Featured Tutor #13 - Snowy.

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Alkov

plopping
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus

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Welcome to the Featured Tutor project! This is a series of interview where I will ask Official Tutors several questions about them, B101 forum and their experience with it. Through this project, I hope that it will bring about entertainment and an insight on how they tutor. The project will be hosted by me. This week, we're honored to have a Rater and awesome tutor, Snowy. as our interviewee!

Can you tell us a little more about your life outside of Smogon/PS?
I'm an 18 year old, currently living in Australia, but originally from New Zealand. I study Sports and Exercise Science at University, which is some what enjoyable I guess. I also do a bit of part time work in my free time on a construction site. I have also done and still do occasionally some work as a mechanic, but not as much as I use to. When I'm not working or at Uni, I'm probably doing some weeb shit, as I'm super into manga and I also enjoy anime. I listen to a lot of music as well, mainly tracks in the EDM, RnB and Rap genres. Other than that, my life's pretty standard.

How did you come up with the name Snowy?

There's a bit of an interesting story behind my name I guess. I basically got my name in my first year of high school, due to me having pretty much snow white hair, everyone use to call me Snowy. Then a few months later into the year I bought myself a PS3 and I asked my mates for PSN suggestions and they said Snowy. Ever since then all my online profile names and my IRL nickname has been Snowy, so it holds some kind of value to me.

Can you share with us how and when did you get into competitive battling?
It was back in like year nine of high school for me (like 4 or so years ago) and Pokemon ROMs just blew up in popularity, which was awesome for me, cause I use to be a huge poke-nerd as a kid. So I quickly got into the game and started blowing my way through Fire Red. After beating Fire Red I kind of felt a void and moved onto other Pokemon ROMs, which just lead to me marathoning a ton of ROMs till there was nothing to play. That's when I decide to go back to Fire Red and start catching all the Pokemon and getting them to level 100 (No life alert). While I was leveling up these Pokemon, I thought to myself about how I could optimize and make the best move sets for each Pokemon, so I quickly googled how to do so and found Seriibi. This is where I found Pokemon of The Week, which is where I started learning about move sets, EVS and IVs, Items and a bunch of other battling basics. This blew my mind and all I wanted to do was play competitive Pokemon. Unfortunately for me, the Pokemon hype at school had completely died down and I had no one to play with, so I looked for an outlet where I could play competitive Pokemon on the internet, as I was broke af at the time and couldn't get a DS to play WiFi. So yet again, I turned to the internet and found the popular (at the time) PO sever, which I quickly got hooked to and sucked at. After a little while of lingering on PO and being bad, I stopped playing to take a break to deal with some IRL issues. After my break, PS! was the new thing and I found my passion for Pokemon again! It still took me till like late XY to start taking Pokemon more seriously and to get a tutor to improve myself, but that was basically the long ass journey of how I got into competitive Pokemon.

What qualities would you attribute to for a great player?
I think the most important qualities that I would attribute to being a good player would be the combination of being level headed and having patience. I feel like these two qualities really separate a ladder player and a tour player, which is something that I learned (and still learning tbh) to have during my current transitional period from a ladder hero to a tournament player. Having both of these qualities for me is what I feel ever tournament player should have, as unlike the ladder where most players will go on autopilot and win games rather thoughtlessly, you wont get away with that in a tournament scene, as your opponent will be analyzing and thinking about his and yours best move to make and play accordingly from there analysis. Players who fail to think with reason and play with patients will be punished by those who do.

As a ladder player, do you think it is true when they say there is a great difference between the skill required for ladder and tournament? If no, why?
There's for sure a sizable difference between the skill level of ladder players to tournament players. In saying this though, I think both scenes hold unique qualities, that provide substantial differences to make them and there respected players hard to compare in terms of skill. What I mean by this is there are two different mentalities for both scenes and different skills required to do well in each scene. Ladder focuses more on rewarding mental toughness and stamina as well as bringing builds that can respectively handle the ladder trends. Whilst on the other hand, the tournament scene rewards preciseness in both the teams you bring to give you the upper hand against your opponent and the thought out plays you make to overwhelm your opponent. It's why you'll often see people who main ladder that enter Smogon tournaments not do well and why you'll see people who main tournaments not do as well as you would expect on the ladder.

