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Welcome back to OU player of the week!! Taking over for TPP and Curiosity this week, we are bringing back the ou player interviews!
Storm Zone
Favorite pokemon: Meloetta 
Most used pokemon: Galarian Moltres
Best known for: Topping ladder multiple times and innovative building
Most used pokemon: Galarian Moltres
Best known for: Topping ladder multiple times and innovative building
Hi Storm Zone, How are you?
Hey im good and u?
Im doing well thanks! How has this "almost post-quarantine" been treating you?
If im being honest i know it took a toll on my life but it also gave me time to work on myself so i would say as bad as it was it has positively impacted me just as much as it negatively did.
theres pros and cons to it
Yeah for sure, I think the excess of free time has been a very mixed bag for many people, but Im glad to hear that you are using it as well as you can!
So just to get started would you mind introducing yourself a little?
Yeah my name is Josh, ive always been like known for being creative, like back in middle school id be known as that guy that wrote and told these cool stories, and i developed a love for drawing stuff, fast forward to highschool i took that to other aspects like showdown
i dont know if youd say wired but, im definitely an introvert, i get anxiety around people but once u get to know me im a nice guy
Thats a very the cool way of getting started, I would say that you express that creativity very well through your teams and builds and ways of playing
Now days you are obviously known as THE ladder hero, when do you think that started?
okay so it started around 2020 because anytime before that, pokemon showdown was just a fun hobby, but since around july 2020, i started putting thought into the game, and things took off quick, the hardest thing was adapting from ladder to tours, but once you realise there is a threshold in the skill level of players, the only edge youll have is your teambuilding really, because you can be the most skilled player, but if you bring nothing substancial to the table, you're ultimately gonna underperform
and that was the attitude i took toward my teams since that time, every team must be something of substance, and it must generate reactions otherwise im not working hard enough
Ive honestly never really thought of it like that, thats a very interesting point of view on teambuilding
Speaking of teambuilding yours has always been very unorthodox, yet obviously very consistent, how do you find inspiration for these teams? And could you briefly walk through the thought process of when you are looking to build a new team?
my inspiration comes from my love for the game in general, what fuels me is that people say that the game is boring now, and that makes me a bit angry if im being honest because something you love to do now becomes boring or it wasnt what it was before, but i like that im angry because it inspires me to provide a new perspective, and prove them wrong, and my thought process behind teambuilding is basically finding a pokemon id love to build around, making lists of pokemon that defeat that, and choose a pokemon that effectively combats those, and i build toward that until im at 6 pokemon, and then i have a checklist of what a team should essentially have, most important part is i test it and think of scenarios in the games of how the team would work because you could be how knowledgeable about the game, you cannot predict if a team is gonna do well by just making it on paper, you need to test. it must be effective, i am always watching the tier, so you would know whats effective if you know what people would use, key is just to test, so given this example: i had a team i worked hours on and bc i worked hours on it i thought it was my best team, but when i actually tested it out on ladder it underperformed and teams i had made in minutes had performed better, so remember to always test your teams out
Very cool, I think a lot of the deviation we see on the ladder is inspiration from your teams (even though I am so sick of playing that lele rain lol)
I know a lot of players have the problem of hypothetically building, building teams that check off all goals a team should, but still fail to perform, so interesting to hear that you even have the same problem and find good ways to overcome
Do you think you could provide a team and a description?
(Click Here)Okay So to begin i had 1 mon in mind, nasty plot mew, now i realised that this pokemon would need alot of support to work especially with this set, but on the contrary, it checks as much as it needs, now my threshold for if an innovative set in ou comes from the formula that it must check or be effective against 6 pokemon in ou because 6^2 is 36, and theres 36 mons in ou, and theres a very high chance that atleast one of those 6 is on every team.
now i noticed that this mew gets stomped by dark types with priority, or fast dark types, so i added colbur as an item to counteract that.
Then i started making a list of mons that check that mew, and i would choose a pokemon that check the most pokemon on that list,
so the mew gets checked by say dragapult, unaware clefable, aegislash, bisharp, weavile, etc(theres more u can name).
now the pokemon that came to mind that is effective against these is av melmetal, now av melmetal checks a wide variety of special attackers + the listed physical attackers above with the right ev spread and its a great resist to mew's bug weakness.
