I think I am long, long overdue for posting in this 'ere thread.
How I started playing Pokemon
I first became interested back when I lived in Colorado about 8-9 years ago, back when the trading card game was all the rage. The idea of it just fascinated me, and I soon got caught up in it. After a year or so, we moved, and I pretty much completely forgot about it. When I got a GBA - the original ugly one - a friend gave me Yellow version, but I wasn't able to beat it before it disappeared (!!!). After I sold my GBA to fund my need for new climbing shoes, I pretty much forgot about it again. I picked up a booster pack of cards sometimes, but not too often because it's embarassing to be seen buying those when you're a teenager :P. After I got a DS, I still didn't pick up a game until Diamond came out, but for three months before it did come out, I studied on the NSider competitive battling thread and Serebii (the two worst places to for newbies), and I got a demerit here once I joined on my second post for saying something stupid about how Haze is awesome because then Gyara can't get 6 DDs. Yeah, that wasn't fun.
But anyways, I used Serebii's sets on my in-game team, and then I started playing pretty much the way everybody else here did when they learned how to. I chose stuff that looked cool/was interesting/that I liked, and even if it didn't necessarily work well, I learned tons from it, like:
- Pory2 rocks
- Gallade sucks as a sweeper
- If you don't have a special sponge on your team, Yanmega says hi and then murders you
- ScarfElectivire works...sometimes
- CBGross, even though it hits hard, doesn't work too well as a lead on WiFi because of all the Swamperts running around
After I came here, I learned and learned, lost tons of battles, and then kept on learning until I became decent. In my humble opinion, I've actually gotten quite good, having beaten some of the top teams on Game Battles, and being in 8th place there after one day of good battling. I've also gotten good at breeding, as you can see from my trade thread (and it's still growing).
How I found Smogon
I was basically linked to the Pogey analysis, and that's how it all started. After forever of lurking, I posted, and got a demerit, so I lurked moar and moar, learning the ins and outs of battling. Too bad I can't mIRC to work, though, because that would definately be fun!