Generation VI Battle Spot Exit Interview: The Retrospective: A Documentary

By Hulavuta, cant say, DragonWhale, kamikaze, NOVED, Psynergy, and Theorymon. Art by Bummer, FellFromtheSky, and Tikitik.
Puzzle Page by GoodMorningEspeon. Art by Bummer.

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Hey Battle Spot fans, with Sun and Moon just around the corner and Generation Six almost finished, it's time to stop and take a look at what we'll be leaving behind. Join our seven panelists as we answer community-submitted questions that reflect upon the experience, both the game and the community, in the first true generation of Battle Spot.

How did you get into Battle Spot? - Theorymon

Hulavuta

For the first few years of my competitive career I was a simulator-only player. That was just because competitive in-game had such a high barrier to entry. But I always liked playing in-game, doing stuff like Battle Subway and World Tournament. At the end of the Black and White era, I had finally focused on UU as my tier of choice and started having moderate success there (shoutout to me in the UU Hall of Fame. When XY came out, I was planning to try to become a UU superstar but never really got around to it. When I discovered that XY made breeding much easier, I decided to try to get into it a bit. A lot of friends I had at the time, like Age of Kings, cant say, Stellar, and CoolStoryBrobat, were involved with the metagame, so I thought I'd check it out. But really it was just because it was something you could play in-game, and the actual format was secondary for me. There was really no centralized community at the time, so I thought it'd be a good place to become established. A few months later, Stellar appointed Age of Kings and myself to be leaders of the forum, and I've stuck with it ever since.

cant say

I've been playing the in-game Battle Facilities like the Frontier and Maison since the Battle Tower in Crystal Version, but during Generation 5 I figured I'd give the Global Battle Union a try since the rules were exactly the same as the Battle Subway and I loved it. However, I was not good. My knowledge of competitive Pokemon wasn't bad or good (I at least followed Smogon's formats at that time) but I didn't breed or RNG to have perfect Pokemon, I just settled for correct natures and good overall IVs, so I was playing with a handicap. When XY came out and the breeding mechanics were drastically changed to be incredibly easier, I quickly bred some top-tier stuff like Garchomp, Kangaskhan, Talonflame, and Azumarill, beat all the Battle Maison modes and then jumped straight into Battle Spot!

Theorymon

To make a long story short, I actually started competitive Pokemon back in generation 4 on Pokemon Battle Revolution of all places, which had no clauses to speak of! One day, I battled Smogon user Jibaku, whom I defeated with Custap Wobbuffet. I transitioned to Smogon and the old sim Shoddy Battle partly because I was sick of trying to soft reset for Ubers like Palkia, and so I could just stick to the Ubers ladder. Funnily enough, I faced Jibaku there again, and he got his revenge by destroying my entire Ubers team with Skarmory of all things! He sorta became my mentor, and that cemented me staying away from on-cart competitive Pokemon and focusing on simulators.

However, when XY came out, it brought along much easier breeding mechanics and a ladder that wasn't plagued with punishmentless DCs. That one-two punch was enough to drag me back into the world of on-cart battling!

Psynergy

My motivation for playing Battle Spot was primarily sparked by Theorymon's stories on IRC about the quirks of this metagame, like Mega Salamence being a completely reasonable threat to stop. I also really just wanted to actually play Pokemon on cartridge and not just on Showdown, so I figured playing on Battle Spot was a logical approach. I found it easy to become a part of the community, since there were so few people into Battle Spot on Smogon so I didn't feel intimidated or anything, I was almost surprised that the community existed in the first place, since it was such a small group. I remember I actually had kamikaze telling me to not bother the first time I mentioned trying Battle Spot, since he had tried the format before and found it uninteresting, so it was also cool to see him come around and give it another shot after I had gotten into Battle Spot and its community. Definitely still a long way to go though, so it'll be interesting to see how things develop in the new generation.

DragonWhale

When XY came out, I only knew about the basics of competitive Pokemon. By basics I mean really beginner-level stuff like EVs, IVs, STAB, and type effectiveness. I thought that would be enough to hold my own in Battle Spot, but Greninjas were activating an ability I had never seen before, paralyzed Talonflames were outspeeding me, Kangaskhans gave me no turn to attack… it was a massacre. That experience basically drove me to learn more about the metagame, learn about strategies, and get better so as to never lose that badly again.

kamikaze

I played it briefly at the beginning of XY concurrently with XY OU. It was interesting playing with Pokemon such as Mega Gengar that were banned pretty swiftly in XY OU. One of my favorite BSS teams used a pretty simple offensive trio that I brought to most games consisting of Mega Gengar with Destiny Bond to attempt to trade 1 for 2 if possible, Band Azumarill as a breaker, and Talonflame as a late-game cleaner. I eventually dropped it and started playing Doubles formats in VGC and Doubles OU. I then got exposed to Battle Spot once more when I saw DragonWhale stream on Smogon. The guys on the cast seemed cool, so I kept tuning into to their streams and eventually found myself in their Showdown room playing Battle Spot again earlier this year.

NOVED

Since Gen 6 made breeding really easy, I wanted to get into competitive play on cart. Trying to play Smogon formats on Wi-Fi is just a hassle trying to get games, and you can't really play that often. Battle Spot is what I looked to and I had fun with it, and just ended up sticking with it.

