Ok, I made a thread so we can all know how/when we became better battlers and stuff sooo... Umm... Yeah, let's share our stories of competitive battling. [secret]Ok, I started at Shoddy at 2007. I was a lolnoob, seriously. Thankfully I knew from the beginning that using ubers against non-legendary/Ubers. I stopped playing Shoddy after few days lol then at 2008 I met some guy called ... Well, I actually didnt remember his name, though I think it was DracoYoshi or someone.. anyway, he linked me to *cough*Smogon*cough* for movesets, I was a better player since then though now I NEVER use Smogon sets when building team, well... Sometimes I do but I avoid using them. I also remember getting in an argument with a mod (I think), I battled him and he raged lol and yeah, I was kind of a leftovers and hyper beam on everything[/secret] What about you guys? :3
Well, I started on Shoddy Battle in 2009 or 2008, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was quite good (even at the start), and would probably still be playing Shoddy, until one day this glitch happened... Smogon's server obviously broke/closed, and I would be OK with that if for some reason all my 15 different teams broke at once. I was really pissed, and quit Shoddy. Then, I found PO, and I started playing competitively again. Of course, 5th generation had arrived, and my heavy duty physical sweeper team didn't fare so well against Nattorei, my Ninjask lead started to pale against Borotorosu, and so on and so forth. But, PO is living up to all my expectations, and is far better than an outdated Shoddy Battle. The RMT forum is also very useful, as I don't have to lose 20 matches in a row to see a weakness in my team.
Started as a Baton Passing team from Netbattle. Came to D/P, which I was unfamiliar with since I have no DS. Tried BP team, but I couldn't have my common evasion, so I made a new team (I was 11 at this age). The teams were poor, and not thought out, and I didn't have much talent at OU. Then though, the tier NU gen 4, came to me, and it was cool, and I was good! Pro in LC Gen 4 as well, but got counter teamed a lot. :l Gen 5 was new, with strong attackers. I was keen on using Doryuuzu, so I made a sand team. Came to the top near "Ashton Michaels". But I fail in any OU as I always do. Now in UU, NU adv, UU adv, Uber Doubles Adv, LC etc... But my teams still need thinking out - I make them in 2-3mins and steal sets from Smogon. :p (I am only 12! :D)
In 2005, I went to my counsin's house and he let me make a gen 3 team. My team was Milotic, Venusaur, Charizard and 3 others I forgot. I had to vs a lead Ttar and I got cleaned up. In mid 2009, I started using Shoddy Battle and entered Smogon Tour, I made it to round 4 twice (I think) and in Season 9/10 I had to vs Eternal. I never lost so badly. This was my first RMT, I made myself look like a 1337noob. http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66821
i didn't play the actual pokemon games until 2006, finished them in a flash, didn't have a DS so couldn't play DPPT, and then found shoddy in July 2010, played it for two days, made a pretty shitty team (ampharos lead o.o) then this guy on smogon called Zeratul teached me some tricks, te only smogonite i liked so far. Then found PO through google and been here ever since, although i joined the forums in august and became active here in the forums in november. Btw iirc my first competitive (rofl) team was ampharos, machamp (with no dynamicpunch), zapdos (with drill peck ._.), charizard, venusaur and a thing i forgot. ._.
