Project OM Interviews (NeonJolteonWasUsed and Chessking345 @ Post 71)

[Ren]

should I sign up for omwc kenn

 

[ken]

should I sign up for omwc kenn

yes

 

[BoingK]

Up the reds?

 

[ponchlake]

what happened on the night of september 21st, 1998? what are you not telling us?

 

[berry]

Fresh off a week of partying and endless self-indulgences in the Caribbean after their impressive OMPL Victory, I met up with Fc and Guard , the two managers of the SSSSS. First, tell me a little bit about yourselves, what you do IRL, what part of Smogon are you originally from, and how did you start playing Pokemon and join smogon?

Fc: Hi! I'm Fc, I'm 18 and currently studying math in university going into my second year. IRL aside from mons and school I used to play a fair bit of tennis in high school and would like to eventually get into it more, and have also played piano for most of my life which I don't do as much as in the past but still enjoy. My other main game of choice aside from mons is smash bros, which I play a decent bit at local tournaments. On Smogon I originally come from Ubers where I'm currently the tier leader but also got into AG a few months after I joined, which I now also lead. Been playing in-game for probably 10+ years atp and on PS since the end of ORAS, but I only joined smogon in gen 8 to do the randbats dynamax suspect because it was so broken. Right around that same time I played in Ubers Ladder Tour 2020 which got me into the Ubers community since I was picked up for UPL right after.

Guard: hi hi, I'm Guard / Ray, aspiring surgeon currently doing a double masters programme in Medicine and Biomedical Science. Studying usually usurps most of my free time, but when I have some I love to watch / play tennis, do some art, sing / dance, and learn languages, beyond the cliché stuff like playing Pokemon & watching movies and TV-shows of course ~

If you look at my join date on Smogon it says 2016 I believe, but I didn't actually get into Smogon stuff up until 2019, which is when I joined the lovely WiFi community (you can still see the remnants here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-7-guardsweepers-gold-mine.3654984/). I am an avid Pokemon collector and have played / still play pretty much every main-series games from DPP onwards. Fast-forward to SwSh, Pokemon infamously got dexited out of existence, which came as a huge blow to me as a collector. Dexit created a huge ‘what if?’ situation for me, in the sense that I’d never know the full scope of a Pokemon’s capabilities in an environment that hosted every Pokemon and gimmick. Natdex OU and Natdex AG curbed that interest, and therefore got me hooked to competitive Pokemon on Smogon for the first time in 2020. Eventually, I left the Natdex sections once AG transitioned out of its Natdex era and save from a year-long hiatus mid 2021 - mid 2022, I'm still here X_X

So let’s get the obvious out of the way- congrats on winning OMPL! How did you feel about the tournament, and what were some highlights from this season?

Fc: Thanks, this tour was probably the most fun I've had on smogon so far. Going into the draft we knew we were just gonna get a bunch of friends together to play and it worked out how we planned with a few new players in the mix too. Tournament itself was great, we started off super strong and then almost missed playoffs lol, but we clutched up the last week and played well through playoffs.

Highlight is when Pichus clutched the season ofc, but aside from that personally for me winning tiebreak game 3 was also really big since it was such an important game and I'd lost to fissure a lot in the past. PDT using Fillet Away Giratina and Fillet Away Hoopa 2 games later were also some of the most fun games to watch and discuss in our cord during the season.

Guard: thank you! Fc pretty much summed it up, this was the most fun tour I've been a part of by far & this is entirely thanks to our team atmosphere. A lot of us were already good friends + the players we were unfamiliar with (mainly our 2v2 slot / helpers and PociekMociek) quickly adapted + contributed to the atmosphere - this was the main highlight for me alongside Arushi clinching the 5-0 victory of course ~ Some other highlights were Fragments' win in week 1 (we were very unsure about the 2v2 slot due to the UMPL fiasco last year so this was a big deal to us lol) and Fc / me clutching tiebreakers against opponents we both lost to the week before!

