Multi Gen Ubers Player of the Week · [Week #2: Hack]

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The Gunner

formerly Enzo Gorlami
is a Tiering Contributor
Approved by Sweep
Based on other Player of the Week threads
Co-hosted by Arii Stella


Art by NicoReaper

Welcome everyone to Ubers Player of the Week! This'll be a weekly project where Arii Stella & I alternatively interview well known players every week to try to get to know them better. If anyone has suggestions on who we should interview next, feel free to shoot Arii / me a PM. Anyways, lets get to it!



Hack

Favorite Pokemon(s):

Lugia and Ho-oh are my favourite Ubers Pokemon. I also like Crobat, because of nostalgia.

Most Known For:
9-0 record in POCL 2014, 10 consecutive round wins in Ubers Fall Seasonal 2015, being very knowledgeable about all Ubers metagames.
Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a bachelor industrial engineering student, going to spend the next two years on a master's programme where I will focus on innovation economics and management. Privately, I'm a pretty straightforward guy. I enjoy sports, music and movies. Fucking love movies.

How did you derive your username?

I was initially on Smogon around 2012, when some friend of mine found the site while we were playing games against each other during the DPP era. At that point of time, I was still in a "troll" phase, so I thought it would be clever if I had a name reminiscent of the worst player in history, Ash from the Pokemon anime. I decided to name myself "Hack He Must," which is an anagram of Ash Ketchum. Later, I always found it too tedious to log onto 'Hack He Must' on PS!, so I requested a name change to "Hack," because it stuck with me more. It's honestly a top tier name anyway.

How and when did you get in Ubers?

Looking back at it, I think it was some sort of reaction to not being able to use legendaries, when playing with friends, who were more casual. So when I started playing online, I guess I was drawn towards something I hadn't experienced. I also found Ubers representing a tactical facet, although with absurdly overpowered mons, which I hadn't really felt before. A mon I remember liking at first in Ubers was Forretress; simply because it represented this shift from being mindless and spamming attacks to actually playing smart with a strategy. Another classic story was reading some old smogon article, regarding Blaziken in Ubers. I think that was pretty inspirational for similar reasons; since it showed that finesse sometimes outmatches higher stats.

What is your favorite generation in Ubers, and why?

That's a hard question to answer, because I enjoy all Ubers metagames and play them on a pretty high level. (except GSC but I'm friends with Isa so lol). Furthermore, I'm not on the same playing magnitude in all generations, obviously. So let me just break down the question into what I like the most about the Ubers metas I play.

ADV - I like this meta because it emphasises steady flow, low-medium risk and low-medium reward plays. I think the pace makes for some of the most strategic Ubers battles.
DPP - I enjoy DPP because it incorporates some of most savage offense ever seen
and it's stupidly fun. I also like the variety, since there are many cool techs and bulkier teams are practical as well.
BW2 - This is the meta where I became good at mons; it's very outlined and you generally know what to do. I also feel it is the metagame where your experience invariably outweighs someone who hasn't played the meta as much. The variety of Arceus-formes was also super fun to play with.
XY - Loved this meta, but I ultimately think it wasn't really ready for strong fairy types. This is evident from how gamefreak is now buffing the shit out of fairy checks. (Take ORAS Mega Metagross for example, and also Solgaleo from the new Pokemon Sun game.)
ORAS - I think it's ultimately less match up reliant than XY. Overall I think it's pretty cool, can't really put a finger on exactly why.

What's your favorite playstyle and why?


My favourite playstyle is stall; but that's really because I've always been obsessed with controlling every aspect of the match. However, stall also has its own flaws. I like most styles to be honest; well thought of offenses are intriguing. As for winning, I'd stick with balance mostly, and move to more extreme styles once in a while.

If you could change a few things in the ORAS metagame, what would those be?