Now i repeat the process with the list, except this time, i make a list of pokemon that defeat mew + melmetal, so say, heatran, urshifu rapid strike, ferrothorn(potentially), slowking (potentially), so the pokemon that i went with here, are hydreigon and dragonite, note that i wanted just hydreigon but its good to have more that 1 check to certain threats, remember hydreigon is not invincible, it does die to urshifu's cc, something dragonite can take, now note with this double dragon core its very dangerous to pull off vs fairies, so another steel type would be required.
Now at this point, i start making a checklist of stuff that a good team should have, rocker, defogger, pivot(u turner or volt switcher), setup sweeper, lategame cleaner, defensive backbone.
Now i noticed i had all of these except the rocker and the lategame cleaner, so i started looking for rockers, remembering i said i needed another steel type,
Now i could have went with rocks blissey , but i realised if i went with it, i would need a steel type as a lategame cleaner, which can be ineffective at times, the rocker is vital to the team, so i took the smart route here and went with rocks spdef heatran, so now i could choose anything as the lategame cleaner, so i went with calm mind clefable, with stored power to break through non cm unaware clef, volcarona, and toxapex.
Now when i reached this point i realised i have to start looking at the tier , and the 2 tiers below, uu and ru(because ou players tend to use non ou mons due to their effectiveness) , for potential weaknesses, and patch up accordingly, i noticed i was mainly weak to weavile and scizor, now when making changes to a team, u can either go defensive change or offensive change depending on the playstyle, this is more balance than bulky offense so i went with a defensive change here, and made heatran max defense rocky helmet flame body, which severely threatens both weavile and scizor, and i added bodypress as a tech to hit ttar since theres no penalty to it.
Remember no matter how good u think u are u cant tell if a team is going to perform well by just looking at it on paper, because a team that looks amazing on paper can do very badly in testing and vice versa.
So The Last thing i did was test it on my alt in the 1900s, i have a test i always do, which is the 20-4 test, if a team performs on this threshold meaning it goes atleast 20-4, thats how you know the team is good, so i have tested it on my alt in the 1900s, and it went 20-3, and since it performed better than 20-4, u know its a good team.
Oh and before u say the team is weak to something, test it vs that, youll see ive added measures to check its weaknesses
now i noticed that this mew gets stomped by dark types with priority, or fast dark types, so i added colbur as an item to counteract that.
Then i started making a list of mons that check that mew, and i would choose a pokemon that check the most pokemon on that list,
so the mew gets checked by say dragapult, unaware clefable, aegislash, bisharp, weavile, etc(theres more u can name).
now the pokemon that came to mind that is effective against these is av melmetal, now av melmetal checks a wide variety of special attackers + the listed physical attackers above with the right ev spread and its a great resist to mew's bug weakness.
Now i repeat the process with the list, except this time, i make a list of pokemon that defeat mew + melmetal, so say, heatran, urshifu rapid strike, ferrothorn(potentially), slowking (potentially), so the pokemon that i went with here, are hydreigon and dragonite, note that i wanted just hydreigon but its good to have more that 1 check to certain threats, remember hydreigon is not invincible, it does die to urshifu's cc, something dragonite can take, now note with this double dragon core its very dangerous to pull off vs fairies, so another steel type would be required.
Now at this point, i start making a checklist of stuff that a good team should have, rocker, defogger, pivot(u turner or volt switcher), setup sweeper, lategame cleaner, defensive backbone.
Now i noticed i had all of these except the rocker and the lategame cleaner, so i started looking for rockers, remembering i said i needed another steel type,
Now i could have went with rocks blissey , but i realised if i went with it, i would need a steel type as a lategame cleaner, which can be ineffective at times, the rocker is vital to the team, so i took the smart route here and went with rocks spdef heatran, so now i could choose anything as the lategame cleaner, so i went with calm mind clefable, with stored power to break through non cm unaware clef, volcarona, and toxapex.
