Ubers Council Applications

[bojangles]

It's here, finally. After a few long weeks and a DDoS attack, we're ready to open up applications to the Ubers Council. There will be 7 spots on this council, but don't be nervous if you don't get picked, since we will still be holding large-scale votes that are based solely on ladder requirements.

If you're interested in being a part of the council, post an application here. There's no set application -- just convince me (and Jibaku) that you deserve a spot on the council. Some of the things you can write about are:

• Your posts in this forum
• Your ladder ranking (please include a screenshot)
• IRC activity
• Any tournament success you may have in NORMAL ubers
• General Pokemon logic

You are, of course, not limited to just these things, nor are you required to talk about any of them. Please include examples where you can. Overall, I am looking for open-mindedness and a deep and pervasive knowledge of the Ubers metagame. If you demonstrate this, then you will be a great candidate for this position.

There is no limit or minimum on how much you can write. Keep in mind, though, that the two extremes of very little or excessive amounts are both unappealing in their own ways. This thread will be open for 1 week but we reserve the right to shut it earlier if we feel that enough or most people have already applied. Don't wait until the last minute.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

DECISION: REJECTED

I have made consistent posts in both the np and metagame threads. Here are a few -

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4400957&postcount=29

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4406052&postcount=63

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4399942&postcount=2

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4405043&postcount=21

Here is my current ranking -

big-ass picture

[edit: I improved my ranking!!!]

I currently have a very low deviation of +/- 36 and before the ladder reset I had over 600 games and peaked at no.2

I maintain @ status in #ubers and % in #pokemon and have participated in almost every pertinent discussion in either channel.

I maintain a position as a TUberline defender and have a positive record.

I'd like to think I have a very indepth knowledge of the BW2 Ubers Metagame.

 

[Fiction.]

ranking

I'm not really an established poster, but I'm looking to contribute more and this will be a good way to do so if I'm accepted.

As for any success, I guess I was in round 4 of both the BW1 Uber Tournament and the Uber Open. I also played for the Dragonspiral Tyrants briefly in SPL (1-1 in Uber). And I know this isn't a tournament but I won three Research Weeks. I've also written a few RMTs, "For Lack of a Better Name" (DPP), and "Guerrilla Radio" (BW1) being the better of them.

I'm active on IRC and have voice status under a number of names (sci-fiction, kobrakai, skyhighatrist, etc.)

And finally, I'm a tutor in BW2 Uber so I'd like to believe that I have some knowledge in the metagame.

 

[shrang]

I think you all know who I am, I've been playing Ubers ever since DPP, and I've always been looking for new ways to revolutionise the metagame. I have also been contributing to the metagame knowledge for all that time too. Since you all know who I am, I'm not going to bore you with semantics, but I'll just list everything I've done, I guess.

Ubers Analyses/Revamps:
DPP/HGSS: Calm Mind Manaphy, Dual Screens Latias, Azelf, Qwilfish, Wynaut, Garchomp (revamp), Giratina-O (revamp)
BW1: SubSD Garchomp, ChestoRest Giratina, Dugtrio, Hippowdon, Latias (pre-Soul Dew), Psychic Arceus, Rock Arceus, Scizor, Tyranitar, Magnezone (revamp), Dialga (revamp), Manaphy (revamp)
BW2: Kyurem-W
Other articles: Ubers Speed Tiers
Smog articles: (In collaboration with barry4ever) Prediction in Ubers

I am currently a QC member in Ubers C&C (as well as OU). Recently, I have been pretty busy IRL, so my ladder ranking has dipped slightly (I'll try to get it back up), and my IRC and forum activity has also dropped. However, while I'm not always on, I do come onto IRC pretty regularly to talk about everything Ubers. I do have a halfop on #ubers too, I guess. I'm not a major tournament player, because I absolutely suck at tournaments in general =D. I also regularly write Ubers RMTs if that says anything about my activity in Ubers, the most prominent one being Rock All, which was put into the RMT Archive. So with all these contributions, I'd like to think I have ample knowledge and experience of the BW2 Ubers Metagame.

 

[syrim]

Having played ubers solely for around two years now, I've accomplished a few relevant things along the way.

