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Project OM Interviews (Fc and Guard @ Post 55)
- Thread starter berry
- Start date
Fresh off a week of partying and endless self-indulgences in the Caribbean after their impressive OMPL Victory, I met up with Fc and Guard , the two managers of the SSSSS. First, tell me a little bit about yourselves, what you do IRL, what part of Smogon are you originally from, and how did you start playing Pokemon and join smogon?
Fc: Hi! I'm Fc, I'm 18 and currently studying math in university going into my second year. IRL aside from mons and school I used to play a fair bit of tennis in high school and would like to eventually get into it more, and have also played piano for most of my life which I don't do as much as in the past but still enjoy. My other main game of choice aside from mons is smash bros, which I play a decent bit at local tournaments. On Smogon I originally come from Ubers where I'm currently the tier leader but also got into AG a few months after I joined, which I now also lead. Been playing in-game for probably 10+ years atp and on PS since the end of ORAS, but I only joined smogon in gen 8 to do the randbats dynamax suspect because it was so broken. Right around that same time I played in Ubers Ladder Tour 2020 which got me into the Ubers community since I was picked up for UPL right after.
Guard: hi hi, I'm Guard / Ray, aspiring surgeon currently doing a double masters programme in Medicine and Biomedical Science. Studying usually usurps most of my free time, but when I have some I love to watch / play tennis, do some art, sing / dance, and learn languages, beyond the cliché stuff like playing Pokemon & watching movies and TV-shows of course ~
If you look at my join date on Smogon it says 2016 I believe, but I didn't actually get into Smogon stuff up until 2019, which is when I joined the lovely WiFi community (you can still see the remnants here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-7-guardsweepers-gold-mine.3654984/). I am an avid Pokemon collector and have played / still play pretty much every main-series games from DPP onwards. Fast-forward to SwSh, Pokemon infamously got dexited out of existence, which came as a huge blow to me as a collector. Dexit created a huge ‘what if?’ situation for me, in the sense that I’d never know the full scope of a Pokemon’s capabilities in an environment that hosted every Pokemon and gimmick. Natdex OU and Natdex AG curbed that interest, and therefore got me hooked to competitive Pokemon on Smogon for the first time in 2020. Eventually, I left the Natdex sections once AG transitioned out of its Natdex era and save from a year-long hiatus mid 2021 - mid 2022, I'm still here X_X
So let’s get the obvious out of the way- congrats on winning OMPL! How did you feel about the tournament, and what were some highlights from this season?
Fc: Thanks, this tour was probably the most fun I've had on smogon so far. Going into the draft we knew we were just gonna get a bunch of friends together to play and it worked out how we planned with a few new players in the mix too. Tournament itself was great, we started off super strong and then almost missed playoffs lol, but we clutched up the last week and played well through playoffs.
Highlight is when Pichus clutched the season ofc, but aside from that personally for me winning tiebreak game 3 was also really big since it was such an important game and I'd lost to fissure a lot in the past. PDT using Fillet Away Giratina and Fillet Away Hoopa 2 games later were also some of the most fun games to watch and discuss in our cord during the season.
Guard: thank you! Fc pretty much summed it up, this was the most fun tour I've been a part of by far & this is entirely thanks to our team atmosphere. A lot of us were already good friends + the players we were unfamiliar with (mainly our 2v2 slot / helpers and PociekMociek) quickly adapted + contributed to the atmosphere - this was the main highlight for me alongside Arushi clinching the 5-0 victory of course ~ Some other highlights were Fragments' win in week 1 (we were very unsure about the 2v2 slot due to the UMPL fiasco last year so this was a big deal to us lol) and Fc / me clutching tiebreakers against opponents we both lost to the week before!
Incredible. Couple more questions: the Solgaleos had by far one of the strangest drafts in OMPL this year, with many predictions and analyses placing them near the back of the pack because there were almost no OM mainers. Can you tell us a little bit about your drafting strategy, who you ended up picking (and why), and why you think it worked out so well?
Fc: we planned the tour from the start to team with a lot of our friends who we knew were incredible pilots, just weren't as familiar with the respective OMs they'd be playing. But because we were all friends we worked super well together to make up for the lack of experience and caught up by the later weeks of the tour collectively.
