Project Player Interview V3 #4: LNumbers

Aqua Jet

Stardew
is a Contributor to Smogonis a Community Contributor Alumnus

Approved by UU moderation & inspired by Feliburn's project
Amazing Art by Magnum
OP ripped from Moutemoute's


Welcome to "UU Player Interviews", a project where you'll be able to discover or re-discover some well-known players in the UU community. Those people may be known thanks to their high-skilled level, their achievements on the strategic scene, or thanks to their dedication to the tier or within the community.


How are you Clark?


I'm doing p good, wbu man?


I'm doing wonderful, thanks for asking! Would you like to introduce yourself to our audience?


Sure thing! - sup everyone, I go by LNumbers here, but everyone calls me Clark, because of my PS! account Clark_03. My real name isn't Clark though, it's just the name of a character from a series I watched back in like 2016/17 (the 03 stands for March and not for 2003 btw lol). I'm from Germany and currently studying International Business with the focus on Accounting and International Management. My goal is to become an Accountant one day. I've started playing mons back in high school when I discovered PS! through a youtuber. I've been playing draft leagues for a few years while laddering on PS! (mostly SM OU and SM UU back then). Eventually, Felix aka Gefährlicher Random (who I met a couple of years ago when playing draft) told me to sign up for a German tour called IPL last August and I ended up doing p well in it, so I decided that I wanna go big on smogon. In order to do that, I immediately signed up for every ss uu tour I could find like the Crown Tundra Cup or CPL. A couple of weeks later, lily announced the first ever underused snake draft on smogon which was a really big deal to me back then, so I immediately tried to contact every manager I could find and showed them replays etc in order to increase my chances of getting in. I ended up playing a couple of testgames wtih ip (s/o my boy Indigo Plateau) and he eventually drafted me. A series of fortunate events let me start in one of the ss UU slots since week 1 (s/o erz danke dir Bruder) and I've kinda kept going ever since then. I can tell a lot more, but I'll leave room for it for the rest of the interview.


That's very interesting! What made you want to become an accountant?


I've had a number of different courses in my first 2-3 semesters to get a rough overview of all the different directions we can take. I had to pick two out of the five subject areas later on and I decided that I wanna do International Management and Accounting. During my Accounting courses last semester, I sorta fell in love w/ it, cause I got better and better over time. The reason for that is that Accounting is kind of complicated at first and you have to invest a lot of time and effort into it, but it really pays off in the long run!


Would you say that the same perseverance that allowed you to become better at accounting has helped you in your Pokémon career?


Yeah, I would. I personally value ambition and determination to reach your own goals above all else. You can't get anywhere in life if you're not willing to put in the time and effort for it, cause you gradually get better over time when you do what needs to be done. That's sort of my philosophy in everything that I do and I love, and I'm really proud of that, cause it's a good mentality to have imo. A person with enough ambition and determination can do anything if they're willing to stick w/ it and try till they master it.


That's very inspirational! I'm sure you've put in many hours of practicing in order to go 8-0 in SCL. Speaking of which, how has SCL been going for the Circuit Breakers?


haha ty, appreciate it! SCL has been a crazy ride for sure. I'm rlly happy to have gotten on this team in particular, cause I got to team w/ some of my homies (s/o Lord_Enz and Punny) and met a bunch of new cool ppl that I haven't rlly known before. I truly love every single one of my teammates and the atmosphere is simply amazing. As many of you may know, we're actually the Filo Breakers since our server consists of 50% Italians haha, but I'm happy to have them on the server and their support truly means a lot (s/o Niko Aurella Will of Fire Pietro in particular). I also wanna shoutout my boys Rabbit and Osh for being the greatest managers of all time and literally trying their hardest to support us as well as they can, so we can smash. Lastly, obv shoutouts to the whole team and every single one of the supporters on our server, cause you truly made our time so much better by being there and we couldn't have made it this far without you guys. I'm def more than happy w/ my record and the fact that we clutched playoffs last week, but I'm still gonna try my hardest till the end in order to help us win it all!


I'm sure many people are rooting for you! With the pressure of wanting to win for your team, how are you able to keep a cool head and think during battles? In other words, how do you prevent yourself from cracking under pressure?


That's actually a p good question since I've struggled a lot with nerves before. I remember making a long ass post in #announcements during week 3 vs the gibles, cause things haven't gone that smoothly for us that week and people started to complain or get nervous, so I kinda wanted them to get the right mentality. So I basically told them everything that's happened to me on smogon up to this point and what made me change my mindset from "I'm afraid of losing" to "Imma be fine no matter what happens and I'm better gonna go out there and kill it, cause I got what it takes to sweep this entire fucking pool" and I've kinda kept going from there and tried my best to stay true to my own words.


