Hello and welcome to my blog/guide to competitive Pokemon battling. Since the release of the original Pokemon Red and Green Versions in 1996, Pokemon has been a game that emphasized trading and battling with friends. But now 16 years later with well over 600 species of Pokemon and the advent of online gaming Pokemon has become an incredibly complex game with a massive community of competitive players. The goal of this guide is to teach players who are new to the world of competitive battling how to breed, raise, and battle Pokemon.
Since this is my first post I thought it would be best to introduce some of the largest names in competitive Pokemon. If you play Pokemon competitively these websites are literally unavoidable.
First off is Smogon University which is the so called premier competitive Pokemon site. For better or worse Smogon generally defines the Pokemon metagame and for this reason is often either hated or loved. I personally have very mixed feelings about Smogon. What I (and others who don't like Smogon) have against Smogon is their reputation for being an unfriendly environment, often being disrespectful towards players who don't subscribe to their view of Pokemon. Another thing I would criticize them for is their multiple bans intended on creating a "perfect" metagame, "perfect" for them meaning an environment void of luck which whether they like it or not is an integral part of the game. My grievances aside, Smogon is a great place to find strategies for almost every single Pokemon. Using Smogon's strategies is a good way to get a feel for what makes a good Pokemon and is a great first step before trying to create something yourself. Do note that Smogon's strategies are not perfect and often don't take into account the rest of your team, so use Smogon but take their advice with a grain of salt. If you plan to play competitively you will have to get familiar with Smogon.
http://www.smogon.com/
Next is Pokemon Online which is the most popular Pokemon battle simulator around. Pokemon Online is a fan made battle simulator which allows players to build and battle teams of Pokemon online on their computers. The benefit of this being that players can experiment with different types of teams without having to spend all the time raising the Pokemon first. It is also probably the easiest way to connect and play with other competitive players. The one thing about Pokemon Online that people either like or hate is that it plays by Smogon's rules (actually I want to say the two are connected, but I don't know what the exact affiliation is). Pokemon Online is a great place to play competitively, but it has a hard time replacing the real game. Here is the link to the website, go to their downloads page to download Pokemon Online and start playing. My username is coreekymon so if you see me online feel free to challenge me.
http://pokemon-online.eu/
Aside from those two sites there are several great online sources for information on Pokemon. Here are just a few of them.
http://veekun.com/
http://www.serebii.net/index2.shtml
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page
That's it for now, next time I will begin talking about how to breed strong Pokemon.
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