Incredible. Couple more questions: the Solgaleos had by far one of the strangest drafts in OMPL this year, with many predictions and analyses placing them near the back of the pack because there were almost no OM mainers. Can you tell us a little bit about your drafting strategy, who you ended up picking (and why), and why you think it worked out so well?

Fc: we planned the tour from the start to team with a lot of our friends who we knew were incredible pilots, just weren't as familiar with the respective OMs they'd be playing. But because we were all friends we worked super well together to make up for the lack of experience and caught up by the later weeks of the tour collectively.

Guard and I already knew our tiers very well while icemaster had played some mnm, but pichus, pdt, bj, and clean were new to their tiers in gen 9 having not played them either ever or at least since SS. We all worked a lot to prep together and make up for the knowledge gap with just a lot of people trying, so it was good enough to work out. 2v2 was our only unsure slot, but Fragments dm'd me before the tour started with a list of achievements in 2v2 and it was enough to convince me of him since I already knew he was a good player, and with the incredible helpers of part and gawain he brought in it was a super successful slot.

Our bench was mostly just more players who we knew could click well with bacon, tier, spellcaster, Will, dugza, and pociekmociek, the latter of which we drafted because icemaster recommended his support and he was a massive part of our team, helping pretty much every slot and being a great presence overall which was great since I knew little of him going into the tour.

Guard: Yeah, as Fc already states, we simply had a huge amount of confidence in our friends. Most of us know each other several years at this point, and we were all certain that everyone would be able to pick up a specific OM and do well. We were a tiny bit worried before the draft though; surely noone lets us get away with a stacked team like this. . .except that's exactly what they did. We were very happy with our final draft! pichus, Icemaster, clean, BJ, tier, Fragments, bacon, DugZa, Will, and pdt are all incredibly talented pilots / builders in any given setting and we had strong supporters in the back with PociekMociek and Spellcaster (and our undrafted heroes Gawain and Part).

I was taken aback a bit by the PRs and stuff at first though. The idea that a team of 'non-mainers' is inferior to a team of mainers in a team tour is quite frankly just wrong, as has been proven countless amount of times. Other factors such as team synergy and motivation are equally as important (if not more given that Pokemon HOME was bound to reset almost every metagame anyway) and we had plenty! I'm glad we were able to prove everyone wrong, but I'm definitely not surprised about our win. We were absolutely certain from day 1 that we were strong contenders for the title.

As outsiders who got to playtest and manage in a tour that fell outside of your comfort zone, was there anything that caught you guys off guard? Frequently, non-OM gamers run into a "how the fuck is this legal LOL" moment at least once or twice over the course of the season- is this something that Ubers and AG prepped you guys for, or were there any real complete surprises?

Fc: I’m sure among our team that happened a decent number of times especially early on, but personally since I’d played most of the tiers for slam I felt decently comfortable even outside of stab / ag. A few of the bh things like good as good zama and fullpass that just 6-0’d us a week before getting banned did kinda hit like that tho lol

Guard: Nothing in AG really catches me off guard but definitely had a lot of those moments in other metagames - why is Maushold legal in GG, why is Good As Gold legal in BH, why is Triple Arrows legal in STABmons, why is Chien-Pao legal in AAA etc etc ?_?

Great to hear. Do either of you have any notable or memorable moments from your run that you'd like to share? What are some of your favorite games that you watched throughout the season, and did the OM tour environment feel any different than the ones you would have encountered in Ubers or AG?

