Thugly Duckling
I play TCG now
Been on Smogon for a little more than a year now, and lurked for a roughly a year before that. But here's how I regretfully found Smogon.
In my freshman year summer, I had a frighteningly large amount of free time so I thought, "I'm going to waste my time playing Pokemon and become the best player possible". I took such extreme measures to reach this goal, that I even start working with my dad detailing cars' interiors, just so I could purchase the most up-to-date Pokemon training gear, a DSL Lite (Has a GBA cartridge slot so I can migrate my childhood Gen3 mons and shinies duh), and a HeartGold version (to transfer all of those said mons duh).
So I played through the game, beat the Gym leaders, and the Elite four, and then started IV breeding OP mons like Garchomp, Dragonite, Salamence, Lucario, Metagross, and Tyranitar; but, I foolishly underestimated the RNG which never gave me any flawless pokes (but it did troll me with a 31 / 21 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 Jolly Garchomp).
After becoming unsuccessful of IV breeding, I looked for new methods. I researched into RNG manipulating, but that was proven to be even more difficult than IV breeding because all of that parameters / seeds / frames bullshit was not my forte, so; flawless, unbeatable pokemon became but mere abstract.
So I just accepted it. I was done with my pokemon career. I looked back onto my accomplishments, including, a less than 10 hour play through of Sapphire version; conquering of Mt. Battle in Pokemon Colosseum for my Modest Ho-Oh (a total win at the time); beating both Myth Trainers, Inity and Infin, of Orre Colosseum in Battle Mode; more than 10 shinies, three of which are soft-reset overworld mons; a completed National Pokédex™ in Gen3; and roughly 2000 hours of in-game play. I rested satisfied with my accomplishments.
But short lived. Like a former drug addict experiencing withdrawal symptoms, I yearned for Pokemon. But I was not going to return to the hopeless void of in-game play. And for some odd reason, it crossed my mind that I could join competitive Pokemon with Smogon, but how I could 'compete', per sé, baffled me because I had no flawless pokemon to compete with! There had to be another way. But one glorious day, I glanced upon the most relieving words I have ever read, found on the left-hand side of the Smogon home page: "Battle Simulator". I clicked it, and watched a simulator behold before my very eyes.
Surely enough, after playing OU and realizing it was cancer (this was gen 5 at the time, and my favorite playstyle, rain, became overly centralizing and deterred me from using it), I joined Ubers, as little Ducky209, and slowly began to hone my skills as a player by playing continuous matches on the ladder.
And I've been hooked ever since. These days I've drifted away from Ubers back to OU, but I did have the privilege of playing XY Ubers top-to-bottom, through thick and thin, and innovated quite a few nifty stuff such as Tailwind+SpecsOgre on a HO build to check Geomancy Xerneas; and, I also innovated Taunt+SR Offensive Heatran on Sticky Web. I'm not particularly the player I used to be, but I still call Ubers home and hopefully I can muster the will to fully return to it someday. As of now I'm trying to establish myself as an OU player, with tough going, but I enjoy how diverse Teambuilding can be in the tier, similar to how things were in XY Ubers.
Thanks for reading.
In my freshman year summer, I had a frighteningly large amount of free time so I thought, "I'm going to waste my time playing Pokemon and become the best player possible". I took such extreme measures to reach this goal, that I even start working with my dad detailing cars' interiors, just so I could purchase the most up-to-date Pokemon training gear, a DSL Lite (Has a GBA cartridge slot so I can migrate my childhood Gen3 mons and shinies duh), and a HeartGold version (to transfer all of those said mons duh).
So I played through the game, beat the Gym leaders, and the Elite four, and then started IV breeding OP mons like Garchomp, Dragonite, Salamence, Lucario, Metagross, and Tyranitar; but, I foolishly underestimated the RNG which never gave me any flawless pokes (but it did troll me with a 31 / 21 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 Jolly Garchomp).
After becoming unsuccessful of IV breeding, I looked for new methods. I researched into RNG manipulating, but that was proven to be even more difficult than IV breeding because all of that parameters / seeds / frames bullshit was not my forte, so; flawless, unbeatable pokemon became but mere abstract.
So I just accepted it. I was done with my pokemon career. I looked back onto my accomplishments, including, a less than 10 hour play through of Sapphire version; conquering of Mt. Battle in Pokemon Colosseum for my Modest Ho-Oh (a total win at the time); beating both Myth Trainers, Inity and Infin, of Orre Colosseum in Battle Mode; more than 10 shinies, three of which are soft-reset overworld mons; a completed National Pokédex™ in Gen3; and roughly 2000 hours of in-game play. I rested satisfied with my accomplishments.
But short lived. Like a former drug addict experiencing withdrawal symptoms, I yearned for Pokemon. But I was not going to return to the hopeless void of in-game play. And for some odd reason, it crossed my mind that I could join competitive Pokemon with Smogon, but how I could 'compete', per sé, baffled me because I had no flawless pokemon to compete with! There had to be another way. But one glorious day, I glanced upon the most relieving words I have ever read, found on the left-hand side of the Smogon home page: "Battle Simulator". I clicked it, and watched a simulator behold before my very eyes.
Surely enough, after playing OU and realizing it was cancer (this was gen 5 at the time, and my favorite playstyle, rain, became overly centralizing and deterred me from using it), I joined Ubers, as little Ducky209, and slowly began to hone my skills as a player by playing continuous matches on the ladder.
And I've been hooked ever since. These days I've drifted away from Ubers back to OU, but I did have the privilege of playing XY Ubers top-to-bottom, through thick and thin, and innovated quite a few nifty stuff such as Tailwind+SpecsOgre on a HO build to check Geomancy Xerneas; and, I also innovated Taunt+SR Offensive Heatran on Sticky Web. I'm not particularly the player I used to be, but I still call Ubers home and hopefully I can muster the will to fully return to it someday. As of now I'm trying to establish myself as an OU player, with tough going, but I enjoy how diverse Teambuilding can be in the tier, similar to how things were in XY Ubers.
Thanks for reading.
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