INSULT
Favorite mon: Tauros, Magnezone, Reshiram, Mewtwo,
Most used mon: Landorous (although with guilt)
Hi insult how are you?
Pretty good bro how about yourself
Not bad enjoying the rain here in the US over the cold and snow
Would you care to tell us a little about yourself?
Sure yeah my name is James, I am a third year computer science major and other than mons I enjoy games like smash/brawlhalla and TFT
make or break moment here; what is your smash main in any of them that you play
mm, i dont rly have a main main ig my 2 mains would be mewtwo and sheik
very nice! if you said ness i would have had to end the interview
LMAO nah
So how did you end up getting in smogon/PS?
So I had started watching blunder/joey heatah fajitas towards the end of oras in early 2016 and through those videos I found a smaller german youtuber named dokkerich. He would narrate tour games and stuff and sometimes even call with people so I left a comment asking if he had a group chat or smth for these calls cuz they seemed rly chill and I was getting rly into pokemon at this time. He invited me to a skype group where I met some guys like BTB, DenisTheMenace, ayevon, patlop2307. We would ladder together, watch tour games, and eventually I ended up making a smogon in nov 2016
ah ok so you were of the ORAS era when you started, did you find yourself having any tour success in that time or did that really start later on?
No I was really bad early on lool, through 2017 and 2018 I would just play alot of side tours in the Tournament forums and spam managers on discord whenever a major tour came up. Id say my first "success" was winning some OU tour that gave points toward the OU circuit championship sometime end of 2018. I think that was the reason I was given a chance on the classiest early 2019 for spl 10, and when our ou was struggling early on they gave me a chance after midseason and I went 3-2, which was my first official tour experience
I ask a lot of people qs like that because im always curious how people make wcop teams or SPL teams lol, there isnt THAT many OLT qualifiers or OST winners to fill every spot but that makes a lot of sense
OHH wait no i got it wrong i forgot
It was actually olt V end of 2018 when they first introduced swiss
I remember I was in Ireland on summer vacation playing on my phone at my cousins wedding for my last game before cycle 3 closed and was so hype when I won but had to be rly quiet cuz I was in a church
i think i made poffs but got tossed by gama
LOL, still a lit year for insult
there was another interview I did where he played a big tour game on his phone and im still amazed that people can do that.
Talking of tours tho, it was 2018 or 2019 when you won Snake draft? (now SCL)
it was 2019 with the levis yeah
with a win against ima i remember
Yesss I remember really wanting to use mega hera for some reason and it ended up working rly well, I did get lucky i think with an hjk miss on his side but yea that game was a fun one
With an impressive record of 6-4 back then and a similar record of 6-3 in the recent SPL XIII, how has this tournament experience compared to your winning season back in 2019?
All team tours are pretty similar so what rly makes them memorable is the people you play with. Snake 3 i played with alot of dudes that I was in a jerk with, hayburner tace luthier(not in the jerk at the time) and our manager suapah aswell. Winning with your friends is always the best feeling so yeah i think snake 3 will always be the undisputed fav tour of mine but this spl I also met some great dudes so no regrets there
I have never heard the phrase "In a jerk with" consider that stolen
Do you think you can attribute your increase in skill to playing these tours? or do you think friendlies/ladder helped the most
Probably ladder honestly, I think starting off a ladder hero is always the best way to improve your fundamental skills: basic prediction, risk vs reward, sequences. You can play alot more ladder games than tour games so that also contributes to it but I think tours mostly helps your confidence and nerves not necessarily your "skills" which I think for every player plateaus at a certain point at the top level and teambuilding is what sets you apart.
so you dont buy into the whole "Ladder is trash" thing?
Nah, definitely not. Sure theres alot of players at the top of the ladder that may use some p cheesey styles, but theres also alot of great players you can get meaningful practice vs. Im p sure alot of top tour players all have ladder alts lol. I think the "ladder is trash" thing basically comes from ppl trying to use tour teams on ladder which doesnt usually work as the metas are very different (much more offense on ladder).
Would you mind sharing a team you think is pretty solid?
(Click image for team)dont build on my own rly but talah/suapah made this rly cool offense i used week 9 in spl, zone + threats will always be good
p much a standard offense but the rachi adds a nice twist. Healing wish mechanics this gen are rly cool and you can setup a lot of cool stuff with it. Eject lando is also rly nice to get in band weavile safely as there arent too many switch ins to him on most bulky offenses. Lele mostly shines vs other rly offensive teams as usually the scarf set cant break past fatter teams. Lastly fini has just always been a scary win con, altho more ppl prep for it now u can still get some auto win mus. Team is very momentum based so you have to be aggro early and getting lead right is very important. If you can get rocks up with rachi and slow u-turn out your usually in a rly good spot to break and the eject lando also catches alot of ppl off guard u-turning with their corv.
Very cool, shoutouts talah and suapah for a cool team! Thank you for your time Insult! Do you have any shoutouts youd like to give?
shouts lab and chads
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Thanks to Insult for a great interview, make sure to leave any questions in the comments!
Thanks to Insult for a great interview, make sure to leave any questions in the comments!
so just pick the one/s you prefer to talk about:
