Determined to find out about the influx of old men into Other Metagames, my superior investigative journalism skills led me to kenn (not to be confused with Kennedy, Kenny, or Ken. I've been told they're all different users, but that is up to the reader's discretion. Good afternoon Kenn (two N's).
Good afternoon! I will say that hi I am kenn (not to be confused with the goats
ken ,
kenny , or
Kennedy [please tag them in the actual post LOL]) and I am 30 years old (I know I'm an old fart), I'm married, and I have a kid. I work for the USPS (ugh) and make decent money and I have played Pokémon since it came to the US back in the late 90s lol. To be completely honest, I have been around Smogon and PS! before but just super casually (lurking and not really having a steady account) but then I made my actual account (kennukem) and started lurking in OMs back towards the end of Gen 8 when Pokebilities AAA was LCotM. I was just throwing mons together and chit chatting about it in the OMs room and then once the month was over, I wanted to learn a main OM and the one that intrigued me the most was Godly Gift. I Absol-utely love GG and was sad to see it get cut so deep with Gen 9 and no HOME but it has been so much to learn with all the new Gods and stuff. My favorite Smogon happenings right now are my personal thread LOL
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/upthekens.3719343/ but also being a co-manager with
drampa's grandpa for OMPL as well as a co-manager for the first ever M(onotype)OMPL and being a part of a wonder CAPPL team (Go Tyrants, Brelooms, and Venomicons!) I also enjoy learning about all the new OM ideas people come up with in the Metagame Worlshop thread.
Perfect segue into my next question: First of all, congrats on the great OMPL run so far, it's pretty impressive to see a first-time manager and someone who's been on Smogon for less than a year captain a team to the playoffs. How did you get involved in managing in this OMPL, and what are your opinions on the Other Metas tour scene now that you have this experience under your belt?
Well first off I wouldn't be anywhere without the amazing team that drampa and I both drafted so major props to them! I got involved because I know my skill level alongside my availability isn't the greatest to where I could actually play but managing, while a task in and of itself, is less strenuous on my irl stuff coupled with this and I can get done what I need to without being
heavily involved. Thankfully, drampa was looking for a co-manager and asked me if I wanted to do so and I said yes! I think the OM tour scene is interesting in a lot of ways...learning how to properly sub out players when necessary and work on activity issues (making sure the players respond to scheduling attempts, etc.) was huge for me as I haven't had to do that before due to no managerial experience lol. I'll also say that watching all these OMs at the skill level they are at throughout OMPL was a blast and learning how like 2v2 and NFE work (as I have no clue due to never playing them) was so fun to just explore with my team and be able to root them on from the coach's chair lol.
You mentioned Godly Gift as your favorite meta, why did this one stick out amongst some of the others, and what did your first GG team look like? Apart from that, do you have any advice for newer GG players that you'd like to share?
Yes! Godly Gift intrigued me just because I am huge on the stat manipulation OMs like Flipped, Full Potential, and so on. I loved the idea of using Ubers to gift their stats to Pokemon that want better defenses or offenses and even make certain Pokémon shine like Glastrier does with a Speed donation or Brute Bonnet did in pre-HOME. I also liked in Gen 8 where you could make a physically/mixed attacking Zapdos by throwing it in the Atk slot and be able to hit hard on both sides of the spectrum. Speaking of, I don't remember exactly what my first GG team was but I have a whole hub of them here in this post:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/godly-gift.3660461/page-10#post-9366524 and of these ones this:
https://pokepast.es/3e9d194856fe3415 is my favorite one. This particular team stemmed from a !randpoke that UT made me do and it ended up working out tremendously and being one of my most consistent teams in Gen 8 GG. While I am not the best at giving advice, I will say that if you want to get into GG now is the time because there are so many little facets to each God that you can utilize them accordingly and with Arceus and its formes running around, almost every Pokemon can find some niche to be usable due to a guaranteed 120 donation in
ANY stat.
I'll leave the question asking you about secret GG tech until after OMPL is over. Anyways, congrats on being promoted to global mod this week. Are you interested in any other PS communities outside of OM? What has your experience with these communities been like?
Yeah we gotta keep those secrets safe! Lol Thank you! It was unexpected for sure! I am involved in other communities, yes, particularly Pokemon Games (room @), Monotype (room %), and CAP Project (room +). All 3 have their own uniqueness about them which I adore. Pokemon Games is super chill and laid back and it is nice to have discussions about the actual games themselves. Monotype was something I kinda stumbled upon as I was lurking in the very beginning before settling into OMs and I revisited at the very end of Gen 8 and never left. It has been a blast and of course that is what truly started the kenfusion (winking face emoji). As for CAP, I just more recently got into contributing to not just the room but the process as well and that has been an absolute amazing experience and I am glad I stuck around as it feels like an OM of OU and maybe that is why it just scratches an itch I didn't know I had until I started frequenting there.
Back to the OM side of things, I'm going to task you with creating an OM from scratch right now. Alongside this, do you think there's any mechanic that you've seen in the game that could be interesting if it was tweaked by an OM? (these answers don't have to be the same, but if they are you can claim your stake in the next big trend in other metagames.)
