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The Well #67 - BKC
- Thread starter BKC
- Start date
- Status
Most underrated GSC UU strategy?
Favourite ingame Pokemon music?
If Smogon were to pay its contributors somehow, do you believe it would it be able to do it in such a way that would cause site growth and its associated revenue to exceed the amount paid out to contributors, maintain or increase (or at least not substantially affect) chaos's share, and avoid the ire of Nintendo? How would you do it?
Plans for attracting more subscribers and increasing views on your YouTube channel?
Tips for aspiring competitive Pokemon YouTubers?
Favourite competitive Pokemon-related YouTube video you've seen on another channel?
Which two players and which tier would you pick for a Battle of the Century and why?
Favourite unofficial tournament with a non-standard format?
Top 5 TV show/film characters and why?
Where did you go on your second date with your girlfriend and whose idea was it?
Favourite meal of the day and what is your preferred food for that meal?
How do you decide what EVs to give your RSE OU Tyranitar and Snorlax?
(I hope this is not too many questions...)
Favourite ingame Pokemon music?
If Smogon were to pay its contributors somehow, do you believe it would it be able to do it in such a way that would cause site growth and its associated revenue to exceed the amount paid out to contributors, maintain or increase (or at least not substantially affect) chaos's share, and avoid the ire of Nintendo? How would you do it?
Plans for attracting more subscribers and increasing views on your YouTube channel?
Tips for aspiring competitive Pokemon YouTubers?
Favourite competitive Pokemon-related YouTube video you've seen on another channel?
Which two players and which tier would you pick for a Battle of the Century and why?
Favourite unofficial tournament with a non-standard format?
Top 5 TV show/film characters and why?
Where did you go on your second date with your girlfriend and whose idea was it?
Favourite meal of the day and what is your preferred food for that meal?
How do you decide what EVs to give your RSE OU Tyranitar and Snorlax?
(I hope this is not too many questions...)
Thanks for the questions so far! Keep em coming.
GSC: Golem. One of my proudest Pokemon achievements is putting (Roar) Golem on the map in SPL 8. I've loved seeing it take off and evolve into one of the elite GSC Pokemon - it opened up a ton teambuilding-wise. My least favorite is Steelix because it's an awful check to Snorlax and Zapdos that's weak, has poor longevity and has to Explode to do anything useful. It also invites Cloyster and Forretress in like the plague.
ADV: This is kinda cheating because it's so elite that it's almost a "well duh" pick alongside something like Tyranitar or Metagross, but it's really hard for me to not list Zapdos here. It's so unique in the many things it does and so consistently good at them. To make up for it, I'll add Salamence, because to get the most out of it you have to play really well - to get it on the field, you have to either double switch or pivot it into things it doesn't really hard counter (for example MixMence comes into 3 of offensive Swampert's 4 moves safely and chases it out with HP Grass), then you have to read the switches correctly. My least favorite is Forretress because it's much harder to check things with it than with Skarm, mostly thanks to that crippling quadruple Fire weakness, and because it's entirely on the back foot when trying to Spin against opposing Skarm and its supporting cast.
DPP: My favorite is Empoleon because its typing is incredibly unique (only non-Shedinja Pokemon to resist Dragon + Water) and it has a great movepool; it's good defensively and absolutely monstrous offensively. My least favorite is Aerodactyl, which breaks my heart because it used to be incredible, but the metagame has been absurdly hostile to everything it can do for years now.
Russian - I have no excuse for not knowing this one already given how long I've been around Russian speakers and how easy it is to learn as a Czech
German - generally useful
Italian - beautiful language and Italy is very high up on my list of places to visit
French - mix of the above two
2. BW2 OU, Protect/Spore/Leech Seed/Drain Punch Breloom, fall 2012. Sweepage originally came up with this set in late BW1 and bro fist made a great team with it right after the first test of BW2 (Sand Veil/Garchomp) that I then made some tweaks to and used a lot in Tour. Here's how nearly every game went: the opponent would have Genesect, so they'd lead off with it, and I'd lead off with Breloom, who was SpDef invested, which 1) meant it lived Ice Beam easily and 2) meant Download gave Gene an Attack boost. They'd then U-turn, which stung, but Loom would Spore something on the opposing team, which was effectively a KO, then it'd Leech Seed and Protect and basically be back at full. This Loom carried me through the BW portion of Tour 14's regular season.
3. ADV OU, Rock Slide/Earthquake/Hidden Power Bug/Focus Punch Tyranitar, 2017-present. This one I actually made myself. With max HP, Tar takes all the hits you'd want it to take, and with maxed-out physical power and coverage, it can threaten back all the Pokemon it's checking as well as dish out heavy damage of its own accord. Naturally combines support and hard hitting. It's incredibly easy to fit it on all kinds of teams team and get consistent use out of it.
This set came about when I was messing around with the old physical SubPunch Tar set, which was RS/FP/Bug; I liked it but really missed EQ, so I made the tweak and voila. That SubPunch Tar was also known as VILtar, after legendary ADVer Veteran In Love. When I was new to ADV, I thought it was incredibly cool how one of the metagame's best players had a set on the metagame's best Pokemon named after him. Thus, it became one of my proudest Pokemon achievements when this set not only became a metagame standard but was also dubbed "BKC Tar" by the ADV community.
4. DPP OU, Mach Punch Breloom, late summer 2014-present. Loom was a major threat, whether it ran the standard SubPunch or the rare huskloom (Superpower + Facade), but either way, it had a major problem - struggling against faster offensive Pokemon. I tried out Mach Punch and it made a world of difference - suddenly, instead of just specializing in getting big hits in before getting run over, Loom could now get the big hits in but also dart in and out, picking off weakened Pokemon left and right and locking games in for its team a lot better as a result. Reliably checking the dangerous DD Tyranitar was great as well. I spammed my team with this Loom in tournaments for a few months, and shortly after, it established itself as the new standard set. Another particular point of pride.
5. DPP OU, bulky SD Scizor, 2012-2013. For a long time, this was one of the most dangerous sweepers in the tier. It would outlast its checks with ridiculous ease, and before it was ready to sweep, it was a great check itself to several Pokemon that usually crushed offense - SubSplit Gengar, Trick Room Bronzong, Agiligross, DD Tyranitar, Scarf Flygon. All it took was wearing down the opposing Heatran/Infernape - not a difficult task - and you were in business. The most popular Zapdos set was SubToxic, which Sciz set up on with ridiculous ease. It'd mow through Gyara as well. So many teams had trouble scratching it at all. Sciz was resilient, bulky, strong...tremendous Poke for its time.
Honorary mentions to BW1 HP Ice Forretress, my cross-DPP/BW trio of SpDef Hippowdon, SpDef Heatran and Scarftar, and GSC Golem, which I'd normally put on but I talked about it earlier.
Blissey went from omnipresent and unkillable to decent but niche. It was largely eclipsed by the UU Clefable, who is so good that some people want to ban it independent of Dugtrio and has more or less singlehandedly knocked old standards like Shaymin out of the meta. Speaking of Dug, there's another UU Pokemon that dominated the meta so hard it got banned. Before that, Clef first made its name almost exclusively alongside not a UU Pokemon, but an NU Pokemon - Nidoqueen, as NidoClef stall went from being "flavor of the month" to completely dominant.
Speaking of Blissey and Shaymin, they aren't the only standards from the meta around the time of BW release that have had their usage significantly decreased or completely nullified, either. Forretress is only seen once in a while - it used to be a fixture on several different styles. Same with Celebi, same with Scizor. Vaporeon used to be incredibly common, but it essentially doesn't exist anymore. Same with Aerodactyl.
