Approved by 5gen & S1nn0hC0nfirm3d | Amazing Art by Albatr0ss and butchered by me | Thread formatting stolen from Jett
(Interview Date: 17th of November, 2021)
Hey friends and welcome to ZU
Ditto used Transform!
Ditto transformed into Gloom!
*Glooooooom*
Hey Gloom Guy, how are you doing today?
Good thanks, just a normal work day for me today. How are you doing czim?
I'm doing fine too. Thanks for asking! I'm really hyped to have you here on Player of the Week and I hope all my 3 readers are as excited as I am for this one! As usual, do you wanna tell us a bit about yourself outside of PS/Smogon?
Glad to hear it! Thanks for having me on here, I know I'm pretty quiet when it comes to interacting with the ZU community so hopefully the 3 readers will gain more of an insight into the 'mysteries' of Gloom Guy. Sure, I live in the UK but I was born in the Netherlands, I now work in London doing digital marketing. I play a lot of sport, football, tennis, etc and also into chess and I love to travel. Sadly Covid has stopped me from doing much recently.
Ye, as someone who also loves to travel these last 2 years have been rough. Let's start with your work then. How did you get into digital marketing? Did you go to college?
So I studied marketing at university for 3 years, then managed to land an internship for a role at a London company, I've been working in London now for 4 years climbing the corporate ladder. It's more of a means to an end for me though. I don't have all that much passion for it, but it's all experience and money so shrugs
At least money helps us fund our hobbies, right? You said you also play a lot of sports. Did you play any of them competitively or just for fun? Which professional teams/athletes do you cheer for?
Exactly! All that travelling doesn't fund itself. I play football competitively at a local level, and I support Liverpool FC, and the Netherlands team when it's the World Cup. (They knocked out Brazil at the 2010 World Cup lol)
Oh, that's cool! Is it "Sunday League" level or something? I know the UK has several minor leagues so I'm curious and I wanna know more lol. What position do you play in? Also, is knocking Brazil out even important when you have a grand total of 0 world cups though?
That's right! The infamous UK Sunday League, awful pitches, bad tackles, poor refereeing. But it is good fun and usually competitive. I play as a winger because I'm 'fast' and get a fair few goals! You woke up and decided to hit me with cold hard facts there.. although for a tiny country the Netherlands definitely punches above its weight (Also beat Brazil to finish 3rd at the 2014 World Cup)
That's really cool. I used to play mostly for fun but I was a wingback back in the days. Haven't played in a long time though! Now into travelling, which places have you been to? Any favorite place to travel to?
Nice, wingback is a tough position so that's very cool. I've been lucky to go to over 40 countries in my 20 something years on this planet so far. My favourite places have been: Libya to see the Sahara desert and some Roman ruins (this was on a school trip before all the chaos there), Zanzibar for the beaches and scuba diving, India for the culture, food and crazy traffic, and Japan because it's like nowhere else I've ever been. Managed to go to the Pokemon shop there which was amazing. I haven't been to South America yet though so that's high on my list
Oh, that's some pretty cool stuff! I was planning to go Japan myself before the world went to shit and it's really something I want to do soon, but once one of my friends went there and he got me a Joltik plush! Other than chess, what are your gaming interests outside of Pokémon? Any favorite games?
Thanks! I would recommend visiting Japan for sure when things get better, and not just for the Pokemon plushes! I'm not actually a big gamer really, but I play a lot of old school Playstation games with friends, like Timesplitters, Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet & Clank. Not so much into the newer games
Those old platformers are truly some of my favorite games. I basically grew up to Crash and Spyro specially! Let's get more into music then. What kind of music do you like? Any favorite artists?
You are also a man of culture, Crash and Spyro are legendary! Music wise I listen to a lot of hip-hop and r&b, the usual suspects like Drake, Kanye, The Weeknd, Kendrick, J. Cole. But UK hip-hop is also decent, Dave and J Hus are two of my favourites from this side of the pond
I started getting more into mainstream hip hop in the last couple years and I enjoy Kendrick and Kanye a bit, so good picks! What stuff do you usually like to watch? Any favorite movies/shows?
Can never go wrong with a bit of Kanye even though he is a bit crazy! I feel like I've watched most of the mainstream shows that have come out recently. Some I've really enjoyed watching this year are The Boys, Invincible, and Ozark. My favourite movies are two 90s classics with Morgan Freeman, Shawshank Redemption and Se7en! Have you watched any of those yourself?
Se7en is one of my favorite movies of all time and Shawshank is also pretty good. Can never go wrong with it! That's good taste for sure. The Boys and Invincible are definitely good twists on the superhero genre as well. Alright so back into the traveling topic, what're your next travel plans? Any place you really want to go? Also, since you've been to a lot of places, which one has the best food?
Glad you rate Se7en! Yeah the more recent Marvel films weren't really doing it for me so shout out to Omni-man and Homelander! I really want to go travelling for around 6 months to Australia and New Zealand, I actually had flights booked there in March 2020 but alas... Best food is probably India for me, I like spicy food and India had some amazing curries and dishes.
