[AMA] TheMantyke

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This Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread is a resource provided to you by the Smogon Mentorship Program. In it, feel free to ask this mentor about anything you'd like. They're most prepared to answer Smogon-related questions, but don't be afraid to ask them about their personality and life outside of this site. Have some patience when you post a question in this thread; it will likely take the mentor a few days to reply. If you're looking for our up-to-date list of mentors, check out our Mentor Profiles onsite. Read through their relevant information below, and enjoy!


Username: TheMantyke

Areas of Expertise: Wi-Fi, Orange Islands, VGC

Background: Excuse me, I wrote a novel here. I've been here for too long.

I joined Smogon at the young age of 14 back in 2007 (actually registering my first email address for the sake of joining Smogon). I've been involved in just about every facet of this site at one point or another. Smogon was my first internet forum and it showed. I was an awful user initially. From June 2007 to July 2007, I hung out primarily in today's equivalent OU forum before settling down in my now home forum Wi-Fi. I stuck around there up until January of '08 at which point I tried my hand at spriting and started bullying a then 12 year old RODAN alongside Tennisace. With the release of Super Smash Brothers Brawl I started to hang around Internet Rennesaunce all the way until Platinum's release. Though I should mention that I had a brief stint with little cup in July of '08 and worked with future head honchos eric the espeon and vader among others like Deck Knight and SDS on making unofficial LC analysis. When Platinum rolled around, I headed back to Wi-Fi and opened shop as a distinctly less terrible user. This lasted up until May of 2009 where I started lurking smogon really, really heavily and barely posted anywhere.

When Black and White came out, I finally learned how to RNG manipulated and cemented myself in the Wi-Fi community for good. This lead to me getting involved with the legality checking website Pokecheck which I both moderate and have 430+ free RNGs uploaded for public download. I went to my first VGC regional in 2011 at Atlanta and by the most obscene miracle in all of Pokemon, I made it into the top cut and was hooked on VGC. Come 2012, I headed to Athens for the next regional and got third place and $300 despite losing to my own Pokemon. That summer, I became a part of Smogon's facebook team to report VGC related news. In Fall of 2012 I became a moderator of the Wi-Fi and VGC sections (and suggestion box!), but took a leave from December to April. In May 2013, I regained my status as a Wi-Fi moderator and got heavily involved with Orange Islands and their Google+ hangouts where I met good friends DHR, Jimera0, and Kadew. I currently commentate on Jimera0's stream every Friday and sometimes host my own stream afterwords where I corrupt older Pokemon games to horrific results. As of earlier this month, I now moderate OI.

Hobbies: Other video games are fun. You can find me on Steam as Magikarpe Diem and on Miiverse as TheMantyke. I enjoy spectating football both collegiate level (THWg) and NFL. Other than that, I'm so consumed by working towards my Biomedical Engineering undergrad degree I don't do too much.

Favorite Pokemon: Elekid actually! When I was young, I owned an elekid plush that I loved to death. Mantyke ranks second, followed by Cloyster, Chikorita, and Jynx.

Good Questions to Ask Me: Try batting most anything at me, I'll see what I can handle. Do note though that I'll only be able to go into detail on things that pertain to Wi-Fi, VGC, or OI. Personal questions are A-OK too.
 

perplexingpool

Banned deucer.
Why is your username so bad?

Does RODAN act any differently now than when he was 12?

More seriously, can you give me some advice regarding breeding? I know the mechanics, but I'm very inefficient at it.
 
Why is your username so bad?
I wanted some sort of funny user name when I joined smogon, or at least a name 14 year old me thought was funny. I narrowed down my choices to "Shnozmaster" and "The Man... (tyke)", the second name eventually was chosen and later abbreviated to today's name.
Does RODAN act any differently now than when he was 12?
RODAN use to spam the then stickied sprite thread in smeargles studio like lightning posting sloppy jpeg sprite after sloppy jpeg sprite. He had no sense of when you needed to post and when you shouldn't. Today, RODAN's got a good enough comprehension of how to post to the point of being one of firebot's best posters. He's pretty much the exact inverse of his old self.
More seriously, can you give me some advice regarding breeding? I know the mechanics, but I'm very inefficient at it.
Efficiency? Like you understand how to and have gotten flawless Pokemon but you feel as if it takes so long? If that's the case, I would recommend and trading around for good parents so you don't have to endure that 1/24 chance of getting your final product every time. Having a male parent bred by someone else will keep the likelyhood of finding an egg reasonably high, unlike using your own flawless male which could make the process very long if the female isn't the same species as the male.
 
