Well, many things brought me here, I started playing competitively in the early BW days in PO, even though I was pretty bad at it and quit after some time. Still, I learned a lot on smogon about weather teams that were popular back then and other popular meta trends. With XY/ORAS, my interest in competitive Pokémon reignited so once again I lurked smogon since is the reliable site for everything in competitive poké. I also enjoy reading The Smog magazine a lot.
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General What brought you to Smogon?
- Thread starter skylight
- Start date
i've been getting bored lately and my interest in competitive pokemon has been increasing since ORAS. figured I would actually start posting instead of just skimming the forums and reading analyses
Welp i wanted to get into competitive battling, i started back in when X and Y came out and i used smogon to help me learn about natures,evs,ivs etc
I got introduced to smogon after Alot of time on Pokemon Showdown. I found PS while i was on a vacation in Italy.
some guide on some video game site said to come here a few years ago and I did
I wish I could remember how I found this place.
I've been at least remotely aware of competitive Pokemon for a long time, since Gen IV I believe. I already knew about Smogon's strategydex at that point, as I remember using it to help me build my first ever team, which was still completely awful. I didn't quite understand tiers, which resulted in me putting a Vileplume in an OU team, and nor did I think IVs were important. I gradually learned more via reading the strategydex and watching battles on Youtube, but never tried doing anything ingame myself because of how difficult IV breeding seemed. When Gen VI came around, I heard about the new breeding mechanics and how much easier it was to get good competitive Pokemon, so I made an account.
I've been at least remotely aware of competitive Pokemon for a long time, since Gen IV I believe. I already knew about Smogon's strategydex at that point, as I remember using it to help me build my first ever team, which was still completely awful. I didn't quite understand tiers, which resulted in me putting a Vileplume in an OU team, and nor did I think IVs were important. I gradually learned more via reading the strategydex and watching battles on Youtube, but never tried doing anything ingame myself because of how difficult IV breeding seemed. When Gen VI came around, I heard about the new breeding mechanics and how much easier it was to get good competitive Pokemon, so I made an account.
bitches and money
I had no idea how to play competitive pokemon. I wanted to find friends, people to battle with, people to trade pokemon with, and people to talk with. I liked to get free pokemon. I also heard about this place from friends who were talking about shoddy battle at the time. I stayed because the game is addicting and there was/is some very likeable people here. I haven't had much of a real reason to leave yet. Even if I just lurk and look at the league/smash thread.
Same :]
It's an apprenticeship pattern, whatever discipline you're in, to surround yourself by people who are better at that discipline - to always be the worst person on the team your in. If you want to be great at something you have to put yourself in an environment where you're always going to be learning new things from other people - a principal I try to follow in all aspects of my life. When I was younger - Pokemon was no different - that's what attracted me to Smogon, how intellectually the community approached the game.
What brought me here? I was a complete noob. I could get the hang of fairly basic strategies early on when I started (I started in DPP, but didn't really get serious until BW,) but my teambuilding sucked. My teams had no synergy, I was using shitty sets, outclassed 'mons and I was using Zoroark. I wanted to get better. So, I came here, learned what sets were good, and learned how to actually put a team together, and it's all thanks to this site that the final barrier to my competitive success was torn down.
I still kept using Zoroark though. XY had to beat me into not using it.
I still kept using Zoroark though. XY had to beat me into not using it.
I came to Smogon after playing on PS for a little while and wanting to get more involved with the community. I lurked for a long time before making an account.
I heard someone here would give me a free toaster.
No, but rly I've always lurked around the site, but never joined b/c I thought you would need to be good to post on the forum. But now I decided to grow a pair and just join.
No, but rly I've always lurked around the site, but never joined b/c I thought you would need to be good to post on the forum. But now I decided to grow a pair and just join.
Oh I don't know. A fellow old friend of mine showed me Pokemon Showdown. Kids loved playing the games and I always played through the older version they had when they moved onto the new ones and would battle through wi-fi. As an old fogey though I began to realize time was limited and heard of the Showdown program where you could make fun teams and battle them instantly. Looking forward to giving it a try soon so I can show you whipper-snappers a thing or two.
And by that I mean probably get utterly destroyed.
