Hello, and welcome to UU's player of the week where I interview
some of Smogon's most accomplished and well knowns players in the tier to give
some insight on who they are and their views on certain aspects of the metagame.
If there's someone you want to see interviewed next week, shoot me a PM!
dingbat
My real name is Kevin, I'm 19 yrs old, and I'm a Chinese American who can barely speak/write in Chinese .-. I'm entering my second year of Lehigh University and I plan on majoring in Mathematics, although I have absolutely no idea as of now what I'm going to do in the future. I play Scrabble and Words With Friends quite frequently and with regards to sports, I play swimming :^)
Most Known For: Spamming and flooding in one of the private rooms that I'm in, building the most prolific and cancerous balance teams ever, and drawing dank trophies for Next Best Thing winners
Favorite Pokemon: Reuniclus, because this green blob is 10% cute, 30% squishy, and 60% world destroyer
Most used UU Pokemon: Heracross in XY UU pre-September because my favorite phrase to shout out was SOMBOHDY GONNA DIE whenever I switched it in lol
Reuniclus in ORAS comes in at #1 because I like 'mons that give absolutely zero shits about hazards and is a lord in general, and Cobalion comes in at a temporary #2 because it has so many characteristics that morph extremely well on a majority of the teams I built.
Where did you get your name from? Dingbat was actually my nickname in high school and quite frankly, I lived up to it lol. I use this nickname quite frequently and I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't taken here when I signed up lol.
How and when did you get into competitive battling? One of my really great irl friends introduced me to Shoddy battle in 2010 where I (sort of) learned the DPPOU tier. I then phased out of it, completely forgot about competitive battling for about 3 years, and then came back months after Showdown was released. I never visited the forums until very late in BW2 and I never touched the UU subforum until shortly after UU (non-beta) began. @Limitlessencouraged me to increase my forum presence while I was pulling my ladder heroics and shortly after, I was invited onto the council and I got my first forum badge.
Opinions on ORAS compared to XY? Man, it's hard not to have a bias in favor of XY since I peaked (on the ladder) way before I got invited to the UU council and my favorite playstyle, which is mentioned right down below, was a comparatively stronger one during the XY meta.
What is your favorite playstyle and why? Balance, balance, balance, balance, balance. I am absolutely atrocious at utilizing offense/hyper-offense because I'm the kind of player who really relies on defensive checks when dealing with specific threats. At the same time, I really enjoy having a few 'mons that can either pack strong punches right off the bat or can set up and cause a lot of damage, so full stall doesn't quite cut it for me.
Thoughts on the Pidgeot suspect? If Mega Pidgey ends up getting banned, I will definitely be much more motivated to build teams tbh. Building balance without having to worry about confusion hax breaking my cores will definitely be a lot more relieving than it was before.
After Pidgeot is there anything you'd like to have suspected? Gatr is definitely a hot topic because its combination of sheer power, nice 80/100/83 (or something like that idk) bulk, good defensive typing, and sufficient coverage for a sweeper just grants it so many opportunities to set up and smash things into pieces, but at the same time, this meta is more adjusted to it than it was with Mega Pidgeot partly due to the lack of rng factor in Gatr. Scald is another hot topic because of how much more frequently it can turn battles around compared to every other 30% move out there, but personally I don't mind whether it will eventually get the ban or not.
With Grand Slam coming up, who is your favorite to win the UU open and why? Dodmen because quite simply, he's an extremely strong battler, although other strong players like Omfuga will most certainly bring up the heat as well.
What is some advice you can give to new players who want to get noticed? I also think it's fine to let yourself loose sometimes because I sometimes spam and flood a lot in battles, but at the same time, I try not to flat out insult people because that's just simply rude, and I don't want to be known for being a disrespectful user.
How do you go about preparing for tournament matches? Honestly, I don't know lol. I've only participated in one tournament, which was the most recent UUPL
Who are some of your favorite people in the Smogon community? DatLatiasBud HertzDrReuniclusColbrushie iplaytennislol dodmen SmashBrosBrawl hilarious YABO Vapo Shiba Mazz and at least 10 others I will more than likely forget to tag, you guys are some of my favorite goons lol
Also Hogg for teaching me the ways of Microsoft Paint through his Iron Chef artwork even though I have never consulted him lol
Also rip Kitten Milk
And free Psychotic haha
Finally can you provide for us a team that you think reflects you as a player with a brief explanation of how it works?
