Hello everyone and and welcome to the second round of SV OM interviews! Today we are getting to know our newest forum moderator, KaenSoul, a little bit more! Kaen, welcome to OM Interviews!
im always here for the fans
Speaking as a fan, we appreciate it. Tell us a little bit about yourself!
starting with the hard questions it seems, well, im from chile, been a fan of the franchise since gen 1 and that means im old, i enjoy messing around in the ladders and drawing fakemons, i work with computers so you can find me during the whole day in the om room
I bet it's chilly down there sometimes. How'd you make the jump from the pokemon games to Smogon / PS?
well I got into competitive mons near the end of gen4, wanted to use my hgss mons online and while that didnt end well i got into a pokemon online (and later ps), spend some years in a spanish community and found about smogon there, and as my english got better i spend more time using smogon over any other pokemon site
I legitimately did not realize you weren't a native English speaker until you told me.
How'd you find OMs? What brought you here / what kept you here?
back in the day it was quite hard to find games in spanish around here so learning english was kind of necessary. the oldest memory i have about oms is the day tier shift become a thing, i didn't post back then but did check the forums a lot and trying out the new formats was always fun, didnt really become a regular in the community until reevo approval last year, didnt expect my first proposal ever to be approved, was expecting to fail a few times before getting my own format, and naturally that give motivation to actively find people to play with, so i landed into the om room, i think i would have become way less active after the general hype around it died, but got promoted in the room and because of it now i go there every day even when i know i wont be playing any games
Your contributions to the OM section have been nothing short of amazing, especially with the Workshop.
How did you get the idea for Re-Evo? What made you want to lead a metagame?
the workshop is fun, i like to imagine what kind of messed up stuff could happen each time someone post a new idea, for re-evo it was quite simple, after finding most of my other ideas in the commonly rejected list i ended up posting one i had a week before than i think most had at some point, what if you could do cross evo with fully evolved mons, and for it to not be awful there had to be some kind of limit, and limited mons to their own lines was the best way to keep everything under control while still having something simple. i wouldnt say i wanted to lead, what i wanted was having one of my ideas out there
Completely makes sense.
What's been your favorite part about being Re-Evo tier leader?
i wouldnt know, it was fun from the beginning, it hasnt been that long but it has been a big adventure so far, all the people that got interested when i first posted the idea, then having my own format being approved, meeting all kind of people in discussions and battles, seeing people discuss it, even when it seems like is losing popularity there is a lot of people that play it, sometimes i make a room tour and not a lot join and sometimes is full of people, is just a lot of fun
Love to hear how much fun it's been.
Obviously, you're one of the forum mods now; how has that transition been for you? Are there any changes you want to see in the section?
becoming a forum mod was quite unexpected, i still have no idea why i was chosen, even after gaining access to the staff chat and reading the conversation, but now im one and the biggest change is that sometimes i have to control myself because what i say holds the rank's weight or something dumb like that, but anyway, i like how the section is, but i want more people to try out the less known oms, i think im well known for setting up room tours every time i get a chance, i fear sometimes people get annoyed by it, but for many formats is the only form of competitive play they see while waiting for their turn to have a ladder, i cant get two million people to start playing ps so we have the user base to actually give everyone a ladder, but i can remind people that those format dont disappear when the month is over
You were chosen cause you're a great and levelheaded contributor who showed a clear interest in the section; especially, like you said, with the lesser played / workshop OMs. And cool, sounds like we can count on you for the next spotlight trios!
Other than the ones you lead, what are your favorite OMs to play? watch? Any oldgen OMs you hope still return?
i think im involved in most OMs i play, even outside of the two i lead, as im in the forte council, same with tcg, but outside of them i think it would be trademarked, but i do like to check on most other formats, i just dont get too involved on them, usually make a quick team for a room tour or to ladder a bit and then delete it to keep the list short. As for returning OMs, i want to see Linked come back, is quite fun despite how broken of a concept it is, but thats what makes it fun
Trademarked is one of my favorites too, but it's neat to hear you be interested in such a wide range.
Do you have any fun trademarked or linked teams to pique our interest?
havent had much time to build since i got parting shot banned by playing stall the pivot move restriction in trademarked, but improvised this team the other day, i like to call it "lets get thunder wave banned"
https://pokepast.es/a91522a5d62fadef is quite simple, para/burn as many mons as possible and spam hex, just be careful with gholdengo, because of course that in a format about replacing your ability the most annoying mon is the one that doesnt
Man I look forward to the day cleric moves are freed.
You mentioned creating fakemons; what's that process like? any ones you are especially proud of?
art is a different process for everyone, i usually open paint, draw some random lines until i eventually get something that just inspires me, while drawing it i come up with stuff that can be part of the concept, have been doing it since i was a kid, is just for fun so sometimes i make serious designs and sometimes i turn jolteon into a bee, is difficult to just choose one that i can say im proud of or that is my favorite because they all are stuff i made and are important to me, but here is navird, is a cute little bird
I love birds, good choice
This has been a really nice interview; any parting words you want to say? things you want to talk about we didn't cover? shoutouts to give?
digimon is better, kaen was here
kenn is a loser, say no to sleep clause mod, tell
drampa's grandpa,
AlexSaysBruh123 (or whatever name they use) and
prunyy that i say hi, thanks Oprah i meant UT
oh and dont forget
ponchlake, wonder why someone would want to punch a lake
Thank you for taking the time to do this!
And now feel free to ask Kaen anything below!