All Neon Interviews (Weeks 1-4)

Week 1 (Ottawa Donphans and East Coast Krooks) Ottawa Donphans is a long time PBO Player that has been playing since Season 2 (boomer). Alongside being a respected mod in the PBO, they are a very good player that you need to keep an eye out for (I should know, every game I've had against Ottawa has been a tough one) When we asked Ottawa, what his thought process was going into his week one game, he replied with: "I was afraid of 3 things #1 Tapu koko, if i didn't take it out early in the game it would enable my opponent to constantly keep boosting there qwark drive sweepers. #2 Iron crown, if i didn't t wave it or if it lived a hit and was weakness policy there was a good chance i ld lose of that. #3 Specs booster speed Iron bundle, since i didn't bring zeraora and my fastest mon was roaring moon that thing could've ruined my team provided it hit pumps." When asked about his draft as a whole, and how he drafted this season, he gave us the following answer: "After the first round and my desired mega for the season getting picked, (mega froslass) I just asked other players what looked good with my current team. In all honesty the only picks i made cause i wanted them were pech, zeraora, skarm, shaymin and poliwrath, the rest were suggestions." It seems that Mega Froslass has kind of been a sleeper pick in PBO, with a lot of good performances this season, might be something worth keeping an eye out for potentially. Finally when asked what his favorite pokemon is, he had this to say: "It is and always will be Gastrodon with Froslass and Donphan being tied for 2nd. If you want a reason for these 3, watch the Ottawa Donphans interview on the Pokemon Battle Organization youtube channel." Donphan not being his favorite, is he a donphan Larper? No. He has drafted Donphan like 6 times in the PBO, thats loyalty if you ask me. Thank you Ottawa for being willing to do the interview, and over to Lyrickz with our big will interview ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- East Coast Krooks or better known as Big William came into the PBO as a Replacement Coach since Season 6 7 and has been a consistent and staple player of the PBO, so naturally I asked him about how his Draft went and if anyone had sniped him, here is what he had to say: "Hello! Honestly I really like my team alot I feel its very strong with good speed tiers decent bulk. And honestly I cant think of a single snipe this draft. Probably because I didnt rwally have time to prep and just drafted what was available" Someone with the same draft planning as me, having no plan and drafting what is available and fits, very relatable. I then decided to ask how familiar they were with any mons and who they were most excited about: "Honestly most of them are new to me and thats my biggest worry this season. I've used tusk so thats why I was comfortable taking that first. I've never used most of my team. I have used mega kang in a vgc natdex draft and it carried me to semis" "Hmm i think spec or celesteela for sure. If spec didnt get crit week 1 I think it wouldve won the gane for me" Always a nightmare having unexpected crits, we need to really ban those! But did you know ECK partook in VGC? I didn't, it's always been a part of the Pokemon scene I have enjoyed watching. Now I pried about their Week 1 matchup and their thoughts and feelings: "So i def made some bone head plays for sure like I definitely should have dragon danced the first time I sent gyara out I knew uturn was coming thats why I went celesteela but I shouldve stayed in and setup I think if that happens the gane goes completely differently And again spec getting crit at the end was whack lol and im pretty sure the dnite not dying to the shadow ball was a low roll" You can get lose in the moment, I have done so myself a few times. But finally it's the question we all wanted an answer to, which Coast is actually best: "I live on the east coast so by default its just better But in all seriousness I would say the west coast is better lol" A bit of a unexpected answer and betrayal, will we see the Rebrand? Who knows, but thank you for your time William the Biggest of the Wills But this ends this weeks Interviews, see you all next week for another pair of riveting interviews ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week 2 (Cherry Hill Bellsprouts and Calgary Cyndaquils) TVSarah is a newcomer to Neon and PBO which we are happy to have and as usual I asked them a few questions regarding, well, Pokémon Draft.... what do you think I would be creative? Firstly I asked how they felt about their team and overall their draft, mentioning about some changes they had made: **"That was my very first PBO win and my first every draft league win!! It's an incredible feeling and I hope that my fellow first timers all get at least one this season! As for changes, I rotated out Tapu Bulu and Hawlucha as I felt that Lucha got walled by too many of my opponent's mons, and LandoT gave me much better utility options. I even brought Taunt to try to avoid getting set up on but forgot to click it. Oops lol"** "I think my draft was not great haha. I came in with a double vgcs background and it showed! Unfortunately the singles game is just much different. i drafted Whimiscott in round 3 and dropped it by week 2 😭 Definitely a few other mons I would have rather had haha But I was able to make a couple key pickups in grace, and have been kicking the wheels trying to fill the gaps in FA. Going into W3, getting Rillaboom will be huge for me, as it's a comfort mon for me. But not having a fairy type is a massive concern for me right now so we're not quite done yet!" It does take some adjusting to go from 2 Mons with helpful moves to just running solo and fending for yourself, but we always look forward to everyones first PBO win! Looking forward to this Weeks match I pried about their thoughts, feelings and maybe prayers?: "Excited, yes! Confident