
Week 9: againa
Username: againa (a not capitalised) (steam buns on discord and in other communities)
Tell us a little bit about yourself, outside of pokemon showdown:
I'm 19 year old university dropout from Perth Australia, currently just figuring out what to do with myself. Aside from pokemon, I also play competitive smash ultimate and attend local tournaments pretty frequently aswell as this I've been learning chess since the start of this year and am loving it. Outside of gaming, my interests include music, animals and sports of which my favourites are hiking, rock climbing and ultimate frisbee.
Where’d you get your username from?
It's a bit of an odd story actually, I used to spend a lot of time chatting in random rooms on showdown and would frequently change my username, about every few weeks. At some point I was chatting with someone and they misspelt the word again as "againa" so I used the /nick command to make fun of them, changing my name to what it is now and left as that for a while. By pure coincidence it was while I had this name that I found the cap room and as I started interacting and meeting new users here, since I was really enjoying myself I never ended up changing my name because I didn't want to be forgotten.
Favourite CAP:
This is a tough one, Mollux and Cyclohm are both honourable mentions, but it has to go to Pajantom. It's design is so clever and its probably my favourite CAP to actually use in battle, I'm also very fond of it because of the "aussie pajantom" set from gen 7.
Favourite Heat Set you've used in CAP?
There's too many to choose from, so I'll just show off one I made somewhat recently
Pajantom @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Comatose
EVs: 228 Atk / 152 SpD / 128 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Spirit Shackle
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Outrage
I made this to pair with keldeo, the idea is to trap and KO toxapex, aswell as most other keldeo counters, it's super janky but a lot of fun when it works.
Underrated mons in the current CAP meta?
Very little comes to mind but I would like to see more people exploring tapu bulu, It can do some cool stuff that rillaboom can't with bulky utility sets.
How'd you get started in CAP/What drew you in?
Like I mentioned above, I used to find random chatrooms on ps to hang out in, I actually went looking for the cap chat after finding the meta and thinking it was really cool but I think the number one thing that got me to end up as a cap main was the community. I always had recognisable names to battle with and improve against and everyone was super friendly. I feel the need to mention rat with wings in particular, who was the best player I'd ever fought when I met him, so I made it my mission to eventually beat him, which led to us playing very often and was the reason I started competing in forum tournaments.
What’s your favourite playstyle to use in CAP and why?
I've always had a preference for building and using balance teams as they just come the most naturally to me. But in the current cap meta I much prefer using offense as I can't help but find gen 8 balance a little too passive.
Favourite CAP concept that wasn't chosen?
I really liked Birkals "celebrity entourage" from equilibras process, that would have been one hell of a discussion.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-26-part-1-concept-submissions.3647402/#post-8048001
Thoughts on the current CAP metagame?
I sadly don't really like gen 8 CAP that much, I don't necessarily dislike it but isn't all that appealing to me right now, I don't exactly know whether there's something particularly wrong with it, the game is just growing stale for me or it's some combination of the two, I do know that I'm not fond of a lot of the changes that came with the new generation like heavy duty boots and the removal of mega's. But if I were to just comment on the general state of the meta it seems very balanced, especially compared to every other iteration of it up until this point, the only potential problematic pokemon that stands out to me at the moment is dragapult (which I've found obnoxious since the gen started) but even that I would hardly call dominant.
What are your favourite memories from older team tours? What about more recent ones?
A great memory I have was playing oras cap for the first time in CAPTT 5 I decided to try it out randomly just out of curiosity and it ended up becoming my favourite cap metas. As for more recent ones, one of my favourite memories on this site is my game vs callmedrippy in the recent cap snake tour, until that game I had being playing terribly all tournament and my confidence was definitely suffering, so it felt amazing to pull off a comfortable 6-0 while the whole chat was memeing and spamming "gimme the loot" it really brought back my motivation.
What is a pet peeve you have in the CAP Meta or room?
Can't think of any, hooray for positivity :)
Share a particular team you are proud of?
I tried for a long time after mega cruci was nerfed to make a team with it that I felt was really good and actually accommodated it's weaknesses and long after gen 7 ended I finally made this
https://pokepast.es/0e4267b6fa55d95e
I think this team perfectly fits my playstyle and I love using it.
Can you give some advice for new CAPers starting off in the metagame?
Well firstly and most importantly... have fun! battle lots, experiment with lots of different things and get creative, It's what pokemon is all about and you have 31 brand new ones to learn about.
Secondly, don't be afraid to ask more experienced players for help and advice, but make sure you're actually prepared to take it in, it's far too common for newer players to disregard suggestions others make, I was guilty of this for a very long time and it really hindered my growth as a player.