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1v1 Player Interviews
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#9 Yami + Jamez
Favorite Pokemon:
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Most used Pokemon:
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Most known for: Winning the recent 1v1 Premier League.
Welcome back to 1v1's Players Interviews! It's been a bit of a while since the last one, but don't think I've forgotten! other than the one I forgot In this edition, we have the two managers of the winning team of this year's Premier League, James and Yami! Welcome to the show! Starting off, how are you guys? Everything going well in life?
Im doing ok and I guess so other than the usual.
I’m doin pretty good, just pretty busy with school.
Glad to hear! Now, let's start from the beginning; how did you both get into Pokemon? Where'd you start? How'd you wind up in competitive? Anything you're alright sharing.
I first got into pokemon when I was younger, I don’t remember the specific age but it was my birthday and my cousin got my a copy of pokemon black, and that was how I first got into pokemon. I was pretty bad when I started, I don’t think I even knew how to use items like potions but it sure was fun. I got into competitive mons sometime in 2017, I remember seeing a video about Pokemon showdown and I thought it looked cool so I decided to try it out, it took a bit for me to get the hang of competitive but I eventually learned things like evs and items. After just being kinda bad at 6v6 I decided to give 1v1 a try.
Mine started when i got Firered in 2005 after being hooked on the anime for awhile. I remember my grandma and I going store to store since I had no idea what Pokemon games were out at the time. I remember seeing Charizard on the cover and was like that was my favorite at the time. That feels like such a long time ago now haha. I played all day for the next few weeks and finally beat the game. I remember how proud I was of doing so and how it was all thanks to Blastoise which is quite iconic since I picked firered cuz of Charizard, but ended up choosing Squirtle. How I got into competitive was a weird one for sure. I was set on killing myself one night in 2015 till I discovered PS, somehow trying to be the best convinced me to keep living and learning more about the competitive side of mons that I always wanted to try out. I then started getting into competitive Facebook Pokemon groups and then decided to tryout for a Ice Gym Leader spot in one of the many Facebook leagues at the time i think most of them are gone now. Doing this got me into the tier known as Monotype as I was someone solely doing VGC at the time. I then went on to azure the side server for Monotype at the time around 2016 and got to know people and learn more about EVs and items than I ever could on Facebook Pokemon groups. Then in 2017 I came to Smogon under the cringe edgy name of lostallhopedreams to try Monotype on the bigger stage and made my debut in the Monotype Ladder Tournament and been here ever since.
Interesting interesting. Always nice to see the variety in where people get their start. With that said, what drew you two to 1v1? Was it just easier? Did it seem interesting? And more importantly, what made you stick around for as long as you both have?
I was looking for a new tier at the time I believe as I was not really liked by the Mono community. I believed Felucia got me into 1v1 and got me into 1v1pl II as a free pick when that existed. I liked how much focus was in the builder, all the creative sets that people came up with, and how fast the games were. I honestly dont know why I sticked around after the whole ursas incident with dom, toad, kaif, solarflare, ryy, ggopw and others and being bullied to death for being lgbt and other things thats a bit of a blur. Only reason I can think of is all the good people in the 1v1 community that I met over the years and welcomed me with open arms.
I got interested in 1v1 after I was struggling a bit in 6v6, a few ppl I made friends with introduced me to 1v1 and I immediately noticed that it was much easier for me and i could build for it easier. I got started in gen 7 1v1 and I really liked it, I played the ladder for a long time every day because I wanted to peak it and see my name at the top of the ladder. And I eventually did peak the ladder spamming what I thought was my first decent team being zard x, magearna, and stored power Necrozma. I decided to stick around in 1v1 because I was given the chance to co captain and play for us east in World Cup 2, I can probably thank TDA for where I am in 1v1 today because he had the confidence to let me co manage and play in what would be my first 1v1 team tournament. I also decided to stay in 1v1 because I met some great people to play tours with or just to talk to.
And the rest is history from there. Glad to hear the experience for both of you has been at least mostly positive! Now, moving on to PL, what would you say your history with each other has been? What led you to choose one another to manage together?
I think it was 1v1wc 2 we met and we got to know each other tho 1v1wc 2-3 alongside the 1v1 server. My memory is really bad when it comes to things like this haha. I just remember asking him since I needed a co-manager, knew we got along well, and knew how we both worked in a team tour setting.