Additionally, I said moveset changes are to be expected, but there are several set changes from the old standards. ResTalk Roar Gyara used to be a stall staple, but hasn't been in a long time. SubSplit Life Orb Gengar used to be considered uncounterable; now, Black Sludge Will-o-Wisp sets are the standard, and Life Orb variants carry Explosion and tend to come paired with Magnezone. A huge part of what made the standard Taunt Gliscor so nasty was Toxic, and it used to run max Speed solely to try and beat other Gliscor, but for a long time now, it's been running Ice Fang, Aerial Ace/Wing Attack or Knock Off in its stead. Jirachi running special attacking sets sans Iron Head was commonplace, not the absurdly rare exception it is now. Breloom used to run SubPunch nigh-exclusively. If SD Lucario ever deviated from its standard of Crunch, it was to run Bullet Punch in its stead. Infernape had no qualms running the Life Orb and Choice Band sets that have taken such an immense nosedive in recent years. Swampert only ever used its tank set. Finally, Heatran's flagship offensive SR set carried Shuca Berry, and Heatran itself was considered the best Pokemon in the metagame. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
- Pagliacci
In a tournament game, I don't focus on how stupid something was until the battle is over, because that distracts from focusing on how I can still win. Even if it doesn't work out, I want to at least have done my best, which is something I can control, and I can vent about the ridiculousness of a triple Wisp miss or whatever somewhere in private after. On ladder, yeah, I get mad when my opponent misplays and gets bailed by something dumb happening. That's natural for anyone who plays with the goal to win.
Nobody would deny that prep and the team you end up using is a significant factor in determining the outcome of a battle, right? Thus, it feels wrong when a player is exclusively fed teams by someone else. Of course, execution in playing/piloting is important, but the tools you have in that situation are key, and in this sense, the success is largely tied to the person who provided those tools. Without requiring any prep effort on their part, the player who is getting fed can compete on even footing with another player who puts in the effort themselves, because they were able to have someone else put in that effort on that behalf. I don't think that's a very competitive dynamic. It begs the question - why bother building teams when I can skip that step entirely? The answer is that you gain an advantage by being able to build your own stuff as opposed to when you only copy others', but that goes out the window when someone else is building new stuff for you to get an advantage with.
Now, I do not think players should only ever use teams they've built 100% on their own (especially with certain ideas naturally leading multiple good builders to the same conclusion, great minds think alike type thing as well as the choices being obvious at times). You should use the best team for the job, and sometimes that team won't be yours. What I specifically have a problem with is when players make no effort to build teams and are constantly fed great teams by other players, allowing them to stay on top of the metagame and compete at a high level without being outclassed on the team level (as opposed to using sample stuff, which is solid but known/standard), especially when it is almost certain that such a player would not be nearly so successful if they built these teams on their own.
I get the frustration from people who just want to play the game, and I get the frustration from people who want to build but find the time and effort it requires not worthwhile. Building (good teams) takes time and effort, and it isn't easy. Plus, there's not enough reward for building your own stuff - you constantly have to be making new things, because as soon as a team's public it's ripe for counterteaming. You also can't just build solid teams, you have to build solid teams that can't be taken advantage of when someone else builds against you, and that makes things even more difficult - constantly having to reinvent yourself. It's draining as hell. This is is why I'm in favor of tournament ideas (soft teamlock, i.e. a reserve of 5 teams in a bo3 tournament) that downplay the round-to-round oceans-of-effort-to-not-get-cted vs. social capital-influenced, zero-effort-leeching dynamic.
Just wanting to play the game is fine, but at the same time, being able to skip such an important step doesn't sit right with me, as is the concept of putting less effort in yourself translating to a competitive advantage. I realize the nature of how we play this game makes what I'm saying here incredibly idealistic, but I have my preferences. So, yeah, I don't think you should be rewarded for ignoring such an undeniably huge part of the game, but that's the way it is. I also don't think it should be a matter of who has more free time, of course, that's also very undesirable. It's tough/impossible to implement the ideal compromise due to how people like things the way they are now as well as how we play over the Internet and the nature of the game itself, but it's a very know-it-when-I-see-it type deal. I wish we would take the steps that actually are feasible to curb as much of both sides (not having to dedicate unreasonable amounts of time, not worrying about having someone who does have tons of time crafting a perfect ct for your usual all-around solid teams) as we can.
There are struggles sometimes for sure, but they were more prominent when I was younger. I went to Prague for a couple months every year as a kid, and even went to school for a month or so most years, but it was much different to when I moved to Prague at the beginning of high school, and for the first couple months I struggled with speaking Czech full-time, all the time. However, it took a couple months of adjusting, and I was fine. Couple years later, I went back to the states, and for several months I was struggling with actually speaking English out loud, even though I used it every day on the Internet. Nowadays I don't have that problem because even when I'm in Prague I speak English daily with my girlfriend, but even when I'm coming back from several months in the states, I have a much easier time re-adjusting to speaking Czech out loud - the first day I'm stumbling over all my words, the second day I'm fine.
Jasper I forgot your Prague question when I posted, I'll answer it first in the next one.
Thanks for the overall interest guys
RBY: Rhydon. It's so much more than just a Zapdos stop - it's near-impossible to switch into over the course of a game if you play well. Super consistent. Conversely, my least favorite is Zapdos because it feels like much more of a dice roll than Rhydon since it can be hard countered (by Jolteon too).
GSC: Golem. One of my proudest Pokemon achievements is putting (Roar) Golem on the map in SPL 8. I've loved seeing it take off and evolve into one of the elite GSC Pokemon - it opened up a ton teambuilding-wise. My least favorite is Steelix because it's an awful check to Snorlax and Zapdos that's weak, has poor longevity and has to Explode to do anything useful. It also invites Cloyster and Forretress in like the plague.
ADV: This is kinda cheating because it's so elite that it's almost a "well duh" pick alongside something like Tyranitar or Metagross, but it's really hard for me to not list Zapdos here. It's so unique in the many things it does and so consistently good at them. To make up for it, I'll add Salamence, because to get the most out of it you have to play really well - to get it on the field, you have to either double switch or pivot it into things it doesn't really hard counter (for example MixMence comes into 3 of offensive Swampert's 4 moves safely and chases it out with HP Grass), then you have to read the switches correctly. My least favorite is Forretress because it's much harder to check things with it than with Skarm, mostly thanks to that crippling quadruple Fire weakness, and because it's entirely on the back foot when trying to Spin against opposing Skarm and its supporting cast.
DPP: My favorite is Empoleon because its typing is incredibly unique (only non-Shedinja Pokemon to resist Dragon + Water) and it has a great movepool; it's good defensively and absolutely monstrous offensively. My least favorite is Aerodactyl, which breaks my heart because it used to be incredible, but the metagame has been absurdly hostile to everything it can do for years now.
Dutch - my girlfriend is from the Netherlands
Russian - I have no excuse for not knowing this one already given how long I've been around Russian speakers and how easy it is to learn as a Czech
German - generally useful
Italian - beautiful language and Italy is very high up on my list of places to visit
French - mix of the above two
I'd like to be a better cook, as I'm pretty useless with anything that isn't meat, and even when making chicken/salmon/turkey/steak it's as rudimentary as it gets. I like any food that's at least somewhat healthy/doesn't make me feel like a blob afterwards, which incidentally is why I haven't had soda in years and almost never have pizza.
Not at all. I played for my college team, which was a lot of fun but I've had zero interest in following sports of any kind for a long time.
My buddy and I have been writing some movies lately, and we're going to be sending them out to agents and such soon. I'm confident in the quality of what we've written, so my hope is that this first step works out.
Thanks very much, you too :)
1. DPP OU, Sub/Roost/Taunt/Rock Slide Aerodactyl, 2012. I saw this set on the analysis and thought it seemed fun, so I made a team with this set in late March 2012. It won me my first ever Smogon Tour, then later in the year went 2-0 in my first Tour playoffs, and was generally reliable in every tournament game I brought it to in between. It wasn't just the team - the Aero was an absolute demon, slicing through common offensive and defensive teams alike. One of my favorite things about it was that it was faster than Starmie, so if a Mie was in hazards range, I could sac my Scarf Rotom and ensure it wouldn't get the Spin off after. It also completely destroyed offensive Pokes like MixGon, SubSplit Gar, and SpecsTran, provided insurance against Infernape, and chipped away at its switchins easily. I had one game against McMeghan where thanks to Pressure, Aero was able to Sub stall Bronzong's Gyro Ball and force it to Explode, which allowed me to preserve my Hippowdon. Defensive teams didn't care for getting Taunted and having to switch around it with hazards up, either. The set hasn't been good in a long time, but whenever Bleed came out, I was confident in the amount of work it'd put in.
