Project ZU Player of the Week: Week 10 - Chokepic

[Oathkeeper]

Chokepic
Favorite ZU Pokemon: Dusclops
Most used: Mawile (before Shiftry ban)
Most known for: Global Voice, NU Moderator
​

Oathkeepre: Hello Chokepic, how are you doing today?
Chokepic: I'm exhausted, it's been a difficult week for me with final exams being around the corner, but I'm doing good overall. Thanks!

Oathkeepre: Could you tell us more about yourself?
Chokepic: I'm an 18-year old guy who is currently studying translation in Valladolid (Spain) where I was born. I love sports, especially basketball and football, reading books, watching movies and playing video games, of course.

Oathkeepre: What are the origins of your name?
Chokepic: Ok, this is kind of easy to answer but I haven't always had this name so I'll first tell you what my first name was. I started playing on PS on early 2015 and I had no idea of how to call myself so I just put my name + 1907, my birthday date which is also when the football club I support was created (I know right, I'm very original). I wasn't interested at all at competitive mons until 2 years later, when I started playing a bit more seriously. I was that kind of guy that just tried to outplay the opp every turn and that didn't think about the risk that those greedy doubles could carry. As a consequence, I choked 80% of the games and the friends that were watching me laddering used to tell me I ate my chocapics (a famous cereals brand). So my nickname just comes from a word play of choke and chocapics.

Oathkeepre: How did you get into ZU?
Chokepic: I was kind of fed up of NU after having been building and testing a lot for NUPL and I didn't like how the tier had developed into such a stale metagame where all the teams looked pretty much the same. kay advised me to play ZU and he told me it was a really diverse and fun meta with no s-ranks so I thought it was at least worth a try. I built my first team, which was around cb Zweilous and I sent the importable to Union Caboche in order for him to rate it. He told me cb Zweilous was complete trash and that's how I started hating UC (just prank, love ya bro <3). However, he did think the team was trash, so he gave me another team containing Dusclops, which happens to be the one that he posted in your interview. I absolutely loved the team, especially Dusclops, which looked to be broken on my eyes since ladder didn't seem to find a way to break through it. And that's why I kept playing the tier despite a lack of tours at that moment because SSNLs had just started 1 week ago. Nonetheless, I only played occasionally, perhaps once or twice a week. But, when ZULT started, I spent a great deal of time laddering, and that's when I actually started to play the tier seriously.

Oathkeepre: What advice would give people looking to get into ZU?
Chokepic: Hmm, I'd probably say to them they should join both the ZU room on PS and the ZU discord. The ZU community is generally really welcoming and don't mind giving feedback to beginners, don't be afraid to ask, we were all beginners at first! I'd probably also advise to join room tours whenever they have time, you learn a lot from those because although people isn't playing very seriously, they tend to use solid teams unlike on the ladder. Despite the low level the ZU ladder has, it can also work as a way to practice when the ZU room is dead.

Oathkeepre: What's a fond Pokemon memory from your childhood that you remember?
Chokepic: I remember spending hours and hours trying to improve my Pokéathlon records after having unlocked all the rooms and got all the rare candies. Pokémon Gold was my first Pokémon game so I just spent a lot of time on those things because they were all new to me.

Oathkeepre: Who are some of your favorite people in the ZU community?
Chokepic: As I've already mentioned, Union Caboche is a great friend from mine. He was the first person I talked to from the ZU room and we've been friends ever since. We like talking about history (although I suck at it) and politics, as well as just playing some ladder games for fun or building some bad teams. Munchlax is broken by the way. I discovered Quagg a bit later, when ZULT started. He kept winning me with that annoying sand team from him (cacturne 2 broken) and I think that's why we started talking. I'm not sure though. But that doesn't matter, I love him, he's an amazing friend. We just talk about random things and he is always there when I need him. DnB is probably the best person that I had the pleasure to meet from my ZUPL team. He helped me a lot with DPP ZU even though my results were being total garbage and we had a lot of fun throughout ZUPL creating half of the tier alongside neomon and Heysup, it was a really nice experience and I hope we keep talking with each other. I used to talk to kay a lot when I started getting involved in the NU community, but sadly he decided he was done with this game, at least until Sword and Shield, when I arrived to ZU. 85percent and uhuhuhu7 are my go-to people when I need advice for a team or I'm not sure about what moveset "x" mon runs. The staff is very helpful when it comes to these kind of stuff and they always help me though if neither of uhuhu nor 85 are online.