Smogon is often the first place English-language players stop to get a handle on competitive Pokemon. With Battle Spot formats being primarily Japanese-driven metagames, the Japanese playerbase tends to determine the direction and innovations of the metas. What steps will or can be taken to ensure Japanese resources and innovations are regularly made accessible to new players and Smogon's Strategy Dex entries on Battle Spot formats remain up-to-date and competitive? Thanks! - Whiskey Tango

Hulavuta

I think we're really fortunate to have the actual playerbase be very proactive about this. A lot of our players are going out of their way to hunt down Japanese Pokeblogs and looking for top teams to translate. I think it's important too, because a lot of Japanese sets and strategies seem very backwards at first glance. average fella and I joked that deciphering these teams is like being in an archaeology or anthropology class, studying an ancient foreign culture that seems to worship some strange god named Garura. They unironically use weird stuff like Safeguard on Choice Specs Sylveon, or Trick Room / Pain Split / Curse / Destiny Bond Mismagius. The kind of stuff you'd laugh at new players for using, except it's serious and found on top-rated teams. So it forces us to be more open minded on how we look at stuff; when we actually try it, we find it works in ways we never could have foreseen. It's also extremely fun, so I think the community will be on top of tracking down Japanese trends and discussing them going forward.

cant say

One of the best things to come out of the Japanese Battle Spot Singles community is the aaaapokemon blog, which we found a few months into the ORAS metagame. Nearly every Japanese player has their own personal blog where they do RMT-style entries, and at the end of every season, aaaapoke posts a new blog with links to all the top-placing teams in order of their final rank. There's more than a hundred links in each blog update, so it's basically the premier resource for teams for those who aren't confident building their own yet. If aaaapoke continues to run this blog for Sun & Moon, then it will give us enough content to get a Sample Teams thread set up for the SM metagame pretty soon after the games release.

We also plan to use information from these blogs for our analyses more liberally. Oftentimes we see teams topping the ladder with interesting sets that we probably wouldn't normally consider for doing an analysis of; things such as Secret Power Mega Kangaskhan, Choice Specs Volcarona, Choice Scarf Greninja, SubSalac Thundurus, and Assault Vest + Mirror Coat Suicune are all examples of sets we deemed too niche to get an analysis this generation, but in hindsight they are all examples of Japanese innovation that should probably get featured. So going forward into generation 7 you can expect to see more of these on the strategydex!

DragonWhale

I think there is a fundamental difference between the way Smogon Battle Spot will approach analyses in the next generation compared to right now. Smogon Battle Spot never really approached analyses until a few months into 2015, by which time Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire had already been out long enough to establish a stable metagame developed by the Japanese playerbase and fill the web with Japanese resources. This time we'll stand on the same starting line, so our own resources should not fall too far behind the resources of the Japanese, provided that the people who write analyses are playing on-cartridge at a decently high level. When a new Pokemon strategy starts to dominate a format, Smogon Battle Spot will be in a much better position to write about it instead of adapting completed Japanese analyses like we do today.

What team archetypes do you think have been the most viable or have seen the most success on Battle Spot? - lucariomaster2

Hulavuta

Everyone's gonna have the same answer for this, so I'll keep it short. Bulky offense seems the way to go for me. With only three Pokemon, you can't really rely too much on always having good type matchups, so a few general bulky Pokemon, like Cresselia, Hippowdon, and Suicune, find their way onto many teams for pivoting. I do have to say that this format rewards creative and unique sets more than most, due to the supreme surprise factor and the fact that momentum can swing so easily. Hence why Japanese teams are so strange, yet also solid.

cant say

Everyone will probably answer really similarly to this, and for good reason, since bulky offense proves to be the best style every season. There are so many hard hitters available like Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Salamence, Mega Blaziken, and Mega Mawile, so you absolutely need something you can switch into these guys so you aren't just sacrificing something and giving your opponent a 3v2 lead. Hyper offense teams sound good on paper, but there are too many good defensive Pokemon that just flat out hard wall these kinds of teams and will just whittle them down by spreading paralysis or racking up Stealth Rock damage. Stall is very powerful but much less popular for a few reasons; the biggest is that those teams follow a very precise framework in that they all use the same six or seven Pokemon, so if you're familiar with them they're very easy to account for in your teambuilding. Those teams are also highly susceptible to OHKO moves.

There are also some really strong gimmicks like Moody Glalie with a lead SwagPlay Thundurus to get the set up going, and Assist Liepard paired with Ditto and Breloom (aka Tacticat). While these teams can be very good and outright win a lot of games from turn 1, they can also be quite unreliable due to the luck involved and have some really bad matchups against things like Lum Berry Volcarona.

Theorymon

I think bulky offense is king in battle spot singles, since when you only have three Pokemon per battle and dangerous, hard-hitting Pokemon like Mega Kangaskhan and Aegislash are running around, having Pokemon that can take a hit and hit back themselves is great. This also plays into an important aspect of Battle Spot Singles: role condensing. Since you can only choose half of your team for battle, Battle Spot Singles favors condensing multiple roles into one Pokemon rather than each Pokemon having a specific role. For example, look at Cresselia, which is UU by Smogon standards. In Battle Spot Singles, Cresselia is one of the most common defensive Pokemon, since it can spread status, be a general check against threats like Garchomp and Mega Kangaskhan, and use Lunar Dance to bring back your own bulky sweepers to good health.

While I'm not a fan of hyper offense in Battle Spot Singles, I do think that certain hyper offensive Pokemon can fit on the bulkier teams. Blaziken was a particularly dangerous example because of Speed Boost, while Breloom was a very nasty user of Focus Sash because it could use Spore with no fear of Sleep Clause! I should also note that stall was around on the higher parts of the ladder, but it used a very specific range of Pokemon that made it rather easy to counterteam with stuff like Mega Gengar.

