Project OU Player of the Week #13: Eo Ut Mortus

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Welcome to the SM version of OU Player of the Week! This project will feature interviews from some of the most accomplished and influential users in the tier so that we can learn more about them.
If there is a user that you would like to see interviewed be sure to let me know.
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Eo Ut Mortus​

most known for: Performing decently in a lot of tiers, notably DPP UU, BW OU, and SM OU. Formerly, TDing.
favorite pokemon: Gliscor
most used pokemon: Landorus-Therian, but everyone uses that, so Clefable or Chansey.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself outside of Smogon?
I'm a 24-year-old software engineer from St. Louis who recently relocated to Boston. Right now, I'm mostly focused on developing my career, so my current hobbies are stereotypical tech ones: programming, studying, attending meetups, etc. During my undergrad, I also majored in English, so I enjoy writing short stories and reading fiction, particularly postmodern literature. I hope to publish one day (alongside my literary idol, iris), but at the moment, I don't have the time or drive to produce work I can be satisfied with.

I'm a competitive person and usually have a hobby that reflects that; when it hasn't been Pokemon, it's been chess, Melee, or League of Legends (9 months clean).

Where did you get your name from?
It was the name of my RuneScape pure from when I was 13, which, by convention, had to be both edgy and pseudo-intellectual. It roughly translates to "I go to death" in Latin.

How and when did you get into competitive Pokemon?
I frequented the Serebii forums when I was 12 and learned about EVs and competitive movesets through their vaunted Pokemon of the Day series. Occasionally, I'd also see chaos troll the RMT boards, making references to NetBattle, which Serebii had a blanket ban on mentioning at the time. I downloaded it and began to play ADV, and when DP was released, I signed up for Smogon proper and became involved in WiFi and later ShoddyBattle. In 2009, I gained recognition by reaching and maintaining #1 on the DP UU ladder and the Suspect ladder throughout various tests, and I went on to land a WCoP spot for Team Central (at the time, I was too intimidated by Asia to even try out for them) and place top 4 in Smogon Tour 7, solidifying my involvement in the tournament community.

What’s your favourite generation of OU and why?
It varies. I don't really have an affinity for any generation in particular. For as long as it's practical, I'll always try to focus on the current generation and practice whatever's necessary to succeed in the official tournament circuit. More than anything else, I enjoy being able to contribute to the active development of a metagame and participate in the arena that draws the most competition.

Right now, it's probably SM. Various mechanic changes from past generations are very much welcome, including nerfs to burn, Dragon-types, and most importantly, Thunder Wave and paralysis. After playing a bit of ORAS, I'm so glad paralysis is unviable in SM (please don't make Glare Zygarde a thing). There are now at least four generations of OU where para-spreading strategies are a key component of the metagame, and it's especially disheartening to see what DPP has devolved to as of late.

What’s your favourite playstyle to use and why?
I tend to just spam good Pokemon, which usually ends up as some variant of bulky offense or stall. I rarely build with concrete offensive win conditions in mind, so I tend to avoid Pokemon such as Hawlucha and Kartana who are used almost exclusively for breaking or sweeping and instead use offensive Pokemon that offer some form of defensive coverage or other utility as well.

What are your thoughts on the current metagame?
It's not bad, but it's hard to be satisfied with it. There are too many threats to account for, so you have to let yourself be weak to the Volcarona or Suicune that nobody uses or use something suboptimal to account for them. There are Pokemon that aren't "broken", such as Zygarde and Greninja-Ash, that force you to use the same types of checks all the time. There are a limited number of viable Stealth Rockers and Scarfers, so I find myself using Landorus-Therian on every team. And at this point in SM, it's hard to foresee any of this changing organically, not without bans or releases. It doesn't appear that this is going to happen, though; the metagame is stable enough that people are willing to maintain it for fear that the alternatives are worse or inachievable within a practical timeframe. There's a reluctance to suspect anything because nobody can agree on a clearly broken outlier, and banning something will inevitably lead to other things becoming broken.

Having said that, I do wonder if we're beginning to see our suspect framework break down. Landorus-Therian's overcentralization is a problem in itself, but it's symptomatic of a larger one for which we don't have a current answer: We can't achieve true balance with this volume of diversity. Either it's impossible to make a team that adequately covers everything, or we have to rely on these overcentralizing Landorus-type Pokemon to do so. To solve these issues, we need to ban things more liberally or exercise complex bans, neither of which are presented as desirable options under our current framework. At some point, I hope we reconsider some of our self-imposed restrictions or else consider different approaches.

In an ideal world, I'd like to experiment with more esoteric options. I've opposed complex move bans in the past, but perhaps they'd be warranted now; unlike with Pokemon bans, it's easy to convey that these moves are unavailable within the teambuilder. We can also work within the constraints of the current system: hold more frequent iterations of suspect bans/rereleases or start with a huge banlist and gradually release Pokemon (the kokoloko method). I don't know. I get that these are big paradigm shifts that might not even work, and if you're a council member, you'd probably want to err for more conservative options to avoid upsetting the userbase for no guaranteed payoff. But I don't think the current response to the Landorus-Therian usage situation is tenable in the long run and possibly even in the near future.

