Approved by 5gen & S1nn0hC0nfirm3d | Amazing Art by Albatr0ss and butchered by me | Thread formatting stolen from Jett
(Interview Date: 09th of December, 2021)
Hey friends and welcome to ZU
Ditto used Transform!
Ditto transformed into Hitmontop!
*hiitmontoop*
Hey Hitmon, how are you today?
I'm doing alright, how about you Czim?
I'm fine too! Thanks for asking and welcome to Player of the Week! Hope you're happy to be here! As the usual first question, can you tell us a bit about yourself outside of Pokémon?
I'm a 16 year old Male student from Singapore, Currently I'm in the proccess of getting into Polytechnic. As for Hobbies and such. I usually spend my time watching Videos or playing video games. Altho I'm fairly new to them I also enjoy playing Survivor ORGs. Occasionally I like to watch a anime or two as well. I used to frequently enjoy watching Football whoever in recent months that has reduced immensely.
That's cool! Lot of info to work on. Let's start with your professional choice then. What is Polytechnic and why do you wanna get into it?
A Polytechnic is basically a place where you basically learn courses of a different subjects (example: Medical science or Film and Television) as school for 2 to 3 years. Personally I'm trying to learn Film and Television. After you graduate you gain a Polytechnic degree in whatever subject you take. The alternative is for me to go to Junior College which has a similar system to Secondary schools with a timetable and wear uniforms and such. I prefer the Polytechnic format much more as I would rather focus more on a single subject than face a broader range of subjects.
Oh, that's really cool! I am into TV and Films a lot. Since we are on the subject, what do you like to watch? You said you like anime and videos but are there also any shows and/or movies you like?
As for Anime, I generally watch abit of everything. My favorite anime would be Sakurasou no pet na Kanojo. Which is a 25 episode Slice of life Romcom which actually has some really good life lessons about Failure and Success. Recently iv actually been enjoying watching the original Dragon Ball, Not Z. The original one. As for TV shows I can't really comment much since I really don't watch many of them however the one show I do watch a enjoy thoroughly is Survivor. I'm not as much of a Survivor geek as I used to be but I definitely still enjoy the show.
I don't know that anime but i'll check it out! You said you like Survivor ORG games. What are those?
A ORG is basically a Online discord game which is kinda like a Online version of the TV show it's based on. A Survivor ORG is basically a discord version of Survivor complete with Challenges and the like. Most of the ORGs I play in last around 1 to 2 months to complete. However as someone who got into orgs from a love of survivor the show. Playing a virtual version of the game with other people is very enjoyable to me. Every survivor ORG has a slightly different take with different twists and the like. Smogon also has smORGon which is another survivor ORG. Sorry if I'm explaining this badly im not the best at describing things like these.
That's cool, I don't know much about those but looks interesting. What are your other gaming interests outside of Pokémon and Survivor?
I have a Nintendo switch,I enjoy playing alot of switch games like Mario Odyssey etc, a guilty pleasure of mine is Dragon Quest Builders 2, which is sorta a mix between Dragon Quest and Minecraft, which is ironic cos I also really like Minecraft mainly due to Multiplayer. I also am getting a PC very soon so I look forward to playing games on that
Some good picks there. You also said you like to watch football. Any teams you cheer for? Do you also like to play? Any other sports you like?
I used to be a Chelsea supporter, but considering I don't watch Football much anymore can I really say I'm a Chelsea supporter now. I do enjoy playing Football from time to time thou. It's rather good fun. As for other sports I like. I used to really like Floorball but that faze of mine has long since stopped.
I had no clue what Floorball was lol, just googling it right now. Seems like an indoor hockey of sorts. Looks fun. What kind of music do you like? Any favorite artists?
I listen to alot and I mean ALOT of Vocaloid. My current Favorite Artist is Deco 27, the consistently amazing music still astounds me. Other great artists include the late Wowaka, Pinocchio P and Omoi. My favorite Song in general would probably be Teo from Omoi. I do also listen to songs in English but not as often. If I had to choose my favorite English Song it would be Hate me by Ellie Goulding feat Juice wrld. I used to listen to English music alot more. I remember when Juice World's death was announced. As he was my favorite artist and lucid dreams was my favorite song at the time I was just straight up devastated. When studying or playing games I like to listen to instrumental music so I listen to alot of music from Hyper potions as well.
To be honest I don't know most of those but I'll take a look when I can. Seems like a lot of different types of music! Now let's change the topic a bit into mons. How and when did you first get started in PS/Smogon? How did you end up in ZU?
I joined PS in 2017, but I mostly just played Randbats and not much else. Around late 2018 and in 2019 I actually started to play alot more seriously. I would play SM OU and UU but really enjoyed SM PU the most. I legitimately really enjoyed the tier. And then Mesprit went to NU. If I remember correctly I took a hiatus for a while and then went to check out ZU for fun(this was just after the shiftry ban btw). I honestly don't remember much about my SM Zu experience but I do remember making this weird team with Silvally Normal and Baltoy and 1v1ing 275p's Spinda with a Baltoy. And then I took a hiatus and came back in the first half of 2020 and then the rest is history.