2. BW2 OU, Protect/Spore/Leech Seed/Drain Punch Breloom, fall 2012. Sweepage originally came up with this set in late BW1 and bro fist made a great team with it right after the first test of BW2 (Sand Veil/Garchomp) that I then made some tweaks to and used a lot in Tour. Here's how nearly every game went: the opponent would have Genesect, so they'd lead off with it, and I'd lead off with Breloom, who was SpDef invested, which 1) meant it lived Ice Beam easily and 2) meant Download gave Gene an Attack boost. They'd then U-turn, which stung, but Loom would Spore something on the opposing team, which was effectively a KO, then it'd Leech Seed and Protect and basically be back at full. This Loom carried me through the BW portion of Tour 14's regular season.
3. ADV OU, Rock Slide/Earthquake/Hidden Power Bug/Focus Punch Tyranitar, 2017-present. This one I actually made myself. With max HP, Tar takes all the hits you'd want it to take, and with maxed-out physical power and coverage, it can threaten back all the Pokemon it's checking as well as dish out heavy damage of its own accord. Naturally combines support and hard hitting. It's incredibly easy to fit it on all kinds of teams team and get consistent use out of it.
This set came about when I was messing around with the old physical SubPunch Tar set, which was RS/FP/Bug; I liked it but really missed EQ, so I made the tweak and voila. That SubPunch Tar was also known as VILtar, after legendary ADVer Veteran In Love. When I was new to ADV, I thought it was incredibly cool how one of the metagame's best players had a set on the metagame's best Pokemon named after him. Thus, it became one of my proudest Pokemon achievements when this set not only became a metagame standard but was also dubbed "BKC Tar" by the ADV community.
4. DPP OU, Mach Punch Breloom, late summer 2014-present. Loom was a major threat, whether it ran the standard SubPunch or the rare huskloom (Superpower + Facade), but either way, it had a major problem - struggling against faster offensive Pokemon. I tried out Mach Punch and it made a world of difference - suddenly, instead of just specializing in getting big hits in before getting run over, Loom could now get the big hits in but also dart in and out, picking off weakened Pokemon left and right and locking games in for its team a lot better as a result. Reliably checking the dangerous DD Tyranitar was great as well. I spammed my team with this Loom in tournaments for a few months, and shortly after, it established itself as the new standard set. Another particular point of pride.
5. DPP OU, bulky SD Scizor, 2012-2013. For a long time, this was one of the most dangerous sweepers in the tier. It would outlast its checks with ridiculous ease, and before it was ready to sweep, it was a great check itself to several Pokemon that usually crushed offense - SubSplit Gengar, Trick Room Bronzong, Agiligross, DD Tyranitar, Scarf Flygon. All it took was wearing down the opposing Heatran/Infernape - not a difficult task - and you were in business. The most popular Zapdos set was SubToxic, which Sciz set up on with ridiculous ease. It'd mow through Gyara as well. So many teams had trouble scratching it at all. Sciz was resilient, bulky, strong...tremendous Poke for its time.
Honorary mentions to BW1 HP Ice Forretress, my cross-DPP/BW trio of SpDef Hippowdon, SpDef Heatran and Scarftar, and GSC Golem, which I'd normally put on but I talked about it earlier.
I'd remove Keldeo from BW. It does nothing but make teambuilding even more difficult by necessitating that one of your Water resists also resists Fighting. Made even more ridiculous by the fact Amoonguss can't Spore anymore (not that the sleep ban wasn't needed, of course). Keld's too fast, too strong, too easily crushes far too large a portion of the metagame, and is exacerbated with further support from rain or Tar's Pursuit. I voted ban in 2013 and I maintain it would've been the correct course of action for the health of the tier.
I've used all three starters repeatedly in the million times I've played through Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, but my first and overall my favorite was Chimchar. I generally go with the Fire-type.
Hoopa-Unbound, ORAS. I thought that ban was far too hasty and Hoopa's impact on the meta overstated (prominence of Pursuit on defensive teams). It'd be a great fit for the current metagame.
I remember dismissing it initially as generic superhero fare being all "serious," then my friend (the same guy I'm writing with) told me it wasn't anything like that and I decided to give it a shot one night after being thoroughly pissed that I had wasted money to see The Meg in theaters. I was not prepared for the devastating impact it hit me with, both emotionally and with the claws. Got me into some other great movies it bears similarities to like Children of Men. Still gotta watch Shane.
The five-and-a-half-hour laddering session, of course. Kidding. It's really hard to pick one since I pride myself on making them as informative as possible, but it was really cool to go back in time to analyze battles from the 00s (Earthworm vs. Gouki / Loki vs. husk). Made it worth going through the trouble of recreating them. The Pokemon's Greatest Battles are really fun in general, I really liked it as soon as I started it and the ubers one was a blast. Reminds me that I should make another one soon.
It's a fun choice on some Spikes offense teams. I wouldn't recommend it if you're being a Serious Steve, as it's not high-tier or anything, but it's not bad. Very slight chance we'll see one in SPL.
A case could be made for ADV, but I believe it's DPP without question. Stuff like Heatran sets changing is natural, but it's not just that - the landscape of the post-Salamence ban meta is nigh-unrecognizable in comparison to not just now, but the past several years, even before the artificial change of the Latias unban - we would see nearly everything we do now even without Lati in a vein similar to how the meta without Lati was largely the same even after it dropped - this isn't to say it's had no impact, far from it, but it didn't really flip the meta on its head like the changes that came before it did.
Blissey went from omnipresent and unkillable to decent but niche. It was largely eclipsed by the UU Clefable, who is so good that some people want to ban it independent of Dugtrio and has more or less singlehandedly knocked old standards like Shaymin out of the meta. Speaking of Dug, there's another UU Pokemon that dominated the meta so hard it got banned. Before that, Clef first made its name almost exclusively alongside not a UU Pokemon, but an NU Pokemon - Nidoqueen, as NidoClef stall went from being "flavor of the month" to completely dominant.
Speaking of Blissey and Shaymin, they aren't the only standards from the meta around the time of BW release that have had their usage significantly decreased or completely nullified, either. Forretress is only seen once in a while - it used to be a fixture on several different styles. Same with Celebi, same with Scizor. Vaporeon used to be incredibly common, but it essentially doesn't exist anymore. Same with Aerodactyl.
Additionally, I said moveset changes are to be expected, but there are several set changes from the old standards. ResTalk Roar Gyara used to be a stall staple, but hasn't been in a long time. SubSplit Life Orb Gengar used to be considered uncounterable; now, Black Sludge Will-o-Wisp sets are the standard, and Life Orb variants carry Explosion and tend to come paired with Magnezone. A huge part of what made the standard Taunt Gliscor so nasty was Toxic, and it used to run max Speed solely to try and beat other Gliscor, but for a long time now, it's been running Ice Fang, Aerial Ace/Wing Attack or Knock Off in its stead. Jirachi running special attacking sets sans Iron Head was commonplace, not the absurdly rare exception it is now. Breloom used to run SubPunch nigh-exclusively. If SD Lucario ever deviated from its standard of Crunch, it was to run Bullet Punch in its stead. Infernape had no qualms running the Life Orb and Choice Band sets that have taken such an immense nosedive in recent years. Swampert only ever used its tank set. Finally, Heatran's flagship offensive SR set carried Shuca Berry, and Heatran itself was considered the best Pokemon in the metagame. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Extraordinarily pleased. Because I'm more of a Total Clefable kinda guy.
I think it's very conducive to winning by outplaying the opponent in-battle. Positioning is a key skill to keep some of the bonkers threats in line, which is the first thing that comes to mind when trying to stave off the likes of SpecsKeld and MMeta and HO teams and so on, but it's also key in being able to break opposing defenses. My kind of metagame. Lots of potential for exploration, consistently enjoyable battles, rewarding of pivoting and incremental but significant chip if you can make use of it...it's terrific. If I were ever to play in SPL again, I'd sign up for ORAS only (so I could test wacky new Hydreigon sets such as HEAD SMASH, of course).
Scald. Stupid fucking move.
Certain kinds are decent in the right soup.
I'd make a special exception for a possessed Sigourney Weaver, if that counts. Otherwise, no.
A joke? Why? Because I'm funny, like I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to fuckin' amuse you?
- Pagliacci
If you Blaziken't handle the heat...
Zapdos, definitely. Elite in all four. Haha get it...
Aerodactyl because I love the Indigo League episode with it.