Fc: The environment was different because especially in ag it’d be impossible to make a team with all of us that fits budget lol, so it was just a really enjoyable tour all around. We also had to do a lot more adapting since we were less familiar with the metas so that took a different kind of approach than normal for us

As for favourite memories, winning our first 2v2 set because of our track record in umpl in 1v1 as well as just winning the tour / our finals games were highlights in terms of watching games and the chat overall. Fragments / part / gawain really are all him, saving even the SSSSS 2v2 slot

Personally though winning semis tiebreak was my most memorable game like I mentioned before, really big thing for me since I lost to fissure a lot and it was a stressful situation where I prepped more than the rest of the whole season probably combined lol. Also just felt good to go positive after a poor last year

Guard: The most memorable games for me / the ones I had the most fun spectating were pdt's wins with Fillet Away sweepers in BH, Fc's 6-0 sweep with Victory Dance Zamazenta-C in STABmons, tier randomly decimating Ivar with a lead Defiant Kingambit in AAA, Fragments' first win in 2v2, my AG game where a Calyrex-S Terastallized into Normal and Encore-locked my Calyrex-S into Tera Blast Fighting after which I swept, all of our tiebreak games, and pichus' season decider of course. And yeah the OM tour environment was very different! For example, lots of dedicated contributors posting weekly analyses of played games is something I enjoyed; you definitely don't see this in AG. But most of all, as Fc said, our team of friends made this tour truly unique. Such a roster would be impossible to draft in AGPL, as they would go for about 250k in an AGPL auction xd

Any final thoughts or shoutouts for the om community?

Guard: This tour was the most fun experience I could have wished for on this site! Shoutouts to all of my teammates, the helpers, and supporters for that - you know who you are since I made a shoutout post already ~

Fc: fully agree with guard, this was my favourite tour I've played in up to this point on smogon so I appreciate everyone who was a part of it either through the draft or that joined to help us, you all made this such a great season

 

[Notagamer]

Y’all played the 2011 masterpiece portal 2 by valve?

 

[BoingK]

FC: who is your smash main (and why is it little mac)

Guard: what speciality you tryna go into? (double masters in medicine/biomedicine is insane btw)
Also what made you pick medicine as a career?

 

[Gimmicky]

And we're back! First, a warm thank you to berry and UT for hosting the show in my absence before letting me take over. For our first OM interview of the season, I got the elusive chance to meet up with Ivar57 and pannu off the tails of their OMWC victory. Ivar's been on the show already at this point, but I couldn't resist such a perfect opportunity! I know you two are busy touring the world to gloat at the teams you beat, but can you tell me a bit about yourselves and what inspired you to join Smogon in the first place?

pannu : Hi! First off, thank you to April for having us! Most of you know me as pannu, I'm 18 and live in Sweden, and ATM I'm a full-time student. Aside from mons (duh) my hobbies mainly include reading manga, listening to music (I especially like listening to international stuff), and playing gacha games. I joined Smogon in the middle of 2020, I had been playing PS for a while, think I discovered it when I was like 10 from an old MandJtv video, I was bonified low ladder menace, running "heat" like shiftry and gallade in OU with super edgy nicks, just because they were mons I liked. Fastforward to 2020 and i was playing a lot of PS!-- Specifically, NatDex, due to personal reasons I couldn't rlly engage with a lot of my old hobbies so I started playing a lot more pokemon, eventually I made my account to sign up for some dumb forum tour and well, its all been downhill since.

Ivar57 : I am very busy gloating rn but I guess I will make some time for you. Hi, I'm Ivar57, I'm 24 years old and I work as a salesperson in the field of solar energy. I have a girlfriend and a dog and I like to play oms (I know, shocker). For me it all started back in highschool, like 8/9 years ago. A friend of mine showed me an unkillable sturdy shedinja in balanced hackmons and from that moment on I played bh from time to time. This was back during gen 6, but it took me until the start of gen 8 to actually get into playing competitively. I was a bit of a ladder hero back then, but when I actually topped the ladder with my rain team somebody asked me if I wanted to make an RMT. Having no idea what that was at the time (and that smogon even existed actually) I got some help with making the RMT, and that was my very first smogon post.