Are there any Pokemon that you believe are overrated/underrated in the current metagame. Why?
Not really; my opinions of the metagame align with what ended up being used in SPL. I pegged Gliscor as overhyped on USUM's release, but turns out it wasn't used all that much in SPL. For underrated Pokemon, I think Mew deserves more usage, and it probably will resurge if Zygarde and Medicham continue to rise.

What were some of your favourite moments from SPL9?
My favorite individual moment was my game vs. Sabella. It was the final game of Week 3, and we were down 6-5 vs. the Classiest, so I was feeling the pressure of a deciding match against a team we'd initially dismissed. Inexplicably, I felt more energized than usual during the match, and I ended up winning off a hard read mid-game that got the chat hype. And I love that kind of thing; for all the gripes about Smogtours chat, what with in-chat ghosting and speculation, the atmosphere generated by people reacting to plays and gassing players, whether ironically or unironically, is one thing I'll always enjoy.

On that note, the spectator experience is something I really like about SPL. People will link battles in Discords with players who quit Pokemon long ago, and they'll log on and watch and comment about how the meta has changed. A lot of my favorite moments from this SPL are just calling with people and for games on a Saturday or getting hype with my teams for Kushalos's crazy in-game antics or windsong's RU displays.

You seem to have a penchant for unorthodox sets. Could you give some insight into how you come up with them?
Half of them are me trying to actively subvert common player expectations, and the other half of them are me trying to salvage a team that's weak to something with as few changes as possible. You have to like your teams enough that you're willing to make some nonstandard accommodations instead of starting from scratch when a weakness crops up, and from there, it's just being willing to defy convention and consider all options. I don't think I'm too unique in this regard, though; there are plenty of equally creative people in the playerbase, and I'm sad nobody else posted their sets post-SPL like everyone used to. They always made for interesting reads, and I hope we'll see some reflections after SPL finals.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone trying to break into the tournament setting?
Treat this game like a discipline rather than a competition. It's fun to revel in the public eye when you're doing well, but focusing on self-development will get you through the days when you're not at your best or when your opponent has your number. Whenever I feel the need to make excuses for a loss, point out to everyone watching that I was haxed and that I'm actually the better player, that's when I know I'm too focused on public perception rather than actual improvement, and that's when I need to take a step back or a short break. There's so much churn at the top because everyone knows how to play the game, and there comes a point where skill is defined by consistency, and consistency is affected by so many factors. Losses are inevitable; what's important is your drive to better yourself.

Who are some of your favourite people in the Smogon community?
I enjoy the company of my fellow past and current League of Legenders, including elodin, HSA, yohoE, whistle, Earthworm, Lavos, Rumor, and SilentVerse. I'm also glad to have had the opportunity to meet newer up-and-coming players through team tournaments such as ayevon, z0mOG, and Finchinator. Special mentions to danilo, tama (rip), Sogeking, pre-runoff/post-SPL 5 Jayde, dekzeh, HANTSUKI, Ciele, and iris.

Finally, can you provide us a team that you think reflects your current playstyle, with a brief explanation of how it works?

I made this team in Snake and had tamahome use it in an infamous game vs. Kickasser, and I later brought it vs. Cdumas in SPL. At the time, I was playing around with Clef/Pex/Zapdos builds, and this was the best one I came up with post-Dugtrio era. Basic idea is Toxic Spikes + Zygarde + solid defensive core, with some techs like Heart Swap Magearna to try and mitigate bad matchup issues. Of course, both times it sees use, it runs into Reuniclus and half its premise is immediately invalidated.

It's easy to just pick up and play, and I think that's a trend with all of my teams. They're fairly straightforward, not easy to break, good for grinding your early rounds of Smogon Tours when people aren't cteaming you. At the same, there's still a bit of depth; the team has its fair share of matchup struggles, and you'll need to be aware of tactics to exercise in certain matchups, such as preserving Payapa on Pex to trade Toxic vs. M-Latios and Medicham.

I've gone back and forth on the sets. I think some other Zygarde set, possibly DD/Protect, might be better now. Knock Off on Landorus over Earth Power helps break fat stuff. Volt Switch on Zapdos hasn't turned out to be exceptionally useful, and I think Discharge/Thunderbolt might be better, especially vs. Hawlucha.

 

[blank]

some really cool insights in this post (:

as an avid user of chansey on non-stall teams, why? i'm someone who can't really comprehend wanting to run chansey outside of stall, but chansey offense is on the rise, so i want to better understand it lol.

you said you "rarely build with concrete offensive win conditions in mind," so how do you typically start builds? to elaborate, what kind of win conditions do you pick if you aren't going with clear, offensive ones that often?

 

[dk]

who is that individual in your smogon profile picture

 

[ayevon]

Hi Eo.

What was your favorite unorthodox set/mon that you didn't get to use (because of an oppressive manager)? Would this set have significant ramifications on the development of the tournament metagame?

