Interview with reyscarface

Interview and flavor by s_aman. Art by Andrew and Ivysaur.

I finally can see Smogon's Battle Tower, where I have to go for my assignment. The receptionist tells me to wait for "some" time when I tell her that I have come to interview the Tower Tycoon, rather than challenging him. After waiting for 3 hours, I get to see my interviewee. Finally, It will start. :]

Hi, Rey! Thanks for your time. First of all, how did you get into the tournament scene?

Uhh... Back in 2009 I started being active in Smogon playing on the Shoddy ladder and whatnot. As I wanted to get better, I signed up for the tutor program and my tutor at the time, Stathakis, told me if I wanted to improve and make a name for myself, I had to join tournaments, so I did.

Oh yeah, everyone wants fame. So, how has been your experience playing so many tournaments?

Pokemon is a really shitty competitive game due to the luck nature of it, but wrecking people is too fun to quit; also sexy ass pixels for official tournaments are like meth. And unofficial tournaments nowadays are a joke. No one joins them. Back in the day, you could see people posting predictions for unofficial tournaments and congratulating the winners. Now, no one bats an eye at them. It's a big problem; hopefully mien's tennis-like point system for tourney players will give them some value.

I eye him suspiciously, because it seems to be a conspiracy to remove average players like me from the tournaments scene.

Speaking of which, you seemed to be very interested in the project.

I like stats; that's why I compiled all the frontier brain stats. They show a unique perspective at player performance that, for some reason, people didn't care about back in the day in Smogon. Now, it's good seeing projects like mien's one, and other people like Ciele and Eo compiling usage stats for tourney games. The higher the level stats we have, the better.

Stats are a personal interest for me too. As such, I make a mental note to take a look at them.

That really sounds interesting, and let's hope that it improves the tournament scene. So, getting onto the main topic, why was there so much drama before the commencement of Smogon Frontier?

A challenger comes and challenges Rey to a battle. After thrashing him, he puts a tag saying 'closed' on the door and returns saying something like "random scrubs".

Sorry for that. So, returning to the topic, a couple TDs felt that Frontier shouldn't be an official tournament due to what they considered some flaws with it. They showed concerns regarding brain fatigue and counterteaming. In the end, after a lot of arguing, we managed to keep Frontier for this year with a few changes in format, and more changes might happen for the next iteration of frontier.

Yeah. I saw a lot of differences in the last year's and this year's opening threads. Mind elaborating on them a little?

Uhh... Well last year the format was 13 brains, you get to skip a brain, the 13 brains all play the same generation. This year its 16 brains, there are ADV, DPP, BW, and XY brains, and the challengers only get to skip a XY brain. The number of rematches is unchanged.

Like I wanted to ask that. Everyone can see that in the opening thread.

Any reasons for making these changes?

The addition of more brains was in order to have more people to distribute the battles to, i alleviate the issue of "brain fatigue" by a little. The multigen format change was in order to make frontier more challenging, as it had been defeated 5 years in a row in the past. That, and many players saying they prefer the multigen format.

I see. You were the last year's winner. And this year you are hosting the Frontier. Liking the change?

Eh... Hosting frontier is more of a chore than anything, but I did have fun making the funny brain images. Winning it is the best, though. :D

Hmmm.... Being a brain, how do you cope with the typical brain problems, such as fatigue and scouting?

As for scouting, you just have to have as many good teams as possible, sometimes it's annoying that the opponents get the counterteam to the one of the many teams you decided to bring to the battle, but its okay.

I hear a little sound coming from outside. He acts like he hasn't heard anything.

And fatigue, in my opinion, is a myth. Brains are experienced enough to know when to stop and take a break, and between the brains, we tell each other when it might be a good idea to chill for a while, as we all are a group of friends.

OK, moving on, are there any people you think who might have a chance at winning this?

Not a single one. Except me because I'm a god.

I literally make a face at this answer. Meanwhile, the outside noise gets louder, which makes me uncomfortable and I want to get out of here right away.

Closing it, anything you want to say to the common folk out there?

Best of luck, you'll need it.

Thanks for your time, Reyscarface. It was fun interviewing you.

I love you.

Saying this, he runs away and is flocked by a herd of challengers. Meanwhile, I silently sneak past them.