We'll have Sun and Moon soon so this might be moot, however, hypothetically I would ban Stealth Rock on Deoxys-Speed. The thing about Deo-S is that it simply doesn't matter how good of a player you are - you get the same results those first 1-2 turns of the match, kind of like Baton Pass. As long as you know when to click Taunt and when to click Steath Rock, you can't go wrong, and that is a very low floor for skill. I'd go as far as to saying the first 3-4 turns of a battle with Deo-s are pre-determined. Some of the possibilities are:

1) Your opponent "anti-leads" you, but you can always still get up Stealth Rock.
2) Then you die the next turn, but you click taunt in case of set-up.
(Order of 1 and 2 can change sometimes, you always have the option to taunt turn 1)
3) You send out the appropriate mon to capitalize on your opponent's anti-lead (LOL DARKRAI). Even if it's a bit skillful to pick that mon, you can't really go wrong here either, you just need to know speed stats and type charts. (Again low floor)
4) You pretty much do whatever you want to capitalize on the momentum. (LOL DARKRAI)

In conclusion, having Stealth Rock on such a fast mon (that also has taunt and skill swap) is just not representative of battling skill in my opinion. You can argue that Darkrai falls into a similar category of style, which it does.

What are you most looking forward to in gen 7, Pokemon Sun & Moon?

As for the singles format, I'm not looking forward to the newer gen at all. The focus gamefreak has is clearly not directed on making singles enjoyable, and it's going to get worse. Albeit, I'm optimistic about playing VGC in Sun and Moon though. That format will be cared about in a way the singles won't. I might sound a little hopeless, but what I've experienced these past years from gamefreak is just a decreased quality of tiers overall, not just Ubers.

Favorite UPL/Seasonal/Ubers Open game(s)?

There are a lot of games I've enjoyed playing, but if I had to pick one, it would be my Ubers game vs aim in SPL 6. I think this was a super important turning point in my SPL run. I was down 0-1 after losing miserably to Jibaku, so I desperately needed to win that game. Aim is obviously a tough opponent, and I did exactly what you should never do against him. T3 was a huge misplay, considering my Ho-oh was practically guaranteed a kill every time it got into Klefki. After that, I just had to outplay. I rarely predict that much but here I just had to; in the end, I feel like his weakness to Diancie + Arceus-Ground won me that game rather than me playing that well.

Do you plan on managing/playing in next year's UPL? Also, what would be the one thing you would want to alter in UPL?

I'm not sure about either managing or playing, we'll see when the time comes. I think UPL worked fine in terms of what tiers were represented, but I don't think XY deserves another shot. As fun as it was to revisit, it quickly died down. One thing that sucks is the format, which basically puts too much emphasis on the early weeks. Some teams are practically automatically out after the second week, which is lame. I guess best of 3s in all games is neat. Though, it's still hard to fix the format issues.

Can you provide any healthy tips for newer users?

There's nothing wrong with being curious, interacting with other users, posting on forums etc. Just don't be stupid about it, behave well. In terms of getting better at the game, I used to ladder a lot, but that was a long time ago. All in all, just play a lot and be nice.

Finally, can you provide us a team with a brief explanation on how it works?

Excadrill @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Rapid Spin

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 200 HP / 132 Atk / 176 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Facade
- Roost

Landorus-Therian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 Atk / 64 Def / 196 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Sleep Talk

Groudon-Primal @ Red Orb
Ability: Desolate Land
EVs: 104 HP / 252 Atk / 96 SpD / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Polish
- Fire Punch

Arceus-Fairy @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Judgment
- Toxic
- Stone Edge
- Recover

Deoxys-Attack @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 20 Atk / 252 SpA / 236 Spe
Rash Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Knock Off
- Superpower
- Extreme Speed




I think the combination of U-Turn Landorus-T + Deoxys-Attack is super fun in this meta. It's a pretty straightforward team, easy to use. Also, I run toxic Arceus-Fairy because I do not like losing to random CM Arceus-formes.

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Big thanks to Hack for taking out time to complete this interview.
Make sure you ask him any (respectful) questions below! :toast:
 
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Hack, it was really interesting getting a background on you as a player/person and getting the chance to read some of your opinions about the game. With that, I do have a few questions that you I feel you might have insight about, being the veteran player that you are.
1. Do you do anything to mentally prepare for big matches and ease some of the pressure or emotions you might be feeling going into the match (I'm sure a lot of players with less experience in the tournament scene might struggle with this especially when big crowds are involved or there is a lot riding on a match).
2. What do you feel you did differently that allowed you to rise above other players that were also trying to reach the top?
3. What advice would you give to players that are trying to break through to the top of the tournament scene?
4. Do you break down and analyze your losses to further develop your overall approach to the game (if you do, what steps do you take to do so)?
Thanks to Hack and Gunner for putting their time into this week's player of the week thread.
 

