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! Thanks for mc56556 for conducting this interview.
Chloe 
Most known for
Former "Leader" of AG
Favorite Pokemon
Where did you get your name from?
It's my name actually!
How did you get in to competitive Pokemon?
I got into competitive Pokemon six years ago, I was bored of pokemon MMORPGs so I decided to try something else. I started with Balanced Hackmons and slowly moved to Anything Goes. I've stuck around more or less since then.
Favorite and least favorite generation of AG?
I've made no secret about this but I absolutely love ORAS. It's really simple, and the majority of people have no clue how to check common threats. It's the format that got me into the metagame and I've loved it ever since. Least favourite is Gen 8 National Dex if that counts. I can't stand the mechanics, and the metagame is so stale. There on paper should be so much room for creativity, but each team requires the same few mons to check the same few threats, it's really not fun at all.
Thoughts on the current state of the Natdex metagame?
I kind of answered that already but I just dislike it a lot. It's really stale, but I still keep playing it because it's the only thing I'm remotely good at heck. I do enjoy playing it in tournaments, but that's the same with every AG format.
Are you excited for the switch to Galar dex with the Crown Tundra DLC?
I'm so excited but I'm also really scared. The new additions seem really interesting, but I'm scared of how an Arceus-less meta will deal with threats like Yveltal. I hope we're not forced back to the dark ages where people were running Protect on virtually every Ho-Oh, or risking Dusk Mane recovery with Tyranitar on your team. I'm anxiously awaiting it but yea it should be fun and I really hope it fixes the appeal of Gen 8 AG for me.
Favorite playstyle to use?
Balance! I've always loved balance, it just suits me well. In ORAS I run a lot of offense but in every other iteration of AG, you'll find me running balance 99% of the time, which also makes it really easy to counter team me heck!
Favorite game you've witnessed? (get game link)
Watch the replay and you'll understand why :)
What do you enjoy so much about ORAS AG?
The simplicity, it's probably the easiest AG format to get the hang of, no Z-moves, no Dynamax, every playstyle is virtually as viable as the others. I just find it very fun to play, even now the metagame is developing which is wild to me. I'm also really biased because I used to ladder like 30 games of this every day until SM released. But yea, it's really fun and I'd encourage more people to give it a go instead of instantly writing it off.
You were the first “Tier Leader” of AG. Could you talk with us a bit about how far AG has progressed since then and what it was like at the beginning of the format?
AG has come so far since the beginning. Back in my day we used to talk about AG as just another OM in the OM room. I PM'd TI one day and asked if I could make a resources thread for AG, which he approved. I kept pushing C&C staff for us to get AG analyses. Then I cowrote the first AG article! Eventually I got approval from TI to make an AG room! which took a lot of work, some admins were against an AG room but we got approval at the end. MZ and I got a lot of other things for AG after that, the format definitely is a lot bigger than it used to be, the community is much more prominent. It's crazy to think that some of the new users in the room don't know of the history of the section but I guess I don't really think about that.
You have a long history of using unorthodox (and fun) Pokémon on your teams. Do you have a few unusual choices on recent teams you’d like to share?
Minior @ Life Orb
Ability: Shields Down
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shell Smash
- Power Gem
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute
Just another fun Dynamax Shell Smash sweeper, there's not really any real reason to run this unless you're looking to have a lot of fun cheesing ladder goons.
Kyurem-Black @ Utility Umbrella
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Serious Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fusion Bolt
- Icicle Spear
- Roost
This set is actually not too bad. Really solid Kyogre check, cancels out rain, can defensively dynamax against CM LO Kyogre or stall out Dynamax by spamming Roost. Utility Umbrella is an item not many people know about, but it cancels the effects of Rain and Sun, which allows Kyurem-B to ignore the Rain boost on Max Geyser and all of Kyogre's Water-type attacks. You can do this with any Kyurem but Kyurem-B can offensively pressure Kyogre well enough, which seems substantially better.
Do you look up to any other AG players?
I wouldn't really say I look up to anyone, but I'm impressed with how much motivation people like Bacon have to build thousands of teams for a meta like NatDex, and then on top of that be the most competent player in the format. When I was playing AG for the first time I looked up to Curve, Gunner and Hunter because they all seemed miles better than me, I miss the ORAS ladder :(
Any advice to new players looking to get started in AG?
Look at what players in tournaments / high ladder are using and try what they have, maybe you'll find something that works much better for you. Don't be afraid to try things! You might find something you really like. Also just playing over and over helps, practice really does make you better.
Finally, can you provide us with a team of yours and explain it?
(click on team for the import)
s/o Lilburr for nicknames, WSun1/Will and I built this for ndpl around zekrom which basically set up against any ndm he had and broke through pretty much any team he liked bringing. in the actual thing i played poorly but still won, and zekrom ended up putting in work, while burned. the rest of the team is just solid support, was really happy with the team
===
Thank you for your time Chloe! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below!
