey side that I know will never happen, a good majority of my favourite Pokemon are weak to Flying so
Please promptly ban Gale Wings
Also Swagger
5. Who do you think is going to win Seasonals, and why? Who do you think improved the most?
A: I'm going to make a bold prediction and guess Deoxys Speed is going to win this one. He's an incredibly underrated player and still in winners bracket so he has the numbers going for him in terms of only having to win 1 set if he makes it to the finals. Improvement wise is hard to say as I've only been following the games of the players I know, but Electrolyte has been playing well recently and has built some very solid teams.
imo this is not a bold prediction ^
6. What would you change about the Doubles tier, if anything?
A: Honestly the only thing I'd like to change about the tier is the popularity. I'd love for the tier to get larger and to attract a larger playerbase but its a very difficult thing to achieve. I'd also like to see a small room tournament circuit take place, with there being monthly room tour champions who could be mentioned in the room intro. It hasn't been a very popular idea amongst the doubles community a far as I've seen but I'm sure something can be worked out in the future. The reason I want to do this is because with the doubles ladder in the state it currently is, I feel newer players won't be retained due to things like being 'scared' away from the tier by the amount of gimmicks there are on the ladder. And at the other end, seasonals is stacked with the best players in the tier, making it hard for newer players to progress far. I feel a room tour circuit gives newer players a chance to regularly battle with the room regulars and this constant ability to face good players will train new players alot better than grinding on the ladder vs Disquake and Spindanine.
A point system for room tours would also allow new players to have a visual aid to their progress and in my opinion would increase room traffic due to people wanting to stay for the tournaments, similar to what they do in the tour room. I feel its a good middle ground between the ladder and seasonal tournament play
7. Is there anything you are going to/are willing to change now you've become moderator in the PS Room?
A: I'll be starting alot of room tournaments now I have the ability to. Also bad user™: Widdly Skuds ( Dubtrips actually tag him lel ) will be getting banned for using shit like Skill Swapped Prankster / Bright Powder / Sub Amoongus. Overall I'm just pleased to be able to contribute to the room and keep the chat moving.
8. You mentioned user Widdly Skuds, and you know in real life, do you have any idea whether he is ever going to return to Pokémon Showdown? Other than that, where do you know him from?
A: I met him through another friend about 8 years ago. I'm sure he will be back, I'm trying to get him to come back for the next seasonal but he's very frustrated by the luck aspect of the game and feels the luck outweighs the skill on too much of a lean. Also he is Stratos' fave user and I'm sure he would never abandon his friend.
9. What is your favourite tier outside of Doubles, and why?
A: I actually play doubles exclusively and don't plan to play any other tiers in the near future. From a watching standpoint, I've always had a thing for XY Balanced Hackmons. I'm shit at singles but Widdly dominated the BH ladder before I converted him to doubles and it was incredibly interesting to watch, he came up with some interesting sets that I never would have thought of.
10. What is your favourite playstyle/strategy to use?
A: I'm a sucker for Trick Room and Tailwind. Tailroom is a very fiddly thing to play with but is incredibly fun to use. The best part about it is the ladder forfeits that occur when someone spends 4 turns stalling out my Trick Room, only for me to throw up Tailwind on the final room turn.
11. Could you provide a sample team for newer users to use, with a brief explanation of how this team works?
A: http://pastebin.com/JTu3RBj2
This team is pretty much a perfect representation of how I like to play casually / on the ladder. I started with a Trick Room core of Calm Mind Cresselia and Mega Abomasnow. Goggles makes this duo sleep immune, which is important if you want to make the most of your Trick Room turns without being shut down by Amoonguss. Hail does hurt the healing from Moonlight, but once Trick Room is set I generally switch cress out and save it for when the hail is down / once its checks have been softened late game so the healing cut isn't normally an issue. I didn't want to use Scarf Landorus-T for 2 reasons, one being I wanted the ability to freely choose between Earthquake and Stone Edge to support Abomasnow being weak to Steel, Flying, Poison and Rock. The other was because Trick Room was a part of the team, I didn't want to get caught out by my own Trick Room. Bulky Landorus-T is a great Abomasnow partner as it beats alot of the things that give Abomasnow trouble, and is bulky enough to take an Earthquake from my own Lando-T in a pinch. It can switch in to Talonflame well thanks to Intimidate and increased bulk. I wanted a second answer to Steel types, so I chose Sub Heatran. Blizzard forces switches and does big damage, so I used Sub to take advantage of this. Leftovers to help deal with any residual hail damage. I opted for Fiire Blast over Heat Wave. As the larger power was nice, allowing Amoonguss to be OHKOed 50% of the time. Aswell as bypass Aegislash using Wide Guard. Rotom-Wash so commonly runs bulky sets, and while they are the best variant, I was weak to Calm Mind Cresselia and general annoying support Pokemon. I went for a Choice Scarfed Rotom-W, able to outspeed and OHKO Mega Diancie. The reason for these EVs are because I'm using Trick to fuck with Cress and support Pokemon. Max speed base 110s was a good benchmark to take advantage of the Scarf, able to OHKO Mega Diancie and to outspeed and burn Mega Metagross. Trick Scarf makes support pokemon next to useless,
and can also be used to remove things like Eviolite, Sitrus Berries and Leftovers from opponents, aswell as lock a threat into a predictable move. Lastly I wanted some back up speed control, as the team was overall too slow to have Trick Room as the only speed control measure. Zapdos is a personal favourite Pokemon of mine to use, as its greater bulk over Thundurus and access to Tailwind makes it fit well on this team. It is able to live 3 Rock Slides from Landorus-T, or a 252+ Ice Beam from Kyurem-B. Light Screen aids this team greatly and combined with Lando's Intimidate can cause issues for the opponent. Team is a little difficult to get used but is really fun to play.
