Project Player Interview V3 #6 - KM

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

Good evening KM, how have you been doing?


Pretty good! How bout you


The same, I just finished building another VoltTurn team. Do you wanna introduce yourself a bit?


Sure! I'm KM, I've been around on and off on PS and Smogon for about 8 years at this point. I've pretty much always been an underused main but I like playing most lower tiers as well as formats like 1v1, monopoke, and FFA. as far as real-life goes, I've lived in Los Angeles for the last 6 or 7 years and I work in research and the entertainment industry.


That sounds very interesting. On the topic of your name, why did you choose the name Kitten Milk?


Oh god. So my original name on PS was Pleasure Kitten (which is somehow worse), but more generally throughout my entire teenage years, my usernames on every video game were some combination of the word Kitten and a random noun or adjective. I have no idea why I did it but that's the only reason there is. Fortunately, I was just able to finalize a name change to KM everywhere on smogon and PS a few months ago, so that era is mostly over.


That certainly is a story! While we're on the topic of kittens, do you prefer cats or dogs?


For sure cats, but I've actually never had either as a pet. I've been thinking about getting a cat over the last year or so, but I haven't jumped the gun yet -- if I do get a cat, it'll be named Cactus.


That's a unique name, how did you come up with it?


My boyfriend and I have a ton of plants in our apartment including a lot of cacti and succulents, so I thought it would be cute to have a cat named cactus to blend in. anything's better than pleasure kitten though.


LOL that's true. You also mentioned that you've been a UU main since you started playing Pokémon. What drew you to PS! and Smogon, and UU specifically?


I actually originally started playing on Pokemon Online, probably because I was super into the mainline games and ended up stumbling on it while looking for other ways to play. Through PO I found out about PS and Smogon and transitioned over pretty quickly. I think my attachment to UU was probably as simple as not wanting to be a normie who played OU and choosing the next available thing.


I think I speak on behalf of the community when I say I'm glad you didn't choose to main OU! You've mentioned before in the UU discord that you were in the UU council before. What was that like? Is there anything that you had wished the council had done differently while you were apart of it?


Yeah -- I was part of the UU council back in XY/ORAS. It was definitely super different to the way things are run now -- a lot of tiering decisions were made via private council vote, we banned Smeargle (lol), and all the discussion happened on Smogon VMs instead of Discord. I honestly left midway through the tier so it's hard for me to have strong opinions about what we should or shouldn't have done because ORAS UU as we know it now is so different than it was when I left.


That makes sense, did you enjoy the experience?


Yeah, it was a great experience. I always love getting to be a part of the decision making process for tiers that I care about, whether it's through being on council, contributing, or participating in suspect tests.


That's great to hear! Speaking of suspect tests, Thundurus-Therian is a hot topic right now. What are your thoughts on it? If there was a suspect test and you got reqs, do you know how you’d vote?


Thund-T is definitely the mon in the tier that most deserves to be suspected and looked at right now. I'm not 100% sure how I'd vote just yet, but I'm probably leaning towards ban. It's the most centralizing mon in the builder for sure, and similar to Thund-I I think it's only getting better as people realize the flexibility and utility its best sets can provide. My personal favourite Thund-T sets are VS / Knock / Psychic / Focus Blast, but there's at least 10 viable move combinations that can all fit for different teams and their needs.


That's all the questions I have for you now, thank you for taking the time to do this interview!


No problem! Happy to answer any other questions people might have, and thanks for the interview :)


Feel free to ask KM any questions you want!
If you have some recommendations for an interview, feel free to DM me!
 
How do you feel about your reputation for using unorthodox sets? Is it something you like, something you're neutral on, or not really what you want to be known for?
 
If you were given a 30 cm Guzzlord to keep as a pet (same personality/appetite as in canon, just reduced to 30cm in size), would you accept it?
 
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KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
How do you feel about your reputation for using unorthodox sets? Is it something you like, something you're neutral on, or not really what you want to be known for?
i don't mind it at all! it's not wrong at all -- especially when it comes to individual tournaments where there's nothing on the line but my own reputation and experience, I love using unorthodox shit because it's genuinely more fun; both for me and for the people watching. for team tours and things that actually matters, I actually don't really do anything too crazy -- and for what its worth, the vast majority of my unorthodox sets are run because I think they're good as a reaction to the meta and not because I'm just like.... feeling quirky

would you marry tornadus
i am tornadus

If you were given a 30 cm Guzzlord to keep as a pet (same personality/appetite as in canon, just reduced to 30cm in size), would you accept it?
easiest yes of my life
 

Adaam

إسمي جف
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis the 8th Grand Slam Winner
What was going through your head when your Swampert got Power Whipped turn 1?

What is your proudest Pokémon innovation

What would be your last meal?

What advice do you have for new players who want to be noticed?

Have you ever been on a date with vivalospride?
 

KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
What's an ideal meal for you?
corny answer but the most important thing for a good meal is being surrounded by good people :blobthumbsup:

food-wise though i made this dish a few months ago (https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/grilled-naan-with-tomatoes) and haven't stopped thinking about it so maybe this! also i'm a huge sucker for courses and i love baking so dessert would probably be mandatory too

What was going through your head when your Swampert got Power Whipped turn 1?

