Project Player Interview #14: TheFranklin

Feliburn

is a Community Leaderis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
RU Leader

Art by Kalalokki

TheFranklin
Favorite Pokemon: Noctowl

Most used Pokemon: Flygon

Most known for: Being a very successful player in the RU community, winning multiple tours.

Life had been good for me. I've been amassing a massive wealth claiming stuff that wasn't my own, yet people would believe me.

I no longer had to resort to very cheap travels to make a living, or even having to interview really weird people. So I decided to give myself a trip to the one and only place where I could party all I wanted (according to movies): Amsterdam.

....

Sudden blackout. I woke up in this really weird lab, tied in a cell titled "Stunt Or Die Test Subject #55". I could see a group of people in the distance discuss different types of weather, but I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying, local Europeans perhaps?

Suddenly, one of them walked to my cell and said "Silvally-Ground". His title card said "ARCE-9". I gulped and decided to engage in conversation with this enigmatic individual...



Hey Franklin, how is it going?


Hey Feli, im doing fine how are you?


I'm doing alright
You are known for being the most successful player from the new generation of RU mainers, but does the community really know you? Tell me a bit about yourself


Sure! As you might have guessed my real name is Frank. I'm a 24 year old physics student from Amsterdam. I'm still busy with my masters, and right now im doing an internship. In my free time I like to play and watch football (soccer for the americans), hang and play games with friends and play chess. And mons too obviously


Living the wild life in Amsterdam, I plan on visiting there eventually but moving on..
What do you see yourself doing in the near future related to your studies?


You should visit, feli en Amsterdam sounds hype.
I'm doing climate modelling during my internship, so maybe something related to that but im not really sure...


Not surprised, the europeans and weather...
How did you end up getting into mons in general?


I started playing mons somewhere during ORAS. At first i was just a tryhard randbats ladder noob. Only in SM I moved to other tiers as well and played a lot in the tournaments room. I saw ajna and pokeaim play epic SM RU battles in spl which looked really fun. So I decided to try out RU in blt (tours room teamtour), had a good tour and since then im a RU main


And how has your experience in the tier been? How do you feel about the community?


The community is awesome. A lot of great, chill people with a good mix between old veterans and a new garde of tryharders


Speaking of boomers and zoomers, did you have any player in specific as some sort of model when getting into the tier? Could be both building and playing. And what opinion do you have on the newer players? Does any of them catch your attention for any specific reason?


My model was definitely ajna in the beginning. At the start i mainly just stole teams that i liked, and a lot of them were ajnas. Though there were some feli and evi teams in there too... even a couple from ancient user thewall...
The newer player question is interesting, as I find it hard to distinguish who is "new" and who isnt. A lot of the relatively new people have already proven theirselves in rupl/circuit/scl so at this point i wouldn't really call them new anymore. Of those people floss is probably the newest face joining after his RU open win, im curious to see how he will do in circuit play offs and next year in gen 9.


The influence...
We are connecting a lot in these, but we'll go one tour at a time, starting with SCL
You recently had another dominant record this past SCL, how did you feel about the tour in general? Including your building process, meta development as the tour went on and the competition in general


I was very happy with my performance. My personal goal was to get 6-3 again or better and I got that so I cant complain.
There were a lot of uncommon sets/mons I wanted to try throughout scl. Most weeks I just picked the ones that looked appealing to me from the scout and built some teams arounds those and used the one that felt the best in tests.
As for the meta, three mons stood out to me: vileplume, togekiss and reuni
Plume was dominant from the start, whereas close to 10 different reuni sets were used with great succes. Meanwhile the meta adapted to togekiss with high aero usage and fast haze milotic and articuno


We'll get into your teams later...
But jumping to the final circuit for this gen, how are you feeling about it?


Excited for it to start, almost everyone who deserves to be in there is in (rip mac3). Should be a good tour


RIP mac3 indeed, victim of the btboy heist in that last bo3
Would you mind dropping a team that best represents you? And if you can give a small explanation behind it too then PLEASE





I used this team in week 4 of scl against mac3. I think this team represents me well as it is a BO with an uncommon breaker (kingdra) and offensive sets on most pokemon: CB gon as opposed to scarf/roost, NP 3 attacks celebi instead of np recover and lastly sd incin. The point of the team is to use the abundance of breaking power to break and win before the opponent does. I like to build these kinds of teams as they require a subtle balance between breaking power and the minimal amount of defensive utility between the mons to survive long enough to break through yourself.


Now getting more into the new generation, do you have any thoughts you'd like to share? Do you have any ideas on if you'll stick playing RU?


The meta seems fun and chaotic, as always at the start of a new generation. I think tera might even stay for a while. As long as the RU meta is not incredibly bad I'll definitely keep playing RU


Do you think terastallizing predicting a terastallizing is the next gen feli play?


Reliable sources told me the feli is trying to sleep a garganacl


ROFL
Is there anything you would have changed in terms of tiering about SS RU? Any mon you would have not banned or banned?


Hmm no, I agree with all the bans that happened. Perhaps we could have gotten rid of zarude earlier instead of waiting for it to rise


Why did you guess Silvally-Ground? Did you not care at all about the consequences as long as you were right??


You gotta preach for some good habits (volt immune) when watching capable players. What did it cost? EVERYTHING. However, im finally free again...


What have been your best replays or games played this generation? I can think of a lot of good series I've had, so I was wondering if you have some you'd like to talk about
It can even be just wins you are proud of for different reasons, and if you want to talk about them then that's cool


There are two replays that im most happy with this generation. First is the final game of the ssnl final vs atomicllamas: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ru-595672 This was for sure my best individual RU tour of the generation. I came from losers bracket in the final and managed to pull it back and winning my second ru seasonal. This was probably my best game of the set where all the techs hit, which always feels amazing.
The other game is from the recent scl vs bihi: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ru-653893. I'm definitely proud about my performance in scl and this game was probably my cleanest win in the tour and it shows that spikes were still really good in gen 8, despite what many people think/thought.


Is there anything else you'd like to tell the fans? Any shoutouts you'd like to do?


Thanks for having me and shoutouts to the TLs for making it a fun RU year despite all the shit that went down


Thanks for your time Franklin!


=========================================================================================

Feel free to ask TheFranklin any questions you want!

If you have any recommendations, I'll be more than happy to read them, just PM me!


Next time on FeliInterviews...

 

Lily

wouldn't that be fine, dear
is a Tutoris a Site Content Manageris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a member of the Battle Simulator Staffis a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnus
UU Leader
I've always admired your humble attitude despite the consistently amazing results you put out; a lot of us take this game too seriously at times lol, it's great to see people like you just thriving in it for what it is and having a good time with it. Much respect as a person & as a player :D

- What's your favourite non-RU tier? Can be any generation.

- Who do you think is the most underrated player you know? Can be an RU player or otherwise ofc. Or just shine a spotlight on anyone you think deserves it, even if they're not necessarily the most underrated.

- Are there any countries you'd like to visit?

- Why do you use arce9 as your main account on PS? Is TheFranklin taken, or do you just have an attachment to it?

- With SS coming to an end, what was your fav team across any iteration of the gen's many, many RU metas?

- Can you sign up next UUPL so I can watch you go 7-0 in SV?

- Do you have any role models outside of mons?

- You mentioned that you play games w/ friends as a hooby - what kinda games do you like?

- Is your sleep schedule better or worse than the average Smogon European's? (minimum 3am bedtime)

- Do you tilt much? Mostly in mons but in other avenues works too. If so, how do you control it?

Keep doing what you do! It was great to team with you in SCL and know you'd be able to take home a win whenever we needed you to, ty for the carry. Hope to see you continuing to compete in the new gen :D
 

TheFranklin

is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
RUPL Champion
What are some of the mons on your wishlist for SV RU?
I'm hoping for arboliva, paldean tauros and the return of donphan.

I've always admired your humble attitude despite the consistently amazing results you put out; a lot of us take this game too seriously at times lol, it's great to see people like you just thriving in it for what it is and having a good time with it. Much respect as a person & as a player :D

- What's your favourite non-RU tier? Can be any generation.

- Who do you think is the most underrated player you know? Can be an RU player or otherwise ofc. Or just shine a spotlight on anyone you think deserves it, even if they're not necessarily the most underrated.

- Are there any countries you'd like to visit?

- Why do you use arce9 as your main account on PS? Is TheFranklin taken, or do you just have an attachment to it?

- With SS coming to an end, what was your fav team across any iteration of the gen's many, many RU metas?

- Can you sign up next UUPL so I can watch you go 7-0 in SV?

- Do you have any role models outside of mons?

- You mentioned that you play games w/ friends as a hooby - what kinda games do you like?

- Is your sleep schedule better or worse than the average Smogon European's? (minimum 3am bedtime)

- Do you tilt much? Mostly in mons but in other avenues works too. If so, how do you control it?

Keep doing what you do! It was great to team with you in SCL and know you'd be able to take home a win whenever we needed you to, ty for the carry. Hope to see you continuing to compete in the new gen :D
- Probably SM NU
- I think eifo does not always get the credit he deserves, being solid in pretty much every tier he touches and this year with a dominant circuit performance.
- There are many countries I'd like to visit to be honest. On top of my list is visiting Latin-America.
- this is my favorite team of the gen: https://pokepast.es/42abf6e19ccb904a switcheroo klefki with 3 potential abusers
- probably not
- hmm not really
- I like card games a lot, but also online games like fall guys, honestly into all kinds of games
- I would say my sleepschedule (the bedtime at least) is slightly better than the average smogon european, ranging between 12-2am
- I dont think anyone can escape from tilt. Though it mostly happens on ladder for me. The best thing is to just stop, but i dont always have the mental strength for that....

What tips do you have for new players?
How do you like your steak done?
How would you describe your approach to a game?
- Keep reflecting on you play, even if you win. It helps a lot with improving in my experience.
- I like my steak meat free
- At team preview I look at what pokemon have potential for me, and around which mons i should be careful from the opponents team and then go from there.
 

Ajna

i tell my ppl i don't need love but
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SCL Champion
sorry i'm so late (forgive me, i'm old), but it's been awesome seeing your progression over the years. i'm really glad you've stuck w the tier, and i'm so excited to see where u and the other new guys take it movin forward!!

if you're still open to questions, is there anyone (past or present) that you wanna face on the big stage? also, what's your favorite feli moment in history?
 

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