Sakito: Hello everyone! Today I’m interviewing Excal, who is the Interviewing Director on RoA as well as a recent voice in the RoA room. Yo Excal how are you?

Excal: I’m doing well, how about you?

Sakito: I'm fine, thanks! Can you introduce yourself in a few lines?

Excal: Sure, I’m a college student living in New York, and I’m mostly known for being a DPPer. My builds are used by many strong players, and I’m also on a huge come-up because while I surfaced on Smogon recently, I’ve been playing since 2009 so I have a lot more experience than meets the eye. Recently I’ve been really involved with the wonderful RoA community as well!

Sakito: As you said, you surfaced on Smogon recently and you weren’t really known before, how did you discover Smogon exactly?

Excal: I always knew what Smogon was and used resources like the strategy dex. I was very involved with the small YouTube community and chats on a website called Xat, so I always knew about the website through the grapevine.

Sakito: Alright so what made you decide to play DPP? Do you enjoy the current DPP metagame?

Excal: I started playing DPP because I transitioned into the competitive scene through WiFi battles on Pokémon Pearl. I really enjoy the current DPP because there is so much room for innovation and the metagame at the moment is in an extremely healthy state, in my opinion.

Sakito: You certainly know about the potential Latias suspect incoming, can you tell us your thoughts on it?

Excal: I made a few posts about Latias in the RoA forum, so if you’re interested in a more fleshed out opinion on Latias then feel free to check that out, but to add onto that I think it boils down to a weird sense of politics. Either you want to proactively modify old gens or you value metagame conservation, because truth be told Latias is not broken, but it really shouldn’t be about that at this point because that has been made clear. Right now we are at a crossroads that revolves around what the old gen councils should be able to do. Personally, I value metagame preservation and I don’t think old gens should be messed with, but that’s just me (unless to change something fundamentally uncompetitive like sand veil and baton pass in DPP). I mentioned before that I really think DPP is in a healthy state right now, so I don’t think the metagame needs Latias. Overall because I love spending so much time innovating in the tier right now — and I know that innovation will largely change when Latias is introduced — and I also love the tier’s state pre-Latias, it’s evident that I don’t exactly welcome the change.

Sakito: I see. Do you play other tiers in addition to DPP?

Excal: I’m really getting into GSC. I think it’s conventionally the best metagame, probably. I’m also getting good results for how little I have played the tier. For my first GSC tournament, I made finals in a pretty crazy run. I managed to 2-0 melle (game 2 was atrocious), which was a really big win for me as I really respect melle as a player. I lost steam in finals and got bodied by Century Express though. I’m currently in the winner’s bracket in round 4 of the GSC Winter Seasonal, so I plan to make a run there as well. I’ve noticed that my improvement as a player in the tier is quite tremendous, which is nice to see. I also played a lot of ADV at one point, but I’m very out of practice with the tier.

Sakito: That sounds promising! What are your goals in competitive Pokemon?

Excal: My competitive goals aren’t so massive right now, to be honest, because there is a lot of irl stuff I should be focusing on like school, applying for internships, etc. But I just want to make a big run in a competitive tournament on Smogon like Classic maybe (hopefully a deep run in DPP Cup). I’m very confident in my abilities and I’d love to be in a tournament like SPL that encourages me to put my absolute best effort into the game. I could definitely be a huge help for SPL because my building is very good. Perhaps that might be happening in the future!

Sakito: I wish you the best for it! Let's talk about you a bit now, what's the story behind your username?

Excal: It’s a weird one actually. So as I mentioned I was part of the Youtube scene back in the day. I saw some YouTuber name their Togekiss “Eggscalibr” (nicknames had 10 letters maximum on the DS), and I thought the word was very cool (I was 10). So a month later or so I named my Chansey “Eggscalubr”, thinking the word Excalibur ended in “uber” because of Pokémon. So my actual full username is Excaluber. It’s often taken on a lot of websites and platforms, but I managed to snag it on Xbox live many years ago, and it’s been my name ever since. I had some weird usernames back in the day like Eeveelutions65 (I was known as Eevee for a while), but yeah Excal is the shortened version of Excaluber and I think it sounds better than the full username. It’s funny because I registered both Excal and Excaluber in 2014 within a few days of each other and immediately after registering I took a very long break from Pokémon. In 2017, when I returned, I logged onto Excaluber thinking it was my only username, and I completely forgot about Excal for over a year until I rediscovered the alt in May of this year, and then it became my official main.

Sakito: Haha I understand. If I'm correct, you're a DPP tutor on Smogon. How has that experience been for you so far?

Excal: I am! I have really enjoyed tutoring DPP on Smogon. I was lucky enough to have two incredible tutees who have become good friends of mine after the program ended. I am looking forward to taking on more tutees! Both tutees were completely different experiences to tutor too, so that makes it even more exciting.

Sakito: Speaking of friends, who are some of the best friends you have made through Pokemon?

Excal: I can’t individually shout everyone out because that would be too long. I’ve met so many incredible people through Pokémon. But I’ll shout out shockproof and Seven Thunders individually as the two closest friends I probably have made through Pokémon. We talk a lot “outside of mons” so to speak. Without shockproof, I would be a significantly worse player because I grew as a player through getting my ass whooped by shock on the ladder and later in friendlies. Thunders has always been an incredible presence and is probably the nicest person I have ever met. Anybody who is even slightly worse than thunders at DPP will get bopped pretty hard, so his incredible consistency is very inspiring. Besides those two, I’d like to shout out all the great people I’ve met through RoA, WCoPP Team Seven Seas, and of course the “dpp squad”. And I guess a special shoutout to two Frenchies (other than yourself): Zokuru for some of the most inspiring offensive play I’ve ever seen, and Chirac for all of the “no gg”s he has dropped :)

Sakito: Do you listen to music?

Excal: Who doesn't? I'm the kind of person who enjoys almost every genre, so I describe myself as being an "artist person" rather than a "genre person". I love artists like Jack Johnson and Amy Winehouse (the former largely fueled by nostalgia). Some of my favorite albums right now are "Dizzy Up The Girl" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Malibu" by Anderson Paak, and of course "In Between Dreams" by Jack Johnson (Brushfire Fairytales is great too). This is definitely a very limited list though. It's a weird mix.

Sakito: Oh ok, how about your favorite theme in Pokemon?

Excal: The Wally theme in ORAS 1000000%. That theme is just amazing, and its incorporation in game was really well done.

Sakito: I like this one too :p I think we have arrived at the end of this interview. Do you have anything to add?

Excal: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-761545117 watch this replay. This is the funniest replay I have ever seen. That is all. Thank you for interviewing me, it's been a pleasure!

Sakito: LOL. Thanks for answering questions, it's been a pleasure for me too :D