Why are other countries so underrepresented on Battle Spot rankings?

[Whiskey Tango]

Right now (about two weeks into season five), the only formats with Americans even cracking the top 50 on Battle Spot rankings are, I believe, Triples and Rotation. Countries other than Japan totaled together only add a few to that number.

What's up with that? Even in previous seasons, where you do see some non-Japanese players finishing in the top 10 in certain formats, we're still looking at numbers in the top 50 overall you can count on two hands. With as big a competitive scene as the U.S. supposedly has (and other countries, though I mention it just for sheer population), why is the showing so poor?

Curious to hear thoughts.

 

[Pyritie]

japan doesn't play on sims

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Yeah, I was expecting that.

So, consequently, they're probably also better as a community at every kind of officially sanctioned Nintendo format then, yeah? (Though many countries have strong but small VGC bases.)

I get the sim-specific culture in English-speaking countries when it was the only way to play, but at this point it's kind of a bummer.

 

[EnGarde]

I wish there was a SQ/SA thread for this forum. :( Sometimes I have simple questions, but no where to ask that the really good BS players are watching. Everytime I've popped into the IRC, no one else is there (or they've been a long time idle).

My personal goal at this point is to try and become a 1700 rated player in BS doubles (I'm currently a 1600 rated player), and hopefully do really well in the upcoming super speed doubles comp. :)

EDT: I guess what I'm saying (didn't do so well the first time, lol) is that I find it difficult to get information on the Battle Spot metagame. I know that I keep making the same mistakes, and using the same team and recommendations (mostly from the VGC side of the community), and I find that makes my growth as a battler a bit stagnant.

Which follows...why work towards mastery of battle spot, when there is a lot more information readily available for the mainstream smogon metagames (especially OU and ubers)? That's the struggle I, as a newer player, face.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Ah, yeah. I'm currently a 1722 Rotation player (jockeying for #1 in U.S. right now with one other player), so I'm focusing on just placing as highly as I can in that this season. You think it's hard to get info on Battle Spot doubles? Try one of the other formats. Though I'm building a team for Super-Speed Doubles too.

Pokemon Global Link's usage stats are great assets though, so check them out for whatever format you're playing in. It really helps to know the most common movesets and items, and you can discern new strategies form reading them correctly. You can also use it to track changes from season to season. You can actually see sets and Pokemon rising and falling in usage to get a sense of the changing meta (and at the top they do change).

But I totally sympathize with you on the lack of an active/quick Battle Spot format community. I actually joined here because it's the only game in town, and even here it seems under-discussed. But of the only big U.S. Pokemon sites, Smogon is overwhelmingly focused on its own simulator formats, Serebii has zero competitive presence, and Nugget Bridge is strictly VGC with occasional discussion of Wi-Fi tournaments. There's little place for other Nintendo formats, which I feel is a shame. I'm not sure if that's due to a lack of interest or because it causes the same, but it seems like there's a third niche to be filled. I guess that's something I wanted to discuss with this thread too. It'd be cool to see some English-language players actually contribute to one another's successes and start showing up on leader boards in a real way, rather than just the isolated successes in certain seasons we've seen.

 

[EnGarde]

There was a section you removed, I think, I forget exactly what you said, but my response was that you were preaching to the choir, lol, as I haven't given up on battle spot. :) The battles are the right length, and the kinds of sets and pokemon combinations you face are so varied (at least where I am on the tier), that it's definitely a lot of fun.

The problem is, if you look at the sub-forums of this community, the new member outreach programs are the mentorship program, and the Battling 101 sub-forum. I don't know of any mentors that play battle spot regularly (not to say that they're aren't any! Just, not to my knowledge). And I haven't posted in the battling 101 sub-forum because I'm not super interested in OU sim play, which is where the emphasis is (for good reason, I guess, as that's what this community was founded around). There isn't a new member outreach program that seems to really touch battle spot. There are no analyses on the read-only side of smogon (where it talks about sets for individual pokemon) that are tagged for battle spot, or for rotation or triple battles.

Ah, yeah. I'm currently a 1722 Rotation player (jockeying for #1 in U.S. right now with one other player), so I'm focusing on just placing as highly as I can in that this season. You think it's hard to get info on Battle Spot doubles? Try one of the other formats. Though I'm building a team for Super-Speed Doubles too.

lol, I didn't know 1700 meant top ranked in the US!!! Here I thought that was a doable goal...I'll keep trying for it, though, lol. :)

Pokemon Global Link's usage stats are great assets though, so check them out for whatever format you're playing in. It really helps to know the most common movesets and items, and you can discern new strategies form reading them correctly.

I've looked at usage statistics on PGL before, but I'm definitely not good a discerning new strategies based on reading them.

Here is an example: I wanted to try mega lucario on battle spot singles, so I started with usage statistics. However, the usage stats listed that luc was more likely to carry extreme speed (31%) than bullet punch (12%), which didn't make sense to me, as bullet punch gets the adaptability boost. Then I realized that bullet punch is an egg move on a species with a 12.5% female gender ratio (thus, hard to breed). Maybe the reason why extreme speed was more used was simply because it was easier to get? I wasn't sure either way which was true, or if I should give up on the superior physical move-pool and just go with a special variant (timid nature: 53%; jolly nature: 28%).

But I totally sympathize with you on the lack of an active/quick Battle Spot format community. I actually joined here because it's the only game in town, and even here it seems under-discussed. But of the only big U.S. Pokemon sites, Smogon is overwhelmingly focused on its own simulator formats, Serebii has zero competitive presence, and Nugget Bridge is strictly VGC with occasional discussion of Wi-Fi tournaments. There's little place for other Nintendo formats, which I feel is a shame. I'm not sure if that's due to a lack of interest or because it causes the same, but it seems like there's a third niche to be filled. I guess that's something I wanted to discuss with this thread too. It'd be cool to see some English-language players actually contribute to one another's successes and start showing up on leader boards in a real way, rather than just the isolated successes in certain seasons we've seen.

Yeah, I tend to lurk nuggetbridge and serebii. Nuggetbridge has interesting team reports and analyses, which help me understand how to put teams together and what kind of synergies work, and serebii lists a lot of raw data on egg moves and whatnot which is pretty useful.

