Approved by the PU moderation team.
Inspired partially by the previous iteration of Player of the Week as well as Player Interview.
Art by the awesome Citadark Isle and myself.
gum
Favourite Pokemon: 
Most used SV PU Pokemon: 
Most known for: PU tier leader, PU Ladder Tour Winner.
Hello, gumothy and welcome to this new iteration of Spill the Sinistea! How are you doing today?
hii shitar, i'm doing pretty decently today!! what about you
Im doing well, thank you for asking! Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself outside of Smogon?
my name's younes and i'm 18! currently in cégep (it's like community college but mandatory) in social sciences, though i'm most likely going in something else for next semester as i'm not really interested in any of my classes sadly. i've never liked this question, because outside of pokémon i don't really have hobbies if i'm being real. i just go out with friends sometimes and rot in my room when i'm not at work or college. i also really like music! it's one of the only topics i can probably talk about for hours, there's so much to talk about truly..
And we will talk about a lot today, gumothy! Nyehehehehe....But first we need to tackle some news from PU. You recently became the new (and now only) TL in PU. Would you mind sharing some of your grander scale plans for the tier in the future?
sure! we're planning to start a new forum project or two, as well as finding more ways to reward up and coming contributors. it was briefly mentioned before, but i think a third team tour focusing more on oldgens would also be a fun addition! obviously, community opinion matters a lot so it's also something i want to make sure to listen to, especially as i'm still trying to figure out how to properly run a tier so..! if you have any suggestions feel free to dm me!! also fuck swiss i hate that tour
Old gens team tour??? What a great idea! I wonder who came up with that one, their brain must be absolutely heavy on their heads! (It was me.) We just recently held a vote in PU for a lot of the new drops that we got. You were one of the (correct) people who only voted BAN on Magneton. Is anything else on the slate possibly problematic in your eyes that hasn't quite shown its true potential? Is it Vivillon?
right i think the people who voted ban on magneton and nothing else are really really cool :D. anyway, most people seem to disagree with this take, but i firmly believe the tier is more than fine as is. if anything's an issue, it's certainly not vivillon. i think that thing is very overrated and it reminds me of how people viewed medicham last month. it's not a consistent wincon, and when it does win it doesn't win in an unfair manner. it really just wins because its answers have been killed or are too low, which is just how setup sweepers work. i don't really see why that's an issue, and i have yet to see it do anything to prove me wrong. obviously, i know a lot of the community wants to take action on it so i wouldn't be completely opposed to act on it, though very reluctantly. if i had to take action on anything, it'd probably be charizard, or damp rock. i'm still keeping a close eye on arboliva as well, as i think it could pretty easily become an unhealthy presence
Wowie what a thoughtful answer from the newest PU tier leader! On the topic of tiering, you’ve shown interest in resuspecting some PUBL mons, especially Lilligant and Pau. Can you walk us through your opinion on these Pokemon? Will we see Meap again too..?
it's true i'm so wise. i think lilligant would be balanced, we have pokemon like muk, bombirdier, articuno, cryogonal, victreebel, appletun, hisuian sneasel, braviary, charizard, and skuntank that can all deal with it depending on its tera type, some of them not even caring about that, especially since they can tera themselves. most of our good defensive options wouldn't give it a lot of setup opportunities. the tier is also rather fast which would further limit how many chances it gets. that also means that we have great choice scarf users still faster than a +1 lilligant. not to say it'd be bad, i think it'd be very good, but i also think it'd be balanced.
as for pa'u, i care a bit less about that one in all honesty. it's rather similar to lilligant as far as answers go, it just has more set variety but i feel like each set also has a lower ceiling if that makes sense. for example, taunt would be able to get past the hazers but mono flying stab just isn't great in this metagame. on the other hand, without taunt you expose yourself to the hazers + chansey while still having some tera coverage issues. primeape is a pokemon that should be freed for the second dlc. i think in higher tiers it generally had the issue of not being bulky or fast enough to really pull off the rage fist thing super well, which was noticeable even when it was decent / good in pre-home ru. in this meta though, it's most likely bulky and fast enough to get annoying really fast and it sounds like a nuisance to deal with if you don't have weezing, which would just lose to sub tera ghost sets anyway so! i do like the concept of rage fist a lot though, so i'm hoping primeape's viable in a post-dlc metagame
Yea I hope so too! On even more topical shtuff, you’ve gaymed epicly through this SCL as a member of the Circuit Breakers! Do you have a favorite PU game this tournament? Whats so great about it and what does it show about the progress of PU in terms of tiering through DLC metas?
honestly i don't think i do, there's a decent amount of games i haven't watched if i'm being honest, and of the ones i've watched i don't really remember. i didn't really enjoy the ones last meta honestly, as a lot felt decided on preview despite the metagame being pretty balanced, weirdly enough. i think that's the charm of those metagames though, they only last one month which generally makes them more fun knowing they won't last forever. i think we've learned from some of the mistakes that were made early on last gen, though i hope this doesn't come off as shady as it was all trial and error back then. my tiering philosophy in these metagames is just to be as ban happy as possible. the metagames don't last long at all, and it's better not to risk it as everything will get a second chance soon enough. i think once we get to the end of this though, so by our dlc 2 tier shifts, we should ideally change our tiering philosophy to be less ban happy and give things more time before throwing them up in publ
yea idt i remember any games either teehee! Now here's something you will be able to answer: You’ve seen PU change a lot from gen 7 up to now and have remained fairly active through its lifespan. You also have a particularly efficient way of remembering dates and years, how do you think the approach has changed from late gen 7 (which is when you and I joined) to early SS to mid to late SS to now? Is there something that history has taught us that you find valuable for our approach in the future?
