Approved by 5gen & S1nn0hC0nfirm3d | Amazing Art by Albatross
(Interview Date: 24th of August 2021)
Hello everybody and welcome back to "ZU Player of the Week"!, the project where some of ZU's finest community members are interviewed about their Pokemon and personal lives. I am grateful that I have already had the chance to interview so many amazing ZU players and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy these as much as I do. This time around I'm very happy to have interviewed one of the coolest and longest standing members of the ZU community...
5gen!!
Favourite Pokemon:
(ZU Tier Leader, ZU RO, ZU SM & ORAS Council member. ZU QC member, former manager of the Pay Day Persians, On the whole a legend)
Ditto used Transform!
Ditto transformed into Arcanine!
*arrrrr*
Hey what's up 5gen? Thanks for being here with me today.
Hey, not much mostly chilling. How are you? Thanks for having me
I just had dinner and am also chilling. I'm doing well, thanks for asking.
You're pretty well known on smogon scene I'd say but for those who have been living under a rock, could you give a brief introduction about yourself in general and on PS/Smogon?
It's always a bit weird to me that I'm relatively known because i don't think about it and just keep to ZU really. I'm 20 years old and have been on smogon since the end of 2015. as for me as a person I'm pretty laid back and not super talkative, like to read and watch shows/movies, play basketball and mons, garden, etc.
As for PS and Smogon I first messed around I ORAS UU because it had some of my favourite mons. Pokebattle intrigued me at the time and I played that until it died down, then came back to showdown. went into PU as they were having a suspect test on Throh if I recall correctly, and the rest is history.
So from playing PU, how did you get your initial start in ZU and how did you get to where you are now?
I joined FU in the summer of 2016. At the time, there were a handful of ORAS PU players playing FU and I was invited into their discord to play. Just as a backstory, FU used to have a thread in the PU subforum and that was sort of its peak in that era. This was before my time so I wasn't involved there. The point is from then on, various people would take lead of FU on side servers and in friend groups, which is what happened shortly after when I was introduced to FU. There were only a handful of players and I'd help with resources, chat, and build and play games. One of the two leaders stepped down and I was asked if I wanted to help lead, so I did.
We made a proboards forum that should be still up I think (futier.boards.net) and really just hosted stuff there, played on showdown and a side server for some time. Then I hosted an unofficial tour on smogon which got us exposure. Eventually my co-TL charles a theist (dude has many alts, that's the smogon name) stepped down and xayah came along, we had more players and a proper council. things went on like that until the immortal gave us a thread in the OM forum and some time later kala came and created a private room for ZU (we changed our name around the time gen 7 came for obvious reasons). Anyway yeah was pretty much growing and learning as we went along cuz honestly the most credit I had was being a PU voice.
Was a really fun time looking back. some old faces are gone and some stuck around through it all which I appreciate.
I've felt like I've just absorbed an entire history lesson on the background of ZU now lmao but this was a very fascinating and detailed response.
P much yeah, there are some other minor details like how we did things compared to now and like my personal position. was a huge learning curve for me when I suddenly had to be an RO with basically no prior staff experience. luckily we had kala and a good team around.
Ah ye, the transition from being a good Tier Leader, and a good leader of a community can be quite different.
It's also kinda crazy to think you've been leading for 4/5 years now and that you've basically seen it grow to what it is today, and hopefully see it continue to grow now and in the future.
Definitely
You've already mentioned that it was a fun time in ZU's infant days, but what are some of the things you miss the most?
What comes to mind first is people and how the community felt tighter knit. people as in users like rennyjesus, ayo sb, acast, slar flar, diag, some others I'm not remembering sadly
That's pretty much it because with the growth came better opportunities and more room for ZU regulars and non-regulars to come in, play, collaborate, etc (i.e having a room vs just a discord, have our own subforum)
Oh I see, that's fair.
Onto the ZU metagames themselves now, do you have a favourite generation of ZU that you most enjoy and why?
Depends on what I'm playing most and the meta itself I think, so it fluctuates. back when SM ZU was current generation i was really into it. found it quite balanced and that there was lots of room for creativity. really liked SS ZU before silv-ground was banned because it made volt turn great and was the only good offensive, relatively fast ground type. To me ORAS is the most balanced and where I'm comfortable in, so it's my favourite rn.
Not really a fan of DPP and ironically haven't touched the new BW meta.
