shuyrima shuffle

[b]1. Hi! Who are you and where do you come from?[/b]
Hi im Dan aka hashtag aka cowlaser aka bear aka idk, and i come from the backwoods of Pennsylvania obviously bc i am a bear. I'm also going to school at the Rochester Institute of Technology where I am learning how to animate so maybe someday i can make cartoons

[b]2. What is your favourite Pokémon to use in-game and what is your favourite Pokémon to use competitively. Why?[/b]
My favorite Mon in-game is Clefable/Clefairy (because who really differentiates between the two anyways?) because they are a couple of cuties and they have great coverage. Also they are from the moon and [i]how cool is that?[/i] if pokemon magically started being real i would totally invest in a clefairy. My favorite pokemon to use competitively has changed quite a bit over the years but at the moment i would have to say aegislash holds the title at the moment. it's the perfect switchin to kangaskhan, its coverage is beautiful, and it has great matchups versus a lot of the top tiered pokemon. Some people know that i use a lot of the safety goggles wide guard set, but i think all of its popular sets are good, weakness policy has a ridiculously high damage output if you manage to activate it. I also find myself trying to include a balance of fast/medium/slow mons and a mmix of frail/bulky mons in my teams, so aegislash is a great pick for the latter of both categories.

[b]3. When did you get into competitive Pokémon, why did you and how did you?[/b]
well I've known that competitive pokemon was a thing for a long time, and i played OU for about a month back in the BW days. even before that i thought i was legit implementing smogon suggested sets and spreads into my in-game mons. However, what caused me to get into Doubles, and what made me really get into competitive battling was actually the VGC worlds stream that i watched in 2013. (i think?) This was the first exposure that i had to actual competitive doubles, and it blew my mind. I still remember that one of the players megahorned his own poke because he was trying to get the right two mons out at the same time. after that I went on the sim and built a terrible surf-spam team with gastrodon, and i hit the ladder. For probably a year i played on the ladder, experimenting with different styles of teams, although rain always remained my favorite. One day by chance i got a battle with either @finally or @kylecole (i dont remember which, but they were both there) and they told me i should join the doubles room. i hadn't previously known that such a thing existed but after that day i played better and better people, and discuss doubles with lots of different people. Subsequently, i improved vastly, and i am still improving today.

[b]4. Where did you get your username from?[/b]
hahaha dude my username is a total joke. i've always gone by CowLaser™, and i just had Hashtag Smogon as a testing account which was designed to piss off wannabe hipster kids that hate hashtags and the fact that smogon bans things, but i gradually switched over completely to using hashtag all the time

[b]5. Is there anything in the current metagame that you think is broken or suspect worthy? And why?[/b]
Oh my god i have a whole laundy list of things that i want banned including: whimsicott, smeargle, swagger, confuse ray, skill swap, flash, beat up, hypnosis, belly drum, etc. But in all seriousness, i think the current doubles metagame is fucking amazing and balanced. (s/o to my bois that voted for the salamence ban) It is definitely centralized around a certain group of threats, but they share the power well, and there is still room for people to run underused mons like Aerodactyl while still checking the whole metagame with one team, and what singles tier can say that?

[b]6. What is your favourite playstyle/strategy to use in Doubles, why?[/b]
Well like i said earlier, i really like rain teams, but they aint doin so hot right now, so I've been using a lot of goodstuffs teams. I hear a lot of people talking about "hyper offense, offense, balance, etc whatever" but i'll be honest with you i never consider that for a second when i'm building and half of the time I don't even know where to categorize a certain team lol

[b]7. What is your least favourite playstyle/strategy in Doubles, why?[/b]
a younger me would say that he hates trick room, but that guy is just a dumbass who doesnt know how to play it. For me, i like to have LOTS of different teams that i can fall back on, so really the only thing i dislike is Azu spam, but even i try to use that sometimes because it is strong as hell

[b]8. What is your favourite metagame to play outside of Doubles OU, and why?[/b]
well I don't really play any other tiers much, but @socialsocialsocial has had me playin little cup lately and it's pretty fun for when im sick of dubs and i just feel like looking at cute pokemon. also i beat him 100% of the time so thats fun. yup, anything he tells you to the contrary is a lie.

[b]9. How do you preparing for tournaments like seasonals?[/b]
Seasonals is like my favorite thing in pokemon because non-teamlocked best of threes are amazing, and you have to improve your ability over the course of the tour or you simply will not make it. underestimating your opponent is the worst mistake you can make so every week, i watch all of my opponent's replays that are available and i build new teams, so that i can try to have a good matchup against my opponent's style of team, and i also prevent myself from being counterteamed. sometimes it is tough to not use certain mons on every team, but the effort of doing so makes me a better player so i like it.

[b]10. Who do you think is going to win the summer seasonals, and why?[/b]
I've got to be rooting for my boy Kamikaze because if i cant win, I better have lost to someone who is DAMN good, and also he is a cool guy who i want to succeed. Real talk there are a lot of strong players in the tour and it is anyone's game. I wouldn't be surprised if previously unknown players came out on top again like deo and lasagne did in winters.

[b]11. Do you think deoxys speed or Lasagne is going to win the winter seasonals, and why?[/b]
DEOMOUTO. altho las should be bringin real teams so we'll just see

[b]12. Is there anything you'd change about the current Doubles metagame, and why?[/b]
moar players! i wanna be the most popular meta next to OU so we can make duu and dubers be a thing

[b]13. Do you have any advice for newer players for playing, and for Smogon in general?[/b]
Get involved, discussing the tier with other players, and fighting people who are better than you are both catalysts for success. Also be open minded to other people's opinions, there is some knowledge or wisdom that you should be able to gain from everyone no matter who they are, so rejecting that knowledge is just preventing you from getting better.

[b]14. Could you provide a team that fits your playstyle, and could you give a brief explanation of it?[/b]
[hide]
Kickflip (Politoed) (M) @ Damp Rock
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Def / 80 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Icy Wind
- Scald
- Helping Hand
- Protect

Buzzkill (Talonflame) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- Flare Blitz
- U-turn
- Steel Wing

Cakewalk (Ferrothorn) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Impish Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Power Whip
- Leech Seed
- Protect

Speedlines (Kingdra) (F) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 100 HP / 252 SpA / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Muddy Water
- Rain Dance
- Protect

Backslash (Aegislash) (M) @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 224 HP / 252 SpA / 32 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Wide Guard
- King's Shield

Limelight (Diancie) @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 208 Atk / 48 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Moonblast
- Earth Power
- Protect
[/hide]
so this is a rain team that i really like to do, and it gets around rain's notorious bad matchups pretty well. For sun you have rain dance kingdra, diancie, and banded talonflame, which kills any non-sashed venusaurs, and does a hell of a lot of damage to charizard. For kangaskhan, i made sure i had only one pokemon with a poor matchup against it, which is politoed obviously, and for trick room, i have a bunch of slow mons to stall out turns, and a priority attacker to not give a shit. otherwise the team is just packed full of threatening mons that my opponent will have to worry about, and i have a lot of mons that i could choose as my win condition.

13. who is fruitiest user

14. live in california just like me? n_n
~~with me~~

15. feedback?