Welcome to the Featured Rater project! This is a series of interviews where we ask official Team Raters, new and old, several questions about the RMT forum and their experiences within it. We hope that this offers both entertainment and an insight into their thought processes, which aspiring raters can look to incorporate into their own rates. This project is hosted by Analytic, Snowy., and myself. Our seventh interviewee is Team Pokepals, one of RMT's recent batch of promising official raters and the co-host of the RMT of the Week project!
Tell us a little bit about your life outside Smogon.
I'm a 19 year old pre-med Neuroscience major right now, currently studying in Texas. It takes up a lot of time with studying for all the classes (which aren't easy by any means), and it's a bit difficult to balance studies with forums work and going on PS!, but I think I've been managing well. I'm a big fan of NBA and basketball as a sport, which I play occasionally if I have any friends in town. I've loved pokemon since I was a kid, with Sapphire being the 1st game I played.
What is your main tier? Do you rate teams from any other tiers?
OU has been my main and only tier of rating since joining earlier this year. I joined the OU room back in January to see if I could learn more about the tier and improve, and it ended up feeling like a good tier for me. Back in 2014, I spent the last half the of the year playing monotype on various servers, and I feel pretty confident about it since it's more or less a mix of OU, UU, and some niche mons. If we got more monotype teams, it'd be something I'd look forward to rating.
When did you start rating and why?
I actually got a story for this one. Basically, I was lucky enough to have a team of mine selected for RMT of the Week, and I had a Mega Absol team. Mega Absol isn't common at all for OU, so for that reason, I wanted it to win seeing as how there probably wouldn't be another Mega Absol team selected for RMT of the Week. I ended up causing a ruckus for that week, after losing to fellow team rater Analytic by 1, and I didn't want to come off as a bad user. So in order to avoid that, I starting rating teams around March this year, and it felt pretty nice, since I enjoy helping people out, and I felt like it'd help me improve in team building as well.
Are there any raters who you looked up to when you started rating?
Celticpride and TNT. When I first came on here, I noticed how Celticpride was rating a ton of teams, and I was thinking "this guy looks really helpful, and I want to ask him to rate some of my teams." Then I found one of TNT's rates and besides the initial feeling of being overwhelmed by its size, I really liked it too, and asked him a few times to rate my teams too. I didn't know that rating would get myself a badge, so at that point, I was trying to find ways to improve myself, and these guys gave me good role models to follow.
What do you most enjoy about rating?
The best part of rating, is knowing you're helping someone out. There's a point where every user wants advice on how to get better, and getting advice on a team is a great way to start with that. Helping people out is a wonderful feeling to have, and I hope to be a role model people look up to like Celticpride and TNT were for me.
Do you follow a process with your rates?
With my rates, I usually try to find the biggest/most notable threats for balanced/stall teams and I try to focus on mons that are hard/impossible to kill for offensive teams. Sometimes I'll go to team magma team builder to see if there's any lack of resistances. For some types it's okay, but let's use Dragon type as an example. If nothing on the team resists Dragon, then mons like Latios can nearly net a KO each time it drops a draco, and that applies for every dragon type in the tier. Once I find the notable mons to worry about, I look to see what mons could be subbed in to help check certain threats, and then finally consider what mon to take out. Sometimes a quick change is all that's needed. If I can't think of any initial mons to change, I focus on the sets and see if there's anything that can be changed to better help the team. During the process, I try to list the changes/suggestions in blue, and the notable mons that are threats in red. I usually don't like seeing a TLDR; so using the colors makes it a bit easier to read for the OP and makes it look nice formatting wise.
As a respected Official Rater, do you have any words of advice for aspiring raters out there?
I learn best from watching others, so my advice would be to try to find some other rates, preferably by an official Team Rater, and see what they do in their rates. The most important part of having a good successful rate, is the explanation. Sometimes I look at rating teams, like trying to sell a product, with the product being your suggestions. You want to give the OP a good feeling of confidence that your suggestions are reasonable, and will definitely help their team. Also, don't try to worry about fixing every single threat, since every team is bound to have a threat, no matter what mons they have. Also, don't be afraid to ask official Team Raters for advice, since we're all more than happy to help :)
How has your experience with co-hosting the RMT of the Week been? When deciding which teams to include in RMT of The Week, what process do you follow to select the teams?