12. Do you have any advice for new people to the tier?
A: The best piece of advice is definitely hang around in the doubles room as much as you can. Its the best place to learn competitive play and be exposed to good meta discussion, and competing in room tours will allow you to regularly battle good players and test teams effectively, aswell as learn from opponents teams.
13. You are on the Doubles QC Team, is there any advice you would give to people who would like to start out contributing to the tier?
A: Doing QC work / analysis writing has taught me alot about the meta, and is very rewarding. When I was new there were very few smogdex entries for alot of the Pokemon I wanted to use, and as a noob who didn't know the anything about EVs, this made playing the tier difficult as I was too focused on if my EVs were bad or not, and not focused enough on my plays. Just lurk the forum area you want to contribute too, learn how things are done / ask some of the staff for guidance and make and you'll pick it up in no time.
14. What do you think of the Doubles room on Pokemon Showdown in general?
A: Its a great collection of people and I enjoy spending time there. Obviously its still a public room on an online Pokemon sim, so you get your fair share of bad eggs, but that's true with any room.
15. Is there anything else you'd like to say before this interview is done?
A: Nothing much, I've been in the dubs room for just over a year, not guna list people with annoying tags but big thanks to everyone that's helped me learn the tier and allowed me to be part of the doubles community :)
16. How did you get your name?
A: I've been playing bass guitar for about 9 years now, space rhymed with bass and would also cause confusion as to if I was an instrument or an intergalactic fish
------------------------------------
Thanks Space for giving this interview :o
next week is going to be an extra super immense spectacular DPOTW so stay tuned
A: Thanks, I'm SpaceBass and I'm from London, England.
2. When did you first join competitive Pokémon, and why did you?
A: I've been playing Pokemon in various different forms since its release in 1999, but I didn't find competitive mons until I saw VGC 12 videos on youtube. I'd always wanted to battle competitively but the cart games / wi-fi battles never interested me. Mainly because I believe that using a simulator, everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to event mons and EV training etc. (I know event mons are banned in VGC lol).
3. After all those years of battling, you surely have a favourite Pokémon. Which one is that and why? And what is your favourite competitive Pokémon?
A: My favourite pokemon has always been Dragonite, it was the original dragon and I love the way it looks. Unfortunately, Dragonite is garbage in Doubles OU so I never get to use it. my favourite pokemon to use is Mega Abomasnow, aesthetically it looks amazing and is quite effective.
4. Is there anything you think should be suspected, or retested?
A: I don't agree with the thing about not changing game mechanics personally. I definitely want Rock Slide nerfed to 10% flinch chance as I feel its too much to be able to spam a less than optimal move choice if the battle isn't going your way. On the more jokey side that I know will never happen, a good majority of my favourite Pokemon are weak to Flying so
Please promptly ban Gale Wings
Also Swagger
5. Who do you think is going to win Seasonals, and why? Who do you think improved the most?
A: I'm going to make a bold prediction and guess Deoxys Speed is going to win this one. He's an incredibly underrated player and still in winners bracket so he has the numbers going for him in terms of only having to win 1 set if he makes it to the finals. Improvement wise is hard to say as I've only been following the games of the players I know, but Electrolyte has been playing well recently and has built some very solid teams.
imo this is not a bold prediction ^
6. What would you change about the Doubles tier, if anything?
A: Honestly the only thing I'd like to change about the tier is the popularity. I'd love for the tier to get larger and to attract a larger playerbase but its a very difficult thing to achieve. I'd also like to see a small room tournament circuit take place, with there being monthly room tour champions who could be mentioned in the room intro. It hasn't been a very popular idea amongst the doubles community a far as I've seen but I'm sure something can be worked out in the future. The reason I want to do this is because with the doubles ladder in the state it currently is, I feel newer players won't be retained due to things like being 'scared' away from the tier by the amount of gimmicks there are on the ladder. And at the other end, seasonals is stacked with the best players in the tier, making it hard for newer players to progress far. I feel a room tour circuit gives newer players a chance to regularly battle with the room regulars and this constant ability to face good players will train new players alot better than grinding on the ladder vs Disquake and Spindanine.
