Monotype Player of the Week #7: Paleo

[Confluxx [Old]]

Approved by scpinion
Based off of other potws

Banner by Acast​

Hey everyone and welcome to the seventh installment of Monotype Player of the Week!

This week, I have a Monotype council member, room driver and #1 seed in the Monotype Seeded Tournament; Paleo! Before we get into it, this will be a weekly thing where I interview well known players to try and see into their mind a bit. If anyone has any suggestions on who I should interview, feel free to contact me on PS. Anyway, let's get to it!


Paleo​

To start off with, what is your favorite Pokemon?
Probably Empoleon, I've always been fond of penguins as an animal I guess, and its design plus its steel typing must've put it over the top when I played Pearl for the first time. I also enjoy Poliwag, Vileplume, and Lilligant because I really like their designs. I've also always been fond of mons like salamence, scizor, blastoise etc, the usuals.

How did you get your usernme?
My first username was machmush, which someone nicknamed their breloom, I forget who, and at the time I really liked breloom because it was around when I started competitve battling and breloom was such an OP pokemon to me for some reason. A couple months later I regged the alt Paleo because I had a friend named 'Archaic' back then and out of the blue I just made my own variant of it. Later on I jst started using Paleo more and more and eventually it became my main alt.

How did you get into Monotype?
In late BW,around the second half of 2013, I went on Frost a lot because it was the main side server and saw a lot of mono battles and played some there and just spammed drought/drizzle. Eventually when XY came out i tried my luck on the ladder and only got around top50 with my scrappy little sticky web bug team and got destroyed by the new flying cores. Later when the ELO ladder came out in early 2014 I wanted to be at the top of the ladder at at least something, and since there werent many official tiers at the time, I tried my hand at mono again and had a lot of success (mostly because I spammed genesect, lucario, and aegislash.) This is where I met older ppl like kaiser and godchef. However when Lucario and Genesect were banned I pretty much fell out of mono for about a year and a half. In Mid 2015 I came back to spam mega metagross but unfortunately that was also banned, and I died again. I came back to play in the first MLT and I havent left since :).

What do you feel you're most known for?
Uhhhhhh I'm not really sure. I guess just from being part of ''the mysterious woa'', or being apart of council/roomstaff

What is the Pokemon you use the most?
Overall, most likely skarmory or heatran, but more recently either medicham or clefable

What is your favorite type to use in Monotype, and what is your favorite type overall?
Either Steel, Fairy, or Fighting, since the latter two are easy to use and steel has a lot of viable mons. Fire is also a fun type. Favorite types overall are water, grass, or dragon,I guess, since most of my favorite pokemon are those types.

What playstyle do you prefer?
Hyper offense, offensive teams have fast and strong pokemon which I enjoy playing with, I guess.

How do you feel about where you stand in the community right now?
Well as a member of staff, council, and woa, three of the more hated groups in the community, I cant say I'm looked at in the best regards in the eyes of most of this community, but theres probably nothing I can do about that.

Are there any players you looked up to when you were starting out or still look up to?
Nope, I'm the best.

Hide

When I played in xy I didnt really talk to anyone and mostly kept to myself, so I guess the only people I could possibly look up to were the high ladder players back then. (tesla,ilight,alice,naten,chef,etc) Today I guess its just close friends.

Any players that you think are underrated and that we will see a lot from in the future?
Unfortunately the new crop of players of today have been quite underwhelming, but I guess new ppl who participate in tours like Shining Yin or Attribute are people to look out for, and most likely be seeing more of as the current players begin to die out.

What do you think of the current metagame and the Mega Sableye suspect?
Agreeing with popular opinion, this metagame has been pretty stale, but thats natural, seeing as this isnt a tier with monthly tier shifts, and the fact that the ORAS meta is about two years old, since 2015 didnt get a new main series game. Theres nothing we really can do except wait for sun and moon in a few months. As for sableye, I've hated it ever since it was released in ORAS and have always thought my experience playing pokemon would be better without it.

What advice would you give to newer players?
Practice as much as possible and try to understand the metagame, making bad first impressions, making uninformed posts, and generally acting like an idiot won't get you any good attention. Practicing against good players is a good method of getting better quickly.

To finish things off, could you share a team with your favorite type and playstyle and give a short explanation for it?

Hide

Terrakion @ Salac Berry
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Substitute

Medicham-Mega @ Medichamite
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fake Out
- Bullet Punch
- High Jump Kick
- Zen Headbutt

Keldeo @ Mystic Water
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Secret Sword
- Hydro Pump
- Icy Wind

Cobalion @ Life Orb
Ability: Justified
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Stone Edge
- Stealth Rock

Heracross @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Pursuit
- Megahorn
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch

I made this team week 1 for MPL, and its really fun to use. The Cobalion, Terrakion, and Keldeo sets were used mostly for surprise factor, but since I've been spamming this team so much that's gone out the window.

[13:17:14] Kamui ★: LOOK
[13:17:15] Kamui ★: IF
[13:17:23] paleo: -
[13:17:24] Kamui ★: I DON'T GET A SHOUTOUT YOU'RE A TRAITOR
shoutouts yaksok :)​

Well that concludes this interview, feel free to ask your questions down below!

 

[Seo.]

Who are the top 5 monotype battlers this meta? (u can include urself)

 

[6ti]

Now that Mega Sableye's gone, do you think something else should be suspected?

 

[Paleo]

Who are the top 5 monotype battlers this meta? (u can include urself)

Give me a list of like 10 to 20 good players then I'll get back to you, that's too difficult

Now that Mega Sableye's gone, do you think something else should be suspected?