That makes sense, I'm sure many people in our audience who are struggling with nerves are going to apply your advice! Now a lot of people have asked me to ask you this, what's your favourite playstyle and why?


Ohhh, interesting question. I don't really have one anymore tbh, but it used to be BO, cause it usually gives you a playable matchup vs most stuff. However, the reason why I changed my mind is simply that gen 8 is a builder gen, meaning that you can't really cover everything on paper and some games are simply won in the builder. I've realized that over time, esp with every win and loss, so I don't cross anything out in the builder anymore just because people say it's niche or cheesy. If you're not willing to take risks, you'll simply set yourself up for failure and this SCL has proven that imo.


Taking risks sure is important! Another popular question with our audience was where the name LNumbers came from. Care to share?


It's pretty simple actually: L is the first letter of my real name and I used to be L5438 before I changed it to LNumbers. So basically just the first letter of my real name w/ some random letters. It's perfect btw, cause most of us Germans have random names like that. Just imagine you were a big player who went MIA for a few years and you go back to smogon and see a team w/ ppl that are called Gefährlicher Random, MichaelderBeste2, MAX UND MAX, mind gaming, and LNumbers. I think it's p funny haha


Now that you phrase it like that I suppose it is kinda funny! Alrighty we have one more question: you are known throughout the UU community as a john. Why?


thanks for the compliment! I personally see it like this: As a john, you have two options: Quit being a john and become a rfn (and be lame like that) or embrace it. I chose the latter out of the two which was the perfect decision ngl. Back to the question: I play most of my games on weekends, cause I'm usually busy throughout the week, especially atm because of my internship semester. I also enjoy the feeling of playing on a Sunday evening/night, there's just sth about it.


I see. Well, that's all the questions I have for you, thanks for doing this interview!


Alright, thanks for having me man!

Feel free to ask LNumbers any questions you want!
If you have some recommendations for an interview, feel free to DM me!
 
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LNumbers

When it's all been said and done, I'm still my #1
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I didn’t know your name wasn’t Clark :0
really haha? I´m p sure I´ve mentioned it a couple of times before, but mostly in team chats, so that´s prob why.
Favorite food?
hard to pick just one haha. I love a German dish called "Linsen mit Spätzle" as well as "Kartoffelsalat" (NOT potato salad since I´ve googled it before and honestly, the potato salad in America sucks. It looks horrible. Come to Germany if u wanna try it for real). Rice is greata s well, esp when eating spicy food.
How did you start your nicknaming for mons?
Back when I started playing draft leagues, but never bothered making nicks for tour games. I just started it recently, cause lana might be the best one ever and I felt like it.
Favorite UU team you’re willing to share?
will prob do that once scl is over, but I´d like to keep my teams to myself for the time being.
 

LNumbers

When it's all been said and done, I'm still my #1
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
It's incredibly rare for a player new to tournaments to perform as well as you have so far into SCL. What do you credit as the main keys to your success and what advice would you give newer players hoping to break out as successfully as you have?
Thanks a ton man, appreciate it!! The most important thing is to keep at it and never stop trying. Losses do happen unfortunately and it´s never easy, but the most important thing is to not get discouraged and get back up as soon as possible so you can learn from your past mistakes and grow from the experience. Everyone can be in a good state of mind when things are going your way, but what will u do when they don´t? I´ve had to go through times like that as well, esp earlier this year and I grew from them. I honestly think they´re the reason I made it this far and will keep going no matter what. You gotta push through, so you´ll see the results you´re longing for.

Love you man <3
Love you too man <3
 

LNumbers

When it's all been said and done, I'm still my #1
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Favourite moments of the meetup?
Ich sag mal so viel: HEUTE WIRD SICH FLÜSSIG ERNÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTT Lord_Enz Gefährlicher Random MAX UND MAX Serpi xray Reje Relous Mickel
Favourite German nick I've come up with
Geffi by a mile haha. It gave me a good laugh
do you agree that Punny should "L2P"
yep, but I´m confident he´ll do that since he´s changed his move order for the better by 0,0001% recently!
Thots on changing to LBarcode?
I´d rather change it back to L5438, cause that name was fire ngl. I´ll stay w/ LNumbers though.
 

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