[AMA] Pwnemon

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Stratos

Banned deucer.



This Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread is a resource provided to you by the Smogon Mentorship Program. In it, feel free to ask this mentor about anything you'd like. They're most prepared to answer Smogon-related questions, but don't be afraid to ask them about their personality and life outside of this site. Have some patience when you post a question in this thread; it will likely take the mentor a few days to reply. If you're looking for our up-to-date list of mentors, check out our Mentor Profiles onsite. Read through their relevant information below, and enjoy!


Username: Pwnemon

Areas of Expertise: Doubles, Doubles C&C, CAP, ASB

Background: I was on Smogon for a year+ as a completely non noteworthy OU and CAP poster, before switching gears almost completely and getting involved with ASB. That's when I got IRC, which I say is mandatory for anyone hoping to really get something out of involvement with this site. I became a dedicated CAP and ASB poster, only coming back to Smogon Metagames because of Doubles. I got a Ladybug for CAP in October and, completely unrelatedly, recently got mods in the Doubles subforum.

Hobbies: Not a hobby per se but I run (badly) for my high school team. Most first party games released on Nintendo systems, I'll have played (and a couple third party like sonic / phoenix wright). Strategic board gaming. Huge history buff. Other than that, mostly just Pokemon.

Favorite Pokemon: Tough question :s

Good Questions to Ask Me: Anything about the Doubles meta, and most things about the subforum. Anything about #doubles. Any guidance in Doubles C&C, or, if you have a set idea but aren't sure whether to post it up in C&C, put it here and I'll qc/help/rate. Or just come here to pester me to qc your analysis lol. Any questions about specifics or general stuff in the CAP process, or post a submission idea here and I'll do the same as I said with Doubles sets. Literally anything about asb (what's good, how to register, policy questions, why does dogfish44 keep kicking me, etc.) as long as you're not asking for help with orders.
 
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who let you be a mentor smogon is going to be ruined etc etc
advice for people looking to contribute to dubs?
can you explain the dodge mechanic in asb?
all for now
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
who let you be a mentor smogon is going to be ruined etc etc
pls smogon was ruined when joim promoted me to mod

advice for people looking to contribute to dubs?
#doubles is a must and welcoming to newbies, feel free to jump in to chat, challenge people to battles, ask for team advice etc. As far as forum contributions, the most important thing is to already be good at the meta. Then, wherever you post, you can hardly go wrong! I'd suggest reading things like viability rankings and suspect threads to get a good idea of what's what in the meta, then participating in our suspect test.

can you explain the dodge mechanic in asb?
Dodge is kinda like Detect, except instead of a 100% success chance, its success chance is calculated by a formula listed in the Data Audit. Sounds pretty shitty but it does have two advantages. First, it's not a member of the Protective/Evasive sub class, so if you really need to avoid a certain attack and it's been subbed for and you either have a high dodge rate or no other way to win, then you can Dodge. Secondly, it costs a lot less than Detect—a flat 5 energy, so if you really need to avoid something and have low en, you can try a dodge
 
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locking this, you're actually not a mentor yet

<&CherubAgent> guys
<&skylight> i agree
<&CherubAgent> policy on guys who have signed up for mentorship but havent yet actually become one?
<&CherubAgent> making amas
<&skylight> idt they should
<&CherubAgent> treecko?
<&CherubAgent> treeckocelot
<&Treeckocelot> uh
<&Treeckocelot> let's wait until they are actually mentors
<&Treeckocelot> lol


EDIT: unlocked after this got cleared up, pwnemon is currently the only doubles mentor so it makes sense to have an ama up
 
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Audiosurfer

I'd rather be sleeping
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
how do you stand being such garbage?
how have you been faring in gen 6 doubles now that you can't use your rain team?
will your promotion to mentor/mod make you decent or will I have to come back and take over leaderboard again?
what is the appeal of asb for you?
would you be interested in cap doubles?
why did you compromise your principles and change your avatar?
what direction would you like to see doubles go in the new year?
worst set you've ever tried?
do you like stuff involving doubles forum more or doubles c&c?
your custom title says you're not a fish enthusiast but your last pic was an eel, care to explain?
If you were to get picked up for SPL mid season what team would you want to buy you and why?
why has no one just written an asb calculator program or something to make reffing easier?
if you could get any badge right now what would it be and why?
what are your feelings on the prestigious metagames of doubles uu and doubles highlander?
top 5 albums of 2013?
what are you looking forward to most in the new year?
 
why does audio ask so many goddamn questions?
when are you going to properly update the leaderboard its rly fucked up atm as I have ranted about plenty in #doubles
what's your favourite doubles mon, and what doubles mon do you think is overhyped?
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
how do you stand being such garbage?
I've learned from example by my good friend Audiosurfer that bein trash doesnt mean you cant have fun

how have you been faring in gen 6 doubles now that you can't use your rain team?
better than u obviously since i didnt end up quittin in shame.

