Taranteeeno
Favorite Pokemon: Shaymin
Most Used LC Pokemon: Mienfoo
Known as: :tyranteeeno:, Manager of the LCPL 8 finalist team Shambled Shellos, LC Room Mod, LC UU Tier Leader, MDL Mod, LPL Host, LC Elite leader, Manager of the LPL3 finalist Proletariat Patrats, LCWC NA Central, :scrubs:, son of trash
So here we are with the almighty taranteeno, the interviewer now gets his chance to be interviewed, so to start off this interview, why don't you talk a bit about yourself?
Ah yes.. almighty lol. Well I feel like a lot of people know a fair amount about me. I am 26 year old full time software developer and part time student studying Comp Sci. Kind of started college a bit late, but it's all good since I've been working in the IT field for almost five years now. I have a girlfriend I've been dating for over four years and we live together right now. Most of my hobbies revolve around competitive mons, casually playing Smash Ultimate and Melee, and UFC Undisputed 2012 lmfao, but I also enjoy going out with friends to restaurants, bars, and random sort of fun things like bar arcades, bowling, whatever. I used to be very into Muay Thai kickboxing for two years, but since have been lazy. I still go for runs though and follow MMA, kickboxing, etc. I think that's it. Oh I also used to be an avid musician, I played a lot of piano, guitar, bass, some drums, even trumpet and I used to make beats lol.
Pretty interesting, what characters do you usually main on both Ultimate and Melee?
Roy. Only Roy. I really can't play anything else LOL. I'm terrible from a competitive sense, but better than most of my friends.
So, how you ended getting up into Pokemon and our beloved Little Cup?
Well, since I was like 5, I used to play Yellow, Green, all of the Gen 1 carts that my grandfather would send from Japan. I think I played all the way until Ruby or maybe FireRed, I'm not exactly sure. I didn't start playing competitive Pokemon until I bought Pokemon Sun and got into VGC17. I think my curiosity for VGC17 came from watching YouTubers like Cybertron. I sucked at VGC lmao but I had fun breeding teams, playing silly strats like LeleDrif + Extreme Evoboost and Psych Up. Oh actually my favorite shitty strat was Scarf Skill Swap Mismagius into Tapu Koko to make Garchomp waste its Z move LOL so bad.. Anyway, after I stopped playing VGC, I dabbled in singles like a typical noob. I brought mons like Klefki to Ubers and played random bats in 1200s. Then, I got involved in aim's sub server since I had a free Twitch Prime sub and signed up for my first ever team tour, which was his sub league. It was a ghosting team tour and this is where I learned how much I loved team tours; not because of the ghosting LOL but for the camaraderie and excitement when you or your teammate clutches a week. In this tour, I played NU and learned a lot from friends, Count Riario and Draceius. It should also be noted that DPP LC star, Fantos13, was the manager of this team! If I didn't experience a team tour like this with such awesome people, I would've never continued playing competitive singles.
After that tour ended, I was looking for new metas to play and came across Little Cup while taking some time off from work during New Years 2018. I came across the Blinkboy Dark Spam sample team and was wowed by the fact that I could hit 1400s in my first day of playing by sweeping so easily with DD Scraggy LOL. I instantly fell in love with this team and a team that EnzoLapras made that had a Meowth. The fact that Meowth could two-shot so many mons with Fake Out + Feint blew my mind and after getting higher than I'd ever been on the ladder (like mid-1500s LOL), I decided Little Cup was my next favorite metagame. It helped that all of the mons were adorable too.
Anyways, what pushed you to Little Cup instead of some other level 100 metagames or even Doubles OU itself?
