Approved by UU moderation & inspired by Feliburn's project
Welcome guys in the "UU Player Interview", a project where you'll be able to discover or re-discover some well known players of the UU community. Those people may be known thanks to their high-skilled level or their achievements on the strategic scene but also thanks to their dedication into the tier or within the community. Time to gossip !
Hello Lily how are you doing ?
Hiya! I'm doing fine, haven't done a whole lot with my day but other than that, not much to complain about. How about you?
I'm doing fine too, enjoying as much as possible my holidays. As usual to begin, could you introduce yourself to our fellow readers ?
kay, I'm Lilburr (though most people just call me Lily) and as of right now I'm 18 and live in Ireland. I've been a UU player since like, January of 2018, though at that point I just lurked the forums and played ladder games with some... questionable teams. (I'll get an example in a sec and edit it into these brackets) I never accomplished much on the ladder other than breaking into top 100 a couple of times until SS came around and I topped the ladder quite a few times. I finally gained the confidence to start posting at that point and made a name for myself, had a decent UUPL and got added to the UU council after a while! I'm also on the QC team and I'm a driver in the ps room. Outside of Pokemon stuff (i'll actually stop here so that i don't answer the entire interview in one question LMAO whoops)
lmao don't worry, talking about Pokemon I'd like to know how you discover the media franchise Pokemon ? Outside of Showdown do you Pokemon play video games ?
I think my first interaction with Pokemon as a whole was watching the anime when I was a kid, my older brother loved it and I was literally in diapers so I had no clue what was going on but I remember thinking Charmander was the cutest thing ever. The first Pokemon game I played was Emerald, though I had no clue what was going on so I didn't finish it or anything (I was I think 4? years old and just clicking buttons). Lost interest for a while until I was in like, 4th class (same as 4th grade I think) and a few of my friends were really excited about Black and White which were either releasing at the time or had just released. One friend had both games and lended White to me, and I finished it in a weekend. Ever since then I've been hooked and I've played every mainline game since! My favourite is still BW, but I don't dislike any of them, and I think Let's Go is really underrated and I wish people would be more open to trying it.
I actually never played BW and B2W2, I really don't like this gen.. and how did you go from playing Pokemon on your own to playing on Showdown and get involved in Smogon ?
HOW COULD YOU D: THEY'RE THE BEST GAMES. I've always been competitive at heart so chances are I probably put "competitive pokemon" into google one day and got Smogon thrown back at me. The oldest showdown account I have access to was registered in 2014 and let's just say I was... not the best. When I came back in 2018 as a result of getting into draft leagues with a friend, I mostly kept to myself and played random battles until one day I got bored and tried out UU. I got involved on Smogon in SS because I had always loved reading the on-site analyses and wanted to write them, which ended up happening, but everything else like my VR posts and stuff just kind of came naturally afterwards, and I've made a lot of friends that have kept me interested in the site <3 (proof of me being ass)
New meta Ferro for sure ! Why did you decide to involve yourself in Underused and not in another tier ?
I actually was relatively into OU too (my earliest posts are on OU forum projects) but when I tried out UU I found that the community was much more welcoming. People I looked up to were super nice to me and seemed like they were genuinely interested in what I had to say, which didn't happen as much in OU - not because the people weren't nice, moreso just because it was such a huge community and it's harder to make a name for yourself. So in a way I guess it was like my "second choice" but the reason I stayed here is pretty much just because I love the people that I talk to! More simply, though, the reason I tried OU first was bc my favourite Pokemon at the time (Excadrill) was OU, and the reason I tried UU second was bc my second favourite (Mega Altaria) was UU. My first OU team had a drill and my first UU team had an alt, and it's no surprise why :p
UU community is the best for sure hehe. You talked a bit earlier about ladder and I know you're kinda a tryhard lmao. You played over 2000 games in the SS UU Ladder, how did you reach such a number ?
Boredom, really. I grinded it early on in December-January as a distraction since I wasn't in a great place mentally and it acted as an escape. Then, once lockdown started, I had literally nothing to do with my days so I'd just kill time by laddering, and it added up REALLY fast. It doesn't feel like it's been over 2000 at all but I guess it has! I also wasn't really involved with the community super early on, so I didn't join any tournaments for a while and didn't have anyone to just challenge to games, so the ladder was my only source when I actually wanted to play.
