Player of the Week 28: Shrug

[sparktrain]

Shrug
Favorite Pokemon: Piplup
Most Used Pokemon: Pawniard
Known For: Community Contributor, ban abra​

Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a 17 year-old High School Senior from Connecticut, wrestler and lacrosse player; the combination of those things plus my posting style means i might seem like a douche but i dont mean to be i swear. Going to college next year at Williams. Ugly motherfucker. Free time i read books, listen to rap music, try to find ignorant things to do with my friends unsuccessfully, write angsty love poems to Sken, and play mons. I'm very interested in tactics and logic and such so i tend to follow politics which is the most major U.S arena for the former. I have little else to say the self-biosketch of someone who plays enough little cup to warrant a thread is by nature not ultracompelling

How and when did you get your start in LC? Do you remember your first team?

I played mons in stages: a stretch from 7th grade to like start of 8th (awful), end 8th off and on to the very first day of XY, where i realized Bisharp would be pretty damn good with the typing changes and Sticky Web. It destroyed the first XY ladder until i played a webs team and Defiant didn't activate thus losing me the game. I got so mad I quit not to return until November? of Junior Year, made some pretty horrid smogon posts in lc at that time. First good team i can recall was scarf: pawn / foo / snubs / something, LO: Dour and Sash: Abra (lol), which was the highlight of my laddering days.

What is your favorite aspect of LC?

Idk if this is a common view, but i like how the common mon-archetypes are shifted in lc versus other tiers. For example, bulky waters in other tiers are most closely approximated by fighting types in lc, etc. This makes battles interesting - lots of cool angles different from most tiers. Also, some queer archetypes (webs etc) are viable in lc that dont exist in other tiers. Knock off games (mainly, their import) are cool too - similar to the hazard meta in other tiers, but more offensive due to the sheer power of knocks in lc versus the passiveness of a turn setting up hazards. my greatest lc wish is an offensive water/fairy type thats fast, 18 would be dope.

Is there any mon, playstyle, etc that you feel is underrated in LC?

What's underrated in present lc is Scraggy for sure. Unburnable, it takes Passive Pokemon and turns them into 21 speed 25 attack with 23 / 14 / 14 Defenses and good coverage and power. With some Knocks that's beating Bulky offense, taking out stall, and drawing out (maybe living attacks from) the foe's scarfer. Kinda hard to fit on a team, but build around it and you'll get wins. Also: Honedge. Abra-check and fletch-check in the same mon is some slick role compression and the attacking power and fat in matchups sans those two is always helpful.

Anything you find overrated?

I'm aware this is contrary to goodplayer vouge rn but i find defensive birds in general (read: archen and vullaby) to be overrated. In a tier with tons of predatory volt-switchers, having mons that sort of invite heavy damage and a loss of momentum seems dubious to me; these are often paired with ground-types, but that creates all sorts of unpleasant guessing games and displeasing synergy concerns. Idk maybe it's just the way i play and build.

If you could change something about the current metagame, what would you change? Is there anything that strikes you as broken, and why is it Abra?

We all know the answer here, but i really dont like abra in the current metagame. LO is a "wallbreaker- it breaks walls" which is what georgie says incessantly whenever someone remarks on it 2hkoing say Pory, but most "wallbreakers" aren't of the highest common speed tier in the metagame, meaning it can rip through offense as well. Sash promotes bullshit and gives a shrewd abra user a free guessing game - you'll get one kill and if u luck out, two+. these sets are virtually indistinguishable. I wont go on u get it

What is your all-time favorite LC meta to play and why? Can be a past stage of 6th Gen LC, a past gen LC, an OM, whatever you want

to be genuine it is ORAS lc. it's a really good meta, lots of cool strats and shit. Great mix of aggressiveness and attendance to defense that i like in an interaction.

Any LC players in particular that you look up to or respect?

im not a super reverent person by nature, but i always kinda looked up to heysup as an lcer? sounds trite, but i enjoy both his confrontational playstyle and confrontational posts on the littlecup forums.

Is there any advice that you'd like to pass on to new LCers?

