Featured Tutor #1 - Steven Snype

[Steve Angello]

Approved by IronBullet93 and Plus.
Thanks Kahila911 for the awesome banner

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Welcome to the first edition of our Featured Tutor project! We will interview tutors about Battling 101 and theirexperiences with the program. This project will be hosted by Toupip and me, Steve Angello. Today we will be interviewing Steven Snype, Battling101 moderator and long-time tutor.

You are allowed to ask Steven Snype questions (even those that don't pertain to Pokemon) , but make sure that they're serious and not complete jokes.

• Can you tell us a bit about your life outside Smogon?

I'm a third year university student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studying Computer Science. I've done a lot of stuff and am currently involved with community service.

• When did you first join the program?

I joined a long time ago in about 2011 or so and then took a break from Pokemon. I rejoined B101 sometime during last fall.

• Why did you join Battling 101 ?

Pokemon is a pretty straightforward game, but a lot of people don't really see it. Because they don't see it, a lot of games are usually stomps or pretty much just thrown away, so nobody is really challenged to improve themselves. If the average playerbase doesn't improve, then a lot of time, the metagame never reaches to its full potential because compared to the playerbase, only a few people understand the game, so they are the ones that usually introduce the meta-defined sets. If more people understand the game, the faster the metagame can develop.
I came to mod Battling 101 because I participated in Hoenn Cup, playing ADV OU, a metagame that I had not touched for about a year prior to that. I got 2nd place, which shocked me because I really don't know what I'm doing. It made me disappointed because there wasn't enough new blood. I also looked at other tournaments and it just felt like the same old people that were playing a year beforehand. I wondered where the newer players are, and there's not a whole lot of them competing. I looked around even more and there weren't many that were any good. There were people I knew that wanted to get into competitive Pokemon as well and had no idea what they were doing, so I thought I could try to help start some programs to improve the general quality.​

• Did you sign up as a tutee initially?

Yeah. I was first introduced to playing better at the game by StarkGod, but I also went through Battling 101 as a student and learned from HuntoftheLion (who is also responsible for helping produce the terror known as ShakeItUp , but he's not the one that made the pairings so he's not completely to blame for that ;/)

• What's your preferred style of battling?

Depends on the generation. In BW / ORAS / ADV, I usually aim for defensive routes to win by scouting out to see what troublesome sets the opponent could have and then adjusting my plan accordingly. DPP is different because I've played it long enough where I could figure it out off of experience, so I usually like to swing the momentum in my favor because each individual turn feels more impactful.

• What style do you encourage your tutees to follow and why?

I usually only tutor in DPP OU, but I'll try to speak in generic ideas so you can implement them in other tiers as well. I encourage all my tutees to glean information efficiently about the opponent's teams. The way people tend to play reveals more about their teamsets. For example, if you're worried about Scarf Terrakion , and your opponent has a Terrakion but decides not to Volt Switch into it against your Alakazam, it's probably not Scarf Terrakion. I tell my tutees to look at information to determine what the plan that has the best chances of winning the game are. Once they decide that plan, they execute it.

• Are there any patterns in your tutoring style?

I focus a lot on how to play and think during the game. Even when the matchup is heavily against you, knowing how you can attempt to win is a lot more important. A lot of people claim matchup is a reason why they lose, when odds are, they really made a key mistake in their play that actually minimized the chance that they would win. If something is consistently a problem for you while you play with your team, then now you know what is actually a bad matchup, and more importantly, why it is a bad matchup. You can then use this information and experience when you build your other teams.

• How do you feel while tutoring ?

I feel nervous initially because though a lot of stuff makes sense to me, I want to make sure that what I think could improve my tutee actually does improve it. I also want to make sure I get the ideas for improvement across clearly so they understand what I'm trying to say.

• Do you follow a process while tutoring?

I try to analyze tutee replays mostly or I ask them what they're thinking of as they make moves in game to make sure they're on the right train of thought.

• What's your favorite strategy that you've run? This can be from any metagame or time period.

I just like heavier offense in DPP. It's easy to maintain momentum with and maintaining momentum often comes with the feeling of outplaying your opponent, which is nice.

