Project Player Interview V2 #3: TSR

justdrew

is an official Team Rateris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a defending SCL Champion
PUPL Champion

Approved by UU Moderation / Amazing Art by Moutemoute

Hello and welcome to.. "Player Interview"! This project will allow you to discover or re-discover some well known players of the UU community. This time around we will be focusing mainly on important contributors to the forums such as Tier Leaders, Forum Moderators, Community Contributors, and Council Members. Let me first say that I am honored to be following in the footsteps of an esteemed and accomplished list of interviewers: Moutemoute, Feliburn, Kink, and Cynde. Thank you are very much for your work!

Hello TSR! How are you?


Hi drew, a bit tired after a busy weekend but all is well. How about yourself?


I am doing splendidly. Been super busy but it's all over now!

Alright well, tell me and the community a bit about yourself via a brief introduction. Name, age, favorite color, favorite smoothie flavor, whatever you would like to say!


Well hello I'm Michael, 23 years old, chem major, living in Colorado. Favorite smoothie flavor would be strawberry banana which is odd considering i don't like bananas outside of that at all. Also a filthy degenerate weeb unfortunately.


Wonderful to know! There is no debating the fact that you are a boomer. When did you join and what brought you to Smogon and Showdown?


I defintely getting to the crusty angsty boomer stage lol...... Anyway, I joined almost exactly 6 years ago as of right now. I had known of Smogon for a while beforehand and I have the tendency to be needlessly overly competitive with stuff. Most of my friends outgrew Pokemon in the earlier years but a few of my friends and I stuck with it for much longer and once we all graduated high school and I realized I wouldn't be playing with them and such as often anymore I got more interested in smogon and ended up making an account to start playing, and the rest is history.


One of the longest running jokes, potentially, in the UU community has to do with your name. For those who don't know, go ahead and tell us the origins of the name TSR. And additionally pick 3-5 of your favorite fake TSR acronyms.


Ah, of course. Well first in my defense, I grew up with my mom being quite the helicopter parent so my internet awareness before joining Smogon was quite inadequate. I made the mistake of naming myself ShiningFire08 when i first joined thinking that random usernames like that would be Cool and Hip. I was a month away from turning 18 at the time, by the way. Needless to say once I got my bearings I realized I was past due for a change. Since sometimes my personality turns into cardboard, I went to browsing the forums for inspiration and eventually came across the tournaments subforum. Naturally after exploring SPL and other such threads I come across absolute chads like TDK and BKC and want to be just like them. However in hindsight I definitely had a lurk more moment and decided to mash some letters together without knowing they were actually acronyms for longer names they used to have. As for my personal unofficial acronyms, I have some common ones that I'll list off now as well as who I'd like to think coined them.
1. The Shit Rag - Ark, who got an entire community to refer to me as used toilet paper.
2. Timmy Shit Rectum - Vivalospride, who I can only assume couldn't come up with a different S word.
3. Rational Rag - everyone, who realized I occasionally spit cold hard facts in viv's prediction vids.
4. Lily Henchman - Pak, who gave me this role in our server when I got forum mod and I get tagged with it once or twice a week.


Those are some good ones that are now public knowledge. A decision you 100% will not regret.

You have had a very impressive UU Masters run. Before I had you marked down as an old gens goon, I'm ashamed to say. But you've proved yourself a very talented player this generation. Talk a bit about your tour experience and why you think you got so far this time around.


Hm, hard to pinpoint honestly. Over the years I've been around I kinda have a bad tournament track record overall thanks to me growing up a clicker. In recent times I've been taking my playing and building more methodically as well as working out some irl confidence issues that had been bleeding into mons for some time. I like to think I put a lot of time into building good teams that can play themselves somewhat in standard scenarios so I can make good progress in game without resorting to crazy doubles and hard predictions every turn. Never been easier with bum ass boots slappable on everything so I guess it kinda clicked for me a bit this gen. I tend to also get bored building the same kinda frameworks so I also end up building a lot of what I like to think as creative stuff that I have actual fun piloting as well. As for motivation for this tour in particular, it was pretty hard to stay motivated with the self-imposed burden of creating 3 new teams every week to keep my opponents on their toes (I am not much of a fan of this meta). About halfway through my run I lucked Alpha Rabbit pretty bad, and after he told me I better win the whole thing. Felt bad to do it to a friend like that so I guess I took the comment seriously and kept putting in the effort to make it that far. Came up a little short but don't feel bad as pdt and nat are both great players as well and overall had fun.


I enjoyed watching your games. Proud of you pal

You are now a Forum Moderator. How do you like your job?


