approved by monotype forum mods
inspired by this and this
First of all thanks for taking the time to do this, I'm sure the community will be interested in hearing from one of the best players in our community, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
hello, I am a 21 yo guy who lived until 20 in the very south east of france in villages very close to Nice, I moved a bit more than 1 year ago to auvergne region which is the cielau origine region and which is really bad because bad weather (they just have good cheeses, and I really love my home region in comparison tho...).
So right now I am studying for my last year for my master's degree in Management of people, quality and security (no clue why I'm doing that but it aint that hard and jobs of quality manager/responsable are fine i guess).
Outside of mons, I guess I am the typical 2000s weeb dude, watching animes, playing gachas with cute girls (Genshin/Wuthering waves/ZZZ/and I'm trying the uma musume game too rn), some visual novels too, even the only sport I practice is karate which is kinda weeb ig. Also I watch youtube a lot, and listen a lot of music (60 to 80s rock/hard rock/punk rock and anime songs), I play some other games than weeb things (rarely tho), recently I finished 100% of hollow knight silksong, I really enjoyed the first game and this one too was great.
How did you come up with the username Dieu Amphibien?
Basically my 1st nickname on many game (Clash royale for example) was "AXO" which come from Axoloto (wooper french name, and it was my fav mon back then), but of course it was already taken on Showdown and other game like pokemon go if I remember well, so i went with something that of course someone could have never taken before by keeping the "wooper root" with Dieu Amphibien (meaning Amphibian God in french), i think its funny to have a whole french name that non french speakers struggle to pronounce, also since its a long name people tends to just call me "Dieu" (literally god) which I think is funny (I have a big and weird ego, and prob bcause of this people started calling me Amphi instead of Dieu smh...)
How did you get introduced / involved with Pokemon Showdown and the Monotype community?
I think, its the same for me as it is for a lot of French players, during 2015-2020, watching youtube content of a French pokemon chanel called Pokemon Trash (they were a group of dudes) doing some cool trivia videos about Pokemon, and inside of this group, a guy named Fildrong (who has his own channel now) was explaining strategical lore about Pokemon (as he himself was an active player during the DPP/BW era) and it interested me a lot, so I decided to start showdown for the first time around 2018 I think, because my pc was so bad and couldnt run any games, showdown was "a game" it could run.
If i remember well, first i played like UU ladder, but i quickly moved into monotype, cause the teambuild seemed easier to me (like, its easier to make resistance synergies with 1 shared type, (its what i thought at that time, today I cant rly say that building mono is easier than building UU)). So, during 2019 I was playing a lot of mono ladder with good peaks and one day, a french guy sent a message leading me to a french discord for a little teamtour, at this time I didnt know there was a whole community "outside showdown" so I was really hyped up to play a teamtour with people to win, it seemed, to me, like a really big tournament, but when I look at it now, its not that big (tho I remember meta riolu was playing in this one in mono pool). Then things went a logical way, I started to discover the mono community, I remember Toadow who picked me for one of the biggest french teamtour at this time, and then finally starting smogon with the MPL (I forgot which one but prob the 2020 one I guess) but Chaitanya picked me as a 3k player in the Goldenrod Gengars, and then I've like never stopped to be in that mono community both french or smogon.
Do you have a favorite moment or memory that sticks out from your time on Smogon / PS?
hmm I think the 1st mono cups, when I won both SV/SS cup in 2023, back then I didnt realize i could win solo tours with that many players, it was a bit after the mono wcup with all the stuff that happened with venezuela and I was during a big exam period IRL (still the biggest of my life I think now), those 2 things put pressure on me to lock in and win those because like i knew winning the 1st solo tours of my life would boost my pressured mental, and I won those 2 in a row, i was really happy and proud of myself, unfort I kinda underperformed during POs, but I was still really glad to have won those cups, I think it helped me both for my reputation which was kinda bad after wcup and both for my self confidence.
