An interview with Spectre Knight, formerly know as the notorious CapnSlinky
interviewed by scpinion, posted 1/21/2015
Hi Slink,
Thanks for taking the time to do the interview!
To start off will you tell us a bit about yourself IRL? Location? Are you still in school? Do you have a job? Is there anything else of that matter you're willing/want to share?
IRL I'm stuck in the western part of Ohio. Not in school right now, and looking for a job so I can go back to school at some point. There's really not that much interesting about where I live, unless you really like cornfields.
I've been to Ohio once...and it was a ton of corn fields. What do you like to do outside of Pokemon?
Play Binding of Isaac, Borderlands, Yugioh, Shovel Knight, watch a few movies here and there, read some books. Mostly it's just playing games with friends, or if I'm by myself I'll turn on one of my two old school consoles and have some fun with classic Mario. Oh, and watch lots and lots of Roosterteeth shows.
Hard to beat those classic games.
All the people on PS! have something interesting about them, so I really like this question/request. Tell us something you feel is awesome about yourself.
I tend to have this ability to be able to pick up any game and be at least decent at it within like five minutes. Like my friend was playing Punch-Out on his Wii, and he got stuck on Sandman, as everyone does. I asked him if I could take a couple cracks at it, and beat him on the second try. I'd never touched a punch-out game in my life.
One of my best friends growing up could do that. For those of us that cannot, it is infinitely frustrating! :P
Lets move on to some Pokemon stuff! What got you into PS!/Smogon? Also, why Monotype?
Honestly I had heard about showdown a lot, and one day I was sitting in the hospital waiting room, waiting to hear on my step-sister who was having her son, and decided 'eh what the hell, I'll give competetive battling a crack since she's already got the maximum number of visitors'. I put together a rain team in about 20 minutes, and won the first ten matches I ended up in. As for moving to mono, I think I ran into one of the old staff on ladder, and complemented them on the team, and they said I should come check it out. Got into the room, built myself a fighting team, not knowing that Tflame was so dangerous, and I still have that team saved in my email somewhere. It's so bad tho.
I just remembered who it was. It was Omega, lol
10-0 right off the bat. You're not joking about picking things up quickly!
Now for some user-submitted questions.
Many of our users asked the following questions:
What is your favorite Pokemon?
What is your favorite Type?
What type do you specialize in?
Favorite Type is Fighting, and favorite poke is Conk. I tend to specialize in Fighting, Ghost, Electric, Ground, and more recently I've been running Psychic.
As always, Katy (and now many others) ask the important questions: Who your bae Slink? .3.
As for my bae... well I don't have one. Haven't had one for quite a while.
ShadowGuy1 has an interesting question: Why did you choose the username you have?
My current username is a reference to Shovel Knight. CapnSlinky is the result of a drunken round of Left 4 Dead 2, where I ended up playing as Bill, the war veteran.My Steam name at the time was 'The Capn' We had just finished watching Ace Ventura 2. I ended up with an autoshotgun, as is my usual MO, get in close and overwhelm with raw power. I ended up as the last man alive, and the Tank showed up. Well, I ended up managing to lead the tank up some stairs, and jumped over the railing before he could hit me (this was going backwards in the level. He followed me over the railing, and I ended up leading him in circles until he finally died from enough shotgun shells to the face. I went to gloat over the kill and well, there ended up being a hunter that spawned shortly after, which killed me. My buddy then goes "I was almost impressed. You led a tank up and down a set of stairs more times than a Slinky, and then you die to a hunter." To which I, in my drunken state, replied "Hey F you, I'm the Capn of Slinkys, not the Capn of Hunters. Still lived longer than you did." At which point he fires back "Look here Capn Slinky, I only died because you lit me on fire!" And from that point on, I was known as CapnSlinky.
They also want to know what your favorite tier is?
Favorite tier is NU, favorite room is mono.
Another from Katy: Do you have a favorite voice?
Yes Katy, I do have a favorite voice. It's actually E. She's always been super helpful to me, whether it be helping me watch tours, helping me get things in-game, making sure chat is going to be okay once I get back from getting a drink or some food.
Sondoman wants to know what your favorite team you've ever made is?
Favorite Team I've made would have to be either my Stat Switch laddering team, or my Ghost team for Monothreat. Both of them are insanely destructive.
I'll follow up on Sondoman's question: Do you have a particular set you're proud of? What motivated you to use it? Were you checking a particular threat? See it in an RMT?
I'm really proud of one set in particular, and a lot of people know what it is. It's my bulky Conkeldurr set. I designed it for a fighting monothreat to be able to handle any and all Hawluchas that would otherwise sweep the team. Thing is incredible. As in 'I take 77% from a V-create in the sun and kill with Knock Off' incredible.
MonoOMs have become a large part of our room activity. What is your favorite MonoOM? Why?
Favorite MonoOM would have to be AAA. It's always fun trying to guess what the ability could be, and there are some really weird sets that you wouldn't expect to work, but do for some strange reason.
If you could change one thing (literally anything) about the Monotype metagame, what would it be?
Change one thing about the Metagame? Get rid of Mega Slowbro. (he got his wish)
One last question to wrap up the interview. Do you have any words of wisdom/sage advice for the Monotypers out there?
Don't be afraid to try something crazy. Innovation is one of the biggest parts of any OM. If it gets results, don't let anybody tell you it's bad. Also, try and be nice to everyone. Even if you don't like each other at first, extending the olive branch can net you a new fren, and somebody to have your back if things go south.