I think we both agreed to manage together because we have both been on US East for a while. Yami is also a really kind person, and Yami has also helped me with dpp and other old gens which I am really grateful for. I think it’s fair to say Yami helped me a lot with my 1v1 career too so I definitely wanted the chance to manage with Yami.
Nice nice. Now, for Yami, I believe the Trojan Porygons name was your doing, right? Does that name have any significant meaning? Or is it just kind of a name for the sake of being a name? I ask since it's not just your average Alliterative Alakazams or anything of the sort.
Yeah, it was a name I used in lpl, a lc discord tour. I made the name cuz Trojan is a type of virus and condom, so it had a double meaning that I found cool. I always wanted to reuse the name since it was my favorite and always loved the double meaning behind it.
Ah I see, upholding the legacy and all. Moving on to the draft, what would you say your plan was, going into things? Was there anyone in particular you two were dying to have on the team?
Our plan was kinda just picking out some of the players we were interested in buying and setting price caps on them. I think we both really wanted smely socks on the team because smely is a pretty good swsh 1v1 player and is just a really nice person which I think both being good at 1v1 and being a good person impact a team. I also wanted potatochan because he is a great guy and will build for everyone if he wants too, the amount of work potatochan does is unbelievable, any team would really benefit having him on the team. Tears and Finch were players that we got for cheaper that ended up getting great records and being massive steals. But overall, we just wanted to draft a team that would work well together and I think we achieved that.
Yeah, we had a big draft plan set out since the actual draft can be so unpredictable with the max we pay on someone. I personally was trying to go for the best team environment and good synergy as that imo is the better strat than getting good players who dont get along, have other issues with the team, or has to carry a lot of the slots. We both wanted smely socks and I always wanted to team with him again. I also wanted Finchinator and Leru due to these two always doing well in most tours they were in and it surprised me to see 3k Finchinator, I could not believe my eyes.
Would you say the actual draft itself went differently from what you planned?
I feel the draft went a bit differently then planned, not too much differently though because we got players we both wanted like smely and potatochan, there were some stuff we had to make up along the way for different slots but I think it went decently according to plan.
For some of it ya, I wanted to get dogknees but he went way over what I expected him to, but knowing that team drafts dont go your way perfectly I was expecting it. It didnt differ too much since we got who we wanted for the most part.
Makes sense yeah, I remember both smely and dogknees going super high between you and Euph. With that said, once you had gathered all the team members together and the season had begun, what would you say the overall team dynamic was like? We caught a couple glimpses through your shoutout posts, but was there anything significant? Any major contributors, etc? Anything standout that happened throughout the season?
I feel like the team dynamic was fine, it felt friendly and we got all along. Potatochan helped with a lot of the slots and even helped me a few times with EVs in DPP. It honestly felt like we were a family during the latter of the season with people being in call prepping and us being in call without tol while tol was playing with our season in the balance.
Throughout the season stuff was really fun, I think we played well together as a team. People like Tol and finch were pretty funny, always keeping the team positive with random jokes. One of my favorites is one that finch started, it was pretty stupid but we would just @ potatochan then say dogs. It was funny because more people just started to ping potatochan then say dogs. Another great moment was tol and finch always argueing about using calc. Overall I think we just got along nicely as a team and were able to joke around and chat a lot throughout the season. Major shoutout to potatochan tho for all the work he did.
Nice nice, love to see it! Now, if I'm not mistaken, you guys kept your server private, right? Any particular reason for that?
There were a few people who I guess just wanted to join and start stuff like ping people and shit talk, not gonna name names but some people may be able to guess who these people were. That is kinda why we just ended up for the most part keeping the server private until playoffs where we invited people who wanted to help out.
Ah I see, fair enough then. Makes sense. Now, for James, being the comanager, what would you say the experience was like? Given that you've been in several team tournaments, would you say having the comanager role feels different from being the main manager? Or would you say it's more like being a regular player?
Being a co manager to me doesn’t really feel different from being the main manager, only real difference to me is that the main manager should make the calls in the end. So yea, it kinda feels the same as the main manager except the main manager has a bit more deciding power.
Fair fair. Now, moving on towards the later half of the season, one particular thing that caught my interest was how you two ended up switching tiers, with Yami moving from DPP to SS and James moving from SM to DPP. I noticed Yami referenced some sort of "swap plan" in his shoutout post, so it sounds like you perhaps planned for this? What exactly happened there?