Right now I'm feeling a bit of the same thing with last ssnl and last chance won in a row, I started this year of circuit really bad, and those 2 wins gave me lot of points, also in both of them, I faced spitfire in 3 BO3 during late rounds, I loved played him, like, he is a very good player and I needed to be fully focused in all my bo3 to play him, I really liked this feeling and I think we together went with all that we had in those BO, it was rly good and I met a player that I respect a lot now (I 100% know trich going to make fun of me after saying this).
If you were the tier leader for a day, what would you ban? Unban? What about an old generation?
Acupressure of course.
Well after answering this one, I think all my chances to join the council will be blown... but, first of all i really want to ban right now Hypnosis (ik that is something that cannot be made because complex ban, but then maybe literally banning the sleep mechanic like in other tiers, also nuking sleep powder liligant can be cool too...), its literally coinflip tech to win a game, the sleep mechanic is on its own kinda luck based, and when the move to put asleep is even more, its even more worth it. I think there is a recent game for Swiss between trich and ethereal that shows how hypnosis Darkrai is stupid.
But right now, I think the tier (SV) is good as it is, even if some mons are annoying and literally blocking some MU (I think of gliscor and volcarona), but in my opinion those are "part of the game", I don't think I would ban them, but I wouldn't mind if they were. Also, I would like to unban Kingambit and resuspect it after like 1 month, I'm not arguing if the mon should banned or not, but more like that its suspect had too lenient reqs for regular suspect and lot of people with very low reqs who made it (but wouldnt have made it if it was regular reqs) went for ban, I really don't have a ban or unban opinion on Kingambit right now but i think its suspect must be redone with average reqs conditions "to be fair".
Also I still think Gouging could be unbanned too, it counters volcarona quite well, and I don't think it is a broken mon, but I would understand if people really don't want it in the tier, it doesn't bother me if its a banned or unbanned mon even if i would vote to unban it.
For old generations, I can just talk about SS, I think the tier is fine (even if i fucking miss acupressure), and maybe moltres galar is a bit too dumb, lots of sets, fiery flinch, hurricane gameplay, idk, I feel it can be suspected at least (maybe it already was suspected and i forgot tho...)
Do you have any advice for some players who are newer and trying to get more involved with the community / better at the game? What about someone who wants to get drafted for MPL / MWP / MFPL?
I always think reaching good ladder peaks is always a thing that can be done to get better in the game and getting a bit noticed by the community and playing lot of games with 1 team always help you to understand more how your team works, how to improve it in the builder, how to win some match ups that seemed hard at the beginning, then of course switching teams when you think you mastered one to do the same, also the new ladder achievements could be useful for this too I think, then they can do all the monotype solo tours, doing regular good performances in those will of course help them to get better by playing good active players and getting noticed by them too. Also for teamtours, I think if they are confident of their skills, they can always tryout for the managers to impress them, if I was managing and new player that no one know managed to play well and impress me, I would instantly think of picking them, a good player for 3k is always something that a manager wants to get in my opinion
Is there a team you wouldn't mind sharing with us that you really enjoy using and showcases your style of play?
I really like the team I call the "Cool Water", first it was during SS, a water team Firnen made, i just spam it like every time i really love this team:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8monotype-848143?p2 (here is a replay which is a good showcase of the team), I've recently lost all my teams (screen), so I don't have the paste right now, but ig u can make it just with the replay, so that was for SS
So I tried to make a SV version of it some months ago https://pokepast.es/e889729ce2fd46ba, I really like playing this team too, mostly on ladder, even if I don't think it reaches my pleasure of playing the original SS cool water team, here is a fine replay of it i guess:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2447433768-dgic7r5keee0w1nlk4u2vgt90b8wsnjpw :]
What was it like along the way to reaching 2000 Elo on the ladder? Any plans to let it decay a bit hope a challenger for #1 comes?
