Shadestep: So, rozes, what is your username based off? Do you miss your old username?
rozes: Its actually based off a few artists / songs that I was listening to at the time. The main one was Roses by Chainsmokers featuring Rozes which is where the spelling comes from. Sometimes I do miss using metaphysical, but it was just so much longer and actually took up the top of the bar on smogon forums while I was browsing on my phone so getting that out of the way was nice.
Shadestep: You’ve been on smogon for over two years now. How did you find out about competitive Pokemon and Smogon? What made you start contributing to Smogon like you do now?
rozes: Well I've only really been playing competitive mons for about ~1 1/2 years now since my smogon account was inactive for a year or so. In terms of pokemon in general, I've been playing ever since 1st grade or so with my first video game being Pokemon LeafGreen for the GBA.
Ever since then I have bought every game in the series and played through them all, in elementary school I had a group of 3-4 other friends who loved pokemon as much as me and from 1st to 4th grade thats all we would talk about and do. During Middle School I put pokemon behind me and focused on making new friends since I had just moved to a new school, and didn't really touch pokemon for 3 years or so. Once I got to High School, I saw some people playing the new pokemon games on their DSs (BW2 iirc) and I was somewhat interested into getting back into the game, but never really got into it. Then halfway through Freshman Year (Jan / Feb 2012) some of my friends showed me pokemon showdown and we built a team together that was like: venusaur / blissey / dragonite / alakazam / volcarona / tyranitar. Then we played a few games on the OU ladder which was BW at the time and I kind of forgot about PS after that. At the start of Sophmore year everyone in the community was in hype mode for XY and I started getting back into PS and thats when I found smogon. I made an account in December of 2013 in order to post a funny replay in the OU thread and then didn't log on after that. I played a lot of games on the OU ladder / Randbats with my friend who showed me PS while we were in English Class and just did that for a semester. Over summer of Soph / Junior year I didn't play at all, and once Junior year started I started lurking the OU forums and hung out in the OU room on PS and joined roomtours / laddered a lot. Then SPL started and I found out more about competeitve tours and thats kind of where I got the drive to contribute to smogon / competitive mons as I wanted to be on the level of the players that I had started watching and respecting.
Shadestep: You have done loads of work in multiple parts of the Smogon Forums (Team Rating, Subforum Hosting, Tournaments, Tutoring, Analyses). Which of those is the most fun in your experience, and why?
rozes: This is actually a really hard question to answer as I've enjoyed basically every aspect of smogon that I've contributed to as I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't enjoy it. However if I had to choose a favorite it would be playing in Tours that I've had the most fun in, as thats what I started in and there is really no feeling like winning tour games / just playing games of pokemon for fun.
Shadestep: You were picked up for SPL for the first time, a couple of months ago. Did you expect to be drafted?
rozes: For about a month before the draft I was really unsure if I was getting drafted or not, and I was talking with friends and most said I would get drafted, but I still thought there was like a 30% chance I wouldn't get picked up for players like Kiyo / Shaneghoul who have had much better results than me for the "new NU player" slot. However with like a week left I was feeling a bit more confident as I had tried out with a few teams like Raiders / Bigs and liked my chances with both teams and I think it was around this time the shit storm in the thread started with players calling me trash and etc. After that I think I was fairly confident I was getting drafted because SG and Cased came to my defense in the thread which sort of /validated/ my place as a NU pick up.
Shadestep: You were picked for 10k, which is quite a lot for someone’s debut. Did you feel pressured to perform well because of that?
rozes: I 100% felt a lot more pressure because I felt I needed to come above all the jokes people were making about 10K Overpay and w/e, and losing would just cement me as a trash player that went for 10K and then got a shitty record. I think even without that I would have put as much effort into my games, so it didn't matter that much but there was definitely wanting to get away from just being known as the 10K NU player that did badly.
Shadestep: Are you happy with your overall performance in SPL? What did you learn from it?
rozes: I'm kind of torn with my SPL performance because I feel like I could have done a whole lot better if I had put in as much time as I had in the first ~4 Weeks I would have come out stronger after mids instead of losing 3 in a row to mirror the three I won starting. After my team was out at Midseason there were a few things that happened: there was a lot less going on w/ the team since we really had no shot at playoffs and there was a few new drops like Charizard and Omastar which had me focused on a few other things as well. I think by the end I am happy with my first SPL and hope that I can continue to have positive SPLs in the future.
Shadestep: Aside from SPL, you were also a manager of the Vibrant Vivillons this year. Are you happy with the team you drafted and the end-result? What did you learn from it? How was the team chemistry?
rozes: I was really happy with the team I drafted because it was basically everyone that I wanted minus a few people. The end result I was a bit unhappy with, because I felt we could have easily made finals and even won the whole thing but we had a few problems w/ luck and a lack of motivation in certain weeks. I learnt quite a bit about drafting a team and what to do and not to do in the future, as well as how to better motivate and get a team running smoothly. Luckily for us our team chemistry was amazing, as over half the team was weebs -_- and everyone was really friendly and talked quite a bit in chat which makes for a great team environment.
