Welcome back to OU player interviews! This time we have SCL breakout player Gefährlicher Random
Gefährlicher Random
Favorite Mon:
Burmy plant cloakMost used Mon:
ToxapexMost known for: 8-1 SCL record, WCOP runner up
Hi Friend, how are you today?
Im doing well, what about you?
Im good thanks! Celebrating some Thanksgiving stuff. Now, I know you either go by your smogon name or felix but would you like to introduce yourself a little?
Yes, so im Gefährlicher Random on Smogon but since its hard to pronounce that most people are calling me Felix, which is my real name. Im a 23 year old college student and outside of Pokemon i like to watch Anime or TV shows and chill with friends either irl or on discord. I assume most people know me from WCoP 2020 or Snake/SPL, where i started my journey on Smogon.
very nice! Originally, how did you wonder onto smogon/ps?
I got into Pokemon Showdown by watching Youtube Videos of CP Hunat (Dnb on Smogon), before that i watched some WiFi stuff. I was just screwing around at the time, laddering lower tiers which was a lot of fun, preferably NeverUsed since thats what CP Hunat played the most at the time. At some point i realised that there are tournaments and participated in the ''NPL'' (i think that was around 2015) which basicially is the German Premier League on some forum. I did well in that tour and after that i started my journey on german forums, grinding a lot of tournaments. Some years later (i think it was around 2018) i got into my first Smogon Team Tournament which was the NeverUsed Premier League because a friend of mine convinced me to join and got me on a team. I remember that i only used funky stuff, i also played a lot of discord tours at the time just for fun. Didn't touch smogon for a while after that till World Cup 2020 where i decided to play for Germany, the tour was super fun and i realised that i want to keep going, the rest is history i guess.
oh wow thats a cool way to start, I always wonder for tournaments like wcop how everyone ends up being eligible to play.
It seems like you have played in tournaments pretty much since the beginning then, do you feel like you had a breakout performance that got you noticed?
I actually think my first tournament 2015 was my breakout performance if you wanna call it that, but i pretty much did well in all of the tours after that too. I probably should mention that i played a bunch of german Draft Leagues before and after that which might be the reason i was a little bit better than the ''normal newcomer'' and influenced me a lot later on, even now.
alright alright, so i need to get into some german draft leagues then
haha maybe, the competitive quality isn't as high as on smogon for example but the people are lovely and its a lot of fun
if it works it works!
But speaking of tournaments, I know this was quite a minute ago now, but how was your experience with WCOP?
For me personally, WCoP is the most important tournament of the year since i get to team up with so many great friends. WCoP 2020 we basically had a completely new roster since they changed the format to current gen OverUsed only, which actually helped us out i feel like since we were a ground of grinders, but we weren't experienced enough at the time. WCoP 2021 was similar in the way that we had another group of newcomers but some of us (like myself) had the chance to experience other tournaments like Snake or SPL or individual tours, which made us better players. We had an insanely talented but at the same time insanely skilled group of people and the atmosphere around the team was exceptional. The end was of course a huge disappointment and hurts even now but gives myself and the other german guys motivation for the next edition of the tour.
It was still a great run, Im sure most arent even aware of how much work goes into a full wcop season but it was a very impressive and a tough loss to a great US South team
Came down to an triple axel miss right?
Yeah but i don't want to be a bad sport about it, in cases like this crucial turns happen in all 8 (11 including tiebreak) games and small things can influence the whole series. US South had their own story and they are deserved winners, but imo we would've deserved the trophy as well, it's just that one team had to lose.
Yeah its esp tough because there was no clear winner, I thought both teams were amazing and had great runs through the tour but that does make it somehow even harder to lose like that.
I'm not a fan of blaming rng, you have to optimize the things you can influence and start searching for the mistakes you made instead of blaming it on the game.
Also, it would not do justice to US South, they played a great tournament and Axel is a risky move after all.
That is very true, minimizing rng is part of being a good player. Was a great final, and im sure Germany will be even better for 2022
How do you think that compares to another team tournament like the recently finished SCL? (or snake)
The principle is the same, but your team members and the tiers which are played are different. Also, the fun part about SCL/Snake, SPL or other team tournaments is teaming up with people you don't know and learning something about the mons players and people behind that. I also love those tours but WCoP will always be my number one priority because the people i team with are some of my closest friends to the point where we do a lot of stuff outside of mons together and some of us have met irl several times.
oh really? thats actually super cool, I would want to be part of a tour like that just to be part of the team in the same region I am
So obviously looking at your record SCL went great, improving from 5-4 to one of the best records this year 8-1
what do you attribute that huge improvement to?
I changed my approach this SCL. Before that tour i usually payed a lot of attention to my opponents scout (which might be a bad habit i got from grinding draft leagues) to the point where i got tangled up in several mind games in prep. This SCL i focused a lot on myself and ended up using stuff i liked. I also built a lot of my own stuff which helps you understand your teams better
Oh yeah I definitely feel like building your own teams helps you understand what they are trying to achieve so much better than getting them from someone else
Out of all the teams you built or have been using, do you think you could provide a team that you think is pretty solid at the moment and provide a short description?
A german friend who isn't active on smogon or other forums anymore built this with some help from me. The team is centered around Flame Body Heatran, a pokemon some people despise and making use of burning stuff that needs to touch you. It's paired with Taunt Cosmic Power Mew, since Weavile usually needs to Knock Heatran and if the Weavile burns Mew destorys most of the time. The other Win Con is DD Lefties Kyurem which is a pokemon i absolutely love since it gets you so many wins without having to work a lot. You want to Knock opposing Pexes in the mirror and then force a burn with Heatran, if the opposing Pex gets chipped every turn Kyurem just wins on the spot. The rest if defensive backbone and hazard control since the win cons need that. Unfortunately i can't share a paste but here is a replay from the recent SCL. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-584852
ok that sounds fun so I will be stealing from replay!:)
Kyurem actually swept twice this SCL against steel move Heatran, that kinda shows you how evil it is
ahahaha really? thats insane I love the dd sub set and have been trying to build (or steal) a team with it
What is your process for teambuilding?
With teambuilding i like to search for stuff i like / i find to be good against the metagame and create some sort of offensive idea / synergy behind that. I usually like building a lot more when its not for one specific game, not a fan of searching for weaknesses in the opponents scout and trying to force myself to build around those.
Very cool, speaking of teambuilding and things good in the metagame, how do you feel about kyurem? Do you think its too restrictive on teambuilding?
Im not 100% sure about Kyurem. Its kind of annoying in the builder since it forces you to use mons that suck, like Blissey or Scizor for example. On the other hand i dont find it to be super broken in the actual games. The reason why i might lean towards banning it would be to bring some change to the metagame and make it more interesting for people that dont like its current state, but im honestly not sure myself.
Agreed, fave ban was the zygarde ban in sm just because it made the metagame so much better.
just to wrap it up, what advice would you give to some one that wants to be the next 8-1 SCL record holder?
Keep grinding but always stay positive, don't blame the game for your own shortcomings and try to improve and approach the game in your own way
very nice!
and any shoutouts you would like to give?
Shoutout to everyone that feels addressed haha, but especially to MAX UND MAX, Lord_Enz, Serpi, xray, Relous and the other people on our discord!
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Thanks to Gefährlicher Random for participating and make sure to leave a question in the replies!
Thanks to Gefährlicher Random for participating and make sure to leave a question in the replies!
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