It seems like being a (recovered) ladder hero is the common thread between most OM players! To get into the meat of this interview, huge congratulations on your OMWC win! How did you two first end up managing and working together?

pannu : Well, I've been managing Europe for going on 3 years atp, I was just hanging around in the team cord in 2021 because I had a bunch of friends on the team, but come 2022 I took the reigns from TNM and ever since this team has been my baby. Ivars always been on the team as a staple teammate, always winning and making sure everyone else also wins. After his managerial debut in ompl this year I asked if he wanted to manage wc together, and well. He did. He also stole MY captain role from me. Asshole

Ivar57 : Us working together? I think you have gotten the wrong idea here. Pannu wanted to manage OMWC and asked if I wanted to join so I did. From that point on we fought about every single decision that needed to be made and I bullied pannu into giving the server rights to Akira so we could make a channel without him being able to read it. This was of course all done with love and care and pannu still really likes me as a result. <3 u pannu

I was going to ask what it was like in the teamcord, but based off of these answers, I think we've all got an idea... Your performances throughout the tour were, both as individual players and as a collective team, pretty dominant. What were your plans going into the early stages of the tournament, and did they play out as you expected?

pannu : Oh the teamcord experience was terrible. We had rofna being a fishing bot addict, half our roster yapped to discord ai bots instead of prepping, chessking who we invited for support stole my identity, and there was a "aaa" channel (???)

I had 3 simple goals for the first round.
1. Qualify for playoffs, duh.
2. Load cool shit in inh, I got tired of rm + lax + sflo balances.
3. Suss out who is best in what slot, we have alot of players who are multifaceted players and can slot basically anywhere in the tour, so finding out where everyone's groove was was gnna be an important step to fully optimize our teams strength

Ivar57 : Don’t forget the bo3-dog-pics channel pannu. This is the channel that brought us all together and made sure I would not prep until the weekend.

Not much else to add here. Overall the above strat worked out really well. By playoffs we found the right configuration and we managed to get the win

[Your Teamcord] Sounds like an absolutely fascinating place, for better or for worse. Just a few more questions for you two! Looking back to the OM community at large, what are your plans for next year? Do you already plan to run the team back next year, or perhaps there's other big tournaments you're looking forward to playing/managing for? Any tiers you want to get into with your well-deserved free time?

Ivar57 : For now the focus is on the ongoing OM Circuit playoffs for me, I really want to win the circuit another time. If pannu and I both win our game this week we will play each other for round 2, so that is a matchup to look forward to. Unfortunately it is looking likely that OMWC will not happen next year but if it does I would be happy to run the team back with pannu. This tournament has been the most fun team tour in recent memory for me, mostly because we did not always take it super seriously. The tournament I am currently looking forward to the most though is the next OMPL. I have not won one yet so hopefully I will be able to change that next year. For new tiers, I am trying to learn PIC at the moment but my brain hurts every time I play it lol.

Editor's note here, pannu proceeded to fall asleep for 7 hours, despite it being 6PM for her.

pannu : Tbh, I Dunno how much I'll be involved with om tours going forward, I really am not a fan of cutting the circuit down to 4 tiers, I think getting to play 5-6 different tiers a week is really what made oms stand out to me. I'll probably still sign up as a player for next PL though, ive always wanted to try bh or mnm more seriously, so maybe that's in the scopes for next year.

pannu's sleep schedule causing problems, who could've predicted that... Well, one last thank you to you both for taking some time out of your gacha and gloating for this! Before we go, is there anyone who you'd like to give a shout out to on your team or otherwise?

pannu : Be nice. Obviously my entire team and all our helpers are deserving of shoutouts, but I'm especially proud of placu, and his growth in the last year and performance this year, actual beast

Ivar57 : I would like to give a shoutout to everyone on the team (except rex, who tried to force me into making a shoutout post) and all the people who helped for the amazing work. Last but not least I want to give a huge shoutout to Sammy in particular for helping everyone (and with that I mean everybody but pannu) with getting their prep done and playing loads of test games, he carried this team and should be proud of himself

Once again, I'd like to thank Ivar and pannu for their time! Congrats again on a well deserved victory. Now, it's your turn to ask them the burning questions you have!