I really like Gen VI's meta tho.

will your promotion to mentor/mod make you decent or will I have to come back and take over leaderboard again?
(BAN ME PLEASE) pls but if you could come back and tell Pocket that leaderboard cant be used to determine the equitable distribution of food to third-world countries id be appreciative.

what is the appeal of asb for you?
ASB is a very different game from mons, but it attracted me for the same reason: because it was a competitive strategy game. ASB though as opposed to mons, there's no hidden information and you take turns sequentially. Also obviously the strategies are way different. If you get into asb thinking it's like mons you're going to be disappointed, but if you go in with an open mind it's just an entirely different but still fun game. I don't like the raising pokemon mechanic but i understand we can't get rid of it without losing all motivation to ref so i guess its just gotta stay.

would you be interested in cap doubles?
IDK what you mean by this. If you mean in making a CAP for doubles, I would have huge personal interest but understand why it's bad for CAP since not as many ppl play dubs as ou so wed get less participation (tho a LOT of #cap regulars play lol). So that's a pipe dream I wish could happen.

If you mean a doubles metagame with the existing CAPs thrown in, that sounds kinda fun. Obviously it would go against the spirit of the CAPs, since theyre all made in consideration of a single phase of OU. But then again so is our singles CAP meta lol. There would be some pretty good shit there tho, like Prankster After You Tomohawk O.o

why did you compromise your principles and change your avatar?
I didnt realize anyone actually disliked my avatar until I was modded and people started saying it. I figured the eel had had a good run, six months on xenforo and another ~6 on vBulletin iirc. So i figured now would be a good time to change.

what direction would you like to see doubles go in the new year?
My big goal for doubles has always been / will always be that we're as competitive as worlds-tier vgc players, because i think until then nobody takes us seriously. We've got a good shot to prove this in SPL, and i trust my niggas Mizuhime, Arcticblast, and Laga to pull thru. Apart from that I want to see us remove sleep clause :>

worst set you've ever tried?
Im actually not one for thinking of really shitty sets. Most of the time i prefer to stick with tried and true or at least plausible. Usually when im running bad shit it's some lure set that doesn't even ohko what it's supposed to lure. If we're restricting it to dubs, the very first stages of whitewater had some bad shit, like heal pulse twave stoss rocks blissey. Nothing else is coming to mind atm so i'll say that.

do you like stuff involving doubles forum more or doubles c&c?
I really don't like either that much because I'm a guy who enjoys chatting more than posting, but that's something i'm trying to force myself to get over. Since I've been modded I've really felt like the pressure is on to make only rock-star posts in the Doubles forum so i tend to avoid speaking my mind a lot more than I should, so I'd say that I prefer C&C more lately. Besides, C&C is sheltered from 99% of the just plain dumb posts that the main forum gets, so it's a lot more relaxing to read without going "ugh do i delete/respond with a one-liner correction to this obvious wrongness"

your custom title says you're not a fish enthusiast but your last pic was an eel, care to explain?
The eel was actually from my very old days when i was just a shitty a forum poster. Some mod changed my avvie to bad joke eel. The jigglypuff i had for a while came from a user named CBMeadow, but I lost the file and she disappeared so I couldn't get it back when we went to XF, so I took the avatar i had had before that. When everyone started telling me to change my avatar i was like "all right, what image is really similar so i can troll them," and i remembered Yilx had spammed #cap with this adorable fish he made a while back so i asked him if i could use it as an avatar.

If you were to get picked up for SPL mid season what team would you want to buy you and why?
I'd want the team that was going to win obviously B)

why has no one just written an asb calculator program or something to make reffing easier?
many have tried, many have failed. I think four people at one point or another have attempted to put together a calculator but none even got past constructing a database. I don't blame them; that sounds like hella boring work.

if you could get any badge right now what would it be and why?
Forum Admin obv, then I could give myself all the other badges and nobody would even check to make sure I'd actually earned them (see user Bloo for details on how this process works).