I think part of the allure of sim play is that you can build and test teams quickly. Using my mega lucario example from above, you can push a few buttons and instantly generate the perfect mega luc to test with. And, if you don't like it, you can push a few more buttons and switch it around. I wonder how many of the people who play on PS actually have the newest version of pokemon, or any knowledge of breeding or how to obtain the rare pokemon necessary to be competitive, such as difficult to find hidden abilities, long breeding chains for egg moves *aegislash*, difficult 12.5% gender ratio breeding, RNGing perfect legendaries pre-gen 6, SRing near-perfect legendaries IN gen 6... These people? You're not likely to draw them to battle spot simply because there's a lot of up-front work involved in this.

Anyways, that's all I can think of for right now, lol. :P If you want to know more about me as a battler, I'm still dusting off my doubles team for last season (lol, I discovered the trading community here and I've been spending wayy too much time breeding and wayy too little time battling, lol), so I'll link you to my team from the battle of legends comp.

Hide

2 Wins:
BM5W-WWWW-WWW8-ZT2W - Vs. Mega Mewtwo X and Kyurem-W
QWPW-WWWW-WWW8-ZTXW - Why you don't use outrage in doubles

1 Loss (this one I think really demonstrates my weaknesses as a battler, while still being pretty interesting to watch)
6JRG-WWWW-WWW8-ZSTW

So, I woke up early to finish the matches I missed yesterday, as well as today's matches. My final tally was 19-11, and my last recorded rating was 1,589 (peak was 1,624), which was about where I expected to be at the end of the competition. I really hope my final ranking will be 1600+, since I won my last match.

I had a lot of fun, and I really feel like a built a solid team that was competitive in this metagame, though I still have lots of room to grow as a battler, lol. Hopefully I'll do even better in the next competition. :)

EDIT: I know that my hitmontop was sub-optimal: I forgot to save after I used an ability capsule (and pp max) on it the night before the comp.

My team:

EDIT: Picture didn't link.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

There was a section you removed, I think, I forget exactly what you said, but my response was that you were preaching to the choir, lol, as I haven't given up on battle spot. :) The battles are the right length, and the kinds of sets and pokemon combinations you face are so varied (at least where I am on the tier), that it's definitely a lot of fun.

Ah, yeah. It was about my preference for Battle Spot over simulators as they let you play against and be ranked among a larger playerbase with official rules, but I thought it might have been getting overlong and a little anti-the place where I was posting it, which wasn't my intent.

The problem is, if you look at the sub-forums of this community, the new member outreach programs are the mentorship program, and the Battling 101 sub-forum. I don't know of any mentors that play battle spot regularly (not to say that they're aren't any! Just, not to my knowledge). And I haven't posted in the battling 101 sub-forum because I'm not super interested in OU sim play, which is where the emphasis is (for good reason, I guess, as that's what this community was founded around). There isn't a new member outreach program that seems to really touch battle spot. There are no analyses on the read-only side of smogon (where it talks about sets for individual pokemon) that are tagged for battle spot, or for rotation or triple battles.

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Smogon is still ground zero for English-language competitive Pokemon, and its points of entry (the forums you mentioned) are focused on its own formats. That's ... fine, but it necessarily buries the others, which don't have the attention VGC gets both from Nintendo itself or sites like Nugget Bridge.

I'm not really sure what anyone can do to change that, but I'd be very pro-new member material focused on Rotations/Triples, even Battle Spot singles, etc. It's just a great game and I'd love to get other people playing and discussing it.

And I do use sims for testing, anything other than rotation, obviously. With them at our disposal we should be topping Battle Spot rankings because they're such a great resource (VGC players use them for practice too), rather than getting caught up completely in metagames specific to them. IMO, anyway, but our global showings are pretty poor.

The legends team seems cool. I wanted to do that one, but I didn't have great legendaries on hand and decided I was better off putting the time into breeding things for rotation and the upcoming Super-Speed tournament, since that can transition into a general doubles team or give me a base for VGC/other Wi-Fi events.

As for time/luck barriers to Wi-Fi play, the only one not removed this generation entirely is the odds of getting an optimal Legendary. But 1) It's okay to go in slightly less ideal on that front, as most others are too, and 2) Nearly any community (Nugget Bridge does this a lot) will give you a friendly pipeline to any number of clones of good ones so no one's at a disadvantage. It's actually a really cool and nice aspect of non-simulator play.

Here is an example: I wanted to try mega lucario on battle spot singles, so I started with usage statistics. However, the usage stats listed that luc was more likely to carry extreme speed (31%) than bullet punch (12%), which didn't make sense to me, as bullet punch gets the adaptability boost. Then I realized that bullet punch is an egg move on a species with a 12.5% female gender ratio (thus, hard to breed). Maybe the reason why extreme speed was more used was simply because it was easier to get? I wasn't sure either way which was true, or if I should give up on the superior physical move-pool and just go with a special variant (timid nature: 53%; jolly nature: 28%).

Okay, so maybe they're not always helpful. A lot of the time they are, though. I guess you do have to discern between what's tallied from bad players/laziness and what's genuinely a beneficial strategy.

 

[Age of Kings]

This is my analysis of the situation:

1. The Western competitive playerbase is centralized on Smogon. It may appear smug of me to say this even on Smogon, but is there any other Pokemon community within the Western fandom that approaches the size, scale, and centrality of Smogon? Even though it is an English speaking website, there are many Smogon users who are not native English speakers on this site or people who attempt to translate Smogon resources into their native languages. I guess there's Nugget Bridge but many of its prominent members and others who have done well in VGCs are current or former Smogonites despite now playing official Gamefreak tiers.

2. As a result, because of Smogon's centrality, people play by common rules, i.e. Smogon tiers. However, due to game mechanics and general attitudes (too lazy to raise in-game/I don't play in-game Pokemon because it's boring/matchmaking is a hassle/etc), these are primarily played on the simulator. Since the days of Netbattle, the traditional mode of play in the Western fandom has been 6v6 singles on simulators rather than in-game. Attitudes changed when VGCs began rolling around, but just for VGCs because of the irl incentives.

3. The Japanese fanbase is nowhere nearly as centralized and do not have the simulator culture. There is no "big" Japanese competitive Pokemon site. As a result, the only real common battle rules from community to community are the ones set by Gamefreak. Additionally, VGC support has been lacking in Japan since the disastrous 2011 Tohoku earthquake prompted the cancellation of its Worlds qualifiers and has not really recovered since - qualification is primarily by means of online tournaments and there are no in-person regionals to speak of. There are grassroots tournaments, but by and large, standard Battle Spot rules are the order of the day.