 

[seth]

Question for pannu: how did you obtain such a paunch build? Beastly genetics, generational dedication, both? Lmk

 

[Ren]

super edgy nicks

some things dont change

 

[mayonnaise. mayo.]

Question for pannu: how did you obtain such a paunch build? Beastly genetics, generational dedication, both? Lmk

Question for bofa dem: Will you ever consider playing PH?
please say yes i wanna build shitty teams for you to use

 

[cat]

pannu would you jump for the beef

 

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

Ivar57 pannu

Favorite / most memorable OM moment / memory?

 

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

Ivar57 pannu
why are you ignoring us?

 

[pannu]

Ivar57 pannu
why are you ignoring us?

Fuck you

Ivar57 pannu

Favorite / most memorable OM moment / memory?

My favorite moment in om history was my team talking about picking me for TB in 2022, while it seems egotistical of me it really did wonders for 15 yo's cotta and their confidence in themselves, I think it was the first time ever more than 4 people supported me in something.

Question for bofa dem: Will you ever consider playing PH?
please say yes i wanna build shitty teams for you to use

No, my head is way to small deal with all the mechanics. Fun as fuck to watch tho esp gen7

pannu would you jump for the beef

Yes and I'd make it

Question for pannu: how did you obtain such a paunch build? Beastly genetics, generational dedication, both? Lmk

What the fuck does this mean

some things dont change

Fuck you

 

[Chessking345]

Worst interviewees of all time blacklist both of them shameless behaviour
Oh nvm pannu responded ok just Ivar maybe dq him from circuit for punishment

 

[Ivar57]

Worst interviewees of all time blacklist both of them shameless behaviour
Oh nvm pannu responded ok just Ivar maybe dq him from circuit for punishment

fine I'll do it

Ivar57 pannu
why are you ignoring us?

because we are more important than you because we won OMWC

Ivar57 pannu

Favorite / most memorable OM moment / memory?

winning OM Circuit 2 years ago

Question for bofa dem: Will you ever consider playing PH?
please say yes i wanna build shitty teams for you to use

no

 

[SpaceSpeakers]

Ivar57 pannu
- closest friend in OM Community?
- what else you hope to do on PS and Smogon?
- any tips for players like zastra to get good at mon?

 

[Ivar57]

Ivar57 pannu
- closest friend in OM Community?

Has to be XxLazzerpenguinxX, even if we dont talk as much anymore nowadays

- what else you hope to do on PS and Smogon?

Win more Smogon tournaments

- any tips for players like zastra to get good at mon?

I think they are too far gone for them to have a chance to get good tbh

 

[pannu]

- closest friend in OM Community?

its between akira, fiora and evie probably. all I know is that it for sure is not you LMFAO fatty

- what else you hope to do on PS and Smogon?

have fun

- any tips for players like @zastra to get good at mon?

think abt what ur doing n why ur doing it, test ur teams and don't be zastra.

 

[Gimmicky]

The bigwigs from the network said we needed to shake it up, so here we are! I'm Tidal, and I'll be hosting the show today. No need to dig any deeper into it. On today's episode of OM Interviews, I got the chance to talk to two newly prominent faces in the community, NeonJolteonWasUsed and Chessking345, right off the heels of both of them become tier leaders! With such a drastic shakeup, I couldn't pass up on the chance to talk to these two. Welcome, the both of you! How are you doing today, and what can you tell me about yourselves?

NeonJolteonWasUsed : Hey all! Thank you for having me on, Gimmicky. This is Neon here, the up and coming tier leader of STABmons, reporting that I'm doing well. I'm sure people that aren't active on the Smogon Discord won't recognize me, as my appearances over Smogon as a whole are quite sparce compared to other members, usually taking some backseat role in some offshoot tier or silently helping with resources for other metas and teams during tournaments, such as with STABmons itself. I've been on STAB council for almost a year now and have done my best to maintain resources and help make this tier everything it could be. I have been hanging around the sidelines of this community for about 11 years now and going strong! Funnily enough, I had hardly gotten into OMs much at all until this generation, and even then it was just STABmons, which is a tier I already played on and off back in Sword and Shield. (I could name you every viable set on every viable mon in STAB but if you asked me literally anything about AAA, M&M, etc. I would have absolutely no idea.)