In my opinion, my best qualification is my participation in high level ubers tournaments. I played in all star week last spl, the last Pokemon Online Champions League, and am competing for an all star spot in the current POCL. Although it's not a conventional tournament I currently am the holder of the TUberculosis, as well as a TUber, maintaining a pretty good record. I don't think the potential effects of the removal of clauses can be seen well without the knowledge of how "experienced" players will take advantage of their new resources, sort of accelerating the looking around stage so to speak.

I've made posts taking this perspective in the np and metagame threads, and attempted to stimulate discussion in almost all of my posts. I've also contributed to many of the projects here, such as the set compendium and combo threads, and ended up second in the points total for this month.

My IRC activity is consistent and high, as I'm usually more or less tied with poppy for the most activity in #ubers, and maintain a place in the chanstats of #pokemon.

I usually ladder on PO, so I don't have a screenshot of a ps ranking.

I also recently came in 2nd in the Ubers points challenge, and received the best poster and best irc discusser award.

 

[Furai]

◠‿◠

I started fresh with Last Hope just because the Furai alt didn't go as well as I wanted and started getting +1 each battle. X_X
If my ranking improves I'll be sure to post!

So yeah I'm Furai and I'm a CUTE user. I kicked into Ubers back in DPP/HGSS era and improved late HGSS-early BW. I should be pretty known by now so I'm going to be very brief and give some examples for my work in Ubers.

I'm very active on IRC (#pokemon, #ubers, pluff's) and very active on the subforum. I lead many projects, such as Counter That Uber Pokemon, TUberculosis bridge, the second Mini-Tournament and I maintain the Awards and Projects thread. Examples for my posts can be found here and here.

I'm a part of the Ubers QC team and have contributed many to Ubers C&C as seen here. (Smog Articles can be found here if they mean anything).

 

[Celestavian]

I am applying for the Ubers council because I feel like I can use the skill and knowledge of the metagame I have gathered since the beginning of BW1 to benefit the council and the metagame itself. As I've said, I started playing Ubers at the beginning of BW1 with just a smattering of HGSS Ubers experience. Back then, I built this team, which kept me fairly high on the ladder for a few months before I went to focus on OU and VGC for tournaments. Recently, I've been very active on the ladder, hitting #1 3 times since returning to the tier, and grabbing a dubious hold of the Rainbow Tuber. I also participated in the Ubers Open, but unfortunately had some bad luck versus another excellent player in Round 2 and left early.

As for forum activity, I've posted few but well-thought-out posts, such as this one. While the length of my posts isn't as long as some other users, I have always believed that brief posts that get my point across as quickly as possible are better than a post whose length makes it inaccessible. I have also posted, in addition to the one above, two RMT's which I feel demonstrate my knowledge of the metagame. In C&C, I posted one set that I have created, and commented on a few others. Also, I have an upcoming project that I will begin once suspect testing starts, which will increase my activity in the forums once it begins. On IRC, I'm active in #ubers whenever the chat is active. I'm constantly watching the conversation, and I will join in if I have something meaningful to say.

 

[Andy Snype]

I am applying for the council because Poppy asked me to (no really) I think I can be a useful asset to the council.

As a player, I find most of my success to be from tournaments. I played for the Circus Maximus Fuck Tigers during SPL 3, attaining a record of 3-3-1, going 1-0-1 in BW Ubers, defeating Poppy and tying with pi face, the best W/L player during that SPL in BW Ubers. I also was the Ubers player for the winning team Ice Cream Sundae in DJXO9's Team Trials IV, going 4-2.

Furthermore, I believe that I have decent Pokemon logic as demonstrated by Pokemon success in tournaments where the metagames were different due to Pokemon, move, and ability restrictions from the norm. For example, the team I was in for bojangles, Zephyr and Hugendugen's Most Uber Tournament Ever, in which I have coordinated with teammates an effort to build new teams with restrictions each round, thinking on how the Uber metagame would adapt if given those restrictions for each round. Another tournament that I had made a relatively far stride in which I had to adapt to a nonstandard metagame each round, building new teams for myself is Eo's Proposition Tournament, advancing to the semifinals and adapting to a different sense of what-was-then-the-OU-metagame.

