Art by Kalalokki
Odd Della Robbia
Favorite Pokemon: Munchlax
Most used Pokemon: Roserade
Most known for: Winning RU Open, coming out of the blue to make a name for himself in the tier and playing randbat for 5 years.
I woke up near a lake in Michigan, my head was throbbing and the last thing I remembered was that one Italian dude laughing manically while he hit me with a frozen pizza in the head.
I walked around confused and decided to sit down until I felt better. Fortunately for me there was this fishing competition happening at the lake so I at least had something to enjoy.
The competition was fierce, and you could see a lot of professional players going at it, many known names in fact. However, this one kid who apparently was a newcomer went ahead and randomly won the whole thing out of the blue.
I was amazed by his natural talent, so I went after him to have a talk....
Hey Odd, how is it goin bro?
Hey man I’m doing well. How are you?
I'm fine thanks for asking
You are known as one of the most prominent rising stars of the tier, at least in this past generation, so we might as well ought to know more about you
Tell me about yourself
I'm 22 years old and have lived in Michigan my whole life. My family consists of a Mom and Dad, an older sister, a younger sister, and a little brother who has Down Syndrome and is very special to me. Greatest kid ever and i mean it. I went to college at Ferris State University for 4 years and haven't yet graduated. I'm currently taking some time off school and just working so I can afford to go back and finish, although you can still find me on campus sometimes to party with some friends still attending there.
What are you studying in college?
I originally started in Pre-Pharmacy but I later switched and am now a math major specializing in Actuarial Science.
That's fire
How was your childhood like? What did you like to do as a kid?
I grew up in a hockey family, so I started learning how to skate when I was 4 years old and have played ever since. I was really into sports as a whole, so I played football and baseball as well up until high school. In high school I just played hockey and lacrosse since I enjoyed them the most and didn’t have time for any others. Besides sports I was of course really into Pokémon games, starting from my 8th birthday when I got a Nintendo DS and Pokémon emerald. To be honest I didn’t even play the game right away because I thought the Rayquaza on the cover looked scary LOL. Once I worked up the courage to play the game though I loved it, and have probably played over 1000 hours through multiple save files on that game, and my current save file has all 7 gold symbols from the battle frontier. I continued to play new Pokémon games as they came out, including the mystery dungeon games, which I was a huge fan of, and ranger games.
lmao nice, always loved the side games as well, especially the classic explorers of darkness/time/ sky and the OG pokemon ranger
Can we talk about Code Lyoko and the impact it had on ur name? I mega loved the show as a kid and the moment I saw ur name I got flashbacks to me watching it
Yeah bro that show was mega fire! My absolute favorite when I was a kid. I thought the virtual reality thing was the absolute coolest shit ever and I thought Odds character was hilarious so I named myself after him. I watched the series all the way through while I was in college and it was so nostalgic. If anyone reading this ever plans on watching it all do yourself a favor and skip pretty much all of season 1 though lol. The budget was super low and none of the episodes contribute anything to the overall plot besides the finale. It’s cool to see the drastic increase in quality once you get into season 2 and beyond though cuz it gets really good at that point.
Yeah same, I remember watching some clips some years ago and was freaked out when I saw Odd's OG hairstyle lmfao
So how did you hear about competitive pokemon?
I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled upon it but my first taste of competitive was from Haydunn on YouTube playing wifi battles. From there I eventually found shofus YouTube channel back in gen 5 and saw him playing on Pokémon showdown, and it looked fun and easy to use so I got on and made my own account to ladder. I was mostly just a shitty ladder hero but I eventually joined the forums in 2014 to play an oras nu ladder tournament, where I actually qualified for playoffs and got clapped in round 1 or 2. After that I decided I didn’t care enough to put the time into learning the meta at an advanced level and so I just played randbats... for about 5 years LOL. I got really good at randbats and was really involved in the room on PS, and was a big name in the 2019 randbats team tour. After that tour martha helped push me into tiered formats for pspl, where I played LC for the randbats room. I didn’t do great going 1-2 but I had a tight game against false, who I knew was a big name in the community. The fact that I was able to have such a close game with him encouraged me to get more into competitive, and so I signed up for Grand Slam and specifically RU Open, which is where I made a name for myself. Since then I’ve had a lot of success mostly in RU, but have made a lot of friends and played a lot of tours in other tiers as well.
lmfao when I first ur PS name "Young, Dumb and Woke" I knew u as the guy who haxed banks, who knew u'd eventually win it all. No lie tho I rlly wanted to play u seeing how good u were doing, thats why I challed u to a bo3
Anyway u also did fairly well in the RU Circuit Playoffs and u've been such a fun member of the community to have around
How has your experience in the tier been and what do you think about it?
