Your Pre-Competitive "Strategy"

I was fortunate enough to know, before I went Comp, that some attacks were different categories (i.e. Physical or Special) and that the stats affected those.
Of course, I knew nothing about a pokemon's base stats
However, I thought stat-boosting and lowering moves were useless, so, I often went 4 (fortunately) different attacks everybody

Ex.
Heatran w/ wide lens
Iron Head
Stone Edge
Earth Power
Magma Storm

I also ignored natures, EVs and IVs. Nowaday, I just ignore IVs, because of how painful they are to get the good ones.

My (younger) cousins (who introduced me to D/P)... well

Palkia w/ Lum Berry
Spacial Rend
Dragon Pulse
Dragon Claw
Aura Sphere
 
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I remember playing through Sapphire with only my Blaziken, because who needs other pokemon when you have a flaming chicken that kicks things? Anyway, I think it's moveset was something like:
-Double Kick
-Aerial Ace
-Rock Tomb
-Blaze Kick
Eventually, I got Kyogre, and gave him this set of gems:
-Hydro Pump
-Sheer Cold
-Blizzard
-Brick Break (Yeah, I don't even know)
I went on to beat the Elite 4 47 times with them for no discernible reason.
 
The first time I reached the Elite 4 in Ruby I had an epic team:
Swampert lv 50 with shell bell:
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Strength
-Earthquake
And Groudon lv 52:
-Solar Beam
-Earthquake
-Fire Blast
-THUNDER

Yeah, I hated flying mons...
 
My good ol' Diamond team I beat the elite four first time ever with
Dialga
-Hyper beam
-Roar of Time
-Dragon Claw
-Metal Claw
Empoleon
-Surf
-Waterfall
-Strength
-Hydro Cannon
Fearow (traded with a friend at school)
-Assurance
-Drill Peck
-Peck
-Fly
Bibarel
-Rock Smash
-Cut
-Tackle (not kidding)
-Hyper fang
Oh my those were the wierd times
 
Back in GSC
Feraligatr
- Strength
- Waterfall
- Surf
- Rock Smash
Later in the game it changed to
- Thunderpunch
-Ice Punch
- Fire Punch
- Surf
Those were good times...
 

Anty

let's drop
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I played a lot of ruby when i was young and i didnt know ivs/evs/special/physical and i always used these mmons

starter

Breloom
giga drain
mach punch
sky uppercut
(idk)

Magneton
shock wave
thunderbolt
tri attack
sonic boom

Viabra
dragon breath
dig
crunch
idk

Then 2 others (usually a surfer, often horses). I always used viabra as windas altaria took nothing from magneton and could hit it with eq. To train the trapinch i went into the power plant, killed 10 things with dig (from tm) then went back to the pokecenter to get my pp restored. Took FOREVER. Now when i play, i still dont care about ivs/natures. I will try to get special moves on special mons, but i dont mind having mixed.
 

Litra

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Since I could justify my horrible pre-competitive playstyle on returning to the games after disappearing from R/S, my strategy can sorta be chalked up to "defy common sense to the point of being crazy awesome". I don't recall a lot of my weird movesets, but here were some...

Ampharos @ Magnet
- Discharge
- Signal Beam or Thunder
- Iron Tail (still wondering why I had that there)
- Focus Blast (I lucked out on this so many times that I was oblivious of its infamy for missing at the worst possible moments)

Lugia @ (Forgot what item)
- Aeroblast
- Blizzard (unlike Focus Miss, I quickly am notified of its missing issues)
- Surf
- Hydro Pump

Then there were those things that showed I was midway to understanding competitive "common sense" and my shtick of doing whatever came to mind in spite of how slightly impractical it was. For instance, from a White2 run where I decided to make the somewhat frail Lucario into a mixed CM user for Ghetsis I thought up just before entering Kyurem's lair (good thing 3/4 of the moves were there):

Lucario @ Expert Belt
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Close Combat


Strangely enough, I was well aware to never try Hyper Beam or any variants of it both before I left R/S and returning with little knowledge of how the game changed. Weird, given I abused the hell out of the low accuracy moves without a care in the world.
 
