Tell us a bit about yourself outside of Smogon.
I’m currently just a dude with a warehouse job earning what he can and seeing where it leads me. Live at my parents place since I have no interest finding a place of my own in this economy and neither my mom or dad are in any rush to have me leave. We’re basically roommates lol it’s chill. Outside of Pokemon stuff I play a ton of Team Fortress 2 when our internet isn’t garbage and a comparatively moderate amount of Deep Rock Galactic if friends are around (btw co-op fps fans if you haven’t played that game yet, do it. the game is good). Outside of gaming I’m usually either on YouTube or seeing if it’s a nice 50 degrees Fahrenheit to get outside. I am also a practicing Christian, I know it doesn’t seem like it if you ever interact with me but that’s mostly because I realize most people don’t care to talk about it online and also because I’m fucking weird and thus a lot of my theology deviates heavily from the norm.
What is the origin of your username?
When I was 13 and wanted to be illegally playing games outside my ESRB rating I needed something for a Steam Account (my brother and I were gonna share so he might have wanted it first). For a long time I was using my real name with numbers replacing the vowels, but wanted something more unique for Steam. Not really sure what made me pick shnowshner, I did find the name from an old piece of paper I had been drawing on during 4th/5th grade. I would get bored in class a lot and just start doing my own thing, often times just brainsketching video game ideas for fun, and for some reason “SHNOWSHNER” was a tower defense game? I was really into those as I kid (and sorta still like them but haven’t found one better then the monkey game so why bother) and they were easy to conceptuallize. The name means nothing lmao at least I don’t remember, and the shnow is pronounced like “now” not “snow” sorry Lasen.
What got you into CAP?
I think I just saw it at the bottom of Smogon Forums and would just browse through to see what was going on. I lurked the forums starting sometime around late 2018 I think? And when I made my account in 2020 I eventually felt like posting down there if I had spare time. I think the reason I stuck with it more is because I like the creative aspects of it and, as someone who puts too much time into theorycrafting stuff for anything ever, it quickly won me over. I still sometimes go to other sectors of Smogon like OMs and some day might try and pick up RBY but who knows when.
What is your favorite CAP Pokemon?
Hard for me to answer because I think every single one is really cool in some way, but here’s some category winners:
Best competitive: gotta be my guy Colossoil this dude fucks in every tier istg
Best design: Pajantom is actually so cohesive, it’s equal parts badass and fun. It actually looks like the kind of thing GameFreak would pull, and I feel many fanmade Pokemon fall flat on having that “GameFreak-ness” to them. Like image how expressive Paj would be if it were implemented like an official Pokemon.
Funniest CAP: pre-buff crown tundra gen 8 miasmaw for either soloing the enemy team or dying instantly
CAP I would be least comfortable taking out to dinner: Necturna
CAP I am most likely to simp for: Also Necturna but Crucibelle is a close second
What is your favorite regular Pokemon?
roserade is my short androgynous queen and each day of her absence in gen 9 has been pure suffering, they did not have to kill her off so they could add someone’s catgirl furry oc like come one “oh no they got them same design elements?” how many grass/dark we got in sv? how many dogs we got sv? oh design overlap is a problem and you add a silly lookin catfish into the game while including the other silly catfish? actual villain activity like you can have them together they’d be friends they could grow flowers together or go rob a national bank or something it’d be great. man they add this poison-type boss for team star and he speaks with verbose english and is dressed all mysterious like some sort of nighttime vigilante and then are like naaahhhhh dude we can’t include the one pokemon that would be PERFECT as his ace naaahhhhhhhhh man they add a ROCK TYPE that’s POISON and a FLOWER and i LIKE IT because it REMINDS ME–
What is your favorite CAP art submission that didn’t win?
I haven’t really been around enough and sorta don’t pay much attention to art subs, not to say I don’t care about the work people put in, but I’d rather not get attached to any designs before they become official because only one is gonna stick around.
What is your favorite generation of CAP?
SS is the most familiar to me and as of now has a lot of the competitive mons I enjoy using (read: it has god heatran), but SV could surpass it once its done cooking. SV has a lot of options to make progress and I really like that aspect.
What is your favorite CAP OM?
CAP VGC once that happens but for the time being CAP STABMons is my favorite because it has a lot of genuinely stupid stuff available.
What would you say are your biggest contributions?
being TL objectively, but SHNOW TOUR 2023 is the answer in my heart.
What is your favorite part of the CAP process?
It’s honestly not any part in particular as much as its the discussion stuff we have. I tend to enjoy Concept Submissions the most just solely because everyone is sharing ideas and a ton of cool concepts are throw around that get the gears turning in my head.