In the most technical sense, the beginning of my competitive Pokémon battling career was in 2000. When I first bought Pokémon Red in 1999 and completed the game, I already developed a strong desire to possess a team of six Pokémon which together are able to battle and defeat any trainer not just within the world of Pokémon, but in real life as well, and because I already had that desire by that point, the start of my competitive battling career was technically marked by the first time I battled my best friend on Pokémon Stadium, since competitive battling is defined as the act of battling other real people and doing everything within one's power to win. And so I became a competitive battler ever since I first started battling my best friend on Pokémon Stadium in 2000, and the desire to overcome other opponents and ultimately strive to become the very best did not waver in the slightest way between then and now. When the Generation II Pokémon games were released in my country, the competitive battling careers of me and my best friend (as well as some other friends of mine, who later also started playing Pokémon Stadium with me as well) moved to Pokémon Stadium 2. Back when I used to battle with my friends, I was considered to be the most powerful trainer among the group, although looking back, I wouldn't say that I was overall any good at battling at that point, as the teams I used all consisted of six Pokémon which all know Hyper Beam (with the most notable of which being a team consisting of Aerodactyl, Charizard, Gyarados, Kingdra, Tyranitar and Dragonite), which I used to consider to be the best move in the game. However, despite the bad strategies I used in my battles against my friends, I was able to beat them all simply because they used even worse Pokémon, moves and strategies than I did, and also because they were not as familiar with the mechanics of the game as I was (although my knowledge of Pokémon wasn't that great either, as there were certain mechanics such as DVs and the way Hidden Power types work which I had absolutely no clue about. But of course, none of my friends knew anything about them either). Later, when most of my friends lost interest in competitive Pokémon battling, I moved on to my very first online Pokémon battling simulator, Pokémon NetBattle, which another friend of mine introduced to me in late 2003. I participated in Generation II battles when I first started battling on Pokémon NetBattle, as that was the most recent and popular generation available on the simulator at the time, and I lost some battles initially due to my lack of knowledge of the game compared to most of my opponents. However, I quickly learned more about how to battle effectively, and thus for the first time in my five years of playing Pokémon, I actually became a genuinely good battler in early 2004, and this prowess only grew throughout the first half of that year, as I later managed to develop one of the greatest win-loss records in the history of Pokémon NetBattle on numerous servers, including Blue Heaven, Tafop, Ultimate Arena and Battledome, having achieved about 200 victories and only about 10 defeats in each of those servers under one name. My skill at battling in Generation II had reached such a high level that I was matched only by a handful of other trainers back then, such as Veteran In Love, DaElite, Master Sun Elite and Moonlight. When I first started using Pokémon NetBattle, I did steal some movesets from guides I found on various sites such as Neoseeker and GameFAQs, but this stopped when I gained more experience and became capable of coming up with my own movesets. Eventually, I managed to invent some of the most revolutionary Pokémon movesets for Generation II, with the most famous of which being the Kazeryuu (a Dragonite moveset), the LunarLight (an Umbreon moveset), and most importantly, the Luckpwner (a Mew moveset), the single best Pokémon in Generation II. Ever since then, I never stole any movesets from anyone or anywhere in any generation, not even when I first witnessed the birth of Smogon towards the end of 2004. However, my Generation II battling career reached a time of darkness when Pokémon NetBattle became upgraded with Generation III sometime in mid-2004. When that happened, the vast majority of trainers on Pokémon NetBattle flocked to Generation III, leaving the generation which I excelled at as nothing more than a relic of the past, to the point where it would be lucky for me to find even a single Generation II battler on Blue Heaven, the main server on Pokémon NetBattle at the time. This event put a serious dent in my activity as a Pokémon trainer, as back then I really disliked the various changes Generation III introduced to the Pokémon battling mechanics, such as the EVs system, which made Pokémon battles a lot more offense-oriented than in Generation II, and I also disliked the fact that all the skill and knowledge I had developed during my Generation II battling career had been rendered completely obsolete with the introduction of Generation III, to the point where I chose to participate in Generation II battles almost exclusively despite its almost non-existent popularity compared to Generation III at the time. Fortunately, I was still able to participate in some Generation II battles at the time, as the Ultimate Arena server, which was renamed to Battle Tower by then, was populated by a group of Generation II battlers on most days, and on the Blue Heaven server, I was occasionally able to battle Master Sun Elite, my single greatest rival in my entire Pokémon battling career, who also chose to battle in Generation II instead of Generation III, and often entertained me with some extremely long Generation II battles, with the longest