Well I saw that our SS bo5 slots werent doing too well and I felt burnt out of DPP from mass producing teams in the eariler weeks and was a bit tired of playing the same slot every team tour. We needed every win we could get and I thought if I helped james in DPP while I move to SS we should be able to turn the season around and make playoffs.
well we realized that our ss 3 was having some trouble and then we realized that we can put Yami in the ss 3 slot because Yami did really well in ssnl. And that would mean I would be going in dpp and having to move someone else in sm. This also worked out because I was struggling in sm. It ended up being a great success because we both ended up getting a lot of wins so we just decided to keep it like that. I also felt a lot more confident in dpp than I did sm after those first couple weeks so I was down for it.
And it certainly did work out, for sure. With that said, were the teams used in DPP solely Yami's? Did you two work together to make some stuff at times? Would you mind showing and describing one team that you're particularly proud of? If there's any other team for a different format you'd rather show instead, that's also fine.
it was a mix every week, I would usually build 3-4 dpp teams and then borrow 1-2 of yamis teams each week, Yami building a lot really helped because it gave me a variety of teams to choose from and gave me more time to help build for the sm slots. One team that I am pretty proud of making was this team:
This team was built around a set that I thought would be really cool, being calm mind rest bronzong but with imprison. This lets bronzong beat a lot of stall mons like cresselia, registeel, suicune, raikou, stall slaking, and other bronzongs. The bronzong also beat trick users with mail which is nice to not have to worry about trick users. I paired bronzong with choice band aerodactyl because I think it was a good mix up because my usage shows a lot of pressure stall aerodactyl and I haven’t used choice band aerodactyl so I wanted to use it, this lets me beat a lot of the annoying mons that bronzong struggles with like specs zapdos, and some other fire types like infernape, arcanine, moltres, heatran, etc. finally I chose kingdra as the third because it dealt with the weaknesses of bronzong and aerodactyl, mainly being some choice mons which kingdra could dragon dance and disable on, kingdra also provides extra coverage for fire types
It was a mix of mine, some sets, and some sets he made I believe in dpp. Yeah we did and made sure we cover holes in the team and such. This is one team Im proud of despite the slight error on the Togekiss set
i forgot to double check mechanics in DPP and assume that Potatochan knew them which was a big no no LOOL. Togekiss had Mental Herb, which in gen 4 only avoids attract not taunt so that was hella funny, so i changed the item now to showcase the team. Togekiss was a Tyranitar lure with Aura Sphere. I didnt use a lot of Kingdra, so I went with it to help with choice mons and use Dragon Dance to beat Raikou and lastly chose arcanine to cover holes and really loved the set, can beat dragonite and take care of non rindo pert and non custap rhyp with hp grass.
I see, cool stuff! Now, throughout the whole PL experience, what would you say was the most difficult moment or period of time for the team? Or you as an individual?
I think the most difficult time was the beginning of week 6, specifically this time because we were behind and needed to win these next 2 weeks to go to playoffs which put a lot of pressure on everyone. It was a super stressful 2 weeks with a lot more prep than usual but we ended up winning those 2 weeks which relieved a lot of stress. For me, the most difficult time was the week where I got a hella lot of projects all in the same week for school, that week I just felt like I didn’t contribute to the team enough because I was so focused on school for that week, luckily there were not any other weeks like that for me.
Oh lord tiebreak for finals and getting the tiebreak for finals was stressful I constantly be checking my phone at work to see when the games were or watch them in the back while washing dishes or getting overstock to put on the shelves at work. I think everyone on the team was stressed out the 2 weeks before playoffs onwards. Mine was the moment james and potatochan sent tiebreak lu without my say in it after having a really crappy day and left me upset and i guess dealing with my depression near the middle of the season
And how about the best time? Excluding winning the tour, of course-
I think being in call with each other during Tols game and always cheering each other on def during finals and helping to make sure everyone was prepped was fun. There was a lot of what i consider best times in the tour itself. Also Tol and the calc man, that was hella funny. Finch was on Tol to use the calc and it was just very funny to see as it brighten up my day.