My mind was blown when I first discovered light screen and reflect cut damage in half for FIVE TURNS. I threw dual screens on just about everyone I could in FR/LG.

Later in fourth generation, I discovered competitive battling and noticed how often these nifty "hazard moves" were used. The next time my friend challenged me to a battle, I rounded up everyone in my PC over lvl 50 who had hazard moves. I thought for sure I would win now that I was mimicking these competitive players. Sadly, I knew nothing of tiers so while my Skarmory was slowly laying down three layers of spikes, I would be blown to bits by a Sacred Fire or w/e. Needless to say, I lost horribly.
 
I remember creating the "ultimate" Typhlosion set back during GSC. Flamethrower/Thunderpunch/Dig/Quick Attack. I basically had the assumption it could take down anything since it could KO some water types which any other fire type couldn't really claim. Lol even before the physical/special split it was pretty lame
 
Well I remember distinctly in my first red version playthrough using my master ball on a Kingler because it probably broke out of whatever ultra balls I had, I was 10 and THOSE CLAWS! IT MUST BE AMAZING. Terrible HM moves on everything. And a mentality of "Why use anything except attacking moves, if I take a turn to raise attack it surely won't make up for not attacking on 2 turns right?"
 
Anything Prior to those games:
Only use your starter. Teach it 4 moves: each should be Super-Effective on a certain Elite 4 Member.

In 3rd Gen:
Give a Pokemon 4 STAB Attacking moves, 2 Special moves and 2 physical moves so that it is versatile.

In D/P/Pt:

Step 1. Find an Action Replay.
Step 2. Amass 900 Rare Candies
Step 3. Amass a team of six legendary Pokemon.
Step 4. Give them Rare Candies
Step 5. I AM THE MOST POWERFUL TRAINER IN THE WORLD!
 
I find it sort of funny how, even though I knew quite a bit about good teambuilding at that point in time, I basically solo'd XD with Jolteon and whatever Shadow mon was strongest at that point in time.
 
-Acquire cheating device
-Rare candies
-???
-Profit

Oh and also non-damaging moves were useless. I remember my first real pokemon game, Diamond. I had an Empoleon as follows
-Strength
-Surf
-Cut
-Rock Smash

and a Pellipper. Water types were pokegods to me back then. And then I came to Smogon, where water is good, but not the best. I failed to see the logic.
 
Solo'd Pokemon emerald with my EPIC Swampert

Swampert lv 70 ( i don't really remember=

Surf
Earthquake
Strength
Ice beam

And random HM slaves

For "some" reason, i had a VERY hard time beating Wallace, his ludicolo would always giga drain me and often my Swampert ended up struggling and fainted due to the damage xD
 
Whenever I would play through RSE, I would try to keep a somewhat balanced team for the beginning parts of the game. Once I got surf, every time I would just go catch a bunch of water types and spam surf for the rest of the game because it was one of my favorite moves. In hindsight that wasn't the best idea since the second half of the game was entirely full of water types...
 
When I first visited Smogon (Gen 4), knowing little about competitive Pokemon, I saw that Articuno and the Regis were ranked "Never Used". I thought this must be a typo, and created a shoddy battle account to kick some batootie with these guys (plus my max Special Attack/Special Defense Blissey, with no Defense investment). Needless to say, I learned quickly that Smogon's ranking was accurate. And max SpD Blissey still cracks me up. I was thinking "this thing is a special sponge anyway, it shouldn't be taking physical hits". I imagine my opponents were shocked when their physical attacks, however weak, OHKOed the pink blob.
 
Back in RB/GS I would use my Mewtwo a lot. I was all set with amnesia back when it would raise the special stat up 2. Other than that I really just went for leveling them all to 100 and making sure other than amnesia, not to have a non attacking move. Now I know better but I mean most of us though that pure attacking was the best way to go. Pokemon Stadium is where I took things a little more seriously since the trainers on there were much more tough than the ones on the the Gameboy games. Good times!
 