A point system for room tours would also allow new players to have a visual aid to their progress and in my opinion would increase room traffic due to people wanting to stay for the tournaments, similar to what they do in the tour room. I feel its a good middle ground between the ladder and seasonal tournament play
7. Is there anything you are going to/are willing to change now you've become moderator in the PS Room?
A: I'll be starting alot of room tournaments now I have the ability to. Also bad user™: Widdly Skuds ( Dubtrips actually tag him lel ) will be getting banned for using shit like Skill Swapped Prankster / Bright Powder / Sub Amoongus. Overall I'm just pleased to be able to contribute to the room and keep the chat moving.
8. You mentioned user Widdly Skuds, and you know in real life, do you have any idea whether he is ever going to return to Pokémon Showdown? Other than that, where do you know him from?
A: I met him through another friend about 8 years ago. I'm sure he will be back, I'm trying to get him to come back for the next seasonal but he's very frustrated by the luck aspect of the game and feels the luck outweighs the skill on too much of a lean. Also he is Stratos' fave user and I'm sure he would never abandon his friend.
9. What is your favourite tier outside of Doubles, and why?
A: I actually play doubles exclusively and don't plan to play any other tiers in the near future. From a watching standpoint, I've always had a thing for XY Balanced Hackmons. I'm shit at singles but Widdly dominated the BH ladder before I converted him to doubles and it was incredibly interesting to watch, he came up with some interesting sets that I never would have thought of.
10. What is your favourite playstyle/strategy to use?
A: I'm a sucker for Trick Room and Tailwind. Tailroom is a very fiddly thing to play with but is incredibly fun to use. The best part about it is the ladder forfeits that occur when someone spends 4 turns stalling out my Trick Room, only for me to throw up Tailwind on the final room turn.
11. Could you provide a sample team for newer users to use, with a brief explanation of how this team works?
A: http://pastebin.com/JTu3RBj2
This team is pretty much a perfect representation of how I like to play casually / on the ladder. I started with a Trick Room core of Calm Mind Cresselia and Mega Abomasnow. Goggles makes this duo sleep immune, which is important if you want to make the most of your Trick Room turns without being shut down by Amoonguss. Hail does hurt the healing from Moonlight, but once Trick Room is set I generally switch cress out and save it for when the hail is down / once its checks have been softened late game so the healing cut isn't normally an issue. I didn't want to use Scarf Landorus-T for 2 reasons, one being I wanted the ability to freely choose between Earthquake and Stone Edge to support Abomasnow being weak to Steel, Flying, Poison and Rock. The other was because Trick Room was a part of the team, I didn't want to get caught out by my own Trick Room. Bulky Landorus-T is a great Abomasnow partner as it beats alot of the things that give Abomasnow trouble, and is bulky enough to take an Earthquake from my own Lando-T in a pinch. It can switch in to Talonflame well thanks to Intimidate and increased bulk. I wanted a second answer to Steel types, so I chose Sub Heatran. Blizzard forces switches and does big damage, so I used Sub to take advantage of this. Leftovers to help deal with any residual hail damage. I opted for Fiire Blast over Heat Wave. As the larger power was nice, allowing Amoonguss to be OHKOed 50% of the time. Aswell as bypass Aegislash using Wide Guard. Rotom-Wash so commonly runs bulky sets, and while they are the best variant, I was weak to Calm Mind Cresselia and general annoying support Pokemon. I went for a Choice Scarfed Rotom-W, able to outspeed and OHKO Mega Diancie. The reason for these EVs are because I'm using Trick to fuck with Cress and support Pokemon. Max speed base 110s was a good benchmark to take advantage of the Scarf, able to OHKO Mega Diancie and to outspeed and burn Mega Metagross. Trick Scarf makes support pokemon next to useless,
and can also be used to remove things like Eviolite, Sitrus Berries and Leftovers from opponents, aswell as lock a threat into a predictable move. Lastly I wanted some back up speed control, as the team was overall too slow to have Trick Room as the only speed control measure. Zapdos is a personal favourite Pokemon of mine to use, as its greater bulk over Thundurus and access to Tailwind makes it fit well on this team. It is able to live 3 Rock Slides from Landorus-T, or a 252+ Ice Beam from Kyurem-B. Light Screen aids this team greatly and combined with Lando's Intimidate can cause issues for the opponent. Team is a little difficult to get used but is really fun to play.
12. Do you have any advice for new people to the tier?
A: The best piece of advice is definitely hang around in the doubles room as much as you can. Its the best place to learn competitive play and be exposed to good meta discussion, and competing in room tours will allow you to regularly battle good players and test teams effectively, aswell as learn from opponents teams.
13. You are on the Doubles QC Team, is there any advice you would give to people who would like to start out contributing to the tier?
