Tell us a bit about yourself outside of Smogon.
I’m 22, I’m from Austin, went to college for a while in Ohio (philosophy major woo), now back in Texas trying to find a summer job. I have one more semester of college left before I graduate and I plan to take it abroad in Berlin during the fall, which I’m very excited about. I like spending as much time with my friends as possible, usually consisting of going out to bars/clubs these days. Other current hobbies include playing Zelda TOTK for 16 hours straight and listening to music, mostly alt rock/folk/indie and wherever those intersect. Wish I had other big interests besides Pokemon but sadly I’m too far gone.
What is the origin of your username?
“spoo” is a shortening of “2spoopy4u” (real ones remember). I don’t know how I even landed on that original username, I think I had a bunch of alts back in 2016/17 and 2spoopy4u was just the one I happened to use the most when I talked in the CAP PS room.
What got you into CAP?
My memory is a little hazy at this point, but I think I saw an advertisement for Crucibelle’s release back in ORAS and that’s what got me to look into the tier more. At the time, I was exclusively a 1400-1500 OU ladder player getting tired of the metagame, and CAP just felt like a breath of fresh air. I talked a little in the PS room, lurked the forum threads and voted in some polls, disappeared for most of Gen 7, and came back to Pokemon when COVID hit and I had nothing better to do. Somehow got swept up into the format and the rest is history.
What is your favorite CAP Pokemon?
Hemogoblin my son
What is your favorite regular Pokemon?
Arcanine or Growlithe
What is your favorite CAP art submission that didn’t win?
Golurkyourself’s entries for CAP30 were some of the best submissions ever. The books are so iconic now that I can’t complain in the slightest, but man, Golurk’s moths were great. Every detail about them felt cohesive and well thought out, but they also just looked cool as hell.
What is your favorite generation of CAP?
Probably ORAS, but SS comes close
What is your favorite CAP OM?
Im the CAP 1v1 undisputed goat all the other OMs are goofy
What would you say are your biggest contributions?
Becoming Smogon Super Moderator Admin and CAP Community Ultra LeaderMan and winning CAPPL four five times and TLing three times and winning circuit championships and getting CAP into SPL (Three slots btw) and funding a $10,000 money tour (biggest tour ever) and also settling down with the woman of my dreams i love her so much in a beautiful mid century modern home on the coast ofMaine and i win every tour also
-me from the future, probably
What is your favorite part of the CAP process?
Brain says concept submissions. Heart says art submissions. It’s probably art submissions
What is a lesson you learned from a recent CAP process/buff process?
I’m always right and everyone else is always wrong. Sometimes other people are right too but I’m more right
What is your favorite moment from a CAP Tournament?
Hard to say, there are a lot! Playing D2 in the 2022 Circuit Finals was a series I had been looking forward to for a long time and ended up being an absolutely great bo3. The first teamtour I played in (CAPPL 6 Galactic Astrolotls) is also nostalgic to me as a whole––it was where I first met some people I now consider very close friends like Wulf, snake, and Voltage. One moment I remember vividly from that tour was when Voltage took stresh’s first and only loss across like 13 teamtour games. I think he just fished with HO and weather, and luck was definitely on his side at times, but it was a huge underdog victory for our team. (We did not go on to make playoffs.) My real favorite moment though is probably playing Bossaru in that one Winter Seasonal. Genuinely the most fun I’ve ever had prepping or playing versus someone. Like, when else can you get away with loading a level 31 Grookey and level 4 Dwebble on HO and win 2-0. I couldn’t stop laughing for the entire series.
Thoughts on the current Gen 9 CAP metagame?
It hasn’t been great so far, but I’m optimistic that it will get better. Tera is weird but I’m more a fan of it than not. I honestly thought Pre-Home SV was quite fun for a while, but at some point it became ridiculously stale and unenjoyable. Post-Home has been fun too, especially with Hemogoblin, but that might just be the novelty talking. I think if you compare SV to SS, though, both Pre- and Post-Home SS were worse than the respective metagames in SV, and SS ended up a super fun gen. So here’s hoping that SV trends upwards as well.
If you could change one thing about the mechanics of Pokemon, what would it be?
Toxic, Will-O-Wisp, and Thunder Wave are 100% accurate. In the same vein, port over the PLA Frostbite mechanic where Freeze is just Wisp that halves SpA.
Hopes for The Teal Mask/The Indigo Disk?
Ice Spice gym leader
Can you share a team that you are proud of?
Pretty much everything I have is outdated because of Home or the recent bans, but I’ll edit something in here after it’s used in CAPPL this week
Anything else you want to say to the viewers at home?
Contribute more to the CAP metagame forum, most of our projects have super low activity! Post your teams in the meta discussion thread after you’re eliminated from a tournament. Make VR noms and respond to other people’s noms. Post your predictions for CAPPL games, or if you’re feeling ambitious, do some game recaps. Also please write analyses.
Shoutout my mama Shoutout 5ot Shoutout Hemogoblins we win CAPPL We on top Shoutout my ohio gyatts ohio rizz Fuck 12 Fuck Jake Gyllenhal Ronald Reagan Nancy Reagan Gorex all my opps Thank you and goodnight.