here i am again with a
interview
1. Hi there! Could you tell us who you are by giving a small introduction about yourself?
Hi! My name is Sam, I'm an 18 year old college student from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm majoring in Journalism and plan to attend the University of Wisconsin in a few years. I like dogs a lot, leave dog pics below please
2. When did you start playing competitive Pokémon, when did you start playing competitive Doubles, and why did you stick around?
I started with competitive Pokemon in the summer of 2013. I found Pokemon Online through some Youtube video, then moved to Pokemon Showdown. I just hung around in lobby like a casual, joining Challonge tournaments before the Tournaments feature existed. I ended up on a server called Amethyst and stuck around there for a long time playing singles formats. Eventually through a number of outside factors including Tumblr and the Justin Flynn Facebook group, I ended up playing VGC. I've been doing that for over 2 years now, and my good friend Braverius interested me in Doubles OU through his SPL teams and seeing that I could use my favorites like Keldeo. I've stuck around mainly due to the amazing VGC and DOU communities, both are amazing and I've made a ton of friends in both.
3. What is your favourite Pokémon to use competitively and why? What is your favourite Pokémon overall and why?
My favorite Pokemon to use competitively is probably Porygon2. I used it at Fort Wayne Regionals to win a 92 person premier challenge and Top 16 that regional. It was such an amazing Pokemon at the end of 2015 and I really wish we would have had that format another year instead of VGC 2016, which is incredibly awful and none of you ever try it please.
My favorite overall is Totodile, Pokemon Silver was my favorite game and I remember doing a Totodile solo run as a kid. Not as a challenge, it just never occurred to me that catching other Pokemon as anything other than HM slaves was a good idea
I also really like Porygon and Meloetta, I can't wait for the 20th anniversary Meloetta stuff this December
4. Do you think there's a Pokemon or set that is currently underrated in the meta?
I think Porygon2 is generally undervalued. Ice Beam/HP Ground give it Kyube like coverage with a lo of bulk, reliable recovery, and you can go with Trick Room, Toxic, or another coverage move in the 4th slot. Might be my VGC 15 bias, but it was honestly amazing there and I think it deserves some use. Honorable mentions: AV Landorus-T (<3 u
Stratos), Hoopa-U, and Reuniclus
5. Do you believe there is anything broken or suspect worthy in the current metagame?
I'd like to see a Mence suspect without Jirachi a lot. Salamence really was insanely balanced and offered so many more team archetypes that I think would be helpful to the DOU metagame. Jirachi is insanely good and I think it deserves a suspect at the least, although I'm not sure about a ban necessarily. I also just really want an excuse to play my favorite VGC 15 teams in DOU.
6. Could you give us a team that resembles your playing and building style and give a little explanation about it?
[sample team]
I'm gonna go with my SAMple team. I generally tend to only build with Kang, Gardevoir, or Diancie, and tend to like a lot of balance teams that give me opportunities to make big plays. I don't build very many teams that don't include Landorus-T since it's just an insanely good Pokemon, and like to have redirection on almost every team as well. Thundurus is one of my favorite Pokemon as well, even as something I didn't use much in VGC 15 I appreciate it a lot more in this meta. I also tend to favor Amoonguss over Jirachi for its ability to check Azumarill and Trick Room more effectively. I'm also a huge supporter of non-prankster Encore, whether its on Gardevoir, Politoed, etc. I also tend to use Heatran much more than I did in VGC 15 since you can use it much more freely as a win condition. I think it's a better option than Volcanion on a lot of teams that we've been seeing recently, but people just want to test out the new Pokemon rather than build efficient teams. (this also includes myself on a few ssnls/dpl teams)
7. Do you think there is a significant difference between Doubles and VGC players in building and/or playing?
I think VGC players naturally favor the things we used in VGC 15 (see: AV Lando, Shucatran) but on the whole I don't think our teams are too dissimilar. I really like a lot of the teams me and Majorbowman have used in DPL/Seasonals/his run in SPL. I think the tier can definitely be expanded upon in teambuilding, Gardevoir seems to be pretty under appreciated in my experience for how good of a mega it is. I think Diancie teams can go a lot further as well, it's just a mega that has so many strong stats and options that the teambuilding around it has so much potential. As far as playing goes, I think VGC players tend to think a lot more about leads since it's something that we're forced to consider extensively when we play VGC.
8. How is it to work together with KyleCole and other VGC players on the Oreburgh Ancients? Do you think having fellow VGC players on the team helps?
I think it's both a positive and a negative. It builds a strong synergy between MajorBowman, Dawg, Kyle and I in our testing and building, but I don't really get to interact with the other players on our team much which is kinda sad. I think that ends up speaking in our results, where the "VGC players" are all undeafeated and the rest of the team has managed one win for the whole season thus far. I believe in them though, and I think we could definitely win it all!
9. I find it interesting that you've put VGC players in brackets. Do you think there is a divide in the community between DOU and VGC players, or is that just something people think exists?
I think don't think there's a super significant divide. Whenever I talk to VGC friends about Doubles OU, they all seem highly interested and obviously Dawg/Bowman/myself have all done quite well with the format. I'd expect more VGC players to be joining in as time goes on, and for it to become less of a divide. Obviously some people possibly named n1n1 like to make a bigger deal about people being VGC players, I think it's more of a vocal minority than anything.
10. Who do you think will win the current Seasonals, and why?
I predict
Dawgie to win the current Seasonals, he's one of my best friends and I really want him to possibly become the first Seasonals winner without a profile picture.
Level 51 is also a cutie so I'd give him a chance.
11. How do you reflect on your first serious Seasonals? Do you feel like you did well?
I think it went well yeah. I decided to start taking it more seriously when I saw that I would play Stratos round two and thought that it'd be fun if I could beat him. Doing that gave me a lot of excitement for the tier and I started building more and more teams. I'm definitely looking forward to the next Seasonals and all the other currently running/upcoming DOU tournaments. I think Round 9 is pretty solid for my first serious seasonals, I'm never truly satisfied unless I get first but this is a good start. I look forward to competing in even more of them in the future.
12. Is there any other metagame you play outside of Doubles and VGC?
Not any that I play quite as seriously, but I'm definitely interested in learning some Smogon tiers. I also tend to play a lot of the Battle Spot competitions and I'm definitely looking forward to the Johto Classic, playing a few games of it on PS has been a lot of fun.
13. What do you like doing outside of playing Pokemon? Is there anything you're interested in?
I just received my Eagle Scout so that was something I did for a long time. I like camping and fishing a lot, just generally being outside is really enjoyable. I like hanging out with friends doing god knows what, traveling to as many places as possible, and meeting new people. I also enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and my name is Sam but you can call me anytime.
14. Is there anything else left you want to say?
I just wanna give a shoutout to all the pear, to Dawg and
MajorBowman for being especially good friends, and a shoutout to
Braverius for housing me during my trip to Seattle that I'm starting next week. Also for all the people I've met through playing competitive Pokemon, it's a dumb game but there's too many people to list that have changed my life.
15. Is qsns cute irl?
Qsns is super cute irl and someday we are going to convince his parents that I'm not an ax murderer and take him to a VGC event. (and then murder him with an ax, obviously)
22:37 SamVGC his parents
22:37 SamVGC actually used the term ax murdered to describe me