approved by monotype forum mods
inspired by this and this
First of all thanks for taking the time to do this, I'm sure the community will be interested in hearing from a regular manager in our tournaments, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
irl im a 23 year old from India, just wrapping up my final year of uni. For the longest time, I never really got the chance to indulge in other games other than Pokemon, given my limited free time (indian exams moment). When I finally did get the oppurtunity to play other games, many of the times I found myself saying that I'd much rather be playing mons lol. Being completely useless in the hand-eye coordination department meant that FPS games were out of the picture. Tried a couple of RPGs / story mode games but my attention span wasnt necessarily cooperating, so most of them are left unfinished (I really enjoyed TOTK though). I also still occasionally play mkwii, which somehow has a very active online setup (hmu!!). I love listening to music, mostly stuff like OSTs / instrumentals / jazz though I have my phases with all sorts of stuff. Havent watched anything recently because I have a bad habit of not being able to put something down once I start it, so I'm waiting for a stretch of time when I can binge again
How did you get introduced / involved with the Monotype community?
Other than casually laddering, my first experience with competing seriously (in any tier for that matter) was gen7mono in PSPL 2018. I was getting fed some good teams and was also winning somehow, which made me believe that I was good at it. I then played mono in toursroom BLT 2018, where I went 3-0 beating peachyclouds (DAHLI) and kythr, which made me feel like the main character even more. Had to take a break for a bit because of exams; my first real experience with the community was playing with chait and floss for the Kindred Kingdras in 2019/2020? It was a fun tour where I met some very cool people (like DugZa unfortunately). Back then getting into the "main tours" like mpl felt very difficult and out of reach, many live auctions were spectated in hopes of a surprise nomination, to no avail sadly (I remember seeing the "time for team art" chras nomination live, was v funny). My first proper introduction to a mono teamtour was when I got picked up by Dugza for MWP in late 2021 to play for the Po-Town Pandas, and I did well for the few games I was slotted in. The overall experience with Floss/DugZa/Jojo8868 made it very enjoyable and I found myself wanting to actually play in more mono tours, and I suppose the rest is history.
Do you have a favorite moment or memory that sticks out from your time on Smogon / PS?
I'm grateful to have made many many cherishable memories. The first time we (India) made playoffs in worldcup is a feeling I'll always remember. Winning PUPL with the Mags this year is also up there, particularly because of the effort and backstory that went into it. If we are talking about mono specifically, I dont think anything can come close to my experience on the Wakes. The discord was always a blast to tap into, the team was doing well and the people I met there turned out to be lifelong friends. That tour really set the standard when it comes to team environments, I dont think I've tasted that high again very often.
How did you go about preparing for the circuit playoffs?
I've realised off late that I need to put in effort if I want to translate my ambition into results, which does sound like an insanely elitist thing to say out loud. Over the last 2-3 years, I've not needed to take accountability for my actions as such, I never really was competing at my "best" due to many factors, so it was easy to pin the blame on something else whenever I wasnt doing well. My performance in MWP was a brutal reminder that I cannot expect to get by just winging it per se, I made mistakes constantly due to a mixture of overprediction + lack of game awareness + lack of practice with my team. This was a rut that I fell into around September of last year, and I just couldnt seem to get out of it. I wasn't used to giving such dedicated attention to one tour alone because I was used to juggling multiple at once.
Going into the tour, I wanted to mainly be comfortable with all the teams I loaded - knowing my gameplan, threats, mu specific threats and the like. If I fetched a bad mu, so be it, I was not going to let overthinking get the better of me. I laddered a lot, and luckily had a good peer group on mudbrays who were also competing in playoffs, so the environment fostered me to do well. This mindset of wanting do my best without worrying about the result really helped me play some games that I am content with, and I suppose that it ended up working out in the end.
Do you have any advice for some players who are newer and trying to get more involved with the community / better at the game? What about someone who wants to get drafted for MPL / MWP / MFPL?
I'll divide my answer into multiple parts.
Firstly, introspect. Both your wins and losses, even in the smallest of tours. Learn to love the feeling of doing your best in-game and in prep, and to be able to say that "I did what I could", rather than marrying the result. Building a good mentality will allow you to improve rapidly.
Try to broaden your perspective. I think one pitfall that many people in mono particularly fall into is how linear their approach is to prep and play. Dont need to default to fishing immediately. Get inspired by players like Scarfire, Azick, Decem, Trichotomy etc. who are happy to recycle endlessly from the same set of solid types because they back themself to get the job done ingame. There are a lot more tangibles that I think one only acquires by playing in different tiers and environments, so I strongly recommend it to everyone.
