In which we discuss what it takes to win, what it means to win, and how your life changes after you win.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/41120/interview-with-a-pokemon-world-champion-toler-webb
Toler Webb is a competitive Pokémon World Champion, winning the Seniors Division in 2012. Though he did not finish as a world finalist in 2015, Toler beat Raphael Bagara of Canada to take the US Nationals earlier this year. We spoke to Webb about what it means to be a Pokémon champion at the this year's Pokémon World Championships in Boston, Massachusetts.
Nintendo World Report (NWR): How would you explain competitive Pokémon to a more casual fan of Pokémon? Someone who understands typing, but has never been to that elite level.
Toler Webb (TW): If I was talking to someone who didnât understand anything, I would describe this game like chess. I think Iâve gotten a lot of opportunities to do this kind of explanation but at the same time, itâs difficult to synthesize something thatâs really accurate as to what competitive PokĂ©mon actually is because itâs really unique as a competitive game. That's because you see a large amount of major decision-making turn by turn. So, essentially, Iâd say compared to the regular game, you have to do more in terms of understanding your opponentâs play, and understanding the progression of the game and understanding what will happen after you make certain moves.
And itâs really just like a more complex version of the battling you do in the regular game. I think one of the big things that many people that havenât played would notice would be the Double Battle format compared to singles [NOTE: Double Battles are the standard battling style for the 2015 PokĂ©mon World Championships]. I always prefer doubles, but it is more complex and there are more possibilities.
So really, in terms of overall difference between playing against a computer and playing against a person, I think the big thing is in that sentence â that youâre playing against a human being, and that you have to learn how to play against a human being, and you have to be increasingly more critical of what youâre doing to improve the overall consistency of your strategy.
NWR: So youâre familiar with the PokĂ©mon animeâŠ
TW: I know what it is, yes.
NWR: You ever watch it when you were younger?
TW: Ah, a little bit. I actually prefer Digimon.
NWR: I guess what Iâm wondering isâŠthe human-on-human interaction that competitive PokĂ©mon actually is. Does it make it feel like youâre playing PokĂ©mon in real life?
TW: Itâs actually the furthest thing from that you can imagine, because there are certain things that are just completely different when youâre playing on a game cartridge on a DS. And if youâre standing across from someone with your PokĂ©mon [in a real-life anime battle], one of the things you kind of think of is, well, thereâs no way you could switch out a PokĂ©mon and switch something in to take a hit if you were in a real life battle â thereâs no way that would happen. But in the game, thatâs streamlined so much that you can do that and you can take the hit and it takes the same hit the other PokĂ©mon would have taken [referring to moves like Baton Pass]. Itâs a lot less linear-looking than anime battling I guess, but it feels more like a mental competition and less [like the anime]. Here it feels like you and some kind of like, extension of your own thought.
NWR: So competitive PokĂ©mon is casual PokĂ©mon with the added level ofâŠ
TW: âŠmental complexity.
NWR: Like, regular Pokémon with the added gymnastics of chess.
TW: Yes.
NWR: Okay. I mean, just to make it clear, you are a video game player primarily?
TW: Right, yeah. The TCG has a whole different set of things that are more typical to trading card games because you have to function with card draws and things like that. I donât know a lot about the competitive trading card game.
NWR: Is there a lot of overlap between the two or are there pretty much two camps?
TW: Almost completely different. There are very few players that play both. Because certain people prefer trading card games, certain people prefer this video game kind of thing. There have been a few players like Angel Miranda who have played both but I donât think anyone in the Masters division, maybe one or two people, has qualified for the Worlds or something like that.
NWR: How do you get good at Pokémon?
TW: Iâm gonna say, like with everything else: practice, practice, practice. Try to talk to other people to get an understanding of their understanding of the game so that you can start forming your own. Especially if youâre just starting, itâs like learning about the right moves you should make. Itâs hard to do when youâre starting out. So itâs good to get ahold of people that are more experienced or people that can practice with you to analyze what youâre doing as well as you're analyzing what youâre doing so that you can determine more effectively what the best move would have been and in an actual competitive match, make that move.
NWR: How about you? Because you had to start down this route somewhere where you get to the point of practice, practice, practice. I mean, Iâm not much older than you, but youâre 17; youâre relatively young. When did it start for you? When did it get to the point where you started that, âpractice, practice, practice,â mentality and then how did that road continue to the point where you became a champion of the world in one of the largest video game franchises of all time?
TW: [Laughs] Short story here. I started out when I was 11 years old in 2009, so six years ago, and I lost to Fly Salamence and Explosion Metagross in a Junior Regional Championship in Philadelphia. So, I was very bad. I was disappointed in myself. And I came back to the Nationals Last Chance Qualifier and needed an invitation to participate in Nationals and lost, but played better that time, and played with the older players. I was in the Senior division which was the only older division at that time, there were two divisions. And after that, I found myself really wanting to do better because I felt like I couldâve done better.