Never.
Don't switch it in much, only use it to scare something out and bait something else in, and don't actually attack with it.
Celebi because as a kid I loved the 4th movie and was intrigued by the mystique of the Ilex Forest.
2022, starring Tracy Morgan as Jay Gatsby. Jesus Christ I just realized I didn't mention my obsession for 30 Rock in the OP. Well, now everyone knows. If someone wants to draw Giratina Fey that would be awesome.
Kevin Millar's walk.
With a loose definition of "viable" then yes, definitely, especially if this includes HP.
SPL 9 vs. Smurf. I don't know why I look back at this game in particular so fondly, but I do. Probably a combination of the pleasant irl backdrop I remember playing it in + getting to use a very fun team built by my buddy Jirachee per my request to use my beloved Azumarill that deviated from my standard sand. I enjoyed the long-term planning in this one and thought it was a really interesting battle.
Zero interest in any capacity until they remake Diamond and Pearl.
Not as a person, no. Early albums are excellent, though.
Thank you for always nominating me :)
Articuno! Nothing like Blizzarding your way through Exeggutor, Snorlax and Tauros. Very satisfying. Pivoting into Rhydon EQ is extra fun.
Positively. Switching into Snorlax and Tauros would be truly nightmarish otherwise. You'd get forced into using Cloyster a lot.
No idea what the metagame's like but I'm not opposed to it on principle.
I don't particularly enjoy playing against anyone in particular in tournaments, and I don't really play for fun. I did enjoy the YT exhibition thing against McMeghan though, we agreed to try and branch out a little to bring some stuff that was interesting, but not devolving into total goofball shit with zero competitive merit. I should do that more.
I've had a lot, but it remains Tour 14 finals. I was going through some really rough irl stuff and we wound up playing on Christmas Eve. I didn't get robbed of a win outright or anything and McM played well and was a deserving winner obviously, but I did have some pretty bad luck in both games and it felt particularly deflating given the circumstances.
None! When I was a kid I was really into sports games, loving MVP Baseball 2005, MLB 07 The Show and NBA Live 07 above all else. Of course, I've also played some other stuff here and there. However, I've always primarily been into Pokemon. As an adult I don't play anything else, though it might be fun to.
Some number.
I've told her I'm a Pokemon master--duh--but I haven't regaled her with the gritty details. The only double switching I do around her is between tabs.
I naturally came to understand the principle that the more (in this case subscribers) you have, the easier it is to attain even more. I'd say that's pretty valuable knowledge in general. I also learned to not underestimate the power of a thumbnail, although I don't make mine super baity with arrows and emojis and my face and whatnot - just try to make it look nice. It's actually fun and very easy to make them in PowerPoint, too. Finally, I have learned that most people 1) don't read video descriptions unless you explicitly tell them to in a video / pinned comment, and 2) like to leave comments without watching the video, often asking questions that are answered in the video.
Learning to play around hax/odds is an important skill, and you can skillfully fish if you create/are given multiple opportunities. It's the stuff that occurs within a very limited window that annoys me, especially when the chances are low and the impact on the game is enormous, even moreso when you don't have the liberty to constantly play in fear of odds. This is encapsulated perfectly in the example you gave.
In a tournament game, I don't focus on how stupid something was until the battle is over, because that distracts from focusing on how I can still win. Even if it doesn't work out, I want to at least have done my best, which is something I can control, and I can vent about the ridiculousness of a triple Wisp miss or whatever somewhere in private after. On ladder, yeah, I get mad when my opponent misplays and gets bailed by something dumb happening. That's natural for anyone who plays with the goal to win.
There's not a thread, but feel free to ask any questions you may have. This would make a great YT video actually...
Nobody would deny that prep and the team you end up using is a significant factor in determining the outcome of a battle, right? Thus, it feels wrong when a player is exclusively fed teams by someone else. Of course, execution in playing/piloting is important, but the tools you have in that situation are key, and in this sense, the success is largely tied to the person who provided those tools. Without requiring any prep effort on their part, the player who is getting fed can compete on even footing with another player who puts in the effort themselves, because they were able to have someone else put in that effort on that behalf. I don't think that's a very competitive dynamic. It begs the question - why bother building teams when I can skip that step entirely? The answer is that you gain an advantage by being able to build your own stuff as opposed to when you only copy others', but that goes out the window when someone else is building new stuff for you to get an advantage with.
Now, I do not think players should only ever use teams they've built 100% on their own (especially with certain ideas naturally leading multiple good builders to the same conclusion, great minds think alike type thing as well as the choices being obvious at times). You should use the best team for the job, and sometimes that team won't be yours. What I specifically have a problem with is when players make no effort to build teams and are constantly fed great teams by other players, allowing them to stay on top of the metagame and compete at a high level without being outclassed on the team level (as opposed to using sample stuff, which is solid but known/standard), especially when it is almost certain that such a player would not be nearly so successful if they built these teams on their own.
I get the frustration from people who just want to play the game, and I get the frustration from people who want to build but find the time and effort it requires not worthwhile. Building (good teams) takes time and effort, and it isn't easy. Plus, there's not enough reward for building your own stuff - you constantly have to be making new things, because as soon as a team's public it's ripe for counterteaming. You also can't just build solid teams, you have to build solid teams that can't be taken advantage of when someone else builds against you, and that makes things even more difficult - constantly having to reinvent yourself. It's draining as hell. This is is why I'm in favor of tournament ideas (soft teamlock, i.e. a reserve of 5 teams in a bo3 tournament) that downplay the round-to-round oceans-of-effort-to-not-get-cted vs. social capital-influenced, zero-effort-leeching dynamic.
Just wanting to play the game is fine, but at the same time, being able to skip such an important step doesn't sit right with me, as is the concept of putting less effort in yourself translating to a competitive advantage. I realize the nature of how we play this game makes what I'm saying here incredibly idealistic, but I have my preferences. So, yeah, I don't think you should be rewarded for ignoring such an undeniably huge part of the game, but that's the way it is. I also don't think it should be a matter of who has more free time, of course, that's also very undesirable. It's tough/impossible to implement the ideal compromise due to how people like things the way they are now as well as how we play over the Internet and the nature of the game itself, but it's a very know-it-when-I-see-it type deal. I wish we would take the steps that actually are feasible to curb as much of both sides (not having to dedicate unreasonable amounts of time, not worrying about having someone who does have tons of time crafting a perfect ct for your usual all-around solid teams) as we can.
I am fluent in both, and technically Czech was my first language, but it really depends on where I've been living. My mom always spoke Czech to me as a kid to make sure I heard it regularly.
There are struggles sometimes for sure, but they were more prominent when I was younger. I went to Prague for a couple months every year as a kid, and even went to school for a month or so most years, but it was much different to when I moved to Prague at the beginning of high school, and for the first couple months I struggled with speaking Czech full-time, all the time. However, it took a couple months of adjusting, and I was fine. Couple years later, I went back to the states, and for several months I was struggling with actually speaking English out loud, even though I used it every day on the Internet. Nowadays I don't have that problem because even when I'm in Prague I speak English daily with my girlfriend, but even when I'm coming back from several months in the states, I have a much easier time re-adjusting to speaking Czech out loud - the first day I'm stumbling over all my words, the second day I'm fine.
I think somewhere in the high 2 figures / low 3 figures would be perfectly acceptable. Sorry about your lifestyle.
That battle was a few months after I had already joined Smogon. Nice try...shofu was a good player, though. It'd have been interesting if he had joined the tour scene alongside the IDM PO guys (gr8astard, CTC, blunder and the rest) at the beginning of BW2.
KD because all I du on my channel is rant.
The odds of hitting 2/2 Focus Blasts or not burning a Scald (0%).
God bless PVK, both for the nomination and for this masterpiece.and finally, i was sent this image by your number one fan, Plague Von Karma. they didn't want you to think poorly of them (they're the one who nommed you after all) and so didn't want to put this kevin/durant/kevin durant meme edit they made in:
i don't necessarily have a question about it, but i think it would be cool if you could shower praise upon the image and thereby make the creator's day
Jasper I forgot your Prague question when I posted, I'll answer it first in the next one.
Thanks for the overall interest guys
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Why don’t you wear khakis?