Yes: find ways to play that mitigate your weaknesses while enhancing your strengths. Seems banal, but heres how i apply it to myself: i have a bad habit about trying to overthink or outthink my opponents. While sometimes this has positive results (sometimes i make plays that look good and it seems easy) more often i end up overpredicting and hurting myself in the long run. So when i play in important games, i make sure to attend to the whirring of my head; I try to organize all my thoughts and find the play that's most incisive and covers all sorts of future branches. This is why it takes me much longer to play in real games lol.

Lastly, do you have a team you'd like to share with us?

party pinata

contrite crab (Dwebble) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 5
EVs: 76 Atk / 76 Def / 76 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Knock Off
- Counter

nefarious knight (Pawniard) @ Eviolite
Ability: Defiant
Level: 5
EVs: 156 Atk / 36 Def / 116 SpD / 196 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Rock Polish

vapid vulture (Vullaby) (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Weak Armor
Level: 5
EVs: 116 HP / 236 SpA / 116 Spe
Modest Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Heat Wave
- Air Slash
- Dark Pulse

supercillious snake (Snivy) @ Eviolite
Ability: Contrary
Level: 5
EVs: 236 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Synthesis
- Glare
- Knock Off

party pinata (Drifloon) @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Unburden
Level: 5
EVs: 116 HP / 196 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 116 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Endure
- Acrobatics
- Sucker Punch
- Baton Pass

dastardly duck (Porygon) @ Eviolite
Ability: Download
Level: 5
EVs: 40 Def / 240 SpA / 200 Spe
Modest Nature
- Agility
- Tri Attack
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Fighting]

 

[Fiend]

Can you teach me how to write like a douche?

 

[The Avalanches]

List your top 10 list of hottest women

Also, tell me about your OM Tour experience. It sucks utter balls to fall short in Week 1 of the playoffs (believe me, I know too well) but did you enjoy it overall?

 

[Cheryl.]

Teach me your dance moves, although my moves are already hot

 

[Shrug]

Can you teach me how to write like a douche?

do a lot of intellectual vascillating in-post w/o making allusions to whomever is supposed to be reading them. that makes the person you're addressing supremely irked bc they feel ignored and as a subset of same condesended to. keep ur vocab words long w/o sounding like u vomited a thesaurus, keep ur overall tone casual while containing those polysyllables so it seems like ur fucking around while seeming serious, as if the debate is beneath you, keep ur setence forumlations obscure so ppl have to hunt for the meaning. while ur doing this make sure ur conclusions follow a logical progression and use words to intro that highlight this - "obviously succeeding [this implies reference to previous difficult sentence] is the basic premise that..." so they get mad. when u want to win a sweetheart, make tl;drs and send them to ur smogon bf/gf - doing so for my abra and suspect posts was how i woo'd Sken . this are just my points of advice. idk if im a master of this. but i think u can really join the ranks of douchposting, it's helped me a lot on this site

List your top 10 list of hottest women

Also, tell me about your OM Tour experience. It sucks utter balls to fall short in Week 1 of the playoffs (believe me, I know too well) but did you enjoy it overall?

im not big on top 10 lists bc of their exclusivity. however ask about any individual female and i will share the correct opinion to have.

om tour was aight. prollem for me was i played considerably better than all my opps into the swiss round, netting me #1 seed. after that i continued to play better, having a burned guts tailow that swept his entire team once scarf mankey was gone, a DD axew that i had set up, and another solid mankey check in pump. all i had to do was not get crit on the one turn i did get crit on and i lost in a game i (sorry) really played better in. then i went to the other meta and got rattled and didnt do the shit i need to to play at a high level (i reference this in the answer to the final q i think) and i lost. this is unfortunately how i lose most major lc tours - see open when i just need to not miss and get burned to win, both happen, then i get rattled in the decider and lose. so yeah it was fun but i have little doubt i would be in w/ a good shot at winning if that didnt happen.

Teach me your dance moves, although my moves are already hot

i ususally just do wrestling moves in the air along to the beat

 

[tcr]

whats the deepest your voice has ever been? was it after fucking a bitch? Or does it get deeper if you go solo

 

[Nineage]

How do you feel abt getting one of these after users such as Fiend?

 

[Merritt]

Why the name Shrug? Who's that avatar you've had it for so long and I never ask

What LCer would you not want to argue with in a suspect thread?

