Hey frens and welcome back to ZU Player of the Week. This project will feature interviews from some of the most prominent personalities in ZU so that we can discover more about their Pokémon and personal lives. I am grateful that I will have the chance to interview so many amazing ZU players and I hope that you enjoy these as much as I do. This week's guest is another ZU moderator who is not czim...
Tuthur!!
Favourite Pokemon:
(ZU Moderator, ZU Council Member, Badge Collector, Cottonee Enthusiast, Skribblio Expert)
Ditto used Transform!
Ditto transformed into Jigglypuff!
*jig a lee puff*
bon après-midi monsieur Tuthur, how are you doing today :)
(Good afternoon Mr Tuthur)
bonne après-midi mademoiselle Jett, I'm fine. Just finished watching a movie on Netflix.
(Good afternoon Miss Jett)
ah that's great to hear, what movie was it :o?
Taken
I randomly clicked on it on Netflix and I enjoyed it
that's good
To get things started as usual, could you tell the community and I a little bit about yourself outside of Smogon?
I'm a 20 y/o french man who studies Computer Sciences to become an engineer.
Sounds like fun. How did first stumble across PS/Smogon?
When I was in middle school, I heard through Youtube videos from Azelma (former french Pokétuber) that a competitive Pokémon scene existed through Smogon. After Pokémon XY, I was so disappointed by the game that I decided I wouldn't buy any Pokémon game and that I should quit these games. That's how I didn't buy ORAS, however I liked the Pokémon franchise too much so I gave a try to competitive Pokémon by breeding on my cartridge. That was extremely unfun, so I stopped and started watching a french Poketuber who had almost no subscribers in Fildrong. I enjoyed a lot his content and he kept talking about Showdown, so I googled what it as and that's how I ended up on PS!, 2 years after hearing about competitive Pokémon for the first time.
Breeding was a pain in older generations for sure.
After finally trying out PS, what drew you into playing ZU over other tiers/metagames
The Pokétuber I first watched, Azelma, loved lower tiers and shitmons, so I wanted to try it like her. The only mon I bred even was an Audino, so I ended up trying out ORAS PU with very mediocre teams. After keeping losing to random threats, I watched a video from Fildrong on teambuilding who said I needed to be sure I cover every threat with my team and drew a list of every mon I faced on PU ladder and build a team making sure I covered them all. With this team I climbed very high on the ORAS PU ladder and won a lot of room tours. Someone even used it in ORAS PU Cup this year and beat tlenit with it kek.
When SM came out, I ended up roaming between different tiers but I was too bad and my teams didn't work which caused me a lot of frustration. I ended up maining a french mixed tier like named UTA, until its popularity fell off. Meanwhile, I casually played ZU games on the ZU server. Despite it being extremely small, my timezone not working with most users, and my english being shit, I enjoyed playing it because it was almost like ORAS PU.
In may 2018, ZU got a ladder for OMotM and the number of players skyrocketted. Since this moment, I stuck with this community.
damn quite the journey you've been through there, also your english is a pretty good now so that's pretty cool
it has been a lot of work to get to this level of english. PS! has been tremendously helpful in that regard
i can tell, it's certainly paid off
Gonna quickly fast forward to SS ZU now, what are your thoughts on the current metagame, and what do you think of the potential shifts that are going to happen in a few days time?
Current meta is alright. Silvally formes, especially Ground, are too restricting in my opinion, and Grassy Terrain is a broken archetype in my opinion as there are very few things stopping a boosted Swoobat or Thievul. Losing Garbodor will be huge, as Garbo is extremely helpful to absorb Knock Off for Tangela and get chips in order scarfers or priority users to revenge kill threats. On the other hand, Arctovish and Snowslash would be interesting additions. Arctovish will most likely get quickbanned, even if we'll probably let it run rampage for some days. Snowslash would be amazing imo due to the role compression and versatility it seems to have on paper.
Ya, looking forward to receiving alola slash as well, and I agree losing Garbodor will change the landscape massively
As a whole do you prefer Gen 7 or Gen 8 ZU and why?
SSZU without a doubt. I really dislike the Z-move mechanic and overall I think the SSZU metagame is more balanced.
That's definitely an opinion that I can respect since Z moves are fun albeit p broken
As someone who has used as fair bit of Grassy Terrain and had their own spin on it, I'm designating you the title of Cottonee propagandist; could you explain why Cottonee should be ranked on the ZU Viability Rankings?