Finally, I would like to lightly touch upon Battle Spot Doubles, since it's the second most popular Battle Spot metagame. For those of you who watched VGC 2015, CHALK (which stands for Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-T, and Mega Kangaskhan) is still a big part of the metagame, but compared to VGC last year, there was also a pretty big increase in rain teams with Politoed.

Psynergy

I'd say Battle Spot Singles heavily favors offense and bulky offense archetypes due to the presence of insanely powerful attackers like Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Blaziken, and Mega Salamence, as well as the ability to fit two Megas on one team without many issues. Many successful teams are usually built around one or more of Kangaskhan, Blaziken, and Gengar, with some teams even running all three due to their insane versatility. That being said, hyper offensive teams are tougher to use, since they rely on riskier switching in a format where safe switches can be difficult. Stall is still a perfectly viable archetype though and shows up quite a bit among high-ladder teams. There's usually not too much variation among stall teams though and I'd say it pales in comparison to more offensive archetypes, since it's usually far more effective to just smash through teams with huge offensive pressure.

DragonWhale

Bulky offense is probably the most effective archetype in Singles, mostly because a lot of the top threats in the format fulfill that role very well. Purely offensive teams struggle a lot because they usually lack a Kangaskhan switch-in, and if they sacrifice a slot on their team for one, it usually kills the momentum of the team, as frail attackers usually cannot come back in without losing a Pokemon. Bulky offense doesn't struggle too much in this regard because most of them can survive one turn in front of a Kangaskhan, they don't really bother having Kangaskhan switch-ins because they can still pivot around it, and all of them hit back really hard. Stall is an uncommon archetype but has seen some success.

kamikaze

Bulky offensive builds seem to be really consistent in Battle Spot Singles. Most teams often have a very bulky Kangaskhan check with Rocky Helmet such as Hippowdon, Cresselia, Suicune, or Ferrothorn. There are many offensive Pokemon with respectable bulk that make an appearance on teams, one of which is Garchomp. The main allure I see with bulky offense teams is the ability to have safe switch-ins to multiple threats in the metagame as well as the ability to threathen the opponent with big damage to get early advantages.

NOVED

I think offense will be the most common answer to this question. I guess "bulky offense" is what you could call the teams I feel are the most dominant. Most teams have one or two really bulky 'mons to switch in/pivot from like Cress and Suicune, and then an arsenal of offensive powerhouses to take the game away. A particular core I feel has been the most successful and my personal favorite is what I like to call KGT. Kangaskhan, Garchomp, Thundurus. I feel like these mons have been the most dominant, work well together, can have a lot of variation in their sets, and perform very consistently. Though I think offense isn't the only thing you can win with. Stall is very good, there have been a lot of Japanese players who have placed highly with it, and it's done well in BSPL too I think. Though stall is very particular in its framework and most stall teams generally follow the same skeleton, I don't think it has the same flexibility that more offensive teams have. There's also lots of other types of teams and cores I could list off, Blaziken balance, Trick Room teams, Mence teams, etc. But the Kangaskhan offense teams I mentioned at first are the ones that stick out to me the most.

How do you feel playing primarily on the 3DS affects the community compared to just playing on Pokemon Showdown? - Theorymon

Hulavuta

It definitely has a big impact. I think being a 3DS-centered metagame is our community's biggest detriment. Ladder is so incredibly lonely to play and easy to get frustrated with and quit. There's just not much incentive to playing on the 3DS ladder, aside from getting intrinsic value from your rating. So most people just go on Showdown, where you can chat with friends and watch each other's games and such. In the future, we're definitely going to introduce new ways to reward 3DS ladder players and make it feel more like laddering on 3DS makes you part of the community.

cant say

Well for starters, because people generally prefer to play on Pokemon Showdown, our community of regulars is smaller than most others on Smogon, so all of us know each other pretty well. We also help each other out with breeding and stuff like that, so overall we're all really friendly and close. However, because we focus on the 3DS ladder rather than Pokemon Showdown, we don't have a huge presence in Smogon's tournaments scene (yet), and that's where a lot of the best players are, so we kind of lack a presence of highly skilled players within the community. Our regulars are certainly not bad by any means, and we're all still getting better, but it would be cool to have a few veterans get involved.

Theorymon

I think the biggest difference is the quality of the ladder. Since playing on the 3DS isn't as accessible as just making a team on Pokemon Showdown, the lower ladders are actually FULL of serious players that are totally capable of beating you! Also, the seasonal system and the huge number of Japanese players keeps things interesting and gives me a much higher motivation to ladder than on Pokemon Showdown. That being said, breeding and soft resetting a team was a major time commitment, especially since Battle Spot metagames had several prominent legendary Pokemon such as Cresselia, Heatran, Thundurus, and Suicune. Thankfully, Hyper Training in Pokemon Sun and Moon will hopefully make tedious soft resetting a thing of the past!

Don't take this as me bashing Pokemon Showdown though, because that has its own set of big advantages. The ease of making a team on Showdown is great for quickly testing ideas, and spectators makes Showdown the best place to have tournament battles in my opinion. So in general, while playing on the 3DS is more desirable in this community, Pokemon Showdown still plays a very important part.

Psynergy

It's definitely a barrier that probably held up the community's development a fair amount for a while, since not everyone has a 3DS or has the motivation to train a team on cartridge for a variety of reasons. Laziness, the difficulty in obtaining some legendaries, and connection issues are all fair reasons for someone to not play on cartridge. The fact that Battle Spot is very ladder focused is also an issue, since a lot of players just don't have the time to spend constantly laddering, while the format itself is very awkward for a regular tournament format. Trying to expand on all fronts and making it easier for people to jump in and play the format has definitely been the best approach moving forward. The metagame's development still happens primarily on the 3DS ladders and they're definitely the best experience, though it's nice to have the more easily accessible alternative being embraced more. We've noticed even Japanese players coming onto Showdown for practice more as well, so it's definitely a big help for the Showdown ladder's quality as well.

DragonWhale

I think the 3DS makes people within a community cooperate more because people trade competitive Pokemon with each other, but it lacks the ability to watch other people play live and share battling experiences like you can do on PS. I think neither one is better or worse than the other.

kamikaze

A surprising number of people on Pokemon Showdown don't play the main series games anymore or even have a 3DS. As a result, it's not uncommon to have conversations with people about the games and various mechanics, and they have no clue what you are talking about. The Battle Spot community, however, has the 3DS game integrated at its core. People also help one another get Pokemon to use in-game if needed. Also, having a 3DS-based Battle Spot Ladder introduces the Japanese into the equation. The Japanese don't generally use Smogon or Pokemon Showdown much, but the in-game ladder is a venue to play against them and experience teams from foreign players who even blog about their teams.

NOVED

Well, I think it brings a small aspect of people helping each other out, passing people Pokemon on cart and things like that. It's nice that most people in the community are willing to help people get the right 'mons they need or at least show them the path to that. Other than that though I don't think we're too different from other communities on Smogon. There is this weird split when talking about the meta because we have these two totally different ladders. There's also a big focus on outside information from Japan, not many communities have that either but it doesn't make us too unique I think, just a good place to steal teams and get ideas from.

What are your thoughts about Gen 7 not including Triples and Rotations, and how do you think the playerbase, both on Smogon and in general, will react? - LegoFigure11

Theorymon

I am a bit saddened by the loss of these two metagames, but I'm not very shocked either. Rotations was a crazy, fast-paced metagame with a heavy emphasis on prediction and setting up field affects. While it was very unique, it was also very difficult to get into.

Triples on the other hand, I didn't find that difficult to get into, since it had a lot of similarities with Battle Spot Doubles, which was a fairly popular metagame. The main difference was learning about how important placement was, the Wide and Quick Guard spam, and the increase in support Pokemon.

While personally, I think it's a bit sad that we are gonna lose these two game modes that were home to quite a few unique Pokemon (such as Mega Blastoise for Triples and Chandelure for Rotations), I don't think this is going to cause a big uproar. Triples had a very small community that mostly played other metagames as well, and the Rotations ladder was so dead that I'd be lucky to get more than 5 battles per day. I'm sure Battle Spot (especially the Smogon part) will be just fine, since Battle Spot Singles and Doubles are still around, plus we are getting a permanent VGC ladder on the 3DS! Also, I at least got to write a Rotations article before it passed on.

NOVED

I spent a decent amount of time playing on the Triples ladder in ORAS, and it wasn't uncommon for me to not find any opponents after trying 2-3 times. I think from a developer's point of view, it might almost seem like a waste having these barren ladders that don't seem to have much interest. They could be using their efforts on making other things that most people will actually enjoy. I don't think Triples or Rotations were really bad ideas or bad formats, but they just never caught on unfortunately; I think people are too used to Doubles/Singles to move on to something else when there's really no support for those metas. As for the playerbase, it's close to nonexistent, so I don't expect too much of a reaction besides a few "Aww"'s. And so far that's basically been true. Most people who play Triples/Rotations are familiar with the other formats as well, so they aren't losing everything.

What are some weird, quirky Pokemon you've had to use before? This can apply to normal Battle Spot metagames and specials or tournaments. - Theorymon

Hulavuta

I'm actually not a great teambuilder! So most of the weird and fun sets I've used have come from other teams, such as Japanese ones. Mega Steelix became one of my favorite Pokemon after discovering a Japanese Trick Room team with it (it's now on my banner!). Just the words "after a Curse, it OHKOes Mega Kangaskhan" were too good of a meme to pass up. One of our prominent users, GroudonEmpire, makes really fun and creative teams too, like Choice Scarf Charmeleon sun and various other teams featuring Rhydon.

The extent of my personal creativity probably doesn't go far beyond Flame Charge Mega Charizard Y. It's a non-traditional set, but pretty effective in practice. It actually allows Mega Charizard Y to become a sweeper and lets it beat faster Focus Sash Pokemon, like Greninja. With Hidden Power Ice, safe switches like Salamence and Garchomp are now taken out before they can do anything. Considering the number of teams I steal, I'm pretty proud that I was able to come up with this!

cant say

You're talking to the right guy here. While my BSS teams are much less gimmicky nowadays, the teams I build for the various Online Competitions always have some quirkiness involved. I'm a strong believer that creative teambuilding for these competitions is really important, as there's usually only a month or so to prepare, which doesn't allow the metagame to really fully develop, so trying to build a "standard" team can be tricky. In the Fairy Face-Off, where only Fairy-type Pokemon were allowed, instead of using Mega Mawile like a normie I instead used a special attacking Life Orb version. That same team also featured a Mega Gardevoir with Synchronoise and Choice Specs Klefki. In the Pikachu Cup, a mono-Electric double battle competition, I used Magnetic Flux Electrode alongside a Baton Pass Minun passing to a regular Rotom in the back that turned out to work insanely well. When Nintendo's version of Little Cup came around and Sneasel wasn't banned, I used a physically defensive Pawniard with a Chople Berry as my only reliable answer. There was a "throwback to Gen 1" competition, where it was 6v6 and no items were allowed, where half my team used RestTalk and OHKO moves. Lastly, there was a Doubles competition where my only real answer for Focus Sash Smeargle was Double Kick Blaziken.

