1. Being a player who has a future long term goal of participating in events like SPL, what advice could you give to help me (and others I would assume) to achieve this distant goal?
2. What aspect of Doubles made you want to actively play it? Are their any other tiers you actively play or want to get involved with?
3. Who is your favorite player to watch in any tier? Has this person inspired you in any way?
4. What is your favorite thing about B101?
1: I definitely think that the main factor people underestimate is charisma. If you show up to the chat emitting a good balance of banter and politeness, managers will most definitely choose you over the other guy that plays as good as you and is a negative fella. Other than that, just do your best to prove yourself in official tournament (especially Smogon Tour) if you want to get drafted for an ou spot, or do well in Slam if you play lower tiers.
2: The tougher turn-by-turn predictions made me want to start playing doubles actively. I used to play singles and be really bad at it (I'm not that good with long-term thinking), and I just seemed to feel more in control when I first started playing doubles. Could have been the ladder being bad tho :V
3:
McMeghan is a true friend and as POKEGOD RACHEE put it: McM playing ADV is like Bill Clinton playing sax. He also picked up Doubles in 2 weeks last yr.
4: My fav thing about B101 are the free chocolate-chip cookies :D
1. What is your favourite Pokémon to competitively use?
2. Are there any certain goals you still want to reach on Smogon, or in the tournament scene? Like win the Smogon Premier League, get a new badge etc.?
3. What is the most annoying Pokémon you constantly face in Smogon Doubles? Is there any way you counter it, or something?
1: Changes all the time, I gotta say that I have high hopes for Scarf Tyrantrum at the moment.
2: I definitely want to be on the winning team of SPL a year to come, but I don't think badges are that important. If I find some contributing part of this site is fun, I'll gladly have the badge show what I enjoy spending my time here on, but I don't like doing things I don't particularly want to in order to get badges.
3: Scarf Discharge Zapdos / Thundy-T + Mega Sceptile. My counter for Sceptile always gets paralyzed turn one from the Discharge, and then it just eats my teams up because of luck. This only happens when I ladder here and there tho.
How did you get into doubles competition ?
Some people (and me too) think that VGC and doubles are pretty similar while it's not, could you tell us why ?
If you had to improve doubles community / section / Metagame, what it would be?
Is there any specific things to do in double teambuilding process compared to other tiers such as OU / UU / RU / NU ?
While tutoring do you take in mind that your tutee may not be experienced enough to understand what you're trying to teach him and then use more appropriate terms ? (since doubles is such a delicate tier)
1: I got into it by being there before it was official tbh. I used to be really terrible, but with my hardcore laddering days past me, I got some solid intuition about this tier to help me when tourneys came about. I didn't really jump into it in any way specific, I just joined when it came around :)
2: VGC and Doubles are probably as different as two singles tiers. While the Pokemon used are quite a lot the same, the different access to mons makes a large impact (most notably Diancie and banned M-Mence), and the 4v4 format completely changes the games. 4v4 makes it much harder to think long term (basically impossible), but does create a new dimension, one that many enjoy, including me. I'll always like Doubles the best, since the games are a bit longer.
3: I would make Stratos become nicer to newcomers ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
4: Yes, quite a few, with one very notable standout point:
Stall does not exist. This is simply set in stone, all Doubles teams carry offensive pokemon, wether they may be fast or bulky and slow, it's always attacking / supporting moves, no entry hazards or toxic. WoW and thunder wave are popular though, since they are very useful utility. Also with the method of building, you almost always build around an offensive core; you don't start off with bulky utility mons.
5: I actually always start by giving them a heads up on what moves are useful in Doubles which they've never seen in singles, such as Wide Guard, Quick Guard, Helping Hand, Follow Me, Rage Powder, Ally Switch, Fake Out (used sometimes in singles, but not nearly as good), Feint, and more. There usually isn't much misunderstanding :)
1. How do you guys plan to extend your reach towards the VGC community? Many prominent VGC players have been playing dubs, even in SPL, but VGC has cash prizes and generally better outreach it seems.
2. common doubles strategies? i sorta know sand, TR, rain, weatherless etc. are pretty good but it's hard to build synergy-wise in dubs (i'll admit I haven't made too much of an effort in this regard)
1: We haven't really discussed this, I think they co-exist fine as it is really. We won't ever be able to match their prizes, so we're fine with being the sort of simplified version with less tension involved at even the high level. We do, however, truly consider ourselves the more competitive tier ;)
2: The most common strategy right now is probably just all around goodstuffs. This seasonal, you see a shitload of usage for bulky attacker mons; Kangaskhan, Rotom-W, Heatran, Aegislash, Landorus-T are kings of usage, so basically everything that's considered "standard" is rightfully considered so. It's a bit sad to see how people aren't that creative in the seasonal though, spl usage stats where notably more varied.
:D