Activity-wise, I'm not one to post on forums very much, though if you'd like me to articulate my thoughts on a subject, I wouldn't mind doing so, but do be prepared to take a while for me to respond as I've got some OCD regarding posting in a forum. However, if you'd like me to justify choices on IRC, feel free to PM me. I'm there daily and have hops in #ubers, which I had also obtained as a reward for reaching #1 multiple times on the ladder with this RMT-Archived Team.

As far as being an open player goes, I'd consider myself relatively open to new possibilities as that is what helped me survive in some of the aforementioned tournaments, and I prefer to think outside of the box and find my own unique playstyle. Some of my colleagues have known me to consider various mons that I hadn't really experimented with and restrict myself with some challenges, including teams that were designed to play Ubers teams without using Ubers Pokemon.

Note though that my activity may be reduced on IRC/forums due to school, but it should be relatively consistent for the time being.

 

[Hugendugen]

Well look who came crawling back... so after talking with Poppy this morning I decided that I'd return from my hiatus and try to make it onto the council. My main motivation is to keep a certain user whom I shall not name (syrim) off the council as I hear he struggles with basic arithmetic. But seriously, I would love to be a part of shaping the metagame that has shaped my time on Smogon since I joined during gen 4 and I feel that I've got a deep enough Ubers understanding to be a valuable member of the council. Having been away for a little while, I decided to check how my skills and metagame knowledge held up on the ladder. After about 5 hours I hit #1 on a fresh alt:

sizable image

It was unfortunate that I lost a game to my internet lagging out, but what can ya do. These games, and in particular the last, helped to reignite a passion for mons that had fizzled a bit as of late.

I've been reasonably active in the Ubers scene over the last year and a half.

• I was voted 'Best Ubers Player of 2011' in the latest smog awards
• Played in SPL3, finishing with a 5-3 record (highest price for an Ubers player - 15k)
• Won the 'No Arceus' #pokemon challenge back in November/December
• Won the No Arceus DPP Ubers Tournament
• Finished runner up in the BW Ubers Tournament
• Co-hosted the Most Uber Tournament Ever
• I've won every teambat that I've been a part of :> (4 iirc)
• Am an Ubers QC Member
• Topped practically every Ubers ladder I've played on numerous times (but heh, not sure how much of a qualification that actually is)
• Although my activity has dropped off as of late, I've always been active in #ubers discussion. I was given % in #ubers as well as + in #pokemon for my contributions. Now that I've returned, I plan to significantly increase my activity on irc.

I'd like to think that these accomplishments highlight both my knowledge of the metagame and my adaptability as a player and teambuilder. I've experimented and had success with just about every viable playstyle in the tier: from stall to hyper offense; trick room to baton pass. Amongst other things, I introduced Lead LO Dialga as well as helping to repopularise Gliscor, a rather noticeable trend in the current metagame. Oh and of course the fearless Xatu, whose analysis I pushed for and whose skeleton I wrote.

I'd also consider myself a rather friendly guy, who's easy to get along with but well able to articulate and argue a point. I'd love to be part of the council and it sure would be swell if you'd give me a shot.

EDIT: two posts regarding my opinion on the tests

 

[chaos 9]

I think I'll throw my hat in the ring, more as an intelligent person, long time battler, and meta-game enthusiast.

For my stats, I've attained at different times this cycle #7 and #2 on the Ubers ladder under the alts IGILY and Elay respectively. I have broken into the top 100 many times as well. Not that ladder matters much. Not quite sure how to do a screen shot in a post, sorry about that.

My biggest selling points, if you could call them that, are my experience, longevity and objectivity. I have been playing competitive pokemon since Netbattle, and a good quantity of ubers over that entire period. From RSE to BW2 the game has shifted tremendously, and I can bear witness to that and bring a broadness of scope to the council.

I also am a constant "experimenter" in all the tiers I play (which is most of them, at different times). I love trying out new things, experimenting with sets, and trying to figure out the "next best thing". Innovation is what I live on, and what makes pokemon so interesting to me overall. This innovation would help shape the a new spin on a tier that has been relatively stagnant since its inception.

I'm active, lurking the forums every day and posting when I feel most relevant. I've read most every thread through in full on the ubers board. Though not an avid poster, I believe I have a good grasp on the state of the game and how it can be improved or altered.