Theorymon

Oh lord, using crazy off-the-wall Pokemon is pretty much what I'm known for! I could practically write a book on the crazy stuff I've used, but I'll try to keep it short (by my standards).

I infamously tried out Piloswine in Battle Spot Singles, because some of us noticed a REALLY weird stat: Mega Lucario, as it turns out, does NOT OHKO Impish max HP max Defense Piloswine with Close Combat! It was actually a fairly decent, more bulky alternative to Assault Vest Mamoswine. Though I preferred Mamoswine in the end for its versatility, I was shocked by how usable Piloswine was!
In Triples, I had massive success with a Trick Room team that had Swirlix of all Pokemon. The idea was that I wanted a level 1 Endeavor Pokemon (such strats were actually successful in Triples), but the catch with Swirlix is that Sweet Veil blocks Dark Void, which let me safely set up Trick Room against Smeargle! I remember in the usage stats for it that some of them used Surf. This was apparently paired with Water Absorb Jellicent to give it some extra health for Water Spout.
My most successful experiment this generation was probably Regigigas in Festive Feud. Festive Feud was a Triples metagame that only allowed red, white, and green Pokemon in the spirit of the holidays, which ended up banning all the important Wide Guard Pokemon! Regigigas was my only choice for a Wide Guarder, and it was so successful that I ended up getting #1 in the U.S. in the competition, which I think translated to around top 25 worldwide!

Other odd or rare Pokemon I've used before include: Wobbuffet in Battle Spot Singles, Gigalith in Battle Spot Singles, Helping Hand Togekiss in XY Doubles, Alomomola in Rotations, Seaking in Kanto Classic, Choice Band Bouffalant in Battle Spot Special Inverse seasons, and Sawk in Flash Clash.

Psynergy

I've used quite a few odd Pokemon since getting into Battle Spot. My first team actually used Escavalier as a partner to Blaziken that could beat Cresselia, though it was pretty lackluster because it was easy setup bait for a lot of major threats. I've also used a team with five Pokemon running a recharge move and Ditto, which Hulavuta later edited and dubbed Super Mega Ultra. Cotton Guard Weakness Policy Whimsicott with Hidden Power Fire is an odd Scizor lure I've had a lot of fun using though, since it can easily tank a Bullet Punch to active Weakness Policy provided you could set up before it switched in. While it isn't too weird of a pick, I'm also a fan of Will-O-Wisp Mega Blaziken over a coverage move, since most of its common checks hate being burned in the first place. Toxic Blaziken is really cool for similar reason that primarily saw use on one of the top ladder teams in Season 16, probably one of my favorite teams in the format. I've also used Choice Specs Porygon2, Aron, Roserade, Spite Weavile, the list goes on.

DragonWhale

I've joked around Battle Spot Singles with a Focus Sash Metal Burst Mawile bluffing the Mega. It was really bad but pretty funny on the rare occasions it succeeded. I also tried out Fairy Lock Klefki with Block + setup Mega Slowbro when I heard about the strategy. That honestly wasn't really good either. When the 1v1 Special Ladder came around, I played around with Trick Room Whimsicott to mess with Perish Song Azumarill. That was only good when the opponent actually brought an Azumarill, which didn't happen too much haha.

I didn't play enough online competitions or special ladders where the unique rules meant weird sets could actually be viable.

kamikaze

Shoutouts to GroudonEmpire for hooking me up with his team that utilizes a physical Aegislash with Block, Autotomize, Swords Dance, and Iron Head with a Sitrus Berry. It's super niche and ludicrous, but Block pretty much lets Aegislash trap in a passive foe so it can set up Swords Dances and Autotomize to boost Attack and Speed. Not having King's Shield is awkward, but it pretty much commits to attacking once you set it up anyway.

NOVED

I'm certainly not known for using weird Pokemon or sets, probably the exact opposite. But, there have been some weird/interesting sets that I've enjoyed. This may not be considered weird to a lot of people but I really enjoy Kangaskhan sets that only have 'lure' type moves, I'd often run sets with all of Secret Power, Facade, and Fire Punch. This kind of set usually can surprise at least one foe per game. As for online competitions, I didn't take any of them very seriously, but I found Kanto Classic really interesting. The Snorlax sets that came out of that were really different from what you'd normally expect on Snorlax in any normal meta. And it was really up my alley, as I love OHKO moves, so Fissure-spamming Snorlax was something I had a lot of fun with.

Were there any controversies on the Battle Spot forum? I don't remember seeing anything. - Leader Wallace

cant say

Hulavuta and I had joked about doing a suspect test for Mega Kangaskhan after the success of the Giratina-O for OU one they did for April Fool's Day 2015. When AFD '16 rolled around we thought it would still be pretty funny, so I referred to the old OU suspect thread for Mega Kang for inspiration and asked bobochan to make a Pokemon Global Link-style banner for the OP so it would look "official." I was pretty satisfied with the end result, so I posted a link to it on our Smogon Twitter account. A lot of people ended up falling for it and were mad that it looked as though we were extending our jurisdiction from the Smogon rules to the official Nintendo rules, so I got into some trouble for it all with Smogon senior staff and had to tweet a redaction. Hulavuta ended the fun in the thread with a cryptic post that called me out massively and even that fooled some people into thinking I was this evil dictator of Battle Spot.