My first ever Pokemon game was White 2, and I have been in the community ever since. Aegislash is my all time favorite Pokemon, and I am probably the biggest Steel type defender you will ever meet. I'm ready to take on this role and continue where the rest of the STAB council left off. I look forward to making this tier everything it can be and more alongside a council and community willing to pitch in! As for who I am outside of Smogon. I'm a college student enrolled in a computer networking course and looking to become a computer network manager. I'm also a big fan of cooking, and hiking.


Chessking345 : Hi! I am doing well today thanks for having me. I'm Chessking, 22 years old and currently studying computer science in university. Some stuff I do outside of mons are other games and watching anime. I joined Smogon apparently back in 2016, and I don't remember how I found myself in BH one year later. Later mid gen 8 I lost some interest and ended up taking a break before coming back for SV, arguably not an outstanding choice considering the gen but it is what it is.


Happy to have you both here. Congratulations on both of your promotions! You've both touched on this a little already, but what has your journey throughout Gen 9 looked like? What drew you to STAB and BH respectively?



NeonJolteonWasUsed : Like I mentioned before, OMs as a whole wasn't really my thing. In many cases I simply felt like I was playing too different of a game than Pokemon to really hold interest in it for an extended period of time. I have absolutely nothing against them, just not something I find myself getting into. STABmons was an exception to this, feeling the most like "Pokemon but with a little extra sauce". For a while, that was all it was to me too, I never looked too much further into it until Gen 8 where I gave it a proper shot. Eventually, the endless possibilities combined with the sense of familiarity STABmons still provides would lead to me loving it more and more, accumulating in Gen 8 to where I began pouring far more time into the tier and having an absolute blast with it. Getting in to Gen 9, I had taken a small break from the tier, but eventually came back to it reignited with the passion I had for it before.

There wasn't a huge community to go off of, really just the council and its few players discussing in the OM Discord. Just for my own interest, around the release of the Teal Mask DLC, I began working on several different personal projects for the tier, such as a personal VR creator, and set compendium. Eventually, these efforts would be recognized and I would be asked to join the council for STABmons. From there, I would begin transferring what was originally a silly little passion project of my own making to the actual strategy dex! All the sets you see on the strategy dex at the moment are from work I've been putting into it over the course of a couple months now. I would also go on to help Marnie with the propoga- I mean social media aspect and send sets to them to be highlighted on Smogon's social media pages when asked.

The strange part is I feel like I'm still only scratching the surface. Simply due to the sheer expanse of STABmons' mechanics new things are being tested and discovered on the regular, with very little sign of stopping, and I plan to be there for every second of it.

​

Chessking345 : It's been a long time so I don't remember at all how I got in BH. I want to guess that it's because its like the highest power level tiered meta and I've always been more attracted to higher power level/Ubers based metas (and it was pretty big back then). Afterwards got engaged with the very fun community, started playing in tours, and ended up sticking with it.

Regarding what is attractive about BH, I think the overall nature + definition of the tier leaves a lot of room for innovations even in seemingly established metas so you can always look for interesting stuff if you are bored of the meta, while the consistency of tried-and-true stuff also allows you to easily build a foundation for the weird techs you are trying out if you want. And it feels incredibly satisfying when some of these end up working out especially in tournaments (or if it doesn't you can always shift the blame to the rest of the team). Full EVs is also addictive it's so nice not needing to check/remember speed tiers or weird spreads just click the PS button.