4. Reading some NB threads, apparently the Japanese communities are tighter knit and are more likely to play locally pre-Wi-Fi. Japan is far less spread out than most Western countries logistically. Given how far Western players travel for VGCs and the fact that almost none of us actually battle offline, the lack of a need for a simulator seems plausible for Japanese.

tl;dr: VGC is struggling in Japan due to lack of support and there is no central site with "common rules" or simulator culture. Therefore Battle Spot is the prime way to play competitive mons for Japanese.

And I do use sims for testing, anything other than rotation, obviously. With them at our disposal we should be topping Battle Spot rankings because they're such a great resource (VGC players use them for practice too), rather than getting caught up completely in metagames specific to them. IMO, anyway, but our global showings are pretty poor.

Honestly Western players don't devote enough time and energy to Battle Spot because we have so many options. A good example is when my lazily put together standard sets in the recent Eevee tournament that are considered good by our standards struggled against Japanese sets and EV spreads that we would consider gimmicky in our culture. For example, Jolly SD Leafeon got shit on by Rocky Helmet Flareon who was barely taking any damage from +2 Return. You can theorymon all you want but the simulator isn't going to give you a good picture of the environment outside of it. This is why VGC players complained when the VGC special ladder was taken down from Battle Spot.

Besides MythTrainerInfinity, I don't really know any prominent Western Battle Spot players who devote the same amount of time to it that Smogon tiers or VGC players do. Not sure if Hill is still around or quit.

 

[Erebyssial]

Yep, Age of Kings pretty much nailed eveything

From a community perspective, it makes sense for Japan to focus on Japanese rules and the rest of the world to focus on western rules. As long as sims keep improving and Gamefreak continues to ignore 6v6, I can't see this changing. This is the first gen that I ever bothered with Gamefreak's rules thanks to all the breeding/online improvements of X/Y, and while I've enjoyed it a lot, there's not much incentive to take it really seriously when the rest of our central community doesn't either. More activity from us would be nice though, it's kind of irritating to even see the new 6v6 Special ladder ranks dominated by Japan even though Smogon would likely dominate that if more of us cared or even knew about it.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

From a community perspective, it makes sense for Japan to focus on Japanese rules and the rest of the world to focus on western rules

But -- without getting too much into it, it's more like focusing on community rules while Japanese players focus on globally ranked Pokemon rules.

I understand many players enjoy 6 vs. 6 singles, and that's what Smogon's built to focus on and make playable (and until last generation -- maybe even this one with the ease of breeding mechanics, depending on how much importance you place on that), it was one of the only ways to go.

It just makes us look kind of shoddy. And, as you said, even when the format does open up for something more along the lines of what most Smogon players do, it's still a Japanese shutout.

Honestly Western players don't devote enough time and energy to Battle Spot because we have so many options. A good example is when my lazily put together standard sets in the recent Eevee tournament that are considered good by our standards struggled against Japanese sets and EV spreads that we would consider gimmicky in our culture. For example, Jolly SD Leafeon got shit on by Rocky Helmet Flareon who was barely taking any damage from +2 Return. You can theorymon all you want but the simulator isn't going to give you a good picture of the environment outside of it. This is why VGC players complained when the VGC special ladder was taken down from Battle Spot.

But ... those gimmicky sets won, right? I'm also aware most serious VGC players prefer the Wi-Fi ladder for actual practice and use Showdown to arrange matches rather than laddering. But my point was that we still have a great tool in Showdown that allows for creating and testing teams on the fly before committing to creating them in-game.

But if these teams, to take your Eevee Friendly example, are winning and most Western players aren't finding themselves prepared for them, isn't that even greater incentive to focus on Battle Spot play in addition to Smogon formats? If they are two different environments, and I agree that they are, doesn't that make Japanese players tackling that kind of environment better at Pokemon? Or is it just a case of two divergent metagames coming together and players getting shocked by otherwise sub-optimal builds? In which case there'd be even more incentive to track and play in those games so they merge.

I don't mean to get too far into a big sim vs. Wi-Fi debate here. Bottom-line, play what you love, and Smogon's sim formats offer a ton of playstyles not supported by Battle Spot (like, hey, there is no good 6 vs. 6, and the sims offer and aim to optimize that). But there's also that competitive aspect we're all presumably interested in. I guess I just think it'd be cool to see a stronger showing, and Battle Spot would almost definitely be more fun to play with that kind of interest.

I know I have my answer. It's just kind of a letdown and I hope it changes.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

I'm glad to see more players not giving up on this. I tried to make an incentive for Season 4 where if you beat my Season 3 overall points you'd get a drawing.

With all of the diverse players and a worldwide leaderboard that feels so good to see your name at the top... All I gotta say is don't give up!

 

[Erebyssial]

But -- without getting too much into it, it's more like focusing on community rules while Japanese players focus on globally ranked Pokemon rules.

That's kind of true, but the way the communities have been formed it basically is a case of Japanese/western rules, except for VGC which has a good following on both sides. When you have a huge community and ruleset built up years before competitive play was even recognised by Gamefreak + a very popular simulator that makes the community aspect of the rules even better, it's pretty easy to see why a lot of the west still view it as *the* rules to play Pokemon and never quite latched on to cartridge play. Like I said I don't see things changing anytime soon unless Gamefreak specifically caters to western players (which in itself is a huge stretch since by the sounds of it they don't know Smogon exists and how influential it is), but I doubt people would just suddenly stop playing sims anyway.

 

[Hulavuta]

Like I said I don't see things changing anytime soon unless Gamefreak specifically caters to western players (which in itself is a huge stretch since by the sounds of it they don't know Smogon exists and how influential it is), but I doubt people would just suddenly stop playing sims anyway.

Nintendo almost certainly knows Smogon exists (all it would take is one person to find out for the whole company to find out) and Pokemon Showdown was even mentioned by name during an interview in the U.S. VGC Nationals. That raises the question of why they don't take it down...it being free is one thing, it's also possible that they recognize the value of Showdown as a testing resource for VGC players.

And yeah, I don't see Smogon abandoning their rules anytime soon either, even if Nintendo started catering to Western players (although I'm not exactly sure what that would entail). Smogon's philosophy has always been loyalty to their own rules and precedents first (the level 50 vs level 100 thread in Policy Review is a good example).

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Pokemon Showdown was even mentioned by name during an interview in the U.S. VGC Nationals. That raises the question of why they don't take it down...it being free is one thing, it's also possible that they recognize the value of Showdown as a testing resource for VGC players.