of which lasting 393 turns. Up to this day, that battle I had with Master Sun Elite was by far the longest recorded battle I've ever had in my Pokémon battling career. I later did start battling in Generation III competitively when Generation II started to bore me around mid-2006, however the only battles I participated in were either Über battles with a team of either Kyogre, Groudon, Lugia, Ho-oh, Mewtwo and Rayquaza or six Rayquaza, or in Double Battles with a team of six Arcanine I created for fun. Despite the simplicity of the strategies I used, I actually managed to win the vast majority of the battles in which I participated, as most of my opponents were not prepared to deal with the kinds of teams I used, although I cannot be sure of my exact win-loss record, as by then, I had already stopped participating in Rated battles, meaning that my win-loss records at the time and forever after that, were always 0-0. I still didn't battle as often as I used to back in the days of Generation II though, as I was very often banned from the Smogon server, the most popular server on Pokémon NetBattle at the time, as various moderators and administrators of that community such as chaos and Hazerider disliked me for personal reasons. Regardless, I was still able to battle whenever I wanted on other servers such as Saint Seiya Brasil though. But after a year or so, I got bored of having such battles too, and took a break from competitive Pokémon. Around mid-2008, I discovered Shoddy Battle, downloaded it and had a few of my very first Generation IV battles, but I eventually lost interest in it as I found that simulator's interface to be exceedingly difficult and annoying to use, and I was also not very interested in Pokémon at the time. However, my interest in Pokémon was later resparked in early 2009 with the advent of Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy, which was Pokémon NetBattle upgraded to support Generation IV. Although I was very interested in Generation IV battles at the time, as various changes in the battling mechanics such as the change in the way the category (physical or special) of attacks are determined really appealed to me, I did not battle very seriously at the start, as I believe I first started battling using a team of six Dragonite, and I later created a server known as the POKéMON LEAGUE, in which I modified the server's Database to allow various Pokémon to have moves and Abilities they normally would not have access to, such as the Ability Huge Power for Dragonite, Magic Guard for Aerodactyl and Charizard, the move Extremespeed for Dragonite (a move it could not learn legally at the time, as Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver had not even been announced back then), Flare Blitz for Dragonite and Aerodactyl, Head Smash for Aerodactyl and Charizard, and Wood Hammer for Charizard. With these Database modifications, I created a team consisting of Gyarados, Dragonite, Dragonite, Aerodactyl, Charizard and Dragonite, and despite my team's severe lack of versatility, I stood as a near-invincible trainer in my POKéMON LEAGUE server due to the incredible powers I gave my Pokémon by modifying my server's Database. I later became a more serious battler in Generation IV though, as I went back to battling using legal Pokémon, and although I was not very good initially, I later rose to become one of the greatest Generation IV battlers on Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy, as I defeated many skilled trainers such as Ace Trainer J and aLiEn Mw, and also won countless tournaments on the main server, including one on New Year's Eve at the end of 2009, which impressed the people of a clan known as Dragon Rush to such a degree, that I was immediately allowed to be appointed as an Administrator of that clan, despite never having been a part of it before. From early 2010 onward, I began to gradually shift my Pokémon battling career to Pokémon Online, as there seemed to be more skilled trainers to battle on that simulator than on Pokémon NetBattle Supremacy, and I did not exactly dislike the interface of Pokémon Online either, unlike that of Shoddy Battle. Towards the end of 2010, I began to grow bored of the Generation IV metagame upon looking at the big picture and noticing that in a nutshell, the metagame revolved almost completely around the use of entry hazards, the move Taunt to prevent the opponent from setting up entry hazards, the move Rapid Spin to remove entry hazards, and Ghost-type Pokémon to block Rapid Spin, making me realize that the Generation IV metagame was a lot more dull and uninteresting than I initially imagined. As such, when Generation V became available on Pokémon Online, I immediately moved to that generation while abandoning Generation IV altogether, much in contrast with the large struggle I experienced back during my transition from Generation II to Generation III back in 2004, as I found the introduction of Dream World Abilities and various new Pokémon such as Reshiram, Hydreigon and Haxorus to be extremely appealing, to the point where the advent of Generation V could be compared to a new world appearing right before my eyes as a trainer. Although the changes Generation V introduced were not as big as I had initially imagined (and in fact, wanted), I definitely find battling in Generation V to be a lot more appealing than in Generation IV due to the myriad of options available for various Pokémon. And so, having moved on from Generation IV to Generation V, I have become quite decent in this current generation, and the main teams that I use are a dragon mono-type team, and a rain stall team. And that concludes the story of my competitive Pokémon battling career from 2000 up to the present.
