Hey! Welcome back to OM Interviews! After a short delay, we're interviewing everyone's favourite Sketchmons player, Racool!
SM #4: Racool | +Dream Eater Gengar: cool xD!
Hi Racool!
Hi!
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m 18 years old from the UK, about to start studying history at uni in a month! Hmmm I cant really think of much else about me… ig I obviously am far too addicted to mons, but I also read an unhealthy amount and occasionally play tennis, even if I do suck at it :P
How did you get into Pokémon?
My first game was sapphire, and my starter was mudkip, hence why its my favourite mon to date. I just really enjoyed the games tbh, I was an absolute noob at them, as I would always teach my mons the highest bp moves, which ended up with like all my mons having either hyper beam or giga impact. I think a friend of mine was playing PS! In a class once, and I was like, “whats that”? So yeah that got me into PS! Although for the first 2 years, I would use it very infrequently, and when I went online, I would only ladder randbats, and I would only hand out in the lobby and chall auth there to matches cos I thought they were the best lol. Good Times.
Why Sketchmons?
So I got into sketch in February. At this point I was still just an om ladderer, and I only laddered AAA and MnM. However I was in a bit of a slump in both metas because I just hadn’t really adjusted to the new gen and the changes that had brought to AAA and MnM. For AAA, the new 2 ability clause really got me, as I found myself struggling to build teams that broke through stall while also being effective against offense, while in MnM, the lack of stones and the addition of golis really messed me up, and I found myself struggling to get close to topping either ladder (at the time I was still ignorant and thought the ladder was super important). I decided to try some other oms, and initially I tried monotype. That failed really quickly though, so I saw sketchmons, and decided to give it a go, and found that it was actually so much fun. I am a naturally very creatively inclined, and I found that sketchmons was one of the most rewarding oms for being creative. I built a team and won a ton of matches with it, and from then on I was pretty hooked. However, even at this point, I still preferred MnM, because people still thought I was one of the better MnM players, as there hadn’t been any MnM smogon tours, and I was still pretty dominant on the ladder. However OMGS rolled around, and despite being one of the favorites to go far in the MnM open, I lost round 1. Im not gonna lie, I was pretty depressed about that. Then sketch open came around the next week, and I ended up dominating it, reaching the final while losing only 1 match (ofc then I got smacked in the finals 2-0 by sample teams, but im gonna pretend that never happened ;P) . When I think about it, sketch is what actually got me into the om community, so ig that’s another reason to hate on it ;) But yeah, that got me into omgs playoffs, which made me an actually recognised member of the om community, and also got me onto the sketchmons council, which just furthered my interest in sketch and my desire to make others interested in it (or at least give it a try).
If Sketchmons suddenly disappeared (oh no!), what would you play instead? Opinions on STABmons?
Ah, knew this question was coming tbh. Well….. if sketch were to disappear, I would probably play AAA and STABmons. Ive been getting a lot better at AAA following this ompl, because Ive built teams with Jrdn and Motherhate, and theyr gods. I think some of their teambuilding genius has rubbed off on me, so I am actually competent at building balance, as oppose to only knowing how to build HO. As for STAB, well contrary to popular belief, I really love it. It was one of my favorite metas in gen 6, as it too had great scope for creativity. I felt like it was pretty unbalanced when it was omotm a couple months ago, but that is probs cos it hasn’t been able to balance as it hasn’t had a long standing ladder this gen, however it was still fun. My problem with STAB is limited to how so many of the STAB players see fit to insult sketch purely because STAB isn’t a perm anymore and sketch is. However, I refuse to get back into this argument again. STAB goat
ihhca agrees with me too. In my perfect world, STAB and sketch would be rotationals, as this would keep activity of them up more. We have seen that when STAB is left as a perm, it dies after a few months, and the same is true with sketch. From my point of view rotationals would fix that, however I don’t know enough about how rotationals work and what their other implications would be, so ill leave that decision for those who are more qualified to make them.
What are your thoughts on the latest OMPL?