Reuniclus @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 160 HP / 240 Def / 96 SpA / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Calm Mind
- Recover
Cobalion @ Air Balloon
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Roar
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Krookodile @ Dread Plate
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
Crobat @ Black Sludge
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 32 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog
Florges @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Aromatherapy
- Wish
- Protect
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 160 HP / 240 Def / 96 SpA / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psyshock
- Focus Blast
- Calm Mind
- Recover
Cobalion @ Air Balloon
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Iron Head
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 240 HP / 216 Def / 52 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Roar
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
Krookodile @ Dread Plate
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Pursuit
Crobat @ Black Sludge
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 32 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Roost
- Defog
Florges @ Leftovers
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Aromatherapy
- Wish
- Protect
This was a balance team that I built during the Mega Pidgeot suspect test and plan on RMTing sooner or later. Around 13 of my 16 losses during the suspect test were due to my lack of sufficient Heliolisk/Mega Amphy checks, which one day I'll hope to fix lol. Anyways, moving on to the details of my individual pokemon sets:
First up: Reuniclus. It is hands down my favorite sweeper in this meta right now, which is why I wanted to build off of it in the first place. However, the variant I run is one that I have seen absolutely zero other people use, which kind of saddens me because they're missing out big time on a lot of extra sweeping capability. First off, I opted to run a Life Orb over leftovers because I stopped giving two shits about leftovers recovery and I wasn't gonna keep it in on strong attacks anyways. Second off, the extra damage helps me a ton against most threats in this meta-- I can almost always ohko Hydra, always ohko Krook, Mamo, and Cobalion with Focus Blast, and all those calcs arewithout SR damage. Not only does it hit much harder right off the bat, but it also has a much easier time breaking opposing CM set-up sweepers. Instead of doing half/less than half on opposing bulky Psychics, I can do close to 50% on Cresselia at +6 and well over 50% against opposing Reuniclus and Slowking with Psyshock and Snorlax will take at least 45% from an unboosted Focus Blast as opposed to around 35%. As for the EVs, 160 HP gives it enough to take 4 Seismic Tosses from full hp, 240 Defense EVs boosts its pdef to near max, 12 Speed EVs allow it to speed creep a majority of other base 30s, and the rest goes to SpA to give it a slightly greater punch right off the bat.
Next up: Cobalion. Ok, so you may be wondering why I'm running air balloon on this thing when I could instead use Magnet Rise or a resist berry. First off, I can run Stone Edge on it in order to nail Salamence, Chandy, and weakened RK9 for more damage, something I can't do with Magnet Rise. Secondly, I can give absolutely zero shits about switching into Mamoswine and Krookodile barring the uncommon Superpower. If I get a free switch into any of those two while my air balloon is intact, I can just insta click Swords Dance while they make a switch into whatever, and if that whatever is called Salamence, I can proceed to bop it with a Stone Edge. So considering how extremely common these said threats are, air balloon indeed has a very useful niche on Cobalion not just on paper, but in practice as well.
Next up: Suicune. I opted to run Roar over Calm Mind on Cune because I already have another stronger CM user in Reuniclus, and it still puts in so much work against opposing teams. There are a lot of advantages to running this set-- instead of sacrificing EVs on Speed, I can instead invest a little bit on Special Defense because I can still beat out other Roar Cunes while I'm asleep and in addition, it's much harder for stuff like Cobalion or Lucario to set up SD because of the elevated risk of losing their set-up. Lastly, because I'm such a (BAN ME PLEASE), I can focus more on spamming Scald and spreading annoying ass burns because Scald is clearly not broken lol
Rest of my team: Crobat, Krook, Florges. Crobat is my first Fighting check as well as a Hazard remover. I run max attack and 386 speed because I wanna have the bravest bat possible and I outspeed most other bats. Florges is another Fighting check as well as my cleric. Finally Krook is my Rock setter as well as a Doublade annoyer because Smogon Sword jr. just shits on 2/3s of my team lol.
Next up: Cobalion. Ok, so you may be wondering why I'm running air balloon on this thing when I could instead use Magnet Rise or a resist berry. First off, I can run Stone Edge on it in order to nail Salamence, Chandy, and weakened RK9 for more damage, something I can't do with Magnet Rise. Secondly, I can give absolutely zero shits about switching into Mamoswine and Krookodile barring the uncommon Superpower. If I get a free switch into any of those two while my air balloon is intact, I can just insta click Swords Dance while they make a switch into whatever, and if that whatever is called Salamence, I can proceed to bop it with a Stone Edge. So considering how extremely common these said threats are, air balloon indeed has a very useful niche on Cobalion not just on paper, but in practice as well.
Next up: Suicune. I opted to run Roar over Calm Mind on Cune because I already have another stronger CM user in Reuniclus, and it still puts in so much work against opposing teams. There are a lot of advantages to running this set-- instead of sacrificing EVs on Speed, I can instead invest a little bit on Special Defense because I can still beat out other Roar Cunes while I'm asleep and in addition, it's much harder for stuff like Cobalion or Lucario to set up SD because of the elevated risk of losing their set-up. Lastly, because I'm such a (BAN ME PLEASE), I can focus more on spamming Scald and spreading annoying ass burns because Scald is clearly not broken lol
Rest of my team: Crobat, Krook, Florges. Crobat is my first Fighting check as well as a Hazard remover. I run max attack and 386 speed because I wanna have the bravest bat possible and I outspeed most other bats. Florges is another Fighting check as well as my cleric. Finally Krook is my Rock setter as well as a Doublade annoyer because Smogon Sword jr. just shits on 2/3s of my team lol.
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If you have any questions for dingbat leave them down below!
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