scorpdestroyer
favorite pokemon: Grovyle
most used pokemon: Mesprit / Garbodor
most known for: [23:11:08] xzern: having a weird avatar
xzern: So tell me, scorp, why is your name what it is?
scorpdestroyer: My ancestors once slayed a giant scorpion and I've been training to be like them ever since.
(When I was younger, I played this game that allowed you to build robots and fight other robots, and mine was really good at destroying the models that were called Scorpions. So when I came across Smogon I just wanted to post a team to be rated and didn't think I would stick around for so long so I just threw in this name. Unfortunately I did stick around for so long so there you go.)
xzern: Favorite playstyle/type of team?
scorpdestroyer: I like offense. Generally my favorite types of teams are teams that have 1-2 bulky pivots that can take on a variety of threats, and maybe a hazard stacker, while the rest of the team go on the offensive. If you've seen my RMT in BW2 NU, it's pretty much the style of team I like the most, where almost everything can threaten the opponent offensively while having a backup pivot that can check a lot of stuff. I guess it's almost hyper offense but not really. It's really satisfying to watch the enemy's HP bar go down quickly, which is why I go on the offense a lot and I rarely play with stall.
xzern: Favorite type of pokemon? (Normal, Fairy, Bird, etc.)
scorpdestroyer: A lot of Dark-types look really badass. Greninja, Bisharp, Weavile, Drapion, etc have really nice designs, so Dark probably.
xzern: Favorite type of pokemon in a competitive sense? (Normal, Fairy, Bird, etc.)
scorpdestroyer: Water. There are so many good Water-types that can go on the offensive and defensive. I usually have a Water-type on most of my teams and I like rain teams a lot for these reasons.
xzern: How did you come to competitive battling/Smogon?
scorpdestroyer: About 2 years ago, I was looking for good movesets for my RSE in-game team (yeah I still played that 2 years ago) and stumbled on Smogon analyses. Then I got interested in competitive battling and downloaded PO and started playing BW OU. My first team had top-tier threats like Spikes / Toxic Spikes / Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin Forretress and Sub / Facade / Focus Punch / Leech Seed Breloom, and none of them had EVs because I didn't see it on the teambuilder and didn't know about EVs, lol. I didn't win a single match. I read somewhere that Smogon is moving support to PS, so I went there and the EVs were more obvious on the teambuilder, so I won a little bit. I discovered the forums soon, found out about the different tiers and tried them out and eventually took an interest in NU after reading a few posts in the RMT forum. I still remember my first team having a Farfetch'd because the naive me believed the joke analysis ;-; After I eventually realized it sucked, I lurked more and built better teams and stuck around because it was the only tier I could win in. Soon, I posted an RMT, got hooked to Smogon, then posted in the forums and eventually got less bad.
xzern: What's your favorite part of NU?
scorpdestroyer: Honestly I have no idea, I just like it a lot. Maybe it's the community, maybe it's the mons... who knows? I don't need a reason to like something :)
xzern: If you could ban or unban one thing from NU, what would it be/why?
scorpdestroyer: I would unban Mawile. No particular reason except that it's obviously going to end up here and it'll be cool to get this, even if it won't be meta-defining. Sheer Force LO is something I want to try, it gets cool stuff like boosted Play Rough / Iron Head and can SD as well. Maybe ban SmashPass too cos it's annoying to play against. When ORAS comes out, apart from banning all those broken Megas I would like to see how Sigilyph would fare back here; it may not be as broken now we have all the fast stuff running around.
If I'm powerful enough to disregard Smogon tiering philosophy I would tier Megas separately from non-Megas, because let's be real, who wouldn't want Charizard, Pinsir, and Gardevoir back here? But that's a different story.
xzern: NU player you most admire?
scorpdestroyer: I think there's something to learn from every player, and I can't pinpoint one that I admire the most. Zebraiken has always been someone I looked up to though, I've never beaten him and he is a great teambuilder and player. I also admire how Sweet Jesus could constantly innovate new ideas and make them work, sadly he's more dead than alive now. NU happens to have a ton of great players though!
xzern: Do you have any advice for people new to NU?
scorpdestroyer: Play the tier. Fight some good players, play on the ladder, it doesn't matter; nothing beats experience. It gives an idea of what's good and what's not. There's no excuse not to do so especially when the PS room and irc chan have quite a lot of good players online. You can look over your replays and pick up on the places where you could've played better or where you made a good play, and same for the opponent. You can steal teams or cores and build with someone good at the tier to get an idea of how stuff work. Of course, get involved with the community. Posting and discussing stuff with others is a great way to get better as well, and it is the main reason I grew from a random ladder Farfetch'd scrub to a less random, less scrubby player.
xzern: Could you give me something like a mini RMT to conclude the interview, one that demonstrates your teambuilding style?
scorpdestroyer:
http://pastebin.com/LbnLndmK
There's no point posting an XY team anymore because ORAS is coming out in a few days.