• Do you wish to get specific feedback from your tutee, and not just receive a grade?

Regardless, B101 is a service provided to tutees, so I usually ask early on what they would like improvement on. Different people need different things to improve upon. If they don't give me a clear goal to work with, I'll usually just focus on playing the game with them. At the end, I usually ask for any feedback from my tutees to see what they liked or didn't like and take that into account for the next one

• If you could improve B101, what would you change?

Lecture series. We actually already have these going up anyway, but something to make sure the general Pokemon playing population can play to a certain standard would be really nice to have and helping B101 become a better branch for improving yourself to become a top-tier battler, but a lot of people aren't familiar with non-current-gen-OU metagames at all, so they are usually stuck from starting at the basics. Still though, there's a lot that comes from playing Pokemon that can be applied to any metagame you're playing.

Thanks a lot Steven Snype for the interview! We hope you enjoyed reading it ! Yours Toupip and Steve Angello.

 

[Snowy]

Hey, very interesting and intriguing interview especially from my stand point as a tutee! I have a few simple questions I would like to ask:

1. What is the most successful or known tutee that you've produced?
2. Through what methods do you format and present the information needed to help your tutees advance? E.g analyses write ups formulated from replays.
3. Do you mold your tutees and how they play around a specific model or code?
4. What advice can you give to people looking to become tutors in the future?

 

[Leftiez]

What was your purposes when you became a b101 mods ?
What point do you approach first with your tutee ? (be a good player or be a nice guy/helpful to the community)
Do you think that relationships are important when tutoring ?
What's your point of view regarding our forum ?

 

[Andy Snype]

Hey, very interesting and intriguing interview especially from my stand point as a tutee! I have a few simple questions I would like to ask:

1. What is the most successful or known tutee that you've produced?
2. Through what methods do you format and present the information needed to help your tutees advance? E.g analyses write ups formulated from replays.
3. Do you mold your tutees and how they play around a specific model or code?
4. What advice can you give to people looking to become tutors in the future?

1. None of them are successful. J/k. As far as known tutees I've had that spent a fair bit of time who I still here or once in a while, I'd think Da Letter El, warrior against the scourge known as Laurel, is probably the most wellknown tutee of mine who is still here. Still won't forget my first AlphaJolt <3

2. I mostly laddered with my tutees and ghosted them for most of our sessions, explaining why move X is the best one. I ask for their thought process and ask them how they plan to win. Identify your winning Pokemon/strategy. If you can't choose between two and you need more information about their team, that's fine, try to work from the endgame and think what you'd need alive or what you need mon X for.

A common exercise I try to do is instead of thinking at the start with a 6v6, pretend you're at the lategame phase and maximize your chances of victory from there. Once you become familiar with this, work your way around to identify what other Pokemon you need alive to help you get to those endgame scenarios where you have winning maximized. A lot of it comes to luck as some of these conditions naturally default to relying on moves with imperfect accuracy or secondary effects that you hope do/don't happen. Once you've figured out how player A wins in that situation and how player B wins in a 3v3, throw in another teammate for one of the players.

3. I emphasize lategame planning with my tutees if I see them often enough. Once you recognize favorable lategame scenarios, it's up to the tutee to decide how best to manage their Pokemon to reach these lategame scenarios. Ex: Whittling down the enemy Lando-T with your Mega Scizor with Knock Off / U-Turn and Stealth Rock switching in so it gets low enough where it can't really handle something so well like a DD MegAltaria sweep. I haven't recognized how to do this effectively in the newer generations.

4. If you want to be a battling tutor, get good. Focus on your battling + teambuilding skills first and achieve something either on the ladder or in the Tournaments scene, ideally do something related to both so you are familiar with both ladder play and tournament play. Once you have a solid foundation, something like winning a couple of relevant tournaments in your generation, or achieving a high place on the ladder (top 10 for current-gen OU, top 5 for anything else). Consider getting involved in C&C / Tournaments / Uncharted Territory as well. These are all good places to start to get involved in to make a name for yourself. Then apply. Also, have a passion for wanting to tutor. That might help as well.