Gen 9 has been a pretty great experience so far despite being gen 9. I think I came back just before it dropped for ? reason. Exploring a completely new meta is always extremely fun so I'm glad I was around for it. Shortly into the gen council had some shuffling with several members stepping down and I got in as I was a big yapper. From there I've helped with trying to tier this meta through some crazy stuff and been pretty active on smogon and discord. Tournament-wise I played in a few and got carried a few times, no luck involved. Haven't done very well in any individuals though I do think this gen has been my best due to various reasons. Always fascinating to realize that its only been 2 years into this gen and we likely have 2 more years to go.


Well, I speak for everyone when I say we're happy to see how far you've come this generation! Now, could you give us a peek into your own tiering philosophy? Is there anything on the radar in your tiers, or any changes you're planning to make?


NeonJolteonWasUsed : For a while now I've been quite an outspoken critic of STAB's recent tiering decisions. (Especially if you remember the Wicked Blow Unban) As I'm sure many would agree, this generation has been, to put it lightly, a disaster for STABmons as a generation. I can't exactly blame anyone as this was also the generation that introduced an incredibly high amount of mechanics tied to a bunch of different moves that make certain Pokemon even more polarizing and unpredictable. But it certainly does make tiering a lot harder. If I may, my biggest issue I took with the council was its borderline radio silence with the rest of the community, oftentimes from an outsiders perspective kind of just doing their own thing. Helped in part thanks to the lack of consistent surveys, and action that seemed to have no real warrant to it among the playerbase without even proper suspects.

This is something I want to try and set back in the right direction. I have immense respect for everyone on the original STAB council, and a lot of them really were just that busy so it couldn't be done most of the time, but this has been a problem for too long, and I want to fix it. As for my own ways of tiering. I feel as though I might be a bit more strict in my tiering views. But I'm hoping the council I have recently brought together will be able to help me look outside of my own perspectives. (Shoutouts to Bonk and Rudi! You guys rock!) As for what's on the radar. A lot of things really, but two of the main things I am looking towards are action against Damp Rock, and the return of Kingambit to the meta.

Expect much more to come up! There's a lot to unpack and we hope to hear your voice better the tier and get it back in business!


Chessking345 : In terms of tiering preferences I used to be a lot more banhappy, though more recently less so with some elements starting with Protean that I feel like could use more time. I still like rapid tiering actions after major meta shifts because it allows the meta to settle a lot faster into more balanced states for players, and this is also nice because the tier usually gets more activity during this time so it feels valuable for this activity to go towards useful development. Overall I'm pretty happy with basically all the tiering changes we have had so far this gen, might've disagreed with the timing or stuff at the time but I think everything currently on the banlist are there for perfectly valid reasons.

Going into more detail, BH as a tier fosters a fair amount of cheese/uncompetitive strategies, and personally I do not think these are healthy in any way for a meta as they simply are just looking to matchup fish and reduce skill. These elements do actually tend to be somewhat "controversial" mainly due to the notable tour/ladder discrepancy for BH with cheese strategies often being viewed as "fun" and uncompetitive strategies not usually being used nearly as much. Some examples would be Fillet Away/ClangSoul for the former and Baton Pass/Liquid Ooze for the latter. For straight up simply being too good elements, it depends. Usually these lead to high usage and centralization but some are healthy, such as Imposter generally (Zac-C in NDBH is also a great example but thats a different meta) because they offer a lot to the meta and have variety of counterplay options, while something like Mega Diancie straight up mandates very few pool of counterplay, which it could reasonably tech past, and for Diancie specifically it also invalidates like 90% of other offensive mons.

Regarding current state of BH, I think its about as good as it can get and am pretty happy with it. It has probably an ideal distribution of offensive breakers where its not too centralizing but also not decentralized enough to be impossible to account for everything; a majority of playstyles and structures are viable; defensive options are somewhat limited but there is still diversity; any cheese elements remaining are either somewhat skill-rewarding and/or fairly counterable and/or too inconsistent. With no standout threat teams have the freedom to fit innovations and techs and we are seeing consistent innovation and meta shifts in the past months despite basically no significant tiering changes, and the centralization of the meta is also quite reasonable and comparable to many other OMs. Because of this I personally don't see BH having any major tiering changes for the rest of the gen, and any changes we end up having are going to be for minor impact elements.