People who use Baltoy are automatically amazing players so I understand. Is there anything you miss from SM that you'd like to get in SS? Any mechanic or mon...
Z Me first Pinsir, I'm pretty indifferent to Z moves as a whole but sweepin with Pinsir was so fun. Would definitely help Pinsir with it's viability in recent times.
Z Me first was a very unique Z move for sure. I kinda wish that the non-damaging Z moves came back as a whole, they definitely made mons more versatile. You're also a bit known for playing other old gens, which ones are your favorites and why?
GSC is probably my favorite, thou I do enjoy abit of DPP or SM from time to time. I like GSC's limited roster of mons as I believe having less options breeds more creativity. I also enjoy the gsc exclusive mechanics and it's a really nice break from playing SS. SM is where I started playing ZU from and while I'm super rusty it's still fun to dabble in. And DPP is just fun, plain and simple. Also it's not a real tier but the joke RBY ZU 7U was legitimately fun, probably for the same reasons why GSC is my favorite old gen
Yeah, I also really enjoy very limited formats. I think you can end up creating new sets more often since your pool of mons is limited and a mon is harder to get outclassed in a certain niche than in upper tiers. Since we're into GSC, what do you think of the current state of the metagame? Do you think the Poliwag ban was a correct move?
I'm kind of mixed about that. Poliwag was kinda one of those big fear factors with it's sweeping capability. Thou it can be understandably stupid sometimes and force predictions which if wrong could cost the rest of the game. It did have countermeasures but none of them were hard counters after it set up
It could get out of hand pretty easily yeah. But it also was a bit hard to fit and had little to no defensive utility, and that can really hurt in GSC. What do you think about DPP's current state aswell? There's a suspect going on this week of Marowak and Gorebyss, do you think they should get the boot?
I'm not that big of a DPP player, I only occasionally play it for fun so I can't really comment on this. Thou I can definitely see why they could be troubling.
Will you be trying for the suspect though? There'll be some scheduled tours!
I might try one of them. Thou it's gonna be strange if I win one of them without knowing why they were suspected.
Lol, fair! The tours are there mostly for people to try and make their own mind on these mons anyways. Our old gens don't get as many games as they deserve, but we're trying! Now into ZUPL, you ended up having a pretty good performance winning vs some established players and making finals. How was the experience for playing for the Persians?
The Persians was a awesome bunch. Besides Lockjaw who didn't say a message in the discord once everyone else was helpful and just generally really nice people. SBPC and 5gen were really nice and helpful and definitely improved some of my teams. I went even overall but that's far better than I was predicted to do so overall I'm happy especially considering some of the people I beat.
That's cool to hear, you went pretty under the radar there and ended up doing very well. Now into a less serious question. You have to make a movie featuring 5 ZU Pokémon (can be less if you want). Which would you pick and what would their roles be?
How about a Mystery movie. Like plot wise there's a Murder and the detective is trying to find the murdurer before being killed himself.
Shiftry can be the main Villain
Alcremie can be the Victim
Rotom can be the Detective
Gurdurr can be the decoy VillainAnd
Avalugg can be the Table where the Detective talks to the suspects. Also I just realized the plot is eerily similar to Death Note Lol, that's great answer. I personally liked Avalugg's cameo as the table! Alright, so I need to know one more thing then. What would the name of the movie be?
Circle of Death (ik it sounds cringy lmao I can't think of better names). The name is based on how the mons kinda cause a type matchup circle but unfortunately I didn't think this through because Alcremie dies to the thing it has a good matchup against.
Maybe Shiftry had already Swords Danced and Leaf Bladed Alcremie before it could setup! Great answers though, for real! Do you have a team you'd like to share with us?
This is my ZUPL week 1 team I used against daniYSB , The reason why I chose this team is actually because of the many "firsts" it had for me. It was the first team where I started using my offensive Aloslash evs, and the beginning of me using Thwakey+Theivul in Zupl to good success. Zupl was actually during the start of my hiatus but I ended up coming out of hiatus for it so I was extremely worried about the matchup. Thou I knew the win was very Matchup based it gave me the confidence boost I needed for the following weeks. I also became somewhat of a meme during the ZUPL period and I'm still confused on why.
Nice team, that was a very unexpected win for sure, Dani was on good form there! We are starting to wrap this up so, is there anything else you wanna say? Anyone you want to shout out?
I would like to shout out the entire Zu community, Y'all are the most Kind and Welcoming community on Smogon. Haven't talked to them much recently but Special thanks to risin_glory for basically being my best friend on Smogon. Also Thank you czim for hosting this interview. That's all I gotta say, cya until I make my return!
Great! So this concludes this edition of Player of the Week! Thanks for letting me interview you! Hope you had fun!
Yeah, was a pleasure
Feel free to ask Hitmonstars any questions you want!
