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1v1 Player Interviews
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#7 Here comes team Charm!
Favorite Pokemon:
Most used Pokemon:
Most known for: Winning the recent 1v1 Summer Seasonal and their strong ladder presence.
A big welcome to the latest guest, Here comes team Charm! I know it's been a bit of a while since the seasonal win, but when haven't I been fashionably late- So, how are things? irl, online, in 1v1, whichever you feel comfortable talking about.
Thanks for interviewing me! I'm happy to say things are going pretty well both irl and online: I've been getting to know lots of people in the 1v1 community better. Irl I'm in the third and final year of my bachelor's degree, which is going quite well so far. The past few weeks have been a bit busy but that's fortunately improving as well.
Nice nice! Glad to hear things are going well. Now, getting started, let's take it back to where it all started. First Pokemon game? Any history with competitive? How'd you end up on Showdown, etc.
I think my first contact with pokemon was actually through the TGC (and seeing other people play the games). I must've played my first game (Diamond, iirc) when I was around 10, and I played a bunch of other games in the following years (Platinum, BW, BW2, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky). I kind of lost interest in the games as I got older, but picked it back up when I was about sixteen.
I discovered showdown when I was 17-18, mostly through Elo Bandit's videos. I played randbats for a while before getting interested in 1v1, though I didn't make a smogon account or join any discords for quite a while. For the longest time I just tried random stuff on the ladder, though I eventually figured out what did and didn't work (sets compendiums helped a lot there).
Oh wow, another person joining through Elo, nice to see. And yeah I coulda swore I saw you long before your register dates on PS and Smogon stated, makes sense. I'd definitely be in the same boat, also having taken a while before registering stuff. Moving on, let's talk about your seasonal win! Congratulations again! How was the experience, from start to finish? Did this one feel any different from the other individuals you'd played in?
Compared to other individuals (mostly thinking of multi-gen here) I think I was more confident because of the loser's bracket. Knowing that a single bad series wouldn't immediately cost me everything really helped me stay focused, and I felt like I had a shot at winning where I didn't necessarily consider that likely in earlier tournaments. That said, some of the individual series (especially those versus pqs and wail) had me extremely nervous.
Understandable, always scary to go up against a big name. With some of the later games (finals, semis, etc), did the atmosphere feel any different from the earlier rounds? Since naturally there was a lot more focus on those series.
Definitely, from around round 10 a lot more people were spectating, and it was also around that time that people started to seriously consider me a contender I think (Nalei and XSC getting eliminated round 9 can't have hurt there). It also helped that my opponents were bigger names (compared to the relatively unknown players I fought before that), so that's bound to attract more attention as well.
For sure, hopefully you didn't get too nervous! Anyhow, as someone with their fair share of ladder games played, how would you say tour series played in the usual "Best of X" format vary from the way that ladder games are played? Different? Similar? Somewhere in between?
The obvious answer is that tour games demand consistency in a way that ladder doesn't: winning two out of three battles is great on ladder but hardly enough to get far in a tournament. That said, there's also great differences between individual games: ladder has a very different approach to the meta, and at times it can look like a different game. At the end of the day it's still 1v1, but I definitely have to deal with things (scarf ditto, level 1 togedemaru, hypnohex gengar) that I don't think I'll see in tournaments any time soon.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. Doubling back to seasonal for a moment, throughout the duration of your seasonal run, would you say there's any one particular team that carried you? Or did you bring unique teams for each series?
I've used a few teams multiple times, but I don't think any single team in particular was crucial to my success. I mostly went with teams that I already knew were solid, and the teams I made before specific series were meant to be usable outside of those, too.
Fair enough. Now, one thing I was personally very curious about: How did the tournament being locked to pre-DLC impact you, if at all? Was it weird seeing the whole metagame enter a new phase while you still had to use pre-DLC teams for the tournament?
I was really glad to see the tournament stay pre-DLC: the meta simply hadn't settled into anything coherent yet during the tour's final rounds. In addition, I was struggling to adapt to DLC2 during the first few weeks, and getting to play the tournament under a ruleset I could actually play was great. If anything, the excuse to focus on something else for a while and let DLC2 figure itself out was very welcome.
Nice nice, glad to see it worked out well! Now, on the topic of DLC2, how would you say the meta's developed from then to now? You feeling pretty good about it? Think there's anything else that needs to be done? Think it's still not quite stable yet? Anything of note.