If you cant build well, thats ok! Learning to copy well is an underappreciated skill; to use someone else's team properly still requires you to properly understand how the team works. There's still a ton of room for self expression, be it the tweaks you make, or how you actually end up using the team itself. By doing this repeatedly you will end up finding your own style as well.
Lastly, and most importantly, learn to use the timer. If you take away one thing away from this entire discussion, let it be this. The first step to doing well more often is try and cut down the mistakes that YOU can prevent today. Many of the '50-50s' that come about ingame arent really 50-50's, and there's a safe middleground option hiding in plain sight. You most likely know what to do and its just that you are not able to replicate it ingame - giving yourself time will help you be more mindful of your decisions.
Is there a team you wouldn't mind sharing with us that you really enjoy using and showcases your style of play?
https://pokepast.es/de8d3f23aaf6ae07
I dont recall whose team this is, but the freedom that it gives you in prep and ingame is something that I really enjoy. Going back to the point of self expression, there's a lot of things that you can tweak based on the matchups you expect to face. I'll try to highlight all the things I've considered at different points of time:
The progress makers:
Gallade - Other than SD and CC, the rest is upto you. Knock and Sneak allows you to usually 1-2 combo anything that resists +2 CC, but you can usually get away without one of them/ Ice punch helps you solo ground, especially if you use np 3atk celebi (recover-less celebi means that you get chipped down pretty quickly and need to be more careful about getting it in). Leaf blade helps you own water, and slowbro in psychic mirrors. Sneak helps soften offense mus, having priority on any team is good after all. Rock slide / stone edge helps you have an autowin into fire, because people usually expect their yard/volcarona to be able to 1v1 you.
Victini - I think band is best on this structure, and that V-create / Bolt strike / U-turn are indispensable. Flame charge > Trick allows you to solo bug, given that bug's usual followup to victini is abusing the stat drops from vcreate. Being able to turn a bad mu in your favour is really nice.
Celebi - NP 3 atks can really help you solo steel (without too much pressure on slowbro/victini/gallade). If you can afford to fit gleam, you can flip the mu vs hydreigon particularly, which is otherwise a great check and a giant threat to the team (its pretty nice vs dragon too, usually NP 3 atk is useless in this mu because all your moves are resisted). CM recover 2 attacks helps you win water mu very comfortably, and by virtue of recover it is useful in longer mus like vs normal. Colbur in particular is nice for gyara, bisharp, and opposing mgallade. You can devote yourself to a full support role and offload rocks duty from rachi, but I find that to be a waste more often than not.
The facilitators:
Jirachi - Itemwise, you can run occa to para the yard on fly. You can run colbur to help earlygame vs dark ( can even run colbur drain punch to fuck up bisharp on dark/steel). You can run hwish as the utility move if you prefer latios over latias, or simply for double hwish. The only mandatory slot here is stealth rock, everything else is as per your preference.
Slowbro - Itemwise colbur makes the most sense because you dont have a knock switchin otherwise (by virtue of the type itself). Helmet allows you to punish uturns more, something that can facilitate a SD gallade sweep later. Moves wise, I feel that Scald / Twave / Slack off give you best odds going into every game. Grass knot is nice for toad and water, ice beam is nice for dragon, flame is really nice for ferro and steel. You can sometimes be cheeky and run 3 attacks, but I find myself wanting to click twave in almost every mu.
Lati@s - Hwish and defog are life saviours, hwish in particular allows you to freely use your big3 without worrying too much about preserving them for lategame. Scarf draco is your primary wincon vs dragon. You can swap this with specs latios based on your preference, clicking strong coverage buttons like Energyball / Tbolt / Shadowball / Psychic etc reduces the workload of your other offensive guys. Personally that extra wiggle room because of speed control and hwish is something that allows me to be more comfortable making moves ingame.
If you were stuck on an island and there was 1 monotype community member stuck with you, who would you want it to be and why? what about who would you not want it to be?
I would probably pick plunder. Both being from Asian descent, we'd be happy eating the same shit (Spice is king). I feel that our wavelengths match and so there should never be a dull moment with him. DugZa is a close runner-up, all of the above apply to him as well but we are both divas so it might be hit or miss sometimes. Honorable mentions are Leafium Z, Scarfire and Trichotomy.
Tough to say who I would not want to be with. Maybe Vodoom because he will probably pick a fight with a bear or some shit and get in trouble.
Thank you so much for your time and your diligent answers, I’m sure everybody will appreciate reading and learning a bit more about you. Is there anybody you would like to give a shoutout to?
Im genuinely happy to be playing mono. You get to use cool pokemon in a serious setting, and you have great competition who push you to improve. Hoping to stick around and compete in the future as well
inspired by this and this
First of all thanks for taking the time to do this, I'm sure the community will be interested in hearing from a regular manager in our tournaments, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself?
irl im a 23 year old from India, just wrapping up my final year of uni. For the longest time, I never really got the chance to indulge in other games other than Pokemon, given my limited free time (indian exams moment). When I finally did get the oppurtunity to play other games, many of the times I found myself saying that I'd much rather be playing mons lol. Being completely useless in the hand-eye coordination department meant that FPS games were out of the picture. Tried a couple of RPGs / story mode games but my attention span wasnt necessarily cooperating, so most of them are left unfinished (I really enjoyed TOTK though). I also still occasionally play mkwii, which somehow has a very active online setup (hmu!!). I love listening to music, mostly stuff like OSTs / instrumentals / jazz though I have my phases with all sorts of stuff. Havent watched anything recently because I have a bad habit of not being able to put something down once I start it, so I'm waiting for a stretch of time when I can binge again
How did you get introduced / involved with the Monotype community?
Other than casually laddering, my first experience with competing seriously (in any tier for that matter) was gen7mono in PSPL 2018. I was getting fed some good teams and was also winning somehow, which made me believe that I was good at it. I then played mono in toursroom BLT 2018, where I went 3-0 beating peachyclouds (DAHLI) and kythr, which made me feel like the main character even more. Had to take a break for a bit because of exams; my first real experience with the community was playing with chait and floss for the Kindred Kingdras in 2019/2020? It was a fun tour where I met some very cool people (like DugZa unfortunately). Back then getting into the "main tours" like mpl felt very difficult and out of reach, many live auctions were spectated in hopes of a surprise nomination, to no avail sadly (I remember seeing the "time for team art" chras nomination live, was v funny). My first proper introduction to a mono teamtour was when I got picked up by Dugza for MWP in late 2021 to play for the Po-Town Pandas, and I did well for the few games I was slotted in. The overall experience with Floss/DugZa/Jojo8868 made it very enjoyable and I found myself wanting to actually play in more mono tours, and I suppose the rest is history.
Do you have a favorite moment or memory that sticks out from your time on Smogon / PS?
I'm grateful to have made many many cherishable memories. The first time we (India) made playoffs in worldcup is a feeling I'll always remember. Winning PUPL with the Mags this year is also up there, particularly because of the effort and backstory that went into it. If we are talking about mono specifically, I dont think anything can come close to my experience on the Wakes. The discord was always a blast to tap into, the team was doing well and the people I met there turned out to be lifelong friends. That tour really set the standard when it comes to team environments, I dont think I've tasted that high again very often.
How did you go about preparing for the circuit playoffs?
I've realised off late that I need to put in effort if I want to translate my ambition into results, which does sound like an insanely elitist thing to say out loud. Over the last 2-3 years, I've not needed to take accountability for my actions as such, I never really was competing at my "best" due to many factors, so it was easy to pin the blame on something else whenever I wasnt doing well. My performance in MWP was a brutal reminder that I cannot expect to get by just winging it per se, I made mistakes constantly due to a mixture of overprediction + lack of game awareness + lack of practice with my team. This was a rut that I fell into around September of last year, and I just couldnt seem to get out of it. I wasn't used to giving such dedicated attention to one tour alone because I was used to juggling multiple at once.
Going into the tour, I wanted to mainly be comfortable with all the teams I loaded - knowing my gameplan, threats, mu specific threats and the like. If I fetched a bad mu, so be it, I was not going to let overthinking get the better of me. I laddered a lot, and luckily had a good peer group on mudbrays who were also competing in playoffs, so the environment fostered me to do well. This mindset of wanting do my best without worrying about the result really helped me play some games that I am content with, and I suppose that it ended up working out in the end.
Do you have any advice for some players who are newer and trying to get more involved with the community / better at the game? What about someone who wants to get drafted for MPL / MWP / MFPL?
I'll divide my answer into multiple parts.
Firstly, introspect. Both your wins and losses, even in the smallest of tours. Learn to love the feeling of doing your best in-game and in prep, and to be able to say that "I did what I could", rather than marrying the result. Building a good mentality will allow you to improve rapidly.
Try to broaden your perspective. I think one pitfall that many people in mono particularly fall into is how linear their approach is to prep and play. Dont need to default to fishing immediately. Get inspired by players like Scarfire, Azick, Decem, Trichotomy etc. who are happy to recycle endlessly from the same set of solid types because they back themself to get the job done ingame. There are a lot more tangibles that I think one only acquires by playing in different tiers and environments, so I strongly recommend it to everyone.
If you cant build well, thats ok! Learning to copy well is an underappreciated skill; to use someone else's team properly still requires you to properly understand how the team works. There's still a ton of room for self expression, be it the tweaks you make, or how you actually end up using the team itself. By doing this repeatedly you will end up finding your own style as well.