A: Doing QC work / analysis writing has taught me alot about the meta, and is very rewarding. When I was new there were very few smogdex entries for alot of the Pokemon I wanted to use, and as a noob who didn't know the anything about EVs, this made playing the tier difficult as I was too focused on if my EVs were bad or not, and not focused enough on my plays. Just lurk the forum area you want to contribute too, learn how things are done / ask some of the staff for guidance and make and you'll pick it up in no time.
14. What do you think of the Doubles room on Pokemon Showdown in general?
A: Its a great collection of people and I enjoy spending time there. Obviously its still a public room on an online Pokemon sim, so you get your fair share of bad eggs, but that's true with any room.
15. Is there anything else you'd like to say before this interview is done?
A: Nothing much, I've been in the dubs room for just over a year, not guna list people with annoying tags but big thanks to everyone that's helped me learn the tier and allowed me to be part of the doubles community :)
16. How did you get your name?
A: I've been playing bass guitar for about 9 years now, space rhymed with bass and would also cause confusion as to if I was an instrument or an intergalactic fish
------------------------------------
Thanks Space for giving this interview :o
next week is going to be an extra super immense spectacular DPOTW so stay tuned
I was gonna say thanks for the shoutout SpaceBass but yeeesh this user likes Dragonite so nvm
instead I'll ask a question, does Widdly beat you up irl? Because he's like swole and shit and you.... just smoke weed tbh
instead I'll ask a question, does Widdly beat you up irl? Because he's like swole and shit and you.... just smoke weed tbh
- I think you're confusing me with Dubtrips
- That Gourgeist reveal was bullshit and you know it D:
- When are we not boucing?
- SpaceBass for US pres 2016 is in 2016
- Got moneymoneydolla now so soon :)
- Will you be visiting a certain Irishman named Joryn?
Accusing me to cover yourself won't save you from COPPA ban Mr Shropshire.
Implying he doesn't smoke more weed than me. Widdly is in fact a punk bitch and would prolly lose to Verlisify.
I have a job now so money is being stockpiled for future trips.
Favourite set at the moment has to be mixed Blaziken, not always ideal but fun and effective. Least favourite set is probably anything used by Davila.
I wana see Widdly get Varial Kickflipped.
mfw you think you can win this battle:
Favourite set at the moment has to be mixed Blaziken, not always ideal but fun and effective. Least favourite set is probably anything used by Davila.
I wana see Widdly get Varial Kickflipped.
Last edited:
On it like a car bonnet B]
"IT'S PWNEMON DUMBASS"
Interviewee of the Week #4 - Stratos
1. Hi, who are you and where do you come from?
im Stratos, you may have known me as Pwnemon, i've lived in Maryland, USA for as long as I can remember. Currently enrolled as a freshman at University of Maryland though by the time this POTW is posted i'll have finished my freshman year!
2. What is your favourite Pokemon overall, and which is your favourite one to use competitively, and why?
I am super duper terrible at picking favorites, but a Pokemon which I really like aesthetically right now is Scizor. I seriously like the designs of like 2/3 of Pokemon, though, and I'm already doubting that choice. Competitively I rely way too much on a couple catch-all defensive Pokemon which I really love to use, those being Rotom-W, Amoonguss, and Aegislash. I'm trying to branch out with my teambuilding though, because I feel like I'm pretty easily counterteamed as is.
3. When did you join competitive Pokemon, and why did you?
I had played Pokemon casually for about three years, when shortly after I turned nine my dad took me and my brother to an EX Crystal Guardians pre-release tournament. I did really well and was hooked; I played the TCG competitively between 06-09, getting second in '07 states and top cutting '08 juniors Nationals, but I was still only casual on the video game side. sometime in 2009 my dad found a pokemon podcast (The Pallet Tribune) on iTunes and showed it to me, I listened to all of the episodes and decided to check out their website. That's where i was introduced to the magic of competitive mons, in late Platinum.
4. How do you feel ORAS plays compared to XY?
It's hard to quantify the difference between ORAS and XY. I want to say "it's more offensive," but that's not quite right either. Diancie definitely had a big impact on the meta and reduced the viability of a lot of defensive Pokemon, but it really just led to the defensive Pokemon left being more centralized in usage. I'm worried that as the metagame develops people will begin to find new ways to break down the defensive Pokemon which are left and at that point the meta will truly become more offensive, which would be bad for me as I am definitely a better defense player (though that's something I'm trying to work on). I preferred XY to ORAS because my favorite kinds of battles are the ones where the players can play positional games for three to four turns, switching back and forth to try and get into a position where they can KO the opponent's pokemon without opening themselves up, and multiple factors in ORAS have been hindering that type of play. honestly though that sort of thing started to die off when Arcticblast invented Substitute Kyurem-Black, which absolutely dismantles those kinds of teams, and only got worse when I popularized CM Cress, which does the same. It's one of the reasons I want to suspect both of those Pokemon.