well i'd say that's because you're old and have dementia but sure! it's kinda hard to judge late sm, mainly because i didn't have a tiering philosophy or framework to really compare late sm tiering actions to. in retrospect though, i think maybe people were a bit too ban happy then. i didn't really question it when it happened, but after seeing it in swsh, i think cinccino being banned was probably a mistake. mega abomasnow also suffered from the "looks broken at first but then turns out to be balanced" syndrome, similarly to glastrier last generation, so i think it could be balanced in current sm. obviously, take all of this with a grain of salt as it's been over 4 years now.
i think that ban happy sentiment carried over early swsh, which, as i've said before, i think is not a bad thing; being ban happy in short-lived metas will not ruin those and instead does more to protect them. at the time though, i remember opposing this way of viewing tiering and always thought it was annoying council would ban multiple things at once. that mentality kinda stayed for a while into the settled ss pu, which i disagreed with. i remember tauros, alolan raichu, and sceptile getting quickbanned despite little to no support from community members, and them barely getting talked about. after that though, and this is something i felt happened multiple times in swsh, leadership seemed to be very adamant on not taking action on anything, such as drampa. i don't remember much as i was taking a break then, but most of the active playerbase wanted a drampa suspect, and it only happened after multiple weeks of complaining and posting. i feel like that set swsh behind as far as tiering action went, and also was not something the community seemed to appreciate; the tier was pretty dead up until sv, with activity starting to go up again towards the last few months of swsh. i'm mentioning all of this because this is something i think most people could mess up on, including me, and so i think it's important to remember how different actions (or lack thereof) impacted our tier and community in the past.
and so that leaves us with tiering in sv, which is more complicated than in past gens. i like tera a lot as a mechanic and think it's balanced, but it does blur the line between balanced and broken. in past gens, counterplay was much more straightforward; i either lose to this or i don't. tera adds a whole new layer to this, where counterplay is both harder and easier to fit on teams. i think that's generally why we're seeing way more disagreements between people regarding to tiering this generation, bar very obvious cases. that makes tackling threats more difficult, and while i don't mind being ban happy in these early metas, i do think it'll be a challenge to figure out how to tier in a post-dlc2 landscape
Not reading all of that. Hey gumothy, gimme some heat from Gen 7 up to Gen 9 that you have yet to show the general populous.
https://pokepast.es/ea15a71d9ac57520
i LOVE sm webs, i have lots of variants but this one is a very fun one i think is just a bit too bad to bring in serious play. honestly i kinda just added the mandatory simi on webs + 4 other breakers i wanted to try on the playstyle in a way that at least made some sense. from my experience, cm aurorus is fun and av golurk will do 40% to two pokemon before dying, terrible pokemon. also no clue why it's life orb dodrio, idr calcs but i think it ohkoes eel after rocks + mudsdale at +2, which is something i suppose. grassvally is honestly pretty fun, the coverage's alright and it wins enough games to not be a deadslot. also having something for costa is mandatory on webs so i guess it does that! feel free to use this in roomtours and test games, but don't use it for tours if you really want to win
https://pokepast.es/2e7e322bafc247f5
more cheese yippie!! this is a team i built pretty early after the scrafty ban, because ghosts and terrain both looked better. grassy pledge on ghostvally is honestly kinda useless because i never run into quagsire while using it, so you could use explosion to target the more common (and annoying) audino. i considered bringing this at some point during pupl, and i think it could've won in a lot of mus, but i was always too scared to pull the trigger and commit to ho. very straightforward team in general, and it's just a new twist on the classic terrain structure we see nowadays
https://pokepast.es/9cc5637ca9d7be23
i built this day 1 and it still works. cb sneasel is very scary right now, as a lot of teams don't carry proper dark resists. the speed tier + ice shard is also amazing, great pokemon overall. i remember wanting to try scarf rotom as i saw a lot of people talk about it. i think it's a fine set, not something super amazing or anything but the role compression does give it a niche over what i'd consider the better electric scarfer, alolan raichu. muk is a great blanket spdef wall, and i don't really mind the maledeedee weakness when i have sneasel to prevent it from freely clicking psychic. curse is fun and it can win a fair amount so i'll give it that. use sticky hold though, i'm too lazy to fix the ability. poison touch is greedy. orthworm + swanna set hazards and remove them, with the worm acting as a blanket check to most of the tier's physical attackers. what it can't answer through natural bulk, typing, and ability is usually answered with tera. lastly, i kinda just threw a random arboliva there because subleech sounded cool and i figured i probably needed something for waters and ghosts. not my best work i'll admit, but it does keep up with the trend of fun teams!