When preparing a team for a tournament, do you prefer using something you're comfortable with, or something you feel would give you a good matchup? How difficult would you say it is to find a balance between the two in the USM meta? Would your answers to those questions be different for different metagames (past generations)?

Was there anyone you really looked forward to being able to play against this SPL, or a game you looked forward to once you saw it listed as a matchup at the start of the week? Do you find it more enjoyable when you get to play against distinguished players and get to be apart of what the community may consider a "highlight" game? Or are they all more or less the same to you?

What about moving to Boston are you most excited for?

 

[curiosity]

can you (or Cdumas) confirm that all good 'mons players are currently studying (or have studied) engineering?
what do you foresee will become big in the tech world in the next 2 years?
if you could change 1 thing about the meta, what would it be?
what would you consider the 3 most important tips to getting better at 'mons?
and finally, what is your favourite form of literature?

 

[w_r]

Do you decide which teams to use in advance in tours?

 

[Tenebricite]

If you enjoy reading fiction, what are some of your favorite books?

 

[Finchinator]

What're your thoughts on the current state of the OU Council? Do you think that things are done properly, optimally, etc. throughout generation 7 thus far? I notice that you mentioned potentially departing from our currently established norms in terms of tiering philosophy, do you believe we should look into that in the near future?

How do you feel in regards to the community isolating and regarding stall, as a playstyle, in the fashion that they do? I feel as if a lot of people take a suboptimal approach in this regard as they treat dealing with it in a foreign, and even linear, fashion when, in my opinion, you can treat it like any other playstyle and account for it in teambuilding, but you do not have to devote a whole slot just to "stall" and facing stall is not only black-and-white, win-or-lose from the start. I ask you this specifically as I have adopted this mindset and become a lot better at playing and handling of stall thanks to playing with you and teaming with you.

If you could remove any one element -- be it a Pokemon, move, mechanic, etc. -- from the SM OU metagame without any questions or consequences, what would it be and why?

What are some of your best/favorite tournament games you have played throughout your time on Smogon (feel free to give some context/details if you'd like, but up to you)?

Do you have any personal favorite games from tournaments you have witnessed as a spectator from your time on Smogon? If so, which games and why?

What would you like to achieve as a player going forward, what do you feel your biggest shortcomings as a player are currently, and what is your biggest regret playing wise thus far (can be an individual play from a big game or a general thing depending on what comes to mind for you)?

What players do you enjoy spectating the most in terms of their style with teams and/or their approach with plays?

Finally, Marry/Fuck/Kill: Chansey, Clefable, and Magearna

 

[z0mOG]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-363823

 

[elodin]

Do you think the BW Dugtrio Suspect should be delayed?

 

[ayedan]

Ok real question, what are ur thoughts on Dugtrio ban from sm?

 

[Luigi]

You were in the td chat until relatively recently, how did things operate back when you first became a td compared to late 2017 td'ing?

who do u fuckin hate in smogon

whos the shittiest player uve played

 

[Nuked]

you had a really good SPL season, did you play any SM before that and how do you feel about how you played?

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

as an avid user of chansey on non-stall teams, why? i'm someone who can't really comprehend wanting to run chansey outside of stall, but chansey offense is on the rise, so i want to better understand it lol.

I use Chansey on any team is because it hard counters a bunch of special threats like nothing else can. Specifically, Charizard-Y, Volcarona, Ash-Greninja, and Shift Gear Magearna, all of whom have a limited pool of checks and (besides Gren) coverage to circumvent some of them. For the first two, it's usually more practical just build a team that can maintain rocks and pressure so Volc/Zard can't switch in more than a couple of times, but I value the freedom to play more defensively if needed. Secondary reasons for considering Chansey are for Wish / Healing Wish support, but you may just as well use Clefable (which I usually do nowadays).

As for Chansey's viability on offense, its presence is actually decent. Wish over Stealth Rock offsets a lot of its momentum-sapping issues, and even without it, Toxic and SToss is enough to deter most offensive switch-ins. Giving things like Kartana and Mawile a free turn in exchange for SToss chunk isn't a bad trade, because it's possible to outplay them and end up ahead, and Chansey can stay in to take a hit (baring Z-Fight Kart) in the worst case. Consider, on the other hand, Clefable and Celesteela giving Heatran repeated free Magma Storms, which I think is comparable if not outright worse in practice.

The thing about Chansey is that it must be played as a disposable commodity in certain match-ups. You need to actually maintain its remotely offensive threat and can't just sit around and Softboiled all day. Stall can generally afford to repeatedly eat losses in momentum to keep Chansey healthy, but offense must constantly allow Chansey to take passive damage without recovering and in some cases trade it for rocks and/or chunk/poison on a threatening Pokemon. This isn't a bad thing, and it even happens on stall sometimes, but there's an understandable hesitance to let 700 hp go to waste like that.