Hulavuta

There was one kinda big controversy and one that was kind of just a minor one, and fun to look back on. The big one was was the Kangaskhan suspect. I originally had this idea with Age of Kings back in 2014 and planned to do it in April 2015. The joke was that we would be highly ironic about it and act like we had been doing suspect tests the entire time and it wasn't even anything special. But it was all wishful thinking and never really happened. Flash forward to 2016, cant say was the co-leader now, and on the day of April Fool's he wanted to do it, though we didn't plan to do it at first. But he ended up going ahead and posting it anyway. It went way differently than we expected. People were supposed to believe that Game Freak was letting us have a say on the Battle Spot metagame, but many interpreted it to mean that we were splintering off from the rules and having "Smogon Battle Spot" alongside "real Battle Spot", and many people took issue with it, even though it was on April Fool's Day. It became a real mess. In the end, I made an extremely ironic call-out post to cant say, poking fun at how badly the issue backfired. The first letter of each paragraph spelled out "April Fools", but a lot of people were unsure if I was serious or not. It is a moment I'm really proud of, to be honest.

The second one is funny to look back at now, because fortunately it ended well for everyone. Back in March we were having our first Wi-Fi tournament, and it attracted a lot of new and unknown players. One was named Luiz Ricardo Interliche, and he was matched up against our very own DragonWhale. DragonWhale had been trying to contact Luiz, but with no success. Then a user using Luiz's name on Showdown entered a room tour and made it to the finals, and we all thought that he was some prodigy who came out of nowhere. But every time someone tried to talk to him, he would only speak Spanish and claimed that he did not know English. So we were all extremely surprised to find posts by Luiz on the forums in perfect English. This led to DragonWhale saying to him "[censored] you speak english stop with the spanish only shit" which of course confused him. It turned out that another user had been impersonating him to generate hype for the tournament, and several apologies later everything turned out fine. So it's something we look back at with fondness now.

What have you learned from being in this forum this past gen? - freekhoorn

Hulavuta

A really loaded and difficult question. I'm honestly the kind of person who tries to point out something new I've learned every single day (laughs). I'll just have to say, in a general sense, being the leader of a section was a really difficult and rewarding experience. I really had to find a way to muster the patience and wisdom to deal with things I didn't like, because in a position of responsibility, saying "forget it, I don't wanna do this anymore" is not really an option. You really do have to answer for absolutely everything and deal with every user. So I'd just say through experience, I've developed a lot of good interpersonal skills and professional skills.

When it comes to battling itself, I've learned that having a good team is kind of the first step. I considered myself a mediocre player for a very long time, but once I started to play on Showdown using importables of other peoples' teams I started to grasp the game much better. People wanna use their own Pokemon right off the bat, but I think using sample teams and friends' teams is a great way to get the basics down.

cant say

Well, as a mod of the forum I've learned we're a very well-behaved community! I've handed out more infractions to users outside Battle Spot than in it. I've also learned that when given enough time, a metagame filled with totally broken things like Mega Kangaskhan can settle into something really fun and enjoyable. I don't mean for that to sound like I disagree with Smogon's tiering philosophy, as I actually completely agree with it. I'm sure a lot of us would have loved for Nintendo to ban Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Salamence, but when people are forced to adapt, they can come up with some really interesting ways of dealing with these threats, and that's something I really enjoy seeing in our forum.

Theorymon

A personal lesson I learned is how to propose new ideas. I used to have a terrible habit of proposing these gigantic, unwieldy ideas that sounded good on paper but were nearly impossible to execute. With Battle Spot on the other hand, we just sorta started writing analyses last year, and that seemed to work! It showed me that it's best to propose things you know you can work on yourself, rather than gigantic, all-encompassing proposals that require too many moving parts to get done!

On a more Pokemon-related note, the Battle Spot community has made me appreciate the idea of getting into multiple metagames much more. I used to very much be an Ubers-only guy, but with the multiple ladders Battle Spot offers, the crazy special tournaments, and Battle Spot Special, I found that getting into many Pokemon metagames at once is actually a lot of fun! I think it showed me one of the biggest strengths of Pokemon: it's very easy to make many different rulesets that totally changes how you teambuild and play, so in a way, Pokemon is like a million different games in one!

Psynergy

It's boring to say that I've learned a lot, but Battle Spot has definitely made me rethink what makes a format enjoyable and if a fair sense of balance is necessary for that. The metagame changes drastically when you only bring three of your Pokemon each game and makes me think that we don't really give Game Freak enough credit for their attempts at balance. People often say that Game Freak only cares about Doubles and still does that poorly, but after seeing that Battle Spot Singles manage to hold some sort of balance even with the crazy stuff it allows, I think they do pay more attention to balance than we give them credit for. They're definitely not perfect, but the Battle Spot perspective is definitely one that I think more people should consider before pointing out how bad Game Freak is at balance. Seeing Kangaskhan hit with the nerf club in Sun/Moon only makes it more evident that they're getting better, so I'm excited to see what kind of metagame we'll see then.

DragonWhale

I learned that cant say is a noob.