When I was asked to co-run this project, I thought Yagure (the other co-host) wasn't aware that RMT of the Week had been stopped (considering how I was the one that killed it too). After that, it's been pretty fun actually, since I get to explore not only my main tier's page of OU teams, but I got to check out other tiers like UU and RU, and see what kind of teams people had. When picking teams, it's pretty time consuming looking at every single team to see how well designed they are. Peaks tend to be pretty attractive, as the team is proven to be successful on ladder, and then it's just a matter of seeing how well written the team was and how much effort there was in posting it. Otherwise, I look to see if a team looks good on paper, and then how much effort the person put into that RMT.
Do you have ideas for other projects that could potentially be run?
I'm always trying to think of new ideas whether it's for OU or for RMT. I recently thought about the mentor idea and luckily it's gonna be revived. As for any potential projects, I guess something we could try would be like the Trainer Schools found in game. We find users that are new and haven't rated much or even at all, and gradually introduce them to rating, and by the time they "graduate" they should have a good sense about rating. Homework can be included too, and here's an example. You can send a team and ask people to list 3 things the team doesn't have, or 3 threats/walls it struggles with. The classes could actually be on PS! with the new group chat that was made recently.
What are your thoughts on the RMT forum? If you could change one thing about it, what would it be?
There's a lot of raters everywhere now. It's hard to find teams that aren't already rated these days, and I think it's a great thing. RMT is becoming more active, and the number of raters is increasing, so as a whole we're able to be more helpful to users, and I think that's just the forum becoming more successful. As for changes, I guess moving the locked RMT's somewhere might be helpful, since they get in the way of looking for other teams (specifically for RMT of the Week for me). One thing I would love to see is the addition of tags for uncommon tiers like monotype. In other words, extending our RMT forum to include other tiers would be nice, and we'd be able to get more raters from other tiers as well, which would be cool since they can help other people learn the tier if they want to :)
Do you have an RMT or a team you could share with us?
Here's a team I made way back in March and this one's a bit special as it has a Mega Absol, something you won't see since Weavile became popular. http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/absolutely-offensive-peaked-1618.3534874/
Lastly, can you give us an example of a rate that exemplifies your particular style?
Example Rate
Took forever to find a rate, since I've been updating my formatting since way back when I started. This one basically sums up everything I mentioned in the question about the process for my rates, with initially looking for threats, then suggesting mons and set changes to deal with them.
------------
Thanks TP for an awesome interview! Feel free to leave any questions you have for him below. See you all next time
Tell us a little bit about your life outside Smogon.
I'm a 19 year old pre-med Neuroscience major right now, currently studying in Texas. It takes up a lot of time with studying for all the classes (which aren't easy by any means), and it's a bit difficult to balance studies with forums work and going on PS!, but I think I've been managing well. I'm a big fan of NBA and basketball as a sport, which I play occasionally if I have any friends in town. I've loved pokemon since I was a kid, with Sapphire being the 1st game I played.
What is your main tier? Do you rate teams from any other tiers?
OU has been my main and only tier of rating since joining earlier this year. I joined the OU room back in January to see if I could learn more about the tier and improve, and it ended up feeling like a good tier for me. Back in 2014, I spent the last half the of the year playing monotype on various servers, and I feel pretty confident about it since it's more or less a mix of OU, UU, and some niche mons. If we got more monotype teams, it'd be something I'd look forward to rating.
When did you start rating and why?
I actually got a story for this one. Basically, I was lucky enough to have a team of mine selected for RMT of the Week, and I had a Mega Absol team. Mega Absol isn't common at all for OU, so for that reason, I wanted it to win seeing as how there probably wouldn't be another Mega Absol team selected for RMT of the Week. I ended up causing a ruckus for that week, after losing to fellow team rater Analytic by 1, and I didn't want to come off as a bad user. So in order to avoid that, I starting rating teams around March this year, and it felt pretty nice, since I enjoy helping people out, and I felt like it'd help me improve in team building as well.
Are there any raters who you looked up to when you started rating?
Celticpride and TNT. When I first came on here, I noticed how Celticpride was rating a ton of teams, and I was thinking "this guy looks really helpful, and I want to ask him to rate some of my teams." Then I found one of TNT's rates and besides the initial feeling of being overwhelmed by its size, I really liked it too, and asked him a few times to rate my teams too. I didn't know that rating would get myself a badge, so at that point, I was trying to find ways to improve myself, and these guys gave me good role models to follow.