I'm pleasantly surprised by how the DLC2 meta turned out, actually! It's surprisingly diverse, and I appreciate how a healthy balance between custap, custap counterplay, and other strategies has arose (for a while, I was pretty concerned the item would turn out to be too overcentralizing, but that hasn't happened).
If there's anything that needs looking at it's probably victini or the urshifus: the former for being able to run whatever it wants and win tons of additional matchups with its item/move choices, and the latter for simply bringing a lot of raw power to the table (the mindgames at preview don't hurt either). For the record, I don't think either is actually banworthy right now, just that they're easily the hardest to reliably counter.
That said, I definitely think there's a lot of directions this can still go.
I think there are many lower-ranked and unranked pokemon worth exploring, and as long as there isn't a comprehensive set compendium out it will be difficult to develop proper EV spreads for many pokemon. And on top of that we'll still see a lot of pokemon whose viability gets re-evaluated as it becomes increasingly clear what their role in the new meta is.
Yeah for sure, I'd say there's still plenty of things up in the air and to be done, myself. Always nice to have multiple perspectives on the matter. With that said, let's move on to another significant tournament you played a part in; if I'm not mistaken, you were a member of the team for Northwest Europe in the recent 1v1 World Cup, right? What would you say the experience there was like? Like, team atmosphere, the role you played, anything else of note.
I joined the team's discord in the weeks leading up to WC, and was pretty happy to get picked as a substitute. There was a lot of competition for SS slots (having two captains who main it will do that), so I never actually got to play, though I did help with teambuilding some and contributed a few teams of my own. I've heard some people opine that I should've been slotted in over Wanony, but I think Alice and TSC made the right choice: Wanony is a very established player and simply was a much safer pick.
Atmosphere-wise I loved it: the discord was quite active and I really liked the people there. Getting to see WC preparation also taught me a lot about teambuilding and the dynamics in team-tours.
From that glowing review, I think it's safe to say you'd be more than willing to play for the team again in the next iteration of the tournament, and after the seasonal performance I'm sure you'd get your shot to play, this time! With that said, would you say you're particularly excited for the coming Premier League? With PL of course you could very well end up being drafted alongside anyone, rather than just the NWEU crew.
As long as I don't get drafted along XSC, I don't see any problems arising. :P I like to think I'm on good terms with most prospective managers, and I'm sure that I'll be able to fit in well on any team. The next WC is obviously also something to look forward to, but it's still a long ways away.
Of course, of course ;b With that said, let's shift the topic a bit. Going back to your earlier days in 1v1, you weren't really as talkative, right? Or at least, if you were, I never really got to see much of it myself. But nowadays, I'd definitely say you've been getting a bit more social, which has been nice to see. Was there anything that spurred this increase in activity from you? Or was it just more of a gradual thing over the years?
I think the main turning point was making an actual smogon account and joining the discord: it really helped me put faces (so to speak) to the names I encounter on ladder. I won't deny that I'm a pretty reserved person, but spending a few months in the community definitely helped me open up more.
Ah yeah, establishing a presence on each of the pertinent platforms will definitely help do that. I'm sure everyone loves getting to see more of you, as well! With that said, have you put any thought towards getting more involved with other 1v1 things? Stuff like writing analyses, getting involved with projects, developing resources like the VR/Sets Compendium, etc?
I've actually written the dex page on Alolan Marowak and Nalei's offensive Blissey set, though both of these are outdated now (and it seems the Marowak one is gone entirely). When analyses open back up I will definitely be writing some more: it's a great combination of setbuilding, helping the community out, and improving my own knowledge of the meta. I'm also planning to be more active in the setbuilding channel in the future, though I'm waiting for the meta to stabilize a tiny bit more.
Absolutely fair, I'm sure everyone can't wait to see what you come up with once more things open up! As we start to wrap things up, now that you've won one of the major tournaments and are poised to play in the coming Championships, what would you say is the next big thing you've got your sights set on, if anything?
If I don't get eliminated from champions r1 I'll be happy, to be honest. :P More seriously, I'm looking forward to PL, which will be a whole new experience. There's also next year's tours, of course, but I think it's too soon to say anything about those.
Any last words to the readers?
Thank y'all for taking your time to read this, and don't forget you're all amazing and that your contributions to the community are appreciated!
Thanks for your time :)
1v1 Player Interviews
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6
#7 Here comes team Charm!
Favorite Pokemon:
Most used Pokemon:
Most known for: Winning the recent 1v1 Summer Seasonal and their strong ladder presence.