Guard and I already knew our tiers very well while icemaster had played some mnm, but pichus, pdt, bj, and clean were new to their tiers in gen 9 having not played them either ever or at least since SS. We all worked a lot to prep together and make up for the knowledge gap with just a lot of people trying, so it was good enough to work out. 2v2 was our only unsure slot, but Fragments dm'd me before the tour started with a list of achievements in 2v2 and it was enough to convince me of him since I already knew he was a good player, and with the incredible helpers of part and gawain he brought in it was a super successful slot.
Our bench was mostly just more players who we knew could click well with bacon, tier, spellcaster, Will, dugza, and pociekmociek, the latter of which we drafted because icemaster recommended his support and he was a massive part of our team, helping pretty much every slot and being a great presence overall which was great since I knew little of him going into the tour.
Guard: Yeah, as Fc already states, we simply had a huge amount of confidence in our friends. Most of us know each other several years at this point, and we were all certain that everyone would be able to pick up a specific OM and do well. We were a tiny bit worried before the draft though; surely noone lets us get away with a stacked team like this. . .except that's exactly what they did. We were very happy with our final draft! pichus, Icemaster, clean, BJ, tier, Fragments, bacon, DugZa, Will, and pdt are all incredibly talented pilots / builders in any given setting and we had strong supporters in the back with PociekMociek and Spellcaster (and our undrafted heroes Gawain and Part).
I was taken aback a bit by the PRs and stuff at first though. The idea that a team of 'non-mainers' is inferior to a team of mainers in a team tour is quite frankly just wrong, as has been proven countless amount of times. Other factors such as team synergy and motivation are equally as important (if not more given that Pokemon HOME was bound to reset almost every metagame anyway) and we had plenty! I'm glad we were able to prove everyone wrong, but I'm definitely not surprised about our win. We were absolutely certain from day 1 that we were strong contenders for the title.
As outsiders who got to playtest and manage in a tour that fell outside of your comfort zone, was there anything that caught you guys off guard? Frequently, non-OM gamers run into a "how the fuck is this legal LOL" moment at least once or twice over the course of the season- is this something that Ubers and AG prepped you guys for, or were there any real complete surprises?
Fc: I’m sure among our team that happened a decent number of times especially early on, but personally since I’d played most of the tiers for slam I felt decently comfortable even outside of stab / ag. A few of the bh things like good as good zama and fullpass that just 6-0’d us a week before getting banned did kinda hit like that tho lol
Guard: Nothing in AG really catches me off guard but definitely had a lot of those moments in other metagames - why is Maushold legal in GG, why is Good As Gold legal in BH, why is Triple Arrows legal in STABmons, why is Chien-Pao legal in AAA etc etc ?_?
Great to hear. Do either of you have any notable or memorable moments from your run that you'd like to share? What are some of your favorite games that you watched throughout the season, and did the OM tour environment feel any different than the ones you would have encountered in Ubers or AG?
Fc: The environment was different because especially in ag it’d be impossible to make a team with all of us that fits budget lol, so it was just a really enjoyable tour all around. We also had to do a lot more adapting since we were less familiar with the metas so that took a different kind of approach than normal for us
As for favourite memories, winning our first 2v2 set because of our track record in umpl in 1v1 as well as just winning the tour / our finals games were highlights in terms of watching games and the chat overall. Fragments / part / gawain really are all him, saving even the SSSSS 2v2 slot
Personally though winning semis tiebreak was my most memorable game like I mentioned before, really big thing for me since I lost to fissure a lot and it was a stressful situation where I prepped more than the rest of the whole season probably combined lol. Also just felt good to go positive after a poor last year
Guard: The most memorable games for me / the ones I had the most fun spectating were pdt's wins with Fillet Away sweepers in BH, Fc's 6-0 sweep with Victory Dance Zamazenta-C in STABmons, tier randomly decimating Ivar with a lead Defiant Kingambit in AAA, Fragments' first win in 2v2, my AG game where a Calyrex-S Terastallized into Normal and Encore-locked my Calyrex-S into Tera Blast Fighting after which I swept, all of our tiebreak games, and pichus' season decider of course. And yeah the OM tour environment was very different! For example, lots of dedicated contributors posting weekly analyses of played games is something I enjoyed; you definitely don't see this in AG. But most of all, as Fc said, our team of friends made this tour truly unique. Such a roster would be impossible to draft in AGPL, as they would go for about 250k in an AGPL auction xd
Any final thoughts or shoutouts for the om community?
