Approved by Pigeons & pichus
Thanks to Holy Ghost and mc56556 for the idea
ANYTHING GOES PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Welcome to Anything Goes Player of the Week! In this series, I will be interviewing accomplished and respected Anything Goes players in the community. You will be able to ask questions and interact with these players by commenting in this thread. Interviews will be limited, but I am open to suggestions on Smogon or Discord. Have fun!
Fardin 
Most known for
I would wanna say that one toxic dude who was good at the game and stuck around. But I did win agpl just now so I guess that too.
Thanks to Holy Ghost and mc56556 for the idea
Welcome to Anything Goes Player of the Week! In this series, I will be interviewing accomplished and respected Anything Goes players in the community. You will be able to ask questions and interact with these players by commenting in this thread. Interviews will be limited, but I am open to suggestions on Smogon or Discord. Have fun!
Fardin Most known for
I would wanna say that one toxic dude who was good at the game and stuck around. But I did win agpl just now so I guess that too.
Favorite Pokemon
Favorite pokemon would have to be mega Sableye and no, it's not because of the agpl team >.< It's just a must have mon for a stall these days. Which happens to be my favorite playstyle. And the amount of mind games it's presence brings alone into a game is absolutely nuts.
Favorite pokemon would have to be mega Sableye and no, it's not because of the agpl team >.< It's just a must have mon for a stall these days. Which happens to be my favorite playstyle. And the amount of mind games it's presence brings alone into a game is absolutely nuts.
Where did you get your name from?
Really just stole it from one my friends in cs:go and just stuck with it for gaming. It also happens to be similar to my real last name so that's one more reason.
How did you get in to competitive Pokemon?
I think back in 2015 or something, one of my friend forced me to play pixelmon (Pokémon in minecraft) and that got me hooked for a couple months. One thing I absolutely hated tho was the grinding it required to have a good shot at winning. I also didn't like the cheese I was facing, since competitive battling wasn't the main focus of the server i was playing, so no rules for those stuff. One thing led to another and I eventually come across a Simulator called pokebattles which had everything I was looking for and then eventually showdown when pokebattles ended.
Favorite and least favorite generation of AG?
Most favorite probably has to be Gen 7. It was the only meta where people actually believed ag to be pretty balanced and competitive coming into the generation, and in my opinion, it turned out to be true. Pre marsh Era was extremely fun to me both building and playing wise. I kinda fell off around the Usum times, though I still stuck around and joined tours with some garbage that was currently in my builder. In hindsight, I don't really know why Oras is the Gen that made me stuck with ag and like it so much, but I'm 99% sure it's the same for everyone who was around those days. It's definitely the most fun days I've had on ps, but the recent AG grand prix and agpl made me dislike it a bit for how hard is it to be consistent there.
Thoughts on the current state of the Natdex metagame?
Way I see it with Natdex, there are just aren't enough players for the meta to really develop unless we have another agpl. I definitely like the improvements I've seen for almost all the builds throughout agpl and tours after that. I feel like the current top players will stick with the standard arc spam with dm Zac and Mray because there is no reason to switch when the rest keeps losing to them. There is definitely a lot of room for improvements.
Way I see it with Natdex, there are just aren't enough players for the meta to really develop unless we have another agpl. I definitely like the improvements I've seen for almost all the builds throughout agpl and tours after that. I feel like the current top players will stick with the standard arc spam with dm Zac and Mray because there is no reason to switch when the rest keeps losing to them. There is definitely a lot of room for improvements.
Are you excited for the switch to Galar dex with the Crown Tundra DLC?
Not at all. I know the same thing was said for Natdex, but I just really don't see how a meta with Xern, Yve, Oger, Zac and etc would turn out without Arceus to bail us out. I can already see teams rely on structures similar to what we have right now on Natdex ladder, with just 5 broken mon that are not arceus + and a ditto. I can somewhat see stall be a good pretty good playstyle thanks to ditto, but i dont know. Too many unknowns that I'm not excited about.
Not at all. I know the same thing was said for Natdex, but I just really don't see how a meta with Xern, Yve, Oger, Zac and etc would turn out without Arceus to bail us out. I can already see teams rely on structures similar to what we have right now on Natdex ladder, with just 5 broken mon that are not arceus + and a ditto. I can somewhat see stall be a good pretty good playstyle thanks to ditto, but i dont know. Too many unknowns that I'm not excited about.
Favorite playstyle to use?
Not a big surprise, but its stall. Coming into competitive pokemon for the first time, I was always thinking about how can I wall this and that, and never really thought about breaking anything. For a really long time, that playstyle was the only thing I was using. Stall brings a lot of stigma with it, with the most common being that it's really easy to use, which I don't really disagree with it, granted that you have relatively good match up. In those times where the match up seems to be against your favour, that is where I think some people will fail at using it and each turn will require much more thought than what you would need to exert for balance or ho. Prime example would be the gen 6 oras hunter stall with no mixed Mega Ray switch in. Because the core of double unaware with ho-oh and gira overlapped a large amount of pokemons they can check, so if you played your cards right, made a couple a predicts and traded the right mon, it wasn't really that hard to beat mixed Mega ray.