A big welcome to the latest guest, Here comes team Charm! I know it's been a bit of a while since the seasonal win, but when haven't I been fashionably late- So, how are things? irl, online, in 1v1, whichever you feel comfortable talking about.
Thanks for interviewing me! I'm happy to say things are going pretty well both irl and online: I've been getting to know lots of people in the 1v1 community better. Irl I'm in the third and final year of my bachelor's degree, which is going quite well so far. The past few weeks have been a bit busy but that's fortunately improving as well.
Nice nice! Glad to hear things are going well. Now, getting started, let's take it back to where it all started. First Pokemon game? Any history with competitive? How'd you end up on Showdown, etc.
I think my first contact with pokemon was actually through the TGC (and seeing other people play the games). I must've played my first game (Diamond, iirc) when I was around 10, and I played a bunch of other games in the following years (Platinum, BW, BW2, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky). I kind of lost interest in the games as I got older, but picked it back up when I was about sixteen.
I discovered showdown when I was 17-18, mostly through Elo Bandit's videos. I played randbats for a while before getting interested in 1v1, though I didn't make a smogon account or join any discords for quite a while. For the longest time I just tried random stuff on the ladder, though I eventually figured out what did and didn't work (sets compendiums helped a lot there).
Oh wow, another person joining through Elo, nice to see. And yeah I coulda swore I saw you long before your register dates on PS and Smogon stated, makes sense. I'd definitely be in the same boat, also having taken a while before registering stuff. Moving on, let's talk about your seasonal win! Congratulations again! How was the experience, from start to finish? Did this one feel any different from the other individuals you'd played in?
Compared to other individuals (mostly thinking of multi-gen here) I think I was more confident because of the loser's bracket. Knowing that a single bad series wouldn't immediately cost me everything really helped me stay focused, and I felt like I had a shot at winning where I didn't necessarily consider that likely in earlier tournaments. That said, some of the individual series (especially those versus pqs and wail) had me extremely nervous.
Understandable, always scary to go up against a big name. With some of the later games (finals, semis, etc), did the atmosphere feel any different from the earlier rounds? Since naturally there was a lot more focus on those series.
Definitely, from around round 10 a lot more people were spectating, and it was also around that time that people started to seriously consider me a contender I think (Nalei and XSC getting eliminated round 9 can't have hurt there). It also helped that my opponents were bigger names (compared to the relatively unknown players I fought before that), so that's bound to attract more attention as well.
For sure, hopefully you didn't get too nervous! Anyhow, as someone with their fair share of ladder games played, how would you say tour series played in the usual "Best of X" format vary from the way that ladder games are played? Different? Similar? Somewhere in between?
The obvious answer is that tour games demand consistency in a way that ladder doesn't: winning two out of three battles is great on ladder but hardly enough to get far in a tournament. That said, there's also great differences between individual games: ladder has a very different approach to the meta, and at times it can look like a different game. At the end of the day it's still 1v1, but I definitely have to deal with things (scarf ditto, level 1 togedemaru, hypnohex gengar) that I don't think I'll see in tournaments any time soon.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. Doubling back to seasonal for a moment, throughout the duration of your seasonal run, would you say there's any one particular team that carried you? Or did you bring unique teams for each series?
I've used a few teams multiple times, but I don't think any single team in particular was crucial to my success. I mostly went with teams that I already knew were solid, and the teams I made before specific series were meant to be usable outside of those, too.
Fair enough. Now, one thing I was personally very curious about: How did the tournament being locked to pre-DLC impact you, if at all? Was it weird seeing the whole metagame enter a new phase while you still had to use pre-DLC teams for the tournament?
I was really glad to see the tournament stay pre-DLC: the meta simply hadn't settled into anything coherent yet during the tour's final rounds. In addition, I was struggling to adapt to DLC2 during the first few weeks, and getting to play the tournament under a ruleset I could actually play was great. If anything, the excuse to focus on something else for a while and let DLC2 figure itself out was very welcome.
Nice nice, glad to see it worked out well! Now, on the topic of DLC2, how would you say the meta's developed from then to now? You feeling pretty good about it? Think there's anything else that needs to be done? Think it's still not quite stable yet? Anything of note.
I'm pleasantly surprised by how the DLC2 meta turned out, actually! It's surprisingly diverse, and I appreciate how a healthy balance between custap, custap counterplay, and other strategies has arose (for a while, I was pretty concerned the item would turn out to be too overcentralizing, but that hasn't happened).