It's alright though honestly I haven't had much to do since Lily is always super on top of everything and gets to it first. All I've done so far is join in on giving the OK to a couple forum projects, lock a single thread, and delete a few nonsense posts. I'm sure there'll be a lot more to be done in the future so I'd like to think that I'll be Ready for when that time comes.


Fair, fair. Could you pick your favorite moment from playing Pokemon or perhaps your greatest accomplishment in competitive Pokemon?


I suppose this run in masters is actually my best accomplishment on this site so far which is kinda sad for six years of investment LOL. Hard to pick a single favorite moment though, probably the best times are when we're NOT playing playing Pokemon; stuff like hopping into a call with the boys like Chris Wanka and Pak and shooting the shit while heavily intoxicated and such.


Do you play any video games outside of Pokemon?


That I do. As for the major one, I've been an enormous fan of the Monster Hunter series since I first got Tri in 2010 and haven't looked back since. Would highly recommend anyone reading this to give Rise a try and then proceed to sink 400 hours into it with me. Other than that, my over competitiveness I mentioned earlier has me gravitate to a lot of mechanically demanding games. Monster Hunter fits the bill there but it's also strictly a co-op game so I turn to some PvP stuff as well. I used to Rainbow Six Siege a lot though I eventually lost interest and never put in time to get really good at it. The hacker problem the game has past Silver in Ranked is horrendous to this day. I used to play smash a lot (not a melee chad unfortunately) and showed up to a few locals occasionally, but ever since the quarantine hit those haven't been a thing. Playing Smash Ultimate online is an absolutely miserable experience so I pretty much shelved it and looked into the traditional 2D fighting games. A while ago Guilty Gear Accent Core +R (old game) got an update on Steam that gave it rollback netcode so I decided to give it a try and never looked back. Sick game with super fast pace and several mechanics that reward aggressive play, all complete with a fantastic heavy metal aesthetic and soundtrack that I'm a big fan of, also would give the recommend to anyone that's into 2D fighters. As a weeb I'm also a big fan of the classic rpg style games, though these days they have to really grip me somehow for me to keep playing. Through the years I've been a big fan of Zelda, Borderlands, Fire Emblem (though I need to go back and play a lot of the old games), and some more I would have to think more with my applesauce brain to reference here. Slowly getting through Persona 4 and 5 at the moment, though its tough as the gameplay is a bit of a slog.


Gaming. What about TV, movie, and music interests? Do you have a favorite song, movie, or TV show?


Honestly not a big TV watcher, my mom got rid of our DirectTV service when I was 11 and it kinda just got phased out from a regular part of my life back then. I know I'm missing out on stuff so the plan to sit down and watch some Good Shows is still on the table, such as Pak's favorite recommendation Riverdale (very sarcastic statement). Movies are kinda in the same vein for me since my attention span doesn't work very well at just sitting down and absorbing something. I'll go occasionally to the theaters to watch something with friends but I honestly rarely sit down by myself and just watch something. Again lotta good stuff I know I'm missing out on that I can never talk about with anyone. Classic boomer stuff getting behind the times and all right? As for music I'm pretty open to all genres though in recent times I've become a growing fan of rock and metal thanks to BKC giving me a starting point last year in roapl. As of right now I like a lot from Dream Theater, Slayer, Megadeath Mercyful Fate, and W.A.S.P. As for the obligatory rap / hip-hop options my favorite artists in that area are probably JID and brockhampton, they have a lot of unique songs and sometimes I like having a few songs that aren't about doing drugs and floopin hoes etc. Some other things you literally can't go wrong with also include ab-soul (thank you pak for making me appreciate his music a lot more) and Kendrick so yea basic shit. I also am a big fan of stuff from Prince and Steely Dan since my dad would play CDs from them all the time on long rides when we'd go fishing and hunting so I grew up always listening to it. Could go on longer but we'd be here forever.


Sheeeeesh! Lots to unpack there.

Killintime told me that in the event we were the last two alive on Earth, he would let the human race go extinct. You wouldn't do me like that, would you?


Seeing as we're both biological male humans I don't think there would be a choice in the first place.


You clearly haven't watched Jurassic Park. Nature always finds a way.

Could you perhaps share a team of your own design that you are especially proud of?


Sure.