hope you enjoy these!!
omg i did not expect to see THREE pastes. thank you so much!!! Now here's a question that was definitely not AI generated! Hey Gum, as the head honcho of the PU tier, do you ever imagine staff as a group of mischievous Pokemon throwing a party? If so, who would be the life of the party, the wallflowers, and the ones causing all the chaos on the dance floor in the world of PU?
so i thought you asked for one per gen..? and no, i do not. all i know is that
Bella would be the weird aunt spying on everyone
And with that bit of knowledge out of the way, it is time for art media question of the day! Have u gotten into any fun media/art/games lately? (Books, shows, music, movies, podcast, vids, w/e)
i KNOW what media is i'm not that stupid. but umm not really, when i'm not listening to music i'm usually watching a documentary about whatever i can find that's also interesting, recently i've been on an orca documentaries binge. love them! this year has also been pretty great music-wise from artists i like so that's also cool! not quite the answer i'm assuming you're looking for with this question, but mitski's the land is inhospitable and so are we and eartheater's powders are two recent albums i loved a lot so i still wanted to mention them. for a real answer, in the past few months i've been listening to more jpop. strawberry machine and naivepop / petitfool are two bands i've been enjoying in particular. i really like the album girl friend from the former, and i love np by the latter. other than that particular subgenre i can't really think of anything i got into in the past like, 3 months or so, but i'm sure i'll take a look at my last.fm library later and regret this answer
Now it is time for our “Spill the Sinistea!” Segment. This time around I asked around gum’s “friends” and PU affiliated people for questions to ask the new TL!
Kate asks: What's the best gay slang word you or your friends have invented?
sasha asks: why are you a noob at 8ball :joyjoy:
rien asks: If u were a bug what would u be
sensei axew asks: whats your favorite flavor of goldfish
asa asks: whats your favorite starbucks drink
Beraldo asks: Why is Beraldo so cool and incredible
I don't know these people.
to kate: i don't really think we invented anything, mostly just brought it over to smogon. it'd probably be sneak though, i still use it regularly cuz it's so fun to say like..
to sasha: ?
to rien: a coccinelle yasss
to ryan: tbh just the regular ones..? like i've tried the others and i liked them more when i was like 9 but idk i haven't gagged at any in recent times. but like the regular ones are just too queenie and i'm actually craving some rn so i guess that's tea..?
to asa: currently boycotting, but outside of that i've never been a huge starbucks fan tbh. when i did go it was mostly for their refreshers as those are good, but outside of their pumpkin spice latte i've never been a huge fan of their coffees
to beraldo: i don't think i know you, sorry. you seem a bit odd and self-obsessed though!
Thank you so much for answering such an insightful series of questions! Finally, as a known SS PU lover (ew), I wanna ask you one final question: What does your ideal SS PU meta look like regarding unbans and/or bans?
i think i'd unban virizion, vanilluxe, araquanid, guzzlord, espeon, scyther, alolan raichu, and drampa! but that's unrealistic at this point, though i really think some publ stuff should've been reconsidered during some of our "calmer" metagames. i wanted doublade gone more than scrafty towards the end of the generation and i think that could've been great to see, but i also love swsh pu in its current state anyway so, not very bummed about that in particular. just would've been nice to see the meta develop rather than already feeling solved
Thank you so much gum for answering my questions today! Would you care to do some shoutouts before we’re done?
shouting out everyone would take so long, so i will not be doing all that! shoutouts to nyoomers, my day 1 smogonsties. i ended up meeting a ton of people through that server, either directly or indirectly. i look back at logs sometimes and cringe a little but i still cherish all of the good memories even if most of u are not as involved with mons anymore, love u all and hope life's treating u well if u haven't been around in a while <3
also to everyone on duckies, i talk way too much there. thank u for being there at my lowest (spamming %wkt np and the same 3 words + gifs in general). always nice to check a server no matter the time of the day and see a conversation going when i'm bored so! this group has changed a lot since i was first added let's just say that..! a lot of great friends i can count on and love boots xx
psychward (house down boots) yasss!! opening the chat between classes to see spell, 16bit, and jon discuss spl xi for the 8932th time without getting bored into kate sending some tweet mid-convo that everyone ignores always makes me giggle a bit. we don't call as much now but this was also the one server i ever called in and it was fun boots, even if codenames fell off a bit. COME BACK
Haydenn (idk what their smogon actually is but it's smth close to that) I MISS U.....
also shoutouts to everyone i talk to in dms but isn't in one of these servers, u all mean a lot to me and i'd have quit this website a long time ago if i didn't make so many great friends!!
lastly, i also want to shoutout the pu community for being pretty nice and welcoming over the years. i started playing the tier because i liked lilligant, and stayed around because i met people i liked and interacting with others was fun! watching the tier change and grow as time went by has also been a very weird experience in a way, but it's also been interesting for sure. enjoy talking to everyone in the pucord and the room, hope u all stick around even if u decide to take a step back from this game <3
gum was kind enough to share THREE teams through this interview, they're above tho, dont be lazy and read!!!
ASK GUM SOME MORE AI GENERATED QUESTIONS!!!!