It's a team I builded around Mega Camerupt because I wanted to see how hard it could nuke (also it's my fav Mega ;o). I also got this idea because Mega Mega Sceptile is everywhere and instead of being boring and using one of my own, I figured I could take advantage of the fact that Mega Camel can't get OHKOed by Sceptile and can take the chance to just nuke something by coming in on a Mega Sceptile that just killed something. To illustrate, Mega Camel 2HKOs Audino and Uxie after SR. If you look at the team as a whole, it's pretty much a team full of offensive Pokemon that attack a lot, while still being able to defend against top threats and has a reliable pivot to fall back on (ie my favourite team style)
Mega Camerupt is my first nuke and forces a lot of switches that gives me chances to put up SR. Fire Blast and Earth Power hit pretty much everything for massive damage. Ancient Power is mostly filler, but it 2HKOs Pelipper and bulky Archeops after SR, although you shouldn't expect to use it much. Usually I wait till I attack to Mega Evolve so I keep my Solid Rock and Speed, although I'm not too sure if Solid Rock makes up for the increase in bulk. Mega Camerupt is bulky enough to not get OHKOed by everything ever, so it can actually find a lot of chances to nuke something after it comes in on some bulky thing. CB Pangoro is my other nuke. As if it isn't already good enough, it now gets Knock Off and Iron Fist Drain Punch and hits like a truck: for reference Knock Off does about 50% to Weezing. Hammer Arm is a filler move too in case I want the power that Drain Punch can't provide, but you can run Gunk Shot I guess. I never really bothered, though, because if I'm predicting a Fairy to come in, I can simply use Parting Shot, which is much safer, then go to Mega Camerupt and something dies. Parting Shot is so damn good: Pangoro lures in bulky things like a magnet, and Mega Camerupt eats them for breakfast. While these two help break down bulky stuff, the rest of the team are built for cleaning up the corpses.
Jynx and Kangaskhan just check a lot of fast stuff. I need them to prevent Feraligatr from 6-0ing me (Energy Ball doesn't OHKO Gatr, but it puts it into Fake Out + Sucker or Garbodor range) (yeah I'm a lil weak to Gatr I'm a great teambuilder). Jynx is a really cool mon and beats stuff like Mega Sceptile and random fast mons that are everywhere in ORAS. Same with Kanga. Bulky Archeops is really good, Brawlfest and friends aren't hyping it up for nothing. It does nice stuff like check Normal- and Flying-types (Mega Pidgeot is disgusting because it still 2HKOs but you can beat it 1-on-1), Fire-types, and Mega Beedrill. You'll also be surprised at how hard it hits with just 36 Atk. EV spread outruns Pyroar. Taunt + Roost also screws with a lot of bulky mons, and stuff like Weezing and Garbodor suddenly find that they can't touch you. Garbodor is my reliable pivot to fall back on. SpDef Garb helps me check Sceptile better as well as the other Grass-types while providing Rocky Helmet + Aftermath damage. In other words, it is a reliable check to a lot of physical and special attackers. Spikes and Toxic Spikes are standard, help my offensive mons blah blah. I've been tinkering with the last moveslot so you can change it to whatever.
There's no point posting an XY team anymore because ORAS is coming out in a few days.
It's a team I builded around Mega Camerupt because I wanted to see how hard it could nuke (also it's my fav Mega ;o). I also got this idea because Mega Mega Sceptile is everywhere and instead of being boring and using one of my own, I figured I could take advantage of the fact that Mega Camel can't get OHKOed by Sceptile and can take the chance to just nuke something by coming in on a Mega Sceptile that just killed something. To illustrate, Mega Camel 2HKOs Audino and Uxie after SR. If you look at the team as a whole, it's pretty much a team full of offensive Pokemon that attack a lot, while still being able to defend against top threats and has a reliable pivot to fall back on (ie my favourite team style)
Mega Camerupt is my first nuke and forces a lot of switches that gives me chances to put up SR. Fire Blast and Earth Power hit pretty much everything for massive damage. Ancient Power is mostly filler, but it 2HKOs Pelipper and bulky Archeops after SR, although you shouldn't expect to use it much. Usually I wait till I attack to Mega Evolve so I keep my Solid Rock and Speed, although I'm not too sure if Solid Rock makes up for the increase in bulk. Mega Camerupt is bulky enough to not get OHKOed by everything ever, so it can actually find a lot of chances to nuke something after it comes in on some bulky thing. CB Pangoro is my other nuke. As if it isn't already good enough, it now gets Knock Off and Iron Fist Drain Punch and hits like a truck: for reference Knock Off does about 50% to Weezing. Hammer Arm is a filler move too in case I want the power that Drain Punch can't provide, but you can run Gunk Shot I guess. I never really bothered, though, because if I'm predicting a Fairy to come in, I can simply use Parting Shot, which is much safer, then go to Mega Camerupt and something dies. Parting Shot is so damn good: Pangoro lures in bulky things like a magnet, and Mega Camerupt eats them for breakfast. While these two help break down bulky stuff, the rest of the team are built for cleaning up the corpses.
Jynx and Kangaskhan just check a lot of fast stuff. I need them to prevent Feraligatr from 6-0ing me (Energy Ball doesn't OHKO Gatr, but it puts it into Fake Out + Sucker or Garbodor range) (yeah I'm a lil weak to Gatr I'm a great teambuilder). Jynx is a really cool mon and beats stuff like Mega Sceptile and random fast mons that are everywhere in ORAS. Same with Kanga. Bulky Archeops is really good, Brawlfest and friends aren't hyping it up for nothing. It does nice stuff like check Normal- and Flying-types (Mega Pidgeot is disgusting because it still 2HKOs but you can beat it 1-on-1), Fire-types, and Mega Beedrill. You'll also be surprised at how hard it hits with just 36 Atk. EV spread outruns Pyroar. Taunt + Roost also screws with a lot of bulky mons, and stuff like Weezing and Garbodor suddenly find that they can't touch you. Garbodor is my reliable pivot to fall back on. SpDef Garb helps me check Sceptile better as well as the other Grass-types while providing Rocky Helmet + Aftermath damage. In other words, it is a reliable check to a lot of physical and special attackers. Spikes and Toxic Spikes are standard, help my offensive mons blah blah. I've been tinkering with the last moveslot so you can change it to whatever.
Feel free to ask scorpdestroyer any questions in the thread below and he will answer them. btw xzern has hot abs.