That's a strange one. But since it's already the worst-kept secret in the world it's obvious they don't care to take it down. Likely because few if any people are actually turning to it without buying the game (and it caters to a fairly niche group of players), and it helps drum up interest in and provide testing for competitive play. I wouldn't be surprised if they are in favor of it as a tool, but not replacement, for competitive cartridge play.

the level 50 vs level 100 thread in Policy Review is a good example

I don't need to drag up a policy review that has already occurred for the site, but you have to understand how slightly bizarre things like that seem for someone like me who come to Showdown from/for Wi-Fi play. It just means a few extra clicks when teambuilding on the Battle Spot ladders, but still, strange stuff.

 

[Age of Kings]

Honestly, forget trying to recruit people from simulators. The best way imo to increase Battle Spot participation is to target the Wi-Fi and trading communities. Not just on Smogon but elsewhere. X & Y are THE top selling games on the 3DS; objectively, the amount of people playing sims is dwarfed by the people who actually own the games. Of course, the amount of casual players vastly outnumbers the competitive players but the trading community for competitive Pokemon is thriving on all kinds of forums. We need to target the people who own the games.

Very few Wi-Fiers in my experience actually play competitive Pokemon. They are by and large collectors. You need only look further than everything must have useless egg moves and aesthetic embellishments. Wi-Fiers already invest much time in-game, they are least likely to have problems with stuff like EVing and leveling. Battling gives them a chance to show off their collection and make the time and effort spent to collect those Pokemon seem more worthwhile when you use them. There's obviously going to be a few whiners crying about how competitive play is not fun but if so many people spend so much time breeding for IVs and RNG abuse, surely they'd be willing to at least try something that requires plenty of engagement.

We need to shore up the advantages of Battle Spot. I have seen complaints about the difficulties of finding Wi-Fi matches for Smogon tiers. Granted, some people prefer 6v6 over the Battle Spot formats but the convenience of automated match-ups means that dedicated players would rather play more Pokemon than less. VGC is difficult to get into because of the real life prizes and prestige at stake, so there's lots of secrecy and hyper competitiveness involved. Doubles are harder to get into in general....I blame Gamefreak for that one because it seems that they want to push for and balance doubles but the in-game experience suggests that singles is the default. (Side note: there needs to be a Colosseum/XD reboot.) While there is some competitiveness and secrecy, the Battle Spot community here has a greater collaborative spirit. We want to help each other get better. It is rational to help someone else out because even matches are more fun than pub stomping someone. (In my experience, pubstomping lower rated players also contributes less to one's rating. It really fucked me over in the Eevee friendly because I did much worse than many with similar win/loss ratios because I did not play anyone higher than 1690 rating. So no, it is not a good way to farm points if you're in a limited tournament format.)

Going to respond to other posts later but I've been thinking a lot about how to promote Battle Spot. I had lots of article ideas for the Smog, but I'm too mediocre of a player to write good stuff lol.

Btw, my bias: I've abandoned Smogon tiers and VGCs this generation in favor of Battle Spot tournaments and the special ladder. I only play randbats on Showdown lol. I don't play the regular rules much but I'll play to get better if I can be of help to competitive players who play in-game.

 

[Pyritie]

Going to respond to other posts later but I've been thinking a lot about how to promote Battle Spot. I had lots of article ideas for the Smog, but I'm too mediocre of a player to write good stuff lol.

Post them, maybe we can all help out!

 

[Whiskey Tango]

(snip)

I like this whole post. It also explained why I run into so much trouble just trying to trade breeding leftovers on certain sites (everyone asking for shinies, special balls, useless egg moves, etc.). That mentality is really foreign to me, and I'd assumed Wi-Fi trading would be mostly for battlers.

But, yeah. I don't think we can totally ignore people currently playing Smogon formats, as that's where the bulk of competitively interested players end up and it's where all new players get pointed. That said, I did submit a rotation battle spot pitch for The Smog last night; we'll see where that goes. Unfortunately that's the only format in which I can claim any expertise right now (I'm just starting in doubles and triples and am seriously so bad at singles), but it'd be awesome to see people promote other formats there.

Does Smogon do coverage of the Wi-Fi tournaments or special ladders anywhere on-site or in the Smog? (Ex. Eevee Friendly, Battle of Legends, etc.)? I know Nugget Bridge sometimes reports on the former, but those are cool ways to get people involved with immediate rewards (you can see how high you place in a one-off event), and that encourage other playstyles. Smogon could do some write-ups of those, since it looks like they're here to stay as an aspect of competitive Pokemon.

On a side note, I'd like to see another game encourage doubles play all the way through as well. It's for sure a barrier for people that the way you play through the game is not the official format, nor even one of the options on Battle Spot (then again, for non-competitive players the differences between 6 vs. 6 singles and 3 vs. 3 are probably less obvious). You do have to go out of your way to initiate yourself into other formats, but some good pushes from sites like Smogon could help that as well, as there's a hurdle transitioning from in-game to competitive play no matter what format you choose.

 

[Bhunivelze]

This is my analysis of the situation:

1. The Western competitive playerbase is centralized on Smogon. It may appear smug of me to say this even on Smogon, but is there any other Pokemon community within the Western fandom that approaches the size, scale, and centrality of Smogon? Even though it is an English speaking website, there are many Smogon users who are not native English speakers on this site or people who attempt to translate Smogon resources into their native languages. I guess there's Nugget Bridge but many of its prominent members and others who have done well in VGCs are current or former Smogonites despite now playing official Gamefreak tiers.

2. As a result, because of Smogon's centrality, people play by common rules, i.e. Smogon tiers. However, due to game mechanics and general attitudes (too lazy to raise in-game/I don't play in-game Pokemon because it's boring/matchmaking is a hassle/etc), these are primarily played on the simulator. Since the days of Netbattle, the traditional mode of play in the Western fandom has been 6v6 singles on simulators rather than in-game. Attitudes changed when VGCs began rolling around, but just for VGCs because of the irl incentives.

3. The Japanese fanbase is nowhere nearly as centralized and do not have the simulator culture. There is no "big" Japanese competitive Pokemon site. As a result, the only real common battle rules from community to community are the ones set by Gamefreak. Additionally, VGC support has been lacking in Japan since the disastrous 2011 Tohoku earthquake prompted the cancellation of its Worlds qualifiers and has not really recovered since - qualification is primarily by means of online tournaments and there are no in-person regionals to speak of. There are grassroots tournaments, but by and large, standard Battle Spot rules are the order of the day.

4. Reading some NB threads, apparently the Japanese communities are tighter knit and are more likely to play locally pre-Wi-Fi. Japan is far less spread out than most Western countries logistically. Given how far Western players travel for VGCs and the fact that almost none of us actually battle offline, the lack of a need for a simulator seems plausible for Japanese.

tl;dr: VGC is struggling in Japan due to lack of support and there is no central site with "common rules" or simulator culture. Therefore Battle Spot is the prime way to play competitive mons for Japanese.



