Approved by ghost
Inspiration taken from this and this
Amazing photoshop by me
Fille
Favorite LC Pokemon: Smoochum
What I'm known for: Being lucky
Fun Fact: Jox has won LCPL with three different teams all being named after a different water type starter!
&
rhydonphilip
Favorite LC Pokemon: Cutiefly
What I'm known for: Being painfully honest
Fun Fact: Vullaby's diaper with heart shape, is in fact, an upside down skull and the heart is the nostrils
Good evening Fille and Rhydonphilip, how are you both doing? Thank you so much for agreeing to do this, and welcome to the third edition of Little Cup Conversations! To my knowledge, this is the first ever double interview I've seen on smogon, so the audience is getting an extra special treat today, especially since it's coming from the LCPL champion manager duo!
I am doing quite well past an otherwise busy schedule. Thanks for having me despite the arrangement hassle.
Ditto.
That's good to hear! Obviously we all would like to hear about your LCPL season, but to start I think it would be beneficial to learn about you both. Would you be able to give us some background on who you are and how you each ended up on smogon?
I used to be a viewer of the Youtube Pimpnite back in 2013, interacted a lot with the users there including many that play Smogon ruleset as this is was a blooming period for that. I hated the tedius team prepping side of cartridge pokemon games (BW at the time), but with Showdown gaining popularity as well I too gained further interest as it is infinitely more accessible. Another Pimpnite follower by the name of Frickett got me interested in LC, who I used to fight on a near daily basis... or lose to on a near daily basis but that is how one learns! Some of the friends I made from back then I still talk to to this day. Frickett quit mons but he inspired me for competitive mons nonetheless. Besides LC I had spend a lot of time in NU around that time, where I eventually would be moderator for many years for.
Started from TheKillerNacho videos back in 2010, been on and off with different metas but stuck around with LC after playing Jox on the LC ladder in 2016 after a drunken incident with a friend. He invited me to this LC draft league called MDL, which is where I know Philip from.
Oh, I may have to add to my previous comment that I learned to know Jox from laddering in xy lc : ) . He almost immediately asked for help to build teams like scarf wailmer. Jox eventually introduced me to Fille through MDL.
Oh wow you're both definitely veterans of the community! As someone who only knows MDL as the room where we do mocc drafts, could you elaborate more on what that league was and meant back in 2016 when you two met? And what was the thought process behind you managing together? I'm sure being good friends all these years was a big part of it, but I'm curious about the specifics of how you work together!
MDL back then ended up becoming a platform for ladder players to enter the tournament scene with proper backing from experienced players. We'd invite players we either played on ladder or in seasonals to join us do that lesser known talents would have an arena not only to show what they're capable of, but to build, test and improve along with players they could be confident would be able to help at a higher level.
Well the thought process on why us 2 was rather simple. Normally, Fille did manage with Jox. But Jox had little to no time and I had a vacation period, and this tour in particular allowed for only 1 Manager to play. This is ideal for this particular combo, let me explain. I frown on playing in tours, as every year that passes when I was NU mod I would only hear complaint after complaint from tour players. However Fille, early 2022, asked if I could help build teams for ORAS LC as the tour team he was in had no builder. I do enjoy building for ORAS LC, so I build for that. I would continue to do the same for a few tours in a row including in 2023 when Jox and Fille managed the Ohio Oshawotts for a win. He tried to ask for a custom avatar for me during that and promised me I would get it. It was denied on the basis I was not drafted. Fast forward a year and Fille named me the tour rules for 2024; it would be the perfect opportunity for me to get back the custom avatar he owed me from last year. I wouldn't be playing anyways while providing for ORAS regardless.
Ah that makes sense! Back in my early monotype days we had leagues that sounded very similar, and I look back at those times very fondly. And Rhydonphilip, I'm glad you were able to finally get your custom - you earned it two times over so this must have been destiny!
Moving on with the LCPL questions, did you guys have a draft plan? And if so (or if not) could you elaborate a bit on what that was and how the draft turned out for the Piplups?
I spent many months prior to LCPL scouting out newer LCers that I thought would have a high potential of playing exceptionally well. Always Edgy and Envy were both on our radar as prime players capable of beating the likely 20k candidates. We also arranged to have Kingler and Jox as shadow managers - Jox for Jox reasons and Kingler as he reached out asking to manage with me, something that made us confident he'd be motivated to perform during the upcoming tour (unlike what it seemed like for LCPL 12).
