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Welcome back to another episode of OM Interviews! We've got a special one for all the viewers at home today. As you know, the network recently finished handing out our OM Awards for 2024. I got the elusive chance to chat with one of our biggest winners. Winning not only our Member of the Year Award but also our Best Overall Battler, Best Tournament Victory, and several others, we've got SammyCe123 on the show today! Welcome, Sammy. It's an honor to have you here! How are you doing today, and what can you tell me about yourself?

: Thank you, I'm doing very well today! As April said, I'm Sammy. I'm 18 (turning 19 in about a week), currently live in Sweden (I'm way cooler than pannu & bonk tho) and I play mons a little bit too much. I play a lot of OMs (which you might have noticed), but I also like to play draft league, TCG at a local hangout, and I've recently been playing VGC in preparation for the upcoming Stockholm Regionals in March. Aside from mons, I love playing and yapping about Hollow Knight, Celeste and Rain World, so hmu if you ever wanna talk about any of them!

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I'm happy to hear you're doing well, and good luck in Stockholm! You've definitely risen to prominence in the community quite quickly. What first drew you in to OMs?

: I started playing OMs very casually in AAA, both in a friendly AAA draft league and on ladder a little while ago. One day, I signed up to play in a ghosting tour with
BugGoBrrrrrr back in the furscales meta, and we ended up winning the whole thing with some really cool teams, such as orichalcum pulse cinderace + mold breaker iron moth + double eject button with garchomp & great tusk. That was my first real exposure to competitive OMs, but I didn't really commit to playing in any tours until AAA Seasonal in late 2023. That led to me getting drafted in AAAPL 1, where I met a ton of really cool people that inspired me to branch out to all of the other OMs in the 2024 circuit. From there, the rest is history.

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History is right! You had the kind of tournament run people will be talking about for a long while. Are you planning to continue playing in tournaments in 2025, and if so, which ones are you most excited for?

: Definetly! I had a ton of fun this past year, so I'll certainly try to play in as many opens and seasonals as I can. The tournament I'm looking forward to the most is OMPL, as I loved the team tournament experience and atmosphere, but I played quite poorly and brought a lot of frankly bad teams. To this day I'm still quite troubled by that, so I will do everything I can to prepare and improve on both my playing and teambuilding skills, while also getting the most out of the incredible experience that OMPL offers.

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Happy to hear you're gonna be running it back! OMPL is going to be a hell of a tour with you taking part in it. You mentioned how much you loved the tour last year: do you have any games or moments from your tournament run that stand out in your memory still?

: From my tournament run this past year, winning
Majors,
STAB Open,
GG Open,
Grand Slam and
Circuit Championship are all extremely memorable moments that will hold a special place in my heart, for quite obvious reasons. Winning
Hackmons PL and
OMWC were also really cool experiences, as it felt amazing to win alongside so many awesome people. While we didn't go all the way, I still had a fun time in AAAPL and OMPL and I learned a lot from playing in both of them. However, I always tend to overthink my losses whenever I lose a set, and I constantly keep thinking back to what I should have done differently in terms of prep and play. This means that most of the games I remember from this past year were actually those that I lost. Specific games that stand out the most include my loss to RoFnA in
MNM Open finals (especially as I won g1 pretty convincingly), my loss to Kinetic in
stab seasonal round 6, and my loss to Fc in
OMPL semis tiebreaks. (not a part of my tournament run, but the game still lives rent free in my head nonetheless)

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You better get your rematches in this year! Is there any particular metagames you enjoy playing the most in tours? In a team tour, is there one metagame you'd be most content to play for the whole tour?

: I really enjoyed playing Partners in Crime this past year because of how different it played in game, and it allowed for lots and lots of creative prep, as well as fun ways to outplay and maneuver the game in typical doubles style. BH is another metagame that I found a lot of joy in playing, as it has so many different avenues for skill expression and it naturally approaches teambuilding from an entirely new perspective, which is something I appreciated. If I had to pick one metagame in a team tour setting that I would be content with playing for an entire team tour, then it would probably be Godly Gift, as it finds a good balance between being "normal" (as I realistically cannot see myself playing PIC or BH for 7+ weeks with semi-limited prep support due to how much variance there is in them) and the metagame has a ton of room for innovation, so every week would feel unique and fresh (as opposed to AAA, MNM or STAB, where I naturally gravitate towards a couple really specific team styles I like, and only stick to them). GG is also the metagame I feel most comfortable playing in, and that shows as I started out with playing it in both OMPL and OMWC, before switching over to bo3 and AAA respectively.

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Great stuff! We're getting close to the end of the interview, so now I've got to ask: What do you think the future holds for you in OMs? Are you going to try and run back the official tournament run, or do you have plans to expand your horizons here even further?

: As mentioned earlier, I do plan to play in this seasons circuit, for as much as I can at least. I also plan to do some CC stuff, but it would mainly be QC work for GG. Aside from that, I've though about trying out tour hosting, as it's something that has interested me for quite a while now, but I have never really come around to doing so. Additionally, while it is a little bit off topic, I definetly want to increase my depth in teambuilding. This past year, I very quickly found a comfort zone in all 6 (now 5) metagames, and I essentially only stuck to those kind of teams in tournament games. That can be very limiting when it comes to building, especially when helping teammates in a team tournament, where they might not always have the same preferences in building as I do.

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Can't wait to see even more out of you this year! Before we close off for the night, is there anyone you'd like to shout out or any final messages to leave the viewers with?

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First of all, I'd like to give a massive thank you to April for hosting this interview, as I had a lot of fun overthinking what I would say and I enjoyed reflecting on this past year, which is something I never really did.
Most of all, I would really like to thank Ivar and ghostlike, as they are the two people I tested the most with this past year (outside of PIC), and I owe them both a massive thank you for all of the support, laughs and thrown games we've had together.
I'd also like to give a shoutout to HiZo and Frixel for all of the PIC help this year. As a non-mainer with virtually no experience in doubles at all, teaming up with you two in OMPL and OMWC is something that I will be eternally grateful for. Being able to master PIC for champs helped me immensely, and it truly inspired me to play more doubles due to how chaotically enjoyable the metagame is. I am addmittedly a bit upset that it no longer is a permaladder or a part of the circuit, but there is undeniably a large barrier to entry that makes it unfortunate removal quite understandable. Still, I will be looking forward to playing more doubles in the future, and you two are a very big reason for why!
There are a lot of people that I truly appreciate in some way, shape or form, but wouldn't really be able to give each and every one of you a proper shoutout without completely flooding this post. You all are still really cool tho <3 Thank you SpaceSpeakers, Chessking, Rudi, Placuszek, pannu, RoFnA, Fraise, LSDA, Bonk, Betticus, Clas, Test Rex, ojr, Akira, QT, Wheaty, TTTech, Racool & Siamato.
Lastly, I would to say thanks to all of you - the OM community - for being so cool and wonderful. The active ladders, discussions, resources, projects and tournaments all contribute to a competitive atmosphere that is truly stunning, and being able to learn the metagames while comfortably talking to so many people (and hopefully many more to come!) really proves how great this community is.

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I'd like to thank Sammy one more time for agreeing to do this interview with me! Congratulations one more time on winning Member of the Year, and good luck on your tournament run this year! Now, viewers at home, is your chance to ask Sammy your own questions!