Honestly Western players don't devote enough time and energy to Battle Spot because we have so many options. A good example is when my lazily put together standard sets in the recent Eevee tournament that are considered good by our standards struggled against Japanese sets and EV spreads that we would consider gimmicky in our culture. For example, Jolly SD Leafeon got shit on by Rocky Helmet Flareon who was barely taking any damage from +2 Return. You can theorymon all you want but the simulator isn't going to give you a good picture of the environment outside of it. This is why VGC players complained when the VGC special ladder was taken down from Battle Spot.

Besides MythTrainerInfinity, I don't really know any prominent Western Battle Spot players who devote the same amount of time to it that Smogon tiers or VGC players do. Not sure if Hill is still around or quit.

You made a good post, Age of Kings!

Point 1: This is a true statement about how many users are not native to the English language. What i think of the Nugget Bridge is that it's not fully used by users. I must say it does provide useful information.

Point 2: You're right that the traditional mode is 6v6 singles. That much hasn't changed at all...

Point 3: The Tohoku earthquake was the reason? That i didn't know.

Point 4: Japan is far less spread out. This is indeed true.

Anyways this was a good read.

 

[EnGarde]

Very few Wi-Fiers in my experience actually play competitive Pokemon. They are by and large collectors. You need only look further than everything must have useless egg moves and aesthetic embellishments.

I like this whole post. It also explained why I run into so much trouble just trying to trade breeding leftovers on certain sites (everyone asking for shinies, special balls, useless egg moves, etc.). That mentality is really foreign to me, and I'd assumed Wi-Fi trading would be mostly for battlers.

I'm kind of active in the wifi trading community here in smogon, and I'd like to give you guys my take on it.

This might seem silly, but there is an aspect of competitive breeding. That is, you demonstrate your skill as a pokemon breeder by matching a pokemon's color palette / shiny color palette to the correct ball (the useless aesthetic embellishments Age of Kings was talking about), with the correct ability (sometimes collecting useless HAs just because they're harder to get, especially with a good pokeball), and with hard/tedious-to-get (if useless) egg moves. In this case, the pokemon is not a means to an end, but an end product in itself (and many of these never get raised past level 1; in fact, being UT--untouched--is a highly desirable state). You also build and demonstrate your reputation as a fair and honest trader by maintaining a trade thread to display your collection and demonstrate the successful trades you've done in the past, while also giving people a place to communicate/negotiate with you.

So, this aspect of competitive breeding might be why Whiskey Tango struggled to generate interest in his stuff: spitback pokemon in standard pokeballs with no egg moves are really easy to breed, thus demonstrate that you're not...highly ranked on the competitive breeding ladder (lol, for lack of a better analogy). For a skilled breeder, they could get these themselves with minimal effort, and so aren't likely to want them for their collection. They would want pokemon to trade for that would cost a more significant amount of time and effort to collect, otherwise they'd just breed/collect it themselves.

This framework lends itself to a very active and collaborative environment. One of the big hubs there, the SQ/SR thread, almost always has at least 1-3 active users viewing it, as many as 10-15 during peak times, and can be as active as IRC. There have been some pushes towards getting collectors to move more towards battling side of the community, for example, this:

~Giveaway~​

Hey guys, ClutchesOfBlood here bringing you a giveaway! However, this is no ordinary giveaway, you see I'm part of this group called Type Of The Month Club [TOTMC] and we hold a giveaway every month featuring a certain Pokémon type. This month we bring the scorching heat and flames coming from deep inside volcanoes; Fire.

To enter this giveaway you'll need to send me a VM stating that you wish to enter! What's the twist you may ask? Well, to win the top of the class prizes—shinies or legendaries—you'll have to battle one another!

To make this giveaway fairer, everyone who participates will also receive a Pokémon of their choice from the pool, excluding the shinies and legendaries. I will be using a random number generator to decide who battles whom. Hopefully this is clear to you all.

Here are the prizes and all of the people who bred/captured them!

Entries:

• You have until the end of July to enter this giveaway.

Battle Time Limit:

• Each participant has a 48 hour period which should allow you to battle your opponent.

Rules:

• No Megas.
• No Focus Sash.
• No Talonflame.
• No Blaziken.
  
• All OU clauses are applied.
• Breedable Pokemon ONLY.
• ALWAYS use the same Pokemon you have chosen.
• PLEASE AND SAVE the battle videos and send them to me.
• 1v1 FIRE TYPE POKEMON ONLY.

Side note:

You will all receive your Pokemon from awiec. Remember, only one Pokemon per person; unless you're the winner.

Hide

Bred by: SnoopysWorld

Gender: Female
Nature: Jolly
Ability: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Moves: Morning Sun/Low Kick/Hypnosis/Horn Drill
OT: Serena
ID: 49087
Redis Policy: Semi Redis

Gender: Female
Nature: Timid
Ability: Magician
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
Moves: Wish/Magic Coat/Hypnosis/Heat Wave
OT: Andrew
ID: 55673
Redis Policy: Semi Redis

Bred by: .com

Nickname: Pele
Gender: Female
Nature: Bold
Ability: Flame Body
IVs: 31/30/31/30/31/31 (HP Grass)
Moves: Acid Armor/Memento/Earth Power/Heat Wave
OT: Misty
ID: 19271
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Nickname: Dante
Gender: Male
Nature: Hasty
Ability: Solar Power
IVs: 30/31/30/31/31/31 (HP Ice)
Moves: Ancient Power/Focus Punch/Dragon Pulse/Dragon Dance
OT: Misty
ID: 07845
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Given by: .com

Nickname: Desdemona
Gender: None
Nature: Naive
Ability: Turboblaze
IVs: 31/31/30/30/31/31 (HP Grass)
Moves: Earth Power/Heat Wave/Tailwind/Zen Headbutt
OT: Misty
ID: 00000
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Nickname: Flame On
Gender: None
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Limber
IVs: 31/30/31/30/31/30 (HP Fire)
Moves: Transform
OT: Misty
ID: 00001
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Bred by: *Trev*

Gender: Female
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Blaze
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/31
Moves: Yawn/Magnitude/Curse/Sucker Punch
OT: Kevin
ID: 11679
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Gender: Male
Nature: Modest
Ability: Flame Body
IVs: 31/xx/31/30/30/31 (HP Ground)
Moves: Giga Drain/Quiver Dance/Tailwind/Bug Buzz
OT: HILDA
ID: 51573
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Bred by: flargananddingle