You've been a great interview! Thanks for taking the time to do it.
interviewed by scpinion, posted 1/21/2015
Hi Slink,
Thanks for taking the time to do the interview!
To start off will you tell us a bit about yourself IRL? Location? Are you still in school? Do you have a job? Is there anything else of that matter you're willing/want to share?
IRL I'm stuck in the western part of Ohio. Not in school right now, and looking for a job so I can go back to school at some point. There's really not that much interesting about where I live, unless you really like cornfields.
I've been to Ohio once...and it was a ton of corn fields. What do you like to do outside of Pokemon?
Play Binding of Isaac, Borderlands, Yugioh, Shovel Knight, watch a few movies here and there, read some books. Mostly it's just playing games with friends, or if I'm by myself I'll turn on one of my two old school consoles and have some fun with classic Mario. Oh, and watch lots and lots of Roosterteeth shows.
Hard to beat those classic games.
All the people on PS! have something interesting about them, so I really like this question/request. Tell us something you feel is awesome about yourself.
I tend to have this ability to be able to pick up any game and be at least decent at it within like five minutes. Like my friend was playing Punch-Out on his Wii, and he got stuck on Sandman, as everyone does. I asked him if I could take a couple cracks at it, and beat him on the second try. I'd never touched a punch-out game in my life.
One of my best friends growing up could do that. For those of us that cannot, it is infinitely frustrating! :P
Lets move on to some Pokemon stuff! What got you into PS!/Smogon? Also, why Monotype?
Honestly I had heard about showdown a lot, and one day I was sitting in the hospital waiting room, waiting to hear on my step-sister who was having her son, and decided 'eh what the hell, I'll give competetive battling a crack since she's already got the maximum number of visitors'. I put together a rain team in about 20 minutes, and won the first ten matches I ended up in. As for moving to mono, I think I ran into one of the old staff on ladder, and complemented them on the team, and they said I should come check it out. Got into the room, built myself a fighting team, not knowing that Tflame was so dangerous, and I still have that team saved in my email somewhere. It's so bad tho.
I just remembered who it was. It was Omega, lol
10-0 right off the bat. You're not joking about picking things up quickly!
Now for some user-submitted questions.
Many of our users asked the following questions:
What is your favorite Pokemon?
What is your favorite Type?
What type do you specialize in?
Favorite Type is Fighting, and favorite poke is Conk. I tend to specialize in Fighting, Ghost, Electric, Ground, and more recently I've been running Psychic.
As always, Katy (and now many others) ask the important questions: Who your bae Slink? .3.
As for my bae... well I don't have one. Haven't had one for quite a while.
ShadowGuy1 has an interesting question: Why did you choose the username you have?
My current username is a reference to Shovel Knight. CapnSlinky is the result of a drunken round of Left 4 Dead 2, where I ended up playing as Bill, the war veteran.My Steam name at the time was 'The Capn' We had just finished watching Ace Ventura 2. I ended up with an autoshotgun, as is my usual MO, get in close and overwhelm with raw power. I ended up as the last man alive, and the Tank showed up. Well, I ended up managing to lead the tank up some stairs, and jumped over the railing before he could hit me (this was going backwards in the level. He followed me over the railing, and I ended up leading him in circles until he finally died from enough shotgun shells to the face. I went to gloat over the kill and well, there ended up being a hunter that spawned shortly after, which killed me. My buddy then goes "I was almost impressed. You led a tank up and down a set of stairs more times than a Slinky, and then you die to a hunter." To which I, in my drunken state, replied "Hey F you, I'm the Capn of Slinkys, not the Capn of Hunters. Still lived longer than you did." At which point he fires back "Look here Capn Slinky, I only died because you lit me on fire!" And from that point on, I was known as CapnSlinky.
They also want to know what your favorite tier is?
Favorite tier is NU, favorite room is mono.
Another from Katy: Do you have a favorite voice?
Yes Katy, I do have a favorite voice. It's actually E. She's always been super helpful to me, whether it be helping me watch tours, helping me get things in-game, making sure chat is going to be okay once I get back from getting a drink or some food.
Sondoman wants to know what your favorite team you've ever made is?
Favorite Team I've made would have to be either my Stat Switch laddering team, or my Ghost team for Monothreat. Both of them are insanely destructive.
I'll follow up on Sondoman's question: Do you have a particular set you're proud of? What motivated you to use it? Were you checking a particular threat? See it in an RMT?
I'm really proud of one set in particular, and a lot of people know what it is. It's my bulky Conkeldurr set. I designed it for a fighting monothreat to be able to handle any and all Hawluchas that would otherwise sweep the team. Thing is incredible. As in 'I take 77% from a V-create in the sun and kill with Knock Off' incredible.
MonoOMs have become a large part of our room activity. What is your favorite MonoOM? Why?
Favorite MonoOM would have to be AAA. It's always fun trying to guess what the ability could be, and there are some really weird sets that you wouldn't expect to work, but do for some strange reason.
If you could change one thing (literally anything) about the Monotype metagame, what would it be?
Change one thing about the Metagame? Get rid of Mega Slowbro. (he got his wish)
One last question to wrap up the interview. Do you have any words of wisdom/sage advice for the Monotypers out there?
Don't be afraid to try something crazy. Innovation is one of the biggest parts of any OM. If it gets results, don't let anybody tell you it's bad. Also, try and be nice to everyone. Even if you don't like each other at first, extending the olive branch can net you a new fren, and somebody to have your back if things go south.
You've been a great interview! Thanks for taking the time to do it.