Interview with CTC

Interview and flavor by aim. Art by elcheeso and Bummer.

Damn...he was late. I had been logged into my computer for an hour waiting for his call. Did he not realize his time zone? I waited a few more minutes. Oh, a call! Finally...let's do this!

Yo! Thanks for agreeing to do this, bro. I really appreciate it.

Wait, I never agreed to this interview. Hold up. Why do I have you added? Who are you? How do you have my Skype?

I decided to play along; I had heard rumors of how this man was.

Craigslist.

Ahh. Commence!

No time to waste, we were both pressed for time as he was late. I'll just ask the first question.

Haha. Alright, do you consider yourself a good builder in the tournament community?

Nah. My followers do. They call me "Yun basedlord."

Heh. What do you take into account when building for a tournament?

For a team tournament, I would just use standard stuff with solid cores, because I don't wanna jeopardize my teammates' chances. For an individual tour I build stall or counter team my opponent's team, as in counter the style to maximize chances of a good match-up.

I leaned in so I could see him more clearly over Skype. Now that I thought about it, he reminded me of the guy from Gangnam Style. Getting off track...focus, this was interesting information.

Ah, interesting. Speaking of team tournaments, have you been building for your team in Smogon World Cup? US East, right?

Nah, that's all Joey. A master builder. My sensei. Subscribe to www.youtube.com/pokeaimmd for sick squads! But on occasion I would toss in a team or two to the gigantic pool of east teams.

Noted. I figured I should DEFINITELY check out his channel after this.

How effective has this "counter styling" been for you guys this World Cup? Also, what is counter styling and how is it done?

Well in team tours I don't counter style since people ghost and share etc., so I just use whatever I feel like and hope I get a good matchup. I mean I steal whatever I feel like using from gr8astard and hope I get a good matchup.

Makes sense, I had heard about this "matchup" in Pokemon.

Ah. How helpful are replays when building for tours?

Quite. The replays usually show one's tendencies on risk reward, tendencies to choke, tendencies to play aggressive vs. defensive and team choices. But usually that applies to less experienced players, as looking over replays of veterans reveals very little.

Damn, a person could get this much from watching a game, interesting.

Ah, so this is taken into account when starting to build for an opponent. So we can assume that it is different for you when building for let's say a certain ladder on Pokemon Showdown or Pokemon Online than in tournaments?

Usually when I "build," per say, is when a cool idea comes to mind. Or I have free time on my hands. I don't specifically build for any occasion, though I might modify existing teams. Yea, so if I think of or see or hear about something with potential I would build around it and have my friends test them out for feedback. And, of course, I would talk to my friends about the ideas. So if they think it's bad I would have to prove them wrong.

You said you build usually when you have a cool idea or free time. Is that the sole reason you build? I know a lot of players, especially in tournaments, don't build their own teams but use already well polished or even known teams. Do you find it more fun to build than to play?

I eagerly awaited his answer. It puzzled me that someone could have more fun putting together a team of six than actually fighting with them.

Of course it's more fun to build than play. Making reads would be fine if everyone was at a decent level, but let's be honest: these tour players are bad. The only fun I have playing is with my friends, also, due to the fact that I can lose without losing face, not that I lose at all, though. Anyway, building satisfies me much more since it's more influential on the entire metagame. And having cool ideas that work is really rewarding. Riolu in BW and Mantine stall in XY, for example.

I chuckled...this man had no filter.

So you take pride in, let's say, a well known player like McM winning a prestigious tournament with a 'CTC team?'

Nah not really, I mean most all tour winners or whoevers made it far have used my teams in recent tours, but I'm always gonna claim every decent team as mine. I invented DD Dragonite and popularized Shadow Ball Aegislash, after all. And usually accomplished tour players will make edits or have me make edits to their teams out of pride so they don't have to hear me ridin' them on forums saying they won with my squad.

I couldn't stop laughing. I apologized, then moved on.

That's quite a claim, haha. Last question, do you have any advice for people out there who are building for tournaments and want to make their teams better?

Look at usage, always do so. Usage dictates the flow of the metagame. All my sets spreads and Pokemon selection are regarding the popularity of threats. The reason a lot of old schoolers fail at xy is because they think, ''Oh, I can grab an Aegislash and a Mega Evolution and click attacks,'' yet they still think Greninjas are running Shadow Sneak or that Rotom-W is common. See, knowing the metagame is better than knowing your opponent, because there's always a chance that your opponent is a bad player and simply clicks buttons.

So look at usage, and test your teams against friends. Testing is really nice, especially when you're using non-standard sets. You can never know what set straight up sweeps your team. And teams usually take a few tweakings to adjust to new metagame shifts. For example, I revamped one of my earliest teams, birdspam, to fit post-Genesect meta and the hyper offensive metagame immediately afterwards.

This answer shocked me as it was more sincere than his last few. I took a sip of coffee before deciding to wrap this up.

Ah, great advice. Once again thanks for taking the time to do this. Any last words for anyone out there?

I'll give newer builders some advice. Here are some procedures you can take when building. Look at, say, 10-30 top-tier Pokemon. Does any one of them straight up sweep you? Do you have two checks or counters to at least the top 10 Pokemon? Do you have a win condition should the game drag out, and do you have a secondary damage output should the first one be hard countered? Do you have the offensive synergy to wallbreak? On the reverse, does your stall team lose to Stealth Rock plus aggressive double switches? Does your Defog user synergize with your Stealth Rock weak Pokemon (Zapdos as Defog user plus Stealth Rock weak Pokemon Kyurem-B is very weak to Terrakion, for example)? If you're testing a gimmick or some innovation, does it affect mons that are relevant enough in OU play? Does your innovation have practicality should you not run into the mon you're trying to surprise (Facade on Breloom for Venusaur is still a 140 BP move to hit Latios and Latias, for example)?

And always remember to have a revenge killer or a few priority attacks or a check to setup mons (Thundurus is usually the no-brainer). Just don't straight up lose to *insert Mega Evolution after a Dragon Dance* like half the ladder. And last but not least have fun building. No one enjoys puttin' together some bread and butter standard team, because it's lame and I already did that first. That will be all, enjoy building and I will be uploading most of my teams soon to the Rate my Team section on Smogon.

And with that, he said something real quick that I could only distinguish as, "Your flows don't affect me I'm Gastrodon" and hung up. Damn, that was a lot to take in. Can't wait to write this up.