Alright and out of all this games, do you know which Pokemon you used the most ?
Realistically? Probably Noivern. But I'm known for being a huge Heliolisk spammer, so I like to think it's the lizard :>
Even tho you're pretty new to Smogon, what's your best memory on the website ?
I think it's gotta be getting drafted for UUPL. I was still a pretty unknown quantity at the time and like, I'd made a splash with the managers and everyone liked me, but I didn't have any real results to my name and was pretty unsure about whether or not I'd get picked up. Getting nommed at all made my heart leap, and then seeing that I went for a relatively high price at 6.5k (considering I was a really late pickup) was super shocking too. Some honourable mentions would be the time I flinched down 4 of Sage's mons with a single Togedemaru to win a test game vs her, being promoted to QC after like 20 amchecks, or just seeing the positive reception to my first post since I was so anxious to actually post it (it's kind of embarrassing now lol but here it is : here). oh you were actually the first person to like that post, congrats on being my original fan
Oh yeah I remember this post ! It's good to see that you are more and more invested in the tier :) Let’s talk a little bit about you IRL if you don't mind.. What's your favorite food ?
Omg okay I'm gonna get super shamed for this but- my favourite food is pizza but I eat it without any toppings so idk if I actually count as a pizza fan at all D: outside of that I really really like popcorn, and also literally anything from the restaurant my sister works at. I'm also a huge fan of countless different types of ice cream, which is part of the reason why I love summer so much :3
And the one you hate the most ?
If you ever come near me with any form of cabbage I will literally never talk to you again. Dishonourable mentions include asparagus, cherries, anything super salty, and jelly.
Cherries are nice tho.. è_é What kind of music do you listen to ?
ALRIGHT SO.. I have a LOT of different tastes depending on what kind of mood I'm in.. I'm mostly into rock/punk and its various forms - favourite bands there include Tanuki, Set It Off, and like, Three Days Grace, I also really like Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy and various other kinda alternative/indie bands? I guess? Idk how to describe them.. BUT.. Other times I'll be super into pop; lots of Ed Sheeran, AJR, Shawn Mendes etc. which feels SUPER basic but what can ya do. I've also been listening to the High School Musical 2 OST for days. Don't judge. I could go on for hours but here's my favourite song atm so I have an excuse to shut up:
again. don't judge
Three Days Grace is actually super nice, I used to listen "Break" when I was younger, dope song. Taste and colour can't be judged tho so don't worry hehe.. From where does your nickname come from ?
I get this question a lot
Like all of us hehe
Most people either think it comes from Timburr, or think it's my attempt at like, a rapper name? I even had Hilomilo think it was based on a Lil' Brr, which is an enemy from Super Mario Galaxy 2.. It's actually just a combination of my name (Lily) and my at-the-time favourite Pokemon (Drilbur) with an extra R because a) Lilbur was taken and b) Lilburr looks better. Drilbur's #2 now, but "Liledemaru" doesn't quite fit as well
I see, I see.. Last but not least, do you have a team that you could share with us ?
Oh uh sure.. please blame martha for these nicknames. This is a hazard-based offense that relies on the combination of Rocky Helmet, Stealth Rock and Spikes chip to wear things down into range for Rotom-Mow or Mamoswine to clean up late game. Druddigon was chosen as a rocker because Rough Skin is really cool and unique to it (unless you run helmet sharpedo???) and it also gets rocks up and spreads paralysis. Skarmory is a spiker that acts as a de facto check to stuff like Mamoswine and opposing Obstagoon, and Slowking helps with like Terrakion and Cobalion while also setting up Future Sight combos. Mamoswine and Obstagoon are powerful breakers that really take advantage of hazards to turn 2HKOs into OHKOs, and finally, Rotom-Mow acts as a form of speed control that can also clean up late game by spamming Volt Switch against weakened teams. It's also the team's best pivot into opposing Rotom. It's probably not as good as it could be, but it's really satisfying to use!
A nice team with my boy progress pig ! Well that's all for this interview, feel free to shoutout your friends if you want to. I'm glad to have you for this one and I hope you enjoyed it too !
I think I have way too many people to shout out and I don't want to force you to put em all in your post, so I'll shout them all out when I'm answering questions later. Thanks for having me!! It's been really fun :>
Feel free to ask to Lilburr any questions you want !
If you have some recommendations for an interview, feel free to DM me !