I think knowing you can do better is one of the most important traits you, as a player, can keep improving. So in 2012, when someone said Regionals are three months away, I was like, âThree months? Thatâs not a long time away.â So I started practicing, and practicing, and practicing because I realized I really wanted to do well that year, and once I did, I actually got Top 4 at that regional championship, which gave me a stipend to go to Nationals â a little bit of money, and my mom said, âOkay, you can go.â So I was 14, I went to Nationals, and somehow I Top 4âd with pretty much the same team I ran at Virginia. So I practiced my heart out going into 2012 Worlds and somehowâŠI got it.
NWR: So what kind of work did that take for you? Specifically what kind of work behind the scenes to ensure youâre ready for that?
TW: Going into 2012 Worlds, I was trying to practice and think about the game, because this is a hard game to practice. That's because this is a hard game to practice when you donât have a strategy in place to practice on. You have to pick out what youâre doing before you do anything so I was either working with people and building a strategy or practicing forâŠI think at the time I said 6-8 hours a day â just because I had nothing to do, it was summer.
I was doing that â thatâs typically my routine going to a World Championship or a National Championship now. I think I kinda shirked that this year because I had other obligations for school that were in the summer months, but at least in 2013 and in the Nationals this year, I tried to return to that work ethic when I need it, especially for the serious competitions that are more meaningful.
Regional Championships are harder to prepare for as well as Premier Challenges because theyâre more sparsed out and oftentimes you have several close to each other or you just have a regular schedule that gets in the way. Typically I do that 6-8 hours of work a day or thinking a day at least because you have to do some kind of theory, build some kind of understanding of the game to get a feel for how you should progress forward in it.
NWR: 6-8 hours is the type of time you think of more traditional, physical athletes doing for their competition. And this is very much e-sports in its own way. Do you consider yourself an athlete?
TW: I actually do run, so I kind of hope to consider myself an athlete! I donât necessarily like to cross athlete with e-sports players, and I guess thatâs to the chagrin of many e-sports players that want to be called e-sports athletes. And I think it is very much an accurate term when you think about the work ethic being put in because itâs crazy how hard people work to get good at mental games that are all in your head. But I donât necessarily like referring to myself as an athlete because it doesnât necessarily correspond with the physical exercise and the capability that athletes typically have.
While I do believe that many people that play games competitively should be keeping themselves in shape because thatâs absolutely necessary to have a strong mind, at least in my mind, and have consistency in these tournaments where any emotional problem can lead to much larger problems, exercising and being in good shape can help you to be a lot stronger and more resilient. But I wouldnât necessarily call myself, at least, an athlete.
I think maybe League of Legends players or something along those lines could be called athletes because theyâre doing more consistent work more of the year, and theyâre on these teams and it feels more legitimate, you know? I guess with PokĂ©mon Iâve never taken myself that seriously I hope. Maybe I have. I donât know.
NWR: When did you cross into that next realm? And go from you being a casual, to a kind-of competitor, to a very strong competitor, to someone competing for and eventually obtaining the World Championship? When did things change for you and you realize, âOh wait, maybe itâs gotten to a level beyond what I could have anticipated?â Did you anticipate it early on?
TW: I didnât think I would ever get to where I was once I was there, and once I was, I was in deep water before I knew how to swim.
NWR: So you just sort-of fell in!
TW: Yeah, I sort-of fell in! I figured out how to swim when I got there. But yeah, the level of competition is insane. These players all come out here because they really want to play the game. As Iâve discussed, the prize pool is not tremendous. What youâre really building is a bunch of friendships and your own capabilities as someone committed to their mentality and their ability to play the game, and I think once I got to that point, I understood what it was like to be that competitive. I learned a lot about myself, and I discovered what I was going to do in that situation. I guess itâs hard to quantify.
NWR: What did you learn about yourself?
TW: Iâd say I learned that I was moreâŠflustered at heart than I ever realized that I was. I learned new ways to deal with what would become this kind of frustration but I discovered it because of Pokemon, and I learned to deal with it in a way. Because I think this game can become more frustrating than any game you play. You sit down, you get [hit with] Thunder Wave, Critical Hit, Ice Beam, Frozen 3 times, and just, you donât know what to do but you build a kind of resiliency and relaxation response to stress and I think I learned how to do that from this kind of thing. And I think I also learned a lot about logic but I donât think I could ever explain that.
NWR: Eventually, in 2012, you did become champion of the world. How did your life change after becoming the world champion?
TW: Not significantly. I think a lot more people knew that I was a world champion. But itâs kind of a fallacy to assume that, you know, once you did win a world championship that your life suddenly becomes different in any way. I was still Toler Webb. I still had the regular progression of who I was and who I might become in the future. It was my famous line: âIâm still Toler!â in a 2013 interview. But I guess slightly, because people knew and some people from my school knew that I had done so well and they were really impressed, and Iâm really grateful that anyoneâs impressed by it. But, for the most part, itâs the same. I still just kept playing PokĂ©mon because I wanted to.