Long, I try to launch and win one game per day, with the daily decay I win like +6 and lose -4 each day, so its long, luckily I was a bit boosted by ladder tour, first time I've reached 2000, there were a lot of people with high elo to win more points, for now I'll try to keep my daily routine of ladder, if I can make it back to 2000 its great, but it will be long, I've lost 1 game recently its like literally weeks of elo lost because of a hpump miss lol, but at least my GXE ain't decreasing too much when I lose, and there isn't decay of GXE, so its like easier to get great GXE than getting back to 2050 elo, for now I'll try to reach the highest GXE possible (95.8 atm which is my peak), for elo right now I am kinda stuck between 1950 and 1990, each time i get close to 1990, I have a dumb loss and I go back to 1950, I still hope I'll make it to 2000 soon. also, at the time I search there arent many people, it takes a long time to find one opponent (well mostly because I'm so high rated) and its often SAW (dark), daniolo (poison), ghost dude that I always forget it name (ghost) they are always top ranked so when I face them I win more elo than I lose decay in 1 day, and sometime people using steel or water and my cool water SV version is fine vs all (I still can lose on some mistakes or hax ofc).
If someone wants to get higher elo than me, with enough motivation its definitly possible (of course in the case I dont fall) they still can try the 6 games per day to lose 0 daily decay and climbing really fast unlike me who is kinda stuck with 1 game per day, but I rly enjoy this stupid routine of launching my daily ladder game for some reason so I'll just stay with this for now, until I fall I guess (maybe until Generation 10 releases I hope)
If you were stuck on an island and there were 1 monotype community member stuck with you, who would you want it to be and why? what about who would you not want it to be?
Ok so probably the thoughest question, I thought about it a lot.
1st i thought of some candidates:
Micciu / Frol1, both already live on a small island already so they have probably good survival skills, and both speak the same native language as me, both into same weebs topic I like too.
I thought of cielau, just because getting him on an island to leave his cringe Auvergne region and seeing the beach would be good for him, also we prob can try to play bowling with coconuts which can be fun + same language too.
But i think i would just like to get it all alone, just to challenge myself, also I've lived alone for more than 5 years in a 9m square student room, so I think I'm ready to handle this, also if the island looks like Nice, it will just be me resting alone peacefully all day, thats how i like to live (I'm dead after 2 days tho).
I thought of 2 guys I should never go on this island with:
1st: Fogbound lake, he is too much of a food lover, I think in less than 3 days we would have 0 food left for us.
And 2nd and probably the worst: Mada, I'm like 100% sure we literally get mad in like 3 hours when we will realize we cannot bet on football games, then we will prob try to cope by betting on random things, like making crab fight and bet on them, and more and more until we went crazy and kill each other cause the betting had gone too far (1day-ish of survival imo)
Thank you so much for your time and your diligent answers, I’m sure everybody will appreciate reading and learning a bit more about you. Is there anybody you would like to give a shoutout to?
So first of all I want to s/o all my cute 2D waifus who always are here for me:
then for the 3D persons, I s/o my german friends mind gaming and Fogbound Lake (amq soon), I s/o Fraolain even if he has bad anime and visual novel tastes, I s/o Trichotomy my half chinese brother who is starting to get bald (send prayers to him), I s/o Dj Breloominati♬ my goat opponent from the last 2 solo tours, I s/o Mada my sport betting manager, I s/o Cielau who went to cinema watch demon slayer/CSM movie with me + bowling game 3 soon, I s/o my whole mwp team + the whole mono community
inspired by this and this
First of all thanks for taking the time to do this, I'm sure the community will be interested in hearing from one of the best players in our community, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
hello, I am a 21 yo guy who lived until 20 in the very south east of france in villages very close to Nice, I moved a bit more than 1 year ago to auvergne region which is the cielau origine region and which is really bad because bad weather (they just have good cheeses, and I really love my home region in comparison tho...).
So right now I am studying for my last year for my master's degree in Management of people, quality and security (no clue why I'm doing that but it aint that hard and jobs of quality manager/responsable are fine i guess).