With Edgy, Envy and Kingler all giving us some flexibility within both CG and Oldgens, as well as Philip being the top ORAS builder, we wouldn't have to worry so much about getting specific gens covered bar Dpp, so we made a few different lists of people within price categories that we deemed solid. We scouted replays and looked through all replays sent to us through tryouts, and landed on Brammi as our likely core Dpp player. Notable players we also wanted were Stories, Arifeen, Aurora and Pigwarrior, all 4 of which ended up on our team.
Having managed our money well and getting our top player in Ace for cheaps (and hence support for Swsh that we so desperately needed), we still had the funds to spend big on someone solid, and best player left in the pool being Kaboom allowed us to 1. Secure ourselves the safest top performer in BW and 2. Screw over Tazz a little.
Overall was pretty certain we'd be the top team from the moment draft was over, we had no business getting all the players we wanted bar Envy like that. We never really truly had to worry about getting building support either, but getting the big one we did ended up being massive.
For the later on addition, we wanted a DPP replacement slot because we knew we did be in trouble if Brammi got sick or something of the sort. TyCarter. We were very luck in that decision as it ended up being relevant the very next week.
Thank you for sharing! I may need to take some notes for the next time that I manage… but I digress. How important do you feel it is to prioritize drafting players that you work well with, or provide more to towards the overall team environment, as opposed to drafting the strongest available players on paper even if that compromises team chemistry? It seems like the Piplups had a strong mix of both, but I’m curious to get your thoughts on the subject because I feel like it’s discourse that always comes up around draft time not only for LC tours, but bigger smogon wide ones as well.
We had a veto list of players we wanted to avoid for being a bad presence or a bad recent record someone could chime in on. Besides that, we mostly just focus on creating a nice environment so contributions happen all around.
Yeah that makes total sense — being apart of a bad team environment also makes the tour less enjoyable for everyone involved, which I think is the most important thing!
Now let’s move onto the season itself: How did you guys approach prep, how did the first 7 weeks go, and how were you feeling heading into playoffs?
Mostly everyone on the team was fairly active across multiple channels, and with no one really being a detriment to the individual prep slots we kinda just let that become our thing. We didn't really crack down on weird ideas either as we like to be innovative wherever room for it, but would challenge ideas to make sure they had sound logic behind them. Most of our starters and bench were in their own very capable builders, and with Philip on the line and the dedicated tournament players being willing to play with our shit it all just came down to who had the better idea or were in shape to build that week. We also notably had GoldMason helping us on the side as well, as well as Shoddy Strawman offering to help us with swsh (Albeit Ace carried ours and Kingler's ass for that). With everyone feeling welcome in the chat (Or so we hope), there wasn't really an issue for anyone to just hop in wherever they felt they could contribute, and as a result we got a pretty dynamic building process in every slot with most teams being a product of multiple people cooperating moreso than just 1 player doing all the work. An extra shoutout to Midas and Edgy tho for especially being big workhorses, really pulled their priceworth this tour!
Seeing the effort and results put in by every player from week 1 onwards basically made it seem like winning the tour again was inevitable.
Absolutely, you guys finished with an extremely strong regular season! In semifinals, you were matched up against the houndoors, right? I remember that series went into a tiebreaker — could you guys elaborate on what the thought process was in terms of choosing which tier and which players to send? I always find the strategy behind the tiebreaker selection fascinating, and I think the readers will too especially if it’s coming from an inside perspective.
We made a small channel within our chat dedicated to selecting a tiebreaker player with every contending player (By record mainly) so that everyone who was an option got a say in a more private space, but still encouraged discussion in main chat with all our teammates. This chat was made before we really entered any tiebreakers, to make sure we had some certainty in how to proceed, without any negative scenarios leaving us caught off guard. Ultimately however, we were more or less always going with Kingler, Midas and I, as we concluded that BW would by far be our easiest choice vs any team that wasn't Skitties, and we were confident that Kingler or I could easily win in any oldgen above Dpp and SV respectively. With Kingler being the lunatic he is and me having an all-time 100% winratio in LCPL Tiebreakers, we were a fairly natural choice regardless unless major upsets happened during main season. Ace, Jox and Brammi were all strong contenders based on what our opposition picked for tiers, but in most scenarios they wouldn't be our choices.