That's great! Now let's change the topic a bit into mons. How did you get started in Showdown/Smogon? How did you end up in ZU after all?
I stumbled across Showdown about 5 years ago when wanting to battle people not on the DS lol, I think I was drawn to PU straight away because I enjoy using unviable mons. Then ZU became the lowest tier and I enjoyed that too. I've played a bit in the all tiers but ZU is the best!
Gloom is not a bad mon though, so i am confused! What are your thoughts on the current metagame and the result of the Rotom suspect?
Gloom a great mon, I don't understand why the ZU council haven't ranked it yet. I think the current metagame is pretty good right now, quite top heavy with certain mons but I think players can be creative with a lot and make it work without being too gimmicky. I didn't attempt reqs for the Rotom suspect but I would've voted DNB so I'm glad it stayed!
Yeah, I also like how our metagame has a lot of room for creativity right now. Said that, Gloom is viable/usable on some ZU old gens. Have you played any of them? Any you find more interesting than the others?
I haven't actually, but maybe I should as I miss a lot of mons that aren't in gen8. Which one would you recommend the most? I used rocky helmet defensive static Ampharos with rest, cotton guard back in gen7 with minimal success
Im biased towards SM because that's the gen i started in and when ZU basically became more known. But for using Gloom I'd say you would have more luck in BW or DPP. Hopefully you will like them! Let's say you had a chance of deciding the next suspect test of SS ZU. Which ZU or currently ZUBL element would you test?
I'll give those a try with Gloom and see how it goes thanks! I can't think of any mon being worthy of a suspect at the moment honestly, and all the ZUBL mons I agree with. A few drops would be nice though! I'd like to see Sandslash back and would have loved to have seen Hitmonlee drop
Sandslash would definitely be very cool. It'd be nice to have a Volt blocker and hazard removal in the same slot (not counting Emolga for obvious reasons). Time for a couple fun questions! Let's say Liverpool FC gets a money boost like Newcastle recently did and they want you to choose any 2-3 players to join the team. Who would you pick and why?
True, eviolite Sandshrew can work too though! Good question, I think Haaland for sure, he's a beast and still so young. Maybe also Pedri from Barcelona because he looks like a very silky player. I've heard his release clause is 1 billion though!
Good picks, thought you'd go for Messi or CR7 but it's probably safer to go for younger players so they help the club for a longer time! Ok, second question! You get to choose one Pokémon to have as a pet in real life, which one would you pick and why?
Both incredible players but yeah thinking for the future! Ho-Oh for sure, a legendary pheonix who could fly me around. Probably can make a lot of money from people around the world wanting to see it too so I can quit my job lol
Using Pokémon to get money, you sound just like Team Rocket! I would definitely pick a bird too though! Do you a have a team you'd like to share with us? Add a small description if you can!
(Ice)
sure, this is the first ZU team I created for this generation. Lead Onix was very fun and Persian did well to chip down teams for Vally Ice and Machoke before all the fat mons dropped down. And of course Gloom is inevitable.
That's cool. I was expecting something with Gloom for sure lol. It's always nice seeing those old teams from when our tier was completely different! Since we're at this, which SS ZU metagame was your favorite? Any mons that used to be good that you miss using?
Yeah it's made me realise the tier has changed a lot actually! I think that first metagame was my favourite because all those really really mediocre mons could work, even Maractus. I kind of miss using Specs Whiscash and Scarf Raboot, but maybe I'll try and revive them
I think both of them are not super unviable right now, but I also miss Whiscash a lot, it was very versatile! Now onto the most important question, why do most of your teams have Gloom? Do you usually start building the team with it or do you usually start building with other mons and add the "Gloom tax" later?
It was! I wish they gave it stealth rocks. Well as you've probably guessed Gloom is one of my favourite mons, so I will try to make it work at all costs. I always start with Gloom then the less important team members come after. I love partnering it with another unranked mon, Lickilicky, for my defensive core. Gloom is life
As we usually say, your Gloom is definitely the scariest Gloom around lol. Anyways, we are starting to wrap this up so, is there anything you want to say to us mortals? Anyone you want to shoutout?
Well I think it may have been thebtboy who first told me I was known as 'Gloom Guy' and had become part of ZU folklore so gotta shout him out. Definitely to you czim for always hyping me up, I'm nowhere near consistent enough to be a top tier ZU player but I appreciated being cheer for Toto 's Morpeek-a-boos. I didn't contribute or help but I was watching over the team in spirit. Also 5Dots for probably being my most played opponent on the ZU ladder lol
Well, losing to you on ladder is part of the ZU experience lol. Thanks for letting me interview you and I hope you had a good time!
Thanks for having me on this and for asking some great questions! Long live Palpitoad and Gloom!
Feel free to ask to TBasedGod any questions you want!
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I'll be taking a week off so the next edition will be delayed for 1 week. Thanks for reading and expect more interviews in the near future!
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I'll be taking a week off so the next edition will be delayed for 1 week. Thanks for reading and expect more interviews in the near future!
need to get some practice in as I've signed up to the BDSP ZU tour, no eviolite for Gloom though :(
