Project OU Player Interview #10: Ox the Fox

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Welcome back to the OU Player Interviews! This week, we have one of the newest OU Council Members, Ox the Fox. It's the year of the Ox, and boy has he lived up to it. He was an integral part of US South's WCoP win, and he recently crushed OLT as well, winning against some really tough opponents. On top of this, he's had a strong showing in SCL so far, and you cannot forget his ability to top the OU Ladder whenever he chooses. As always, leave any questions you have for him below. See y'all in the next one.


Ox the Fox

Most Known For: Winning WCOP, winning OLT
Favorite Pokemon: Makuhita
Most used Pokemon: Landorus-T

Where did you get your name from?
Used to play RuneScape way back in the day and oxmanlyfire123 got randomly regenerated from that. Over time changed it to Ox the Box because I thought it sounded cool, and then eventually changed to Ox the Fox because I liked the aqua color on showdown more.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Irl my name is Aaron and I’m a 21 year old guy in my last year of college studying finance. Mons is my favorite hobby rn but I’m also big into running and playing the piano. Entertainment wise, my favorite TV show I’ve watched recently was You and I’m also currently reading Crime and Punishment.

How and when did you get into competitive battling?
I started playing mons competitively when I was around 14 years old. I remember watching pokemon showdown videos on youtube and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. Ended up getting hooked on it and started to play it a ton. I managed to qualify for stour and peak #1 a few times on ladder in the timeframe of 2014-2016, but asides from that I never really had much success as a player. Basically completely stopped playing around the end of 2016 because IRL became busier and then I started playing mons again around June of 2020 as I was bored during quarantine.

What are your thoughts on the SS OU Metagame?
I think the metagame is in a really good spot right now with a lot of different viable mons. There’s a lot you can do in the builder and the recent rise of the galarian birds, zapdos and moltres, show that the meta is still constantly evolving. I also enjoy how the metagame has been shifting away from corviknight builds – hail becoming relevant forced people to stop using corviknight as the only steel on a team and has shown the flaws that corviknight has in general.

To add on to that, what's your favorite tech that abuses current metagame trends?
My favorite tech to abuse the meta trends has to be the core of toxic protect melmetal + magnezone. Most teams will rely on pivoting around the water + landot + the steel to pivot around melmetal and if the steel gets taken out of the equation with zone this pivoting becomes unviable. I brought this core to OLT finals vs SoulWind and it worked out perfectly in the game. I managed to trap soulwind’s melmetal after getting an intimidate off and then I was able to use my own melm to easily break through his team. He had a slowbro which somewhat deals with it but once you toxic it and get rocks up you just need one flinch with double iron bash (which has a 51% flinch rate) and you’re able to break through it.

Do you feel that there is anything that is suspect worthy at the moment?
I think that stored power is a pretty stupid move that leads to way too many cheese wins, but it doesn’t have nearly enough usage to warrant a suspect test. I also doubt the community would ever be convinced in it being broken, as I’m aware this is a very minority opinion. In terms of pokemon, I think kyurem is broken right now. It has barely any checks and would-be checks like spdf clef or corvi will eventually get frozen.

What's your favorite playstyle and why?
BO – I think there’s the most room to outplay your opponent and to get over any RNG when using it. It’s also the least volatile in terms of its matchup spread – you will often get average matchups and rarely get terrible or amazing matchups. Compare this to something like HO or stall where the matchups on the far end of the spectrum become much more common and it’s a lot more likely the game becomes decided solely on preview.

What's your favorite generation of OU and why?
Gen 8, it’s the only one I’ve put any sort of time into recently. I played gen 6/7 a decent amount for stour but I haven’t explored them enough to really understand the nuances of the tiers, although I will say that gen 6 is dogshit and omniboost z-moves are broken in 7.

Can you explain your team-building process for tours a little bit?
First I’ll look through my opponent’s teams and try to find one or two mons that I think will not only match up well vs them, but vs the meta in general. I generally advise people against attempting to counter team your opponent as the chances of them bringing the exact type of team you want them to bring is extremely low. In terms of actually building the team, I don’t have too structured of an approach, I just have a good grasp of what’s good in the meta based on the games I’ve played + the tourney games I’ve watched and can naturally come up with mons that work well together. In the beginning of the week I try to go for quantity over quality by just creating a lot of different teams with potential ideas. Over the week I’ll test the teams and then normally decide on something a couple of days before the game.