That makes sense — even though you had more or less decided on which 3 players to send from the start, it’s always important to be prepared for every permutation in the event the opposing team picks an unexpected tier!
Now lastly, moving on to the finals where you played against my own team (grr…). Could you speak a bit to how that crazy series played out from your perspective?
And then for Fille specifically, since you played in a tiebreaker in finals as well, how do you approach such important and tournament games both mentally and in your preparation? Do you treat it the same as any other tournament game, or does the pressure change your mentality at all?
Put up a notable fight. The fact the tour went on with 2 tie-breaks didn't help at all with that. For the older gens DPP, BW, and ORAS; it was an issue for the usual prep logic. Both me and Brammi prefer using a particular mon that has a notable likelihood of working vs a particular players play preference. That doesn't give great payoff if the player in question is using a very typical all-around build. Specifically yours and Fantos'. For Midas/Kaboom he hates prepping for Brazillian Army/Mister Magnus as, by his own words, he is a notorious thorn of a fisher vs him. Regardless of that, all 3 of us chose to still double down on our own accordance. Ace continued the same way he had, but was burned out on fresh ideas. I can share the sentiment with him on that, the tour for us was a week too long for how much effort was put into the prep for previous weeks.
The SV slots were a different prep story. The focus was more on making a team that played comfortably vs teams used in previous tour games, rather than specific mons for vs a specific opposing player.The games being played were mostly a sigh of relief, even if one of our players lost cause If I had to summarize the week with 1 word it would have been "exhausting".
I make an effort not to change up anything. What we'd done so far had worked in our favour, deviating usually never works out in a team's (or player's) favour, at least not in my experience. As for mentally, as long as I'm invested in the game it doesn't matter to me really. My mental game would be the same as in any other match worth playing, any notion of nervous energy is turned to excitement on command. All I need is my standard prep and my mental game will be there, provided I'm not burnt out. Give me my tea, my team I wanna run and my time to scout a little before the game, and I'll do well no matter the setting. Loki gave me a good idea, I pitched it and then we tweaked it and it won us the tour.
Thank you for sharing some insights into your prep in that final week, and I absolutely agree with that last sentiment Rhydon — having what it takes to win a team tournament comes down to stamina and consistency throughout the entire season, as much as it does in the 5-10 minutes each individual game lasts.
And Fille I also appreciate you touching on the mental side of the game from your perspective. I know everyone has their own routine before big tournament games, so it's cool for me to contrast that with my personal approach. What type of tea do you drink? Or does it depend on the day?
We're almost done here, but I'd like to ask one last question about LCPL - Being managers that definitely put time into scouting new talent, and aren't afraid to draft users that other managers might not have ever heard of, what advice would you give to new players reading this that wish to be drafted in LCPL or a similar tour for the first time?
Anything with actual tea leaves, albeit I drink a lot of Greens, Whites and oolong at the moment, with standard Indian black for breakfast during weekends. Purchase mainly from Whittard, Fortnum & Mason, Harney & Sons, Kusmi and Black Cat, as the quality of their imports is astounding.
In regards to new players. It be on discord like LPL or smogon tours, just be active and perform so people can notice you doing well in a tier.
Yep, send us some detailed replays, replays where you've performed well and give thorough analysis and that'll up your chances as well!
Anywho, that's how Brammi got drafted.
To wrap up I'd like to talk a bit about life LCPL! Fille, I know you're in SCL, how's that been going for you? And Philip what've you been up to since then in terms of mons? Have you been managing any other teams or plan to in the near future?
Nope, my current life is busy enough as is. I did be glad to be able to play the MH wilds demo tomorrow with what little time I have rn
My score is significantly worse than I hoped, but outside of 3 weeks where severe burnout from LCPL got me doing foolish things early game I'm mostly happy with how I've played. I feel these last 2 games, even if I unfortunately lost to Envy, has somewhat showed that I'm back in my game.
I see, well I wish you both the best in your future endeavors going forward! Thank you once again for taking the time to speak with me today - this edition of LC Convos was very insightful. If there are any finals words you'd like to leave with, or shoutouts you'd like to give, please feel free to do so now!
MH wilds is a fun game, worth your time.
~~~
Please feel free to ask Fille and/or Rhydonphilip any further questions below!
Links to previous LC Convos:
LC Convos #1 - ghost
LC Convos #2 - tazz
Fille
rhydonphilip