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! Thanks for mc56556 for conducting this interview.
Chloe Most known for
Former "Leader" of AG
Favorite Pokemon
Where did you get your name from?
It's my name actually!
How did you get in to competitive Pokemon?
I got into competitive Pokemon six years ago, I was bored of pokemon MMORPGs so I decided to try something else. I started with Balanced Hackmons and slowly moved to Anything Goes. I've stuck around more or less since then.
Favorite and least favorite generation of AG?
I've made no secret about this but I absolutely love ORAS. It's really simple, and the majority of people have no clue how to check common threats. It's the format that got me into the metagame and I've loved it ever since. Least favourite is Gen 8 National Dex if that counts. I can't stand the mechanics, and the metagame is so stale. There on paper should be so much room for creativity, but each team requires the same few mons to check the same few threats, it's really not fun at all.
Thoughts on the current state of the Natdex metagame?
I kind of answered that already but I just dislike it a lot. It's really stale, but I still keep playing it because it's the only thing I'm remotely good at heck. I do enjoy playing it in tournaments, but that's the same with every AG format.
Are you excited for the switch to Galar dex with the Crown Tundra DLC?
I'm so excited but I'm also really scared. The new additions seem really interesting, but I'm scared of how an Arceus-less meta will deal with threats like Yveltal. I hope we're not forced back to the dark ages where people were running Protect on virtually every Ho-Oh, or risking Dusk Mane recovery with Tyranitar on your team. I'm anxiously awaiting it but yea it should be fun and I really hope it fixes the appeal of Gen 8 AG for me.
Favorite playstyle to use?
Balance! I've always loved balance, it just suits me well. In ORAS I run a lot of offense but in every other iteration of AG, you'll find me running balance 99% of the time, which also makes it really easy to counter team me heck!
Favorite game you've witnessed? (get game link)
Watch the replay and you'll understand why :)
What do you enjoy so much about ORAS AG?
The simplicity, it's probably the easiest AG format to get the hang of, no Z-moves, no Dynamax, every playstyle is virtually as viable as the others. I just find it very fun to play, even now the metagame is developing which is wild to me. I'm also really biased because I used to ladder like 30 games of this every day until SM released. But yea, it's really fun and I'd encourage more people to give it a go instead of instantly writing it off.
You were the first “Tier Leader” of AG. Could you talk with us a bit about how far AG has progressed since then and what it was like at the beginning of the format?
AG has come so far since the beginning. Back in my day we used to talk about AG as just another OM in the OM room. I PM'd TI one day and asked if I could make a resources thread for AG, which he approved. I kept pushing C&C staff for us to get AG analyses. Then I cowrote the first AG article! Eventually I got approval from TI to make an AG room! which took a lot of work, some admins were against an AG room but we got approval at the end. MZ and I got a lot of other things for AG after that, the format definitely is a lot bigger than it used to be, the community is much more prominent. It's crazy to think that some of the new users in the room don't know of the history of the section but I guess I don't really think about that.
You have a long history of using unorthodox (and fun) Pokémon on your teams. Do you have a few unusual choices on recent teams you’d like to share?
Minior @ Life Orb
Ability: Shields Down
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shell Smash
- Power Gem
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Substitute
Just another fun Dynamax Shell Smash sweeper, there's not really any real reason to run this unless you're looking to have a lot of fun cheesing ladder goons.
Kyurem-Black @ Utility Umbrella
Ability: Teravolt
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Serious Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Fusion Bolt
- Icicle Spear
- Roost
This set is actually not too bad. Really solid Kyogre check, cancels out rain, can defensively dynamax against CM LO Kyogre or stall out Dynamax by spamming Roost. Utility Umbrella is an item not many people know about, but it cancels the effects of Rain and Sun, which allows Kyurem-B to ignore the Rain boost on Max Geyser and all of Kyogre's Water-type attacks. You can do this with any Kyurem but Kyurem-B can offensively pressure Kyogre well enough, which seems substantially better.
Do you look up to any other AG players?
I wouldn't really say I look up to anyone, but I'm impressed with how much motivation people like Bacon have to build thousands of teams for a meta like NatDex, and then on top of that be the most competent player in the format. When I was playing AG for the first time I looked up to Curve, Gunner and Hunter because they all seemed miles better than me, I miss the ORAS ladder :(
Any advice to new players looking to get started in AG?
Look at what players in tournaments / high ladder are using and try what they have, maybe you'll find something that works much better for you. Don't be afraid to try things! You might find something you really like. Also just playing over and over helps, practice really does make you better.
Finally, can you provide us with a team of yours and explain it?
(click on team for the import)
s/o Lilburr for nicknames, WSun1/Will and I built this for ndpl around zekrom which basically set up against any ndm he had and broke through pretty much any team he liked bringing. in the actual thing i played poorly but still won, and zekrom ended up putting in work, while burned. the rest of the team is just solid support, was really happy with the team
===
Thank you for your time Chloe! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below!
Last edited:
