- Can you tell us a bit about your life outside Smogon?
I'm currently a masters student studying Finance in London. When I'm not studying (which is a lot of the time) I like playing tennis, reading thrillers/fantasy novels, playing guitar, and browsing the million forums I mod on here hehe. I'm also a really big fan of classic rock music, particularly the Beatles as you can probably tell from my profile.
- When did you join the Battling 101 program?
I joined last September.
- Why did you join Battling101?
Before I went on hiatus in 2012 my involvement in the community was mostly limited to RMT and tournaments. When I returned though I felt a strong inclination to contribute more. I was always interested in getting involved in B101 but just never got around to signing up. As there were spots open for my strongest tiers (UU & DPP) I decided to try my hand at tutoring and use the knowledge I'd gained during my time here to try and help newer players.
- Did you sign up as a tutee initially?
No, because I actually wasn't aware B101 existed at the time lol. The first tier I ever played was DPP UU and I picked it up solely through chatting with fellow players on Shoddy and browsing the strategy dex. By the time I actually joined the forums I was quite adept at it, and didn't really have a need for tutoring.
- What's your preferred style of battling?
My preferred style, no matter the gen, has always been bulky offense. I feel that it it provides the best balance between covering as many threats as I can defensively while still allowing me to go on the offensive and put my opponent under pressure at any time. It's very important to have a defensive core to fall back on when things go wrong, and at the same time to have a way to break down my opponent's own core. And I feel balance provides the best of both worlds in this sense. It is also very hard for my opponents to know what to expect when you're running balance as there are so many possible options to consider when you're building a balanced team, while other playstyles like hyper offense and stall are very one-dimensional and your opponent will usually know what is coming.
- What style do you encourage your tutees to follow and why?
That depends on my tutee's preferred playstyle. I usually concentrate on the one they are most comfortable with first in order to develop their ability and confidence and then make sure I branch out to other playstyles and give them an idea of how to play those too.
- Are there any patterns in your tutoring style?
I always start off with test battles so I can assess my tutee's ability. I then question him regarding his thought processes and why he made the moves he did. In this way I can judge what are the main areas I need to focus on, whether it be teambuilding, prediction, or long-term thinking. So if he needed to develop his prediction skills, eg. if he unnecessarily overpredicts sometimes, then I would try to teach him how to balance the risk and reward of each move, and decide his move based on the best possible move the opponent could make. I then try to develop his skills for each playstyle separately.
- How do you feel while tutoring ?
It's time consuming and can definitely be frustrating at times when your tutee does not pick up on a point that seems very obvious to you, but that is completely outweighed by how rewarding it is. It's just an incredible feeling when you see your tutee gradually improving, making more intelligent plays, and just becoming a better battler in general based on what you've taught them.
- Do you follow a process while tutoring?
I always start off with test battles so I can assess my tutee's ability. I then question him regarding his thought processes and why he made the moves he did. In this way I can judge what are the main areas I need to focus on, and then depending on his preferred playstyle I try to improve his skills in these areas. I then aim to create a team with him based on what we discussed, and test it afterwards. I then branch out to other playstyles and repeat the process.
- What's your favorite strategy that you've run? This can be from any metagame or time period.
My favorite strategy ever was when I used Taunt + Dragon Dance Tyranitar in DPP for OST 7. DD TTar's most common check, Skarmory, depends on phazing it out to check it. However with Taunt Skarmory was essentially rendered setup bait and meant at least a free +2/+2 for me. In general it helps to shut down Pokemon that depend on status/phazing to stop a TTar sweep. I remember it working wonders in the last few rounds, sweeping in the quarters and semis before ipl paralyzed it with a Rotom Thunderbolt in the finals which lost the game for me ;_;
- Do you wish to get specific feedback from your tutee, and not just receive a grade?
I try to be very clear with the tutees on what they specifically want from each round, and at the end I always ask if there's anything else they would like to go over, if they enjoyed the experience or not, and if there's any area I could improve on for future reference. If they are satisfied, then I can be confident that I did a good job, and this will be reflected in the grade I receive.
- If you could improve B101, what would you change?
More OU and Past Gen tutors please! We appear to have a shortage in every round lol. In all seriousness though it would be good if more knowledgeable players would sign up to tutor, the number of people who sign up wanting to be tutees is enormous and some of these guys honestly have real potential which I can tell from experience. It's such a rewarding programme and sharing your knowledge and experience with the new generation of players is nothing less than a duty in my opinion.
Other than that I really like the direction the forum is taking right now with the new projects set up by Plus and my lovely interviewers ;)
Thanks IB93 for spending his time doing our interview, and feel free to ask him questions.