Art by Kalalokki
Mac3
Favorite Pokémon: Scrafty
Most used Pokémon: Reuniclus
Most known for: Being a long time member and contributor to the community. Making EU cheese popular.
After escaping the cursed European laboratory, I was on the run, being chased by multiple people yelling "just use rain or stall". I found myself cornered by a single member of the group. This time, his title card said "MAC-3".
"What do you want from me?" I said while trying to figure out how to give him the razzle-dazzle. He laughed and told me to put 3 eject buttons on my team.
I had no idea what this meant, but I could see that he had a keychain with Iron Defense, Calm Mind and Stored Power. I knew he was dangerous and unpredictable from this small interaction.
I knew I had to distract him, so I engaged in conversation...
Hey Mac3, how are you doing?
I’m good, what about yourself?
I'm doing alright, thanks for asking
To a lot of people, you are a guy who made a name for himself in the new mainer era when gen 8 started, but to me, you are a super old and recognizable name from the RU room. Would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
Not at all, my real name is Karl and I'm a 19 year old Swede taking a break year rn between high school and university, although ill hopefully start studying this fall again. Im looking to get into civil engineering - specifically applied mathematics. In my free time i like watching sports ranging from football, f1, hockey, basketball, to whatever is airing really. I also like going thrifting with friends or just watching anime/reading manga.
And how did a guy like you, with so many different interests and hobbies, get into mons?
Well i got into it through the black and white DS games as well as watching youtubers like shofu and shadypenguin do nuzlockes which eventually led me to getting showdown recommended to me through the algorithm i believe.
The pipeline was definitely ds games --> youtube --> showdown
And how did you end up playing RU? Tell us about your whole Showdown story cause u've been around for a while, but didn't really become a community figure until the last gens
Yea, i started playing in like 2012 in whatever tier that had their respective room not autoconfirmed which led me to ORAS NU really - wasn't even a stall main at this point. After that i bounced around ORAS tiers and SMUU until Clefable rose which coincided with SMRU beta i believe - leading my to try it out. Since then i've been playing ru but i mainly lurked in disc and also got regularly burnt out into not touching mons at all for several months - came back around late ssru beta or maybe just after beta and have been playing since.
And why have you decided to stick around this time? You've been a solid contributor since the beginning of the 8th generation so it's an interesting change for someone who has been around for so long (excluding the fact that you were an infant when you first started)
I think biggest reason is that i started talking in ru disc more as well as doing better in tours and getting picked in teamtours. Not much more complicated than that i think, maybe just becoming older also helped a lot socially.
Yeah I can relate to that, it felt especially easy because you started becoming active in what I call the raise of the next generation of players back when SS first started, where we saw faces like TheFranklin, GW, the pharoah and more get into the tier, and older players like yourself, Expulso, gorex and sensei axew become prominent figures.
Do you have any thoughts about the new RU community with the beginning of Scarlet & Violet? And any thoughts on the tier in general? Seeing how your team made it to RUPL semifinals, you must have an educated opinion on the tier itself
I think all the new faces seem very fun and hopefully stick around to increase the core player-base. Also the players who came into their own mid/late SS like ywt, floss, oyster, and ampha have all seemlessly transitioned into SV so hopefully they keep playing RU with the new gen.
The tier as of right now is really strange, I can't really tell where exactly, but my best guess is that we have really few defensive glues/pivots and rely a lot on defensive tera to keep a bunch of things in check. I don't think we can really solve this pre-HOME/dlc due to the absence of mons and that tera really holds the tier together, but after an influx of mons I hope smogon does something about tera. Tier is a lot of fun to build tho, tera does open lots of niche options which I enjoy - excited to play ssnl series against arce.
I see, I'm personally hoping to get more defensive options to get some diversity, but we are finally getting some fun stuff in Tsareena and Toedscruel at least.
Now back to you, you are known for originally using more matchup fishy strats, but you've also managed to prove that you build and pilot standard teams really well. What has been your approach when building and playing?
well really i've always thought building was the best part of my game, so I always try to have the matchup going into the game meaning i wouldn't have to outplay a better player. In addition to this i've always felt keeping the opponent guessing style-wise doesn't have a drawback so thats why I use anything from HO to stall. I don't really have an approach to playing, if i were to analyze myself I probably am on the safer side.
And did you ever take inspiration from other players? Did you look up to older players when getting into the more competitive scene? And do you see any possible new name that might be able to become this gen's rising star?
Yeah I for sure got inspiration from other players, in the beginning years pif was always a guy I looked up to cause he always built such fire stall teams and also performed incredibly well. Also people like lapraz and despize were also stall players who did it really well when I was starting to get into competitive. RU-wise a bunch of the auths like aldo, lep, and llamas were big names, last few years I've also thought that how tlenit builds is really cool so been trying to replicate his type of builds.
I think all the new guys have the potential of breaking out this season as long as they stay active. The new voices in Rarelyme, sneakyplanner, and zause all have impressed me when I've played them, so too has Lime. Lilo also really impressed me in RUPL so they too have a great shot, especially having had their first RUPL now.
Do you have any predictions for what the SCL RU pool will look like? And do you think you'll be playing in it?
Hmm I think that there will likely be quite a lot of tournament players or proven RU faces with the generation shift and the playerpool not being as clearcut because of it. I have high hopes I’ll be playing but I ain’t sure I’ll get drafted with me not having many results in SV yet.
The meta will change soon, and that's almost always considered basically a new tier, so you have plenty of chance to get a feel for it before the tournament starts.
Do you have any team you'd like to share with the fans? And explain your thought process behind it as well
ah rip im away from computer till the 30th so will not be able to for a while
That's alright mr BUSY, you can just share one with the audience in the thread
RUSO or ARUSO? Pick carefully
im on whatever side floss isnt after he betrayed us for monotype
Before we wrap this up, I was wondering if you have a favorite game you've played in your time gaming? Could be from either a regular seasonal, to an official tournament one. And why is it your favorite one?
I don’t have a favorite game, but a series that sticks out to me is one I had in a SS ssnl vs llamas mainly due to the fact that it was really the first bigname player I beat in a big tournament.
I think a lot of people would think the same of a series when they beat a big name player for the first time ever
Is there anything else you'd like to tell the fans?
Enjoy the summer
Thanks for ur time mac3
Been a pleasure
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Feel free to ask Mac3 any questions you want!
If you have any recommendations, I'll be more than happy to read them, just PM me!
Next time on FeliInterviews...
Feel free to ask Mac3 any questions you want!
If you have any recommendations, I'll be more than happy to read them, just PM me!
Next time on FeliInterviews...