If there's anything that needs looking at it's probably victini or the urshifus: the former for being able to run whatever it wants and win tons of additional matchups with its item/move choices, and the latter for simply bringing a lot of raw power to the table (the mindgames at preview don't hurt either). For the record, I don't think either is actually banworthy right now, just that they're easily the hardest to reliably counter.
That said, I definitely think there's a lot of directions this can still go.
I think there are many lower-ranked and unranked pokemon worth exploring, and as long as there isn't a comprehensive set compendium out it will be difficult to develop proper EV spreads for many pokemon. And on top of that we'll still see a lot of pokemon whose viability gets re-evaluated as it becomes increasingly clear what their role in the new meta is.
Yeah for sure, I'd say there's still plenty of things up in the air and to be done, myself. Always nice to have multiple perspectives on the matter. With that said, let's move on to another significant tournament you played a part in; if I'm not mistaken, you were a member of the team for Northwest Europe in the recent 1v1 World Cup, right? What would you say the experience there was like? Like, team atmosphere, the role you played, anything else of note.
I joined the team's discord in the weeks leading up to WC, and was pretty happy to get picked as a substitute. There was a lot of competition for SS slots (having two captains who main it will do that), so I never actually got to play, though I did help with teambuilding some and contributed a few teams of my own. I've heard some people opine that I should've been slotted in over Wanony, but I think Alice and TSC made the right choice: Wanony is a very established player and simply was a much safer pick.
Atmosphere-wise I loved it: the discord was quite active and I really liked the people there. Getting to see WC preparation also taught me a lot about teambuilding and the dynamics in team-tours.
From that glowing review, I think it's safe to say you'd be more than willing to play for the team again in the next iteration of the tournament, and after the seasonal performance I'm sure you'd get your shot to play, this time! With that said, would you say you're particularly excited for the coming Premier League? With PL of course you could very well end up being drafted alongside anyone, rather than just the NWEU crew.
As long as I don't get drafted along XSC, I don't see any problems arising. :P I like to think I'm on good terms with most prospective managers, and I'm sure that I'll be able to fit in well on any team. The next WC is obviously also something to look forward to, but it's still a long ways away.
Of course, of course ;b With that said, let's shift the topic a bit. Going back to your earlier days in 1v1, you weren't really as talkative, right? Or at least, if you were, I never really got to see much of it myself. But nowadays, I'd definitely say you've been getting a bit more social, which has been nice to see. Was there anything that spurred this increase in activity from you? Or was it just more of a gradual thing over the years?
I think the main turning point was making an actual smogon account and joining the discord: it really helped me put faces (so to speak) to the names I encounter on ladder. I won't deny that I'm a pretty reserved person, but spending a few months in the community definitely helped me open up more.
Ah yeah, establishing a presence on each of the pertinent platforms will definitely help do that. I'm sure everyone loves getting to see more of you, as well! With that said, have you put any thought towards getting more involved with other 1v1 things? Stuff like writing analyses, getting involved with projects, developing resources like the VR/Sets Compendium, etc?
I've actually written the dex page on Alolan Marowak and Nalei's offensive Blissey set, though both of these are outdated now (and it seems the Marowak one is gone entirely). When analyses open back up I will definitely be writing some more: it's a great combination of setbuilding, helping the community out, and improving my own knowledge of the meta. I'm also planning to be more active in the setbuilding channel in the future, though I'm waiting for the meta to stabilize a tiny bit more.
Absolutely fair, I'm sure everyone can't wait to see what you come up with once more things open up! As we start to wrap things up, now that you've won one of the major tournaments and are poised to play in the coming Championships, what would you say is the next big thing you've got your sights set on, if anything?
If I don't get eliminated from champions r1 I'll be happy, to be honest. :P More seriously, I'm looking forward to PL, which will be a whole new experience. There's also next year's tours, of course, but I think it's too soon to say anything about those.
Any last words to the readers?
Thank y'all for taking your time to read this, and don't forget you're all amazing and that your contributions to the community are appreciated!
Thanks for your time :)
======================================================================
Duration of interview: 1 hour, 59 minutes
If you have any questions of your own for Here comes team Charm!, feel free to ask them here!
As for the next interview, don't expect a consistent schedule behind these-
Duration of interview: 1 hour, 59 minutes
If you have any questions of your own for Here comes team Charm!, feel free to ask them here!
As for the next interview, don't expect a consistent schedule behind these-
when i knew how to play. :c