What do you most enjoy about rating?
The best part of rating, is knowing you're helping someone out. There's a point where every user wants advice on how to get better, and getting advice on a team is a great way to start with that. Helping people out is a wonderful feeling to have, and I hope to be a role model people look up to like Celticpride and TNT were for me.
Do you follow a process with your rates?
With my rates, I usually try to find the biggest/most notable threats for balanced/stall teams and I try to focus on mons that are hard/impossible to kill for offensive teams. Sometimes I'll go to team magma team builder to see if there's any lack of resistances. For some types it's okay, but let's use Dragon type as an example. If nothing on the team resists Dragon, then mons like Latios can nearly net a KO each time it drops a draco, and that applies for every dragon type in the tier. Once I find the notable mons to worry about, I look to see what mons could be subbed in to help check certain threats, and then finally consider what mon to take out. Sometimes a quick change is all that's needed. If I can't think of any initial mons to change, I focus on the sets and see if there's anything that can be changed to better help the team. During the process, I try to list the changes/suggestions in blue, and the notable mons that are threats in red. I usually don't like seeing a TLDR; so using the colors makes it a bit easier to read for the OP and makes it look nice formatting wise.
As a respected Official Rater, do you have any words of advice for aspiring raters out there?
I learn best from watching others, so my advice would be to try to find some other rates, preferably by an official Team Rater, and see what they do in their rates. The most important part of having a good successful rate, is the explanation. Sometimes I look at rating teams, like trying to sell a product, with the product being your suggestions. You want to give the OP a good feeling of confidence that your suggestions are reasonable, and will definitely help their team. Also, don't try to worry about fixing every single threat, since every team is bound to have a threat, no matter what mons they have. Also, don't be afraid to ask official Team Raters for advice, since we're all more than happy to help :)
How has your experience with co-hosting the RMT of the Week been? When deciding which teams to include in RMT of The Week, what process do you follow to select the teams?
When I was asked to co-run this project, I thought Yagure (the other co-host) wasn't aware that RMT of the Week had been stopped (considering how I was the one that killed it too). After that, it's been pretty fun actually, since I get to explore not only my main tier's page of OU teams, but I got to check out other tiers like UU and RU, and see what kind of teams people had. When picking teams, it's pretty time consuming looking at every single team to see how well designed they are. Peaks tend to be pretty attractive, as the team is proven to be successful on ladder, and then it's just a matter of seeing how well written the team was and how much effort there was in posting it. Otherwise, I look to see if a team looks good on paper, and then how much effort the person put into that RMT.
Do you have ideas for other projects that could potentially be run?
I'm always trying to think of new ideas whether it's for OU or for RMT. I recently thought about the mentor idea and luckily it's gonna be revived. As for any potential projects, I guess something we could try would be like the Trainer Schools found in game. We find users that are new and haven't rated much or even at all, and gradually introduce them to rating, and by the time they "graduate" they should have a good sense about rating. Homework can be included too, and here's an example. You can send a team and ask people to list 3 things the team doesn't have, or 3 threats/walls it struggles with. The classes could actually be on PS! with the new group chat that was made recently.
What are your thoughts on the RMT forum? If you could change one thing about it, what would it be?
There's a lot of raters everywhere now. It's hard to find teams that aren't already rated these days, and I think it's a great thing. RMT is becoming more active, and the number of raters is increasing, so as a whole we're able to be more helpful to users, and I think that's just the forum becoming more successful. As for changes, I guess moving the locked RMT's somewhere might be helpful, since they get in the way of looking for other teams (specifically for RMT of the Week for me). One thing I would love to see is the addition of tags for uncommon tiers like monotype. In other words, extending our RMT forum to include other tiers would be nice, and we'd be able to get more raters from other tiers as well, which would be cool since they can help other people learn the tier if they want to :)
Do you have an RMT or a team you could share with us?
Here's a team I made way back in March and this one's a bit special as it has a Mega Absol, something you won't see since Weavile became popular. http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/absolutely-offensive-peaked-1618.3534874/
Lastly, can you give us an example of a rate that exemplifies your particular style?
Example Rate
Took forever to find a rate, since I've been updating my formatting since way back when I started. This one basically sums up everything I mentioned in the question about the process for my rates, with initially looking for threats, then suggesting mons and set changes to deal with them.
------------
Thanks TP for an awesome interview! Feel free to leave any questions you have for him below. See you all next time
