RoAPL 3 Team Interview of Week #4: Pyrite Town Pichus
Took place at the end of Week 5
Lutra: Hi Genesis7, you are manager of Pyrite Town Pichus. How did you come up with the name? Were you a big fan of colosseum and the Pichu Bros. specials?
Genesis7: Ya I liked Pokemon Colosseum and was just looking for some alliteration.
Lutra: Interesting. Did the auction go well for you?
Genesis7: I think on paper it did but 2 of my players; roscoe and Fiction ended up being completely inactive. I also would have liked to get another GSC player but they were quite scarce in the player pool.
Lutra: RBY seems to be your strongest tier results-wise and you have two SPL level RBYers. Do you feel you have other strong tiers that just aren't achieving the same level of results?
Genesis7: I feel like I had a good draft ADV-wise as well but have only had 3 wins in the tier throughout the tournament. But Cowboy Dan is putting in the effort so the wins will come to him and Sam is someone I have a lot of faith in. Pokebasket has been a great help in that tier as well.
Lutra: What do you think of the RoAPL format? Is it ideal or would you prefer something slightly different?
Genesis7: I don't think I would do it any differently. Only thing I would change is to make team records primary and W/L secondary.
Lutra: What has been your experience in previous team tournaments? How many have you been a part of? I think you said you were runner up in POCL.
Genesis7: Well I've played 3 POWC and 2 WCOP with Team Canada, 3 French Premier Leagues including one win, an SPL, and a POCL where I managed and came 2nd. Probably several other smaller tournaments that I can't remember.
Lutra: Do you enjoy making new friends in team tournaments or do the occasions stress you too much?
Genesis7: That's one of the reasons I like team tournaments so much. Most of my enduring friends online come from team tournaments, especially WCOP!
Lutra: That's great. What tiers would you say you specialize in?
Genesis7: ORAS OU is definitely the tier I'm known for but I also play RBY OU and DPP OU a lot.
Lutra: Do you feel your experience in ORAS OU has helped your ORAS players?
Genesis7: My ORAS guys are fairly independent but I helped prep in some earlier weeks.
Lutra: Were you surprised in Week 4 by being beaten comfortably by bottom ranked Snowpoint Sneasels or do you think they haven't been fulfilling their potential up until now? Was luck a big factor?
Genesis7: I thought they had one of the better lineups after the auction so it wasn't a big surprise. My team has been underachieving unfortunately, but hopefully this recent win will kick-start us.
Lutra: Which week has been the most exciting for you?
Genesis7: Probably this one which has just passed, 2 of my players had to take a week off for personal reasons and we still managed to win so I was very proud of my team.
Lutra: Awesome. Tell us a bit about your individual tournament history, and how did you find Smogon?
Genesis7: I got into competitive Pokémon after watching some DPP Wi-Fi battles on YouTube in 2013, one of the videos linked to Shoddy Battle, which redirected me to Pokemon Lab, which then redirected me to Pokemon Showdown. I played PS for a couple months then quit until shortly before the release of XY. I joined Smogon just before the start of 2014 and didn't really do much on the site until I played for Canada in WCOP 10. I've had much more success team-wise compared to individual tournaments but I did win an ORAS tour a year or so ago and was the runner-up in a couple others.
Lutra: Have any newer players impressed you?
Genesis7: Some newer French players have been really impressing me as of late, namely Kickasser and cdumas. Iloveleague is arguably one of the top 5 SMers at the moment despite being fairly unknown during ORAS and getting ignored in SPL (an oversight in my opinion). I think SM will breed a whole new class of players though, seeing Patlop's clique and the newer French crowd dominating Smogon Tour and SM sells me in that direction.
Lutra: What are your favourite tournaments on Smogon?
Genesis7: WCOP is by far my favorite tournament, I enjoy the big RBY tournaments you host periodically as well.
Lutra: Okay, thanks for giving this interview. Will you be back for RoAPL 4? And anything else you want to say?
Genesis7: We'll see too far in the future to say. Thanks for having me. Go Pichus