- Can you tell us a bit about your life outside Smogon?
- When did you join the Battling 101 program?
- Why did you join Battling 101 ?
- Did you sign up as a tutee initially?
Before Shoddy had the Smogon University Server, my peak on the Official Server run by Colin (now Cathy) and bearzly was about #20. Tacho in particular helped me become a much better teambuilder and battler, and it was through his guidance that I was able become a good enough battler to top various DPP leaderboards on the Smogon Server in the day such as the Manaphy Suspect test, DPP UU Suspect with Raikou/Duggy/Moltres, and perform well in WCOP as I played for USA Metro and USA East (before WCOP became a teamstacking competition like their name was the 2010 Miami fucking Heat). I don't play in many tournaments anymore because I don't feel like I have the time or motivation to prepare adequately for them, but don't peg me for a guy whose never played in big situations before!
- What's your preferred style of battling?
- What style do you encourage your tutees to follow and why?
- Are there any patterns in your tutoring style?
- How do you feel while tutoring ?
- Do you follow a process while tutoring?
- What's your favorite strategy that you've run? This can be from any metagame or time period.
This worked even better with stall teams due to the element of surprise, since most stall teams led with shit like Forry, Hippowdon, Blissey (if you were like IPL), and Heatran. If they led with anything other than Blissey, they would usually switch right away to Blissey fearing a LO Hydro Pump. But instead, they get hit with a Scarfed Blissey which makes your life easier when you pair it with something like offensive Heatran, Zapdos, etc.
- Do you wish to get specific feedback from your tutee, and not just receive a grade?
- If you could improve B101, what would you change?
There's really not much I can do other than beg and grovel for amazing players to tutor, and if I have to do that then I really doubt they'd be great tutors in the first place. I've noticed that the best tutors aren't always the best battlers, but the ones who put in the most effort into their work. You obviously need to be good in order to tutor, but if you have some sort of superiority complex that makes you look down on every other battler who isn't in your posse, then get the hell out of this program.
I'd like to change the signup system so that we can weed out terrible tutees instantly and allow for players that we ideally want in our program to be selected first. The program has expanded so much since I came into power that signups close an hour after they are posted, which is insane. I'd like to figure out a system where we can fairly choose tutees based on their merits as a person and battler as opposed to signing up first in a thread.
Thanks Plus for accepting and feel free to ask him questions.
~ Leftiez and Steve Angello