My mewtwo on Red:
Swift
Recover
Psychic
Ice Beam

I killed mostly everything in the game, swept through the elite four and I thought it was awesome.
I did not know swift was a physical move but I loved it anyway because it stopped my friends spamming Minimise/Double team and Sand attack...
 
I got Blue version from my Grandad when I was 4. Pretty much taught myself to read so I could play pokemon, since Dad kept refusing to translate what things said for me. Originally I named every pokemon I caught CALLUM (my name) because I thought I was showing they belonged to me. Honestly don't remember much about RBY, other than agonising over how Sabrina had an Alakazam and my Kadabra hadn't evolved by level 80.

GSC came out and I got Gold for Christmas. Quickly fell in love with Typhlosion, and once I found it could learn Thunder Punch Ii was pretty much set for life. I completely ignored stats outside of 'My Tyranitar has all over 100 plus it looks badass!'. I was also one of those 'only use 4 attacking moves' type of people - Typhlosion would run something like Fire Blast / Flame Wheel / Earthquake / Thunder Punch. Flame Wheel was there solely for when I didn't want to waste Fire Blast's PP and still KO a grass type.

RSE is my fave generation to date, and all of my fave pokemon come from it (Absol, Milotic, Latias, Mawile). Decided I'd be super hip and use a girl trainer on my Sapphire version. Enter 'Maria' - the champion of RSE with her Lv 100 Absol knowing Thunder / Fire Blast / Blizzard / Hyper Beam. Times my friend, times. I also distinctly remember walking around school (Grade 4 at the time I believe) being the kid that knew everything about pokemon - "Yeah, the secret to catching the Regis is which ball you use. For Registeel it's Ultra Ball, Regice it's Great Ball, and Regirock it's Timer Ball." Needless to say I was a master trainer.

Got Pearl around Grade 8 I think and DP was the first time I went 'online' to actually see how others were playing the games. Blew my mind at how wrong I had been playing to date, and quickly found my Friday / Saturday nights staying up until 3am on Serebii and Pokecommunity learning everything I could.

Funnily enough, even in my current playthroughs and knowing what I know, I very rarely use anything other than a 4-attack / 3-attack + status moveset. I grind so much between gyms that boosting moves DO essentially become useless, and outside of CM on Gardevoir in RSE or DD on Gyara in DP, it was (and somewhat still is) a 4-attack moveset. Because let's be honest, how much strategy does a game like X and Y require when EXP Share gets you leveled into the 90's by the time you're battling the champion.

On a side note, does anyone remember the Dragonair on.. Stadium 1 I believe (Lance / Claire's?) That would spam Wrap constantly like it was going out of fashion - in a time where it would stop you from being able to attack, and would finish at the END of a turn, just in time for it to use Wrap again.
 
Because I have to beat the league in both Ruby and Sapphire to complete the dex in Emerald (My only method of trading is via XD, which requires you to have hall of fame data), and my Sapphire run is a Nuzlocke, I thought I'd have some fun with Ruby. For example:

Linoone @ Nothing
Ability: Pickup
Blizzard
Thunder
Surf
Return

That's by far the worst (but still intentional) moveset on my team, but I also have Hyper Beam Crobat and Spark/Thunder/Lock On Magneton.

So not exactly pre-competitive, but still laughable.
 
On a side note, does anyone remember the Dragonair on.. Stadium 1 I believe (Lance / Claire's?) That would spam Wrap constantly like it was going out of fashion - in a time where it would stop you from being able to attack, and would finish at the END of a turn, just in time for it to use Wrap again.
Never had stadium but one of my least favorite memories of RBY is surfing and encountering a Wrap Tentacool every 5 steps...

Not fun at all.
 
I thought that My Typloshion was really good, lol. I taught it like every Fire type move it could learn back in the old days before i competitive.
 

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