All that said, the difference between no residual damage and no lefties is a big enough flaw to drive me to use Clefable more often now, especially since Charizard-Y and Volcarona are no longer as relevant as they were around WCoP and Snake. The one team I used it on in SPL needed insurance against every special threat I mentioned earlier + Koko, so yeah. That's really its niche (albeit, a common use case on stall), and I wouldn't go out of my way to use it unless my build necessitated it.

you said you "rarely build with concrete offensive win conditions in mind," so how do you typically start builds? to elaborate, what kind of win conditions do you pick if you aren't going with clear, offensive ones that often?

When building, I focus on solid defensive coverage while making use of less dedicated offensive strategies and synergies, as opposed to, say, building around a sweeper. Ideally, these Pokemon or cores will be as self-sufficient as possible, such that the although the team lacks a single focused win condition, multiple ones, either offensive or defensive, will become available depending on how the game pans out. At the start of a game, I can focus more on making reads and outplaying turn by turn instead of committing towards a singular longterm goal. I can make more higher risk plays because if I lose a Pokemon, it's less likely to be as impactful. Conversely, the fewer win conditions you have, the harder it is to make reads you *know* will work because the risk associated with failure is too high.

Of course, the downside of having no clear win condition is just that. Often, I'll play myself to an advantage and have no clear good option. On the other hand, an advantage gained by a clear-cut strategy is more difficult to give up and easier to play to completion. Moreover, some of my teams end up as "do-nothing teams", which is not too surprising, as they were not built to do anything in particular. These teams fare fine against offense, but not so much against stall, who can "do nothing" even better. It's a risk I'm personally willing to take, because stall is less common now, people are reluctant to risk a stall mirror against me, and I'm confident enough in my ability to both build and playing against stall that I would more than welcome the chance to face that match-up.

who is that individual in your smogon profile picture

Me.

What was your favorite unorthodox set/mon that you didn't get to use (because of an oppressive manager)? Would this set have significant ramifications on the development of the tournament metagame?

Yes, but shame about controlling managers.

When preparing a team for a tournament, do you prefer using something you're comfortable with, or something you feel would give you a good matchup? How difficult would you say it is to find a balance between the two in the USM meta? Would your answers to those questions be different for different metagames (past generations)?

Comfort. This past SPL, I kind of gave up on counterteaming anyone; I didn't know people well enough to figure out what were habits and what were flukes in their replays, and people ended up bringing a lot of weird stuff vs. me, anyway. Cdumas is the only one who really exploited my teambuilding habits, I would say. If I ever want to start scouting people again, I'll probably try a data-driven approach. I'll write scripts to run more in-depths analytics on people's replays, check what their most frequent switch-ins to xyz are, how often they let certain Pokemon in for free, etc.

Is it difficult to balance comfort and matchup? Yes, if you're only comfortable using bad stuff. More seriously, even dr. "DeNiSsSsSsSsSsS" zeni$ came up with 100 variants of Baton Pass. If you can't come up with at least a couple of meta-effective variants of your own preferred playstyle, you either need to reassess your builds or stop using Webs.

For past generations, it's meta-dependent, but you can probably get away with comfort more often. BW is a prime example; a lot of people, including myself, spammed the same types of sand teams with little consequence, and even this year, for all the sun, we saw BKC perform the best with solid, no-nonsense teams. I know he's not a big fan of the prep culture that's prevalent in tours nowadays, and from talking with other people like Bluewind, I can safely hypothesize that most older players focus less on matchup prep and more on solid overall building. And I think it's proven to be a successful strategy overall, if not an outright better one in terms of time-efficiency.

Was there anyone you really looked forward to being able to play against this SPL, or a game you looked forward to once you saw it listed as a matchup at the start of the week? Do you find it more enjoyable when you get to play against distinguished players and get to be apart of what the community may consider a "highlight" game? Or are they all more or less the same to you?

Yeah, I always want to play against the best players if possible. In particular, I wanted to play both ABR and FlamingVictini, ABR because he's the best overall player right now, and FV because I wasn't too happy about how I played in my loss vs. him in Snake (and honestly, because I didn't want to risk running into Leftiez's AVeil). But it wasn't really a big deal; I assume John might've wanted to play them as well. Being part of a highlight is always nice, but it's more important to invest in the quality of your own play, regardless of your opponent. Dismissing other players as not worth playing is a good way to look like a fool when they beat you later.

What about moving to Boston are you most excited for?

I'm excited to actually live in the city, and not a suburb or neighborhood that's an hour from all the tech jobs or some working district that's nothing but corporate space and pricey restaurants. There are so many free tech-related amenities and events in Cambridge, and downtown is full of places to eat or hang out, all within walking distance from my apartment. I only regret not moving sooner.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

can you (or Cdumas) confirm that all good 'mons players are currently studying (or have studied) engineering?

Funnily enough, I felt like I never had anyone to talk to about computer science on here when I was a student. I envy all the CS students I see nowadays because they always have someone to discuss assignments with.

what do you foresee will become big in the tech world in the next 2 years?