I really enjoyed SM RU and even though I wasn’t picked to play in snake I followed the RU games closely to learn more about the meta. I noticed a lot of people at that time used balance teams with fat defensive cores. I tried it myself and actually wasn’t as big of a fan of that style, and so now I mostly just build bulky offense teams and have found a lot of success using that lately in LTPL and while I was in circuit playoffs. The community is also great, and even though the PS room is fairly inactive the discord is great and I’ve made friends with a lot of members in the community. I’m really looking forward to SS RU as even alpha seems close to having a good balance. There are a few things that I think need to go such as Gardevoir and aurora veil, but besides that the meta actually feels like it has a nice balance and there are a good variety of mons that are viable in the tier.
Which players did u look up to? Could be in terms of builds or playstyle, and what are some new names that catch your eye in this alpha version of the upcoming tier?
Ajna is the player I look up to the most in terms of building. I’ve learned a lot from him just from being on his team in LTPL and it’s always nice being able to build with good players that can point out weaknesses in your teams. As far as new players, I really hope Sensei Axew keeps at it because he has definitely shown he’s passionate about the tier. He definitely has more to learn when it comes to building and playing but he’s getting there and I think he could have a future in tournament play if he keeps it up.
What are some hopes and aspirations you have in this upcoming generation and do you see yourself still maining RU?
First and foremost I will be managing a team for Randbats Team Tour this year. It's my first time managing for any tournament so I'm really excited for that and hoping to draft a fire team and get to playoffs at the very least, although I obviously hope to win the whole thing! I probably will still be an RU main yeah, although I'm also thinking of branching out to other tiers as well. I think UU looks pretty solid if kommo-o and gengar get banned and I have a lot of friends who play the tier so I'd definitely like to get into that. I guess my main goal for the year is to get drafted and do well in Snake this year and to also do well in Grand Slam. I barely missed slam playoffs this past year so the goal is to make it this year. If next years SPL has lower tiers like RU I would also hope to get picked up for that. Most of all I'm looking forard to just having fun with all the friends I've made!
Yo thats the mentality man, always have fun
Would you mind dropping a team that best represents your style? And explain ur thoughts while making it
This is one of my favorite teams that I've made recently and it really is a perfect combination of everything I like to use. I really like strong setup breakers like Toxicroak and Mismagius that can take advantage of common balance cores, and filling in the rest of the team with ways to offensively check opposing threats. Golisopod fills in this role very nicely and also provides spikes, which I LOVE. Bronzong is the mandatory fat steel, running heatproof on this team because houndoom as the sole fire resist is shaky. Houndoom is the main revenge killer, with Toxic as a filler. Donphan is the hazard control, and I'm running Toxic on this guy as well in lieu of ice shard since Mandibuzz is pretty annoying for the team to deal with. Overall the team works together really nicely, and there are a lot of various type immunities throughout the team so it forces your opponent to have to predict a lot. It's definitely one of my best creations of the generation and it's brought me wins in both Circuit playoffs and LTPL.
Jesus christ, that has to be the slowest Golisopod I've seen in a while LOL, due to the speed wars my pods end up lookin like that but speed and hp swapped
Bro how did u stay a randbats main for 5 whole years, what were u thinkin all that time?
At the time I was heavily invested in another gaming community (which will go unnamed for now) and mons wasn't something I was looking to seriously get into because I simply didn't have the time, so I would just casually ladder randbats in my free time. Eventually that other game I was invested into got updated into shit and most of the community quit, including myself, and so I had more time for mons. And as for the Golipopod yeah, I don't think it's worth running speed on him unless I have Liquidation or Drill Run. Why bother outspeeding Registeel and Diancie if I cant even hit them, ya know? I'd rather just have the bulk.
This post gave me more questions than answers LMFAO
I wont press on the other community even tho it's killing me to know
Also idk man, speed creeps turn u into somethin else, u just have the need to outspeed everything for the looks, u feel me?
Anyway, do you have anything else you'd like to tell the fans?
thanks for ur time Odd, this was rlly enjoyable
np thank you
=========================================================================================
Feel free to ask Odd Della Robbia any questions you want!
If you have any reccomendations I'll be more than happy to read them, just PM me!
Next time on FeliInterviews...
Feel free to ask Odd Della Robbia any questions you want!
If you have any reccomendations I'll be more than happy to read them, just PM me!
Next time on FeliInterviews...