Anyone you want to give a shoutout to?
s/os to everyone who’s been supporting me through OLT and to south/islanders

Finally, can you provide us a team that's a good fit for this metagame and reflects your playstyle, with a brief explanation of how it works?
https://pokepast.es/0acd6f59052ce020

This is a team I’ve brought four times to tours within a month and what I think is one of the best teams in the metagame. It’s a variation of a team I’ve been using since WCOP R1, with the original version having band urshifu > scarf. What I love so much about it is how you’re able to outplay any matchup with future sight + three extremely powerful threats. There’s also a lot of room for slight variations in the team with options such as band shifu and SD kartana being viable.

---

As always, leave any questions below. See y'all in the next one!
 

Katy

Banned deucer.
GOAT <3

Since we talk daily on discord anyway, I just wanted to drop by and say how proud I am of you. You improved a lot and you are such a great, amazing player and furthermore such a cool, good presence everywhere! keep on with that attitude, I really do like and respect that! :blobthumbsup:

But there is one question I have to your famous Choice Specs Volcanion Hail Team, how did you come up with that and what was your thought process during the building? It surely impacted the OU mate and shaped it drastically in a very fast fashion and I truly like innovative aspects in a metagame, which leads to another question, what is the most underrated set on a Pokemon (could be any Pokemon) and why do you think it is?

Non Poke related questions: What is your favorite season and color, and what is your favorite sports?

Have a great day and great interview Clone
 
How does it feel to have beaten Soulwind without your flagship team?

What caused you to first become hooked on glowking?

Any lower tiers or older gens you enjoy?

What games outside of pokemon do you play?
 

scorbunnys

Don't dream your life, but live your dream. #Bunny
Some questions
Do you think the new games (DPP remakes) will improve the meta?
Thoughts on Scorbunny's design?
What's your favorite animal?
What's your favorite tournament?
So from what I saw you believe that Kyurem's busted in OU, would you use Snorlax/Sylveon to stop it? Why?
Thoughts on Sun?
Is there any fun smogon anecdote you'd like to share?
Would you mind building a Glaceon Snow Cloak or Mamo Snow Cloak Hail? :3!
And the last question is....
What do you think about ausma?
 

Ox the Fox

is a Tiering Contributorwon the 8th Official Ladder Tournamentis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Smogon Charity Bowl IV Winner
Do you play unite?
What kind of food do you like?
Opinions on Blacephalon
1. nope
2. favorite type of food is italian but for a typical day of cooking I'll eat an egg dish for breakfast, a protein shake for lunch, and pasta for dinner.
3. blace is in a good spot right now but not as good as people are hyping it up to be. It doesn't come in frequently enough to be a huge threat and the rocks weakness is obviously always going to hold it back

It really do be the year of the ox

is there any mon you find underrated in the meta?
How do you like your steak done?
1. I think timid kartana is underrated in the meta mostly due to how broken SD kart is when it gets speed boosts w/ the attack boosts. We've seen speed boosting kartana sweep a lot in SCL with endure or adrenaline orb (both great sets) but I think timid kart is just as viable despite seeing lower usage.
2. medium

Do u play any other games other than mons?
By far ur most used pokemon in this gen?
1. nope
2. obvious cop-out answer is landorus-t but other than that I think it's probably toxapex


You're given the keys to the gate holding dexit hostage. However, you can only free one mon. Who do you pick and why?