Finally, I am a proficient writer. Writing in some form for the council would be a job I would happily undertake, as I am frequently employed as a scribe in school, and I believe I do the job quite effectively.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Go10]

Ok so here we go.

I'm Go10, an Uber player since 2006, started Uber with RSE then became what I am now, a (very?) good uberer with a deep Ubers understanding. What can I say ... hum well, I did #1 a lot of times on both PO and Smogon, we all know how difficult it is right ? With BW and his brainless mons, I tried to play something more out of the box, I did very well with my Unlimited Victory Works, which is my first and only RMT, I hate posting something obvious (hi standard rain dial/kia/ogre/ferro/gira/arceus-filler, i'm looking at you). I'm very proud of my knowledge of the metagame and my level as a player and teambuilder, sadly I'm not very lucky (100% miss focus blast, 90% miss stone edge, 75% miss Hydro pump during SPL; true numbers). Finally, I'm more an offensive player than a stall player, not because I hate this style, but its more about how "easy" it is to build a stall with all of this staple BW brought; also, the momentum and failure from a misspredict (even more true in uber) offense can give you is exciting.

Activity-wise, I'm more a lurker than a poster, but I can do it if needed. I'm always on #ubers and #scooters (with my fellow uber partner, hugen), although I dont talk a lot. Hummmm, I'm also helping Furry when he need a hand with the Smog Uber; I guess that's it. Recently, I have been pretty busy IRL with school, but now its over so I'm good.

Have a nice day.

 

[alamaster]

Hi there, I know I'm not a well renowned ubers user but I'll try to state my case. I have been battling since the Advance (RSE) days of pokemon on Netbattle. I have played every ubers tier and I have a decent amount of skill/knowledge in the tier of ubers for each generation. Unfortunately I have never laddered seriously in BW or BW2, but here is my current ranking:

I have achieved this ranking with a Win/Loss ratio of 27-4. I feel that this is a good enough ranking to display my knowledge in the tier as well as my battling skills in general. I have also won a number of Pokemon Showdown! Unofficial Tournaments in the Ubers tier.

I do not post a lot in the Ubers tier, but you will see a change as I am becoming increasingly more interested in Ubers because it is a fantastic metagame to delve into, I really enjoy it. I feel that I could bring a lot to the council with my knowledge of pokemon in general and my will to learn Ubers. Thank you for your time and I hope that you consider me when you make up your Ubers Council.

 

[HSA]

I've been occupied recently with school and extracurriculars so my activity has been down, but I'm less busy now and Poppy said I should apply, so here goes nothing.

In my opinion, it is really impossible to not have an open mind going into the testing of these clauses because
A. We've never even thought about testing anything in Ubers because it was concieved as a banlist (I am very glad to see we are moving away from that) and
B. The clauses themselves are new ground for all of us, and it's impossible to know how they will fare without actually testing them out.

My opinion on the clauses is as follows


I frequent IRC and can be found almost any time of the American day. (I was away for a while due to my increased resolve to do well in real life, but that went away so I'm back I guess....) I generally prefer talking on IRC as opposed to posting on the forums due to the fact that I prefer the informality afforded by IRC.

My most appealing aspect as a potential council member would be as a competitive battler. My list of Ubers achievements include:
- Winning the BW Ubers Tournament
- Going 6-3 in SPL
- Playing (albeit with a bad record, at least in my opinion) in the TUberline Bridge
- Helping Steven Snype with his archived team
- I was also an active tutor until I went inactive :p

NOTE: I don't have a ladder peak to show due to being extremely busy over the past couple of weeks, I am sorry about that. However, I consistently topped ladder when I played it over a year ago, and am sure (given a couple of days of course) I could do it again.

Other achievements include (Non-Standard Ubers or Not Ubers related)
- I played in the first ubers mini tournament and made it to finals
- Lost in semis of the little cup evioliteless tournament a while back
- Qualified for the ou suspect test
- Got to semis of 6 Arceus Tournament
- Won DPP Ubers Mini-Tournament
- Quarters of No Arceus Tournament hosted by mostwanted

When it comes to pokemon logic I feel I have a deep understanding of the Ubers metagame, even though I am a bit rusty. I am generally a good teambuilder and judge of viability, and I feel that, especially in our early theorymon stages (now I suppose), I could be of use. I've already cited the post showing my opinion on the clauses that we will be testing, and that should be another indicator of my logic. Having played Ubers almost exclusively for two years now, I definitely feel I could be of use on the council.