Gender: Female
Nature: Bold
Ability: White Smoke
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
Moves: Ember/Eruption/Yawn/Superpower
OT: Mike
ID: 43466
Redis Policy: Fully Redis

Gender: Male
Nature: Naive
Ability: Iron Fist
IVs: 30/31/30/31/31/31
Moves: Encore/Fake Out/ Thunder Punch/ Fire Punch
OT: Mike
ID: 43466
Redis Policy: Semi Redis

Gender: Female
Nature: Timid
Ability: Blaze
IVs: 31/0/30/31/30/30
Moves: Scratch/Play Nice/Heat Wave/Nasty Plot
OT: Japanese
ID: 24359
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Bred by: lockiegengar12

Gender: Male
Nature: Rash
Ability: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
Moves: Giga Drain/Knock Off/Superpower/Sucker Punch
OT: Bella
ID: 07338
Redis Policy: Semi-Redis

Gender: Female
Nature: Timid
Ability: Blaze
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
Moves: Tackle/Leer/Quick Attack/Extrasensory
OT: CyberWolf
ID: 52835
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Bred by: Valzy

Nickname: Nala
Gender: Female
Nature: Timid
Ability: Unnerve
IVs: 31/00/30/31/31/31
Moves: Enterainment/Fire Spin/Snatch/Yawn
OT: Inaba
ID: 00519
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Nickname: Starspot
Gender: Female
Nature: Modest
Ability: Unnerve
IVs: 31/24/30/31/30/30
Moves: Zen Headbutt/Endure/Magnet Rise/Morning Sun
OT: Scarlett
ID: 04771
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Gender: Female
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Speed Boost
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
Moves: Agility/Counter/Low Kick/Baton Pass
OT: Matt
ID: 00663
Redis Policy:

Bred by: evan0913

Gender: Male
Nature: Timid
Ability: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/23/31/31/31/31
Moves: Astonish/Clear Smog/Haze/Heat Wave
OT: Sara
ID: 14424
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Gender: Male
Nature: Adamant
Ability: Hustle
IVs: 31/31/31/09/31/31
Moves: Hammer Arm/Yawn/Encore/Endure
OT: Aric
ID: 27612
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Given by: Tatertot

Gender: None
Nature: Modest
Ability: Flash Fire
IVs: 31/0/30/31/31/31 (HP Ice)
Moves: Iron Head/Lava Plume/Stealth Rock/Dragon Pulse
OT: Tate
ID: 24975
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Bred by: Mewdraco

Gender: Male
Nature: Mild
Ability: Blaze
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
Moves: Outrage/Dragon Pulse/Dragon Dance/Dragon Dance
OT: Andres
ID: 33220
Redis Policy:

Bred by: awiec

Gender: Male
Nature: Modest
Ability: Vital Spirit
IVs:31/23/31/31/31/31
Moves: Smog/Leer/Barrier
OT: Polo
ID: 34188
Redis Policy: Non Redis

Gender: Female
Nature: Quiet
Ability: Simple
IVs: 31/24/31/31/31/00
Moves: Tackle/Iron Head/Howl/Heat Wave
OT: Piloups
ID: 28581
Redis Policy: Non Redis
Name is in German but will revert to English when evolved

Bred by: ClutchesOfBlood

Gender: Female
Nature: Impish
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Moves: Crunch/Flare Blitz/Morning Sun/Close Combat
OT: Josh
ID: 24835
Redis Policy: Non Redis
Note: It was SV hatched.

Gender: Female
Nature: Bold
Ability: Flame Body
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31
Moves: Yawn/Smog/--/--
OT: Anthony
ID: 53079
Redis Policy: Fully Redis​

If we, as the Battle Spot community, wish to reach out more to the wifi community of collectors and traders, maybe communicating and collaborating with the existing top members there would be beneficial? Maybe offer doable incentives (i.e. your choice of a shiny / legendary pokemon for a doable goal: screencap proof that you've made something like a 1600 rating in some battle spot format). Something along these lines?

Anyways, I'm just brainstorming. :)

 

[awiec]

I competitively battle myself but I am also a breeder of shinys and what not. I personally think of the best ability and egg moves when I breed something. Sure I will put it in a nice ball that suits my needs but I mainly want the pokemon to have a use even if its a gimmick set. I don't usually trade others who don't have egg moves or matching pokeballs just because I put so much thoughtfulness into my own breeds that a little effort on the other person's part would be nice. As for 5th gen RNGs I could care care less about the ball because I know there are limitations and tutor moves are important to me. I'm part of the TOTMC that EnGarde provided as an example and we mainly selected battles as we have grown tired of leechers constantly entering our giveaways. I know we would love to reach out to the battling community as myself and a few others do breed and battle while a lot of the wi-fi section has just degraded into shiny collecting.

 

[Age of Kings]

I'm home from work so it's time for the great wall of text!

I don't need to drag up a policy review that has already occurred for the site, but you have to understand how slightly bizarre things like that seem for someone like me who come to Showdown from/for Wi-Fi play. It just means a few extra clicks when teambuilding on the Battle Spot ladders, but still, strange stuff.

Eh, lv50 and lv100 play differently largely because offenses scale better than defense at that level. I forget the exact amount but when doing calcs theorymoning in the Battle of Legends thread, I did 50 instead of 100 before I realized that the tournament was at 100. It was very clear that you need more Atk/SpA Evs to score OHKOs/2HKOs and less HP/Def/SpD to survive things at 100 than 50.

However, it's certainly less awkward than at lv5 or lv30. You can typically run the same spreads at 50 as you can for 100, but the dynamics of the game change when so-and-so needs to pack more defensive investment to survive moves.

Post them, maybe we can all help out!

Certainly, we need a "Battle Spot for newbies" article. I want it to be of a comprehensive nature, like why entry hazards aren't good (less Pokemon, less switching, faster matches, less bang for your buck when you invest turns to place entry hazards), what to use (most OU and UU mons are viable in Battle Spot, sans the banned events), etc. As mentioned, there are even fewer resources for stuff like Rotation and Triples.