What is a lesson you learned from a recent CAP process/buff process?
tera is a mechanic and it can and will break revenankh if you forget that
What is your favorite moment from a CAP Tournament?
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7cap-636572
so much happens in this game that is terrible and it’s stuck with me ever since seeing it
Thoughts on the current Gen 9 CAP metagame?
I’m generally not a big fan of heavily offense-oriented metagames and SV CAP feels like it’s in that state right now with how many insane breakers/sweepers are around, to be fair though I could probably try and be more active than I’ve been but work and TLT duties eat up a good amount of time. CAP 32’s release will almost certainly get me more active though, and I have enjoyed watching SV CAP.
If you could change one thing about the mechanics of Pokemon, what would it be?
If we’re limiting it to just one thing, I would remove the 25% full para chance. It is stupid and makes Paralysis, an already useful status just for slowing stuff down, way more dangerous then it deserves to be. Overall any of the “turn-loss” mechanics would be stuff I want to axe, including Freeze, Sleep, and stuff like confusion, infatuation (even if it’s never used anywhere), or flinching. Fake Out is the sole except since its balanced around flinching, but at that point I’d rather give it a brand new “status” and rework flinching into something else.
Hopes for The Teal Mask/The Indigo Disk?
i hope the doge mon is broken (but in a A+ rank funny OU mon way), i hope we get more cool move tutors like we did in isle of armor, and i hope they add roserade even though they will not
Can you share a team that you are proud of?
I am, unfortunately, way worse at building than I am playing and understanding the fundamentals of Pokemon. I will share a CAP team that I remember being okay and a different team for a different meta that I’m proud of:
https://pokepast.es/8153a41d08271089
This was made sometime pre-Roak Nerf 2 and I remember spamming the hell out of it in room tours, the team felt very solid to pilot there and was fun to use. Unaware Clef was a great pick since setup was everywhere at the time. Otherwise it has a lot of mons I enjoy using, like Heatran, AV Torn, and something with Rocky Helmet. It is rather slow and almost surely doesn’t fit into modern SS but at the time it felt good to have something that showed promise, especially as someone that struggles to make cohesive teams that aren’t just me trolling CAP mains.
https://pokepast.es/6f9f5eec5f288aec
So in 2022 as Gen 8 was coming to an end there was a send-off tour for Camomons, an OM where a Pokemon’s typing matches the first two moves in their set. The meta had undergone a myriad of balancing changes recently and, as someone who had been somewhat skeptical of how things were ran prior, I felt like joining out of respect. As it turned out the meta was a ton of fun to build and play, and somehow I went 4-1 during Swiss despite having never played before, even beating one of Camo’s all-time greats in Siamato. This team is my favorite of the many builds I made during this time for many reasons: not only did it feel great to play with but it largely got an unranked mon (Mienshao) onto the VR because the set I created worked insanely well into the metagame, as with proper prediction you could come in on even Specs Pult Shadow Ball or Urshifu’s Wicked Blow and threaten KOs or Knock Off. The Cinderace set is also insanely cool, providing a ton of defensive utility to the mon with Fire/Steel having Poison + Burn immunity, rocks neutrality, and a great deal of resists you can pivot into. Expert Belt exploited Ace’s naturally high power and OHKO capabilities, especially with Zen Headbutt really screwing over common Poison and Fighting mons like Garchomp or Lando-T. Normal/Ground Entei is also really funny, ditching STAB Sacred Fire seems weird but the move is already strong enough especially with the Burn Chance and in exchange you get a Rocks resist, Electirc/Ghost immunities, and fairly dangerous neutral coverage + STAB ESpeed.
Anything else you want to say to the viewers at home?
Honestly I’ll just say this: when I first started posting in CAP around 2020 without much clue on what was happening I don’t think any of the CAP mods or myself knew I was going to be where I am now, but whatever encouraged me to actually get more involved in the community and actively follow tournaments (even dabble among them as much as I can) is absolutely the only reason I’ve come so far as a user. I really owe a lot to the people who put up with me being somewhat annoying and dumb back then, and now have to put up with me being annoying and dumb because we’re friends. To anyone that feels CAP can be somewhat clique-y, and hard to get into with the lower forum activity and somewhat lacking Showdown presense, I cannot recommend enough that you follow the team tournament scene and throw yourself into any individual tours you find. You don’t have to be a revolutionary or successful player, you just have to show that you care about pushing yourself forward and improving. I’m no where near the end of that road myself.