 

[Arc Tech]

I'm mostly a lurker and have been busy the past few weeks so no activity at all recently on the forums, but I've voted in OU suspect tests last gen and this gen (I probably could've had the badge if I applied last gen but I was busy during one vote and missed it despite qualifying, so didn't feel right applying to it.)

I've been playing on an alt for the last week or so and I think I've proved my strength on the ladder (although I don't do well in tournaments, get too nervous and don't play as well), currently no 3 (Finales Funkeln)

 

[Theorymon]

Sorry for being late with this!

I think a lot of you know my background, but I'll talk about it just in case! I walked into the world of Smogon on January 2009, and every since I've joined, Ubers has always been the metagame I've stuck with. Currently, I'm a Ubers QC member, mod both Ubers C&C and this very forum, and I'm a head of #Pokemon. I'm applying to be a council member because the prospect of being able to make my passion of testing new sets for more than just C&C related stuff makes me very excited, so I want to be as involved as possible!

Lets get this blemish out of the way first: I don't really play tournaments. That's because to be honest, the pressure of tournaments stresses me in some ways, which means I play far more poorly than usual. The ladder is a happier story in most cases though. There have been plenty of times where I've gotten into the top 5 in my 3 years of battling. However, I gotta admit I could have done a lot better in the ladder prep for this application than I did! I Laddered under the alt Coinrush, and while at one point I got to 11 on the ladder, I had a bad streak of losses due to stupid misplays, general bad luck, and not laddering for 3 days. So as of the screenshot I took today, I was in the top 20 instead.

The Screenshot

I was decently active in the Ubers suspect thread after a hiatus on this forum in general, but I certainly could have posted more. Where my activity really shines is IRC. I am absolutely addicted to #Pokemon, to the point where most of the time, I have the most lines in a given week, and currently have the most lines overall. Now of course, line count alone doesn't mean everything, and not all of that is Ubers talk, since we talk about almost everything in #Pokemon. Usually, I tend to try to start a discussion about the Ubers clause stuff at least 1-3 times a day (usually about OHKO clause since that's the first test), and of course I talk about Ubers a lot in general!

As for Ubers knowledge in general, I think I'm qualified, but there is one specific lesson I've learned from my time in Ubers that I want to point out here. If there is one thing I've learned from testing all the good, bad, weird, niche, and average Pokemon in Ubers, it's that while papermoning stuff (aka theorymoning) is great for forming a team concept, concepts that sound good or bad on paper may end up being the opposite in battle! Because of this, while I may have some extremely vague predictions and thoughts on most of the clauses, I'm pretty far from knowing what I would vote on for any of these clauses, and I won't be close until I play out these new metagames! Even for the clauses that may seem obvious to some, I think its best not to jump to conclusions for any of these clauses, just because predicting exactly how a metagame will react to these changes simply doesn't do much good because of human error, I think it's much more reliable to come to a conclusion after a lot of testing first!

 

[polop]

I'm a little late with this !_!, sorry. Anyways, onto the application / post.

I'm normally active on the forum, suspect thread, and IRC (#ubers in particular, although I do have IRC alts there ranging from polop to something random like myosin, ask furry / furai for proof on that), and probably won't become unactive unless school work decides to become a massive troll (which has yet to happen). However due to the terrifying pressure I experience when going against other people that I normally don't do tournaments (tuberline is not something other people criticize you for :P).

While I haven't participated in anything involving changing the metagame before (ex: Suspect tests), I am familiar with the the Gen 4 / DPP Ubers meta, BW1 Ubers, and BW2 Ubers metagame, and know just about every single threat in the metagame and how to deal with it. I've even made teams around basically every threat I've heard of / seen and had success with most of them (well except CM Bug Arceus but I doubt anyone can use that thing successfully x_x at least Swords Dance revenges Lati twins and isn't forced out by gene), and tested some more orthodox stuff. I put some of them up for an analysis and some others in Project Ubers. This in a sense does account for why I want to join. Using new / orthodox stuff is always so much fun. The look on a person's face when you pull of something as forgotten as a Sub CM Tina in a metagame where Donkey's Sub Shuffler Tina / Mixtina dominates is hilarious (and often game changing), creating a metagame with more diversity but remains balanced is something that I feel qualified for (however if other people dub me out of this I'm fine with it). My ladder ranking kind of reflects this, while I do tend to have some luck in matches against people in Tuberline, the exact opposite ends up happening in ladder matches, where I often end up getting haxed x_x.

huge ranking picture (I am polyp)

I'm ideally open to a lot of things coming back in the meta (well except moody but I'll wait till suspect testing is complete before I finalize my own conclusions (then again this applies to a lot of things, more of my opinions can be seen in this thread particularly more in this post).