Cottonee is the sole mon with access to Grassy Terrain and Memento. Thanks to Prankster, it can often use both, giving a free setup turn to Grassy Seed sweepers including Galarian Rapidash, Swoobat, Thievul, Drifblim, Flapple, and Cofagrigus. Encore and Taunt also lets it take advantage of passive foes that would cripple sweepers with status moves like Thunder Wave or Encore and setup users. The only downside of Cottonee is its weakness to Dark-types which is shared with the Grassy Seed sweepers.
Definitely a fair share of unique qualities that the mon has so it will be interesting to see whether it does get ranked in the next update
Aside from Grassy Terrain has there been anything else you've been experimenting with?
I've been experimenting with uncommon Silvally formes especially Birb Vally, as well as Electric Terrain to see if it was as problematic as Grassy Terrain (it is far from being). I'm also known for my Lapras RMT, which was a very anti meta pick a month ago. I'm not building much these days due to tier shift though.
That's fair enough, and ye we've definitely had a lot more variation in silvallies being used recently to different levels of success
I have a few couple quickfire questions now
Marry, ban, demote: 5gen, Ho3nC0nfirm3d, Apagogie
why would you do this to me? u_u
Marry: Apagogie, french community solidarity
Ban: Ho3n, don't eat raw onions
Demote: 5gen, time for fresh blood lol
lmao great answer
You've hacked into gamefreak's database and can edit Jigglypuff, how would you make this Pokemon viable in ZU.
LOL
I think I'd based it on Melee's Jigglypuff. So it would have a Fairy-type signature move with 300 base power that causes poison to the foe and sleep to the user. For stats, I'd buff Speed to 120 and Attack to 70. I'd give it Regenerator as it seems this character is always able to recover if you don't outright eject it.
With such buffs and still being able to use Eviolite, it's safe to say this might be a little "too" viable in ZU
but great answer nonetheless
idk if this would be too much, attack and bulk is still overwhelming
i haven't calced though lol
i think this would still be bad because of garbo and tangela
lmao interesting take
one last fun question before we move on, what makes you such a good skribblio player and what advice can you give to Temporal Totodile on how to improve
i really have no clue lol. My internet isn't even quick. My irl friends ask me this question often also.
Hmm I see, maybe one day I'll see you not finish in first place for once :P
Outside of mons, do you have any other hobbies and do you play any other games?
I enjoy hanging out with my friends but i don't really have any other hobby. I play a ton of Among Us with french pokefriends, and sometimes I play old games I used to play when I was under 10 in Age of Mythology and Heroes of Might and Magic, but I'm super bad at them.
That's fair enough and also very interesting that you play old games
Do you mind leaking who is the most sus french user?
Louna
pire impo
(worst impostor)
lmao rip them
kek
Do you have any favourite shows, movies, and songs?
I don't watch shows, so can't answer. I love thriller movies like Shutter Island, Split, Cube and The Platform, and I watch a lot of them on Netflix. I mostly listen to rap/hiphop music in french and english and I enjoy a ton of different artists. The projects I've been liking the most this year are Clouds from NF, in english, and Don Dada: Mixtape vol. 1, in french.
Haven't seen all those movies but they seem very fun. Never heard of the french song but I'll be sure to give it a listen after this interview!
It's very different from the french music I gave you nicknames from kek
ah I see loool
Okay, let's wrap this up with you showing us a team you've built recently with a brief description?
(small) 
(flying)So this a flying spam, the goal is to weaken Flying-resists such as Rhydon, Coal and Electric types with Butterfree so FlyingVally can wallbreak late game. Gourg, Miltank and Rhydon provide a sort of defensive core, checking most threats, while Basculin is Speed control.
There are other elements that have been taken into account during teambuilding but I'll keep this short.
Thank you for sharing
np
Before we end this interview, is there anything else you'd like to say or anyone you'd like to shout out?
I'd like to thank everyone in the ZU community that have been allowing the tier to be how it is now. I've been working with a lot of different people to build teams, write analysis, manage the room, etc ..., so anyone who did something for this tier deserves a shout out.
Amazing, thank you for taking some time out of your day to answer these questions!
np, that was fun Jettrem
Feel free to ask to Tuthur any questions you want!