When and why did you join the B101 program? Which tier do you tutor?
I tutor ORAS OU, but I hope to get into some other tiers soon, like NU and UU, as I'm really enjoying playing both of them right now! I originally became a tutor back in July of this year! I originally had wanted to join for a really long time, as tutoring as well as team rating were one of the few ways I felt like I could give back to the community and actually enjoy myself doing. When going through the vast communities we have on Smogon, I really felt that none really suited me that well bar RMT at the time, but after talking to some friends and going through a B101 cycle as a tutee under TDK I was really sold on it and inspired to become a tutor myself.

As an inspiring tutor, which aspect of the game do you think is the most important and it should be tutored by every other tutor?
Through my experiences as a tutor, the things you teach are really dependent on your tutee. For example if your tutee is newer to competitive Pokemon, you're obviously going to need to go through the basic components that every player should know like how to effectively piece together solid teams, finding win conditions, assessing threats and so on. Whilst with someone more experienced who might just want help learning how to build better, there would be no need to go through a vast majority of that. Part of the reason I like tutoring so much is because of how much customization there is when it comes to planning and making your sessions. There really is no mandatory set of things you must teach, as it all depends on the tutee. All I would say is, make your sessions as tutee-friendly and fun as possible, as the odds are your tutee isn't going to enjoy a session as much if your teaching him something he already knows.

As a tutor, do you think the issue on "match up" is a huge factor to the game or is it just an easy way out for a battle lost?
I honestly feel that match up can and always will be a relevant factor in competitive Pokemon, however I don't believe it should ever be used as excuse when you lose a battle. The reality is, no game is unwinnable, some may seem like that, especially in the current ORAS OU meta where things like full stall vs spike stacking balance can occurs and really have the balance player in a tough spot, but if you outplay your opponent you will win. Sad reality is I've seen few games where players get out of bad match ups cause they used there head and outplayed their opponents, whilst I've seen a lot of games where players played poorly and give up turn one because of their bad match up. All in all, I feel like it is relevant sure, but that doesn't mean you'll automatically lose and should give up turn 1. :]

Can you briefly describe a concept you always go through with regards to the game? It can be either team-building or battling.
Sure thing! I feel like choosing a lead is one of the most important 'play' you could make throughout an entire game and can really dictate the flow of a match. That's why I like to go through it thoroughly with my tutees especially if they struggle in this area. What I like to do is start up a game between the two of us and then walk through with him/her what I could potentially lead off with, going through each individual Pokemon on my team and describing how it matches up against his team. For example, I have a Mono attacking DD Altaria with Heal bell versus standard Gothitelle stall, Altaria prevents Mega Sableye's mega evolution, beats Chansey one on one and beats Gothitelle 1v1. However it loses out against Quagsire, Skarmory and Amoonguss. All in all it's a pretty solid lead here, especially if I have the support to effectively back it up to handle its switch in. I would then continue to go through every Pokemon on my team like this and once finished allow my tutee to see what his best lead choice is based on my best lead, how many good match up the Pokemon has, if it prevents a threat from coming in and if it has appropriate support for the things it doesn't match up as well against. I usually do 2 in depth games, followed by an additional three where the decision is his to make to sprout some independence and confidence in his lead choices. Here's two examples as I know I probably explained that poorly =/ 1. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290494838 2.http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290517917 There's a lot of text there, but I think it's cool stuff if your looking to improve in picking leads or wondering how you can teach your tutees this.

Is there any advice that you would like to give to aspiring tutors?
I think the main thing I hear and personally felt as an as an aspiring tutor, was that a lot of people in this position including myself were nervous about doing it and hesitated because of that. My advice is to not worry about it and accept your nervous feeling and push through the thoughts of hesitation. Once you get into it, all those felling will completely melt away and you'll end up having one of the best experiences you can have playing a Pokemon game!

Lastly, if you can change one thing about B101, what will it be?
I feel like I would really love to see some more content in the B101 forum, at the moment it's really only BoTW and Featured Tutor. There's a lot of viable content out there that can be made and posted on a regular basis I feel, so it would be great to have people actually commit to these projects and make this forum thrive even if it's only a little more, cause lets face it, outside of 2 projects and the monthly B101 sign ups, there isn't much here.

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There we have it! Thank you Snowy. for such an insightful interview! Feel free to leave any questions you have for him below.
 

TPP

is a Tournament Directoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Past SPL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
Head TD
Why are you a fart sucker?

If you could have a mon from RU/NU/PU become more viable, like giving it a mega evolution, what mon would it be and why?

What's your favorite mon to use in each tier?

Who do you like better, me or Yagure?
 
Why are you a fart sucker?

