Announcement (april fools lol) Goodbye RBY

[Amaranth]

I am quitting RBY and all positions of leadership within the community (Forum mod, Discord admin, Council member, C&C Leader). There are many reasons for this; this post will explain some of them + share one last thing that I think could help people improve before I go.

Personal Reflections

I started playing competitive pokemon in 2009. I was naturally horrible at it initially, and the internet (especially the internet from over a decade ago) did not mince words. When you are 9 years old (and especially when you are a sensitive 9 year old), these things stick with you. I had a chip on my shoulder ever since; I wanted to show the mean users I was not so bad.
For 7ish years this didn't really go anywhere; I took that drive off to other competitive games, where I got solid results - this kind of grind satisfied me and throughout high school I had all the time in the world for it, it just didn't line up with Pokemon for a while, which I treated as a more casual thing.

Then, when in 2017 I was approached by Troller for RBY practice, I said, you know what, why not. And then we did it again the next day, and the next, and the next, and before too long we were both in SPL.
Me and Troller shared one thing in common: we really fucking hated losing. I won't speak for his reasons, but for me, it was this. The internet people had hurt me nearly 10 years earlier, and I wanted to show them they were full of shit. This, by the way, is an attitude that only gets you more enemies, because I was still bad at the game for a long time, but I constantly looked for validation about my ability. When people didn't give me that validation (and fair enough - I was shit) the chip on my shoulder grew larger and larger. The internet people were still my enemy, even though just about everybody I interacted with in those 2009 message boards was long gone from the community.

By 2018, I was thoroughly unpleasant, but also thoroughly driven. I believe this is why I started SPL9 while Troller only benched, fundamentally. He had better results than me already, better just about everything, but my god I was desperate to prove myself, and that attitude impressed one manager duo during tryouts. That's how I got my first big break.
(Also, Troller still should have started, I shouted so at the time and I believe history has proven me right since. But that's just a side note.)
Well, long story short, I did it. 5-5 SPL9 and a trophy to boot, 5-5 SPL10, then getting my best results in winning Invitational '19, 7-4 SPL11, even 7-2 CPL IV (s/o Team 2015), winning Global Championship 2020, and being picked to manage SPL12.

It takes a while to undo years and years of being conditioned to feel like the underdog and the one people root against, but it worked eventually. I was fine. I had proven myself. And I think psychologically, even though I had proven myself in other games and even other areas of life altogether, I needed to do it with Pokemon specifically to free myself of that emotional baggage. The Mean People On Pokemon Forums had finally (mostly) shut the fuck up.
Now this is a great thing, but losing that vitriol changed my approach to the game. That "win-at-all-costs" attitude was all but gone. I didn't enjoy losing, mind you, and I still enjoyed the intricacies of the tier. But I had a horrible 2021 in terms of luck - losing semis of Global Championship with no breaks at all, dropping out of Invitational with no breaks at all, I already wasn't loving life. SPL13 is when something permanently changed.

I entered it thinking I could 9-0. If we rewind time and go back to post-draft, there's a significant number of timelines where I 9-0. I genuinely believe this. But that's not what happened; I got lucked Week 2, played on too little hours of sleep Week 3, got lucked again Week 4, and then I was staring down a 1-3 record. Usually, and for my entire Pokemon career, there was only one acceptable reaction to 1-3, and it was tripling down on the grind to make fucking certain I don't lose the next sets. But I was fine now. I had nothing much to prove. I'd go down in history as a competent player no matter what happened here. I could try to take care of myself a little and not let my record control my life, so I did for the first time in forever.
Surprise surprise, 2-7. More bad luck happened on the way, so it's probably for the best I decided not to give a shit, otherwise I would have lost it completely. But yeah, it's fine. I feel fine. I'm not mad about the 2-7 and it's precisely what tells me that I need to quit. I've mellowed out, I don't want to punch people in the guts when they bold my opponent in their prediction posts anymore, I don't have the drive to log on and practice until I memorize how to play each match up with each team I bring. Any time I start a bo3 in tours like seasonal I'm hoping to liquidate g1 so I can lay back and load nonsense g2. I still like the game, I take pleasure in seeing it played optimally, I just have very little drive to be the person doing it.
I'm finished as a top level RBYer. I'd have the ability to keep going, but I ran out of shits to give. And I'd rather stop here than continue showing up and half-assing performances, even though I'm sure many of them could still be alright.
It's possible I will make a comeback. I do enjoy competitive games in general, I might fall in love again in the future. But for now I'd just rather do something else.