Consumer-to-consumer companies are on the rise. Think Uber, AirBnB, and Thumbtack, which commission the services of laypeople instead of training and hiring their own employees to perform the services they offer. The industries being targeted (cabbies, hotel/rent, professional services) are overpriced and ill-equipped to defend from these more mobile and more marketable tech companies invading their respective spaces. There's demand for both these services and opportunities for non-traditional/gig work as well. The flipside is how ethically questionable these C2C economies are, as they tend to take advantage of people being ignorant of the costs of their services and equipment. Not to mention Uber's scummy in general.

For tech workers, these companies present many interesting challenges regarding building apps and services for scale, and I imagine there's a lot of compelling (and probably invasive) things in the realm of machine learning to be done with all the data being collected from users. My personal prediction: Someone develops an app/company that facilitates third-party parenting services. Daycare and SAT classes are overpriced, traditional parenting is becoming less viable if you want to have a career, and there are a bunch of unemployed young people who believe they'd be the best parents in the world if only they had time to knock themselves up.

if you could change 1 thing about the meta, what would it be?

Ban Calm Mind (and Quiver Dance if we want to be consistent). Total buzzkill for my builds. I'd love the chance to not have to run Haze on Pex or Heart Swap on Mag or Taunt on Heatran all the time. It's like when people had to run Shed on stuff for Dugtrio; yeah, it's a small change, but it messes with the team and all the potential set variations I could be trying. Latias is ridiculous now because of how good Toxic Spikes are. If this keeps up, I predict the council will consider freeing Darkrai to deal with her.

what would you consider the 3 most important tips to getting better at 'mons?

1. Time. Being inherently good at the game isn't enough to distinguish you; there are too many people who both are good at the game and invest in it a ton to remain at the top. Having said that, people should always be cognizant of the opportunity cost it takes to get good at Pokemon and consider not throwing away all their time on the grind if they have other worthwhile time pursuits.

2. Self-accountability. Don't blame hax, don't blame your opponent making stupid moves, and don't blame broken Pokemon regardless of how broken they are. If you can't recognize your mistakes, you'll keep making them.

3. Confidence. If you don't put yourself out there, join tournaments or approach other people asking for advice or thoughts, it's not impossible to improve, but going at it solo is inefficient (and arguably not as fun). But this isn't just about that; at a certain point, many people make it in the community, gain some prominence, and then start to violate rule #2. They make public displays and chew out random people online if they get haxed or lose to a "stupid" play, just to make sure that everyone watching knows that it wasn't *them* who lost the battle. They're scared of losing what reputation they've accumulated, and that's become more important to them than actually improving. It affects play (people don't want to make risky moves for fear they'll look bad) and the focus of their thoughts and time. It's within these people's rights to care so much about community standing, but know that it ultimately does nothing to help them improve.

and finally, what is your favourite form of literature?

I like postmodern literature. It deals with a lot of themes I find interesting, including information glut and technocentrism, both highly relevant social issues today. I also enjoy the frequent experimentation regarding textual structure and form, the quintessential example being Infinite Jest, a story that makes extensive use of footnotes. I haven't personally read it, though; my personal recommendation would be Pale Fire, a story told as a combination of poetry and its annotations. It might sound excessively avant-garde, but I think the story is actually great for leisure reading, and people should be able to enjoy it as either critics or general consumers. Other favorites of mine include Cat's Cradle, Pym, and White Noise. Though not technically postmodern, Don Quixote is another one of my favorites, and it's often touted as one of the earliest examplar of postmodern themes.

Do you decide which teams to use in advance in tours?

Assuming Smogon Tours, I pick a few comfort teams but switch teams/moves up if I get paired with someone whom I think they'll match up poorly against. This is the type of tournament where you can do well with just generic good teams.

If you enjoy reading fiction, what are some of your favorite books?

In addition to what I mentioned earlier, This is How You Lose Her, The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao, Animal Farm, and A Single Man. When I was younger, I was really into Agatha Christie as well.

What're your thoughts on the current state of the OU Council? Do you think that things are done properly, optimally, etc. throughout generation 7 thus far? I notice that you mentioned potentially departing from our currently established norms in terms of tiering philosophy, do you believe we should look into that in the near future?

I currently have zero insight into how the council operates, so I can only speculate when I say I think the council places way too much priority on maintaining short-term solutions and risks eventually being swallowed by long-term issues. I think Landorus is one of these, but I don't believe the council agrees at the moment. At some point, I believe it will need to take some risks or make some more drastic changes involving policy. This is not an issue unique to the council; you'll remember the TD team faced similar issues with tier bloat in all its tournaments and had to decide on a relatively late solution for all of Classic, Slam, WCoP, and SPL because their predecessors didn't generate a plan beforehand. For gen 8, I would encourage the council to think of the worst possible metagames that might occur based on the state of the metagame and develop contingency plans to be enacted should these scenarious pan out. And yes, to this end, I would absolutely look to rework the tiering framework and consider different less conservative approaches to an initial banlist.

How do you feel in regards to the community isolating and regarding stall, as a playstyle, in the fashion that they do? I feel as if a lot of people take a suboptimal approach in this regard as they treat dealing with it in a foreign, and even linear, fashion when, in my opinion, you can treat it like any other playstyle and account for it in teambuilding, but you do not have to devote a whole slot just to "stall" and facing stall is not only black-and-white, win-or-lose from the start. I ask you this specifically as I have adopted this mindset and become a lot better at playing and handling of stall thanks to playing with you and teaming with you.