Lastly, and most importantly, learn to use the timer. If you take away one thing away from this entire discussion, let it be this. The first step to doing well more often is try and cut down the mistakes that YOU can prevent today. Many of the '50-50s' that come about ingame arent really 50-50's, and there's a safe middleground option hiding in plain sight. You most likely know what to do and its just that you are not able to replicate it ingame - giving yourself time will help you be more mindful of your decisions.
Is there a team you wouldn't mind sharing with us that you really enjoy using and showcases your style of play?
https://pokepast.es/de8d3f23aaf6ae07
I dont recall whose team this is, but the freedom that it gives you in prep and ingame is something that I really enjoy. Going back to the point of self expression, there's a lot of things that you can tweak based on the matchups you expect to face. I'll try to highlight all the things I've considered at different points of time:
The progress makers:
Gallade - Other than SD and CC, the rest is upto you. Knock and Sneak allows you to usually 1-2 combo anything that resists +2 CC, but you can usually get away without one of them/ Ice punch helps you solo ground, especially if you use np 3atk celebi (recover-less celebi means that you get chipped down pretty quickly and need to be more careful about getting it in). Leaf blade helps you own water, and slowbro in psychic mirrors. Sneak helps soften offense mus, having priority on any team is good after all. Rock slide / stone edge helps you have an autowin into fire, because people usually expect their yard/volcarona to be able to 1v1 you.
Victini - I think band is best on this structure, and that V-create / Bolt strike / U-turn are indispensable. Flame charge > Trick allows you to solo bug, given that bug's usual followup to victini is abusing the stat drops from vcreate. Being able to turn a bad mu in your favour is really nice.
Celebi - NP 3 atks can really help you solo steel (without too much pressure on slowbro/victini/gallade). If you can afford to fit gleam, you can flip the mu vs hydreigon particularly, which is otherwise a great check and a giant threat to the team (its pretty nice vs dragon too, usually NP 3 atk is useless in this mu because all your moves are resisted). CM recover 2 attacks helps you win water mu very comfortably, and by virtue of recover it is useful in longer mus like vs normal. Colbur in particular is nice for gyara, bisharp, and opposing mgallade. You can devote yourself to a full support role and offload rocks duty from rachi, but I find that to be a waste more often than not.
The facilitators:
Jirachi - Itemwise, you can run occa to para the yard on fly. You can run colbur to help earlygame vs dark ( can even run colbur drain punch to fuck up bisharp on dark/steel). You can run hwish as the utility move if you prefer latios over latias, or simply for double hwish. The only mandatory slot here is stealth rock, everything else is as per your preference.
Slowbro - Itemwise colbur makes the most sense because you dont have a knock switchin otherwise (by virtue of the type itself). Helmet allows you to punish uturns more, something that can facilitate a SD gallade sweep later. Moves wise, I feel that Scald / Twave / Slack off give you best odds going into every game. Grass knot is nice for toad and water, ice beam is nice for dragon, flame is really nice for ferro and steel. You can sometimes be cheeky and run 3 attacks, but I find myself wanting to click twave in almost every mu.
Lati@s - Hwish and defog are life saviours, hwish in particular allows you to freely use your big3 without worrying too much about preserving them for lategame. Scarf draco is your primary wincon vs dragon. You can swap this with specs latios based on your preference, clicking strong coverage buttons like Energyball / Tbolt / Shadowball / Psychic etc reduces the workload of your other offensive guys. Personally that extra wiggle room because of speed control and hwish is something that allows me to be more comfortable making moves ingame.
If you were stuck on an island and there was 1 monotype community member stuck with you, who would you want it to be and why? what about who would you not want it to be?
I would probably pick plunder. Both being from Asian descent, we'd be happy eating the same shit (Spice is king). I feel that our wavelengths match and so there should never be a dull moment with him. DugZa is a close runner-up, all of the above apply to him as well but we are both divas so it might be hit or miss sometimes. Honorable mentions are Leafium Z, Scarfire and Trichotomy.
Tough to say who I would not want to be with. Maybe Vodoom because he will probably pick a fight with a bear or some shit and get in trouble.
Thank you so much for your time and your diligent answers, I’m sure everybody will appreciate reading and learning a bit more about you. Is there anybody you would like to give a shoutout to?
Im genuinely happy to be playing mono. You get to use cool pokemon in a serious setting, and you have great competition who push you to improve. Hoping to stick around and compete in the future as well
~~~
This thread will remain open in case anyone would like to ask Spitfire any further questions. If you have an idea for who you would like to be interviewed next, please don't hesitate to let me know!
This thread will remain open in case anyone would like to ask Spitfire any further questions. If you have an idea for who you would like to be interviewed next, please don't hesitate to let me know!
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