Oh...um...creating one from scratch...most OMs I love seeing are the simplest ones and a lot of those have already been done. That being said, I definitely wanna see some more OMs that utilize Tera as the "change". An idea I had was to revamp Bonus Type but instead of nicknaming your mon for a third type, you can just use your Tera Type. The way I would make it work is take for example a Heatran with Flying Tera Type is now Fire/Steel/Flying or a Corviknight with a Ground Tera Type making it Steel/Flying/Ground; however, said Pokemon can no longer Terastalized as it would be considered "permanently" Tera'd with their old typing alongside it. Having triple types seems like a blast as that adds another layer of complexity like how Multibility or Dual Wielding worked Another idea I had could be using Tera Type to provide movepool expansions based on said Type so for ex. anything with Normal Type Tera would have to deal with being Normal Type but gain access to a plethora of moves such as ESpeed or Shell Smash or Tidy Up. I am not the greatest with ideas but I know I definitely wanna see more Tera based OMs since it is the generational mechanic and it would be neat to capitalize on it while we can.
I agree with making more Tera-based OMs, I think it's been a pretty underutilized mechanic so far. Since you've been playing Pokemon since the beginning, what's been your favorite gimmick so far? And does it match up with what your favorite generation is?
Honestly I have loved all the mechanics (even Dynamax though that didn't necessarily translate too well to the competitive side of things) but my favorite of them has to go to Mega Evolutions as the "basic bitch" answer and Terastalization as my "actual" answer. I think Mega Evolutions were super cool to have seen happened and would have loved to have seen Megas for some Pokemon that didn't get them such as Dragonite, Breloom, Flygon, and many more. I also think that GF messed up by introducing more Megas in the ORAS games because that opened up a can of worms with having people hoping that more Megas would come
outside of Gen 6 but alas have not. It is also why I personally don't enjoy MnM because there won't ever be any more stones to have a variety and you're stuck with the "same 5 good stones" (that isn't to say the OM isn't fun just not my cup of tea lol) On the other hand, Terastalization has been an absolute breath of fresh air. I love how it provides offensive
and defensive support to every single Pokemon. While some try to claim that it makes it hard to predict, I would agree with that if it weren't for most mons running the obvious defensive ones (Fairy, Water, Steel) or the offensive ones (normally their STAB to boost it further or stuff like Fire for Grass-types, etc.) Furthermore, I do see how it can overwhelm most OMs thanks to the nature of them already getting powercrept by the mechanic of the OM (hence why it is banned from most OMs lol) Surprisingly, my favorite generation isn't 6 or 9 though, it is 4, specifically Platinum. I think the main reason being was all the evolutions the older Pokemon from Gen 1/2/3 got because it expanded on the plethora of Pokemon I already knew and had grown to love, but also because it came out at a pivotal time for me as I had just endured my first year of HS and was heading into my 2nd year so puberty and everything was awful lol.
Sounds like it's time to put Kenn on dpp stabmons council. How about other interests now: what do you play other than the pokemon video games, or do you have any other interests you'd like to talk about?
I mean old gen OMs sounds super fun ngl. Maybe one day I'll host a tour for it (eyes emoji) I do have a variety of games I play besides Pokemon though unfortunately I almost never have time to actually dedicate myself to playing them. Despite that, I love Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem, Octopath Traveler, Final Fantasy, and many more. If you can't tell I am a Nintendo fan boy mainly because that is what I grew up with console wise lol Other interests I have are I like to collect Pokemon cards. I used to do it a lot when I was a kid but got back into it in the resurgence that was 2020 mid-COVID and I have made some amazing friends because of it. I also really enjoy Fire Emblem as a franchise as it scratches that itch I have for turn based strategy games while providing some good story/character/world building. My favorite is Awakening (s/o to those fans) and 2nd is probably Sacred Stones or Three Houses. I also am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Like that was my jam going to see all the movies in theaters and reading all the books. I even remember one time standing in the line at Barnes and Noble at midnight for the release of Half-Blood Prince only to be 2 shy of getting a copy so I went to across the street to a grocery store I heard had them and got the last one on their display right before this older lady tried to snatch it and she was pissed lol
last question, do you have anything else to share with the OM community? Any thoughts on the future of OMs or what else you hope to do on PS and Smogon?
If I were to share anything, it is that I personally feel like there is an OM out there for everyone or anyone to enjoy so if you don't like a certain one, that is all fine and dandy as there would be no need to harp on it or bash it. I really wanna see OMs grow bigger than it has already in the year-ish that I have been here and continue thriving and bringing in new people that enjoy all the same things I do. As for PS!/Smogon, I am just happy to have gotten as far as I have, but I love contributing (theorymonning ideas for OMs, Mono analyses, as well as the CAP process) and I don't plan to slow down as the journey continues!
At this point, Ken, Kennedy, and Kenny had all joined us and I had lost track of who I was talking to. Which one? Which user? I hadn't eaten or drank anything in days and I was going delusional. Luckily, I checked my notebook and realized I had gathered enough information for this installment of Other Metagames Interviews. Hopefully your questions are answered by the right Kenn, but who's to say that his imposters might jump in and mislead or trick you.