Unsurprised. If I played offense a bit more, I probably wouldn't have as many defensive crutches on my teams. Conversely, if people played stall more, they'd understand that the fabled 1v6 stallbreaker isn't the only way to beat stall. With tools such as Regenerator/Magic Guard, Knock Off, and Defog more viable than ever on non-stall, it's not that difficult to beat stall through conventional means. I personally believe that anyone struggles against stall should take some time to learn the (non-endless) stall vs. stall matchup. Lack of any better options means that each team has to resort to chip + switching, PP stalling, and conditioning to win, all of which can be critical to beating stall even outside of the mirror.

If you could remove any one element -- be it a Pokemon, move, mechanic, etc. -- from the SM OU metagame without any questions or consequences, what would it be and why?

Mentioned Calm Mind earlier, but if you're extending this to mechanics, then let's go ahead and remove accuracy and evasion. In all seriousness, I don't know. I have opinions about brokenness and metagame health, but as a player, I've never felt like bans or lack thereof affected me too much, so there aren't many conventional things that I would jump at the chance to ban without consequence that I wouldn't have already campaigned to remove under our current suspect process.

What are some of your best/favorite tournament games you have played throughout your time on Smogon (feel free to give some context/details if you'd like, but up to you)?

I can barely remember any of my pre-SM tournament games. They might've been good, but probably no better than the ones I played recently. Poor SPL performances and my engaging stint in League of Legends left me pretty apathetic about clinging to my past. ENZ0 vs. me for WCoP 2012 might've been good, I think, but I don't even have the PO log around to see if it was. It's where I first came up with the idea on using Scarf on random bulky Pokemon like Deoxys-D and Jirachi, so there you go. Meta in the making. Trick Wish Rachi in BW will catch on, by the way.

For recent games, I mentioned me vs. Sabella earlier was the game where I played the best this season of SPL. This game was the best one I played in Snake, and it's meaningful because it's also currently the last SM OU win anyone ever had vs. Stairmaster and the Pitvipers. I'll take this moment to note I also ended ES's 10-0 streak from Snake, making me the official Time Independent Pitviper Legacy Slayer. Down with Snake names.

Do you have any personal favorite games from tournaments you have witnessed as a spectator from your time on Smogon? If so, which games and why?

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-168835
Nobody talks much about Ciele as of late due to his inactivity in team tournaments (and in general now :(), but the BW finals match of the Smogon Tour he won shows why I'll always respect his proficiency as a player. Honorable mentions to BKC/Posho and McMeghan/Tesung BW tour finals.

I swear the second part of this video was originally Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Whatever. Meme aside, this was actually a pretty significant battle. It was the R2 tiebreaker that ended Oceania's three consecutive win streak, and they never managed to recover from it.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-317441
Self-explanatory. OLT actually had the best games for spectating. Let's not get rid of it.

What would you like to achieve as a player going forward, what do you feel your biggest shortcomings as a player are currently, and what is your biggest regret playing wise thus far (can be an individual play from a big game or a general thing depending on what comes to mind for you)?

Not much really. I'm not too invested in continuing to compete. I'm in a position where it's easy for me to quit if it's convenient. I've also decided to forego installing WiFi at my new place so I stop spending so much time online. I figure if I spend enough of my weekends in Starbucks waiting for my opponents to show up or for tour hosts to post R2, it's going to eventually dissuade me from signing up for tournaments.

My biggest shortcoming is my lack of time to do everything I know would make me a better player, mostly just playing, in general and with certain teams/tiers outside my current comfort zone. I don't think I lack anything in fundamentals; it's just a matter of staying in form.

I try not to live with regrets in general, and if I do, they're about me and my relationships with other people. While I do tend to brood on things immediately after a loss, I can't remember ever having a longterm regret about a Pokemon battle. I lose too much to have one mistake overshadow the rest, anyway.

What players do you enjoy spectating the most in terms of their style with teams and/or their approach with plays?

McMeghan was my favorite player to watch in SPL 2017. Watch all his games from last SPL. Skip his game vs. Jayde. Skip his game vs. me if you want to be nice. Focus on his game vs. dice. It has everything, great meta/player reads (SubJirachi) + outplays + creativity. And when you're done, skip all the games from this SPL except for the one vs. Shoka. Incredible.

BKC is my favorite right now. Seeing someone so opinionated translate their ideas into concrete success is always a treat, and I also enjoy seeing people juggle tiers (something I'd like to do if not for tyrannical managers), something BKC pulled off with aplomb. I was especially excited to see what he'd bring to SM OU (have to give John credit, but still).