And by that I mean probably get utterly destroyed.
silver97
GUNDELEROS WE DO THE PATTO DI SANGUE
Some years ago i was playing bw and beating e4 repeatedly to be the very best like no one ever was. One day a friend of mine told me that i could play wifi battles vs people all over the world, so for the next year and a half i kept playing wifi battles with random pokemon created with action replay and of course i kept losing. At a certain point i discovered how ev training worked and all other competitive stuff and at the end i finally reached the smogon analysis and after a brief period of time i joined PS! And smogon forums.
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I was getting thrashed online. Kept hearing about Smogon on some Pokemon FB groups, so came to check it out. Had a go on a random battle on Showdown and really liked it. Started by using my XY team and went on to improve and experiment from there. Still gonna find a way to make Furret useful, even if it kills me!
I used to watch youtube wifi battles in the platinum era, and saw a lot of Poison Heal Breloom. I was fascinated by the strategy and wondered how the battlers at the time figured out the strategy, cause I sure as heck knew that they didn't get it from reading any "official" material like strategy guides. User Arkeis (formerly AragornBird) saw my comment and told me that Smogon was the premier competitive Pokemon site, and about the simulator Shoddy Battle. It wasn't until October 2009 that I joined, after finding research on ways to get competitively viable Pokemon quickly (particularly legendaries). I discovered RNG abuse and helped out with research for FR/LG seed generation.
Back in the beginning of the D/P era, I only browsed Advance Wars sites. There were Pokemon discussions, of course, and this site got name-dropped often. But still, I wasn't compelled to show my face until a friend invited me to join a team tournament in which he was short on hands. My competitive debut, so to speak, is actually right here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/team-trials-ii-signups.55033/page-5#post-1936962 (Poor Earthworm, ha ha ha).
Slowly but surely, I became more familiar with the competitive Pokemon community through tournaments with friends on AW sites and laddering Shoddy often. I started off kind of a dick, as I usually am in online communities, but over time, I just learned better ways to communicate. Looking at some of the new kids (or adults, even) post only invokes that nostalgia I had for running my big mouth even when I barely understood the game.
Heck, 8 years of this shit and I'm still learning.
Slowly but surely, I became more familiar with the competitive Pokemon community through tournaments with friends on AW sites and laddering Shoddy often. I started off kind of a dick, as I usually am in online communities, but over time, I just learned better ways to communicate. Looking at some of the new kids (or adults, even) post only invokes that nostalgia I had for running my big mouth even when I barely understood the game.
Heck, 8 years of this shit and I'm still learning.
Lurked the analysis pages on Pokémon since about.. HGSS? Leanred about EVs and such in the D/P era, but that was actually on Serebii. As for the forums, I was on Pokécheck since early 2012 or so and, being the absolute whore I am, got to know pretty much everyone with half a brain that used the shoutbox since then (which was about 0.0035% of the users that posted), got to know some fun people and they all used Smogon's actual forums. Figured I'd make an account if only to suck Agonist 's dick and steam up his profile comments with my fiery ginger sexyness. AND I SUCCEEDED. Of course, had countless laughs and fun with cannibal in particular, Hozu, and pretty much everyone I stalk follow on my profile.
Then I made random posts on my odd approaches to battles, 2 RMT's, a metric fuckton of stupid questions, and trading spit(backs) with a few people for XY/ORAS breeding. All of this with the stipulation that I haven't actually used Smogon's battle formats, rules, or simulators since like, HGSS, and therefor contribute almost nothing to the bulk of the site. *shot*
I finally got a job, so I actually work and have shit to do now, so I've been all but extinct since ORAS.
Then I made random posts on my odd approaches to battles, 2 RMT's, a metric fuckton of stupid questions, and trading spit(backs) with a few people for XY/ORAS breeding. All of this with the stipulation that I haven't actually used Smogon's battle formats, rules, or simulators since like, HGSS, and therefor contribute almost nothing to the bulk of the site. *shot*
I finally got a job, so I actually work and have shit to do now, so I've been all but extinct since ORAS.
TheFlamingSpade brought me here. He's my favorite pokemon youtuber, and in his videos he of course mentioned smogon all the time. So I googled it, and came here. This was years ago. I don't battle much; I'm mostly just interested in watching how the metagame evolves, because I want to go into game design, and watching smogon balance the metagame provides sort of a transparent look at what probably goes on in most major game developement companies. Keep rocking, Smogon!