:azelf::seismitoad::rotom-heat::amoonguss::scizor::keldeo:
I built this team the week I was playing CBU in masters. It's a bit of a more specifically prepped team obviously but I like the way the team plays into itself a lot as well. Most of the team packs momentum moves and pivot into each other's defensive checks off of the free momentum. The Azelf set is also quite nasty for slower bulky offenses to play since even when it meets stuff like mew that can kinda stuff it'll at least be able to disrupt a thing or two and U-turn out. It has some funky choices like AV Amoonguss that I like a lot in recent times thanks to its ability to stuff Keldeo, Raikou, Kommo-o (kinda) a bit better. Doesn't actually have a ghost resist so having it sponge Aegi a bit more is never bad. It's Modest with that investment so Primarina has to CM 3 times against before its Sub survives Sludge Bomb. CB Scizor's also a neat pick for immediate power as well, CB Bullet Punch and Knock provides a lot more power vs dumb screens teams than HDB Swords Dance sets, and CB Dual Wingbeat crushes stuff like Buzzwole, Keldeo, and other Scizors just fine. Unfortunately I posted this in my UUPL chat and got flamed by odr, viv, and many others for running Flip Turn on Keldeo. Literally just double.


Very cool team! Would you like to shout out anyone or give some final remarks?


I don't have too much else to say at this point except we should fuckin ban Mew, I'm so damn tired of having to put defog on every team just for SPIKES of all things in the boots gen not even mentioning the 700 other sets you can run on it if you feel like it with the exception of the Cosmic Power variant in which case I will gladly take my free win against it. I'm burned out as hell with this game at the moment so I'll probably enjoy my lack of playing obligations for the next couple weeks at least but I'd definitely ladder to nuke Mew from this tier given the opportunity. Lastly for shoutouts I'll just give a general shoutout to the barclay boys who've been on the ride since showed up and make the days I spend on Smogon a lot better. Reminder vivalospride stalled barclay and the jerk. Thanks for having me on!


You're welcome. Always a pleasure talking with you!


Feel free to ask to TSR any questions you want!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Rae

valiance and vigor
is a Social Media Contributoris a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Round 3! Drew’s feeding the streets.

Who’s your personal favourite character in both Persona 4 and Persona 5?

If you could bring an OU Pokémon to UU, which would it be?

What do you plan to do with your Chem Major?
 
this is actually what I do at 2 am instead of sleep

Round 3! Drew’s feeding the streets.

Who’s your personal favourite character in both Persona 4 and Persona 5?

So far Yosuke is my boy in 4 because I vibe with his loveable doofus personality, as for the latter tbh I am not far at all at the moment in 5 since it's a pretty recent buy for me so I will have to get back to you on that one in Later Developments. My cringe weaboo opinion says I'll probably like Haru in the future.

If you could bring an OU Pokémon to UU, which would it be?

I'd take Mandibuzz back any day of the week with Tyranitar in a close second.

What do you plan to do with your Chem Major?

Long story but I'm not completely sure at the moment as due to me behind thanks to me being not in a good place my first year in uni and thus not doing very well but if I did have to choose something I'd probably be something in the pharmaceutical or energy fields. They seem like things I can get behind since I get the most enjoyment out of things I do that feel like they have an impact outside of my immediate surroundings. And yet I sit here playing Pokemon every day
Why is Typhlosion your favourite Pokémon? What’s your least favourite Pokémon?

Back in the day when Gold/Silver were the newest game I had played it a ton but my cartridge corrupted somehow and couldn't hold save data anymore so literally everything got nuked and I was quite sad. My cousin because of this ended up getting me a new one for my birthday in the next few months (my cousins on my moms side are all at least 10 years older than me). The first Cyndaquil I loaded up in that new game was shiny. Needless to say 4 1/2 year old me took many moons to figure out why the hell my starter mon was all sparkly. Once I had realized what was going on much longer after Ruby and Sapphire came out I just like figured it was fate or something and the line just stuck with me through the years. Of course Smogon in recent years has once again killed the magic of the Pokemon experience for me as ever since I've taken up GSC OU I now know that a mon being shiny in Gen 2 absolutely destroys its DVs and makes it absolutely awful LOL.
As for least favorite mon it has to be Phione just because I loathe pointless shit and Phione is actually the Pokemon incarnation of said pointless shit. Honorable mentions to a couple other designs that can only be described as affronts to god such as Sigilyph, Incineroar, and Calyrex. Jynx from a competitive standpoint, mashes everything wrong with GSC together on to one mon and makes progress solely via bullshit 6 turn sleep and freezes. Hope it dies.
You're one of the coolest dudes in Smogon, ly

H.M.N.I.P en my heart :psycry: ly2 brother
rank all uus

DPP > ADV > ORAS >SS > SM > BW > GSC
hot take with ORAS so high I know but I really feel like it only has the 1 or 2 glaring flaws and for the most part people actually give a shit about bringing good teams even if most of them are just stealing your stuff.