Favorite Red Sox team: ‘04, ‘07, ‘13 or ‘18?
Was Dave Dombrowski draining the farm system worth the ‘18 title?
Favorite 30 Rock story arc?
Was Dave Dombrowski draining the farm system worth the ‘18 title?
Favorite 30 Rock story arc?
would you rematch me :)
I watched the Marriland vs Untouchable replay you put in the intro, can you explain why it was so huge? All the comments were praising it as a historic, legendary battle, but as it was from well before my time I'm clearly missing something.
Goodbye & Thanks
Thrown in a fire?
How would you feel if A Piece of the Sky was switched with The Apostate to be the last track on The Seer?
Also, I don't know if you remember, but thanks again so much for helping me with random ADV/DPP stuff when I was first getting started on Smogon - I'll always appreciate it!
Also, I don't know if you remember, but thanks again so much for helping me with random ADV/DPP stuff when I was first getting started on Smogon - I'll always appreciate it!
If a machine learning AI played pokemon showdown and learned from 100's of battles in a specific tier, which do you think would it find easiest to analyse and learn from? Do you think this could ever be possible and what skill-level do you think it would cap out at?
Hey there Mister Chicken.
1) What is your stance on washing your hands after a piss? Like in the comfort of your own home, do you ALWAYS wash your hands?
2) You have 2 pieces of lasagna. You take one of those pieces and place it on top of the other piece. How many pieces of lasagna do you have now? Can you explain why?
3) Every time you get a boner a song starts to play for everyone to hear. What song would you pick to hear?
4) Do you think you would stand a better chance taking on 1 lion with a manchette or a pack of 8 wolves with a gun that contains only 8 bullets?
1) What is your stance on washing your hands after a piss? Like in the comfort of your own home, do you ALWAYS wash your hands?
2) You have 2 pieces of lasagna. You take one of those pieces and place it on top of the other piece. How many pieces of lasagna do you have now? Can you explain why?
3) Every time you get a boner a song starts to play for everyone to hear. What song would you pick to hear?
4) Do you think you would stand a better chance taking on 1 lion with a manchette or a pack of 8 wolves with a gun that contains only 8 bullets?
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What is your favorite kind of sub sandwich?
What is the worst competitive game from two good players you've ever seen? (and would you perhaps be willing to make a vid on it? you could title it "Pokemon's Worst Battles" and upload it on april fools)
What is your favorite kind of food to eat in Prague that they don't make (or don't make well) in the states?
What is your favorite metal subgenre?
What aspect of competitive mons had the toughest learning curve for you?
What is the worst competitive game from two good players you've ever seen? (and would you perhaps be willing to make a vid on it? you could title it "Pokemon's Worst Battles" and upload it on april fools)
What is your favorite kind of food to eat in Prague that they don't make (or don't make well) in the states?
What is your favorite metal subgenre?
What aspect of competitive mons had the toughest learning curve for you?
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Sorry for the delay in answering, I was in the States a couple weeks for vacation. Thanks phoopes for unlocking and letting me answer the rest.
I love that everything is so close together. It's a major part of what makes just about every aspect of life there so great. Great prices on everything (compared to the US for me) sure helps, too. It has everything you could want, really, whether you're a daytime or nighttime person. It's generally beautiful of course. Oh, and many, many indie movie theaters. Old movies are playing constantly. It's amazing.
Worst - FLCL because it only uses 3 unique letters but comes out to 4 total
- Absorb Bulb. Getting +1 SpAtk upon being hit by a Water move is pretty cool and not too busted. Nice applications for Tar and Meta obviously but I think even Superachi could use it to grab a free SpA boost while switching in, potentially allowing it to sweep more easily. Funnily enough I think this means MonoPert probably stops being used because otherwise you ensure that DD HP Grass Tar 2HKOs you even after a Protect, lol. Generally wouldn't be broken though. Maybe even Zapdos could use it on a super fast-paced offense team, switching into waters and then immediately passing the SpA boost.
- Wide Lens. Would really only be used on sand-immune Pokemon (barring some gimmicky lead Hypno Gar, maybe that's the push we need to finally ban it), but increased accuracy of stuff like Tar's Fire Blast, Meta's Meteor Mash, even offensive Swampert's Hydro Pump can be really useful. Tar can even run Thunder more effectively now. Maybe Heracross decides to go for broke and spam more accurate Megahorns (and Rock Slides), that'd be pretty great. Even offensive Starmie, so long as it waits until the end of the game, can ensure its Hydros are far likelier to clean up a game.
- The pinch healing berries, but their gen 8 versions that heal only 33% - this would be interesting for a lot of Pokes that switch in and take a lot of hits without healing too much (50% would be insane). Tar / Meta are obvious beneficiaries, Superachi would really like them too, but even sand-affected Pokes can make use of them - I'm mainly thinking Heracross, whose Lefties-less variants tend to get dealt with by switching around/Protecting on it in sand, and this way it can bluff Salac.
Logan - Obvious choice, but a really important one. After years of mostly only seeing whatever movies came out in theaters with the occasional dip into an older movie featured on Netflix, this inspired me to seek out more. I don't think it's flawless or anything, but I still love everything about this movie, with the obvious standouts being the emotional weight, which is perfectly drawn from the smaller, intimate, genuinely desolate setting, and the appropriately matching, utterly visceral physicality. In a similar vein, Children of Men.
Pulp Fiction - I watched this about a week after I turned 19 upon deciding I wanted to watch movies and no longer be left out when everyone else talked about them. This was the #1 on rateyourmusic (which has a film section in case that sounds weird) so I threw it on and was entranced. I was a big fan of the characters who questioned everything. Even almost six years later, I find it endlessly entertaining for two and a half hours, which is really astonishing. In a similar vein, Clerks.
Taxi Driver - Getting lost in the hazy swirl of the ambience. It's a physical quality I really appreciate. Speaking of, the first time I watched it was at 2 AM or something and when the hallway scene came around I physically felt like I was inside of it. Still looking for that. In a similar vein, The Cremator, an incredible, ghostly Czech film that sits firmly in my top 3.
Last Year at Marienbad - Pure atmospheric beauty. Perfectly slow-paced and deliberate. Something clicked in my head with the overhead camera movement above the statue while the narration kept going. In a very similar vein, Mirror.
House - It made me very happy to discover that someone could make something so astonishingly wacky and downright hysterical while still having genuine depth to it. Very inspirational in that sense. Most of Edgar Wright's movies strike a similar chord for me.
The Earthworm vs. Gouki BotW I recreated for my channel is up there, too, and I was similarly inspired by Earthworm's WCoP tiebreaker vs. husk. It was always the worm.
My favorite involving myself that a replay exists of is Tour 22 semis against Jimmy Turtwig. I really enjoyed the team I made, Jimmy's was thoroughly excellent, the playing was great, the ending was ridiculously tight, and I can't express enough how popular ScarfTran was at this point so to see a 4 attack and SpDef variant square off made me really happy as well. Fire Blasting the Starmie and dropping the incoming Flygon remains one of my favorite turns ever. Modest Tran for life.
Some other contenders would be: 1, my WCoP semis tiebreak against M Dragon. Despite the Silliness that pervaded it, I thought both of us played really well and brought some cool, unexpected teams.
However, that's just in the replay age. Overall, it would have to be my SPL 4 game against twash. It was a crucial end-of-week game and it was crazy throughout. The in-game battle chat served to heighten the experience. It's worth reading a log. I really liked the team I made, too. I think it was the first (post-DPP/post-Lady Bug hail) official tournament usage of Nidoqueen, too.
Some other contenders would be:
1, my ST16 finals game against boudouche. I nearly had a heart attack when the Azelf used Rain Dance.
2, my game vs. Bloo for the first round of Tour 14 playoffs. The log is gone, but I went with my trusty SubRoost Aero team, while Bloo went with kokoloko's old SpecsZap / SR Cele / Skarm / Starmie / CB Ape / Scarftar. I decided to mix it up with my moves, such as leading off with Brave Bird on Skarm to put more immediate pressure on and baiting in and double switching on the Scarftar. Eventually, Aero finished things. That one felt really good.
3, my ST16 semis game against cbb. This was game three of the series and it was really, really intense. I tweaked a really cool team originally made by george182 for this one. LO Rotom dropping the Suicune like that...beautiful. Also sparked my love for bulky Modest offensive Suicune. The last third of this game was so close.
