How did you come across Showdown/Smogon?

[Elvira]

The title asks it all. Hello my name is Elvira and I have been a re-occuring member of this lovely site since I can remember. I started playing as far back as the age of 6 though I never experienced battle simulators online until I was just crossing into my teenage years. I started off a site called Pokemon Online where I was introduced to leagues and more competitive style battling. One random day I believe in 2013 or 2014 we got a link to Showdown and I thought it was so cool when the animated sprites were the thrill (considering it was just a still image of gen 5 sprites until gen 6).


Ever since I have enjoyed returning to the nostalgia of my teenage - early adulthood. But what about you all? How did you guys come across showdown?

 

[Jungle cruiser]

I remember, back in the 2020 lockdown, I was bored out of my mind. I was starting to get into the pokemon games at the time, and I was entertaining myself by making hypothetical teams to have "the most type coverage" (i.e hitting everything super effectively. Not just neutrally, super effectively." However, I had trouble keeping track of everything and eventually resorted to looking online for "pokemon team builders". Casually, pokemon showdown's teambuilder appeared amongst the results, so I clicked it. There I made my (extremely bad) teams and thought "Hey this is pretty good!". Soon enough I found out about the chat rooms, the ladders and the forums, and the rest is history!

 

[adjectivenoun]

I think the first time I encountered it was through this in the early 2010s. I didn't investigate further for some time, but I eventually found out about the forums while trying to find strategies for the Battle Facilities in the DS games. As you can see by looking at my profile, it's been all downhill since.

 

[shadowpea]

I remember, back in the 2020 lockdown, I was bored out of my mind.

basically this

 

[aurora]

I had always been interested in Pokemon, but I only started watching content creators like Wolfey Glick this year. A few weeks ago, after seeing him ladder, I was really impressed and decided to sign up to Smogon to learn VGC. Looking forward to what lies ahead!

 

[WooperLeTrooper]

In the year 1984, I invented Pokemon with a calculator and a fish. While I was at it, I decided to invent Smogon and Pokemon Showdown for funsies. I unfortunately had to sell all these ownership on the dark web to afford rent. Inflation amiright?

 

[BP]

I have a friend who is Jamaican. His name is Pokè like the Hawaiian dish. Him and I were watching Walker Texas Ranger and suddenly his power went out.

He said "ey mon show down"

and that's when I knew

 

[GalaxinaFan]

Good old Google

 

[Ironmage]

I became mostly aware of smogon as a concept during gen 6, where it was often referenced when I was quickly looking up set ideas for a given mon.

In terms of actually going on showdown, that came later. I started paying attention to competitive youtubers in the lead up to gen 7's release since they were talking the most about the leaked mons. I was content to watch until Aim introduced me to the concept of OMs and Mix and Mega seemed too hilarious to not play.