Sigh. Ill admit, we were beyond lucky to make finals. I froze jrdn week 1 to draw with unfezants, while it11 froze mark k week 5 to draw that week, which allowed us to make finals. However, having gone through all of that, made finals, and gone to a tiebreaker….. to end up being the deciding match and losing to a hydromiss…. Well that really sucked. I was so depressed about it, that I made a detailed analysis of the scenarios (
https://pastebin.com/TxksD54F) that woulda occurred if I had hit hydro, and found that I had a 98% chance of winning ompl if it had hit (with the only way of me losing being if hydro got an absolute min roll), which just made me more sad about it. IK its technically not even hax, as I only had a 51% chance to hit 3 hydros, but it still sucked ngl. Regardless, ompl was super fun, and im hyped for the next one, even though my price will probs drop from 13k to like 3k if sketch isn’t in it. I might try managing if I get the opportunity tbh.
What players do you look up to or are really good friends with within the OM community?
Right well I could rattle off a list, but I just did in the ompl discussion thread anyways, so check out my post-ompl s/o’s:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ompl-v-discussion-thread.3606895/page-20#post-7491553
Also while ur at it, give it a like imo cos im a sucker for likes:P
Although, if I had to pick 2-3 people who are probs my best friends in oms (I hate doing this btw) probs would be
Jrdn and
Chloe., although ive got a lot of great friends too, I just don’t want to name more than those 2 cos then ill have to list so many more people otherwise ill feel really bad, pls don’t hate me :/
Can you provide a niche set that you have created and explain how/why it works?
Hmmm… the issue with this question is that most of the sets that I am quite proud of coming up with have now become quite common or were banned lol. My favourite niche set to use right now is oblivion wing celesteela, with metronome in sketchmons, cos like metronome allows it to bop mons that spam sketched recovery, and I cant tell you how funny it is to see someone go like “wtf are these damage rolls” while ur behind your screen lol-ing. However, fissure originally created that set when I asked him to make me a qd cele team, so I cant take credit for it even tho I spam it endlessly in sketch tours. Ig I kinda like band reckless flare blitz staraptor, cos people love to switch in skarm and then they get bopped af. In the new lcotm, AAAS, I created this perish trap mew set, by giving it the ability ph, and sketching perish song on it (it already learns block) so yeah that’s a p fun set to use.
tys asks: At what point does moral ambiguity turn into right vs wrong?
I wrote an essay on something very similar to this, I don’t want to make this interview 6 pages long, so pm me if u want the essay lol :P
AuzBat asks: If you were stuck on an island and you could only have 3 things with you, what would they be?
Any island? U never specified deserted, so I think ill settle for Hawaii, and ill take my phone, passport, and swimsuit thanks:)
Dream Eater Gengar asks: Thoughts on pineapple on a burger?
YUCK! Pineapple on pizza is enough to make me vom, don’t even talk about pineapple on a burger, I never want to imagine that again…
SteelEdges asks: What is your favorite book?
Ooooh that’s a toughie. Hmmmmm…. Well I read a lot, like a loooot. Im actually quite the addict tbh. As of the past few years, I found myself wandering away from like fantasy novels, and now I just love romance and historical fiction novels. I am currently reading a book called “Lord of Scoundrels” by Loretta Chase, it’s a 1800’s romance, and its amazing. It’s the third in the scoundrels series, but its by far the best. I also adore most of the classics, I was reading alexandre dumas the other week (he wrote the three musketeers, and the sequel which was the man in the iron mask), and his writing is amazing, I highly recommend it. I have a strange feeling that no one here will share my taste in books, but that’s probs cos im one of the few history and English lovers in oms, yall seem to be mostly mathsy sciency folks, not that that’s a bad thing. Hell id be mathsy and sciency if I could actually do maths and science :P.
E4 Flint asks: What is your favorite exotic food?
Another tough one rip. I love Italian food the most, my family owns a place on lake como and I go like every summer which is sick. The food in Italy is just amazing. Although since ive been there so many times, it doesn’t really feel that exotic to me tbh. I went to India on holiday 2 winters ago, and the food there was amazing, even if it was way too spicy! I remember getting this amazing food from a street vender, im gonna murder the spelling, but it was called like pani purri or something like that, sue me. I am vegetarian btw, I used to eat meat, but I decided to turn vegetarian 4 years ago, not vegan tho just vegetarian.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask Racool below!