In seriousness... probably CAP contrib. I've been doing CAP since I started with this site—CAP is the reason I joined this site—and while I did get my first badge from CAP and I don't want to sound impatient, it would mean a lot to me to see my work rewarded with a special snowflake.

what are your feelings on the prestigious metagames of doubles uu and doubles highlander?
I'd love for Doubles to grow to the point that we can support an official Doubles UU meta (this would ofc require the ladder learning to not suck so that most of the right things would end up in UU). A problem with that maybe though is that GF doesn't balance for UU so we might actually be needing to ban things qq (probably not though, since 2v2 helps balance things out on its own).

As for Doubles Highlander: no

top 5 albums of 2013?
i'm not a music guy, i legitimately couldn't tell you the name of five albums that were released in 2013

what are you looking forward to most in the new year?
do you mean personal goals on smogon? If so, I really would like to increase my involvement in different areas of the site. I've recently started looking at rating doubles teams, applied for mentorship, applied for tutorship, signed up for my first major tournament in SPL, gotten back into writing articles for the Smog, etc., all thanks to Doubles. This is a trend I'd like to see continue into 2014. If all goes well, this time next year I could have a scrolly badgeset which would be the coolest shit ever.

do you mean personal goals in general? If so, I want to break 5:00 in my mile before I graduate, i want that deferral at MIT to turn into an acceptance on pi day, I want to keep my grades up so I can give a speech at graduation, I want to run a marathon with some friends, and I want to make eye contact with at least one female over the course of the year. these are listed from least to most achievable.

do you mean stuff i have no control over but still want to happen? idk i'm not really wishful thinker type guy. My big one I guess would be I want to see at least one libertarian party candidate win a house seat during the midterm elections.

why does audio ask so many goddamn questions?
because he loves me n_n

when are you going to properly update the leaderboard its rly fucked up atm as I have ranted about plenty in #doubles
i was going to sweep through today and put all of the points in the categories (which are correct) onto the main leaderboard (which is not).

From there I was going to only update the monthly until jan 31 when i would just add it on to the main

what's your favourite doubles mon, and what doubles mon do you think is overhyped?
oh wow that's hard. I can do the overhyped mon easy—Gardevoir. I really don't know what the fuck you guys see in it. As for the best pokemon in the metagame WHAT THE FUCK YO THATS NOT AN EASY QUESTION. maybe Garchomp? It's pretty good against most of the Pokemon in S rank (Tran, Kanga (thx ruff skin), Zard) and it's got a godly Speed tier. Sadly it's really vulnerable to burn and intimidate :(
 
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I have a team of Thundurus, Mega Kangaskhan, Landorus-T, Azumarill, Latias, and Heatran. Doge names pls?????????????

How would you reccomend me to get into CAP?

Since you took down your old CT should I not expect more amazing from you than Audiosurfer?

Favorite CAP?

What Pokemon do you think it is ok to throw on your team if you don't know what to add? (for doubles)

Are you really white?????????????
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
I have a team of Thundurus, Mega Kangaskhan, Landorus-T, Azumarill, Latias, and Heatran. Doge names pls?????????????
such crackle, very parent, woof, omg bubbles, wow zoom, so convection

How would you recommend me to get into CAP?
First and foremost, read the rules and understand the processes. far too many people don't even check the stickies before posting. You have to learn Gen VI ou if you haven't yet, and then wait for the CAP1 concept submissions. From there, watch the users who know what they're doing (ginganinja, pttp, jas, birkal, detroitlolcat, etc) or read the process archive for the same reason, and style your posts like that. Nobody enjoys the type of people who just fling shit at the wall and hope it sticks, but if you avoid being one of them and instead actually respond to the questions posed by the TL and the points of other people then you'll get along just fine (well, and if you don't use shitty reasoning to support your posts). I cannot stress how infuriating it is to be trying to lead a discussion, say something like "all right, respond to this question" and literally nobody even addresses it for 40 posts. if you do address that question, and address it well, you will be every TL's best friend and go far in CAP.

one other note—a lot of people in CAP exclusively post in tl;dr. This is not necessary to be a good poster, but you'll find yourself accidentally doing this a lot when you try to thoroughly explain a point. try not to be intimidated by the walls of text though lol.

Since you took down your old CT should I not expect more amazing from you than Audiosurfer?
no i just realized that calling myself *slightly* more amazing than audiosurfer was really selling myself short

Favorite CAP?
This is as hard to pick as the favorite pokemon question they want you to answer in the op :s theyre all my babbies.

What Pokemon do you think it is ok to throw on your team if you don't know what to add?
none. every team has weaknesses, carefully examine it to figure out what you're weak to. If the answer is nothing, add a secondary win condition that works well with the support already on your team.