Inspirited

There is usually higher ground.
is a Contributor Alumnus
You mostly know who I am due to UPL 3, it is good to learn a bit more about you. It's cool to see how much just playing games helps a ton. We both joined smogon at around the same time, yet you are far more consistent than I am with a big part of that being you actually played the entire time; I didn't. I'm very grateful you picked me up for that and to answer your question you asked in the S/Os, yes I did learn quite a bit in the time spent with UPL 3 durians and even more since UPL 4.

as for questions:

Will you be making a move towards Battle Spot / VGC in gen 7? I know I will be giving it another shot.

Do you think there is still more to be figured out when it comes to ORAS? (you kinda answered this in the small snippet about ORAS, but I do think it is an interesting talking point)
 
thanks for teaching basically everything i know about ubers

why are you interested in vgc?
do you think that current ubers playerbase is creative?
what do you think about smogon politics in general?
 
:toast:

Hey Hack, it's been awhile ('v' )

1. What is your relationship with Supreme Global Moderator, Ubers Room Owner, and Omastar Fanatic Sweep?

2.How are you not a Room Owner yet? ;~;
1. Me and sweep go a long way back, I was actually the one to recommend him to sign up on smogon back in early 2013. I might have gotten a bit salty at him for getting to play SPL before me etc, but as it stands he's both a great person and player. I have nothing but respect for him.

2. Idk idc things like that have never been that important to me (but I do think I deserve to be modded by default).

Hack, it was really interesting getting a background on you as a player/person and getting the chance to read some of your opinions about the game. With that, I do have a few questions that you I feel you might have insight about, being the veteran player that you are.
1. Do you do anything to mentally prepare for big matches and ease some of the pressure or emotions you might be feeling going into the match (I'm sure a lot of players with less experience in the tournament scene might struggle with this especially when big crowds are involved or there is a lot riding on a match).
2. What do you feel you did differently that allowed you to rise above other players that were also trying to reach the top?
3. What advice would you give to players that are trying to break through to the top of the tournament scene?
4. Do you break down and analyze your losses to further develop your overall approach to the game (if you do, what steps do you take to do so)?
Thanks to Hack and Gunner for putting their time into this week's player of the week thread.
1. When I played at my peak level the mental preparation was the most important part of it all. I think it's all about self-awareness, you need to be perfectly fine with playing when it is time and that is hard. Don't really think there is any shortcuts, you just have to get used to the pressure. I do always turn off smogtours chat when I play in SPL etc.

2. I don't think my case was overly different from others... I mean there are those that focus more on the social part of the community to get in, and that's fine. It isn't too uncommon that people get respect for their battling prowess either, and I guess most cases of getting respect from the community mixes the two (social skills, battling skill). I do think I focused more on the battling aspect, not because I'm not social, but because I am a competitive person. I don't think this is too different but it took me a little bit more time to get recognized.

3. Actually focus. Break down losses, analyze, be patient. Don't be afraid to stick to your guns, you don't have to make 2.038*10^3 teams a week. My motto was be "mons is a simple game, and if I don't play 100 % perfectly, it doesn't matter how much I got haxed, I didn't deserve winning".

4. Yes. It isn't hard once you got to actually viewing the replays. That's the hard part, many people get too salty over hax that they refuse to look at what they did wrong. 1 misplay (or should I say mis-step, because the miss can be very small indeed) invalides every argument that you have regarding getting haxed. Analyzing is easy once you get to actually doing it.

Big fan Hack:)

Will you play Ubers in SPL again, if it returns? Hopefully tho..:'(
Steve :) Maybe, but I'm undecided. Might have had enough of playing seriously. But probably? It's very hard to refuse SPL.

You mostly know who I am due to UPL 3, it is good to learn a bit more about you. It's cool to see how much just playing games helps a ton. We both joined smogon at around the same time, yet you are far more consistent than I am with a big part of that being you actually played the entire time; I didn't. I'm very grateful you picked me up for that and to answer your question you asked in the S/Os, yes I did learn quite a bit in the time spent with UPL 3 durians and even more since UPL 4.

as for questions:

Will you be making a move towards Battle Spot / VGC in gen 7? I know I will be giving it another shot.

