Interview with Pwnemon

Interview and flavor by EonX. Art by Andrew and Bummer.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat at Cafe Le Wow, I head back toward the Smogon GS building, looking for my next destination. I was told to look for a building behind the GS building, and once I step around the building, I see a large Landorus-Therian statue at the top of a building that has "Doubles Open HQ" on the face of the building. I head toward it and find Pwnemon standing outside waiting for me. We greet, shake hands, and head over to a bench a bit outside the building.

Doubles basically got into the Smogon Grand Slam in the 11th hour. The tier is vastly different than any other tier on Smogon and obviously has some Pokemon that are very effective that wouldn't be otherwise. Can you go in-depth with the current state of the tier heading into the 1st ever Doubles Open.

Absolutely!

Pwnemon starts to continue about three times, but stops each time, almost as if he's struggling to get his thoughts together.

Most good teams at the moment don't seem to stick to a "theme" very heavily. Instead, they run the range of "goodstuffs" from hyper offense to bulky. FWG cores are extremely common among the more bulky-leaning teams, while more offensive ones tend to use things such as Kangaskhan or Fairies. Mostly everyone uses Choice Scarf Landorus-Therian, because the thing serves as a check for more than half the metagame on its own.

I smile at the Choice Scarf Landorus-Therian comment, possibly because it was one of my favorite Pokemon in the short time I played BW OU.

Obviously, with Kangaskhan being allowed in Doubles but banned in OU, Doubles has its own tiering policy. What are some other notable Pokemon that are too powerful in OU, but just fine in Doubles?

I wouldn't say that we have our own tiering policy. Our community is definitely fairly conservative when it comes to bans, but we more or less follow the same philosophy on what makes something broken. The thing is just that doubles is a fairly self-balancing format. It's pretty hard to be broken in it. For example, Mega Blaziken was the very first thing to get quick-banned from OU. It's not even viable here because of its frailty, weakness to Trick Room, and lack of a spread move. In fact, the only thing we really ban are the cover legends. It's not that we haven't had suspect tests, we've just never found anything broken. Many of the things that are concerns in singles, like Deoxys's hazards, aren't relevant concerns to Doubles at all. Others, like Genesect's ability to get momentum, are concerns, but they are really less overwhelming.

My eyes open wide a little bit, especially with the Mega Blaziken comment.

So it seems that the different environment in Doubles can make even the strongest of Pokemon obsolete. Turning attention to the Doubles Open, whom can we expect to see do really well and possibly even make it to the Finals and win?

Fortunately we already have a list of names to watch from the Doubles seasonals. TFC is definitely a strong and consistent player, being the only person to top cut both seasonals. Haruno, McMeghan, and Lohgock are also really strong players and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go far. And of course you can't discount people from SPL like Laga or Mizuhime. I'm not going to predict myself, though, because I'm extremely prone to choking. I'll probably go the way of blarajan.

The host should have more confidence in his own abilities in my opinion. Are there any players you feel are flying under the radar a bit as the Doubles Open draws closer?

Pwnemon thinks for a moment, but then slowly shakes his head before responding.

Not really. Doubles gives so many chances to make yourself a name that it would take some real talent to go unnoticed. that being said, we have a famous ladder hero who doesnt join tournaments—pomodoro—who could go far if he signs up for this one. And it could always happen that a non-Doubles player picks up the tier for the open and manages to win it all. but I trust my friends enough that they'll keep that from happening.

So we now know the names to be on the lookout for as the Doubles Open plays out. Out of them all, who do you see winning it all when all of the battles have been completed?

Pwnemon seems to visually struggle to come up with an answer, almost as if he's down to two names and simply can't pick between the two.

If I had to give just one name? McMeghan. He combines the consistency of a long-time tournaments member with the skill of someone who actually plays Doubles regularly. He's my best pick, but it's still only like a 5% in my mind that he wins. I just really don't know.

We'll have to wait and see if McMeghan can find a way to beat the stiff competition as the Open plays out. Hopefully the first Doubles Open will be a big success, and best of luck to you as well. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Thanks for interviewing me EonX, it was fun!

I ask Pwnemon for some Landorus-Thereian memorabilia of some kind, but he slowly shakes his head to tell me there is none. I shrug if off as we shake hands. We soon notice the long line standing outside of the building, and Pwnemon realizes he locked the building before we started the interview. He rushes to open it as I head back to the Smogon GS building.