Best time of the tour for me was week 7, besides winning, this was my favorite time because we did really well in this super stressful week which decided if we were going to playoffs or not. Winning the week 7-1 was amazing and it was a great time after the week ended in the team discord. Some other of my favorite moments are the funny things tol and finch would do, those 2 really brighten up our discord.
Moving on to the next coming team tour, how are you guys feeling about World Cup? Do you think East is looking to be in a much better position this year?
I feel World Cup will be a bit different with the potential Northeast and south split, this will unfortunately split a lot of people that are usually big parts of east like Yami, Pqs, tol, etc. I think east will be in a better position though because of all the new swsh players that we are getting, and finally an oras player, the 3k steal finch. I’m excited to see how things in World Cup go.
I am not sure if im doing World Cup at the moment. If East splits to Northeast and South I do not think I can find myself playing for a team that will probably be cannon folder since I see no old gens but myself and dont think i can handle the stress of building for that many slots. Im hoping I get proven wrong when signups come up and that South is a lot better than what I can see on the table right now. If East is still whole, than yeah I believe we are in a much better position this year with having finch in oras and the new ss players. East would potentially still not have me since Im unsure if my motivation will come back in time for the tour after I take my plan LOA soon.
With TDA retired, who do you think would be best fit to manage the team now? And why
I guess it would be me and James cuz of how well we work together and won 1v1pl together. We know how to make a team work and who we need on the team to have the best roster possible. We can help in most slots and boost moral.
I am interested in managing east for a second time since World Cup 2, but I am willing to let some of the new people manage because I feel I am very fortunate to be picked to manage in many things recently. Some new people I think can manage are Akumajou, Mubs, Mishlef, etc. if any of them wanna manage I would be down to let them have a turn at it.
How do you feel about the prospect of a potential US South team? Do you think it'd be viable? Are you worried about potentially being split up? I know Yami already answered, but if there's anything you'd wanna expand on feel free.
Lets not have US South happen this year, dont have much to add to what I already said
I feel south is kind of lacking in some areas from what I have seen and heard so far. I think a census is a good way to see how things are going for some teams but until that happens, I think south won’t really be too viable looking. And it also would suck to get split from Yami especially after just winning a PL with Yami.
Makes sense you wouldn't want to be split up yeah. Now, as we begin to wrap up: Yami, given your history with many members of the 1v1 community, would you say that that makes this PL win more meaningful to you?
Yes because people didnt like our draft plan and i think some thought I was not fit to be a manager or a good player in general. I was glad to prove them wrong with both winning, showing that our draft didnt suck, and going 5-2 overall.
And James, you've had your fair share of controversy yourself, especially throughout the duration of this PL. Would you say that this PL season was something that helped you grow, as a person?
Yea for sure, I’ve realized that I get way too into the drama of the games, and end up being annoying because I complained too much about things. It definitely put me in a bad mood if I complained too much or just got way too involved in the drama, and this is definitely not what I want. And after what I saw a lot of people thought about it, I decided i needed to improve as a person which I think I am, I needed to get less involved with the drama and complain less which I have immediately started doing and it is definitely working, I’m having more fun while playing instead of in a bad mood so yea, this tournament has definitely made me improve as a person
Now that you two and your team have won Premier League, do you have any other plans or aspirations for 1v1 moving forward?
I plan to keep on playing 1v1 for sure, maybe not as much as I usually do because school is getting harder and I’m planning on getting a job sometime eventually, but I will definitely continue playing 1v1 tours.
I have no idea where im going in Pokemon in general right now. I do plan to return and play in 1v1 tours again and try to contribute more in the room and doing analyses.
Do you have any final words for the readers?
s/o porygons, this PL was a blast, I’ll see y’all in World Cup.
Well, I say not to get too self-absorb in the game itself to the point it consumes your life. Make sure you do well in school / job and know how to balance Pokemon with that. Pokemon does not get you anywhere in life unfortunately. I love you Trojan Porygons and 1v1pl was really fun. I may or may not see you in 1v1wc.
Thanks for your time :)
1v1 Player Interviews
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#9 Yami + Jamez
Favorite Pokemon:
+ Most used Pokemon:
+ Most known for: Winning the recent 1v1 Premier League.
Welcome back to 1v1's Players Interviews! It's been a bit of a while since the last one, but don't think I've forgotten! other than the one I forgot In this edition, we have the two managers of the winning team of this year's Premier League, James and Yami! Welcome to the show! Starting off, how are you guys? Everything going well in life?