In all seriousness I guess being in a forum gave me the opportunity to experience Battle Spot with friends, because none of my non-internet friends play Pokemon as much as I do, if at all. That might not really count as "learning" something per se, but it was a new experience for me so I'll use that as my answer.

kamikaze

So I am mainly involved in leading the Doubles OU forum on Smogon, but I have noticed important things about the Battle Spot forum as a result of following multiple forums. There are forums on this site, like OU, that maintain constant activity driven by how many people are playing the metagame. BattleSpot and Doubles OU don't nearly have as many players on Smogon, and as a result they are carried by the few willing to put in the work to keep it active. One of the best ways to keep the forum activity up, which has been shown fantastic results in the Battle Spot forum, has been through running tournaments. Hula's 3DS Wi-Fi tour, DragonWhale's PS Tournaments Forum Tour, and Battle Spot Premier League have gotten a lot of Showdown regulars more involved on the forum as well as getting a lot more people from other sections of the site. Battle Spot Singles, at its core, is a ladder-based metagame, so there was not really any venue for competing with one another besides through comparing ladder scores. Tournaments really brought out a lot of potential, and I expect more to be coming leading into the next generation.

NOVED

I learned that Battle Spot has a lot of potential for growth. When I first started posting on the forum it was extremely small and you could probably count the number of active people in the community with your fingers. Now, it's still relatively small but it's grown so much and there's been a lot of people who have shown interest in it. Battle Spot has mostly been known as a joke because the rules are so off from the rest of Smogon, but I think with the activity from our community it's starting to change most people's ideas. By next gen I think it'll start growing twice as fast, if not more, and I'm really excited for what the future of Battle Spot will look like.

Favorite community memory? - Hulavuta

Hulavuta

There are a lot of good memories, but one from earlier this year sticks out to me at the moment. This is gonna sound corny as hell, but here goes. So back in January (2016) I had to go somewhat inactive on Smogon because I was going through a bunch of stuff in real life. I basically had to move back in with my parents for a while and there was no Wi-Fi there, so I couldn't play Pokemon or anything but I could go online via ethernet cable. Around this time, the Powerball jackpot was over a billion dollars. It was the highest Powerball value of all time, and it became pretty much a national event. I told my mom that I was depressed and needed some thrill in my life so I went to get two tickets, with no intention of actually winning, just wanting to be involved in this national event.

We had a small Battle Spot Skype group at the time for DragonWhale's streams, consisting of cant say, myself, DragonWhale, Psynergy, NOVED and Joint Cena. And NOVED had also bought Powerball tickets. Most of the group wasn't American, so they didn't participate, but we all chatted and had fun with it. In the end, I ended up not getting a single number match, and I think NOVED got like 3 or 4 dollars. So it was an epic fail. But it was a nice time where our group bonded and became true friends, thanks to the magic of gambling.

cant say

I have a lot of fond memories from the past three years; streaming with the guys on the Smogon Twitch channel, theorymonning gimmicks for online competitions in the PS room, the Kangaskhan suspect joke, and most recently our first Battle Spot Premier League. I think my favorite though is the Wi-Fi tour Hulavuta hosted earlier this year. It was the first big tour we had and probably first experience of all of us aiming to beat each other rather than take on the world on the ladder. We also had a lot more people sign up than we anticipated, which showed people were interested in such things. There were a lot of good battles, interesting teams, and surprise upsets, and I think everyone involved had fun. But maybe I'm super biased because I won it...

Theorymon

I think my favorite memory in this community was the pure excitement the Classic tournaments brought, especially with Kanto Classic and Johto Classic. People were frantically testing out crazy stuff and trying to pry open the secrets of these metagames with the very limited amount of time we had with such passion. Plus, they were celebrating 20 years of Pokemon. Celebrating 20 years of Pokemon by exploring new, crazy metagames was a great experience!

Psynergy

It's hard to just pin down one memory or moment that stands out the most. DragonWhale used to stream Battle Spot laddering and that was great, but there hasn't been any of those in a while to the dismay of his dedicated fans. He also hosted a Battle Spot Singles tournament earlier in the year, which was the format's first real exposure to tournaments in a long while to my understanding. I found it particularly fun because I won, but it's hard to believe DragonWhale did all of this before. These days I sit around wondering if DragonWhale even plays Pokemon.

DragonWhale

I have a lot of fond memories from the time I spent in this community, but none are more memorable than the fun times I had with my friends streaming Battle Spot battles on Twitch. We haven't done them in a while because I've been busy, but it's something I definitely want to do again once Sun and Moon get released. Another favorite memory is when we put up a Kangaskhanite suspect thread in the Battle Spot forum for an April Fools prank. It was pretty funny seeing everyone, including a few people who aren't really involved with the community, join us as we pretended to ban the most broken thing in Battle Spot.

kamikaze

Easily my favorite memory is my Battle Spot Premier League team, the Castelia Cavaliers, 6-0ing the Fallarbor Flare Blitzers during one of the weeks. We were getting pretty hype that week after each game, and every step towards the 6-0 week kept it going. A lot of my friends from college were on the other team, so it was gratifying, and I dropped a gif on the thread after the win, inspired by one Dragonwhale posted in the Doubles Premier League.

NOVED

My favorite memory is probably the streams, hosted by DragonWhale. It's always fun being in a call with all my friends, and broadcasting to a bunch of different people, inside and outside the Battle Spot community, was pretty cool.

Generation 6 was the start of something wonderful for competitive play on the 3DS. With major improvements such as a functional ladder and reasonable breeding mechanics, it has planted the seeds for the new community on Smogon that you see in this interview. While Generation 6 may be coming to a close, the future looks as bright as the sun's (or moon's) rays. Pokemon Sun and Moon are bringing forth even better quality of life improvements, such as maxing out stats without perfect IVs via Hyper Training, easier EVing mechanics, the ability to share teams to ladder with via a QR code, and even a permanent VGC ladder.