If you're asking me what pokemon fit on generally every team, probably like MegaKhan or Tyranitar, idk.

Are you really white?????????????
my family tree contains such stereotypical german names as Odie, so yeah im p sure im white
 

a fairy

is a Tournament Directoris a Site Content Manageris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Social Media Contributor Alumnus
Community Leader
what part of smogon have you always been interested in getting into/trying but never bothered/were able to
 
What's your 5k time? (I quit cross country because my team was like top 20 in the nation and there was no way I could compete plus senior year is a huge bitch but I'm sure you know.)
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
what part of smogon have you always been interested in getting into/trying but never bothered/were able to
There's a lot of answers for that. The major one would probably be Showdown; over a year ago I wanted and tried to be a sim mod but that never panned out, and by now I don't think my computer is powerful enough to even keep up with chat to earn the badge if I wanted to

Another is Tournaments; I've always been pretty bad at OU so it's darn near impossible to get into the tournament scene; i tried to turn that around with SPL and doubles but no draft sadly ;_;

A third is Smogon Media, specifically YouTube, but Arcticblast is a giant fuck and isn't organizing the xy dubscast i've been nagging him to. It also looks really fun to run the twitter and I wish I could do that lol

Another is GP; I've tried to get into GPing many times and each time have been daunted by the size of analyses and turned off but I may soon give it another go, just wait.

Those are the big four I guess but as a general rule if there's a part of smogon I'm not on, I want to be on it lol

What's your 5k time? (I quit cross country because my team was like top 20 in the nation and there was no way I could compete plus senior year is a huge bitch but I'm sure you know.)
Aw don't quit, cross country is fun ;_;

I'm on a really good team too—Severna Park, maybe you've heard of us if you're in the Mid-Atlantic? Got 14th at NXN. What team are you on? (Inb4 christian brothers academy lol)

But I personally am not very good. 19:16 PR despite putting in ~50 mpw. I think a large part of it is terrible racing jitters, since we've done 3 mile tempo workouts where i'll get like 18:20. But yeah i'm definitely just in it for the cameraderie.

Hang in there man, we're almost there!
 

Celever

i am town
is a Community Contributor
How can you be friends with Blara? He's a king and you're a pawn.

When will you stop using fish avatars? (pls tomorrow)

How does it feel to be beaten by myself in a ban battle yet not get banned?
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
How can you be friends with Blara? He's a king and you're a pawn.
if people can only be friends with those of the same rank or lower then that explains why you lack friends

When will you stop using fish avatars? (pls tomorrow)
when you beat me in a doubles battle

How does it feel to be beaten by myself in a ban battle yet not get banned?
probably not as good as it feels to be breaking COPPA and not get banned
 
Pwnemon, why are your posts so amusing? Seriously, they always get me to chuckle even when i know they are supposed to be taken seriously.


Also, did you ever expect to have such an impact in the creation of CAPs?
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Pwnemon, why are your posts so amusing? Seriously, they always get me to chuckle even when i know they are supposed to be taken seriously.
thanks i guess lol idk thats not really a question

Also, did you ever expect to have such an impact in the creation of CAPs?
of course. Doesn't every noob coming into the project think their shitty contributions are going to revolutionize everyone's way of thinking?

In all honesty though, I still don't feel like I contribute very much to the creation of CAPs. There's so many people talking and very few listening every project that I don't think I'll ever contribute much to the creation of CAPs. It's okay though, it's still fun to join in on the project!

On a scale from 1 to 10, how annoying is Matezoide?
take your score on that scale, subtract three

Mat made a New Year's Resolution to stop yololing. How long do you think this will last?
it better last forever /me grabs hilt
 
I ran for Louisville St. X, we got 14th at NXN last year. fuk cba

I was actually on pace to be decent, I PRed at 18:20 sophomore year. However I slacked off in the offseason and subsequently got hurt when we upped the mileage, I barely ever broke 19 last year. I kinda regret missing XC this year but it conflicted with my research internship and other things that I would rather do. I'm still doing track this spring, although I'm completely out of shape now lol
 
As a prospective VGC competitor, I have a few questions for you as a doubles mentor.
Is there much demand for a doubles mentor here on Smogon?
How do you feel about the VGC 2014 ruleset? Which pokemon do you think may see usage in this setting, where they might not be as useful in a more open metagame?
You mentioned earlier that you would like to see the sleep clause removed from Smogon XY Doubles. We are aware of the Nerf to sleep with grass/spore, as well as the timer reset being removed, how does sleep affect the metagame differently in doubles than it does singles? and why should this particular clause be removed from the Smogon Metagame?
What is the first pokemon you ever EV trained?
If you were to have a pokemon as a housepet, what would your top 3 candidates be?
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
As a prospective VGC competitor, I have a few questions for you as a doubles mentor.
i dont play vgc but i can try i guess...