o.O Wow... I bought my first game a year after I got my DS, and that was Emerald. I loved it so much, I spent 700 hours playing it and about 300 hours of that were doing Contests. I started to really understand what Contests were about, and after a while I got really, really good at them. I bought Ruby / Sapphire, and did all the Contests in them; they were a lot better, I liked how you could go through the game doing Contests in different areas... D/P came, and I bought both coz I was now hooked on Pokemon and I couldn't wait to find out which Contests there were going to be. They were different, but I quickly mastered them and pwned every single aspect of the game, especially Contests. After mastering the Contest side of the game, I got kind of bored with the games, so I went surfing on the net to see if I could find anything good to do in Pokemon. I read something about competitive battling, and I got interested in that after Platinum came out. After doing the Contests in Platinum (I <3 Contests), and going through the game, completing the Dex etc., I decided to start up on this competitive battling thing. Turns out, hatching 600 000 000 000 000 000 000 eggs is not as fun as it sounds...so I started getting better at making teams on GameFreak HG / SS section, by posting RMTs. I decided to test out my team, and I found PO somehow, just after Salamence was banned. I got a pretty good ranking on Gen 4, but when Gen 5 came out I jumped up to rank 2 and stayed there for ages, before retiring my team with a CRE of 1530 or so. I became obsessed with Doryuuzu, and started building teams around him... And here I am now, with my team ranked 1400 after only a few days of playing, and of course it features Doryuuzu. I'm just sad that Contests are going in B/W...I don't want to be called Musical Master Majin D:
I've been playing Pokemon since Red and Blue. I own Red, blue, yellow, gold (But the saved file doesn't work), silver, 2 crystals, 3 platinum versions (Had four but I sold one to help out with the cash for Halo Reach and they wouldn't let me sell multiple at once), and White version. I used to have the special Mario DS lite and a black DSi, but they were stolen along with my Wii, so now I just have a DS lite with the top screen cracked, making understanding White even more difficult. I also have a Lime Green Gameboy Color, the Special Pikachu and Pichu Gameboy Color, 3 purple gameboy advances (Only one with batteries, none have the battery case thing lol), and the 1989 original Gameboy. That's my Pokemon history, when I was 12 I participated in the Pokemon 10th Anniversary Tournament. I got really lucky, and though I knew nothing of the Pokemon metagame, I had still constructed an awesome team with Metagross as my lead, and I won 2 games. I got a lot of free stuff, including an Emerald strategy guide for my performance (I have at one point owned R/S/E and Leaf Green, but no longer do). That got me hooked on Pokemon tournaments, and I participated in 2010 in the VGC. The problem was, I had gotten Pokemon Soul Silver (And beaten it and caught all the legendaries in 5 days in time for MomoCon, which started a meager week after Soul Silver released.), but my SS was stolen with my DSes and other stuff a month before the tournament. So I collaborated with a friend and EV trained a decent team in time, with my two leads as Kyogre and Wobbufett. It was his Heart Gold, so we had him as our actual player in the tournament... but he didn't know how to use Wobbufett, despite its simplicity. He didn't understand his moves or what to do with them, so he played 5 v 6. Even with this handicap, he still got the opponent down to 1 when he was at 1, Kyogre v Rayquaza, but we had Blizzard on Kyogre instead of Ice Beam, so he missed 3 times. The person who beat him went on to the regional finals. Only a month ago, I came back to Pokemon online with the desire to not suck, so I researched the real metagame (Instead of the teams I usually made, which were many different types and the only way they worked together was with Drizzle and Thunder). I don't remember my exact team, but at one point in 2009 it was Raikou, Darkrai, Celebi, Kyogre, Mewtwo and Dialga. That changed for the VGC, but I don't remember exactly how... I know it had Kyogre, Raikou, Dialga, and Wobbuffet, but that's all I remember. THE END
Long story... In early 2009, my best friend gave me a GBA emulator and all 1st/2nd/3rd Gen Pokemon games with it. I got obsessed, and started learning more and more about Pokemon. During late 2010, I obtained a desire to play Pokemon with other people, since I couldn't do it at the emulator. I searched and searched, running upon crappy programs like Pokemon Indigo and NetBattle. Then, I found PO. I was overly excited. I instantly made a noobishy team (Arceus, Rayquaza, Groudon, Darkrai, Mewtwo and one Poke I can't remember) and went battling. My very first battle was against a guy who's name I can't remember (it started with D) who wiped me. Then, he helped me. He suggested things like Deoxys with Spikes/SR. I changed my team, and went battling again. I think I faired fairly well for a beginner (was around 1050 on the ladder). Then, the revolution. I deciced to use a Swords Dance Arceus, since many people were using it and it proved awesome. I replaced my noobish Arceus with the Swords Dance one and I suddenly became much, much better. I rose on the ladder and became a mid-level player. Then, the second revolution. I met Celebi42. After a few battles, we became friends, and he taught me stuff. With a new team, I went on to conquer the ladder. I peaked at 1457 points. Now, my ranking is generally around 1400, with a few changes happening every now and then.