Outside of mons, I guess I am the typical 2000s weeb dude, watching animes, playing gachas with cute girls (Genshin/Wuthering waves/ZZZ/and I'm trying the uma musume game too rn), some visual novels too, even the only sport I practice is karate which is kinda weeb ig. Also I watch youtube a lot, and listen a lot of music (60 to 80s rock/hard rock/punk rock and anime songs), I play some other games than weeb things (rarely tho), recently I finished 100% of hollow knight silksong, I really enjoyed the first game and this one too was great.
How did you come up with the username Dieu Amphibien?
Basically my 1st nickname on many game (Clash royale for example) was "AXO" which come from Axoloto (wooper french name, and it was my fav mon back then), but of course it was already taken on Showdown and other game like pokemon go if I remember well, so i went with something that of course someone could have never taken before by keeping the "wooper root" with Dieu Amphibien (meaning Amphibian God in french), i think its funny to have a whole french name that non french speakers struggle to pronounce, also since its a long name people tends to just call me "Dieu" (literally god) which I think is funny (I have a big and weird ego, and prob bcause of this people started calling me Amphi instead of Dieu smh...)
How did you get introduced / involved with Pokemon Showdown and the Monotype community?
I think, its the same for me as it is for a lot of French players, during 2015-2020, watching youtube content of a French pokemon chanel called Pokemon Trash (they were a group of dudes) doing some cool trivia videos about Pokemon, and inside of this group, a guy named Fildrong (who has his own channel now) was explaining strategical lore about Pokemon (as he himself was an active player during the DPP/BW era) and it interested me a lot, so I decided to start showdown for the first time around 2018 I think, because my pc was so bad and couldnt run any games, showdown was "a game" it could run.
If i remember well, first i played like UU ladder, but i quickly moved into monotype, cause the teambuild seemed easier to me (like, its easier to make resistance synergies with 1 shared type, (its what i thought at that time, today I cant rly say that building mono is easier than building UU)). So, during 2019 I was playing a lot of mono ladder with good peaks and one day, a french guy sent a message leading me to a french discord for a little teamtour, at this time I didnt know there was a whole community "outside showdown" so I was really hyped up to play a teamtour with people to win, it seemed, to me, like a really big tournament, but when I look at it now, its not that big (tho I remember meta riolu was playing in this one in mono pool). Then things went a logical way, I started to discover the mono community, I remember Toadow who picked me for one of the biggest french teamtour at this time, and then finally starting smogon with the MPL (I forgot which one but prob the 2020 one I guess) but Chaitanya picked me as a 3k player in the Goldenrod Gengars, and then I've like never stopped to be in that mono community both french or smogon.
Do you have a favorite moment or memory that sticks out from your time on Smogon / PS?
hmm I think the 1st mono cups, when I won both SV/SS cup in 2023, back then I didnt realize i could win solo tours with that many players, it was a bit after the mono wcup with all the stuff that happened with venezuela and I was during a big exam period IRL (still the biggest of my life I think now), those 2 things put pressure on me to lock in and win those because like i knew winning the 1st solo tours of my life would boost my pressured mental, and I won those 2 in a row, i was really happy and proud of myself, unfort I kinda underperformed during POs, but I was still really glad to have won those cups, I think it helped me both for my reputation which was kinda bad after wcup and both for my self confidence.
Right now I'm feeling a bit of the same thing with last ssnl and last chance won in a row, I started this year of circuit really bad, and those 2 wins gave me lot of points, also in both of them, I faced spitfire in 3 BO3 during late rounds, I loved played him, like, he is a very good player and I needed to be fully focused in all my bo3 to play him, I really liked this feeling and I think we together went with all that we had in those BO, it was rly good and I met a player that I respect a lot now (I 100% know trich going to make fun of me after saying this).
If you were the tier leader for a day, what would you ban? Unban? What about an old generation?
Acupressure of course.
Well after answering this one, I think all my chances to join the council will be blown... but, first of all i really want to ban right now Hypnosis (ik that is something that cannot be made because complex ban, but then maybe literally banning the sleep mechanic like in other tiers, also nuking sleep powder liligant can be cool too...), its literally coinflip tech to win a game, the sleep mechanic is on its own kinda luck based, and when the move to put asleep is even more, its even more worth it. I think there is a recent game for Swiss between trich and ethereal that shows how hypnosis Darkrai is stupid.
