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 the 2024 circuit champion, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
Well, first of all, thank you so much for the invite and congratulations on hosting these interviews, they are all great!As for myself, I live on Brazil, I studied statistics and my favorite hobbies right now is singing and practicing yoga, but I used to write short horror stories in the past. I don't really know how to answer what my favorite pokémon would be... to be real with you, I have a difficult time answering any kind of "whats your favorite" questions, I just have a really difficult time cherrypicking favorites, but I think I would say Bulbasaur because of the anime!
How did you come up with the name Leafium Z?
Oh, that's a funny story but I will try to make it somewhat short: when I started playing competitively, it was on a league called Horizon in a side server, and my name there was Leaf, because I was a Grass gym leader there. Then, for an April's Fool prank, everybody on the server switched their name to a "-ium Z" suffix in order to create the Z League. That prank only lasted for a day, and by the end of it everybody reverted their names back to normal, but I felt like Leafium Z was actually a nice fit and just stuck with it LOL
How did you first get involved in Monotype?
I first started to get competitive as a whole by the end of Gen 6, but I really only started to understand it when gen 7 had already started. As for Monotype itself, I was there, on a day like any other, and then I recall reading the description of Tapu Bulu's Grassy Surge and then I thought to myself: "If it summons a terrain that boosts every Grass attack, how broken can it be if the team is ENTIRELY composed of Grass mons that can take advantage of it? Surely it must be broken!" I thought I cooked but I didn't and the team wasn't nearly as broken, but it was the kickstart for me to enjoy the concept and start laddering Mono, until I was found there and "recruited" to the league that I mentioned previously.
Congratulations on your circuit win! Was there an opponent that was most intimidating / hardest to prepare for?
Thank you! When I first saw the matchups, the two names that immediately scared me were Arken and Chait. And then, when I got to Round 2 and got paired vs Arken, I was like "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, this is it people LOL". I guess the biggest reason is that, when I first got into the community, both Arken and Chait were already big names, so they naturally scared me more than other guys like, for example, Cielau or Frol1, who are also amazing players, but started more or less at the same time as me (as far as I know).
Do you have a certain team from your run that you wouldn't mind sharing and telling us a bit about?
Hmm, most of the teams that I brought were somewhat standard-ish, but I think the team that was the most "out of the curve" and one that I didn't expect to do well but it hella did was the Pecharunt Ghost that I brought vs Cielau: https://pokepast.es/ed0889a6dd816c4d
Basic idea was double pivoting with Pecha and Pult to bring in the big hitters or Gholdengo to thunder wave stuff and take advantage with Hex as the game progresses. It's a pretty fun team and I believe it loads very well into a lot of the top threats of the metagame!
Do you have a favorite moment playing monotype? A favorite memory that sticks out from your time on Pokemon Showdown / Smogon?
As far as gaming goes, I would say that the Round 2 of this years circuit vs Arken was really really cool to me, because it was a high stakes series but it was also vs a very dear friend, so at the same time that it was tense, I kinda forgot the competitiveness and it felt like I was just having fun with a friend. But for the absolute favorite, it would be impossible to not mention the circuit win, and for a number of reasons. One of them being that, until then, I still haven't won a individual tournament yet, failing two finals practically in a row with SV Cup and SS Cup, so it was getting kinda frustrating LOL But also the fact that I had a lot of people rooting for me to win the circuit, so it made me trust myself more and eventually pull it through and bring it home!
If you were tier leader for a day, what would you ban or unban?
Oh, it would be the EASIEST Archaludon ban of my entire life. People think Gouging Fire is the issue but no... it's that goddamn lighter and I hope people eventually will see it. But to not be too obvious, I would also ban Dire Claw. It adds an unnecessary layer of RNG that can take out wins off the hand of the better player, so yeah, broken ass move that should be gone.
Do you have any advice you'd give to newer, less experienced players who want to some day have a Monotype ribbon of their own?
I think the first two major big steps are 1) learning what each pokémon can do in terms of their roles, their movesets, etc and 2) learning the principles of the battle, that is stuff like thinking some turns ahead, identifying which pokémon is your win condition, which mon is the most expendable, weighing risk-reward, etc... and I believe that the fastest and the most fun way of doing that is, at first, laddering random battles. I say Random Battles first because you will be queueing into a lot of games really fast, you will meet a lot of different pokémon, so eventually you will start to recognize their functions, and you will learn on practice how to immediately adapt on crazy matchups, which is also a very valuable skill. I used to play a lot of random battles and battle factory and I can say that those randomized metas help you a lot on terms of refining your battling technique. Once you are comfortable with those, you can start getting a sample team from a type you like and then hit the Monotype ladder and be happy.
Well, those are all of the questions I have for you, thank you for your time and your very dilligent answers! Do you have anybody you'd like to give a shoutout to?
Thank you again! I've made a lot of friends on the last 2-3 years that I really appreciate being around me, but it would be IMPOSSIBLE to not give a proper shoutout for the two people that were always close to me since the beginning. I met style.css back on league days, i think SEVEN years ago; I met plunder a few years later and ever since then, us three were always together and we would learn together and we got into the competitive scene at the same time and we grew up together and the only reason that I am playing this game is because they make everything fun and worthwhile, so I am just so incredibly glad and happy and proud to be friends with such amazing guys. I literally never met a single person that has one bad thing to say about those two and that just goes to say how awesome they are, thank you so much for being my friends :D
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 the 2024 circuit champion, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
Well, first of all, thank you so much for the invite and congratulations on hosting these interviews, they are all great!As for myself, I live on Brazil, I studied statistics and my favorite hobbies right now is singing and practicing yoga, but I used to write short horror stories in the past. I don't really know how to answer what my favorite pokémon would be... to be real with you, I have a difficult time answering any kind of "whats your favorite" questions, I just have a really difficult time cherrypicking favorites, but I think I would say Bulbasaur because of the anime!