NWR: What does it mean to be a champion?
TW: I think it means you achieved a goal you set out for yourself. I think a lot of people in video games, they talk about this idea of reaching goals just because you want to reach the goal. I think if you play a lot of role-playing games or something like that â if you beat the hardest mode, doesnât really mean anything outside of the game. But it means something to you, and in a way, this was my âLunatic Modeâ for PokĂ©mon. I achieved something I never thought I could achieve, and when I finished, it was tremendously meaningful to me. Thatâs what it meant; at least as a champion, I could look back and say, âI did this,â I worked this hard, and it meant this much to me.
NWR: Then, interpret this however you want: What was the best day of your life?
TW: Not sure if it was Pokémon-related! [Laughs]
NWR: Really!
TW: If weâre just talking about PokĂ©monâŠ
NWR: Interpret that however you want!
TW: If weâre just talking about PokĂ©mon, I would say the day after I won the World Championships, in 2012.
NWR: The day after.
TW: The day after! I won, so I knew I was a winner, and then we went to â I donât remember the name â waterfalls in Hawaii, and I looked at them and I just kind of got a chance to think while looking at waterfalls and it felt tremendously meaningful. I donât know why, itâs really cheesy to say!
NWR: Like an epilogue to your victory!
TW: Like an epilogue! There was text scrolling across the screen: âYou finally completed the mission!â
NWR: The credits!
Both: [Laughs]
TW: YeahâŠIâd say then. That was a pretty good day.
NWR: What do you play to unwind from Pokémon?
TW: I play several games. I play Smash Bros., I play Smash 4. I play some Hearthstone. Sometimes I play League of Legends depending on the time of year. Really, just a lot of games. It is hard, actually, playing PokĂ©mon for that long. I think sometimes Iâm not very intelligent about it because I do wear my brain out more than I should by playing more difficult competitive games. I should probably play some easier games or watch some TV or something â let my brain relax a little bit. Because itâs like lifting too many weights â your muscles get tired.
NWR: How long does it take to get a Pokémon ready for the caliber of competition?
TW: Not much.
NWR: Really? You got it down to a science?
TW: Yeah. Pokémon players have got it down to a science. You get this stuff done in an hour, hour and a half.
NWR: Each Pokémon you can knock out in about in hour?
TW: No no no, a team. A whole team.
NWR: Do you have any of the stuff already in place?
TW: A lot of things, usually. But at the beginning of the season itâs the hardest because you have to start a lot of things from scratch. If youâre breeding the whole team and you donât already have PokĂ©mon for it, it can probably take four or five hours.
NWR: Four or five hours to build an entire team from scratch?
TW: With breeding, and with your friends to help you. Because, a lot of times, friends wonât be busy and they can do a lot of things for you. But, itâs possible to get done a lot more quickly depending on how many things youâve already got done.
NWR: Itâs done as a team?
TW: Mhm. Thatâs why itâs really important to have friends in this game. People to talk with, people to analyze your play, and then people to make your teams for you! [Laughs].
NWR: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be like you and wanted to make competitive Pokémon a serious part of their life?
TW: I think there are a few things I would say. First thing I would say is you have to want to play this game. You have to legitimately want to. You donât have to like it, but you have to want to play the game. I remember someone say in 2011, âYouâve got to love it. Youâve got to love to do it,â and I think thatâs been tremendously meaningful to me. Whatever you do, youâve got to do it because you want to do it â not because you like it. Whether or not it feels good, youâve got to do it because it you want to. And the other thing I would say, is not to expect any kind of result too quickly.
The crazy thing â even though this game looks really simple, thereâs a lot of different variables that can go into it and thereâs a lot of experience you need to build and a lot of practice you need to do before you can hope to participate in the World Championships. And like, in that story I told, it took me three years to participate in my first world championship. There are, of course, players who come their first year, and they typically have a lot of friends or theyâre just naturally talented, I guess. But you have to be patient with yourselfâŠall the time.
You have to be patient all the time to allow yourself to have the strength, the resiliency, and the peace with yourself to build a good team and play well the whole day.
NWR: Last question. This is more my curiosity as an individual: what are your hour counts in the 3DS Pokémon games?
TW: Okay, because of how long it takes to build a team, which isnât very long because I have so many friends to help out thankfully because of my long time in the community, in ORAS I have like 150 hours. So not really that many. I know in one of the DS games I had 999 hours. Really, when you play so much competitive PokĂ©mon, itâs hard to sit down and play the regular game and be happy with the fact that youâre doing that, so personally, I donât play a lot on the cart. I do really like to finish the story mode and enjoy the games. And then I finish enjoying them [Laughs].