Hello Friends and welcome back to OU player of the
Lord Enz
Favorite pokemon:
Tornadus-T
Most used pokemon
Toxapex
Best known for: Nearly Flawless WCOP run, OST finals
Favorite pokemon:
Tornadus-TMost used pokemon
ToxapexBest known for: Nearly Flawless WCOP run, OST finals
Hi Lord Enz, how are you doing?
I'm fine how about you?
im doing great thanks:) How has this post/ almost out of pandemic life been treating you?
A lot better than during the time of the pandemic, though it still didn't have that big of a difference for me, as I was mainly busy studying for university to be honest. But in the near future I will be able to enjoy it to the fullest I think.
Oh yeah I had a similar experience of doing Uni during the height of the pandemic and it was pretty painful personally, but its nice to hear things are starting to return more and more normal there
But would you like to introduce yourself a little more?
Of course with pleasure. My name in real life is Lorenz, I am 20 years old and come from the eastern part of Germany. I started playing Pokemon Showdown in 2016 and before that I only played Wifi. I'm actually a pretty new face here on Smogon and therefore haven't had many years of success. Apart from my performance in WCOP, I guess I became more known by making it to the finals of the Official Smogon Tournament this year as someone nobody really knew before
Yeah I know we will get into more of the tour part in a second but it really is quite an accomplishment, and something that many talented players have tried for years to do
But firstly, as it ended like an hour ago? Did you end up qualifying for OLT cycle 4?
the Cycle ended recently and I managed to qualify for it. I only had time to qualify in the fourth and last cycle, before that I had to take my exams, but I tried with all my might in the fourth cycle and luckily I succeeded
Yeah laddering for olt can be such a beast, did you go in with any strats? or just simply- ladder as much as I can
Laddering for OLT can be really really frustrating for sure . I have to be honest, I didn't think I would put myself under that kind of strain. Regarding the strategy, I can say that there were two main phases for me. In the beginning, my plan was to load very early, very high, so that I could be sure to qualify as early as possible. However, in the middle of the week the games went really bad. I remember loading for a full 6 hours straight on Wednesday and only going up in about 150 points. I was very frustrated and resolved to change my plan. From then on, I loaded quite few games per day, but played them with one hundred percent attention, so I climbed slowly and persistently. And at the weekend before Cycle End I got up early in the morning because there were few people active who I feared would snipe me. So I finally made it to 2076 points on Sunday morning, which was enough to qualify. So to answer the question concretely: I personally approached laddering in the higher Elo range with a lot of planning and careful loading
its nice to hear how someone who actually qualified did it because a lot of the cycle 1 and 2 qualifiers this year made it seems very easy
But obviously you had a very productive year, I know you talked previously about your OST final appearance but how was the experience as a whole?
It is difficult to put into words. It was just completely crazy. I mean, I didn't sign up for OST thinking that I was definitely going to compete for the title. I saw it at the beginning much more as an opportunity to finally get into the DLC2 meta, which I actually hadn't done at all before OST. And at some point it started to feel like there were fewer and fewer people left and the games themselves got more and more intense and then i reached quarters, semis and finals and from round to round i got more invested in the run . It was really an insane time that I will never forget. I look back on the time of this run with a smile on my face
As you should! Many people including myself, have tried to make a run for the same title, and getting to the finals while just trying to get more into the current meta is absolutely bonkers
If im not mistaken, that almost went immediately into WCOP, did you feel that OST influenced you at all?
Definitely and not only that. I think OST has influenced me a lot more than WCOP, and actually influenced me a lot more than any other time I've had since I started playing this game
I mean it was one of my first big tournament experiences ever
Yeah of course, but especially because they are both very long and can be draining to play that much, do you think that OST burnt you out at all for WCOP?
Not for WCOP, but what probably most people on Smogon didn't catch is that I didn't win a single tournament game in the two months after OST. I definitely went kind of 0-6 or something in different tours during April and May 2021, on the one hand definitely because I was burned out from OST, on the other hand because I was also struggling a lot with losing in the finals. It was a difficult period for me and it took me a long time to come to terms with it.These are the main reasons why I went into WCOP with very little self-confidence, which probably seems ironic to the viewer on Smogon, since you would assume that as an OST finalist you can go into your WCOP games with a lot of self-confidence
Yeah that is very surprising given your great record for WCOP, but also understandable, getting to finals is no easy chore and to lose, even to an amazing player like Empo, can be really tough
You definitely had a great bounce-back though,, at the end of WCOP you had a record of like 6-1? or something insane like that, how did your experience with that compare to OST?
Well, WCOP is a team tournament, which of course has some differences to an individual tournament like OST. I think both tournament experiences had their advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it's nice not to be on your own, but to have a team around you that supports you and trusts you. On the other hand, it also has the disadvantage that you are exposed to a greater responsibility in a team tournament. To explain what I mean: If you want to bring a team in an individual tournament like OST, which you like and feel good with, but which others would be very skeptical about and you lose, then in the end you only have to be angry for yourself, but you have no responsibility to deliver. In a team tournament, on the other hand, a loss by you is a loss for the team, and if you then bring a team that your teammates have expressed doubts about, then I at least would feel double or triple the guilt if I lose than if I simply get defeated in a Bo3 Series in an individual tournament.