For SM OU in particular: Nothing really surprising here. I like ABR's builds and willingness to play things like stall and Veil, so I looked forward to his games a lot. John was someone whom I hadn't seen play a lot because I stopped watching WCoP after we got knocked out. Our status at teammates notwithstanding, he impressed me a lot with his play, especially vs. FV and Lednah. All the newcomers were generally impressive to me; I was genuinely excited to watch every OU game this SPL, with many people were coming into their own with less support, more individual identity, and arguably more scrutiny due to weeks > pools. Special mention to Blackoblivion and Cdumas, whom I both think made good, well-founded team reads against a lot of their opponents (including me) and dispelled most concerns following Snake and preceding SPL.

Finally, Marry/Fuck/Kill: Chansey, Clefable, and Magearna

I'd like your input for this question seeing as all three tend to fuck you pretty regularly.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-363823

Do you think we should ban weather from BW OU?

Nope.

Ok real question, what are ur thoughts on Dugtrio ban from sm?

Gut reaction to the success of the two meta-dominant teams, SPL and ILPM Stall. Might be wrong, but I think if we magically banned those two teams, and nothing else replaced them, we'd still be playing Dugtrio meta. The fact that it survived the initial suspect is a testament to that, though at the time, I was surprised and impressed that rey's campaign actually worked.

I wouldn't mind Dugtrio back. Well, of course I never had a problem with it. But I think other people might warm up to the idea now that the metagame has kind of stagnated, and we can't figure out to do with it. Drop Dugtrio for a while. Give new players the opportunity to play a meta where Heatran can't 1v1 your Toxapex. Nobody will miss Koko anyway. Pull it back up after a few months. Make this whole thing a seasonal event, and complex ban Chansey and Dugtrio during this timespan if you really need to.

I've gone back and forth on this; I didn't really miss Dugtrio when it was banned, but I have no love for all the ways in which the meta changed as a result (Heatran becoming dumb, more Hoopa/Tyranitar, safer Specs Koko), and have, when building, at times wished for it back.

You were in the td chat until relatively recently, how did things operate back when you first became a td compared to late 2017 td'ing?

Honestly, not much differently at all. Fundamentally, everything was the same, just at a smaller scale. The big difference is probably Discord vs. IRC. The majority of the tournament playerbase currently occupies the same space as the TDs, so all their live statements are scrutinized to a degree we didn't have to consider as much. On IRC, the tournament playerbase was spread across various channels and only really came together during SPL and WCOP, when IRC channels were set up for those tournaments. At all other times, the closest thing to a uniform player channel was #stark or whatever its name would be at the time, and the TDs didn't have to join, much less talk there. Still, we received criticism, and we engaged with people individually, so again, the only thing that really changed was the scale.

On the whole, though, I feel like the TD team of today suffers from similar problems and make similar mistakes as we did. When people say things were better in the past, I have to disagree. The TD team didn't change; what changed was people and their perceptions. When you're more removed from the community, it's easy to notice all the dumb shit that goes on. It doesn't make most criticism any less valid, but the nostalgic navel-gazing perpetuated by older members of the community is unproductive and misleading to anyone who wasn't around back then. There are longtime systematic flaws within the TD team that are going to continue to hamstring them unless something deeper than the body of active members changes. They're a police department and a legislative body and a judicial system all in one, and they were even a tiering council at one point. They have too many responsibilities and can't handle all of them adequately, and adding more people isn't necessarily going to help without a clear delineation of duties. Why would anyone expect five different people to all be equally as good at extorting ghosting logs from peole as they are at drafting policy? And then there's the fact that they lack proper regulation and can get away with applying policy inconsistently, whether inadvertently or purposely. This is absolutely not new, but it's not good, either, and I place the blame on senior staff, who need to step in to ensure fairness. To the least of their credit, some have tried, but they are frankly too out-of-touch with the tournament community to do this type of thing effectively. More on that in a bit.

Bottom line is that most issues have been issues for a while now, even when I was a TD. And it was difficult to see from my position that these were problems, but they're definitely obvious now that I'm not the one implicitly benefitting. It's not going to stop me from vocalizing them, because the TDs could probably do a better job, and successors should ideally do better than their predecessors, but it'd be unfair to blame them as individuals when I had the same opportunities to fix them, and I failed to do so as well.

who do u fuckin hate in smogon

I try not to hate people nowadays, so I'll regale you with a tale from the past. The former administrator known as Haunter is universally known across Smogon for his unscrupulous desires, but it would be remiss to ignore his myriad other failings as both a member of the OU council and a human being. He and I got into a public argument in the suspect thread over something in which he called me "mentally disabled", denied that he was implying any such thing when confronted, and ended up locking the thread. At the time, I was hosting the "Unscrupulous Tiering Director Tournament", in which I would take people's posts about tiering out of context to make them look dumb and use them as the banner image for each round. Obviously, in the case of Haunter, I did not need to misuse context to include his most recent post in my next round. Apparently, this was too much for senior staff, resulting in this PM: https://puu.sh/zXhOx/e8578a9d7d.png

This did absolutely nothing but show the degree to which senior staff did not value the site's moderators, let alone the general userbase. The language would be completely unacceptable today, and the prospect of demodding an active contributor over something as petty as salvaging an old man's reputation would be even more laughable. I'd like to think things have changed since then, but the last time I saw SS try to engage the TDs, it was an equally hamfisted attempt at communicating authority that alienated everyone on the team at the time. Let's just say SS could have afforded to prioritize communication over "security risks".