I really love how in Little Cup, you can make even the fattest mon drop in one hit. It was really entertaining to just click on the ladder and watch this cute little Scraggy or LO Abra drop mons left and right. It was just a metagame that I immediately got the hang of. Even if I wasn’t good at it when I first started, the hyper offense builds I was using really clicked with me. Also, keep in mind that I never liked using OU mons so even my first real competitive singles experience involved NU. I still don’t play many tiers above NU often. I think another important thing that not only pushed me further into LC but kept me here was experiencing tournament success. I reached R8 of my first seasonal and used some of my replays from there + my willingness to be a tryhard to get into LCPL 7 with the Bunnelby Battalion as the literal last pick of the draft. I ended up 2-2 that season which is meh, but it was truly a memorable first forum tour experience that made me stick around for more.
So after tryharding for LCPL 7, how was the experience of being on your first LC teamtour itself?
It was a rollercoaster lmao. There were a lot of highs and lows. The people on my team were pretty awesome. trash, Melon, passion, lax, Fiend, and others were really nice to me. I played a lot of random test games that season. I started off strong 2-0 even beating someone in majaspic who went for like 14k more than me by trapping his Ferroseed with my Geodude-A. Shout outs to Fiend for that team. I also had a lot of lows, losing to Ducklett webs and getting ravaged by madoka’s Amaura team like 30 times in a week LOL. Overall, it was a super memorable experience that taught me a lot about myself. I get super nervous in tour games where I feel I have to win. I really wanted to go 3-0, especially vs pinktidal who was like 5-0 at the time, and I remember just slowly falling apart as the match went on lmao. Anyway, it was just fun to jerk with teammates, play LC, and annoy the shit out of trash with my neediness for team help. Apparently all the teams I built were fine but idk about that.
So let's get on talk with Little Cup, what are your current thoughts on the current metagame? Would you change anything? Would you ban Vullaby or unban Wingull?
To be honest, I haven’t been building a whole lot in the current meta. I’ve been taking a break from SM LC prep after LCPL 8 and am really just following the meta by watching Snake LC matches. I personally don’t hate the meta as it is now and would probably be okay with the meta ending how it is now. However, I do think the community deserves a little trust from the council and should be given a Vullaby suspect test. Then, in the Vullaby suspect thread, each council member should thoroughly defend keeping Vullaby in the meta. I’m pretty sure only one or two council members at most have made metagame discussion posts about not suspecting Vullaby (other than that massive, disorganized council chat leak that was posted). Also, to say there isn’t enough time to deal with the meta post-suspect seems silly when they’re planning on having two more circuit tours after Fall Seasonal and circuit playoffs. If I had to decide between banning Vullaby or unbanning Wingull, I’d probably unban Wingull because I love that mon and mid-2018 SM LC was awesome. However, I don’t really think I want to do either right now. I’m not really in a position where I can thoroughly explain the benefits or consequences of either action.
And for a last question, what advice would you give to new players coming in for the LC scenario?
Play a lot of LC whether on the ladder, individual tours, team tours, friendlies, etc. Chat in the LC Discord but try not to shitpost too much (especially early on). It’s pretty easy to be liked if you aren’t a jerk and just act like yourself rather than being aggressive or forcing memes/bad humor. Ask for teambuilding help and be open to constructive criticism. Some people might not give advice in the friendliest way but don’t take it personally. The longer you stick around and have a positive presence, the easier it will be to break into LCPLs and other fun community activities. Also, join LPL because that is a surefire way to get your first LC team tournament experience!
And before we end this, do you have any team you wanna share with us?
https://pokepast.es/b60f0b1433cbd9c2
Sure! Here is a revamped version of a funny team that I built with Acehunter1 a few months ago. It’s LC UU ParaFlinch! The idea of this team is very simple. Use Thunder Wave and Prankster Stun Spore to status as many mons on the opposing side and get to work with your flinching moves. The main abuser of this is of course Serene Grace Headbutt Deerling, affectionately known as FAlRY, and there are other mons like Diglett-A, Woobat, and Honedge to make use of paraflinch. This team works best vs standard bulky offense and even fatter balances. Versus hail, you will have to lure weather sweepers into getting para’d. Good luck and have fun fishing!
I'm definite going to be using this out
, thank you for your time Taranteeeno and everyone for reading, and feel free to ask him questions, see you all on his next interviews.
Let’s make this happen soon!