Now when i reached this point i realised i have to start looking at the tier , and the 2 tiers below, uu and ru(because ou players tend to use non ou mons due to their effectiveness) , for potential weaknesses, and patch up accordingly, i noticed i was mainly weak to weavile and scizor, now when making changes to a team, u can either go defensive change or offensive change depending on the playstyle, this is more balance than bulky offense so i went with a defensive change here, and made heatran max defense rocky helmet flame body, which severely threatens both weavile and scizor, and i added bodypress as a tech to hit ttar since theres no penalty to it.
Remember no matter how good u think u are u cant tell if a team is going to perform well by just looking at it on paper, because a team that looks amazing on paper can do very badly in testing and vice versa.
So The Last thing i did was test it on my alt in the 1900s, i have a test i always do, which is the 20-4 test, if a team performs on this threshold meaning it goes atleast 20-4, thats how you know the team is good, so i have tested it on my alt in the 1900s, and it went 20-3, and since it performed better than 20-4, u know its a good team.
Oh and before u say the team is weak to something, test it vs that, youll see ive added measures to check its weaknesses
Wow very interesting! Much different approach to building then ive ever heard
Just to end this topic, and maybe find some inspiration to not be so boring with my teams, what do you find is the best "un-mon" right now?
or the best "unset" on an already decent mon
oh man theres so many, i would have to make a tie here between custap berry magnezone, specs crawdaunt, and (may be unpopular opinion) but non hurricane tornadus-therian
im just not a big fan of not hitting urshifu with a tornadus-therian
though i will admit, non-hurricane torn-t is not bad as long as torn carries defog, as it has that niche of being such a great fogger, i hope people dont misunderstand what i meant here, i meant non-defog heatwave u turn knockoff toxic torn-t, the defog set is great
Note taken though, already hitting the builder as we speak with my specs daunt team!!
In my opinion, the best set, I really do think TornT is a very underrated and under-explored mon
Switching topics, I would like to say congrats on your WCOP run! Your first WCOP appearance correct?
Yes and thank you, worked really hard toward this wcop u can ask my teammates how many teams i put for them
Oh yeah I cant imagine the work that goes into a successful WCOP team. How would you say your first WCOP experience was?
They were great, couldnt ask for better teammates , but i wasnt focusing on how they were, i just worked toward being a good teammate to them
I want them to be able to say i was a good teammate and thats the one thing i wanted more than the trophy, because whats a trophy without respect
Exactly, The camaraderie and the drive to prove your region is the best is def the biggest draw of that tournament. What do you think the hardest part of it was? both for you, and for your team
There is no hardest part to me because if ur constantly working hard toward everything especially the teambuilding, its gonna pay off
And that was the attitude i took toward it, the tougher the opponent, the harder the prep
For me the most difficult part is choosing teams from my builder to then narrow down to 1 team to bring vs an opponent because you would legit get lost in my builder its 19 pages after all
hahahaha God I could never, I gotta hide my replays because I use the same 5 teams on rotation
But I think that hardwork paid off! Although it was a tough lost to a very stacked US NE team I think it was a great first showing for you, and an amazing showing for your team
This will be my last question for you and one I plan on asking everyone, what advice would you give to someone would wants to break into tournaments?
Oh for someone who wants to enter tournaments, you should just try to expand the threshold of comfort you have with teams, never be afraid to try new stuff and tap into yourself
That way you are more versatile, and ultimately , it will be harder for your opponents to prep
also writing that down
And as for the games, just make sure you treat it as a game you would have at a high elo trying to peak, because at that time you are thinking thoroughly about ur games because you really want a peak
Your drive is fueled once you train your mind to think you are at a high point on the ladder
Apply this to life too always try to be at your best at the lowest points just as you are at your highest point
Very sound advice! I think im ready to be the next smog tour winner!!
Thank you very much SZ, you have been an amazing interviewee and I look forward to seeing you more in tours, and I guess I lied, because I will also ask if you want to give any shoutouts
Oh thanks u asked some great questions , shoutout pinkacross for helping me build the dude is a genius ,and shoutout craing/bengay , seeing this dude play was awesome and he was like one the biggest reasons for my inspiration , And shoutout some good friends, HYper, ox the fox, bea, cuzzie, gray and whoever else i talk to daily but didnt mention
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Thanks so much to SZ for a great interview, as per usual drop any extra questions down below and make sure to check out the upcoming interviews!