I also want to do something along the lines of addressing misconceptions about Battle Spot and reducing the intimidation factor. Just because there isn't a tiering process doesn't mean Battle Spot is a lawless unplayable apocalyptica. Granted, none of us are going to dispute the fact that many Pokemon, notoriously Mega Kanga and perhaps Mega Gengar, are not balanced. However, Battle Spot is far from unplayable despite these elements. You just play around them and the predictability of mons like Kanga and the pure luck aspect of Swagger can backfire. There are also "brute force" options. We all complained that Xern, Mewtwo, and Yveltal were allowed in the April Friendly but even with KB-only Kalosdex, they were all manageable. This is obviously different than the regular ladder, but there's options for dealing with most anything. Lack of item clause isn't that bad when it's not viable to slap Leftovers onto everything by default if you're not running LO/Choice items anyways.

Waxing philosophical crap, feel free to skip as I'm going on a tangent on the merits of Gamefreak's arbitrary banlist:

Hide

The reason I abandoned Smogon tiers has little to do with my opinion on bans (I haven't played OU since gen 4 tbh; I am also the first defend the tiering process against the haters who cry about Smogon "ruining the metagame") and more to do with my changing philosophy of video game design. I no longer believe that sole player bias is conducive to a healthy competitive video game. From the WoW community, I've seen many horrible suggestions from top-ranked hardcore players who do not consider the needs of the community as a whole or actually hamper the play of the class in question because they only see things from their perspective. Perhaps a rogue may complain about the amount of snares that render it difficult for a melee player to approach a ranged one, while a caster may complain about the interrupt and CC options available to the rogue. How much taking away or adding or buffing or nerfing will bring balance to the two? No, I am not accusing the tiering council of anything bad but players who play particular kinds of teams may have their own biases. Everyone has their own separate playstyle, and imo only the developers can be truly impartial from the nerf/ban QQ cycle.

That being said, Gamefreak's arbitrary banlist isn't the best solution either. Gamefreak has much to gain from the player's valuable input. Pokemon is and never will be balanced, but I wish there was more of a collaboration between Gamefreak and players. Ideally, players and game developers work together. Players give feedback so developers can understand how to improve their game while filtering out whatever may be unreasonable. That produces the best results for all.

I had other ideas but they're at the tip of my tongue/fingers at the moment and I can't recall them >.<

But, yeah. I don't think we can totally ignore people currently playing Smogon formats, as that's where the bulk of competitively interested players end up and it's where all new players get pointed. That said, I did submit a rotation battle spot pitch for The Smog last night; we'll see where that goes. Unfortunately that's the only format in which I can claim any expertise right now (I'm just starting in doubles and triples and am seriously so bad at singles), but it'd be awesome to see people promote other formats there.

No, but I would argue that Wi-Fiers are a better place to start. Collectors already have much more resources than trying to convince a sim player who can play with their teams in 5 minutes online. They already have their Pokemon and a copy of the game, and they're obviously invested in playing a lot.

Does Smogon do coverage of the Wi-Fi tournaments or special ladders anywhere on-site or in the Smog? (Ex. Eevee Friendly, Battle of Legends, etc.)? I know Nugget Bridge sometimes reports on the former, but those are cool ways to get people involved with immediate rewards (you can see how high you place in a one-off event), and that encourage other playstyles. Smogon could do some write-ups of those, since it looks like they're here to stay as an aspect of competitive Pokemon.

They do on their Facebook page and we have threads that announce rankings from tournaments/the ladder. Ying received a custom title for winning the April Friendly. It's up to us, however, to generate interest. chaos & co. tried to promote Battle Spot at the beginning of the generation and there wasn't much interested because it seemed more directed towards people who were already playing. We need to give people reasons to start playing.

This might seem silly, but there is an aspect of competitive breeding. That is, you demonstrate your skill as a pokemon breeder by matching a pokemon's color palette / shiny color palette to the correct ball (the useless aesthetic embellishments Age of Kings was talking about), with the correct ability (sometimes collecting useless HAs just because they're harder to get, especially with a good pokeball), and with hard/tedious-to-get (if useless) egg moves. In this case, the pokemon is not a means to an end, but an end product in itself (and many of these never get raised past level 1; in fact, being UT--untouched--is a highly desirable state). You also build and demonstrate your reputation as a fair and honest trader by maintaining a trade thread to display your collection and demonstrate the successful trades you've done in the past, while also giving people a place to communicate/negotiate with you.

Please do not take my post as disparaging of a playstyle. Actually, we arrived at exactly the same conclusion. Getting a shiny flawless Pokemon is the end for most people, which supports my conclusion that they generally do not engage in the competitive battling aspect. But wouldn't it be cool to tell people: hey, you've got this really awesome collection. Show it off. Do something really cool with the Pokemon you worked so hard to get. Unlike the sim players, they're already most of the way there. EVing and leveling don't take quite as much time since there is no RNG aspect involved (*cry* taking 1 or 20 eggs to get a flawless mon from flawless parents).

If we, as the Battle Spot community, wish to reach out more to the wifi community of collectors and traders, maybe communicating and collaborating with the existing top members there would be beneficial? Maybe offer doable incentives (i.e. your choice of a shiny / legendary pokemon for a doable goal: screencap proof that you've made something like a 1600 rating in some battle spot format). Something along these lines?

Anyways, I'm just brainstorming. :)

Good idea. Maybe there can also be a thread where we give away free Pokemon to people who are genuinely interested in trying Battle Spot. VGCers give away free mons to people entering competition, no reason we can't. To reduce the incidence of leechers, we're not giving away shinies and you must post your intended Pokemon and your team concept. I'm bored anyways, I wouldn't mind breeding free stuff for people and I can also get anything from 5th gen easily. It's been a few years since I've done 4th gen RNG abuse but I can certainly give it a shot.

 

[EnGarde]

Please do not take my post as disparaging of a playstyle. Actually, we arrived at exactly the same conclusion. Getting a shiny flawless Pokemon is the end for most people, which supports my conclusion that they generally do not engage in the competitive battling aspect. But wouldn't it be cool to tell people: hey, you've got this really awesome collection. Show it off. Do something really cool with the Pokemon you worked so hard to get. Unlike the sim players, they're already most of the way there. EVing and leveling don't take quite as much time since there is no RNG aspect involved (*cry* taking 1 or 20 eggs to get a flawless mon from flawless parents).

Still reading, but I wanted to make sure you understood that I understood that we were on the same page with this! :) I mostly wanted to elucidate the logic and reasoning of many wifi/trading forumers for Whiskey Tango, who stated that he was having trouble understanding it. lol, I need to get better at explaining myself, I think.

That mentality is really foreign to me, and I'd assumed Wi-Fi trading would be mostly for battlers.