And here are some more fun ones I stumbled across while searching:
Home Field Advantage, vs. Ojama (despite the Pastebin date, this was early 2013). This was one of my favorite DPP teams at its strongest.
A tour final against Tama and Stathakis. Double Custap, triple DD, Cresselia screens...God, that team was fun.
A tour semi game against Reymedy. Really tight. Bless Empoleon.
1. Tipping. This isn't the most drastic difference or anything, it's just the first that popped into my head. Anyway, in the US, you are a cheap, stingy asshole if you don't tip sizably and will be looked at frostily by everyone, including your server, no matter how ridiculous the practice is / how little it was deserved and so on. I've never had this happen at all anywhere in the Czech Rep. I'll still tip, but it's nice that it's not required to tack several extra couple bucks onto what you already paid. Oh and nobody ever gives off the air that your tip wasn't big enough. It's ridiculous the way servers are treated in the US, of course, but I'm not so well-off that I can regularly throw around more than what I should be paying, and I don't feel the burden should fall to me to make up for how little servers make.
2. Patriotism. Czechs are as proud/ambivalent of their nationality as most, but even the most enthusiastic (who are rare) don't come close to the widespread, world-revolves-around-us fanaticism of the US. They find American practices like schools having kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance and listen to the national anthem every morning to be appalling.
3. Activities, especially the outdoors. Many Czech families regularly go hiking, biking, skiing in the winter months, and generally enjoy the outdoors together. There's also a heavy emphasis on doing some kind of non-school activity, sports and music most commonly. Basically, you usually won't have kids going home right from school five days a week, and in the summers most kids go off to camp for a few weeks.
4. Soup. Americans rarely have soup and look at it as something fancy/unnecessary whereas Czechs almost don't consider a meal a meal if it doesn't have soup in it.
5. Time off. Vacations are regular, parents commonly give kids a random day off from school once in a while, and people generally like gifting themselves three-day weekends.
6. Country houses (chata/chalupa in Czech). In the US, the idea of someone having such a thing screams rich family, but in the Czech Rep it's something just about every family has because it cost barely anything to have a house in a remote village an hour or two outside Prague. They're visited at length in the summer and even regularly during the school year. (They result in a lot of three-day weekends.)
7. The school day. In the US, lunch is crammed into the middle of the day. This results in several negatives: 1) the lunch period is rushed, and 2) the school day starts earlier and ends later. In the Czech Rep, lunch is at the end of the day, and you can either have it at school, taking as long as you like, or you can just go home. As a result, the school day starts later and ends earlier (a regular day is 8:30 - 1:45). In addition, there are ten minute breaks in between most classes, with the one exception being a twenty minute break in the middle of the day meant for snacks.
There's other stuff about school like the concept of elementary/middle/high school being completely different (for example vysoká škola literally translates to high school but refers to university), standing up when a teacher enters the room and many other things, but I'll stop there because this is long enough lol.
8. The bus. In (many areas of) the US, taking the bus is seen as something only poor people do. In the Czech Rep, everyone takes it - it's no different from trams or a subway.
9. Czech parents generally allow their kids a lot more independence. 6-year-olds regularly take the subway to school by themselves.
10. Christmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th. We always did it this way even when we were in the US. I have never had to wait until the morning of the 25th to open presents and am very happy for it. I can barely imagine trying to go to sleep, knowing Pokemon Silver is waiting for me under the tree.
I don't know where I'd want to live permanently yet. It's a really tough call made slightly more assuring by knowing I'd visit the other a lot. I might even end up in the Netherlands, so really, who knows. I will say that now more than ever I think I value the quality of life assurance and the lower cost of living of Europe, especially the Czech Rep - it takes a couple hours to get the results of a Covid test here, whereas when I was in the States just now it took a whopping three days no matter where I went and thus almost made it impossible for me to fly back. This is accentuated by the fact remote working is going to be more and more prevalent now. Of course, if a certain career took me to the US, I'd be just fine with that, it just felt like somewhat of a ghost town everywhere. Overall, though, "it depends" really does apply. Fingers crossed that everything shakes out well.
Even at the age of six I felt the full extent of this track's magic.
If contributors don't want to work for money and want to turn to turn their share down, they are free to as well. I'm not sure how it'd work for contributors who are minors - maybe assign a certain amount of money based on how much work they did and then they can receive it when they turn 18 or something. Again, I don't have all the answers, just ideas, but I do believe they are ideas worth exploring given the amount of time and effort that goes into making a site that turns a profit.
There's other things that would help, like making my videos shorter and actually editing them, but covering the current generation would be similarly helpful, and I have just as little interest in doing that, so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
1. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), 30 Rock
2. Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield), Sorry to Bother You
3. Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), Clerks
4. Victoria (Laia Costa), Victoria
5. Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrušínský), The Cremator
Honorary: Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), 30 Rock
(Obligatory) Honorary 2: Logan + Laura (Hugh Jackman + Dafne Keen), Logan
(I prefer to give it as much Attack as I can so it's actually threatening, then I decide on its SpDef benchmark, and try to give it some Defense as well so it's not a complete goober on that side. They can feel a bit arbitrary, though, so I generally like to ensure it will at least hit hard. I find Speed EVs are wasted on it.)
Thanks everyone for all the questions. I hope the answers were enjoyable and/or of some use to you :)
My favorite place is the zoo. I always loved it as a kid and it's always a great time, especially on emptier days. I'm also a big fan of just about every park and little under-bridge island.
I love that everything is so close together. It's a major part of what makes just about every aspect of life there so great. Great prices on everything (compared to the US for me) sure helps, too. It has everything you could want, really, whether you're a daytime or nighttime person. It's generally beautiful of course. Oh, and many, many indie movie theaters. Old movies are playing constantly. It's amazing.
Best - SFG for SaltyFrenchGuy because it's hilarious
Worst - FLCL because it only uses 3 unique letters but comes out to 4 total
Chicken, definitely. Works in all situations.
This is really hard because most of the good items (resist berries, Assault Vest, Rocky Helmet, Heavy-Duty Boots, Expert Belt, Custap Berry, Shed Shell, Weakness Policy) would only serve to really break the hell out of Tyranitar / Metagross and add a little too much variance for my liking in general, while others (Specs/Scarf/Life Orb/Focus Sash) so I'll try to make it more interesting with some less bonkers choices
- Absorb Bulb. Getting +1 SpAtk upon being hit by a Water move is pretty cool and not too busted. Nice applications for Tar and Meta obviously but I think even Superachi could use it to grab a free SpA boost while switching in, potentially allowing it to sweep more easily. Funnily enough I think this means MonoPert probably stops being used because otherwise you ensure that DD HP Grass Tar 2HKOs you even after a Protect, lol. Generally wouldn't be broken though. Maybe even Zapdos could use it on a super fast-paced offense team, switching into waters and then immediately passing the SpA boost.
- Wide Lens. Would really only be used on sand-immune Pokemon (barring some gimmicky lead Hypno Gar, maybe that's the push we need to finally ban it), but increased accuracy of stuff like Tar's Fire Blast, Meta's Meteor Mash, even offensive Swampert's Hydro Pump can be really useful. Tar can even run Thunder more effectively now. Maybe Heracross decides to go for broke and spam more accurate Megahorns (and Rock Slides), that'd be pretty great. Even offensive Starmie, so long as it waits until the end of the game, can ensure its Hydros are far likelier to clean up a game.
- The pinch healing berries, but their gen 8 versions that heal only 33% - this would be interesting for a lot of Pokes that switch in and take a lot of hits without healing too much (50% would be insane). Tar / Meta are obvious beneficiaries, Superachi would really like them too, but even sand-affected Pokes can make use of them - I'm mainly thinking Heracross, whose Lefties-less variants tend to get dealt with by switching around/Protecting on it in sand, and this way it can bluff Salac.
This is really hard since I don't want to do just one and I'll be leaving out some huge ones no matter what. Nevertheless here are a few
Logan - Obvious choice, but a really important one. After years of mostly only seeing whatever movies came out in theaters with the occasional dip into an older movie featured on Netflix, this inspired me to seek out more. I don't think it's flawless or anything, but I still love everything about this movie, with the obvious standouts being the emotional weight, which is perfectly drawn from the smaller, intimate, genuinely desolate setting, and the appropriately matching, utterly visceral physicality. In a similar vein, Children of Men.