Do you think there is still more to be figured out when it comes to ORAS? (you kinda answered this in the small snippet about ORAS, but I do think it is an interesting talking point)
I will maybe be doing VGC in gen 7, but it depends on what format they stick with. As for ORAS, I can't really have much of an opinion. Inspiration is hard to predict. I generally think metagames keep evolving until they die.

hypothetically speaking, would you suspect darkrai? it's half the reason that same old deoxys-s/primal groudon/mega salamence/darkrai/ekiller/xerneas team from 2014 is still unbearable today, which is something you pretty overtly hinted at in your post.

do you have any interest in any gens of ou? i know you had a brief stint in rby.

if/when ubers gets excluded from this spl, would you try to learn a different tier again to play in it?

you still haven't quit. what keeps you around?

how does being an untouchable superstar mod compare to life before? it seems like you act pretty much the same way you used to, only now you can infract people.

top 3 favorite movies?

how do you feel the ubers playerbase today compares to that of xy and bw?

why did you change your avatar?

thanks for, uh, teaching me and stuff.
Darkrai, idk. Maybe but I do think Deoxys-S is more like the root of things. Darkrai is probably the 2nd worst mon to have in the tier, though.

I actually know most old gen OU tiers better than people think, but mainly from a theoretical standpoint. I don't think I can build that well, but I like GSC, ADV and DPP a lot in general. And honestly I don't hate BW OU either.

I tried doing that last year but I think I needed more time. I definitely should have played much better a couple of games, although I played amazing one game only to get lucked. I guess OU would be plausible considering you get a solid testing partner. Playing other tiers is harder, because you will have to put in a lot of work yourself, even if you have great teammates.

I'm around because at times I have nothing better to do.

Yea, you said it yourself, I don't intend to change, it wasn't part of the deal.

Old Boy, Tropa de Elite 2, Goodfellas. No particular order. It was honestly hard to choose. Honorable mentions: Fight Club, The Matrix (woulda been in if there weren't any sequels), Alien, Memento. To those pointing out the apparent lack of DDL; I think he's probably the best living actor, perhaps tied with Jack Nicholson (though we're talking China Town age here, not old fat Jack), but I don't think his movies are quite on his level.

thanks for teaching basically everything i know about ubers

why are you interested in vgc?
do you think that current ubers playerbase is creative?
what do you think about smogon politics in general?
No problem man, it was a cool time. I'm interested in VGC because the makers of this game actually tend to this metagame and try to (somewhat) have a more balanced approach regarding new pkmn. I think it's inevitable that every new generation is going to make the single formats worse, so I'm trying my hand at VGC just because I still enjoy this game to an extent.

Regarding creativity... I am always very strict when it comes to innovation. The ubers playerbase certain come up with ideas most applications are doubtful. But I gotta say there has been ideas in the community I really liked and used myself, such as Arceus-Dragon, Jolly SD+SR Pdon, the resurgence of LO Deoxys-A, Modest Latios etc. If I'm to be counted as ubers playerbase then there are some other cool sets like WispHex Gar, Hex Gira-O, fast Ho-oh (not mine per se but I think I was the first to use it again this gen). For a tier that centralized, I think the creativity is quite alright but I'm always sceptical towards people trying to be innovative for the sake of it.

Regarding smogon politics... I have no real opinion anymore. Most organizations developed cliques and self-interest also come into play. This is an internet forum so what are we really expecting?

when is your eventual wedding to lord outrage and how long will it be before the inevitable divorce
I'm happily married to user: Astounded, wtf.

Hey Hack, what are your thoughts on safeguard p don..? I heard you dont like it according to cute user Daenys D:
xd
 

absdaddy

Banned deucer.
What's up Hack? Been a while since we talked last time. Anyway,

- Would you say that no team preview metagames like adv ou or hgss ubers etc require more 'skill' to play well and master than say Oras Ubers?

- What's your opinion on hard stall in HGSS ubers? Viable or n?

- Do you think Anikrahman and others of his kind should come back for gen 7? Would you re-join the Dragon Masters clan with your old buddies? (rofl)

- Who would win in a fist fight: Sweep or Haruno?

- do you agree that we should unban mega ray

- thoughts on Mega Luke in oras?

We should build some dope Gen 4 stuff someday man..
 
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Nice. I remember you from way back in bw2, and you have gotten so much better since then (you were a badass back then too but yeah!) . I have just 2 questions:
●Did you enjoy your time with in DM/DR clan, and all the people?
●Who was your favourite player in the clan, and why?
Congrats on your success once again :)
 
What's up Hack? Been a while since we talked last time. Anyway,

- Would you say that no team preview metagames like adv ou or hgss ubers etc require more 'skill' to play well and master than say Oras Ubers?