Guard: This tour was the most fun experience I could have wished for on this site! Shoutouts to all of my teammates, the helpers, and supporters for that - you know who you are since I made a shoutout post already ~
Fc: fully agree with guard, this was my favourite tour I've played in up to this point on smogon so I appreciate everyone who was a part of it either through the draft or that joined to help us, you all made this such a great season
Fc: Hi! I'm Fc, I'm 18 and currently studying math in university going into my second year. IRL aside from mons and school I used to play a fair bit of tennis in high school and would like to eventually get into it more, and have also played piano for most of my life which I don't do as much as in the past but still enjoy. My other main game of choice aside from mons is smash bros, which I play a decent bit at local tournaments. On Smogon I originally come from Ubers where I'm currently the tier leader but also got into AG a few months after I joined, which I now also lead. Been playing in-game for probably 10+ years atp and on PS since the end of ORAS, but I only joined smogon in gen 8 to do the randbats dynamax suspect because it was so broken. Right around that same time I played in Ubers Ladder Tour 2020 which got me into the Ubers community since I was picked up for UPL right after.
Guard: hi hi, I'm Guard / Ray, aspiring surgeon currently doing a double masters programme in Medicine and Biomedical Science. Studying usually usurps most of my free time, but when I have some I love to watch / play tennis, do some art, sing / dance, and learn languages, beyond the cliché stuff like playing Pokemon & watching movies and TV-shows of course ~
If you look at my join date on Smogon it says 2016 I believe, but I didn't actually get into Smogon stuff up until 2019, which is when I joined the lovely WiFi community (you can still see the remnants here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-7-guardsweepers-gold-mine.3654984/). I am an avid Pokemon collector and have played / still play pretty much every main-series games from DPP onwards. Fast-forward to SwSh, Pokemon infamously got dexited out of existence, which came as a huge blow to me as a collector. Dexit created a huge ‘what if?’ situation for me, in the sense that I’d never know the full scope of a Pokemon’s capabilities in an environment that hosted every Pokemon and gimmick. Natdex OU and Natdex AG curbed that interest, and therefore got me hooked to competitive Pokemon on Smogon for the first time in 2020. Eventually, I left the Natdex sections once AG transitioned out of its Natdex era and save from a year-long hiatus mid 2021 - mid 2022, I'm still here X_X
So let’s get the obvious out of the way- congrats on winning OMPL! How did you feel about the tournament, and what were some highlights from this season?
Fc: Thanks, this tour was probably the most fun I've had on smogon so far. Going into the draft we knew we were just gonna get a bunch of friends together to play and it worked out how we planned with a few new players in the mix too. Tournament itself was great, we started off super strong and then almost missed playoffs lol, but we clutched up the last week and played well through playoffs.
Highlight is when Pichus clutched the season ofc, but aside from that personally for me winning tiebreak game 3 was also really big since it was such an important game and I'd lost to fissure a lot in the past. PDT using Fillet Away Giratina and Fillet Away Hoopa 2 games later were also some of the most fun games to watch and discuss in our cord during the season.
Guard: thank you! Fc pretty much summed it up, this was the most fun tour I've been a part of by far & this is entirely thanks to our team atmosphere. A lot of us were already good friends + the players we were unfamiliar with (mainly our 2v2 slot / helpers and PociekMociek) quickly adapted + contributed to the atmosphere - this was the main highlight for me alongside Arushi clinching the 5-0 victory of course ~ Some other highlights were Fragments' win in week 1 (we were very unsure about the 2v2 slot due to the UMPL fiasco last year so this was a big deal to us lol) and Fc / me clutching tiebreakers against opponents we both lost to the week before!
Incredible. Couple more questions: the Solgaleos had by far one of the strangest drafts in OMPL this year, with many predictions and analyses placing them near the back of the pack because there were almost no OM mainers. Can you tell us a little bit about your drafting strategy, who you ended up picking (and why), and why you think it worked out so well?
Fc: we planned the tour from the start to team with a lot of our friends who we knew were incredible pilots, just weren't as familiar with the respective OMs they'd be playing. But because we were all friends we worked super well together to make up for the lack of experience and caught up by the later weeks of the tour collectively.
Guard and I already knew our tiers very well while icemaster had played some mnm, but pichus, pdt, bj, and clean were new to their tiers in gen 9 having not played them either ever or at least since SS. We all worked a lot to prep together and make up for the knowledge gap with just a lot of people trying, so it was good enough to work out. 2v2 was our only unsure slot, but Fragments dm'd me before the tour started with a list of achievements in 2v2 and it was enough to convince me of him since I already knew he was a good player, and with the incredible helpers of part and gawain he brought in it was a super successful slot.