5. Apart from Calm Mind Cresselia and Substitute Kyurem-Black, is there anything else you would consider for a suspect test?
Well I absolutely don't think Mega Salamence will get unbanned, but lots of people want to see a retest, so it's in the pipes. My biggest problem with doubles is the proliferation of viable set up sweepers (i _hate it_ when someone comes up with a new good one) so that should tell you where I personally sit. People have thrown around the idea of a diancie suspect for a while and it might be worth our time, as I said diancie keeps a lot of defensive Pokemon pinned down so maybe it'll be necessary if the future I predicted comes to pass but in the current meta I don't think anyone sees diancie as a broken element. also ban rock slide its literally spread fake out
I also really hate belly drum cheese simply because it's no fun to watch or play against but that's not a good reason to ban
6. What are your plans for the future in this tier?
the number one thing that's always on my mind is playerbase. I think we have a great metagame and a great community so the one thing I'm really looking at is trying to grow our playerbase; it's one of the main reasons i added cash prizes to the seasonals like I just said I have like half a dozen suspect tests I'd like to *at least* try but the council is really suspect-averse in general (when i mentioned a CM test arctic responded with "lol ponymon") so i'm not exactly sure that those are ever going to happen. another thing is shaping all of the players in the ps room into absolutely top players. With people like finally, laga, and mizuhime losing interest in the tier we're going to need a new batch of representatives for next year's SPL. I'm still super into this but I obviously can't last forever either. we've got good players of course but i think everyone (myself included) has a long way to go before we can say we're truly optimal players, and so self-improvement (not in teambuilding, but in battle) is my main focus right now.
7. So are you basically scared that there will be not a big/optimal enough playerbase to be representing in the next Smogon Premier League?
I wouldn't say that, though I am a little afraid that with high player turnover the managers will just default to drafting known VGC players instead of those who've proven themselves in seasonals. But I want every tournament's top 8 to be composed of people who are invested into our metagame. I'm not saying that we had a terrible showing in the winter seasonals at all; in fact, that's basically what happened. But I want to keep improving our players until this is a consistent pattern, and also applies to top 16 or even 32, a lot of people who i thought would go far unfortunately lost early due to nerves or just poorly optimized play and I don't want to see that happen in the future. And yes, the biggest stage for outside observers to see our community is SPL, so I really dont want that to happen in SPL.
I see SPL as sort of a place where each community advertises themselves to Smogon at large, so I always want Doubles to have a good showing there of course.
This ties in back with what I was saying earlier about growing the playerbase. When people in SPL make a metagame look fun and intense with good players, it sparks interest and draws established Smogoners in, which is fantastic.
8. What are your ambitions in general, on Pokémon Showdown and Smogon?
ambitions on showdown? I don't give a single shit about global auth or anything, as long as I get to keep being RO of the doubles room. my ambitions on showdown are accomplished.
On Smogon as a whole I'd really like if I could become a super mod at some point, because it would make it easier to get what i want done with Doubles OU. I've learned that if you want something done on Smogon you really have to do it yourself and there's a lot of things you can't do when you're not in a broader decision-making position, though I've been making the best of it. I know my odds of ever becoming super mod aren't that great though; fortunately I have good working relationships with a lot of the current super moderators and they're often willing to lend a helping hand. The only other Smogon ambition I really have is being recognized as one of the top Doubles players outside of the Doubles community, i.e. going for a decent sum in an SPL auction, getting to start, and doing well. But that's just an ego thing. Oh obviously I want to be #1 on the doubles power rankings but I'm not sure if that counts as a "smogon ambition"
9. In the previous answer you've stated you wanted to get stuff done with Doubles OU. Could you give a few examples of it?
oh, you know, just things as they come up. Like right now I'm trying to resolve an issue with the cash prizes in the seasonals and trying to get a certain user badged for their work in another area of the site and things like that. And it's a lot of middle manning, "Hey x can you talk to y for me?" and asking for favors and if i was a supermod then I would have access to private means of communication where I could do things a lot more directly
10. What do you think about activity on the forums, and are there any plans about changing it?
I wish the forums were more active, of course, but I despise "activity just to be active" projects like "Victim of the week" and whatever the shit that doesn't actually help people get better at the game. Maybe it's because of my secondary interest in Melee, but I see the ultimate goal of everything as to win more matches. The main role of the forum is to catalog and share information between players that they can then apply to their game. I don't see forum activity as a reward in itself.
It's a shame that so much knowledge which is spread on IRC channels and the like never makes its way onto the forum where more people can see it. I think a lot to blame is smogon's culture of "don't post unless it's a huge giant mega insightful ultrapost." I also think likes are to blame for this. People make jokes of it, but the "postcount-to-like-ratio" syndrome is a real thing. People don't want to post thigns which they know won't get likes.
