The GGFan Experience
GGFan: You ended up going 10-12 in SPL IX across eight weeks (4-4 record in sets). In retrospect, how do you feel about your level of play this time? It was almost impossible to live up to last year's record, but was it disappointing nonetheless? Or, were you content with it because you feel you gave it your best?
Peasounay: My level of play was not good. I clearly played worse than what I had played the previous monthsI, and i had a couple games where RNH shifted against me in the finals turns (g2 vs alex, g1 vs tin, g3 vs you...) which did not help, but overall i think it's "okay". The pool was great, skill wise i wasn't better than most players, and the ones i was better than i didnt have as much of an edge as my opponents of spl 2017. It just was disappointing for my team because they spent 16k on me so I felt like I had failed them. Nothing went well during that tournament and when you have an average record you feel like the fact that it did not went well is partly on you. I don't feel like I gave it my best but i won't use that as an excuse for anything, 4-4 is probably the reality of what I was worth in that particular pool, at that particular period.
GGFan: SPL seemed to mark the beginning of the end for you. You only played in a few tours in 2018, the last being WCOPP. I was happy to play you one last time, even if the set did not live up to expectations. I knew it'd probably be our last encounter because you told me you weren't going to play anymore, and I knew I was going to leave Pokemon Perfect because I was fed up with the politics there. Do you think you'll ever make a comeback as a full-time player, or do you feel that you left your mark on the game and that there's nothing left to accomplish?
Peasounay: As I said while I had a lot of free time in 2017 it clearly wasn't the case in 2018 because of my studies so i gradually played less and eventually stopped playing. I played in WCOPP without any motivations because I had promised to my friends diegolh and k3nan that i would, and we didnt make playoffs because of incredible circumstances in the final week (+ we weren't as good as the previous year apparently). As for our set i don't even remember it tbh, so it was probably nothing special, I don't even remember which one of us won. There is no chance I ever come back to a full time player because I don't have the time at all, and I got less interested in the game. I'm not the type of guy who will stop playing just because he doesn't want to take the risk of tarnishing his image by entering tournaments and not do well in them (look at my 2019 wcop, it was a disaster). I play if i want to, to have fun, not to feed an image of a legend pr whatever. If it's not fun for me I don't play, if it is, I do and that's it, the question is not "is there anything left to accomplish". But I think having played so much, in such a short period of time, and having won so much (i probably in 3 years played more than some players who play casually for 6+ years), made me feel like I had done everything I could do int the game playing wise
I mean that RBY is quite a limited game, so once you've played thousands of games, against most of the opponents of the community, and you've explored most strategies, teams, and pokemon, you tend to get in a circle quite fast. There wasnt much more that I could do, the tournaments were always the same, the players were always the same, the games were always the same, after a while you just become less interested, it's normal, you're a complete anomaly for playing for so long but i guess the game has evolved so much you feel like you've played multiple different games in one. I entered the new callous tournament for a bunch of reasons but in my current situation playing a bo3 per week is probably the maximum i can do. Of course, i always hop on the ladder for a couple of fun games with moltres and vaporeon once in a while.
GGFan: Is there anyone you never played that you wish you had?
Peasounay: tiba to show how overrated he is. otherwise lutra and isa in a serious tour, why not. m dragon to spank him to oblivion. although playing chaser is already playing m dragon.
GGFan: I feel like you and Lusch are the polar opposite of each other. Lusch comes across as more cheerful and supportive. You're a miserable bastard who doesn't care whose feelings he hurts. I like that.
Peasounay: well if you get your feelings hurt over a game...lol
GGFan: lol, yeah. Some people may be, like, "He's so stupid/fuck him/blah blah blah." But I'm sure that would entertain you, if anything.
Peasounay: probably.
GGFan: Oh, I have one more question. Some people--especially on Smogon--constantly berate RBY and say it's devoid of skill and equivalent to monkeys clicking buttons in arbitrary fashion. What's your response to this? In my opinion, RBY is historically the hardest tier to earn recognition in because it's almost always had a highly competitive circuit. Moreover, in most major team tours, the RBY players have to play best of threes. What's your response to the people who insult the game we play, and how do you feel about RBY sets being best of three when all other gens are best of one?
Peasounay: There is variance in every pokemon tier, it is a game where the luck factor is enormous in the short run, and it applies in every tier. It's just not the same type everytime : in rby since more or less every team is the same, the variance is in the game (fps, crits, you know it), in other tiers you just have other things : thunder misses, sleep talk rolls, rock slide flinches, jirachi (lol), focus blast, a ton more... and match-ups. Variance is present in every tier, it just takes a different form every time. If you make the numbers, top rby players probably have a winrate as high as top adv or oras players or whatever. The reason we play bo3 is because it's obviously better than bo1 to mitigate variance as much as we can. Ideally, every tier would be bo3, but since building is a bigger factor in other gens (not that it isnt in rby ofc but it's just less) and it takes time, people settle with bo1. But we should not think that "pokemon is bo1 and rby is bo3 because it's dumb", it's actually "ideally, every tier would be bo3, but rby is the only one where it's not too inconvenient to do it."
GGFan: I don't really have any more questions. Do you have any final thoughts?
Peasounay: i don't have final thoughts, thanks for taking the time to do that interview and being so precise with your questions
if anymore comes to mind, from you or somebody else they can @ me.
GGFan: Yeah, it was great so sit down with you and reflect on the magical year that was 2017 as well your whole career. I think people are really going to enjoy this one.
INTERVIEW COMPLETION DATE - 1/11/2020