Oathkeepre: Gen 7 is just about over and Gen 8 begins on November 15. What are your thoughts on what we've seen so far?
Chokepic: I haven't being following the latest leaks because I've been very busy and there wasn't a lot that had been shown previously, so I'm a bit unsure with this game. I don't wanna be pessimistic but I feel like Gamefreak is selling us another incomplete game. I hope this is not the case because I'm afraid that I won't be buying another Pokémon game if this happens again. The Wild Area is pretty cool though, sadly I don't find any of the other new features really exciting.

Oathkeepre: With 3 council members being down (Xayah, RawMelon, and LPY), who do you feel can best fill those positions?
Chokepic: That's a tough question, they were all awesome council members so they will be hard to replace. I'm probably not the best person to answer this but I think Ho3nConfirm3d would make up for a good council member since he's so active and very enthusiastic about the tier. I don't know who else would be a good addition to the team though.

Oathkeepre: You mentioned being a fan of sports, basketball and football in particular. Who are your favorite teams?
Chokepic: They say I have a passion for bad teams but I don't have the same feelings for other teams, you cannot decide who you support. I support Betis and Valladolid from the Spanish football league. I went to Valladolid's stadium today and we won 3-0 so that's nice. Sadly, Betis is in an awkward position right now, but I trust on our players and I know we will make an epic comeback and qualify for UEFA Europa League. I'm not a huge fan of Premier League but if they asked me I'd say I support Crystal Palace and Notthingham Forest even though the latest isn't very good nowadays. Women's football has been popping up as of late but I haven't really seen many games so cannot position on this one. On the other hand, I always hope Barcelona wins when it comes to Spanish basketball teams. I don't think it's winning Euroleague this year but I'll support it until we are disqualified. I haven't been able to find a channel to watch full NBA matches, but I watch all the highlights so I have some knowledge about it. I consider myself a fan of Golden State Warriors, but, unlike with other teams, I don't really mind if they lose because I haven't been supporting them since I was a child, I discovered basketball relatively recently, like around 2 or 3 years ago. I found it boring before for some reason.

Oathkeepre: What's your favorite color and why?
Chokepic: Blue because the sky is blue and the best person's in the world nickname in chokepic is blue.

Oathkeepre: Lastly, could you share a meaningful team to you and explain what it does?
Chokepic:

Importable

Ninjask @ Life Orb
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 216 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 36 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Aerial Ace
- Swords Dance
- Leech Life

Swanna @ Waterium Z
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Rain Dance
- Surf
- Hurricane
- Roost

Golem @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sucker Punch

Silvally-Fighting @ Fighting Memory
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 HP / 32 Atk / 88 Def / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Multi-Attack
- Toxic
- Defog

Komala @ Assault Vest
Ability: Comatose
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Atk / 96 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Knock Off
- Rapid Spin
- U-turn

Exeggutor @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder
- Leaf Storm
- Psychic
- Synthesis

The team may be bad, but i swear it's very fun. Basically, Quagg seems to have birds phobia and lose to any bird no matter what team he is using, so I decided to ask Union Caboche and build something with the 2 scariest birds in the tier. yovan33321 also helped us to build this one. We finally chose Ninjask and Swanna, which are both pretty scary, and started building from there. I thought it would be ideal to pair these 2 birds with double hazard removal and that's why we put Silvally-Fighting and AV Komala. Were you to use this team, I'd change Komala to cb while still keeping rapid spin as an emergency spinner. AV Komala truly sucks man. The 2 slots left were easy to fill, we needed a rocker, so we put broken offensive Golem and we needed a soft Golem check, so we decided to put LO Eggy in order to give Ninjask or Swanna free set up opportunities by inducing sleep.

Oathkeepre: Thank you so much for your time and answers Chokepic and have a great day!
Chokepic: Thanks to you for hosting this amazing project. Have a good day!​

 

[BP]

Dudes a god. Bout time

 

[DnB]

thanks for the shoutout, love u too Chokepic :*