I really wish the simple question simple answer thread would get used a lot more, and I wish we could sustain discussion threads. I've tried to kickstart these both in the past, but you can't fake activity. Our community is heavily chat-based, and I'm not sure how to change it.
11. But how do you feel about Doubles Players of the Week then? It isn't really something that improves people in battling directly.
No, but asking the best players for their opinions on a variety of things is still generating valuable knowledge. Like I said, not everything has to be a super insightful ultra mega-post. Let me give an example. Just recently the following exchange happened:
Shunz: can ludicolo be used outside of rain?
Shunz: on a regular team
#Stratos: Shunz
#Stratos: ive used ludicolo outside of rain once
#Stratos: and it did ok
#Stratos: problem is its super bad physical defense
#Stratos: ludicolo outside of rain is super niche but i wouldn't say it can't work
#Stratos: it's just if you really need its coverage
this sort of thing is the kind of thing that happens in chat twenty times a day and I wish happened on the forum instead.
12. You've made clear what you'd want to improve on the forums - but how about the ladder? This is a very important part of the tier in my opinion and looking as it is right now, it doesn't seem like it is a good place to battle. People often mock it for being shitty, what do you think of that?
Well first I want to make it clear: I think the ladder is not a terrible place to practice your play. Unlike challenging your friends, because you know nothing about your opponent, it can help you learn to make the play which works in *every* situation instead of just relying on reads, which you often do, even if unintentionally, against friends.
However, that doesn't take away from the fact that the majority of players on the ladder are stinking garbage. I'm 100% serious that I want to divulge tiering from ladder stats in DOU because there simply is not a weight you can set where the swarms of bad players outweigh the few good ones. the way I see it, the ladder is truly unsalvageable. It's sad, but true. Statistics are just not in our favor. Even at the literal #1 spot on the ladder half or more of your battles are against players with purely unviable teams.
Back in DPP, the ladder stats a were more accurate representation of the metagame than the ones we have now are (there were only two to three really not good Pokemon in OU—Ninjask, Electivire, and ~Togekiss), and in DPP the ladder stats were _unweighted_. For all the good things Pokemon Showdown did, removing every barrier of entry from playing Pokemon has turned the ladder into 90% purely uncompetitive players, which isn't something sustainable. People bring up projects to revitalize the ladder because they see the problem as there simply not being enough good players, but the problem with the ladder is much more simply that your opponent is not vetted.
In a tournament, to get #1, you have to beat #2 in a head-to-head match. In a ladder, to get to #1, you just have to thrash thirty people in a row who use Avalugg and Cradily with such a large proportion of people on the PS ladder using Avalugg and Cradily, this is more possible than ever, and it's even impossible to avoid them. That's why nobody wants to play ladder anymore. There's no easy way to fix this.
13. Who did improve the most during the Seasonals in your opinion, or is there anyone who really impressed you?
Everyone in the winner's bracket really caught me off guard. Didn't even know who kamikaze17 was before this tournament but now he's a great player and contributor. deoxys speed has always been ok but his wins over makiri and finally were both pretty big upsets imo. Lasagne is definitely the odd-man-out of the tournament, he got to top 8 while only playing three rounds through activity + bunnies. No offense bro but you 100% slipped through the cracks. Super impressed by the first two i mentioned though. As for who's improved a lot, I have to go with quality content. Haven't watched his earlier matches but if the rumors of him using cosmic power clefable in the earlier rounds are true then he made impressive strides in a short time. hashtag has also improved a lot lately, though he's not still in it. And deoxys speed; I already talked about him though. A lot of the PS crew are overtaking the "old guard;" laga and arcticblast both lost in early rounds but people like Kyle, Hashtag, and deo speed made it quite far
14. What is your favourite thing about the Doubles tier, it can also be about the community.
I already said I'm terrible at picking favorites. I love how balanced the metagame is, but if I had to choose one thing, it'd be the weight of each and every turn. singles games can flip on a single turn too, but often the players are playing by a "script" between these few pivotal turns where each only has a single real option. In doubles, basically every turn has four or five viable options and a lot of decisions to be made and hypotheticals to run through, which is exhilarating to both play and watch. With regards to the community, I like that we've made big strides recently when it comes to our game manners. We used to be extremely salty, and it's nice that instead i'm seeing a lot of "lost gg." It makes everything a lot more fun.
15. How do you go preparing for tournament matches? Is there any specified thought process, any preparation?
It's not something I'm proud of, but I'm really susceptible to pressure, so I put a lot of effort into my tournament preparation. One of the things I do when playing tournament matches is play good VGM in the background. having the music first helps me to calm my thoughts, and second forces me to concentrate harder in order to think, so that I don't make rash split-second decision plays.
16. What is your favourite tier outside of Doubles, and why?
DPP OU. I'm not too good at it (.sad) but if I were to ever invest serious effort into learning a tier it would be that. For one, it was how I got my start in Pokemon so it still holds a place in my heart. For two, it's incredibly diverse and balanced and has a really high skill ceiling. Easily the best singles format ever IMO.