Favorite game you've witnessed?
My memory is terrible so I will go with a recent one. Ice is the homie but i'm going to have to go with his Week 1 AGPL game vs jrdn. I think what went on in this game is pretty funny, not because of the jrdn dyna under sub, but because how aggressive he is. In ag, with everything being extremely powerful to the point where it does not let you have even one turn to make predicts in fear of getting ohkod, jrdn used that fear extremely well. He even talked about how in AG, its much easier to be aggressive right from the get go because people just can't afford to not go to their switches. I think the lack of ag experience came extremely handy to jrdn this game
My memory is terrible so I will go with a recent one. Ice is the homie but i'm going to have to go with his Week 1 AGPL game vs jrdn. I think what went on in this game is pretty funny, not because of the jrdn dyna under sub, but because how aggressive he is. In ag, with everything being extremely powerful to the point where it does not let you have even one turn to make predicts in fear of getting ohkod, jrdn used that fear extremely well. He even talked about how in AG, its much easier to be aggressive right from the get go because people just can't afford to not go to their switches. I think the lack of ag experience came extremely handy to jrdn this game
What was it like managing an AGPL team this year? Would you do it again?
Everyone in my team was super super chill, so they made my job very easy. I have definitely bite off more than I could chew when it came to building, but my team was full of goats and they have assisted me a ton, and as we can see, everything turned out fine. I don't know if I'll be as active as I was this AGPL, but I would be down to go for another run.
You have been a part of the AG community for a long time. What are some of your favorite memories during your time here?
You have been a part of the AG community for a long time. What are some of your favorite memories during your time here?
Had a lot of fun moments early Gen 7 when everyone was coming up with new stuff everyday, or during OMPL, the tour where we actually got to see people try hard, which I personally loved, or just chilling with friends on ladder or cussing out Skarph on ladder when I had a bad day ._. or the days where I would come home from school, and thimo would be the only one on almost every day due to his timezone, and we would just have the room to ourselves messing around. Idk, there are a lot but this is just a few i remember off the top of my head.
Who have been some of your toughest rivals over the years in AG?
Thimo was a huge motivation for me to get better when I first started out ag and for a really long time, beating him was pretty much my only goal. It made tours we were both in extremely fun for me personally. We were both active right about the same time as well so it was fun for the both of us. After he quit, I don't know if there was anyone else. There was a period of time where I want back to laddering and played Skarph there a lot so I guess you could consider that too but eh. When he was busy being a goat and winning every tour in usum, i was using the same 2-3 junk teams i built years ago so we didn't really meet much in tours either
Who have been some of your toughest rivals over the years in AG?
Thimo was a huge motivation for me to get better when I first started out ag and for a really long time, beating him was pretty much my only goal. It made tours we were both in extremely fun for me personally. We were both active right about the same time as well so it was fun for the both of us. After he quit, I don't know if there was anyone else. There was a period of time where I want back to laddering and played Skarph there a lot so I guess you could consider that too but eh. When he was busy being a goat and winning every tour in usum, i was using the same 2-3 junk teams i built years ago so we didn't really meet much in tours either
Do you look up to any other AG players?
There are many really good AG players, but the ones who stand out to me personally is skarph and thimo.
There are many really good AG players, but the ones who stand out to me personally is skarph and thimo.
Any advice to new players looking to get started in AG?
Say no to cheese.
Say no to cheese.
Finally, can you provide us with a team of yours and explain it?
(Click on team for import)
Just a cool double zacian team I built during AGPL. Mray and double zac has an extremely easy time to force dyna and break through common cores. I see a lot of people trading valuable mons just to get rid of zacian or chip, especially when its backed by mons like Mray and ground ceus, so I figuered what could go wrong if I add in one more. I wanted to make sure not to overwhelm the team tho vs ditto, so i made the second zacian a protect one with crunch over CC which surprisingly does a good job still. Everything just sets each other up and you have enough initial damage power to not really need dedicated checks to stuff like Yveltal. Ho-oh and DM rounds out the team well with improof and the standard defog + srock core.
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Thank you for your time Fardin! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below!
(Click on team for import)
Just a cool double zacian team I built during AGPL. Mray and double zac has an extremely easy time to force dyna and break through common cores. I see a lot of people trading valuable mons just to get rid of zacian or chip, especially when its backed by mons like Mray and ground ceus, so I figuered what could go wrong if I add in one more. I wanted to make sure not to overwhelm the team tho vs ditto, so i made the second zacian a protect one with crunch over CC which surprisingly does a good job still. Everything just sets each other up and you have enough initial damage power to not really need dedicated checks to stuff like Yveltal. Ho-oh and DM rounds out the team well with improof and the standard defog + srock core.
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Thank you for your time Fardin! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below!