EDIT: Grammar, why must you escape me soo... -.-

---

EDIT2: Long thoughts are long. :)

Certainly, we need a "Battle Spot for newbies" article. I want it to be of a comprehensive nature, like why entry hazards aren't good (less Pokemon, less switching, faster matches, less bang for your buck when you invest turns to place entry hazards), what to use (most OU and UU mons are viable in Battle Spot, sans the banned events), etc. As mentioned, there are even fewer resources for stuff like Rotation and Triples.
I also want to do something along the lines of addressing misconceptions about Battle Spot and reducing the intimidation factor. Just because there isn't a tiering process doesn't mean Battle Spot is a lawless unplayable apocalyptica. Granted, none of us are going to dispute the fact that many Pokemon, notoriously Mega Kanga and perhaps Mega Gengar, are not balanced. However, Battle Spot is far from unplayable despite these elements. You just play around them and the predictability of mons like Kanga and the pure luck aspect of Swagger can backfire. There are also "brute force" options. We all complained that Xern, Mewtwo, and Yveltal were allowed in the April Friendly but even with KB-only Kalosdex, they were all manageable. This is obviously different than the regular ladder, but there's options for dealing with most anything. Lack of item clause isn't that bad when it's not viable to slap Leftovers onto everything by default if you're not running LO/Choice items anyways.

I like this. Specifically, I really like the portions bolded. To add to this (and this would be a huge endeavor), I think it would be important to have a couple of the useful threads that the OU and Ubers communities have, including possibly:

- SQ/SA - I think this is among the most important, as these are generally the beachfront of the community that new members wash up on.
- a simple viability ranking thread - hard to do, since there isn't strict tiering for battle spot, but there are some pokemon you're just going to see more often than others, like kangaskhan; and it doesn't have to be exhaustive. We could also mix this trope up and discuss what parts of the PGL usage statistics are viable vs. unviable.
- a sample starter teams thread - that's a brilliant idea that looks to be pretty new to the ubers forum. Tried and true teams that'll get new users started.

Part of the reason to have these threads is it'll give us a chance to discuss these things, which'll benefit old and new members alike. :)

Good idea. Maybe there can also be a thread where we give away free Pokemon to people who are genuinely interested in trying Battle Spot. VGCers give away free mons to people entering competition, no reason we can't. To reduce the incidence of leechers, we're not giving away shinies and you must post your intended Pokemon and your team concept. I'm bored anyways, I wouldn't mind breeding free stuff for people and I can also get anything from 5th gen easily. It's been a few years since I've done 4th gen RNG abuse but I can certainly give it a shot.

That...is a very good point. Leechers could definitely be a problem if we gave them room to be. I think it would be a good idea for this thread to be in the wifi forum, so that way users can follow it like a bread trail from there to here, lol. Multiple players who are willing to complete requests from here will need to subscribe to it, and make sure the pokes get to their intended targets. Make it known in the OP that these are no-frills competitive breeds.

There are a couple of common pokemon that don't need a lot of customization that can be pre-stocked, for sure. Kangaskhan, rotom, gible, honedge, and fletchling all jump to mind. I would be willing to help with this. (I may or may not have 3 boxes of 5IV gale wing fletchlings (x in random spots; never marked 'em) chillin' on pokebank, lol).

 

[Age of Kings]

EDIT2: Long thoughts are long. :)

Whenever I post... ;_;

I like this. Specifically, I really like the portions bolded. To add to this (and this would be a huge endeavor), I think it would be important to have a couple of the useful threads that the OU and Ubers communities have, including possibly:

- SQ/SA - I think this is among the most important, as these are generally the beachfront of the community that new members wash up on.
- a simple viability ranking thread - hard to do, since there isn't strict tiering for battle spot, but there are some pokemon you're just going to see more often than others, like kangaskhan; and it doesn't have to be exhaustive. We could also mix this trope up and discuss what parts of the PGL usage statistics are viable vs. unviable.
- a sample starter teams thread - that's a brilliant idea that looks to be pretty new to the ubers forum. Tried and true teams that'll get new users started.

Part of the reason to have these threads is it'll give us a chance to discuss these things, which'll benefit old and new members alike. :)

Oooh, I really like the looks of those. LC also does a lot of that stuff. The only objection that I have for a sample starter teams thread is that the meta constantly changes so it can get outdated easily. I also wouldn't know what to contribute for the sample starters team thread because I tend to be a pretty shit teammaker and I generally throw together "goodstuffs" from my box.

I would have a lot to say for the viability rankings thread though. You bring up another point that should be its own thread imo:

PGL usage statistics discussion: Not only would it be useful to discuss threads, but they are far less comprehensive than Antar's simulator statistics, largely because they lump all ratings together and iirc popularity doesn't go beyond top 12. For instance, I have unbridled hatred for Greninja, I think it gets undeserved love, yet it's in the top 12 overall :| and Adamant Aegi gets used more than Modest and Brave combined, Timid is used more than Modest in Singles stats. what the fuck. jhsdkjhsdaads.

That...is a very good point. Leechers could definitely be a problem if we gave them room to be. I think it would be a good idea for this thread to be in the wifi forum, so that way users can follow it like a bread trail from there to here, lol. Multiple players who are willing to complete requests from here will need to subscribe to it, and make sure the pokes get to their intended targets. Make it known in the OP that these are no-frills competitive breeds.

There are a couple of common pokemon that don't need a lot of customization that can be pre-stocked, for sure. Kangaskhan, rotom, gible, honedge, and fletchling all jump to mind. I would be willing to help with this. (I may or may not have 3 boxes of 5IV gale wing fletchlings (x in random spots; never marked 'em) chillin' on pokebank, lol).

There would definitely be a screening process, I know that forum regulars here give free mons to each other anyways. Fortunately, the things that are the biggest hassle to get ahold of are banned (events and ubers) so it makes it easier on everyone.

I'm in the process of leaking the newest Star Wars novel so I'm doing another project simultaneously, but I'll try to get some draft ideas for these threads soon.

 

[Spoonfairy]

Gonna hijack this thread in to a kind of follow-up question, why are there no ladder for VGC on BattleSpot? It feels like that would boost the people playing in BattleSpot skyhigh...

 

[Age of Kings]

Gonna hijack this thread in to a kind of follow-up question, why are there no ladder for VGC on BattleSpot? It feels like that would boost the people playing in BattleSpot skyhigh...

It was a special ladder in seasons 2&3, they removed it at the end of regionals season. I haven't a clue why it was removed, but that's beyond our control. I'm on my phone at work atm so I can't check historic rankings but see what the season 2 & 3 special ladder rankings were. VGC really should be its own ladder but that is a separate issue from this thread.