Shadestep: Whose NUPL performance, out of everybody, were you most impressed by and why?
rozes: hmmm this is kind of a hard question because I really wasn't watching too many replays aside from our games / scouting for certain opps. Of course 7-0Bugzinator was really impressive and I wish I had upbid kiyo more on him (and finch). Also players like -Davon who only had 1? loss and managed to play really well was nice to see players that haven't seen big team tours do well. Also of course on my team players like Zeb and SG doing really well in BW, and Ren-Chon for giving me teams like "NU Combusken" that didn't have a Combusken yet still being able to play every week after getting unlucky in a few games.
Shadestep: Who do you look up to / admire most as an NU player?
rozes: Well from the start of me playing NU its been Cased / Soulgazer who have been the driving force for me as a player, as well as everyone that was on my first NUPL team (waters / sg / cased / blunder / aim / hikari). Those were really the first players who's names I actually learnt, as before I was just lurking really and didn't learn to identify people by username and had no clue what posted what or who was winning what in SPL. After NUPL I started hanging out in the NU room and it was players like Tennis / Kiyo that I started talking to more as well as Raseri who I drew a lot of inspiration from when starting to build my teams in NU. It was also from the first teambuilding lab (run by Evan.) close to a year ago that I stole like 99% of my teams from as I had no idea how to build a team of my own really and just stole from players like Kiyo / Evan / TCW / Goomy / Queen and used their teams to ladder and learn the tier more.
Shadestep: If you would have total control of the current NU, would you change something? If so, what would it be?
rozes: If i had to follow TL rules, I would retest Sawk as soon as it was possible because I still dont think its as broken as people were making it out to be. I would also just ban Speed + Baton Pass as I explain later on. If I didn't have to follow usage stats I would drop Fletchinder / Uxie / Togetic and have fun using them again as that was honestly the metagame I had the most fun playing in and it was when I first learnt how to make my own teams.
Shadestep: What is your opinion on the recent changes in the NU tier? (Starting from the Sawk-ban, Sceptile-ban, Omastar, Charizard, Steelix, etc.)
rozes:
Sawk-ban: I really dont think Sawk was as broken as people made it out to be, with plenty of fighting resists and the call the colbur was centralizing really never really made sense to me, as all psychics / ghosts are still running it for darks / hariyama and sawk gave a check to things like weather and threatening sweepers due to sturdy.
Sceptile: Broken as shit lol, I was calling for a ban since midseason of SPL and I'm happy it finally happened.
Omastar: Defensive Omastar is one of my favorite mons and gives a great hazard setter as well as another smasher that can help out in the tier and provides an alt to barb for some teams.
Charizard: I feel it was over hyped a lot and its really just average in the current metagame. Belly Drum is fun though :D
Steelix: I think its in a similar boat to Charizard, but people use it as a crutch a lot which leads to teams that are easily taken advantage of by common balance breakers like Klinklang + like Scyther since steelix is thrown on as the only check to normal / flying / steel / rock types which really isn't something players should be doing.
Shadestep: The ‘Combusken-pass to Xatu’-strategy is seeing more and more usage. Do you think it is worth a (complex) ban?
rozes: Well I dont think a complex ban is even that necessary, I was talking with Denissss the other day and he came up with the idea of just banning Speed Boosts + Baton Pass, as there is no form of speed passing that can be seen as healthy for the metagame. Agility Pass doesn't exist, and while it does take away Combusken's ability to run BP, its really what was broken in the first place so I dont really see a problem with just banning Speed + BP.
Shadestep: Do you have any advice for newer players trying to get into NU?
rozes: There is one thing I would emphasize over anything else, lurk. While it does sound like an insult to just tell people "lurk more" it can be really really key advice for people that want to get into a tier or community. People would respect a "new" player much more if they already know the rules of posting, the tier, and just other things people pick up just by sticking around and watching more experienced players / posters. I actually lurked for close to 3-4 months before making posts in the vr / np thread and getting my name known more, and by that time I already had some teambuilding / general knowledge and people accepted me instead of turning me away as a newer player that doesn't know what mons are in the tier.
Shadestep: What do you do outside of Smogon? (work, hobbies, school)
rozes: Well being a senior in high school takes up a lot of time so thats usually what im working on. But I'm also a freelance Graphic Designer in my free time and do work for non profits / people that just need some graphic design work. I'm also one of the heads of my schools yearbook so I'm in the Yearbook office a lot after school working on it.
I'm also a swimmer, though I do it a lot more casually now as I haven't had as much time to do my school swim team like I did Fresh / Soph year or join a club. I also just hang out w/ friends after school a lot and we end up playing games / watching movies a lot. Other than that I'm pretty boring :x
Shadestep: Lastly, is there a life advice that you would like to share with us?
rozes: Well I'll combine Life + Pokemon. Never ever put Smogon / Pokemon above anything you are doing IRL. If you have to miss some SPL game just because you have class then go to class and focus and come back to Pokemon later because it will always be there for you.
Thanks for your time, rozes! If you have any more questions or want to tell a funny joke xD, that's what the thread is open for. Thanks!
Previous Interviews: [thread=nu-player-of-the-week-week-1-kiyo.3572227/]Kiyo[/thread]
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