Pulp Fiction - I watched this about a week after I turned 19 upon deciding I wanted to watch movies and no longer be left out when everyone else talked about them. This was the #1 on rateyourmusic (which has a film section in case that sounds weird) so I threw it on and was entranced. I was a big fan of the characters who questioned everything. Even almost six years later, I find it endlessly entertaining for two and a half hours, which is really astonishing. In a similar vein, Clerks.
Taxi Driver - Getting lost in the hazy swirl of the ambience. It's a physical quality I really appreciate. Speaking of, the first time I watched it was at 2 AM or something and when the hallway scene came around I physically felt like I was inside of it. Still looking for that. In a similar vein, The Cremator, an incredible, ghostly Czech film that sits firmly in my top 3.
Last Year at Marienbad - Pure atmospheric beauty. Perfectly slow-paced and deliberate. Something clicked in my head with the overhead camera movement above the statue while the narration kept going. In a very similar vein, Mirror.
House - It made me very happy to discover that someone could make something so astonishingly wacky and downright hysterical while still having genuine depth to it. Very inspirational in that sense. Most of Edgar Wright's movies strike a similar chord for me.
I would take gen 8 Kyurem-Black, with Dragon Dance and Icicle Spear, and go back in time to add it to gen 5 in the fall of 2012, thereby preventing us from wasting time suspecting it in an already-chaotic metagame and potentially giving us more time to remove the broken nonsense running around, and maybe even address rain. Plus, DD KB sounds fun in ubers.
I do remember that! I'm glad it resonated with you as much as it did. I was hanging out with Cased and CTC that day and we had a lot of fun. Fucking Slayer. We briefly met up with MikeDecIsHere too. The shaggy mane I had back then was unmatched until Covid times. Jesus, I can't believe how long ago that was - coming up on six years.
Anyone who lobbies for the right to be a recreational asshole to others.
I actually don't know, because sometimes I get the feeling everyone I play is elite.
Mayonnaise for sure. I'd get a lot of work done while confined on the toilet for so long, and I'm very afraid of the damage the ninja star would do.
My favorite of all time is LoveDestiny vs. Earthworm. A simple Salamence suspect ladder game, but every turn was incredibly tense and well-thought-out. LD did a tremendous job with the commentary. Reading this was one of my most formative experiences in understanding the elite level of Pokemon that was out there.
The Earthworm vs. Gouki BotW I recreated for my channel is up there, too, and I was similarly inspired by Earthworm's WCoP tiebreaker vs. husk. It was always the worm.
My favorite involving myself that a replay exists of is Tour 22 semis against Jimmy Turtwig. I really enjoyed the team I made, Jimmy's was thoroughly excellent, the playing was great, the ending was ridiculously tight, and I can't express enough how popular ScarfTran was at this point so to see a 4 attack and SpDef variant square off made me really happy as well. Fire Blasting the Starmie and dropping the incoming Flygon remains one of my favorite turns ever. Modest Tran for life.
Some other contenders would be: 1, my WCoP semis tiebreak against M Dragon. Despite the Silliness that pervaded it, I thought both of us played really well and brought some cool, unexpected teams.
However, that's just in the replay age. Overall, it would have to be my SPL 4 game against twash. It was a crucial end-of-week game and it was crazy throughout. The in-game battle chat served to heighten the experience. It's worth reading a log. I really liked the team I made, too. I think it was the first (post-DPP/post-Lady Bug hail) official tournament usage of Nidoqueen, too.
Some other contenders would be:
1, my ST16 finals game against boudouche. I nearly had a heart attack when the Azelf used Rain Dance.
2, my game vs. Bloo for the first round of Tour 14 playoffs. The log is gone, but I went with my trusty SubRoost Aero team, while Bloo went with kokoloko's old SpecsZap / SR Cele / Skarm / Starmie / CB Ape / Scarftar. I decided to mix it up with my moves, such as leading off with Brave Bird on Skarm to put more immediate pressure on and baiting in and double switching on the Scarftar. Eventually, Aero finished things. That one felt really good.
3, my ST16 semis game against cbb. This was game three of the series and it was really, really intense. I tweaked a really cool team originally made by george182 for this one. LO Rotom dropping the Suicune like that...beautiful. Also sparked my love for bulky Modest offensive Suicune. The last third of this game was so close.
And here are some more fun ones I stumbled across while searching:
Home Field Advantage, vs. Ojama (despite the Pastebin date, this was early 2013). This was one of my favorite DPP teams at its strongest.
A tour final against Tama and Stathakis. Double Custap, triple DD, Cresselia screens...God, that team was fun.
A tour semi game against Reymedy. Really tight. Bless Empoleon.
I'm sure I'm missing something but here are a few off the top of my head.
1. Tipping. This isn't the most drastic difference or anything, it's just the first that popped into my head. Anyway, in the US, you are a cheap, stingy asshole if you don't tip sizably and will be looked at frostily by everyone, including your server, no matter how ridiculous the practice is / how little it was deserved and so on. I've never had this happen at all anywhere in the Czech Rep. I'll still tip, but it's nice that it's not required to tack several extra couple bucks onto what you already paid. Oh and nobody ever gives off the air that your tip wasn't big enough. It's ridiculous the way servers are treated in the US, of course, but I'm not so well-off that I can regularly throw around more than what I should be paying, and I don't feel the burden should fall to me to make up for how little servers make.
2. Patriotism. Czechs are as proud/ambivalent of their nationality as most, but even the most enthusiastic (who are rare) don't come close to the widespread, world-revolves-around-us fanaticism of the US. They find American practices like schools having kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance and listen to the national anthem every morning to be appalling.
3. Activities, especially the outdoors. Many Czech families regularly go hiking, biking, skiing in the winter months, and generally enjoy the outdoors together. There's also a heavy emphasis on doing some kind of non-school activity, sports and music most commonly. Basically, you usually won't have kids going home right from school five days a week, and in the summers most kids go off to camp for a few weeks.
4. Soup. Americans rarely have soup and look at it as something fancy/unnecessary whereas Czechs almost don't consider a meal a meal if it doesn't have soup in it.
5. Time off. Vacations are regular, parents commonly give kids a random day off from school once in a while, and people generally like gifting themselves three-day weekends.
6. Country houses (chata/chalupa in Czech). In the US, the idea of someone having such a thing screams rich family, but in the Czech Rep it's something just about every family has because it cost barely anything to have a house in a remote village an hour or two outside Prague. They're visited at length in the summer and even regularly during the school year. (They result in a lot of three-day weekends.)
7. The school day. In the US, lunch is crammed into the middle of the day. This results in several negatives: 1) the lunch period is rushed, and 2) the school day starts earlier and ends later. In the Czech Rep, lunch is at the end of the day, and you can either have it at school, taking as long as you like, or you can just go home. As a result, the school day starts later and ends earlier (a regular day is 8:30 - 1:45). In addition, there are ten minute breaks in between most classes, with the one exception being a twenty minute break in the middle of the day meant for snacks.
There's other stuff about school like the concept of elementary/middle/high school being completely different (for example vysoká škola literally translates to high school but refers to university), standing up when a teacher enters the room and many other things, but I'll stop there because this is long enough lol.
8. The bus. In (many areas of) the US, taking the bus is seen as something only poor people do. In the Czech Rep, everyone takes it - it's no different from trams or a subway.
9. Czech parents generally allow their kids a lot more independence. 6-year-olds regularly take the subway to school by themselves.
10. Christmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th. We always did it this way even when we were in the US. I have never had to wait until the morning of the 25th to open presents and am very happy for it. I can barely imagine trying to go to sleep, knowing Pokemon Silver is waiting for me under the tree.
I don't know where I'd want to live permanently yet. It's a really tough call made slightly more assuring by knowing I'd visit the other a lot. I might even end up in the Netherlands, so really, who knows. I will say that now more than ever I think I value the quality of life assurance and the lower cost of living of Europe, especially the Czech Rep - it takes a couple hours to get the results of a Covid test here, whereas when I was in the States just now it took a whopping three days no matter where I went and thus almost made it impossible for me to fly back. This is accentuated by the fact remote working is going to be more and more prevalent now. Of course, if a certain career took me to the US, I'd be just fine with that, it just felt like somewhat of a ghost town everywhere. Overall, though, "it depends" really does apply. Fingers crossed that everything shakes out well.