17. What is your favourite anime?
Despite the fact that I talk about anime all the time, I've actually only watched six so far. Of these my favorite is definitely Toradora. I'm a huge sucker for romance, and Toradora is like the premier romance anime, and makes me super nostalgic for high school to boot. I could go on and on about how awesome toradora is but i'll just say if you like slice of life and haven't seen toradora you are literally worthless. The other anime I've seen which I would rate as a "must watch" is Code Geass.
thanks for the interview
Stratos
Banned deucer.
since this interview (which was like two weeks ago) there are a couple new things i want to add
1) lasagne played the most recent seasonal round without bunnies, tho he still doesn't build his own teams (all the teams he used vs kamikaze were mine)
2) I watched Nagi No Asukara last weekend and it is possibly better than toradora (yes i said it)
3) the user i was trying to get badged was shaian
1) lasagne played the most recent seasonal round without bunnies, tho he still doesn't build his own teams (all the teams he used vs kamikaze were mine)
2) I watched Nagi No Asukara last weekend and it is possibly better than toradora (yes i said it)
3) the user i was trying to get badged was shaian
and at last it happened :)
On the face of it, it looks like the stuff you want to suspect is based on what you feel an ideal metagame should be. Do you fell like that's a path that can be taken in terms of tiering over having a balanced metagame for tournament play?
Did you ask about my soc media badge yet?
Why do you always fuck up livestreams? <:^)
When are you gonna play Saya no Uta????
Wanna build some HO sometime?
Did you ask about my soc media badge yet?
Why do you always fuck up livestreams? <:^)
When are you gonna play Saya no Uta????
Wanna build some HO sometime?
Just wanna say that I am happy with how the DOU community has turned out since I left. Lots of new promising players, as well as older members, who are drastically improving their game and advancing the metagame. I'm also really digging the innovative and extremely effective teams that you've been dishing out since SPL. It's a pleasure to watch replays of Doubles tournament matches.
My only qualm right now, is that it seems like Singles OU seem to be a lot more diverse than DOU. Just compare the # of diff megas used between Singles OU vs DOU, for instance. Also, sometimes it feels like I'm watching mirror teams fighting each other when I'm watching a Doubles match. I believe there is still much more exploration that can be done with our format, and people shouldn't be afraid of branching out from the proven few monsters to uncover hidden gems. Fortunately, we have quite an innovative leader, so many people would hopefully follow suit! Just don't bash too hard on people who are trying to test new things >_<. Excuse me if my observation is incorrect, though.
As for anime, you're really missing out if you haven't watched (in no particular order):
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Death Note
- Kaiji
- Monster
- Attack on Titan
- Steins;Gate
- Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (movie)
As for romance, Tora Dora is a popular one, but I also enjoyed Lovely Complex, b/c i'm short LOL (it's an old anime, tho). Clannad -> Clannad Afterstory is a tear jerker ;(
My only qualm right now, is that it seems like Singles OU seem to be a lot more diverse than DOU. Just compare the # of diff megas used between Singles OU vs DOU, for instance. Also, sometimes it feels like I'm watching mirror teams fighting each other when I'm watching a Doubles match. I believe there is still much more exploration that can be done with our format, and people shouldn't be afraid of branching out from the proven few monsters to uncover hidden gems. Fortunately, we have quite an innovative leader, so many people would hopefully follow suit! Just don't bash too hard on people who are trying to test new things >_<. Excuse me if my observation is incorrect, though.
As for anime, you're really missing out if you haven't watched (in no particular order):
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
- Death Note
- Kaiji
- Monster
- Attack on Titan
- Steins;Gate
- Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki (movie)
As for romance, Tora Dora is a popular one, but I also enjoyed Lovely Complex, b/c i'm short LOL (it's an old anime, tho). Clannad -> Clannad Afterstory is a tear jerker ;(
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Stratos
Banned deucer.
I don't really get this question because it seems to imply that the metagame i would want is imbalanced. I'm going to start with the assumption that our metagame is balanced as is (w/o mence) and i think most ppl will agree this is reasonable. Then im going to (try to) explain my philosophy about the game and how it ties into my tiering philosophy.
So basically I see Pokemon teams as a series of checks, and pokemon matches as a dance where you are trying to get put your opponent in a bad position—where your pokemon out do a better job checking the opponent's pokemon than vice-versa; where their checks to your pokemon are (either through previous damage or field conditions or something) unable to come in and take position back. You convert this positional advantage and pressure into kills, which opens up holes and in the long term allows you to win the match. I hope this made sense.