Im doing ok and I guess so other than the usual.
I’m doin pretty good, just pretty busy with school.
Glad to hear! Now, let's start from the beginning; how did you both get into Pokemon? Where'd you start? How'd you wind up in competitive? Anything you're alright sharing.
I first got into pokemon when I was younger, I don’t remember the specific age but it was my birthday and my cousin got my a copy of pokemon black, and that was how I first got into pokemon. I was pretty bad when I started, I don’t think I even knew how to use items like potions but it sure was fun. I got into competitive mons sometime in 2017, I remember seeing a video about Pokemon showdown and I thought it looked cool so I decided to try it out, it took a bit for me to get the hang of competitive but I eventually learned things like evs and items. After just being kinda bad at 6v6 I decided to give 1v1 a try.
Mine started when i got Firered in 2005 after being hooked on the anime for awhile. I remember my grandma and I going store to store since I had no idea what Pokemon games were out at the time. I remember seeing Charizard on the cover and was like that was my favorite at the time. That feels like such a long time ago now haha. I played all day for the next few weeks and finally beat the game. I remember how proud I was of doing so and how it was all thanks to Blastoise which is quite iconic since I picked firered cuz of Charizard, but ended up choosing Squirtle. How I got into competitive was a weird one for sure. I was set on killing myself one night in 2015 till I discovered PS, somehow trying to be the best convinced me to keep living and learning more about the competitive side of mons that I always wanted to try out. I then started getting into competitive Facebook Pokemon groups and then decided to tryout for a Ice Gym Leader spot in one of the many Facebook leagues at the time i think most of them are gone now. Doing this got me into the tier known as Monotype as I was someone solely doing VGC at the time. I then went on to azure the side server for Monotype at the time around 2016 and got to know people and learn more about EVs and items than I ever could on Facebook Pokemon groups. Then in 2017 I came to Smogon under the cringe edgy name of lostallhopedreams to try Monotype on the bigger stage and made my debut in the Monotype Ladder Tournament and been here ever since.
Interesting interesting. Always nice to see the variety in where people get their start. With that said, what drew you two to 1v1? Was it just easier? Did it seem interesting? And more importantly, what made you stick around for as long as you both have?
I was looking for a new tier at the time I believe as I was not really liked by the Mono community. I believed Felucia got me into 1v1 and got me into 1v1pl II as a free pick when that existed. I liked how much focus was in the builder, all the creative sets that people came up with, and how fast the games were. I honestly dont know why I sticked around after the whole ursas incident with dom, toad, kaif, solarflare, ryy, ggopw and others and being bullied to death for being lgbt and other things thats a bit of a blur. Only reason I can think of is all the good people in the 1v1 community that I met over the years and welcomed me with open arms.
I got interested in 1v1 after I was struggling a bit in 6v6, a few ppl I made friends with introduced me to 1v1 and I immediately noticed that it was much easier for me and i could build for it easier. I got started in gen 7 1v1 and I really liked it, I played the ladder for a long time every day because I wanted to peak it and see my name at the top of the ladder. And I eventually did peak the ladder spamming what I thought was my first decent team being zard x, magearna, and stored power Necrozma. I decided to stick around in 1v1 because I was given the chance to co captain and play for us east in World Cup 2, I can probably thank TDA for where I am in 1v1 today because he had the confidence to let me co manage and play in what would be my first 1v1 team tournament. I also decided to stay in 1v1 because I met some great people to play tours with or just to talk to.
And the rest is history from there. Glad to hear the experience for both of you has been at least mostly positive! Now, moving on to PL, what would you say your history with each other has been? What led you to choose one another to manage together?
I think it was 1v1wc 2 we met and we got to know each other tho 1v1wc 2-3 alongside the 1v1 server. My memory is really bad when it comes to things like this haha. I just remember asking him since I needed a co-manager, knew we got along well, and knew how we both worked in a team tour setting.
I think we both agreed to manage together because we have both been on US East for a while. Yami is also a really kind person, and Yami has also helped me with dpp and other old gens which I am really grateful for. I think it’s fair to say Yami helped me a lot with my 1v1 career too so I definitely wanted the chance to manage with Yami.