it'll be an interesting match at the very least! Stella has a very good team and is a stellar player that could cause me problems in any variety of ways, starting with that monster mega-gallade of course. Prep has been encouraging though, and I'm hopeful to get a positive result." Gallade can be a monster given the opportunity and right timing and set, don't ever sleep on it! And finally to end on a lighter note, what hobbies and things they do outside of Pokémon cause, well you know, you can't just only do Pocket Monsters right?: "I'm an avid animal lover, and I have 5 kitty cats and a puppy that I love very much. My saturdays are reserved for MTG with the pod. But nothing beats an open patio with a glass of wine and trying new food!" An animal lover and plays Magic? I didn't know you can teach cats to play cards, I thought that was only dogs... Thank you TVSarah for the time and willingness to be interviewed, and now we pass to Sydney interviewing a, Cherry?.. Hill?.. Bellsprout?! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This week I decided to interview the @Cherry Hill Bellsprouts, a long time PBO player, starting back in season 6, and having played I think every season since then. Being known for a player that likes to have slower games, holding the record for the longest game with another player, at 140 turns holy shit, I cannot imagine playing a game for that long (for context, the second longest game is only 83 turns). When I asked Cherry Hill about his thought process in his week 2 game, he had this to say: "My main thought process was, my opponent has mega scizor, zapdos, blood-moon, and valiant. So i need to deal with some amazing hard-hitters. I needed to outspeed valiant and hope it doesn't set up and deal with the blood-moon before it rampages my team. I was mainly afraid of the blood-moon. Fortunately for me, they didn't bring valiant." Mega Scizor Valiant is a nasty combo btw. When asked what their thought process was while drafting they had this to say: "My thoughts while drafting was to just hope for cohesive picks. I was second to last so I kind of had double picks. But it pains me to not have terapagos lol" As someone who also loves Terapagos, same. Sometimes all we can hope for is cohesive picks. And lastly, when asked what kind of music they like to listen to, if any, when they play their games, they had this to say: "As far as music, I typically try to be alone during a match, which doesn't always work out. But when I can be in my zone, I like a nice relaxing but upbeat tone. Like "the strike", "nightly", or dayseeker. Although, "unstoppable" by (Obsidian Swing) has become a mainstay for me." I personally am unfamiliar with all of these, but I might have to give them a listen too. Ty again Cherry Hill for being willing to let me interview you, and we will see yall next week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week 3 (Belfast Grafaiants) To start, as always, I asked Belfast how he felt about his week 3 matchup, to which he had this to say: "Going into week 3 felt like a must-win for me after back-to-back losses in my opening games. I'll admit to thinking I was considering using all my F/A points in the aftermath if I lost again to try and reinvigorate the team. I was quite excited for having some kind of weather battle with Gage with his Mega Froslass' snow against Tyranitar's sand. I even had a couple of ideas for using his own snow against him. I knew Ogerpon would be a threat, so I wasn't happy to see that.. in fact I very nearly fumbled it with Gourgeist." Double weather matchups can always be a tricky thing to plan around, so its always interesting to see how different players react/plan against it. It always helps though when your weather setter is slower, just so you can get that weather up in your favor! When asked about his general plan, while drafting, Belfast had this to say: "A lot of my choices for first pick disappeared with how deep I was in the draft. I was keen to try the likes of Meowscarada and Iron Valiant, and I've just won my first championship with Mega Lopunny. I think I panic picked Mega Mawile at first, liking the idea of Intimidate into Huge Power and a solid typing. I think I was then 3 picks deep when for some reason the urge to play sand came over me. I've not done a proper weather focus in my draft career so far, so I went with it. Pretty much everyone on the roster was picked so that they could either take advantage of the sand, or not be hindered by it through rock/steel/ground typing, Sand Rush, Magic Guard etc. I do think that has left me a bit short and was probably a bit naive of me. I may make a change or two to cover some weak spots, but yeah, my thought during the process was zeroing in on sand and everything that goes with it. I'm the anti-Anakin" First of all, congrats on the chip with Mega Lop. Second, the weather urge is all consuming, all encompassing, we all come to weather eventually, either for the better (Sand/Snow) or worse (Rain/Sun) For legal reasons my lawyers has adviced me to say that this is a joke, and that the views of Sydney Sylveons does not reflect PBO LLC as a whole, and that you should use weather if you like it, even if it is rain or sun. Thats all really. And lastly, this week I decided to ask for my for fun question what Belfasts favorite movie is, to which he had this to say: "Now this is a very good question. I could take the cheap option and say Lord of the Rings. Because it is that good. But then you might ask me to pick a specific one and I can't do that, they come as a package. Likewise, Avengers: Endgame had such a satisfying climax that still makes me feel very emotional, but that's only so powerful because of the 10 years and 20+ films that come before it, so that's also a package thing. I'm gonna be true to my Britishness here and say Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. I loved it when I was younger and I love it just as much now." Now, ive never seen lord of the rings, so I cant comment on that, but i can say for certain that Wallace and Gromit is 100% a based pick! Thank you Belfast for allowing me to interview you this week, and thank you Neon Div for just being Neon Div (aka awesome), we will see yall on Monday for the week 4 recap! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week 4 (Stellabis and Detroit Dragonites) This week I put @Stellabis in the hotseat for interviewage, a newcomer to the PBO, it's been a bit rough of a season but they can climb back and still make playoffs. As per usual I like to ask how people are liking their teams, here is what they had to say: "I really like my team! One of the important things for me going into this was that I wanted to enjoy looking at my team, and I do :) In terms of competition, I'm still learning this game but I like the different combinations and win cons we can spin up from what I have!" The main thing I always say is that you should enjoy a team you have and it'll lead to success and fun, nothing worse than having a team you don't gel with, especially when you are still learning. This time instead of asking about the draft process I thought about seeing what they felt about their remaining matchups: "I like to live one week at a time, so I haven't thought too much about my future matches. Looking at it now though, I think it's definitely possible for me to win them, I just need to lock in! I'm changing up my prep strategy so we'll see if it works out for me" I hope the new prep strategy works wonders, taking it one week at a time is important, no point worrying about the future, focus on the now and present! And finally and more importantly, what we all crave to know, what is their favourite piece of Media? Could be a show, album or video game: "Oh easy, my favorite game of all time is Skyrim! It's so easy to replay, it's well written, and it only has a few bugs. Also crazy how in-depth the lore is! I'm currently trying to convince Jarvis to play it, so everyone should go tell him how awesome it is!" Jarvisimo mentioned! Skyrim was always a game I mean to play and just, don't. I was always more a Fallout kid growing up, more my style. But is it truly a Bethesda game without high quality bugs features? We may never know.... Now we move to @Sydney for our next contestant ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks Lyrickz! This week I decided to interview the @Detroit Dragonites, a new player in the PBO, but one who was seen some pretty solid success, Holding a tie for the current Neon Kill leader, that being Meowscarada, beating out some heavy hitters like the Belfast Grafaiants. Whenever I asked Detroit Dragonites about his week 3 game (as his week 4 game unfortunately wasn't played), he had this to say: "When i was prepping for the match vs Dallas I was a bit nervous as there were a million places where things could go off the rails against a team as offense heavy as his. For specific mons, when facing the dragapult team you always gotta have an answer for it, but the biggest threat was the urshifu, prepping for that was very scary. Ultimately Corviknight was able to wall it, but if corv went down before urshifu was crippled things could have gone south very quick. Mega Garchomp with scale shot also was a big concern so im glad it didnt show up. I was also very happy to see both of his steel types show up, it allowed for ting lu to kinda just sit there and eat whatever was thrown at him." Urshifu is kind of just one of those mons that will always be an issue for a team no matter how you frame it, it's honestly kind of funny, even if you have like the greatest set in history of Urshifu counters, there will always be some move that it can pull out that'll just invalidate that set. Whenever I asked Detroit Dragonites about his thought process during draft, he had this to say: "going into this I had no idea what to expect when it came to how the board was going to fall since this is my first draft without tera, so for the first pick I was just going for the best mon available. I was very excited when Meowscarada fell to me at 6, its always been a mon that ive wanted to use in natdex but it just never fell to me, it also is a very flexible mon that works on a lot of teams. so when round 2 came around, I said fuck it and decided to go best mon available again, and I saw Mega Delphox slipped out of the first round so I decided to grab it since it complimented Meowscarada pretty well and gave me a good top speed tier. After that I built my defensive backbone with Ting Lu and Corviknight, and I was going to pick up Quaquaval in the 5th, but a friend who was giving me draft advice pointed out Palafin was still there, which I was really surprised by. At that point I kinda had the core of my bring 6, since most if not all of those guys are coming every week, so the rest of the draft was grabbing pieces that were good for specific matchups or utility guys." I gotta say, you put together a banger team, Meowscarada Mega Delphox is a nasty combo of Pokemon (and im also a D1 Mega Delphox glazer) but even outside of those two, you got some sleeper picks. Ting-Lu being John Hazards means you basically will never have to take rocks on tinkaton, freeing up a move slot for more utility on there, and you even got that Ditto there for those scary matchups against like, a strong Mega Mon that you think might set up on you. And final, when asked about what his favorite game was, he had this to say: "idk if I can pick one favorite, so I'll give my top 5 in no particular order: Risk of Rain 2 Counter Strike Donkey Kong Country 2 Balatro Terraria" I gotta say, this is a pretty great list of top 5 games, all of these are hood classic (also rest in peace the Terraria Calamity Mod) With that being said, thank you once again Detroit Dragonites for allowing me to interview you this week, and we will see yall next week for the week 5 recap!