What Next

For RBY, I think the scene needs to invest into more frequent short tournaments. The wave of talent that grew out of those 2017ish Master Tours on PP was stunning and hasn't really been matched since. Quick tournaments are great; the ability to just show up and play low commitment for a month or so is just wonderful to allow high level players to play without feeling like they have to go all out, and they're also great for newbies trying to jump into tournaments who frequently have to wait multiple months if they join at the wrong time (after RBY Cup starts, there are no signups for any individual until Winter Seasonal which I'm pretty sure is around 5-6 months or close to that).
I was working with RoA around these ideas to get them implemented next year but alas I ran out of passion for the game before they became a reality. Whoever follows in my footsteps should push in this direction for the good of the tier, imo.
Other than that I think we're in a brilliant spot. C&C is fine and likely won't need a ton of effort to be kept up to date for a while, the Discord is nice, record SPL prices & performances, etc etc. A lot of great work was done by many people to get here, I think touch up the tournaments a bit and we're set.

For myself, mind your own business lol. or dm me if you really care about me. either works

A Guide on 'Concepts'

This is something I want to share before leaving because I think it's an extremely powerful way to think about games, and it works especially well for RBY. I picked this up from high ranking League of Legends player Dopa; I'll be quoting snippets of his advice and reframing them in a Pokemon / RBY context while cutting most of the LoL-specific stuff.

If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but teaching him how to fish will keep him fed for life, you know? I’ve showed you some fish, and now I’ll show you how to fish.

Every player has their own way of playing League. No one ‘just’ plays the game. Each player views the game in a different way. Their understanding of the game then builds into their world view, which dictates how they play the game, or what they do as they play. The way I look at the game of League of Legends is very unique. I have built a world of my own. Viewers frequently ask me how to get better at League, and I always answer in the same way. I tell them to play whatever champions they want to play, and just have fun. I do that because in order actually help them play better, I would have to make them understand my viewpoint. I would have to show them the world that I have built. I thought that would take too long, as there is too much to explain, and I’m not even sure that others would understand the way I view the game. But as it's my last season of League before military service, I thought now would be a good time to at least try to make you guys understand my world of League.

To understand the way I view the game, you need to understand what a ‘concept’ is. So what are concepts? They are the fundamentals of the game. There are things in the game that give you huge advantages as long as you know about them. Those are concepts. If you know about them, you know them, and if you don’t, you don’t. Most people who play league of legends have little to no knowledge regarding concepts. If you want to a skilled League player, you have to know lots of concepts. That’s all there is to it. Let me give you a few examples.

This bit you can straight up translate to any game you want so I won't comment much on it, but it's important.

I personally don’t think I’m a very good TF player. The reason that I appear to be better than others is because I am aware of concepts that others don’t know about. You could call that skill, but anyone could do what I do as long as they knew the concepts. The reason no one can climb like me is because they don’t know.
[...]
The first basic concept you have to know when playing TF is that TF recall timings are decided in advance. Most people that play the champion aren’t aware of these recall timings. This concept is the probably the most important one regarding TF play. You hit level 5, use Q twice, and recall. Of course, you have to play according to the game situation. If you have to recall at 4, then you recall at level 4. But the important thing is that your gameplan revolves around recalling at level 5. Starting from level 1, your goal is to recall after using Q twice at level 5. You play around that goal, though that might not work out as intended.
[...]
That level 5 recall just created the perfect window of oppurtunity to use your ult. This is the first basic concept of playing TF. The difference between knowing this concept and not knowing it is huge. I’m not a great TF player, I just happen to know this important concept. I know this concept, so I always seem to have perfect situations for using my ultimate. It’s not something you can learn just from watching replays. You have to understand the underlying concept. Did you guys know about this? Of course you didn’t.
[...]
Are these concepts hard? No, they aren’t. Most of you could use them if you knew about them. However, you can’t utilize these concepts in-game because you don’t know about them. Most TF players don’t know about these thing, so it looks like my TF is better than other TFs. I always seem to be put in favorable situations, and my enemies always look bad. The thing is, I actually suck at TF.