Nice nice. Now, for Yami, I believe the Trojan Porygons name was your doing, right? Does that name have any significant meaning? Or is it just kind of a name for the sake of being a name? I ask since it's not just your average Alliterative Alakazams or anything of the sort.
Yeah, it was a name I used in lpl, a lc discord tour. I made the name cuz Trojan is a type of virus and condom, so it had a double meaning that I found cool. I always wanted to reuse the name since it was my favorite and always loved the double meaning behind it.
Ah I see, upholding the legacy and all. Moving on to the draft, what would you say your plan was, going into things? Was there anyone in particular you two were dying to have on the team?
Our plan was kinda just picking out some of the players we were interested in buying and setting price caps on them. I think we both really wanted smely socks on the team because smely is a pretty good swsh 1v1 player and is just a really nice person which I think both being good at 1v1 and being a good person impact a team. I also wanted potatochan because he is a great guy and will build for everyone if he wants too, the amount of work potatochan does is unbelievable, any team would really benefit having him on the team. Tears and Finch were players that we got for cheaper that ended up getting great records and being massive steals. But overall, we just wanted to draft a team that would work well together and I think we achieved that.
Yeah, we had a big draft plan set out since the actual draft can be so unpredictable with the max we pay on someone. I personally was trying to go for the best team environment and good synergy as that imo is the better strat than getting good players who dont get along, have other issues with the team, or has to carry a lot of the slots. We both wanted smely socks and I always wanted to team with him again. I also wanted Finchinator and Leru due to these two always doing well in most tours they were in and it surprised me to see 3k Finchinator, I could not believe my eyes.
Would you say the actual draft itself went differently from what you planned?
I feel the draft went a bit differently then planned, not too much differently though because we got players we both wanted like smely and potatochan, there were some stuff we had to make up along the way for different slots but I think it went decently according to plan.
For some of it ya, I wanted to get dogknees but he went way over what I expected him to, but knowing that team drafts dont go your way perfectly I was expecting it. It didnt differ too much since we got who we wanted for the most part.
Makes sense yeah, I remember both smely and dogknees going super high between you and Euph. With that said, once you had gathered all the team members together and the season had begun, what would you say the overall team dynamic was like? We caught a couple glimpses through your shoutout posts, but was there anything significant? Any major contributors, etc? Anything standout that happened throughout the season?
I feel like the team dynamic was fine, it felt friendly and we got all along. Potatochan helped with a lot of the slots and even helped me a few times with EVs in DPP. It honestly felt like we were a family during the latter of the season with people being in call prepping and us being in call without tol while tol was playing with our season in the balance.
Throughout the season stuff was really fun, I think we played well together as a team. People like Tol and finch were pretty funny, always keeping the team positive with random jokes. One of my favorites is one that finch started, it was pretty stupid but we would just @ potatochan then say dogs. It was funny because more people just started to ping potatochan then say dogs. Another great moment was tol and finch always argueing about using calc. Overall I think we just got along nicely as a team and were able to joke around and chat a lot throughout the season. Major shoutout to potatochan tho for all the work he did.
Nice nice, love to see it! Now, if I'm not mistaken, you guys kept your server private, right? Any particular reason for that?
There were a few people who I guess just wanted to join and start stuff like ping people and shit talk, not gonna name names but some people may be able to guess who these people were. That is kinda why we just ended up for the most part keeping the server private until playoffs where we invited people who wanted to help out.
Ah I see, fair enough then. Makes sense. Now, for James, being the comanager, what would you say the experience was like? Given that you've been in several team tournaments, would you say having the comanager role feels different from being the main manager? Or would you say it's more like being a regular player?
Being a co manager to me doesn’t really feel different from being the main manager, only real difference to me is that the main manager should make the calls in the end. So yea, it kinda feels the same as the main manager except the main manager has a bit more deciding power.
Fair fair. Now, moving on towards the later half of the season, one particular thing that caught my interest was how you two ended up switching tiers, with Yami moving from DPP to SS and James moving from SM to DPP. I noticed Yami referenced some sort of "swap plan" in his shoutout post, so it sounds like you perhaps planned for this? What exactly happened there?