%Shrug yn?

why scalia of all people

 

[Sken]

Still waiting for those poems tho

 

[Kingler]

Since terrible one liners aren't getting deleted...
You're bad, *shrug* ;)

 

[Shrug]

whats the deepest your voice has ever been? was it after fucking a bitch? Or does it get deeper if you go solo

what's interesting about my voice is it changes much based on the situ i'm in. i feel like this is a commonality between all people but it's more drastic with me. when i talk in a situation where i am deferential im told i adopt a slight lisp - idk if you guys have ever heard it. when im just chilling i have a relatively normal voice, slightly nasally and high but normal-enough. when ive just physically exerted or asserted myself (wrestled, had sex) my voice tends rather deep, much to the delight and sexual arousal of Friday's lfc subgroup call. so i dont no for sure, probably pretty deep?

How do you feel abt getting one of these after users such as @Fiend?

constancies in the smogon career of young keith: a) get passed over or made fun of for shit, b) succeed. remember lcpl when ppl laughed when i got drafted and i didnt lose? Jac couldnt buy lc uu wins with money culture or handjobs and i was there for 6k, never losing clean in lcuu since that minitour. for potw it makes sense because i havent been in lc here for very long so other users deserve it more.

Why the name Shrug?

ive been playing pokes poorly for a while, as seen in the op. when i came to smogon, i noticed two major trends in good usernames: short, compact phrases that are slightly enigmatic (chaos heist bloo etc) and three word ones compacted into three letters (cbb bkc tcr trc etc). i went with the first one because i could come up with a cooler one and i liked how shrug was both a noun and a verb with adjective properties. [disclaimer: idk if those ppl were around at the time. i remember browsing smogon when lavos spawn was both widely reviled and killing everyone with that genesun team and all the power users had pretty asian girls or girlish-boys for avis]

Who's that avatar you've had it for so long and I never ask

it's emma stone shrugging. i used to have terrible avis until Corporal Levi made my drafting for splc contingent on me changing it. avis determine the tones of posts and ive liked mine so ive kept her. also feels good being the first on the emma stone trend, her jawline is actually unreal

What LCer would you not want to argue with in a suspect thread?

prolly blarajan, he's going to law school so he knows his shit, he also doesnt seem like the type to get super into ad hominems which derails his argument. heysup too obviously. fiend hound is underrated in this regard, if he gets his derisive tone up in his posts he might be a forced to be reckoned with in lc arguments. i feel like lc has historically trended more liberal-artsy than other areas of smogon but i might be wrong

%Shrug yn?

obviously not. using simple commands might elude me holy shit. the art of joke muting might also be too much for me to learn. also i actively engage with uses in the room which seems not to be the standard for auth in the chat we refer to.

why scalia of all people

ok u have views on banning similar to scalia's with laws: u believe bans should be made in adherence to the strict writing of the ban philosophy, much the same as he does w/ laws : constitution. this is different than some who believe things should be enacted on the principles by which the guidelines were written. i made the comparison before he had to go and be kinda racist (although he sorta is racist or else unpleasant rather frequently) so dont take it as i think ur like him as a person :))

Still waiting for those poems tho

im sorry. all my works go through intensive workshopping periods; i cannot work on a piece unless my mood is precisely the same as when i wrote it, and my moods vacillate wildly based on the dosage of the medication i take to cope with my Controlling Mother and Emotionally Absent Father. stop putting pressure on me

You're bad, *shrug* ;)

did u just... use my name as a verb as well as an address? o wow, ive never seen this common meme before... can someone explain to me what it is? why is he dancing like that? did i miss something?

 

[Anthiese]

constancies in the smogon career of young keith: a) get passed over or made fun of for shit, b) succeed. remember lcpl when ppl laughed when i got drafted and i didnt lose? Jac couldnt buy lc uu wins with money culture or handjobs and i was there for 6k, never losing clean in lcuu since that minitour. for potw it makes sense because i havent been in lc here for very long so other users deserve it more.

thanks for the shoutout

also dont diss my handjob skills, you've never experienced them. you cant pretend that just because im bad at mons, im bad at playin with dick. you best check urself.

 

[infamy]

will you be my fren??