rank all the random other stuff you play relative to each other

I'll just stick to regular play stuff since we'd be here forever because holy shit I'm good at rambling
1. MH has to be first I'm probably closing in on something like 2000 hours on the series over the last decade. Ask accel once you fall down the rabbit hole you're here forever.
2. Guilty Gear, even if I still suck after 4 1/2 months the music in this series is pure nut no cyap top 5 of all time.
3. R6 at the middle of the road in hindsight since I don't play anymore, the game concept is cool enough to make me like it despite me usually not enjoying FPS games. Learning curve is satisfying and watching pro league streams is a good time but between Ubisoft tomfoolery and the rampant hacker problem, makes playing it casually painful.
4. Arknights even though its dumb cringe weeb gacha that is definitely exploiting the fact I chose this for my gambling addiction even though Cripple Creek is an hour away from where I live. The tower defense stuff makes me feel smart when I pull stuff off + watching bouff try to figure out the challenge mode stages is an endless source of entertainment.
5. Pokemon ofc lmao.... real talk though am I the only one who sees the current landscape of several tiers (especially old gens rn, lookin at you gens 5/6) and finds a lot of the competition matchup fishy and just generally cheesy? In the past years I've had the feeling of dread that I just might lose any given game in the builder before the game even starts grow exponentially and it just stresses me out way more than it should. This games subjective as hell so it's just an opinion but I do not know how the current ORAS and BW OU players handle it.


what are your long term goals on this site if any

At this point the only thing I feel like will be a solid benchmark of progress in that regard is getting picked up for a trophy tour since I haven't been yet. Hopefully that doesn't turn into a self-destructive drive to win a trophy afterwards but we'll see. Also need to have a custom but that requires me getting off my ass to get 1 more badge so it will undoubtedly be a painful process.
Have you ever considered working for TSA at the airport?

I can't imagine myself not doubling my body weight at this job so that's a dangerous proposition....
Actual answer: I don't think I could do it because I am super self conscious of making people uncomfortable and to do it for a living would possibly be my nightmare LOL
Favorite anime or manga? Anything you'd like to be asked that you weren't already asked?

Feel free to ask away with anything as long as I don't have to leak my EXTREMELY cancellable secrets

Always have had a hard time pinning down a single favorite anime since I'm an indecisive man most of the time but if I had to list off a few Contenders I'd say: Fate/Zero, Durarara (would be Not Cool to not mention Baccano here from the same author but since he has the exact same story telling style for both with the large web of plot points and inter-character dynamics that all converge on each other by the end, but the longer run time of the former gave me way more time to get invested in it), Psycho-Pass 1 (Psycho-Pass 2 is a travesty that should not see the light of day, rest of the series is good), and to cap it off with a good ol 90s anime I'll give you Irresponsible Captain Tylor, the epic journey of a man who lucks himself into a position of captain in the space military but just could not care less about the space opera show that should be happening in the background. Nice slice of life elements on top of the semi-episodic 90s style, plus the intergalactic war happening in the background actually matters occasionally as well so that does a lot to keep it from getting too boring. 9 OVAs on top of it to give some of the supporting cast their own spotlight after story deal is really great once you get through the 26 episodes as well.
Same deal with manga tbh but my favorite current read at the moment is Golden Kamuy for sure. The overarching plot is an action adventure deal with some mystery and military conspiracy thrown in as the driving force for the plot. The writing mixes in so many genres seamlessly at all times; one page you're invested in a murder mystery with the main gang and in the next chapter you're laughing your ass off as one of the guys thinks that throwing seeds everywhere to attract a flock of birds is an adequate way of covering himself from sniper fire. Despite all the constant struggles between all the factions with constantly shifting alliances and goals everyone constantly feels human because no one is confined to being stuck as comic relief or an unflinching stoic badass. Unfortunately a lot of the humor and other stuff is pretty adult and/or plain old floopin weird so I can't share much here. Every time someone asks for manga recs I throw this out but no one ever actually reads it, though. Thus I will leave you with
this out of context screenshot in hopes someone will be interested enough to read it someday.
can i promote my video in the forums

I would personally not recommend it. Though I believe someday there will be a platform that doesn't rob you of the 10$ Pak owes you. To anyone reading this just know safa was fucking ROBBED
 

Band

scatters things often
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
What games give you the most nostalgia? Both Pokémon and non-Pokémon, of course.
What game are you anticipating the most?
What people inspire you the most irl?
How do you feel about the current state of the meta? Would you change anything other than getting Mandibuzz/Tyranitar back?
 

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