Well I saw that our SS bo5 slots werent doing too well and I felt burnt out of DPP from mass producing teams in the eariler weeks and was a bit tired of playing the same slot every team tour. We needed every win we could get and I thought if I helped james in DPP while I move to SS we should be able to turn the season around and make playoffs.
well we realized that our ss 3 was having some trouble and then we realized that we can put Yami in the ss 3 slot because Yami did really well in ssnl. And that would mean I would be going in dpp and having to move someone else in sm. This also worked out because I was struggling in sm. It ended up being a great success because we both ended up getting a lot of wins so we just decided to keep it like that. I also felt a lot more confident in dpp than I did sm after those first couple weeks so I was down for it.
And it certainly did work out, for sure. With that said, were the teams used in DPP solely Yami's? Did you two work together to make some stuff at times? Would you mind showing and describing one team that you're particularly proud of? If there's any other team for a different format you'd rather show instead, that's also fine.
it was a mix every week, I would usually build 3-4 dpp teams and then borrow 1-2 of yamis teams each week, Yami building a lot really helped because it gave me a variety of teams to choose from and gave me more time to help build for the sm slots. One team that I am pretty proud of making was this team:
This team was built around a set that I thought would be really cool, being calm mind rest bronzong but with imprison. This lets bronzong beat a lot of stall mons like cresselia, registeel, suicune, raikou, stall slaking, and other bronzongs. The bronzong also beat trick users with mail which is nice to not have to worry about trick users. I paired bronzong with choice band aerodactyl because I think it was a good mix up because my usage shows a lot of pressure stall aerodactyl and I haven’t used choice band aerodactyl so I wanted to use it, this lets me beat a lot of the annoying mons that bronzong struggles with like specs zapdos, and some other fire types like infernape, arcanine, moltres, heatran, etc. finally I chose kingdra as the third because it dealt with the weaknesses of bronzong and aerodactyl, mainly being some choice mons which kingdra could dragon dance and disable on, kingdra also provides extra coverage for fire types
It was a mix of mine, some sets, and some sets he made I believe in dpp. Yeah we did and made sure we cover holes in the team and such. This is one team Im proud of despite the slight error on the Togekiss set
i forgot to double check mechanics in DPP and assume that Potatochan knew them which was a big no no LOOL. Togekiss had Mental Herb, which in gen 4 only avoids attract not taunt so that was hella funny, so i changed the item now to showcase the team. Togekiss was a Tyranitar lure with Aura Sphere. I didnt use a lot of Kingdra, so I went with it to help with choice mons and use Dragon Dance to beat Raikou and lastly chose arcanine to cover holes and really loved the set, can beat dragonite and take care of non rindo pert and non custap rhyp with hp grass.
I see, cool stuff! Now, throughout the whole PL experience, what would you say was the most difficult moment or period of time for the team? Or you as an individual?
I think the most difficult time was the beginning of week 6, specifically this time because we were behind and needed to win these next 2 weeks to go to playoffs which put a lot of pressure on everyone. It was a super stressful 2 weeks with a lot more prep than usual but we ended up winning those 2 weeks which relieved a lot of stress. For me, the most difficult time was the week where I got a hella lot of projects all in the same week for school, that week I just felt like I didn’t contribute to the team enough because I was so focused on school for that week, luckily there were not any other weeks like that for me.
Oh lord tiebreak for finals and getting the tiebreak for finals was stressful I constantly be checking my phone at work to see when the games were or watch them in the back while washing dishes or getting overstock to put on the shelves at work. I think everyone on the team was stressed out the 2 weeks before playoffs onwards. Mine was the moment james and potatochan sent tiebreak lu without my say in it after having a really crappy day and left me upset and i guess dealing with my depression near the middle of the season
And how about the best time? Excluding winning the tour, of course-
I think being in call with each other during Tols game and always cheering each other on def during finals and helping to make sure everyone was prepped was fun. There was a lot of what i consider best times in the tour itself. Also Tol and the calc man, that was hella funny. Finch was on Tol to use the calc and it was just very funny to see as it brighten up my day.
Best time of the tour for me was week 7, besides winning, this was my favorite time because we did really well in this super stressful week which decided if we were going to playoffs or not. Winning the week 7-1 was amazing and it was a great time after the week ended in the team discord. Some other of my favorite moments are the funny things tol and finch would do, those 2 really brighten up our discord.
Moving on to the next coming team tour, how are you guys feeling about World Cup? Do you think East is looking to be in a much better position this year?