I have always battled competively ever since I ownd pokemon back in the silver gold days. I learned about EV training and started using it mid 4th gen, but until I started PO at the beginning of 5th gen I was restricted to who I could battle which were all local wireless people. This was really because the wifi on my ds Lite dosent work for some odd reason so i just came across PO when i was researching 5th gen. my first week on the simulator was a bit hard having (usually 5 more losses than wins.) But eventually I found great synergy with my team and have been doing good ever since.
Before reading this type Ctrl+F and count the number of 'eons'. Intro:-[SECRET] If you are not from India you might feel this weird but Pokemon games are almost non-existent in India.Most of us here know Pokemon only through anime.Even though I was 15 year old,I didn't stop watching Pokemon as it is my most favourite anime.Then while watching few japanese episodes on youtube I noticed a comment saying "Pikachu should have been lvl 100,but it's still losing to a elekid."I didn't understand what that meant so I googled a bit and came to know about Pokemon games like Red,blue etc.I wanted to play those games but I realised I need a gaming console to play those games.I wanted to play those games so badly,I started watching youtube walkthroughs of those videos.I came to know about stuff like Emulators etc.I started playing it and then similar to Rigas(the post above the post above mine).I downloaded shoddy in May2010.By this point I was 17 year old.That's right :P[/secret] Real Story Begins Now:-I downloaded shoddy successfully and started playing .Unlike other noobs,*(hanks to my age maybe).I read few guides and came to know about EV's and IV's.I made my first team..with lead charizard(flamethrower+dragonpluse),expert belt sceptileFeraligatr,Torterra ,charcoalmence and Band Hippo. My fail life on shoddy went on I barely managed to reach 800,that's when I came across a guy named Pokemon_Platinum.While we were battling this guy named Eonmaster came and started watching the battle.He started giving some advice to Pokemon_Platinum.I somehow joined their conversation.When we realised both of us are from the same country,Eon asked me to be Platinum's training partner.I agreed for that and then Eon linked me to this RMT. I understood how I should play and the next day I prepared my team with agiliypetayaempoleon.I lost 0-3 to Eon,and later crushed his cousin Pokemn_platinum pretty easily.Then after a couple of tries I finally managed to beat Eonmaster.(That was probably my happiest day:p).That's when I started a team with scarfrachi and CMcune which rocked.Eon then inroduced me to scarloc.I managed to beat him with flinch hax:P.After that EonMaster me and scarloc became close friends .As shoddy doesn't have a channel feature we used to battle each other and talk in those battles.I also became friends with Ranigad and scorekeeper in this process.My life went fine till I met Kevingarret in Pokebeach server.Despite how noobish I am he agreed to battle me as many times I wanted.He was already my role model because of his RMT.Unfortunately I never managed to beat atleast one of his Pokemon.He then introduced me to the smogon frontier where I was crushed(but I managed to give reachzero some trouble).Depressed after that loss and me not being selected for Team Brown(I didnt realise I suck back then).Eon really helped me during those bad times.(perhaps I dont have such good friend IRL too!).That's when Malfunction(member of team brown) introduced me to PO.It took me 1 month to convince Eon to come to Pokemon Online(such a kid).I made many friends like Meh,Burnin'red,jin,shawn,nexus etc.Despite my fun times in Po,I can't forget the happy days I had with Scarloc and Eonfriend..we even made a team together.(http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75868). Overall I enjoyed competitive battle,I even sacrificed a lot of RL stuff for this,yeah call me crazy but I love this game. Thank you EonMaster/Friend to make my competitive life better