How do you like natdex compared to ou

How many hours you sinking into legends arceus
1. I would definitely free greninja. I would love to have another fast offensive dark type so that I'm not just slapping weavile on every team as a way of somewhat checking shadow ball
2. the tier can be fun to mess around with but the smaller playerbase, and as a symptom of that, lack of people who try in tours, makes it difficult to take very seriously. It also makes me miss megas as none of them are even that amazing in the meta (I think there's only 1/2 ranked in A+) but they add another element to the game which makes it more fun.
3. 0 ;(


do you like the fact that samurott 6-0s teams and 1shots bw breloom ;)
no,,,, that mon is so cursed

GOAT <3

Since we talk daily on discord anyway, I just wanted to drop by and say how proud I am of you. You improved a lot and you are such a great, amazing player and furthermore such a cool, good presence everywhere! keep on with that attitude, I really do like and respect that! :blobthumbsup:

But there is one question I have to your famous Choice Specs Volcanion Hail Team, how did you come up with that and what was your thought process during the building? It surely impacted the OU mate and shaped it drastically in a very fast fashion and I truly like innovative aspects in a metagame, which leads to another question, what is the most underrated set on a Pokemon (could be any Pokemon) and why do you think it is?

Non Poke related questions: What is your favorite season and color, and what is your favorite sports?

Have a great day and great interview Clone
1. at the time I remember thinking about how good double defog cores were and I wanted to try it out on a hail team to mitigate the rocks weakness. After I had lando, corvi, ninetales, zolt I needed a water resist/immunity and had seen eeveeto using volcanion on his hail team which I thought looked cool so I went with that. Finally, I needed a dragapult switchin + general pivot so I decided to try out the AV tornt set that had been popping up in WCOP and it ended up fitting perfectly. I got pretty lucky with this build and it ended up being extremely dominant on ladder and is somehow still the best hail team.
2. answered this above (timid kart)
3. fall, forest green, and rock climbing


How does it feel to have beaten Soulwind without your flagship team?

What caused you to first become hooked on glowking?

Any lower tiers or older gens you enjoy?

What games outside of pokemon do you play?
1. it was tough not using glowking but I'm glad I was able to abuse magnezone cores instead
2. I love how hard it is to switch into with its coverage + future sight making your other mons a threat
3. I've been playing a decent amount of ADV OU recently which is really fun except 1) baton pass is broken 2) boom mindames suck 3) the crit rate is too high and they do too much damage
4. none

Some questions
Do you think the new games (DPP remakes) will improve the meta?
Thoughts on Scorbunny's design?
What's your favorite animal?
What's your favorite tournament?
So from what I saw you believe that Kyurem's busted in OU, would you use Snorlax/Sylveon to stop it? Why?
Thoughts on Sun?
Is there any fun smogon anecdote you'd like to share?
Would you mind building a Glaceon Snow Cloak or Mamo Snow Cloak Hail? :3!
And the last question is....
What do you think about ausma?
1. honestly there's nothing from the remakes I think will make the game better. only two real mons I can even really think about are 1. gliscor which will be such a pain to kill and make fatter teams more common and 2. manaphy which will be fine unless they add tail glow back, in which case will be extremely annoying as always
2. I had to google this mon to see what it was so I guess nothing memorable. although looking at it now I gotta say the design is really cool, def better than a lot of other starters we've had recently
3. dog
4. OLT
5. I wouldn't - bad mons
6. way too matchup based for me to bring it in a tour game. swear out of like 6 times I saw it brought to OLT it only won one time in a game it really should've have won.
7. can't really think of anything rn but I'll edit something in later if I do
8. nah, hail is already so limited in what the 4 mons other than ninetales zolt need to accomplish that its hard to build with shit mons that aren't fast offensive threats
9. terrible user


What's your favourite replay?
Of mine: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-570346
Of anyone: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-533296


how do you like your steak
1. medium


Favorite kind of sub sandwich?

Favorite mon to use in ADV?

you’re a beast, bro. proud asf of you for killin it this year.
1. spicy italian
2. regice
3. ty bro
 
yo, grats again on all your accomplishments so far. thanks for the help, personally, and for helping/improving our community <3

What advice do you have for players (ones that have 2-3 years of experience or so) who want to get better skill-wise? Do you recommend playing against better players, changing up the formats, etc.?

Will you be invested into BDSP when it comes out (thoughts too?)

(Are we going to ignore that you said "If you take more than 5 mins in the builder you're doing something wrong...")
 

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