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Sorry, but I don't currently own Black or White. I do however own Pokémon Y and will happily battle you at some point, just send me your friend code. Only had the game a few days so nothings trained up yet though...

Oh, wait... you meant a battle on Pokémon Showdown didn't you? Where people can craft a team of perfectly natured, IV breed and EV trained Pokémon in a matter of minutes... yeah, I don't do that.

Why not @.@ its where competitive Pokemon happens, I mean you can't preach your opinion on competitive Pokemon without playing competitive Pokmon

Nah, it's where theoretical Pokémon happens. Everyone fights with perfect natured, perfect IV, perfectly EV trained Pokémon with exactly the moves they want (often moves that take chain breeding to get). These people don't actually have those Pokémon... it's all wishful thinking.

(Damn character limit, fucking stupid)

When someone can battle me and beat me using their actual DS/3DS games, that's when I'm impressed. The idea that competitive Pokémon only happens on an unofficial unlicensed (and copyright infringing) program is Smogon-centric wishful thinking.

I'm sorry, but if you refuse to take part in competitive battling, what gives you the right to judge Smogon as harshly as you have?

I hate to break this to you... but all competitive Pokemon is fought with perfect IV, perfect EV, and great moves. If you show up at a VGC event with suboptimal IVs, EVs, moves, and abilities, or play wifi, you're going to lose. I actually do have these perfect Pokemon (lots of them) on my DS, its not wishful thinking @.@

I don't refuse to take part False. I just like to battle competitively with my actual DS/3DS game. There's far more meat to a victory when you actually DID train those Pokémon yourself. It also takes the sting out of the so called "ubers", because let's face it, everyone doesn't have a perfect natured, perfect IV Mewtwo/Lugia/Kyogre etc. You have what you're given and you make do.

Last gen, everyone who played competitively did have perfect IV and EV Pokemon. Which is why Gamefreak made it really easy to get close to perfect IV Pokemon and made EV training incredibly easy. Now even younger kids can easily get Pokemon similar to the ones we play with on the simulator. And anyone competent can get exact copies. How is what we play imaginary?

Yeah, I don't think you can really claim to have any understanding of the metagame if all you do is play in-game and battle with random people. And if you don't understand the metagame, you shouldn't be going on rants about why it's terrible. It's as simple as that.

I could say the exact same about you. How can you claim to have any understanding of the true balance of the game, if all you play is your stupid skewed metagame. You have no concept of what is and isn't actually powerful because you're too busy working out what's good in your metagame rather than the actual game as a whole.

But the thing is we look at both. We look at official Nintendo metagames. And then we have our fan based metagame which starts with only a few bans, we see whats too good or uncompetitive, and then we ban more. Our process is pretty objectively logical, the only opinion is if a more controlled metagame is appealing. You can't say we don't know what's actually good.

Basically Smogon gets its rocks off by banning shit, I get it. You see what's popular, you ban it. It doesn't make the game better though, it doesn't make it more varied. Out of over 700, it'll always be the same 20-30 Pokémon with the same fucking moves; because that's what works. Banning the top 30 just means it's Pokémon 31-60 that now get used. Just as predictable, just different pokes.

(char limit)
If every battle I saw wasn't exactly the same, I'd be OK with it, but they are. Sure you don't have Mewtwo, Palkia or Kyogre in every fight, but it's no less predicable. Almost every team now includes Ferrothorn, Sizor, Tyranitar, Excadrill, Garchomp, or Latios. Probably more than one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if I saw this exact team.

We don't ban what is popular. We have never banned what is popular. Have you looked at any of our suspect tests. Scizor has been one of the most popular Pokemon for 2 generations (it was #1 for a long, looong time) and it was never suspected. Those Pokemon are used frequently because they are good in our logical metagame, crafted by removing Pokemon that are found to be too good.

How would you even know if they're on every team, you told me you didn't play Pokemon Showdown?

Three reasons. First, people post videos to YouTube, which I occasionally watch. Second, Smogon is so pervasive, people on the actual DS/3DS games complain if your team isn't "OU" or if you don't abide by the "evasion clause". Third, Smogon told me. Look at the forums, the articles, etc. there's loads of statistics on Pokémon usage.

The videos are not representative of the actual metagames. Additionally, BW OU was stale and cramped, the other tiers were better and XY looks even better. We're pervasive because the majority agree with us, like I said we don't ban "the most popular" and our bans are logical. Unbanning stuff isnt going to make the metagame more diverse, just less fun (Ubers is not very diverse at all).