#12 Uselesscrab the useless crab!
Hey
Hey!
How did you get into Pokemon?
When I was at the end of elementary school, a close friend of mine got a Game Boy Advance with Pokemon Emerald. I went over to his house and played the game with him a few times and loved it. A few months later, I got it as a gift from my parents. One year, I started battling a fellow Pokemon enthusiast who had just moved in down the street. This was my first time doing something other than playing the story mode in a Pokemon game, so naturally I was really excited. I started searching the Internet for analyses of various Pokemon, and found Smogon. As for PS!, one day I started randomly watching Pokemon videos on YouTube, and a few of the channels used the simulator, which I had never heard of. When I realized how fun it would be to battle on PS!, I went on and made my account immediately.
Then how did you get into Other Metas?
Honestly, that's a really good question. I started out on Smogon as an absolutely awful BW NU player (if you do some sleuthing, you can find a warstory I made...), and I must have just come across the BH thread one day. The only hacked Pokemon I had known about before was Wondertomb, so everything seemed new and interesting to me. I quickly made an extremely bad team with all of the most overused threats of Gen V BH. As for the OM room, some of you may know that I recruited some IRL friends, including Piccolo, to play on PS with me. I started meeting them here to challenge them to BH battles, as I had no idea /challenge or /user existed. I guess one day I started talking in chat, and the rest is history... o.o
What would you like to change about Other Metagames as a whole?
I think we could use two things: 1) more minitours, as long as the people running them keep on schedule, and 2) more OM RMTs; there are so many excellent teams made on PS that go entirely unappreciated, as well as so many teams close to being really good, but still with potential to improve.
What do you think made a good change to Other Metagames?
The creation of the mentoring program, if it operates more consistently, could be fantastic.
What is your favorite Other Metagame?
I've been playing 1v1 a great deal lately, and trying to improve at that, but I'll have to stick to my roots and say BH. Besides the sheer amount of possibilities that initially attracted me, I find that I play best in metagames which I've studied the most, and I've been playing BH for a while now.
What do you think is the most underrated Other Metagame?
1v1 is really underappreciated. The vast majority of people consider it luck-based, and it is, but only to a small degree. There's a great deal of prediction and mindgames involved, and I'd say that playing it has certainly improved my prediction skills in other tiers. Not only that, 1v1 produces some of the most creative strategies I've seen in any metagame. Just look at
Rumplestiltskin. I also think Stat Preference is underrated. The idea of a metagame that makes use of shininess is interesting on its own, but besides that, BK managed to make very good use of it. I wish the thread was more active; people stopped posting before I was able to really get into it or get any battles.
What do you think about the OMotMs?
Averagemons deserves more recognition; it's unique and promotes teambuilding diversity. I'm of the opinion that all OMOTMs that are not playable under standard conditions (e.g. Stat Switch, Haxmons) should stay as challenge options. This would also promote greater variety in room tournaments. As far as a permanent ladder is concerned, if Inheritance's popularity continues it should be headed for one. If Classic Hackmons develops a considerably better presence on Smogon and PS, it should also be considered for regaining a permaladder, though I know that's a bit controversial.
What's your favorite thing about Balanced Hackmons?
I'd have to say the community, or more specifically the older, extremely helpful members of the community. When I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, users like
E4 Flint, Kumi,
Lcass4919,
-Talent-,
Mista Rob, and
Adrian Marin were really supportive and helpful, even though they didn't know me very well at the time. Some other helpful people that I got to know a little later were Nike, Kl4ng, and Keep it Playful.
What do you think of the OM room right now?
It's been a pleasure being here. Obviously it's changed a great deal since the time I first started visiting on a regular basis, fall 2013, and the transition the following summer to a more populated, more tournament-focused room was a bit of a challenge... It was just very different from what I was used to, and at first the discussions weren't nearly as focused in the new room. But these days, we've got a very knowledgeable and welcoming community that I'm happy to be a part of.
Why do you think you are a roommod these days?
Obviously I can't be entirely sure, but I had been a driver, and an active one, for quite a while. Eevee spoke to me a couple of weeks before the promotion and encouraged me to help out more in tournaments, too, when I wasn't sure what I could do to improve. Being one is nice. It's not a significant change from driver, but I appreciate and understand the added responsibility and I'm grateful to be able to help even more by running daily tournaments and banning trolls and spammers.
Who do you "admire" the most out of the OM community?
It's hard to single out a specific person, but I have undying respect for the people, who are able to come up with successful OMs. I'm personally totally uninspired when it comes to new OM ideas, and I've actually only submitted one, which was rejected anyway. So yeah, I admire those of you who make creative and interesting metagames. I certainly can't do it myself.
Who do you think are good, or underrated OM players?
In BH, I really like watching the battles of any of those experienced people I mentioned above. As for 1v1, it's fun to follow around people like
Rumplestiltskin,
Betathunder, and
Dream Eater Gengar, though I don't do that quite as often. An underrated battler is
Werefofel, another IRL friend of mine, who is fairly unknown but has done really well on the BH ladder in the past.
What do you think of the current OM projects?
I really like the Battle of the Week project, which will be restarted soon. As for my personal projects, I lead the BH CCAT, which hasn't exactly lived up to my expectations, but still has potential to create a good team if people playtest the mess we created. I'd really be interested in leading some sort of OM UU team tour, with different players on each team for each OM UU, or perhaps just a series of 1v1 tournaments, since the meta is not well represented on Smogon atm.
What do you think of the possibility of more OM analyses?
We could certainly expand the community considerably; people, looking for movesets the same way that got me into Smogon, could be just as inclined to start in AAA as in OU. As for the best possibilities, I think BH (now that the meta is somewhat stable) and Monotype are probably next in line, though any of the current ladders would be good candidates.
Any final words?
If you play OMs but don't come to the room, I encourage you to do so; we have great discussion about virtually every OM there, and we treat new users well, so there's no reason not to. That's about all, I guess — thanks for interviewing me.