Yeah Ive always felt like team tours are much more intimidating just due to that face; if you lose it affects more than you, it affects like 10 other peoples chances.
How was it compared to last year? the whole team experience, did people get a long much better or worse?
I think that this year we were honestly much more mature as a team for the competition. Last year was a first step in the direction of a new generation of German players and above all a brave step, as we also had very little Smogon experience overall in 2020. In the end, however, I think we failed due to a lack of experience in tournament games and the accompanying slight naivety. This year some of the players who were successful last year came back with more experience.Apart from me, where I was able to gain experience at a high level through the OST Run, I also have to mention Felix (gefahrlicherrandom), who took part in both possible team tournaments with SPL and Snake and was not only convincing through his playing ability, but was also able to gain important experience, so that we were able to start with more experience overall and at the same time with many new faces and in my opinion were able to form a much more dangerous team.
Although I HAD to vote for US South, i was very impressed with the quality that Team Germany has been bringing consistently
Speaking of past years, your performance from this year to last shows incredible improvement, what do you attribute that to?
Ladder, ladder, nothing but ladder. I've been a laddergrinder ever since I had the ambition to get good at this game. However, I was very unhappy with my performance last year. While I think some things ended up looking more unfortunate than they ultimately were, overall I don't think I was a good player back then and WCOP was a huge loss for me in 2020. I was very frustrated and angry about that and out of that anger developed an incredibly intense will to convince others of my abilities. So I started to ladder. These sessiond were sessions of the highest intensity. I calculated after the OST run that from the beginning of the run in early January to the end in March, I played a little over 2300 games on the ladder. That's just for OST, not including the grind after WCOP 2020
Thats crazy hahahah so many people say the ladder is garbage so it interesting to hear your thoughts. Do you have any favorite teams you could share with us?
(Click Here)This is a team I built for the OLT playoffs. Zapdos-Galar is a mon I've been thinking about for a while, for the simple reason that it's kind of the only mon that can take advantage of the exceedingly high usage rate of Landorus in the current OU. The principle is pretty simple: you have a mon on your team that Landorus should have a pretty safe entry on (in this case, that's Garchomp, which also hardly has good ways to break a Landorus), then when you're in with that mon you pull a Double Switch on the upcoming Landorus and your opponent is in a bad spot, unless of course he has something like Kanto Zapdos on his team, but that's not very common to be honest. The intimidate gives you +1 Attack on Zapdos and then if you read correctly you get a kill. The rest of the team is basically a solid balance . If I really get into the matchup against an opposing Kanto Zapdos, I have Toxic on Melmetal as a Lure on the one hand and a more defensively invested Garchomp, which should have a good entry on it. Toxic Spikes on Pex is mainly for opposing HO builds and especially weather teams like this typical Volcanion Barraskewda Rain, which has a lot of trouble with Toxic Spikes laid. Otherwise SD Weavile for a little more speed and to have an additional Win Con and of course with the move Triple Axel (please don't play Icicle Crash). I think this is a pretty solid team overall, which I still think is usable, even though it was created at a time when Hail wasn't often used as a playstyle, so it has trouble holding up against Hail because you have to try to get Arctozolt under control with Lando and Melmetal.
Beautiful:) I think that covers it! Thank you so much for talking to me today it was very enjoyable! As my last question Ill ask you; what advice do you have for new players looking to start a successful tour “career” (for lack of a better word)
I would basically say that just constant contact with the game itself is necessary. This can happen, as it did for me, through intensive laddering, but also something like watching replays of great Smogon players, reading the Smogon Forum threads or anything in that way establishes a lively contact with the game. I also think it's very important to reflect on the reasons for a defeat. The game offers a lot of frivolous excuses to settle for after a loss due to the implemented random chances and factors such as matchup. I think it's necessary to look for the mistakes in defeat first and foremost in oneself. Obviously, you also lose games only by hax or matchup and you actually did everything necessary on your part, then there is nothing wrong with categorizing these games as such. However, I think that too many players are very quick to point to hax or matchup after defeats, even though there were a lot of things they could have done better. Approaching this game with the right mentality is, in my opinion, the biggest factor of success on Smogon
Thats really good advice! I remember reading an interview Bloo did that has a similar philosophy and I really think is some of the best advice for new people
Any shoutouts you would like to give?
Definitely shoutouts to my friend and trailblazer Wings of Night better known as Zuchtrest. He was the first player to impress me with his way of playing this game and motivated me to get better at it. Also to ABR, as I have constantly watched his games in major tournaments over the years and have great admiration for his accomplishments and for his way of playing this game. And of course the biggest shoutouts go to all my close German friends who contributed to these achievements, such as Xray,Dragon Claw, GefahrlicherRandom, Max and Max, Serpi and everyone from our close German Discord Jerk, I don't need to shout out everyone there, they will know they are meant. Also Shoutouts to my closest companion Helping Hans, you are the standout in my time spent with this game, you have expanded my view of this game a thousand times in the past and still do today, hopefully a soldier will get to his destination someday
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Thanks so much to Lord Enz for a great interview, as per usual drop any extra questions down below and make sure to check out the upcoming interviews!
Thanks so much to Lord Enz for a great interview, as per usual drop any extra questions down below and make sure to check out the upcoming interviews!
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