Three years ago I knew nothing of GSC. In SPL4 I saw the amazing 700+turn battle between Colchonero and Earthworm. It instantly reminded me of a chess match, which is a game I found a lot of competitive success in when I was 4-12 years old playing in the junior leagues. So I figured I'd be good at it, and enjoy it. I asked Earthworm, a teammate at the time, to tutor me in the ways, and he graciously showed me the basics and had a couple matches with me. I played the standard boom team and the standard stall team, and was crushed easily both times, which humbled me a bit. I was busy with SPL and quickly forgot about the strange old tier, but afterwards I came across Borat's GSC guide series and my interest was renewed. The first few paragraphs blew me away. Everything I knew about the tier was nothing in comparison to the vast expanse of knowledge I had yet to gain, and I saw that as a challenge, so I started studying, then playing. I laddered on PO all day despite there not being much activity, and got a lot of experience playing guys like M Dragon and Isa 20+ times. Anyways, the point is that it became a bit of an obsession and after a couple months I now thought I was hot shit at GSC. Challenged my friend BKC to a casual bo5 and he fucking demolished me in 4 games where I only won 1 due to a HPump miss. That's when I realized I was still scraping the surface and that motivated me to become the best at GSC. I still have a lot to learn but every day it becomes even more interesting. To me, playing GSC is sort of like Jenga, the game where you stack blocks on top of one another until one person unbalances the tower and makes it crash down. Every turn adds yet another layer of complexity, pushing it towards the tipping point, and both players are frantically trying to keep their gameplan from crashing down. It's an intellectual journey and an undeniable thrill.
I'm playing GSC in this WCoP, I think I really need to prove myself there by going undefeated, which I think I'm fully capable of doing. It would be great if I was paired in the prelim rounds with big names such as Earthworm, beating legends will give me more recognition. Additionally, I need to perform better in next SPL, as a 5-4 record isn't something to write home about. This will give me the achievements necessary to improve my perception in GSC. As far as my own progression curve goes, I think I'm advancing at a natural pace and the only way for me to improve will be playing as many matches as I can and learning from each one. I've already gone through every GSC guide/analysis which is in a language I can read, so the rest has to come from within.
In BW I'm known as a fairly aggressive player, and this carries over to GSC. Not in the teams I play, but the way I use them. Even when playing stall in a gen that's already the slowest, I feel it's important to keep making aggressive plays so your opponent can never feel 100% comfortable with any move. And I've found a lot of success with this style due largely to my own inexperience. By playing aggressively, I can give myself a chance of beating opponents that are far more skilled, who would easily crush me if I tried to match their own defensive playstyle. I think it's the best way to play the odds against a superior foe. The only situation in which it's inexcusable to play aggressively is when you are certain that you cannot lose from your current situation, bar incredible luck.
I think BW2 was better for a long time, and the only segments where I'd rather be playing BW1 are when Genesect was OU and currently, due to the Spikes + Magic Guard metagame that I hate so much. But keep in mind that I only started playing Smogon tiers in March of 2012, and BW2 released late July/early August iirc, so I didn't get a taste of it back when the meta was really crazy.
It's a good decision when looking solely at the merits of the decision itself, but it was made in a poor fashion. The sudden announcement after zero discussion or even a warning that it might happen, coupled with how unprecedented it was, made me rather upset. Community input is extremely important to me. However I had a discussion with the TDs about implementing preliminary suspect tours, and I think I made a compelling case because they were announced a day later. So I'm no longer upset. At least we get a say now.
No, I think permanent weather is still ridiculous. I didn't realize how broken it was for a long time, since BW was my first and only tier for a good year and a half, but after some extensive DPP and dabbling in ORAS I'm sure of it. Gutting Sun is smart, banning reuniclus is smart, but I don't think it's enough. However I understand if the TDs do not want to make such a drastic change to an old tier. Yet it seems that if they're going as far as to effectively kill Sun then maybe it's in the realm of possibility. Fingers crossed.
I think BP is way better in BW than GSC. In the latter, all you need to win are two phazers/drumlax/anything huge that the BP team doesn't have time to boost up and deal with. Or HazeNite which fucking rules. And even if you don't have that stuff you can still win against BP. But yeah in BW it's a strategy where it makes it so that the game is almost 100% decided by matchup and if you don't have the exact stuff you need to beat it then you lost. I don't like it, I think it's uncompetitive and thus it warrants a ban. But sadly, getting tier leaders to make changes that aren't widely reflected in usage stats has proven to be difficult. I remember the brightpowder thread where there were actually moderators...of this website...who have great influence on tiering decisions...saying it doesn't matter how stupidly uncompetitive the item is as long as the usage stats are low. I don't know how people with such weak minds get in positions of power, I suggest it's from kneeling and opening wide though. /rant
Hey Quasar, been a while. GL in World Cup!
Hey henry, it's been too long, let's agree to talk more. Partly my fault for never being on IRC. You can see my above answer to McMeghan for how I learned GSC. tl;dr: Earthworm told me basic mechanical differences from BW (intro), I played some games, read a lot of theory/guides, played some more games, read some more theory/guides, repeat.
I would have played far more games before asking older players for help, reading guides, etc. I'm a very hands-on person and I deal with reality much better than theory. For example, I've always been a poor composer, but I can nail a complex piano piece by simply picking up the sheet music and playing. However, this won't work for everyone, and others should start with the theory and then move to the games. It's a matter of knowing what's right for how you learn.
I scratched my head at that one too. No Magic Bounce, no Stored Power, no Speed Boost, no ridiculously OP stat boosting moves. Maybe he watches too much Jorgen.