More specifically with ORAS, back when it was current gen the player base was so small that the TL and I updated the whole VR by ourselves. so when ZU had ZUPL and ORAS Cups, the meta saw a lot more innovation and growth. Cool to see the meta continue to evolve and different people help shape it.
Oh that's interesting, and kinda funny that you've yet to play gen 5 recently.
And ye that's definitely super nice indeed when old gens get some love, and they now even have somewhat small but dedicated playerbases which is pretty cool
You briefly sorta mentioned your thoughts on SS ZU, what are your thoughts so far about the meta without Silvally-Ground, do you think we'll see anything leaving ZU soon?
Nah i don't think we'll see anything leave. Silvally-ground leaving did not have a largely noticeable positive effect imo aside from pokemon like jelli/lurantis/eldegross rising as ground checks. without silv ground I find that volt turn is worse and it's somewhat more difficult to pack a good volt absorber. Other formes like poison and dark have more room by default, though they're both a notch below and have more exploitable traits.
Hmm well summarised; on the flip side is there anything in ZUBL you think would be fine/at least worth retesting in the near future?
Hm, silv-ground. Seriously though, I'm not sure anything is worth retesting. grassy seed is arguably the least broken thing in ZUBL and we could have approached grassy terrain differently had no johns not been so soon. I messed around a lot with electric terrain for reqs and won most of my 30 ish games with it. I think the passive recovery and ability to run a setter like Thwackey (pivot, break, revenge kill) would still make terrain teams broken.
Who really knows. now that I think about it more I can see it getting a retest after ZUPL and depending on time/tier shifts.
That's pretty interesting, never knew that you had a lot of success with elec terrain but that's super neat. I do agree that the decision was forcibly rushed because of no johns and it's kinda weird to look back on whether it was actually problematic or not, tho I doubt many people would complain about not having to play against gterrain teams
Yep. scarf mane with rising voltage was fun vs random ladder teams
Ah ye that sounds brilliant
Onto ZUPL, I've already asked this questions a few times with other interviewees but could you rank the team names from 1st to 6th from best to worst!
It's always interesting to hear what people think of the names
morpeek-a-boos>fiery flamencos>pay day persians>lucky stunkys>to pimp a butterfree>humilau hakamo-os
first is p clever, second is a good name, the rest are p much okay
ah cool, interesting you didn't rank your own team in first unlike some people haha
Still feel biased even including it
loool that's fair enough
Who are some of the players you're excited to see play or that people should keep their eye on during this ZUPL?
Looking forward to quite a few. toto in oras, czim/astil/thefranklin/kay/dani/tuthur in ss, and obviously all my teammates. Hope to see apagogie slot in.
I feel that teams are relatively close in the middle of the pack. Looking forward to see how drud's team makes an impact since they have some faces not usually seen in ZU, same with ho3n's team.
Players to keep an eye on: SBPC (acknowledging my bias here, great mind for BW), bloodace and PDT namely for how good their ZU prep was in UMPL
all in all I'm looking forward to mostly everyone with just a few more than others.
Ye I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this all pans out, and as you said especially with how each team I'd say has quite distinct groups of players with drud drafting more PU players, ho3n with more NU players etc. but all in all should be very exciting, especially with the players you just mentioned
That's a good way to put it, each team does seem to have a distinct group of players.
Ye these fun little synergies will for sure make for really cool storylines as well as we progress through the tournament
Last question on ZUPL, which 3 teams do you think ends up making it to playoffs?
Tough one because I think this year will be close. morpeek-a-boos and fiery flamencos are favourites imo, though I think drud's team can make it in. I'm confident the persian's will make it in.
Gonna be interesting.
I see, definitely a good thing that the teams are closer as it makes the games and weeks far more interesting
Moving away from mons now, during your free time what kinda books do you enjoy reading and what shows/movies do you enjoy watching? Feel free to also mention some of your favourites!
Mainly read manga like sports, action/fighting, anything I think is interesting. some of my favs are slam dunk, real , vagabond (rip both not finishing), usogui, rurouni kenshin, delinquent type manga like crows/clover/worst/some others I'm forgetting.
In terms of TV shows and movies, two favorite shows are the sopranos and the wire, those are simply up there. Also like mob movies, studio ghibli movies, kill bill 1/2, pulp fiction, etc. also saw one on TV one day a while back called You Can Count on Me which I really liked. Yeah I'll watch mostly anything bar horror and some comedies because i get bored, mostly into older stuff
Oh wow, there's quite a lot of diversity in the media you consume, that's pretty cool tho. Solid takes here since the the ones I've seen/read are pretty good!