But right now, I think the tier (SV) is good as it is, even if some mons are annoying and literally blocking some MU (I think of gliscor and volcarona), but in my opinion those are "part of the game", I don't think I would ban them, but I wouldn't mind if they were. Also, I would like to unban Kingambit and resuspect it after like 1 month, I'm not arguing if the mon should banned or not, but more like that its suspect had too lenient reqs for regular suspect and lot of people with very low reqs who made it (but wouldnt have made it if it was regular reqs) went for ban, I really don't have a ban or unban opinion on Kingambit right now but i think its suspect must be redone with average reqs conditions "to be fair".
Also I still think Gouging could be unbanned too, it counters volcarona quite well, and I don't think it is a broken mon, but I would understand if people really don't want it in the tier, it doesn't bother me if its a banned or unbanned mon even if i would vote to unban it.
For old generations, I can just talk about SS, I think the tier is fine (even if i fucking miss acupressure), and maybe moltres galar is a bit too dumb, lots of sets, fiery flinch, hurricane gameplay, idk, I feel it can be suspected at least (maybe it already was suspected and i forgot tho...)
Do you have any advice for some players who are newer and trying to get more involved with the community / better at the game? What about someone who wants to get drafted for MPL / MWP / MFPL?
I always think reaching good ladder peaks is always a thing that can be done to get better in the game and getting a bit noticed by the community and playing lot of games with 1 team always help you to understand more how your team works, how to improve it in the builder, how to win some match ups that seemed hard at the beginning, then of course switching teams when you think you mastered one to do the same, also the new ladder achievements could be useful for this too I think, then they can do all the monotype solo tours, doing regular good performances in those will of course help them to get better by playing good active players and getting noticed by them too. Also for teamtours, I think if they are confident of their skills, they can always tryout for the managers to impress them, if I was managing and new player that no one know managed to play well and impress me, I would instantly think of picking them, a good player for 3k is always something that a manager wants to get in my opinion
Is there a team you wouldn't mind sharing with us that you really enjoy using and showcases your style of play?
I really like the team I call the "Cool Water", first it was during SS, a water team Firnen made, i just spam it like every time i really love this team:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8monotype-848143?p2 (here is a replay which is a good showcase of the team), I've recently lost all my teams (screen), so I don't have the paste right now, but ig u can make it just with the replay, so that was for SS
So I tried to make a SV version of it some months ago https://pokepast.es/e889729ce2fd46ba, I really like playing this team too, mostly on ladder, even if I don't think it reaches my pleasure of playing the original SS cool water team, here is a fine replay of it i guess:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9monotype-2447433768-dgic7r5keee0w1nlk4u2vgt90b8wsnjpw :]
What was it like along the way to reaching 2000 Elo on the ladder? Any plans to let it decay a bit hope a challenger for #1 comes?
Long, I try to launch and win one game per day, with the daily decay I win like +6 and lose -4 each day, so its long, luckily I was a bit boosted by ladder tour, first time I've reached 2000, there were a lot of people with high elo to win more points, for now I'll try to keep my daily routine of ladder, if I can make it back to 2000 its great, but it will be long, I've lost 1 game recently its like literally weeks of elo lost because of a hpump miss lol, but at least my GXE ain't decreasing too much when I lose, and there isn't decay of GXE, so its like easier to get great GXE than getting back to 2050 elo, for now I'll try to reach the highest GXE possible (95.8 atm which is my peak), for elo right now I am kinda stuck between 1950 and 1990, each time i get close to 1990, I have a dumb loss and I go back to 1950, I still hope I'll make it to 2000 soon. also, at the time I search there arent many people, it takes a long time to find one opponent (well mostly because I'm so high rated) and its often SAW (dark), daniolo (poison), ghost dude that I always forget it name (ghost) they are always top ranked so when I face them I win more elo than I lose decay in 1 day, and sometime people using steel or water and my cool water SV version is fine vs all (I still can lose on some mistakes or hax ofc).