How did you come up with the name Leafium Z?
Oh, that's a funny story but I will try to make it somewhat short: when I started playing competitively, it was on a league called Horizon in a side server, and my name there was Leaf, because I was a Grass gym leader there. Then, for an April's Fool prank, everybody on the server switched their name to a "-ium Z" suffix in order to create the Z League. That prank only lasted for a day, and by the end of it everybody reverted their names back to normal, but I felt like Leafium Z was actually a nice fit and just stuck with it LOL
How did you first get involved in Monotype?
I first started to get competitive as a whole by the end of Gen 6, but I really only started to understand it when gen 7 had already started. As for Monotype itself, I was there, on a day like any other, and then I recall reading the description of Tapu Bulu's Grassy Surge and then I thought to myself: "If it summons a terrain that boosts every Grass attack, how broken can it be if the team is ENTIRELY composed of Grass mons that can take advantage of it? Surely it must be broken!" I thought I cooked but I didn't and the team wasn't nearly as broken, but it was the kickstart for me to enjoy the concept and start laddering Mono, until I was found there and "recruited" to the league that I mentioned previously.
Congratulations on your circuit win! Was there an opponent that was most intimidating / hardest to prepare for?
Thank you! When I first saw the matchups, the two names that immediately scared me were Arken and Chait. And then, when I got to Round 2 and got paired vs Arken, I was like "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, this is it people LOL". I guess the biggest reason is that, when I first got into the community, both Arken and Chait were already big names, so they naturally scared me more than other guys like, for example, Cielau or Frol1, who are also amazing players, but started more or less at the same time as me (as far as I know).
Do you have a certain team from your run that you wouldn't mind sharing and telling us a bit about?
Hmm, most of the teams that I brought were somewhat standard-ish, but I think the team that was the most "out of the curve" and one that I didn't expect to do well but it hella did was the Pecharunt Ghost that I brought vs Cielau: https://pokepast.es/ed0889a6dd816c4d
Basic idea was double pivoting with Pecha and Pult to bring in the big hitters or Gholdengo to thunder wave stuff and take advantage with Hex as the game progresses. It's a pretty fun team and I believe it loads very well into a lot of the top threats of the metagame!
Do you have a favorite moment playing monotype? A favorite memory that sticks out from your time on Pokemon Showdown / Smogon?
As far as gaming goes, I would say that the Round 2 of this years circuit vs Arken was really really cool to me, because it was a high stakes series but it was also vs a very dear friend, so at the same time that it was tense, I kinda forgot the competitiveness and it felt like I was just having fun with a friend. But for the absolute favorite, it would be impossible to not mention the circuit win, and for a number of reasons. One of them being that, until then, I still haven't won a individual tournament yet, failing two finals practically in a row with SV Cup and SS Cup, so it was getting kinda frustrating LOL But also the fact that I had a lot of people rooting for me to win the circuit, so it made me trust myself more and eventually pull it through and bring it home!
If you were tier leader for a day, what would you ban or unban?
Oh, it would be the EASIEST Archaludon ban of my entire life. People think Gouging Fire is the issue but no... it's that goddamn lighter and I hope people eventually will see it. But to not be too obvious, I would also ban Dire Claw. It adds an unnecessary layer of RNG that can take out wins off the hand of the better player, so yeah, broken ass move that should be gone.
Do you have any advice you'd give to newer, less experienced players who want to some day have a Monotype ribbon of their own?
I think the first two major big steps are 1) learning what each pokémon can do in terms of their roles, their movesets, etc and 2) learning the principles of the battle, that is stuff like thinking some turns ahead, identifying which pokémon is your win condition, which mon is the most expendable, weighing risk-reward, etc... and I believe that the fastest and the most fun way of doing that is, at first, laddering random battles. I say Random Battles first because you will be queueing into a lot of games really fast, you will meet a lot of different pokémon, so eventually you will start to recognize their functions, and you will learn on practice how to immediately adapt on crazy matchups, which is also a very valuable skill. I used to play a lot of random battles and battle factory and I can say that those randomized metas help you a lot on terms of refining your battling technique. Once you are comfortable with those, you can start getting a sample team from a type you like and then hit the Monotype ladder and be happy.
Well, those are all of the questions I have for you, thank you for your time and your very dilligent answers! Do you have anybody you'd like to give a shoutout to?
Thank you again! I've made a lot of friends on the last 2-3 years that I really appreciate being around me, but it would be IMPOSSIBLE to not give a proper shoutout for the two people that were always close to me since the beginning. I met style.css back on league days, i think SEVEN years ago; I met plunder a few years later and ever since then, us three were always together and we would learn together and we got into the competitive scene at the same time and we grew up together and the only reason that I am playing this game is because they make everything fun and worthwhile, so I am just so incredibly glad and happy and proud to be friends with such amazing guys. I literally never met a single person that has one bad thing to say about those two and that just goes to say how awesome they are, thank you so much for being my friends :D
~~~
This thread will remain open in case anyone would like to ask Leafium Z 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 Leafium Z 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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, …)? 
Vlarcheops 
and this gonna be an omega hot take, but the Dewgong Ice that I cooked is really really fun to use. Not really viable, but omega fun.