You can pretty much rip out these basic concepts that he explains, apply them to my (re)discovery of Gar+Zap+Cuno / Gar+Mie+Zam structures in 2020 instead of playing TF, and it all flows extremely naturally. At a very fundamental level, RBY is about knowing 'concepts'. At my peak, I hardly ever have to improvise anything in an RBY game. I show up, I know what my team is meant to do, I execute it.
I'm not particularly good at mindgames, I'm not particularly good at calculating many turns ahead, I'm not particularly good at exact probabilities - these are all things where you don't really have a high ceiling for skill expression. Mindgames are basically guessing, exact probability calculation will win you maybe a handful more games over runs of many hundreds, and while there definitely can be skill expression in calculating ahead in complex situations, the advantage is functionally capped because no human can go particularly deep when the options each turn are so many for both players.
Where a top player truly gets advantages is concepts. Nails obliterating people with the same fucking team for like 4 years straight, Troller making Porygon look good, FOMG's VicDon streaks, my Gengar builds I mentioned above, these are all notable examples of somebody using very deep understanding of concepts that other people just aren't aware of to get a clear advantage in the metagame. Even Sing Chansey on T1 TWaves was a very well known example, albeit not specific to any individual player. This kind of stuff is how you win at RBY. You have to understand the game at a deep level, figure out some idea (or combination of ideas) that you can use to exploit the metagame / your next opponent, internalize those ideas, and execute them. Almost none of it is improvisation.
Some concepts apply across a vast majority of teams - understanding those will give you a great headstart on 'bad' players. I'm talking Chansey/Snorlax/Tauros dynamics, a safe plan for the sleep game, these sorts of things. But when you are at the top and pushing to be the best, you really have to dive deep and develop ideas that slot together into one complete plan.
RBY is linear enough that if you prepare sufficiently deep, NOTHING will surprise you. You will know how to best handle every single thing your opponent pulls off. You will know when a double switch in the middle of a long chain of positioning turns will give you the biggest advantage. You will also know if your opponent expects that to happen and whether you should delay or anticipate that double switch for the safest, most optimal reward. You can play all these things out in practice so much that you just know. When you build up this level of preparation, THAT is when you can call yourself a top player of RBY.

Now that I’ve explained what concepts are, it’s time to tell you how to learn these concepts. Theres no point in explaining concepts. The important thing is teaching you guys how to learn these concepts.

When you play the games, there are games when you get shit on. If you aren’t winning indefinitely, you’ll lose at some point. When you lose, that's when you look at the replay. What put the enemy mid laner in a superior position? What did they do differently, and what kind of situation did they create? Of course, it’s impossible to completely control every aspect of the game. You’re looking for what they did better than you. Not just what happened, but why it happened. You have to look for the cause, not the result. They might not even be aware of why they won, but you have to analyze the game and find out what made things happen. I personally prefer looking at stomps, because they help you find out what breaks game open.

Back in the day, I was famous for my Kassadin. Did I develop the build? No, I didn’t. I was crushed by a famous Kassadin player, and I stole his build. And then I perfected it. There was a period when I didn’t play much TF because I didn’t think it was a very good champion. Then I found this TF one-trick on the chinese super server, and learned how to play unsealed spellbook TF by watching his replays. I never created the concepts myself, but stole them from other players. I was always better than the original players because I kept on thinking about the reasons, the causes instead of just playing.