Our bench was mostly just more players who we knew could click well with bacon, tier, spellcaster, Will, dugza, and pociekmociek, the latter of which we drafted because icemaster recommended his support and he was a massive part of our team, helping pretty much every slot and being a great presence overall which was great since I knew little of him going into the tour.
Guard: Yeah, as Fc already states, we simply had a huge amount of confidence in our friends. Most of us know each other several years at this point, and we were all certain that everyone would be able to pick up a specific OM and do well. We were a tiny bit worried before the draft though; surely noone lets us get away with a stacked team like this. . .except that's exactly what they did. We were very happy with our final draft! pichus, Icemaster, clean, BJ, tier, Fragments, bacon, DugZa, Will, and pdt are all incredibly talented pilots / builders in any given setting and we had strong supporters in the back with PociekMociek and Spellcaster (and our undrafted heroes Gawain and Part).
I was taken aback a bit by the PRs and stuff at first though. The idea that a team of 'non-mainers' is inferior to a team of mainers in a team tour is quite frankly just wrong, as has been proven countless amount of times. Other factors such as team synergy and motivation are equally as important (if not more given that Pokemon HOME was bound to reset almost every metagame anyway) and we had plenty! I'm glad we were able to prove everyone wrong, but I'm definitely not surprised about our win. We were absolutely certain from day 1 that we were strong contenders for the title.
As outsiders who got to playtest and manage in a tour that fell outside of your comfort zone, was there anything that caught you guys off guard? Frequently, non-OM gamers run into a "how the fuck is this legal LOL" moment at least once or twice over the course of the season- is this something that Ubers and AG prepped you guys for, or were there any real complete surprises?
Fc: I’m sure among our team that happened a decent number of times especially early on, but personally since I’d played most of the tiers for slam I felt decently comfortable even outside of stab / ag. A few of the bh things like good as good zama and fullpass that just 6-0’d us a week before getting banned did kinda hit like that tho lol
Guard: Nothing in AG really catches me off guard but definitely had a lot of those moments in other metagames - why is Maushold legal in GG, why is Good As Gold legal in BH, why is Triple Arrows legal in STABmons, why is Chien-Pao legal in AAA etc etc ?_?
Great to hear. Do either of you have any notable or memorable moments from your run that you'd like to share? What are some of your favorite games that you watched throughout the season, and did the OM tour environment feel any different than the ones you would have encountered in Ubers or AG?
Fc: The environment was different because especially in ag it’d be impossible to make a team with all of us that fits budget lol, so it was just a really enjoyable tour all around. We also had to do a lot more adapting since we were less familiar with the metas so that took a different kind of approach than normal for us
As for favourite memories, winning our first 2v2 set because of our track record in umpl in 1v1 as well as just winning the tour / our finals games were highlights in terms of watching games and the chat overall. Fragments / part / gawain really are all him, saving even the SSSSS 2v2 slot
Personally though winning semis tiebreak was my most memorable game like I mentioned before, really big thing for me since I lost to fissure a lot and it was a stressful situation where I prepped more than the rest of the whole season probably combined lol. Also just felt good to go positive after a poor last year
Guard: The most memorable games for me / the ones I had the most fun spectating were pdt's wins with Fillet Away sweepers in BH, Fc's 6-0 sweep with Victory Dance Zamazenta-C in STABmons, tier randomly decimating Ivar with a lead Defiant Kingambit in AAA, Fragments' first win in 2v2, my AG game where a Calyrex-S Terastallized into Normal and Encore-locked my Calyrex-S into Tera Blast Fighting after which I swept, all of our tiebreak games, and pichus' season decider of course. And yeah the OM tour environment was very different! For example, lots of dedicated contributors posting weekly analyses of played games is something I enjoyed; you definitely don't see this in AG. But most of all, as Fc said, our team of friends made this tour truly unique. Such a roster would be impossible to draft in AGPL, as they would go for about 250k in an AGPL auction xd
Any final thoughts or shoutouts for the om community?
Guard: This tour was the most fun experience I could have wished for on this site! Shoutouts to all of my teammates, the helpers, and supporters for that - you know who you are since I made a shoutout post already ~
Fc: fully agree with guard, this was my favourite tour I've played in up to this point on smogon so I appreciate everyone who was a part of it either through the draft or that joined to help us, you all made this such a great season
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