Sakito: Hello all! Today we have undisputed, RoA Forum moderator and a great player in general. How are you today, Undisputed?

undisputed: I'm doing well. Currently studying in the library! Taking a break for this interview. Thanks for having me as a guest.

Sakito: Nice :D Thank you for taking the time for this interview. I know you've been really busy recently. To begin, can you introduce yourself in a few lines?

undisputed: For sure. I joined Smogon in 2008 when DPP OU was the main gen and Shoddy was our simulator. I played mostly on the ladder, and joined some small forum tournaments like the Late Night Tournament. I remember one of my goals was to be good enough to join the US West wcop team one day. Over the course of maybe 6 months I was extremely addicted, practiced a lot, and started meeting some of the more prominent users on the site. Eventually I signed up for B101, and worked with Philip7086, who taught me a lot about the game, and accelerated my development into a strong player. Since then, I've become known for my ADV play particularly, but I've had moderate success in all OU gens too.

Sakito: Really interesting, the era of shoddy must have been a fun time. So you're an ADV main, what do you like in ADV that there's not in other gens?

undisputed: Yeah, perhaps an interesting side note is that I didn't really choose ADV. I feel like people decided I was an ADV main and I just went along with it. It's grown on me a lot over the the years because it strikes a good balance between simplicity and more complex interactions that you find in later gens. In ADV you see the same 20 or so Pokemon, so you can get a really deep knowledge of what every Pokemon does and can do, whereas newer gens like SM OU offers uncountable possibilities of Pokemon, moves, z moves, etc and feel far more like a guessing game. Even though ADV is simple in that regard, it maintains enough variety to keep things fresh and innovative in the top tournaments unlike a gen like RBY which is literally the same 5 pokemon + filler every game.
I would also say I like the mechanics of ADV (like spike stacking, leftovers mechanic, etc) but that's probably because I'm most used to them, not because they make a ton of sense or ought to be that way.

Sakito: I see, the deep knowledge, that is preserved, explains all the complex EVs spreads in ADV. What are the competitive achievements you are most proud of?

undisputed: Hmm, I would say the competitive achievement I'm most proud of is my SPL 8 and 9 performances in ADV. I played for the Sharks in SPL 8 and Ruiners in SPL 9, and these SPLs in particular I had time to invest and do the best I possibly could. I practiced a lot and spent a lot of time putting together the best teams for each week. Over the two SPLs I went 15-3 in ADV against some pretty great competition, so I'm very proud of that in particular. s/o dekzeh, astamatitos, and UD for being the only players to take a game off me.

Sakito: Yeah, your SPL run is really impressive! Are you gonna do the next SPL?

undisputed: I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards no. Practically speaking, I'm very busy with other priorities than smogon, so I'm not confident I could even schedule games. Also SPL is incredibly stressful, and I felt exhausted by the end of SPL 9.

Sakito: I can imagine yeah, fully understandable. Do you have hobbies outside of Smogon?

undisputed: Yeah I definitely have hobbies outside of Smogon. I hope we all do lol. I enjoy playing all types of sports. I grew up playing baseball and volleyball, but I can keep up in just about any sport that doesn't require me to run long distances. I also enjoy staying in shape / lifting. Board/card games are fun too. I'm a competitive person, so anything that gives me a competitive outlet always appeals to me. And then your usual stuff like hanging out with my friends, meeting new people, watching netflix/movies, etc are all fun, though not very unique haha.

Sakito: Very cool! What's the story behind your username?

undisputed: No crazy story. I started off as “undisput3d”. I guess I thought the 3 looked cool or edgy when I was 14. I dropped the 3 after like a year to become “undisputed” as I’m known now. Back then, I liked the word because it seemed to have a strong feeling to it with no bad popular media connotation and a collection of aesthetic characters (ie I thought the written word itself looked nice).

Sakito: Oh I see. Are you listening to music? If yes, what type of music?

undisputed: I am not currently listening to music, because I get too into it and can't focus on what I'm reading, but I do enjoy music, particularly alt rnb, hip hop, and some trap. Drake, the weeknd, travis scott, khalid, and post malone are some of my current favorite artists.

Sakito: Great :D Along your 10 years playing in the competitive scene of Pokémon, who have you come to respect and admire?

undisputed: I don't really think of Pokémon skills as that admirable of a trait, but I respect and admire BKC, Philip7086, and Lavos, as do a lot of people. They're great players but more importantly great people.

Sakito: Do you enjoy being a RoA forum moderator? Is that something you want to continue despite spending less time on the site?

undisputed: The responsibility isn't very big to be honest. RoA is a pretty low key forum that only a few people even know about let alone can find. Consequently most posters know what the culture is like and what's acceptable, so there just isn't a ton to do besides moderating controversial topics like the Latias DPP suspect thread.

Sakito: Oh ok, to conclude this interview, what is the most memorable battle you had? You can share a replay if you have one.

undisputed: Hmm, I'd say one of my more memorable battles that comes to mind is my game vs. asta in w1 of SPL 9
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-339534
it was memorable for several reasons:
1) You always want to start off season with a W. Really sets the pace for the rest of the season.
2) The "power rankers" had listed me as an under dog in this game, so it was nice to get a W in the face of that.
3) I played a really tight, clean game on several levels. My plays would make sense to pretty much everyone watching, but there was a fair amount of "meta plays" that were going on in the background. For that game, I took an old team and revamped it with a new combination of sets. I started the game playing as if it were the old team (which I knew asta knew), and that allowed me to make some really big key plays that frankly turned the game into kind of a blow out.

Sakito: Very nice match! It's the end of the interview, I think we went around everything, unless you wanna add something?

undisputed: Nah, I don't have anything else pressing to add haha, Thank you Sakito!

Sakito: Thank you man, I enjoyed this one!