- What's your opinion on hard stall in HGSS ubers? Viable or n?

- Do you think Anikrahman and others of his kind should come back for gen 7? Would you re-join the Dragon Masters clan with your old buddies? (rofl)

- Who would win in a fist fight: Sweep or Haruno?

- do you agree that we should unban mega ray

- thoughts on Mega Luke in oras?

We should build some dope Gen 4 stuff someday man..
Hey man, glad to see you are still around.

At this point I would say it's relatively hard to compare. The climate was very different back when those metagames were active (no replays is huge). I definitely think you have to have a different mindset when it comes to reads etc when you have less information. This probably awards the better player a fair amount (and definitely rewards the hard worker even more, as someone like that would be able to make decisions based off more information). An aspect of newer metagames that I find more skill based is leading correctly, but an argument can be made that leading is very chance based at times. I do think it's a bit of both I'd say, older tiers have their perks but so do newer.

Hard stall in the strictest sense is something I'm a bit doubtful about. But fatter teams, sure. DPP is pretty fast paced and integrates revenge killing to a large extent than any uber metagame. So compared to ORAS stall where you basically got 6 walls and the mindset to "not lose" rather than winning DPP stall is very different.

I don't think Anik is ever coming back but I haven't spoken to him recently. I wouldn't rejoin any clan really, it was the most cringeworthy experience looking back at it. For my just having a private IRC channel or a skype group invalides the concepts of actual clanning (because let's face it, where not really into posting on some private forum anymore, it's all about the social aspect which you certainly don't need a clan for).

I think I haven't seen how Haruno looks IRL but I've called with him on a couple of occasions. I feel Haruno might win just because Sweep is too nice of a guy. I guess I just don't know Haruno well enough honestly.

Lol ray

Lucario sucks and I'd never use it lol

yea hmu whenever you wanna build man

Nice. I remember you from way back in bw2, and you have gotten so much better since then (you were a badass back then too but yeah!) . I have just 2 questions:
●Did you enjoy your time with in DM/DR clan, and all the people?
●Who was your favourite player in the clan, and why?
Congrats on your success once again :)
Hi man, long time. Nice to see you are sticking around

DR and DM was quite different. My favorite time in DR was with Sweep, MM2, Anik, Imma Fly, Kebabe, Puregenius etc. I think I enjoyed both clans though, but enough was enough and I quite frankly behaved pretty badly towards Imma Fly at the end.

My favorite player in terms of skill was Lance but person wise I'd go with Sasha. He's actually a super geniune guy and I still talk to him sometimes.

Thanks for the kind words man :)
 

haxiom

God's not dead.
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Do you have a particular process for teambuilding? I vaguely remember an answer to this somewhere but perhaps it has changed with time, new metagames, new trends, etc.
 
Rank the 4 bw swift swimmers. (I have it as tops > oma > kingdra > ludicolo but have found a use for all 4, rain dish ludi is of course better than.swift swim ludi though)
 
Do you have a particular process for teambuilding? I vaguely remember an answer to this somewhere but perhaps it has changed with time, new metagames, new trends, etc.
I don't think my teambuilding process is anything special. My mentality might differ from other players because I never find it acceptable to not cover all of the big offensive threats. I'm very sceptical towards innovation too, so I make sure to test new concepts adequately before using them in actual games. Additionally there is nothing wrong with falling back on old, yet solid builds for games if you can't make something new in time. The mentality of having more teams being better is cancerous not only because it deters from the quality of each build but also because it makes you less accustomed to actually playing correctly. Unless of course you have time to practice enough and all builds are quality. If that is the case you are probably the best pkmn player ever already and shouldn't even read my advice.

Personally I never have the mindset of "I want to build around X". I think it's better to be more goal oriented "I want to make a concept X that wins games through Y". It's just a small difference in thinking but I want to say it helps a lot for me at least.

Rank the 4 bw swift swimmers. (I have it as tops > oma > kingdra > ludicolo but have found a use for all 4, rain dish ludi is of course better than.swift swim ludi though)
Yea that order is fine. I never really liked any swimmer aside tops and oma just because they have that ekiller checking utility. Swift swim ludi only niche is that it beats arceus-water, but that is kinda rare.
 
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