What was your purposes when you became a b101 mods ?
What point do you approach first with your tutee ? (be a good player or be a nice guy/helpful to the community)
Do you think that relationships are important when tutoring ?
What's your point of view regarding our forum ?

1. I answered why I became a moderator for B101 above. tl;dr Got 2nd place in Hoenn Cup, reaction was "wtf? i haven't touched this in a year and just asked Golden Sun for four teams. everyone else must suck." Realized tournament scene is pretty stagnant and not developing a whole lot. Lots of other issues on the site, mostly with (in my opinion) lack of quality competitive Pokemon knowledge to majority of the users. Helped out with B101 initially to manage shit, realized that on its own, B101 helps only a really small portion of the playerbase at best, so Plus and I initially brainstormed ideas to get more basic information out there, which, speaking of, I believe that the next Battling 101-related video will be out on Wednesday. I think everyone will find some value in it, hosted by Plus.


2. Be both. On first contact, be friendly. It helps with the tutoring program initially. I personally find it helps to relate to your tutees better so you can understand what it's like from their perspective as well.

3. Relationships are nice things to have. I don't think they are completely necessary to be able to tutor well depending on each tutor's styles, but I think it helps most people that it basically is an unofficial thing. It happens that sometimes with pairings that there are issues, but most of those issues are a lack of shared available times to actually meet.

4. The subforum B101 is mostly a janitorial effort with a consistent schedule. The learning opportunities at Smogon have the potential to be so much more than they currently are, but I think that B101 by itself is mostly fine. I'd support a bit of restructuring with how the current setup where B101 is actually a subset of something bigger like the "Learn" section, but it's actually oriented for newer players to learn. Replay analyses, seminars, links to informational mon streamers/VODS, lecture videos would be under this section as well. As it currently stands, these are just side projects that the B101 Staff and additional Tutor volunteers want to get into, but a lot of these are just that: side projects. If there are more qualified tutors willing to put in the time to make these things run as long as necessary, that would be amazing.

 

[Da Letter El]

Can confirm, am the best.

I think most people can agree that a good deal of success that can come from battling is in knowing what sorts of options an opponent has available to it. Most tutors are intuitively aware of some of these things (I need to keep my salamence check alive in fear it's dd, faking scarf is really common on x pokemon, etc.), but a lot of these things aren't really knowable without playing too much. As a tutor, do you think it is more helpful to provide this information to a tutee simply as it might come up, or to go more in depth into talking about these things in the process of teambuilding? Essentially, do you think tutors do better by teaching information about the game (without letting the tutee think about these things on their own as much), or leaving some of it for tutees to discover (potentially wrongly and too late)?

 

[Andy Snype]

Can confirm, am the best.

I think most people can agree that a good deal of success that can come from battling is in knowing what sorts of options an opponent has available to it. Most tutors are intuitively aware of some of these things (I need to keep my salamence check alive in fear it's dd, faking scarf is really common on x pokemon, etc.), but a lot of these things aren't really knowable without playing too much. As a tutor, do you think it is more helpful to provide this information to a tutee simply as it might come up, or to go more in depth into talking about these things in the process of teambuilding? Essentially, do you think tutors do better by teaching information about the game (without letting the tutee think about these things on their own as much), or leaving some of it for tutees to discover (potentially wrongly and too late)?

Some people learn differently. I usually prefer to teach doing hands-on experience and rather than listen to what X, Y, Z has to do. For the purposes of teambuilding, it's more useful to tell the tutee because a lot of teambuilding comes off of experience with how mon X handles other mons. However, I like to usually let my tutees crash and burn sometimes to further demonstrate reasons as to why or why not to do move X. I think that unless you experience why doing X is a bad idea (or the only good idea), you won't really get it. Also, unless you let them experience things on their own, they're effectively listening to a stranger on the internet talking about random moves and probabilities, which might just sound like a bunch of crap to them. I don't know about you, but I could never pay attention in biology or math or understand those concepts unless there was a hands-on component like lab with it. Granted, there are so many of those factors like you mentioned that it might be considered easier for the tutor to just list all of those factors rather than let the tutee learn from mistakes every time. Whether it's effective or not depends on the tutor and tutee.