I really liked that Light Screen Scyther posted recently. Personally, I've been a huge Haunter fan ever since I picked the tier up in 2014, and liked stacking Thiefs with it alongside guys like Electabuzz. Always been a fan of Moonlight Nidoqueen. Kadabra + Mr. Mime is pretty sweet. Finally, Ampharos is absurdly underrated.
I don't pretend to be an expert in the logistics of how this would unfold and wouldn't want to put forth a plan based on ignorance. What I will say is that my ideal rate for contributing is not very high - I'm talking something along the lines of a couple dollars per contribution. Basically, it's not a high enough amount that people would flock to do the work just for the money, because even one piece of work takes a lot of time and effort and you have to do a lot of it for it to amount to anything serious, so it's not like you're suddenly going to have to give everyone who's ever posted in a metagame discussion thread a salary. The people who are going to do such work are going to do it regardless, and for such consistent contributors, it seems more than fair to compensate them, because again, the amount of time that goes into a single analysis seems worth $5, especially considering how many times those analyses (and articles and what have you) get clicked on and generate ad revenue.
If contributors don't want to work for money and want to turn to turn their share down, they are free to as well. I'm not sure how it'd work for contributors who are minors - maybe assign a certain amount of money based on how much work they did and then they can receive it when they turn 18 or something. Again, I don't have all the answers, just ideas, but I do believe they are ideas worth exploring given the amount of time and effort that goes into making a site that turns a profit.
Uploading consistently is the #1 thing, for sure. Being active on Twitch will go quite a long way as well. Maybe I'll reach out for some more collabs with Wolfe Glick or someone.
There's other things that would help, like making my videos shorter and actually editing them, but covering the current generation would be similarly helpful, and I have just as little interest in doing that, so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
Do it because you genuinely enjoy it. No matter how good you think what you're putting out is, the subscriber/view numbers are not going to come for a while, so you better be ready to do it a lot, and if you're going to do that, you should be having fun with it. If your only goal is to make money or whatever you may as well just start a casual Pokemon channel that covers the latest rumors, or better yet, ditch Pokemon entirely and make one of those channels that posts comments from r/AskReddit (which might very well be the nadir of Youtube, but they sure rake in the views).
I generally don't watch these; that said, McMeghan has 1 2 3 videos I've found excellent. I also really liked Finch's video about choking and link it in my Discord a lot. However, if I'm feeling like competitive Pokes on YT, I tend to binge either old wifi battles, which is my usual (1 2 3 4) or Shoddy/PO games (occasionally).
After much deliberation, I have decided that the best choice, with the pinnacle of skill from eras as different as possible combined with the most fitting shared metagame, would be Veteran In Love vs. ABR in GSC OU. I also considered husk vs. Ojama in ADV OU and Gouki vs. Heist in DPP OU.
I really liked the public team sharing aspect of the #pokemon tournaments (1, 2). It was so interesting because knowing every detail of your opponent's team would help you better play around bad matchups, thus putting a huge emphasis on in-battle skill, which I value highly.
I will let these characters speak for themselves.
1. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), 30 Rock
2. Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield), Sorry to Bother You
3. Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), Clerks
4. Victoria (Laia Costa), Victoria
5. Karl Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrušínský), The Cremator
Honorary: Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), 30 Rock
(Obligatory) Honorary 2: Logan + Laura (Hugh Jackman + Dafne Keen), Logan
Excellent question, I really had to think about it. We celebrated finishing our midterm with some delicious KFC. It was the first (and I'm pretty sure last) time she had ever had it. Truly a special moment.
Lunch, because it can be less than super healthy and you can still exercise + eat more healthy at dinner, allowing some indulgence. Once again, chicken schnitzel (alongside mashed potatoes, and with some kind of soup preceding) is my favorite, and if it's for lunch then I allow myself to drown it in lemon.
For Tar, I first decide the moveset, and that will in turn determine its bulk/Speed/power benchmarks, which I then spend an enjoyable time in the damage calculator putting together. For Lax, I don't, because Lax is literally unviable.
(I prefer to give it as much Attack as I can so it's actually threatening, then I decide on its SpDef benchmark, and try to give it some Defense as well so it's not a complete goober on that side. They can feel a bit arbitrary, though, so I generally like to ensure it will at least hit hard. I find Speed EVs are wasted on it.)
On the contrary, thank you for the varied plethora of interesting topics to think about :)
I did. My least favorite would have to be Victini not because I dislike it but because I have more attachment to the other four. Also being SR weak sucks.
Turkey as the meat. Nothing else. It's delicious and healthy. If I'm pigging out on a regular burger, I'll go with barbecue sauce.
Don't like how the material feels or looks. I'd rather just wear jeans.
It's hard to go against '04 given how incredible it was, but personally I'll go with '07. Pedroia was such a monster, and while injured at that...
It came at a good time in real life since I'd just met my girlfriend and could use it to illustrate how good my favorite team was, so, yes.
Incredible question, thank you. This is very tough to decide, but I'm ultimately going to give it to Jack having to decide between Nancy and Avery, especially because Julianne Moore is great and her ludicrous accent is wonderful. The Boston episode reduces me to hysterics. "I'll try...wicked hahd."
If you catch me on ladder, I'll have no choice!
It was huge because it was so many people's introduction to competitive battling - switching and strategy aren't really part of ingame Pokemon, and beating the Elite Four over and over gets repetitive. Marriland vs. Untouchable (which originally had several million views before Marriland closed his channel) opened up a whole new world for longtime fans such as myself who were looking for something more from Pokemon - suddenly, you could battle people from all over the world, not just people close to you with a link cable. It was perfect timing with the recent release of Diamond and Pearl outside of Japan; they were the first Pokemon games with Wi-Fi capabilities, meaning battling other people had never been more accessible, and this battle where strategy takes down a bunch of ubers was the perfect catalyst to raise tons of awareness for it. As soon as I saw a lead-off Salamence (my favorite Pokemon) use Dragon Dance, I realized that my desires to battle other people was finally within reach. Plus, there was of course a level 1 Rattata taking down a level 100 Empoleon...well, who wouldn't see that and be inspired to get out there and battle themselves?
Did you know anti is? You should ask him. Maybe rey, too.
I would still love the album, but seeing as Apostate is the greatest closing track of all time, it'd definitely be a step down! I actually own The Seer on vinyl and the tracklist is completely different - it's the one thing I don't like about it.
I do remember! It was my pleasure. Feel free to ask anytime. All the best :)
I have to imagine RBY is the default answer for this because it has the lowest amount of teambuilding choices and as a result the most amount of repeatable lines, which means it is much easier to learn and account for as much as possible. I'm sure it's possible, but there have been some attempts so far and if I remember correctly they've been rather imperfect.
Not always, obviously, but post-Covid I've become a lot more conscientious of doing so. I carry hand sanitizer with me outside for extra assurance and if I'm feeling lazy at home I'll go with that instead.
I don't really like lasagna, but I imagine the two would melt into one, super-sized piece.
I would absolutely stand zero chance against the wolves, so I'd have to go with the lion and try to hit it somewhere crucial while avoiding getting instantly maimed so as to slow it down/cripple it.
Chicken parmesan, easily.
I think it has to be this because of how utterly horrendous that Meowstic team was, which led to a ridiculously lopsided game. I considered making an April Fool's joke video last year, then decided I would prefer for the "joke" to be that the video was 100% serious (except for that amazing accent at the beginning obviously), which I think was a lot better.
Schnitzel is the main one, but I'd also include fried cheese, dumplings and trdelník.
It's a tough call, but I think black metal usually invites the widest range of possibility and experimentation, as well as the greatest amount of emotional resonance, so I'd have to go with that. One of my top three favorite albums fits the bill.
Thinking ahead (which also involves patience). It's a difficult mental block to overcome, but really makes all the difference in the world. Being able to put my finger on precisely why a team wasn't working/wouldn't work took some time and effort as well.
Thanks everyone for all the questions. I hope the answers were enjoyable and/or of some use to you :)
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