started in 05, was not very good, gave up came back in 06 / early 07, joined a community with a bunch of other early DPers / RSEers, became good stopped playing for pretty much the entirety of 09 / 10 because shoddy wouldn't work, then started gen 5 when it first came out now i just play the lower gen 5 tiers because OU is boring as fuck
Back in, oh, 2005, I played Ruby for the first time. Oh, how fun. Then, sometime in ~2007, I received a copy of Pokémon Emerald Version. After completing the game on that file, I started to get into battling in the Battle Frontier. I was somewhat a noob back then (*cough*natures*cough*), but at least I knew a thing or two about breeding, EV training and IVs. After a year or two of playing Emerald's Battle Frontier, I received Platinum and proceeded to conquer that Battle Frontier (though I never did get to getting that Gold Print in the Battle Factory...). This was about when I started getting interested in actual competitive Pokémon. I found Shoddy, and consequently found my way over to Smogon's second simulator, Pokémon Laboratory. Battling with 6 Pokémon against actual human players was nothing like battling with 3 Pokémon against AIs, though, and I didn't do very well. After 5th Gen arrived, though, I found the up-to-date PO. By now, I actually knew what I was doing and had some success in the beginning. After a year or so of actual competitive Pokémon, here I am, playing lower tiers and Ubers! (By the way, no, I never actually got any help on teambuilding nor battling. I just kinda learned myself. :D)
Like Draco said about India, pokemon games are non existent in Bangladesh. Not only that pokemon itself is non existent here. I played my first pokemon game when one of my friends introduced me to this beauty of a thing called an Emulator in 2007-08 (before that i only watched the anime and collected cards, 1200 of them). After that i became quite crazy about pokemon games and when i learnt to download Emulators and Roms by myself i became even crazier ( i dont have any nintendo console since im quite poor). One day over phone that same friend, called Rise-Chan* (he sometimes comes to the PO server), spoke to me about an online game thingy where people from around the world can battle each other. I immediately became interested and downloaded PO on February the 6th 2011. At that time i didnt even know the difference between Attack and Special Attack even though i had played almost all the games. My first team in PO (a Wifi Ubers team) consisted of a Frenzy Plant Torterra, Hydro Cannon Empoleon, Roar of Time Dialga and a Zekrom holding Magnet with the move Thunderbolt and 252 Sp Att. EV's. During my first few days in PO i was quite a retarded troll (like the ones you see in Tohjo Falls) and cause of that i got into the bad books of Professor Oak (ugh). Soon however i learnt a few valuable lessons and made some friends like Tears in Heaven (my first friend in PO), Alpha Ampharos, The Artist, Min Min etc. And it has been an epic journey ever since. Even though i havent improved much in battling since my starting days it has been really cool meeting all the different people who like Pokemon (because everyone around me, my family,cousins,friends etc mock me for still playing pokemon even though im 16 years 11 months 17 days old now).
Honestly I played the games with no knowledge at all so I figured everything like types and moves myself (didn't have any Internet at the time) even playing through D/P I used the most ridiculous things ever (i.e Weavile with Blizzard, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball and Slash). In about March 2010 I started watching competitive battlers on Youtube (Xenon3120, Wilechase and others) and I quickly learned about the physical/special split between moves and about DVs and stuff. I only actually started playing competitively in November 2010 and I still only use pokemon I like instead of using "the best". I still only think of myself as an average battler since I don't really bother remeber much other then common movesets. But the main reason I can play good is cause I actually predict well ;_;