I feel World Cup will be a bit different with the potential Northeast and south split, this will unfortunately split a lot of people that are usually big parts of east like Yami, Pqs, tol, etc. I think east will be in a better position though because of all the new swsh players that we are getting, and finally an oras player, the 3k steal finch. I’m excited to see how things in World Cup go.
I am not sure if im doing World Cup at the moment. If East splits to Northeast and South I do not think I can find myself playing for a team that will probably be cannon folder since I see no old gens but myself and dont think i can handle the stress of building for that many slots. Im hoping I get proven wrong when signups come up and that South is a lot better than what I can see on the table right now. If East is still whole, than yeah I believe we are in a much better position this year with having finch in oras and the new ss players. East would potentially still not have me since Im unsure if my motivation will come back in time for the tour after I take my plan LOA soon.
With TDA retired, who do you think would be best fit to manage the team now? And why
I guess it would be me and James cuz of how well we work together and won 1v1pl together. We know how to make a team work and who we need on the team to have the best roster possible. We can help in most slots and boost moral.
I am interested in managing east for a second time since World Cup 2, but I am willing to let some of the new people manage because I feel I am very fortunate to be picked to manage in many things recently. Some new people I think can manage are Akumajou, Mubs, Mishlef, etc. if any of them wanna manage I would be down to let them have a turn at it.
How do you feel about the prospect of a potential US South team? Do you think it'd be viable? Are you worried about potentially being split up? I know Yami already answered, but if there's anything you'd wanna expand on feel free.
Lets not have US South happen this year, dont have much to add to what I already said
I feel south is kind of lacking in some areas from what I have seen and heard so far. I think a census is a good way to see how things are going for some teams but until that happens, I think south won’t really be too viable looking. And it also would suck to get split from Yami especially after just winning a PL with Yami.
Makes sense you wouldn't want to be split up yeah. Now, as we begin to wrap up: Yami, given your history with many members of the 1v1 community, would you say that that makes this PL win more meaningful to you?
Yes because people didnt like our draft plan and i think some thought I was not fit to be a manager or a good player in general. I was glad to prove them wrong with both winning, showing that our draft didnt suck, and going 5-2 overall.
And James, you've had your fair share of controversy yourself, especially throughout the duration of this PL. Would you say that this PL season was something that helped you grow, as a person?
Yea for sure, I’ve realized that I get way too into the drama of the games, and end up being annoying because I complained too much about things. It definitely put me in a bad mood if I complained too much or just got way too involved in the drama, and this is definitely not what I want. And after what I saw a lot of people thought about it, I decided i needed to improve as a person which I think I am, I needed to get less involved with the drama and complain less which I have immediately started doing and it is definitely working, I’m having more fun while playing instead of in a bad mood so yea, this tournament has definitely made me improve as a person
Now that you two and your team have won Premier League, do you have any other plans or aspirations for 1v1 moving forward?
I plan to keep on playing 1v1 for sure, maybe not as much as I usually do because school is getting harder and I’m planning on getting a job sometime eventually, but I will definitely continue playing 1v1 tours.
I have no idea where im going in Pokemon in general right now. I do plan to return and play in 1v1 tours again and try to contribute more in the room and doing analyses.
Do you have any final words for the readers?
s/o porygons, this PL was a blast, I’ll see y’all in World Cup.
Well, I say not to get too self-absorb in the game itself to the point it consumes your life. Make sure you do well in school / job and know how to balance Pokemon with that. Pokemon does not get you anywhere in life unfortunately. I love you Trojan Porygons and 1v1pl was really fun. I may or may not see you in 1v1wc.
Thanks for your time :)
======================================================================
Duration of interview: 2 hours, 53 minutes
If you have any questions of your own for Yami or Jamez, feel free to ask them here!
Since Cinderace wasn't in any Mystery Dungeon games, I borrowed the art from an online source and put it over the usual portrait background. They'll probably never even look at this thread, but credits to ShadowTeam2015 for the base Cinderace art!
As for the next interview, don't expect a consistent schedule behind these-
Duration of interview: 2 hours, 53 minutes
If you have any questions of your own for Yami or Jamez, feel free to ask them here!
Since Cinderace wasn't in any Mystery Dungeon games, I borrowed the art from an online source and put it over the usual portrait background. They'll probably never even look at this thread, but credits to ShadowTeam2015 for the base Cinderace art!
As for the next interview, don't expect a consistent schedule behind these-