If someone wants to get higher elo than me, with enough motivation its definitly possible (of course in the case I dont fall) they still can try the 6 games per day to lose 0 daily decay and climbing really fast unlike me who is kinda stuck with 1 game per day, but I rly enjoy this stupid routine of launching my daily ladder game for some reason so I'll just stay with this for now, until I fall I guess (maybe until Generation 10 releases I hope)
If you were stuck on an island and there were 1 monotype community member stuck with you, who would you want it to be and why? what about who would you not want it to be?
Ok so probably the thoughest question, I thought about it a lot.
1st i thought of some candidates:
Micciu / Frol1, both already live on a small island already so they have probably good survival skills, and both speak the same native language as me, both into same weebs topic I like too.
I thought of cielau, just because getting him on an island to leave his cringe Auvergne region and seeing the beach would be good for him, also we prob can try to play bowling with coconuts which can be fun + same language too.
But i think i would just like to get it all alone, just to challenge myself, also I've lived alone for more than 5 years in a 9m square student room, so I think I'm ready to handle this, also if the island looks like Nice, it will just be me resting alone peacefully all day, thats how i like to live (I'm dead after 2 days tho).
I thought of 2 guys I should never go on this island with:
1st: Fogbound lake, he is too much of a food lover, I think in less than 3 days we would have 0 food left for us.
And 2nd and probably the worst: Mada, I'm like 100% sure we literally get mad in like 3 hours when we will realize we cannot bet on football games, then we will prob try to cope by betting on random things, like making crab fight and bet on them, and more and more until we went crazy and kill each other cause the betting had gone too far (1day-ish of survival imo)
Thank you so much for your time and your diligent answers, I’m sure everybody will appreciate reading and learning a bit more about you. Is there anybody you would like to give a shoutout to?
So first of all I want to s/o all my cute 2D waifus who always are here for me:
-Alya-san from Roshidere
-Mahiru shiina from angel next door
-Rin tohsaka from fate
-Chiaka nanami from danganronpa 2
-Vivian banshee from ZZZ
-Furina from genshin impact
-Columbina from genshin impact
-Phoebe from wuthering waves
-Carlotta from wuthering waves
-Miyuki Shiba from the irregular at magic school
-Victorique de blois from gosick
-Shiroha naruse from summer pockets
-Kuroneko from oreimo
-Waguri kaoruko from fragrant flower will bloom
they always support me, I think I missed some of them but I love all of them ofc (im mentaly stable)
-Mahiru shiina from angel next door
-Rin tohsaka from fate
-Chiaka nanami from danganronpa 2
-Vivian banshee from ZZZ
-Furina from genshin impact
-Columbina from genshin impact
-Phoebe from wuthering waves
-Carlotta from wuthering waves
-Miyuki Shiba from the irregular at magic school
-Victorique de blois from gosick
-Shiroha naruse from summer pockets
-Kuroneko from oreimo
-Waguri kaoruko from fragrant flower will bloom
they always support me, I think I missed some of them but I love all of them ofc (im mentaly stable)
then for the 3D persons, I s/o my german friends mind gaming and Fogbound Lake (amq soon), I s/o Fraolain even if he has bad anime and visual novel tastes, I s/o Trichotomy my half chinese brother who is starting to get bald (send prayers to him), I s/o Dj Breloominati♬ my goat opponent from the last 2 solo tours, I s/o Mada my sport betting manager, I s/o Cielau who went to cinema watch demon slayer/CSM movie with me + bowling game 3 soon, I s/o my whole mwp team + the whole mono community
~~~
This thread will remain open in case anyone would like to ask Dieu Amphibien any further questions. If you have an idea for who you would like to be interviewed next, please don't hesitate to let me know!
This thread will remain open in case anyone would like to ask Dieu Amphibien any further questions. If you have an idea for who you would like to be interviewed next, please don't hesitate to let me know!
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