Back to Haunter. I don't know whether he was in his 30s or his 40s, but his actions betrayed the soul of a decrepit old man regardless, and the fact that his fragile ego felt so threatened by a 19-year-old college student posting a quote verbatim of his to summon his goons to shut him down is a testament to the fact that he was stuck in the body of a child in more ways than one. He continued to remain incompetent in his position on the council until his debauchery was too much for even his cronies, and they got rid of him. To this day, people think we have a pedophile infestation as a result, and whenever the topic comes up, they will spend threads arguing over the best ways to monitor live chats to ensure that the 'E' in all ongoing ERP stands only for "educational". Counterpoint: the real problem was facilitating a culture in which scum like Haunter could feel empowered to egregiously misuse their authority to do as they pleased, including bully people half their age and solicit explicit pictures from underaged users. And maybe the solution is to stop enabling this type of environment through vapid inaction.

In conclusion, Haunter's profound lack of respect for people, especially girls and women, and the misguided overreaction following his ban that targeted the wrong part of the problem just for the sake of maintaining appearances literally makes him both the Donald Trump and 9/11 of Smogon.

whos the shittiest player uve played

Thank you for asking these difficult questions, Get Backer. My answer is elodin.

you had a really good SPL season, did you play any SM before that and how do you feel about how you played?

I've played SM since the night the game released, and they put it up on PS. I think I had a lot of good ideas, some of which ended up becoming relevant later on. Unfortunately, I underperformed in my SM OU debut during last year's SPL, going 0-2 without much of a fight. It was my first tournament after a break of several years, and I was not confident in myself at all. Overall, I think I played fine, though there's a trend where I'm shaky early and fatigued at the end, and it didn't change this tournament. I'm happy to have turned it around, of course, but can't be complacent about it.

 

[Finchinator]

I'd like your input for this question seeing as all three tend to fuck you pretty regularly.

 

[up_startme]

Hi Eo, really enjoyed watching your games this SPL.

King's pawn opening or queen's pawn opening when playing white?

Sicilian defense or double king's pawn opening when playing black?

Who are your mains in Melee?

Favourite Clefable team in this USUM meta? Favourite Chansey team?

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

Hi Eo, really enjoyed watching your games this SPL.

King's pawn opening or queen's pawn opening when playing white?

Sicilian defense or double king's pawn opening when playing black?

King's pawn for both. Just out of habit, really. I stopped actively studying chess before hitting the level where memorizing opening lines becomes necessary to perform. Up to that point, e4 probably leads to the most intuitive positions, and it's the best just for strictly learning tactics, so I tend to default to that. Since then, though, I've picked up the Queen's Gambit and Sicilian because it's a good idea for club play, but don't ask me about any variants outside the main lines.

Who are your mains in Melee?

I mained Puff, but starting with her fostered a bunch of bad habits that players of my level didn't exploit, like going for stray hits rather than learning how to combo properly (outside of uthrow + Rest on spacies, of course), and constantly giving up stage control and trying to fish for mistakes near the edge. This style of play plateaus pretty hard against better opponents after a while, and I couldn't motivate myself enough to practice Puff on my own any further. This was before 20xx released as well; if I'd stuck around for longer, I might've been able to overcome those hurdles. Before I quit, I was trying to switch to Sheik, who had an intuitive combo game and a low tech skill barrier (which is my weakness).

Favourite Clefable team in this USUM meta? Favourite Chansey team?

Outside of mine, this team that elodin stole and won tour is pretty cool. FLCL might've made it, but I'm not sure. elodin won't give me the import, so anyone who has it, hit me up.

This is a Chansey team I built during SPL but didn't end up using. Just wanted to use HWish Chansey + Gyarados. Haven't revised it at all, so it could probably be iterated on, but it's done decently in tests.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

You got a big W against me in SPL with some peculiar sets, whichs a thing that you usually do very well (being creative). Do you have some special way to prepare vs your opps in team tours at least?

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

You got a big W against me in SPL with some peculiar sets, whichs a thing that you usually do very well (being creative). Do you have some special way to prepare vs your opps in team tours at least?

It's the same for individual tours, but I usually start with a build and tweak it to make sure it's not weak to my opponent's common/threatening stuff. Most of my teams stemmed from things I'd built in previous weeks but didn't end up bringing. Our game was unique because it's the only one where I used someone else's team, but my thought process was similar: I wanted to use Hawlucha to deviate from my usual style, and all my builds were similar enough to John's team vs. Lednah that I ended up just going with his. I made one change, which was Greninja from Z-Water to Z-Fight because I knew you had a Kyurem-Black streak in the past.

 

[Kev]

Since I noticed Baekhyun as your profile, what kind of music do you like? Any particularly favorite songs or albums?

Also, as someone who has been so involved with Smogon, PS and the Pokemon community for quite a few years; what do you think of it's present state?

What advice would you give to someone aiming to pursue a career in Software engineering or other similar fields?