There's never been a better time to get into competitive Pokemon on your 3DS than now. So come join our celebration on Smogon: the end of a revolutionary generation, and the start of a bright new one!

Puzzle Page »

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Puzzle Page

Welcome to the seventh edition of the Flying Press's Puzzle Page! Thanks to all of those who sent in their answers. Congratulations to the Seito Hakari, who earned the most points last time and received a custom title! As usual, anyone who submitted correct answers has earned points on the leaderboard at the bottom of the page.

However, the answer you submit for the following puzzles will be the last ones that count towards this leaderboard. After this, the upcoming editions (starting at the eighth) will count towards a brand-new leaderboard so everyone will get their chance to reach the top.

Thanks to all of the members of the puzzle team who helped out with the puzzles in this edition, including DarkShinyGiratina, Engiineer, ILRB, and Wizardsofdra!

Anagrams

Anagrams consist of several Pokémon-related terms whose letters have been scrambled around. In order to solve them, you have to figure out which terms have been scrambled. For example, "Science Spy Hop" unscrambles to Espeon / Psychic.

Ma Is Crying Ahead (2 Terms: Pokémon, Key Item)
Gabbled Bluish Trucks (2 Terms: Pokémon, Item)
Evil Deino Mauled Thickly Rebuilt TV (3 Terms: Pokémon, Move, Location)

Parameters

By using the /dexsearch command on Pokémon Showdown, find out which parameters match only the Pokémon listed. For example, say you are given these Pokémon: Bibarel, Bidoof, Pachirisu, Patrat, Raticate, Rattata, Smeargle, and Watchog. Even though all of them learn both Protect and Substitute, there are many other Pokémon that can as well, so the trick is to try to narrow down your options as much as possible. Parameters may include moves, abilities, tiers, generations, colors, and so on.

Moltres, Ninetales, Ponyta, Rapidash (2 Parameters)
Beheeyem, Elgyem, Espeon, Gardevoir, Kirlia, Munna, Musharna, Natu, Ralts, Umbreon, Xatu (2 Parameters)
Clefable, Clefairy, Skitty (3 Parameters)

Psywaves

A Psywaves puzzle takes a Pokémon's name and splits it up either by phonetics or by spelling. The terms are then either categorized (as a letter, number, body part, etc.) or replaced with a synonym of the original term. Each section of the term is separated by plus signs, and when put together, the terms will form a Pokémon's name. For example, the answer to Exhale + Animal would be Psyduck because "Sigh" (Psy) is a synonym of exhale and "Duck" is a type of animal.

Center + Animal
Stat-Changing Nature + Letter + Not Cramped
Opening + Letter + Missing

Cryptogram

In a cryptogram, every letter used in a message is replaced with a different letter. In order to solve it, you must determine what the original message is. The following phrase is a quote from a character in the main series Pokémon games. For example, a cryptogram of "VDWXQFR REBU AFRSUBKYTCA!" would unscramble to "Pikachu used Thunderbolt!", as each U in the original sentence is swapped for R, each E is swapped for B, and so on.

MTLA! GJGJ, MST'KR EVIXAM! DS EWSHRK XSH, EVIXAM!

Pokémon Link (NEW)

In this puzzle, you must create a path from one Pokémon to the other identical Pokémon by drawing a continuous line. Each line must either be horizontal or vertical, but can change directions wherever applicable. Every square in the grid must be filled, and lines cannot pass through other filled boxes or boxes with icons in them. Keep in mind that lines may not be created diagonally nor can boxes be filled without being part of the continuous line.

Conclusion

The answers to last month's puzzles can be found in the announcement thread of the Flying Press forum. Be sure to watch the thread too, as any announcements regarding fixes to puzzles will be posted there. As usual, once you've completed one, some, or even all of the puzzles that this page has to offer, send your answers via a private message to Smogon's Flying Press on the forums (a Smogon account is required). Good luck to all who dare to participate, and we'll see you again in a few weeks!

Leaderboard

Kit Kasai: 84 points
Calm: 53 points
lovemathboy: 50 points
AWailOfATail: 47 points
baconbagon: 36 points
DarkShinyGiratina: 25 points
Someoneelse: 25 points
EnemyJurist: 24 points
Awesomepi: 23 points
Euphonos: 22 points
Mowtom: 22 points
Seito Hakari: 21 points
FiveQwerty: 20 points
Kyubics: 20 points
castaways: 19 points
Blitzamirin: 16 points
Chimechoo: 16 points
Dogfish44: 16 points
Fuuta of the Stars: 16 points
Seito Hakari: 16 points
shadowmist: 16 points
SparksBlade: 16 points
Tralf: 16 points
rhydreigon: 14 points
Yoda2798: 14 points
xXDuongDannyXx: 13 points
chuckaboomboom: 12 points
6Infernapes: 11 points
HeadsILoseTailsYouWin: 11 points
Mishimono: 11 points
pancake: 11 points
Maximum Optimizer™: 10 points
Swede: 10 points
asparandix: 9 points
hardenmetapod: 8 points
H0W3AN: 6 points
Plaessynplaeae: 5 points
Reigaheres: 5 points
Yellow Paint: 5 points
Ruby.: 4 points
Salamance: 4 points
Amitghosh: 3 points
aXl: 3 points
BenTheDemon: 3 points
Epic_Mewtwo: 3 points
Memoric: 3 points
Sobi: 3 points
Vader_the_White: 3 points

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