Hoopa is probably resuspect worthy, but I don't know if I'd ban it

 

[Ssalbap]

Could you tell me what would you rank each Pokemon for the viability rankings all the way from S rank all the way to B rank? At least 15-20 sentences for each one please

 

[Sobi]

what are some creative / gimmicky sets you've made or used?

 

[scpinion]

Serious questions:
ORAS is starting to wind down and many of us will be turning our attention to SUMO soon. As a part of the council, do you have anything specific you'd like to see done with the tiering that is different from ORAS? Are there things you'd like to see unbanned at that start of SUMO so they can be tested in the new metagame?

There's a large sentiment that the quality of play at the top of the ladder has decreased over the last couple months. Aside from the ongoing ladder tour, is there anything else you think the staff/council could do help it improve?

Not so serious question:
WoA seems to be this mysterious, possibly nefarious (!?!?), Monotype community. As a known member and contributor to their team archive, what do you think is WoA's greatest contribution to the metagame?

6 Roost Flying is a perfectly acceptable answer imo.

 

[Paleo]

Who are the top 5 monotype battlers this meta? (u can include urself)

Give me a list of like 10 to 20 good players then I'll get back to you, that's too difficult

nvm, i did it
afd
rnbs
wyn
sabella
ridley
lycan
balto
wanka
thorn
bush

I didn't include myself.

Could you tell me what would you rank each Pokemon for the viability rankings all the way from S rank all the way to B rank? At least 15-20 sentences for each one please

-_____-

what are some creative / gimmicky sets you've made or used?

I don't use many gimmicks in tours, but in casual play I've used Pikachu belle, Banded Zapdos, BP ground, and specs Lunatone.
In tours I use some creative sets like Ebelt Jirachi and Life orb Cobalion.

Serious questions:
ORAS is starting to wind down and many of us will be turning our attention to SUMO soon. As a part of the council, do you have anything specific you'd like to see done with the tiering that is different from ORAS? Are there things you'd like to see unbanned at that start of SUMO so they can be tested in the new metagame?

I think I like the tiering the way it is as of now. The metagame balanced with no striking flaws, and I'd like to translate that into the next generation. We could possibly implement type bans, but I really see no point as only like aegislash would be type banned, unless theres an influx of these special dual typed pokemon, which wouldn't be a surprise with the assorted type combinations game freak has revealed so far. As for unbans, the chaos at the start of Gen6 was a lot of fun, and I hope I can play around with the absurdly broken blaziken,deoxys, and maybe genesect again, although these probably won't make it back, but I do feel we should bring back mons like Altaria, Aegislash, Zard X, etc, to test them out again and see their impact on a completely new metagame of ~30 new competitively viable pokemon.

There's a large sentiment that the quality of play at the top of the ladder has decreased over the last couple months. Aside from the ongoing ladder tour, is there anything else you think the staff/council could do help it improve?

Unfortunately I don't see any repair of a decrease in quality, but the MLT should encourage more active tournament players to ladder. The community is changing, as the bulk of the community has shifted over to main instead of side servers, and, for lack of a better word, ''matured'', and I believe a shift from ladder importance to tour importance has also occurred. This is probably for the better of the entire community and its growth into smogon, but I guess its just my perspective.

Not so serious question:
WoA seems to be this mysterious, possibly nefarious (!?!?), Monotype community. As a known member and contributor to their team archive, what do you think is WoA's greatest contribution to the metagame?

6 Roost Flying is a perfectly acceptable answer imo.

To me the whole woa thing was just a meme and not to be taken seriously, and I tend to joke about it a lot. We were just a group of friends and thoughtd itd be funny to slap a name on it, and therefore I don't see how it could be accredited with any metagame contribution, other than popularization of sets and teams like HO steel, stall water, and latios psychic...although the archive was a source of teams for most of the origin community, which is a win... maybe.

 

[Sabella]

Serious questions:
ORAS is starting to wind down and many of us will be turning our attention to SUMO soon. As a part of the council, do you have anything specific you'd like to see done with the tiering that is different from ORAS? Are there things you'd like to see unbanned at that start of SUMO so they can be tested in the new metagame?

There's a large sentiment that the quality of play at the top of the ladder has decreased over the last couple months. Aside from the ongoing ladder tour, is there anything else you think the staff/council could do help it improve?

Not so serious question:
WoA seems to be this mysterious, possibly nefarious (!?!?), Monotype community. As a known member and contributor to their team archive, what do you think is WoA's greatest contribution to the metagame?

6 Roost Flying is a perfectly acceptable answer imo.

Besides our undoubtabley solid memes id say woas best contribution is the ability to lose games but still feel superior. It takes a special type of confidence and swagger to do that.

 

[Zap]

what unique pokemon typing combos are you looking forward to in sun and moon

 

[Day Healer]

When will the council type-ban Defog for flying monos?

Giratina unban for monoghosts?

Is WoA illuminati confirmed?

 

[Paleo]

what unique pokemon typing combos are you looking forward to in sun and moon

Hopefully in Sun and Moon we get pokemon with cool offensive typings like a new physical water/fighting type, something like a better poliwrath with sd/knockoff/cc/jet/waterfall etc, or even a physical dark fire type with knock off and flareblitz or even sacred fire. I liked the Salandit reveal and its new poison/fire typing but unfortunately its supposed to be super weak :/.

When will the council type-ban Defog for flying monos?

Never.

Giratina unban for monoghosts?

Never.

Is WoA illuminati confirmed?

Sure.