There are people who were similar in skill to me in previous seasons who are now washed up and struggle to get out of diamond. The difference between me and them isn’t in mechanics. If I don’t update my concepts, I’m just another diamond player. If those players were to learn all of the concepts that I know, then they would be around the same level as me. I myself would just be another diamond player if I didn’t absorb new concepts all the time. I kept updating my database of concepts, and that's what kept me at the top.

And there's the crux of the issue. Analyze why games are won / lost / broken open. Notice a trend between the teams I mentioned above (Nails JynxMieJolt monoicelax // FOMG VicDon // Troller Porygon // my Gar+Cuno+Zap)? When they work as intended, they are all extremely uninteractive. You pretty much don't leave your opponent with any chance to evade your gameplan. Your wincon is genuinely unstoppable. The games are over far before they actually end. You don't have to be "skillful" in any way, you just have to execute the detailed plan you already have.
The Nails team WILL freeze you. The FOMG Vic team WILL wrap you down. The Troller Porygon team WILL endlessly wall your Lax. My GarCunoZap WILL get sleep first and steamroll you with offense. Obviously as these teams became more notable (well, not the Porygon, but the others) counterplay sprung up and people adapted their own understanding of these concepts to stop them from being so good. Nothing stays good forever.
But great players come up with new concepts very often, they watch and pick up on concepts that other players are using and try to refine them. Troller basically comes up with new concepts every week during SPL. This is what truly makes a top player what they are. This, I believe, is what "skill" actually consists of when it comes to RBY.

(If you're interested, you can find the full transcript of the original guide by Dopa here - it should be fascinating to any League player if nothing else.)
And why not - let's end this with a couple more things from Dopa that I think are relevant to RBY / to this post

When I was younger, I wasn’t perfectly aware of how high my level was. That applies to other players as well. Younger players sometimes aren’t aware of their value, so they constantly get paid less than they’re worth. Older players are paid more because of their reputation, but that doesn’t always mean that they’re better. I’m getting worse with time, but my value always seems to rising. If you are a young player, make sure that you are getting paid enough for your worth.

obviously nobody is really making money here but point stands, a lot of newer players underrate themselves / overrate perceived spl caliber players

See? Doesn’t this all sound like bullshit? This is why I don’t talk about my view of the game often. You guys might be having fun listening to me talk, but there will inevitably be points where you disagree with me. Different people have different understandings, so your views can be radically different from mine. My theories are interesting, but in the end, they’re just my own thoughts.

If I were to go into the specifics of the Concepts that I have created, it would take at least 10 hours. I don’t plan on doing that.

If you guys think that some of the stuff that I said contradicts itself, it’s probably because most things are situational. Nothing is always true, or always wrong. And I didn’t plan this out in advance, so I might babble on at times.

Thank you to everyone who supported me, helped me get here, learned from me, shouted me out for helping them grow as players, etc. I will miss you

I will reach out to other auths over the next few days to get my permissions removed, badges grayed out, replacements promoted, etc. It's been a pleasure

(leaving thread open for discussion about some of the things in here that may well generate good discussion)

 

[Ctown6]

Best of luck in anything you do ama. Your contribution to the community is undeniable. Also thank you for believing in me when there wasn’t much reason to

 

[Amaranth]

it is officially april 2nd here so: lol april fools

i thought i'd make it convincing by saying things that are 95% sincere and heartfelt, nobody likes an april fools joke that is obviously not real so i tried to make it as real as possible

everything in the op is true (if a bit overdramatic), i don't imagine i will continue trying hard at this tier, but you're out of your damn mind if you think i will just drop everything here and now. i want to make sure everything is left in good hands and all the good things that have happened to the community in the last few years continue to happen. so yeah, not yet
-- speaking of, if you are qualified and interested in contributing to the tier, emma's quit is not a joke and my day will also come, so feel free to get in touch if you want to help out, it would be highly appreciated

i hope at least some of you fell for it and/or found it more enjoyable than the classic "we're unbanning mewtwo XD" AFD post. see you around