I generally have enough Pokemon logic to combine two unique factors about a Pokemon (ex: Substitute prevents Revenge-killers from annoying you, rayquaza gets annoyed by scarf kia and genesect who are revenge killers and gets Substitute, therefore it might be able to run Substitute to great effect, which I founded right here, other examples of my logic being used are in that thread.), and use it to make a whole different set and see its impact on the metagame. Of course this did require a good bit of testing on my part, which is exactly what I will do with the new clauses regardless of whether I am elected into the council(well as soon as they get that test ladder running on PS or PO :P).

 

[Tobes]

Hi, I'm Tobes. I'm an Ubers Mod and a general afficianado of the metagame. It was the first metagame I ever got onto the Shoddy leaderboard in, was the forum I was given my first Moderator position in (or at least that was what was intended but I got bumped up to full DST mods), and was the first metagame I became a member of C&C QC for, so it's a metagame near and dear to my heart. Plus, it's really fun. I had been quite busy up until recently running Dream World (which means I have plenty of council and overall tiering experience), and admittedly had been negligent of Ubers, but I'm now back into the swing of things and Ubering fairly consistently. I'm sitting at a little over 1800 right now on PS, but we all know that really doesn't mean much, and I haven't been laddering heavy-duty (I was even messing around with a Tailwind team). I think I'm fairly open-minded about testing banned things, within limits (I did unban Darkrai in Dream World after all!)

Some recent posts:
Groudon plus Skarmory defensive combo
Scarf Heatran for the teambuilding guide
Handling Deoxys-S and Darkrai when teambuilding

As for analysis contributions, I think they reflect my overall penchant for and enjoyment of testing new and niche sets in Ubers:

Cloyster
Heatran (Choice Scarf)
Kabutops
Shiftry
Smeargle
Tornadus

 

[trickroom]

Hi, I like Ubers much more than other metagames although I do like to play OU, Ubers still remains the best for me. I think I have a vast experience on the metagame, playing consistently in the past although real life was not kind to me now. I am a bit inactive nowadays but I will make a comeback after my exams, 7th December to be exact. I can't participate this round but I would like to join the next round. Just like Furry, I am CUTE and I usually love to joke around on IRC. When it comes to discussions, I can always be serious if I have to. I am very approachable and unless I am in a really bad mood like after failing half of my shcool trial examination, I will try to help you out if requested :(

Some of my achievements are

-Played in SPL2 and won the award as a valued player
-Am an Ubers QC Member and now a C & C moderator
-I was very active on IRC last time, but as mentioned earlier exams killed me. I can't participate till the next round. Will be active again on IRC.
-Took part in numerous many discussions in Ubers and 2 RMTs entered the archive. The other one ( Can't Be The Classics looks cool I guess ) I love to utilize underrated but useful movesets and I made/popularized some new or rare sets. (Bulky Excadrill, SubLugia, SpD Giratina, LD Cresselia, Gastrodon, All-Out-Attacker Latias and a few others I forgotten)
-I posted a lot in Ubers C&C and I frequently participated in discussions here.
-Wrote and uploaded several analyses, including the rare Cresselia and Hydreigon. I also made one huge article BW Uber Stall in collaboration with my close friends: firecape, Fireburn and Anachronism.
-Joined the Arceus project revamp, uploaded several of the Arceus formes and gave them one last check before the uploading.
-Was voted and played in the Battle of the Week for BW Ubers twice
-I enjoy testing things I think might have potential, even shits like Gyarados, SD Taunt Roar Coballion, Defensive Drapion and Draco Plate Dragonite.

I don't have much time / lazy to make a huge post so I hope those points listed are enough.