Hi, Melee Mewtwo! First off, thanks a lot for doing this interview! Now, you've been an Uber moderator for quite a while, but how long have you been involved in Ubers, and why did you start playing Ubers instead of another metagame?
Umm, I first started playing OU like everybody else. I didn't actually get into sim play until very early BW. After playing that for a while, I decided to give Ubers a short fling in those PO mini-tours that happened all the time on the sim back then. It was just to play with my favorite Pokémon, Kyogre amongst other baddies. When I stopped doing those, I stopped playing Ubers until sometime early BW2. I got fed up with OU and decided to play Ubers in the meantime while suspect stuff was settled. I kinda juggled both, mostly favoring OU until, ummm... I'm not even sure anymore. I just realized one day that OU was not quite to my tastes and that Ubers had everything I was looking for,so I made the transition and never looked back.
I guess that's how most people get into Ubers! Now, there was/is actually a Suspect Test going on during this Ubers Open, regarding Mega Gengar. It's quite a unique one, since Ubers has never suspect tested a single Pokémon or forme before. Can you give us your opinion on that?
Mega Gengar getting suspect tested is certainly new because a single Pokémon has never been tested before, as you said before. But the concept isn't new at all; it was a concern during the Moody ban back in BW, as it was entirely possible that banning Moody would result in a future Pokémon ban. Pokémon that only have Moody would be banned, which is basically what is happening with Mega Gengar. However, there is the unprecedented twist that Shadow Tag wasn't targeted itself, but Mega Gengar was targeted alone for Shadow Tag. Incidentally, that's part of the reason why we are going to have a full Shadow Tag test sometime after the results for Mega Gengar come in.
Alright, that does make sense! By the way, what is your personal opinion: ban or no ban?
My opinion is no ban, solely on the principle that I dislike the idea of cherry-picking abusers of a toxic element instead of addressing it as a whole.
So you are anti-ban for just Gengarite but pro-ban for Shadow Tag as a whole?
Yes.
Alright, that makes sense. I believe Shadow Tag isn't the only thing you want banned; you considered banning Baton Pass from Ubers Open if I'm not mistaken. Is it really that big of a problem in Ubers?
Lol, yeah, I made the very stupid decision to ban Baton Pass from the Ubers Open, which was completely out of line. Baton Pass teams have become a subject of very many complaints for a couple months now. Most of these complaints were initially, and still are, in regards to evasion actually being usable on Baton Pass builds. However, evasion really isn't the problem, and rebanning it wouldn't fix the issues folks are complaining about. Those could only be addressed by banning the move Baton Pass, which is why I did it in the Ubers Open. That by no means says such a ban is going to become official. It was, again, a very silly decision on my part and not something I consulted with others before doing so.
What do you think are some good players that might be getting a spot in the finals or even win the whole thing? What are some favorites that people will expect to perform and dark horses that you think might surprise people?
The problem with answering that question is that the Ubers Open is cursed. Almost all the best players in Ubers are met with extreme misfortune in the early rounds that eliminate them from the tournament. For example, we've already lost Edgar, Problems, (give me a sec to find the rest) Evuelf, Fireburn, and BKC. We still have Kebabe, Hack, Dice, and aim though. Kebabe and Dice will be playing this round, unfortunately, which will further cut down the remaining Ubers reps with an actual shot at winning the tournament. However, I expect Dice will pull through; if anybody is going to win, it will most likely be him. Aim still performed exceptionally well in SPL, though, so I wouldn't count him out at all. Hack is definitely no slouch either. As far as dark horses go, ummmm; if one of those three don't win, it's because somebody who's been getting teams from the already eliminated players takes the tournament instead. This is what has traditionally happened. Malefic and Nayrz are both up and coming players to keep an eye out for though.
Ok thanks for the answer! I'm sure you know about the recent format change with six Opens being available to join instead of five; players are dropping one tier to play. What do you think of that change? Do you think the Ubers Open will lose/has lost a lot of participants from that change?
I feel Ubers Open has definitely suffered not so much from the 5/6 Opens, but from being moved from the second open to the last one. There's been a larger amount of inactivity, and this time it's not just coming from the Ubers players. Blatant drop outs occur because people already know they are out of the finals. I, myself, have been affected by this, as I have yet to play a second game this whole Open. I didn't even receive a response VM in the last round :(
Ah, that really is too bad. Final question: this is your first time hosting the Ubers Open. Is it hard hosting such a large (official) tournament, or does the importance of it just make it more enjoyable?
It's not particularly hard. I reuse the OP for the most part, so all I have to do is generate matchups and keep track of activity wins. It's just more time consuming than other tournaments rather than difficult.
Alright, that was the last question. Thanks for all the answers! Is there anything left you want to say, or do you have any tips to the Ubers Open participants left?
No, I think that covered everything.
Alright, then. Thanks again for the interview, and hopefully we'll see some more great matches in the Ubers Open!