So seeing pokemon the way I do, there's two obvious candidates for things I would hate. The first are Pokemon which just do too well at their job, which check too many things and have too few checks. Of all the Pokemon I want to suspect, only Kyurem-B really falls into this category, which you could call "traditionally broken." This is also the only Pokemon i want to suspect where its ban could actually shape up and unbalance the metagame. The second are Pokemon which break this viewpoint entirely. They're not used as checks to anything. They ignore the dance of checks with the goal of getting in for free and steamrolling. This is why i dislike pokemon like CM cress and especially azumarill even if they're not traditionally "broken." I'm also not worried that banning them would imbalance the metagame at all because they don't contribute to the metagame, they sit apart from it and then swoop in to take wins whenever they can. TBH i'm not sure why I don't hate kanga because it kind of fits this definition too, but I don't. Perhaps because it's more comparable to Sylveon than to Cress or Azu: it takes advantage of weak hitters in order to get some free pummels in but is rarely capable of winning entire games. It also participates more heavily in the check-countercheck play.
Of course, I'm pretty much alone in feeling this way about boosting wincons like that, so I doubt i'll ever be able to do anything I want with the meta anyways. And it might just be a phase i'm going through, though i doubt that. also my explanation there was pretty bad but i hope u understood it more or less.
yes, Ace Emerald what gives
OBS for mac is an extremely buggy and unfinished program
i remember when you played this through. i read the plot summary on wikipedia back then and the answer is never. also just in general i dont want to become the kind of guy who plays VNs although its probably just a matter of time at this point
yes
aw thanks, ive got a few more teams i want to post but im a bit too lazy to edit to perfection atm, hopefully soon
i think its the position of basically everyone that we would rather a centralized metagame than an unbalanced one. And our centralization isn't even bad; most teams will pack 2-3 threats from tier 1 (and you could make a viable team with only tier 1 pokes) simply because they're all quite good. However, there's plenty of pokemon that you can fit in the other 3-4 team slots to create a million unique builds. We do have four extremely common megas, but they're not the only viable ones, it's just that people don't tend to branch out much (tbf though i only have one tournament-level team that doesn't use kang/diancie/zard/gross). I think we're not even close to a point where all teams are rehashes of old teams, and even if we were, i think simply the playing aspect would still be able to hold my interest for a long time. Because of my own limited mindset I only really build balance and defense and I think a lot of people either follow my lead since im the loudest talker or just feel the same way, but people like TOTEM and Mizuhime build other team styles and use a lot of different Pokemon.
I also think ladder kids use things like thundurus, heatran, and sylveon wayyy too fucking much but i dont even pay attention to ladder stats now that we have Level 51's seasonal stats
ive watched Steins;Gate, and I thought it was okay but massively overrated. I tried to watch FMAB once before but thanks to quiet stream + shit headphones I couldn't hear dick; ive got new headphones now so its on my list. AoT/DN are really not my taste but I might watch them someday. Rest I'd never heard of but will check out.
i came up with pwnemon for the pallet tribune when i had just turned twelve, and brought it over to smogon when i turned 13 (i actually had wanted to make a smogon account when i was 12 but read the rules and knew i couldn't because of COPPA). I haven't liked it for years now; in fact when I first got a badge I talked to Birkal about getting a name change but just couldn't think of a good name to change to. I don't want to go through the effort of being secretive with my Pokemon playing and I never felt shame for being into a competitive game but I kept it secret because I didn't want anyone to know my username; now that it's a respectable name like Stratos instead of Pwnemon I don't hide it any more.
Also smogon are literally the only people I know who think Pwnemon is a better name than Stratos, jeez, I hate you all.
I know you mentioned this like 3 months ago but do you still get nervous before big tournament matches or has your time in SPL and the seasonal calmed you down?
What's your process when teambuilding?
Will Mega Scizor and Hitmontop ever be good again?
What's your process when teambuilding?
Will Mega Scizor and Hitmontop ever be good again?
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Though SPL didn't really help since I didn't get front lines time, I've definitely been getting better with tournament nerves throughout this seasonal. I think a lot of it is due to simply getting more experience with the pressure, especially when im facing elimination in loser's bracket.
I don't really have much of a process, unfortunately this makes it harder to help new people. What I posted in my RMT is a decent start. Basically I just start with a pokemon I want to use, think up a cool core of 2-3 that work with it, think of what it's weak to, add something to cover that, and repeat. This is how I built my recent "volc + diancie" and "zard + lando + cube" teams
I hope so, at least in the former case, because Scizor is one of my favorite Pokemon. I think Scizor's success is highly dependent on the metagame, and in a different meta it could be more successful than it is in this one. I think Top coming back into prominence is a lot less likely; as we got better at the game and how to play around the differences between 6v6 and 4v4 top's ability to give you one good turn became a lot less useful than it had been in gen V and early gen VI. If the next meta becomes a lot more offensive it could happen.
bannedhi Stratos, huge fan *-*
could u pls give ur opinion on this set i thought of the other day xoxo? I didn't know what EVs to use, so I used the PS spread; I always do that. I was hoping u could slightly tweak the spread or come up with alternative moves to use n_n
ps lmao is that actually the recommended spread with that set