OK, I've started my hand with competitive battling in this new gen and I feel completely lost. My main question is how does one make a balanced team? Does every pokemon need to be in the same tier? How many sweepers and tanks do I need? I've seen shofu's video but it didn't help as much as I would of hoped.
 

Agonist

how can I feel existential dread, it's my fear
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I narrowed down my choices to "Shnozmaster"
Thank god you chose TheMantyke, I would have never been able to take you seriously if I saw you posting under that Shnozmaster. :p
 
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OK, I've started my hand with competitive battling in this new gen and I feel completely lost. My main question is how does one make a balanced team? Does every pokemon need to be in the same tier? How many sweepers and tanks do I need? I've seen shofu's video but it didn't help as much as I would of hoped.
Hey there. I can't say I too much OU so my advice might not be the absolute best, but I went through all the frustrations a lot of newer players have with team building and I think I can help you get started on the right foot.

If you're looking to start team building, I'd recommend to start thinking about Pokemon in other aspects they contribute to a team:

Defensive Synergy: Defensive synery is how well Pokemon can take hits for well another. Pokemon with good defensive synergy have weaknesses that can generate switch in opportunities for their partners off of their resistances / immunities. Probably the best example I can think of is with Aegislash and Hydreigon. All of Hydreigon's weaknesses Aegislash can switch into with a resistance or immunity and each of Aegislash's weaknesses allows Hydreigon to switch in off an immunity. Not all of your pokemon have to work as nicely off of one another though. Fire, Water, and Grass types play off each other's weaknesses very nicely, despite there being a few holes between them. In fact, a lot of OU's top Pokemon like Rotom-W, Heatran, Tyranitar, and Genesect are so high because they're able to switch in on so much and have weaknesses that are very easy for team mates to cover.

Offensive Presence: Everything on your team needs to pose some sort of threat to your opponent. If one of your members don't, you give you opponent free turns and free turns lead to nasty things like sweepers setting up. Make sure everything on your team can threaten your opponent in some way or another.

Your Win Condition: Once you get a look at your opponent's team through team preview, start thinking of a few ways your could win the game. For example, if you have a Mega Lucario, you could make setting that up and sweeping one your win conditions (but keep several ways to win in mind, in case you can't find the opportunity to do this). Once you see your opponent's team, you could notice that he doesn't have anything to stop your Lucario once its set up except for his Choice Scarf Genesect. Once you've crippled, weakened, or outright KOed that Genesect, you can set up with lucario and sweep for the win!

As for roles you need on your team, I'm a little rusty here having not played OU seriously in some time, but I'd say you need some sort of Stealth Rock enducer just because it's so useful in a 6v6 environment where switching is so important. You should also have some sort of revenge killer on hand, as this allows you to minimize the damage taken by your team once shit hits the fan. Revenge killers are primarily scarfed Pokemon with decent offenses like Genesect or Pokemon with powerful, choice boosted priority like Talonflame or Scizor.

All in all though, I think the most important thing is practice. Definitely hit up Pokemon Showdown for battling practice initially as it allows you to take in feedback on your decisions and team much faster than on a cartridge. For your first team, I'd actually recommend using a team somebody has already made that has had mild success. It's important to learn how others have done well before you yourself can do well. Once you comprehend how others have done well, then you have leeway to use more inventive and strange things as you understand the usefulness and roles they contribute to your team.
 
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at what age did you learn to both pee and poop at the same time
how am I suppose to know that shit
also will we ever meet at vgc again :(
If you're going to Athens in the spring, I should be there considering I don't have 1000 layers of rust and exams this time around! I'm also going to Florida this weekend, but I'd guess you'd be done for regs after MO this weekend.
 
How do I masuda method breed
It's very simple, just pair two Pokemon of different languages together. This increases the rate of encountering shiny Pokemon substantially, though be warned that the chance will still be extremely low and you'll still need iron patience to breed a shiny Pokemon using it.
 
Is latias still a viable option this Gen?

Yes or no it's still going in my team though lolol
I don't play OU very much, but from what I understand, it still has a lot to work with and is a solid Pokemon. An Awesome set of resistances and immunities, great bulk, and good offensive presence make it a wonderful Defog user.
 
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