Is there much demand for a doubles mentor here on Smogon?
given the activity in this AMA, i'd guess not much! most people who come in #mentor asking for 'doubles' questions are playing vgc which is an infuriating cocktease because theyre like HEY PWNEMON I NEED HELP, JUST KIDDING YOU CAN'T HELP ME. so i guess theres a lot of demand for a vgc mentor if anyone wants to get on that

How do you feel about the VGC 2014 ruleset? Which pokemon do you think may see usage in this setting, where they might not be as useful in a more open metagame?
slightly less shitty than 2011 i guess, which isn't saying too much; altogether im not happy with how TPCi fucks with the rules which is why I don't play their metas. IDK what pokemon would be better to be entirely honest lol

You mentioned earlier that you would like to see the sleep clause removed from Smogon XY Doubles. We are aware of the Nerf to sleep with grass/spore, as well as the timer reset being removed, how does sleep affect the metagame differently in doubles than it does singles? and why should this particular clause be removed from the Smogon Metagame?
well in general it's just my belief in a minimalist ruleset, and sleep clause is anything but necessary. sleep mostly affects the smogdubs metagame with regards to Trick Room, being one of the best ways to counter it. Some people, like Mizuhime, have argued that Trick Room is dominant in this metagame and needs Sleep Clause removed to check it. I find myself putting TR on every team, even non-TR ones, so that i can reverse it, so I don't disagree, but I don't believe it as strongly as she does either. Mostly I just don't think we need it, and I think the people saying that Zard-Y + Venusaur will be new meta if we unban Sleep are just being silly, and it deserves a test at least.

What is the first pokemon you ever EV trained?
i only briefly played carts in gen IV (for like a year?), so this is a blast from the past. But iirc, the first Pokemon i ever EV trained was a ScarfTran.

If you were to have a pokemon as a housepet, what would your top 3 candidates be?
if you havent noticed, i suck at answering "favorite pkmn" questions. The obvious first choice for this one, though, was SWINUB. it's furry and cute as shit, and if i don't feel like going to school i can just have it use Blizzard.

beyond that idk
 
Couple questions:

1.- Are doubles as fast paced as VGC?
2.- Can you name a couple mons that work in VGC that don't do so well in doubles and vice-verce?
3.- What is the most gimmicky doubles strategy you have used?
4.- Most gimmicky Pokémon in your opinion?
5.- Most gimmicky team/pokémoon that has managed to sweep you?
6.- Can you let me beat your gym in ASB?
7.- Can Pyroak lose a damage race (ASB also)?

Wow, those are more than a couple .-.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
1.- Are doubles as fast paced as VGC?
Yes and no. Yes in that doubles pokemon tend to be EVed frailer than vgc pokemon, but no in that with six mons vs four theres more time to switch and use non-threatening moves, at least from what i've seen

2.- Can you name a couple mons that work in VGC that don't do so well in doubles and vice-verce?
nope i dont play vgc basically ever lol

3.- What is the most gimmicky doubles strategy you have used?
surf politoed + absorb bulb ludicolo in gen v; it sucked. ive used some other silly shit like hp ground cress, safeguard kyurem-b, etc, but they all were actually useful sets for what i wanted them to do and i KNEW they were gimmicks. i was just bad when i used that one.

4.- Most gimmicky Pokémon in your opinion?
this is kind of a weird question, any pokemon can more or less be as gimmicky or ungimmicky as you want? but seeing a slaking on the ladder is never a good sign

5.- Most gimmicky team/pokémoon that has managed to sweep you?
fortunately i manage to largely avoid losing to gimmicks because i carry ragepowder, i've never been swept by some shitty terracott or anything. maybe the worst thing that's ever happened was when i only avoided losing to a mono-fire team because of a heat wave miss O.o

6.- Can you let me beat your gym in ASB?
no

7.- Can Pyroak lose a damage race (ASB also)?
only against togekiss
 
how would you feel about a doubles CAP

how do you pronounce your username

favorite webcomic????

if you could have one pokemon irl what would it be (also taking in to consideration that if it draws attention the gov't will be all up in your ass and other realistic problems) also no legends

if you were to star in an admittedly shitty live action 90's movie directed at kids, what would the title be
 
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