For these elements we actually have very recently put out a tiering survey to more accurately gauge opinions because there's a lot of differing views and overall somewhat polarizing views on meta state with some finding it to be in a very good spot while others heavily disliking it. I would like to main the current state and banlist, though Victory Dance stands out for me. I have also entertained some more fascinating ideas such as having Forme Clause instead of Species Clause (multi Arceus) but I don't think anyone can predict the result of such large changes and considering how stable and enjoyable current meta is I think such changes are very unlikely.


Thank you both for sharing! This kind of transparency in planning and the state of our metagames is important, especially when Gen 9 has been so turbulent in so many ways. Wishing you and your tiers the best! Nearing the end of the interview, I've got to ask: how does it feel to be a tier leader? With these plans in hand, are you confident in the ability of you and your tiering councils to guide the metagame in a direction that everyone can be happy with, or does this position come with a bit of worry?



NeonJolteonWasUsed : Definitely scary. But I have confidence in myself to be able to carry this out. This is my first time as position as a tier leader of...anything really, so I can't make promises I won't make some of my own mistakes, or be asking every question under the sun before doing something just to make sure I don't screw up. But I urge anyone in the community to please reach out to me if there is any issues regarding tiering as one of the biggest things I want to fix when it comes to the STABmons community as a whole is communication between council and playerbase.

We want your voice more than ever, whether that be on Smogon Forums, Discord, or the OMs Chatroom on Showdown, please let it be known to us.


Chessking345 : Ngl it doesn't feel much different being tier leader compared to before. I think the biggest change is I can now edit some posts more easily and ping BH role without needing to bug QT about it. I think moving forward considering the current state of the metagame I'm pretty confident that we are going to be able to keep it enjoyable and competitive, especially as we do plan on likely organizing tours for any larger shakeups to the meta to have a better understanding first. Obviously it is going to be impossible to make everyone happy especially considering how polarizing the meta seems to be in that regard, but I would be pretty happy if we can maintain the current scores for the rest of the gen. This does mean it could lead to a more "stale" metagame as time passes, but I trust the creativity of the players to be able to keep the meta interesting.

I will say that I strongly encourage the playerbase to express their opinions on Smogon as forum posts are best at encouraging well thought out and constructed arguments to stimulate higher quality discussions that is seen by the most people, and I do think this is something that BH has not exactly been the best at. Discord discussions are easy to start up and fast, but they can get sidetracked and buried very quickly.


You heard it here folks, make sure to make your thoughts and voices known! Before we close out for the night, thank you both for agreeing to come on the show. Would you like to give a shout-out to any members of the community?



NeonJolteonWasUsed : Obviously to the STAB community that has stuck with this silly little tier through everything. As well as the former and new oncoming STAB council members. You guys rock! Let's make this tier great together!


Chessking345 : BH community, other people that I talk to frequently, and teammates in the tours I've been in. I think I'm bound to miss someone if I do every individual, so shoutout to Akira in particular for being the main person I yap to.

Once again, I'd like to thank Chessking345 and NeonJolteonWasUsed for their time! You've both got a whole community behind you who will be here through whatever the rest of the generation and beyond has to bring us. To the viewers at home, now's your chance to ask them your own questions! In the meantime, I'm going to think of a way to make this interview not seem dated when our profiles swap back...

 

[UT]

Chessking345 when is BH banning Imposter

 

[solrock the great]

you must represent the pokemon ranked ou by viability in STAB/BH in a court of law, how cooked are you?

 

[mayonnaise. mayo.]

Chessking345 NeonJolteonWasUsed
Will either of you try out PH? Fun meta. :)

 

[cat]

Chessking345 when is BH banning Imposter

how are you posting?