What is your proudest Pokémon innovation

What would be your last meal?

What advice do you have for new players who want to be noticed?

Have you ever been on a date with vivalospride?
that if i'd been recording I probably wouldn't have stayed in. mistakes were made

my proudest innovation is probably the WP yanmega with endure and reversal that I spammed in gen 7 -- not because it's particularly good, but just because it's so fun to use and when it works, it really works.

see above for last meal

my biggest piece of advice for new players who want to get noticed is to think about innovation reactively and not proactively. i see a lot of people using unconventional mons and sets where the starting point is "no one uses x, so i want to use it". both from a standpoint of success and recognition, I've found it a lot more valuable to start with the meta and identify something that's exploitable. i'll use the tornadus set i've been championing for months as an example. the starting point for me using that set wasn't "funny sky man takes 25% from rocks and goes brr", it was a reaction from noticing one month that salamence and krookodile had like... 45% usage combined, and that the vast majority of balance teams in the meta were relying on either intimidate users or flying-weak mons like Amoonguss or Kommo-o as their physical walls. from there, it was a matter of building to cover weaknesses and fine-tuning the set to match the meta (superpower was best preshift, heat wave is best post shifts).

thinking in this way and making your innovations known (whether through forum posts, tour / ladder performance, etc) is probably the best way I can think of to get recognized as a new player -- because it not only shows your ability to think outside of the box, but it also confirms that you actually have a handle on the meta and meta trends. that said, at the end of the day having a good time is the most important thing you can do on this set so don't feel the need to calculate your road to fame if it's not important to you.

i'm free next monday vivalospride :flushed:
 

KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
Who's better, Guzzlord or Tornadus?
if you mean viability, tornadus. if you mean how much i like them, also tornadus.

How does it feel to teach college students?

Will you record pkmn gaming again (yes please)?
being a professor is cool (making syllabus is hype, teaching is fun, students are great) but also very weird (pay is garbage, am a whole two years older than my students). would recommend.

yes but you gotta put me in again i can't record a bench >:()
 
How would you use Flygon in UU? (besides "I wouldn't")

I've noticed that in some previous tour games before UUSD, you had some trouble closing some games out. Sometimes the same thing happens to me. You seem to be doing better now at UUSD with a 2-1 record - did you do anything to change your mindset to allow yourself to better handle the endgame to finish these games off?

Do you think there is room for innovation in UU oldgens?

Which mon not on the UU viability rankings, and not on any upcoming slate (that you know of), do you think is most viable atm?
 

KM

slayification
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
favorite team tour?

what was your spotify wrapped?

how do you feel about the change in smogon between BW/XY days and now?

how do you consider viability vs prep when making a team against a certain opponent? are you comfortable being weak to high ranked mons?

would you rather have an evangelion son or a genshin impact daughter?
even though i wasn't technically part of the team supporting mncmt and Highways for scl was by far the most fun I've had in a team tour and i'm proud of everything we made
spotify wrapped: IMG_8224.JPG

probably overall better. but my memory sucks so who knows!

depends on the opponent. i'm more than happy to take a gamble that someone with a consistent playstyle will/won't use certain mons and have teambuilding holes because of it -- sometimes it bites me in the ass (like when I triple prepped for stall in UULT against pif and got destroyed), but that's life.

genshin impact daughter not even close

How would you use Flygon in UU? (besides "I wouldn't")

I've noticed that in some previous tour games before UUSD, you had some trouble closing some games out. Sometimes the same thing happens to me. You seem to be doing better now at UUSD with a 2-1 record - did you do anything to change your mindset to allow yourself to better handle the endgame to finish these games off?

Do you think there is room for innovation in UU oldgens?

Which mon not on the UU viability rankings, and not on any upcoming slate (that you know of), do you think is most viable atm?
probably band stone edge, but also i wouldn't.

weirdly the few times I've recorded my games while playing them it's really helped, because when I actually say my thought process back to myself sometimes I realize how stupid it sounds. I think it's really helpful sometimes when you find yourself in like a concentration hole to force yourself out of it and think about whether you need to make the move you want to.

probably! my impression in general is that most "solved" metas are more a function of people being too lazy to innovate rather than just reusing moreso than them being truly solved. i think the nature of competitive pokemon and the diversity of choices available in most tiers is such that there's sort of a built-in stopping point against stagnancy because if everyone's running the same thing you can simply cteam it.

can't give my honest answer to this because it would leak so instead i will say kadabra

What’s your favorite part of smogon?

in general i just am a huge fan of the way it allows for well-organized events like team tours or forum projects to happen, and i think there's still a lot of value the forums provide that can't be replicated on other platforms.

What playstyle do you enjoy using the most?

i really love high-momentum offense teams with a strong breaker. take notes snake opponents

If you could bring down 1 Pokémon from OU here, who would it be and why?

free victini

have you played any main series games? If so, what’s your favorite gen?

i played pokemon yellow on the original gameboy color and then all the gen 3 games on the advance -- everything else I've played parts of through emulators and other means but never natively outside of a few hours on sword/shield. gen 3 is by far my favorite though.
 

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