Week 1: EonX
Hello and welcome to Player of the Week. This thread hopes to increase the visibility of prominent RU players to the community and the outside world while promoting both users and the strategies that they find to be effective in the metagame. If there is someone you would like to see interviewed, feel free to drop me a PM.
Molk
Favorite Pokemon: Scraggy
Most known for: Leading the RU tier
Favorite Playstyle: Balanced
Most used Pokemon: Moltres
Hello and welcome to Player of the Week. This thread hopes to increase the visibility of prominent RU players to the community and the outside world while promoting both users and the strategies that they find to be effective in the metagame. If there is someone you would like to see interviewed, feel free to drop me a PM.Hello and welcome to Player of the Week. This thread hopes to increase the visibility of prominent RU players to the community and the outside world while promoting both users and the strategies that they find to be effective in the metagame. If there is someone you would like to see interviewed, feel free to drop me a PM.
Molk
Favorite Pokemon: Scraggy
Most known for: Leading the RU tier
Favorite Playstyle: Balanced
Most used Pokemon: Moltres
Leer: What's it like being tier leader?
Molk: It's a pretty interesting experience tbh. It's really nice to know that a bunch of players look up to you, but you have to be responsible with the decisions you make. If you mess up even a little bit, it's going to have a pretty big effect on the tier as a whole. A lot of people were annoyed with me that I didnt start up the Yanmega/Zoroark suspect ASAP, but that was because i was unsure of whether or not doing it was a good idea/reasonable at first. Of course it ended up being perfectly reasonable in the end and both ended up getting banned, but there have been times in the past where I've had to flat out say "no" to suspect testing/quickbanning something, most notably in the early period of XY RU when the entire council except for me wanted Escavalier gone, only to realize it was perfectly manageable as time went on. It's also important to note that you have a pretty big influence and that other people will do things you do whether they're good or not
Leer: What's your favorite part of being tier leader, if you had to pick one?
Molk: Knowing that you have so much influence and that so many players look up to you is really nice, especially if you know you're being helpful. It's also nice to see your efforts to improve something pay off when you're a tier leader, just kinda lets you know you're doing it right.
Leer: does XY RU compare to BW/BW2 RU?
Molk: I don't really prefer either metagame over the other, I find both of them fun. Metagamewise they're pretty different imo (I mean how could they not, the changes between BW and XY were quite significant in general, even going down to the type chart), although some of RU's best Pokemon in BW make a return in XY such as Slowking, Moltres, Amoonguss, Durant, Escavalier, and Druddigon.
Leer: What is/was your favorite part of each?
Molk: The relative balance of both makes them enjoyable. Both metagames had some really big offensive and defensive threats, but they were manageable enough to keep the metagame from imploding. BW2 RU had some things that could have arguably warranted a suspect test, but there was never really a massive outcry to suspect something post Hail, although there were times where certain Pokemon were brought up. When it comes to playstyles, XY RU is damn good. I've had had success with pretty much every playstyle from offense to full stall in the current metagame, and I don't think that'll change until ORAS comes around. BW2 RU was a bit more biased towards offense, but more defensive teams (such as the famed augstall) still existed and could be quite effective. Something else cool about BW2 RU was the room for creativity; many of the best mons in the tier could run multiple different sets effectively and a lot of NU and even PU were more than viable in the RU tier even if they didnt see much use, so there was always something new to try, at least in my experience
Leer: What Smogoner(s) has/have been your favorite to work/play/hang out with?
Molk: Most people around here know that I've done all kinds of silly stuff with Trop over the years, although he doesn't really play mons anymore. Some of my other favorite people on smogon include New Breed, Oglemi, SilentVerse, and many more! There are really too many to all list here. In fact, the last time I tried doing that was in my 3k RMT, the list of shoutouts was so long that it was twice as long as the RMT itself .___.
Leer: You have a lot of high-ranked ladder alts, and can ladder for long periods of time. For the few women of Smogon, does this stamina transfer into...other things? But in all seriousness, how do you ladder so long?
Molk: It just comes naturally to me. I tend to ladder when i'm bored and at this point of my life I'm bored quite a bit. I do tend to use......teams that aren't exactly serious to help break the monotony though.
Leer: If you didn't play RU, what tier or tiers would you play?
Molk: NU probably, there was a period of time where i actually lft RU to play NU a lot in BW1. I made a lot of friends there so it probably wouldn't be hard for me to get back into it again. Also, a lot of NU players play RU and vice versa.
What advice do you have for new players?
Molk: Lurking is always a good idea, but don't be afraid to ask questions either on the simple questions thread or on IRC. There are a bunch of resources in every tier, let alone RU that should help you get into the metagame as well. In general IRC is a really good place to get help and to get started imo. A lot of RU's best users happen to be mentors as well, feel free to contact them if you need help (there's a list in the resources thread here). Also, don't use Claydol.
If you have any additional questions for Molk, you can ask him!
What did you think about this week's interview? And again, if there's a player you want see interviewed, feel free to PM me.