That's p sweet. always been into different things on a surface level at least. rn I'm keeping up with bungo (baseball), my dearest self with malice aforethought (crime), rainbow, heat, shinjuku swan, etc. usually read them when they come out or after a couple weeks
Guess it's easier that way.
You also mentioned you play basketball as one of your hobbies, do you play with friends/for a team at any point and do you watch any?
I don't play on a team or regularly anymore. been playing ever since I was a kid, mostly outside in the parking lot with my older brother or at school with friends. high school is where I enjoyed playing the most because I went to a relatively small high school and I got along with the coaches. As a kid I'd play outside for an hour or so a day, sometimes more if it was during basketball season and usually less outside of that.
But yeah in grade 9 I joined and had a lot to improve. grade 10 our team started 0-4 then we kept on winning until we made the final (granted my school played in a weaker division). Final game was crazy like
Went into overtime and it was really close. we were playing an away game and the other school's gym was packed, all the teachers and students there while it was just our team and a teacher or two. Anyway, my teammate hit a jumper to give us a lead and there was like 10 seconds or so left at that point. Other team quickly inbounds it and I'm running back against a 2 on 1 (because we did a full court press) and there's a dude cutting in and someone with the ball nearing the 3 point line. I trailed back a bit expecting a pass but the guy shoots and banks it in, and half the crowd runs onto the court. fsr there was a rule that they can't stop the timer so basically we had no chance even if we wanted to cuz the court had all the other people on it.
Always remember that when i think of high school basketball, sorry went on a tangent
Grade 11 we didn't even make playoffs and grade 12 we lost in the final. Still enjoy playing though like when I want to get in shape.
Wow that's really interesting, and a shame u didn't end up winning it all.
Still impressive you managed to make it to 2 finals.
It is a shame, happens though
Where are some of your favourite places to go to eat/what are some of your favourite foods in general?
I almost always eat home cooked meals. My grandma is my neighbour and I usually eat whatever she cooks. my family is from lebanon so I grew up on lebanese cuisine and traditional dishes like these type of stewed green leaves with chicken and rice, shawarma, others idk in english. I also like afghani kebab and arab desserts (i.e atayef)
That all sounds very delicious.
Ironically I dislike hummus spread.
oh lol
ig there are always foods people dislike from their own background so it makes sense
yeah
Always gonna have foods like that.
Do you have any popular food others like that you don't?
Hmm that's a tricky one, I know a lot of my friends love olives but I don't like them. Not a fan of Oysters either but I think they're pretty 50/50 in terms of whether people like them or not. I can also think of a few foods that are popular here in the UK that I don't like such as Black Pudding and Pork Pies.
I thought about this next question for a while and hopefully no one gets offended since it's entirely hypothetical. In a theoretical situation, you have to Thanos Snap half of the current ZU auth aka demote them, however different to Thanos you can choose who you demote and who you keep, who would remain? (apologies for making you answer this evil question)
This is evil. Don't have the heart to choose anyone except myself so I'd do it at random or with some category. Like keep short names only
Or just remove the most tenured and see what happens
The last would be pretty chaotic
ROs and mods p much.
Anyways good answer, always reassuring that we won't have to worry about a situation like that.
Rounding out this interview now, do you have a team you don't mind sharing?
Rain dance meteor beam Kabutops. thought it up one night because I was bored and thought it'd be fun to ladder with. Premise is to lure Tangela and outspeed choice scarf users. Black belt Sawk is something i've been having fun with as protect sandslash-a is common. Being able to switch up moves is great too. np+taunt Skuntank is p standard and you can't really go wrong with it. Rhydon+Rotom for the backbone and entry hazards and removal. Choice scarf Silvally rounds out the team. Team lacks a good check to Sawk, Waters and grass types, can't have everything.
What a fun and wacky set for Kabutops, reminds me somewhat of the Omastar days.
Budget Omastar.
Team looks like a lot of fun and has a lot of neat ideas.
ty
And it's always nice to see silv normal and other silvallies that are less commonly used.
That just about does it, any shoutouts/final remarks you'd like to give?
First and foremost to you for dedicating the time and effort each week to create these great interviews. s/o ZU staff and everyone that's been a part of ZU, wouldn't be where we are otherwise.
Enjoyed this, appreciate you giving the opportunity.
No problem, you've been excellent at answering these questions!
You have a knack for good questions too, makes it easy.
Ah thank you thank you.
Feel free to ask to 5gen any questions you want!