If you could have a mon from RU/NU/PU become more viable, like giving it a mega evolution, what mon would it be and why?

What's your favorite mon to use in each tier?

Who do you like better, me or Yagure?
1. Eat my ass oo

2. Probs torkoal, because the tier needs more viable spinners and torkoal is cool af.

3. Ubers - Arceus, OU - Talonflame, UU - Mence/Cobalion, RU - fuck this tier, NU - Lanturn/Archeops, LC - fuck this tier, PU - haven't played yet oo
 

Alkov

plopping
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Echoing what Team Pokepals asked. What is with you and farts? Is it some sort of a fetish?

Real talk here, if you can take charge of one area in smogon, which will it be?
 
Echoing what Team Pokepals asked. What is with you and farts? Is it some sort of a fetish?

Real talk here, if you can take charge of one area in smogon, which will it be?
I'm really only involved in a handful of sections here, so I would probably go with the RMT section. RMT is where I started and I have a lot of great friends there, so it would be cool to lead it with my friends by my side.
 

IronBullet

Astronomy Domine
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Completely agree with Plus here, it's perfectly fine to have fun guys but there's a limit.

Anyway hi buddy :toast:

Building on what you mentioned about more content in the B101 forum, do you have any ideas for activities and projects that we could run besides the current ones?

We talk often but I actually don't know much about you as a player. What's your preferred style? What Pokemon do you most commonly use while battling?

How do you feel about tutoring as an experience?
 
Completely agree with Plus here, it's perfectly fine to have fun guys but there's a limit.

Anyway hi buddy :toast:

Building on what you mentioned about more content in the B101 forum, do you have any ideas for activities and projects that we could run besides the current ones?

We talk often but I actually don't know much about you as a player. What's your preferred style? What Pokemon do you most commonly use while battling?

How do you feel about tutoring as an experience?
Hey IB :],

1. I have a ton of ideas, but to keep this from being too long I'll provide just one. A cool idea I had would be a project that allows players to post there replays in a thread and have them gone over by tutors, which they would then make a "battling report" which would show the players how they could have optimised there plays. This would ofc require ruling to prevent people from just dumping 600 replays of every game they've had and a team of dedicated tutors would be needed, but I think it would be a cool and interactive way for the community to get involved.

2. I tend to change up style pretty frequently, but in OU I have a preference of balance, for UU it would be balls to the wall offence and NU would just be balance. Some common mons I use pretty regularly in OU are Tyranitar, Skarmory, Manaphy and Chomp etc. For UU it would be Cobalion, Salamence and Azelf. NU would be Lanturn, Scyther and Archeops.

3. Honestly tutoring is one of the best experiences Ive had while on this site. Not only do you get to teach others and help them improve, but you'll often find that you'll become a better player, as your constantly taking in depth looks into multiply aspects of the game which can be eye opening at times. I've also through having a bunch of cool tutees, made a bunch of new friends who Im activitly able to talk to on a regular basis. Overall it's an amazing experience and I'm glad Im able to do it :]
 

Genesis7

is a Past SCL Champion
RoAPL Champion
Hey IB :],

1. I have a ton of ideas, but to keep this from being too long I'll provide just one. A cool idea I had would be a project that allows players to post there replays in a thread and have them gone over by tutors, which they would then make a "battling report" which would show the players how they could have optimised there plays. This would ofc require ruling to prevent people from just dumping 600 replays of every game they've had and a team of dedicated tutors would be needed, but I think it would be a cool and interactive way for the community to get involved.
Very cool idea, maybe restrict this to replays where "I lost this tournament/high ladder match, what did I do wrong and how can I improve in the future?" rather than just any random replay. I think this will be a really simplistic way for people to get quick help instead of waiting the 3 week period to get a tutor to ask the same question.
 
grats on gettin the badge


- in ur opinion, who is the best player and why?
- what is ur "poke dream"?
Thanks hellpowna :]

1. This is a hard one cause there are a lot of great players in my mind like earthworm, bloo, Hugo and so on. However for me it would have to be McM, as unlike people like Earthworm I was actually able and still am able to witness him play throughout a substantial amount of his career, which is huge for me cause I'm constantly watching good players to see how they play so I can improve. His defentietly a person I look up to and I think is one of the best!

2. I guess it would have to be making SPL, as that's kind of every players goal and dream. That's something I'm really working toward and hopefully I'll be able to make it in! Other than that, my long-long term goal would be to eventually manage my own team for SPL, as I believe that would be an amazing experience!
 
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