Pokemon Competition

[DarkestLight]

I'm going to ride on Tony's momentum here. Thinking about my first Pokemon experience and where it has led me all these years..I really began to sit and reflect.

Then it hit me. I was never a competitive battler until the onset of RSE, more specifically E. But I remember learning about the competition, and metagames and EV's and all of that in GSC. I ignored it, thinking it was just too mathematical (it still is, but its been simplified now...) but I did take the time to learn more about move compatibility.

As with most people around 1999 or so, GSC was firmly in the hands of the masses, and there was nothing anyone could do. I remember playing around with some of the new Dark type Pokemon (lol Houndour new?)...and then I learned it could learn Solarbeam.

That blew my mind. It seriously blew my mind. I never thought of putting anything other than what it learned, and moves of its type on it (Yeah I was one of those kids with Fire Blast and Flamethrower, lol). I thought it was a glitch, and I kept it on, eager to see what I could do.

After the carnage of laying out Golem after Golem (Golem was friggin POPULAR back then...), I realized then that different move types helped saved my butt. From that moment on, the studying began to understand Pokemon in a deeper light

So. My first competitively minded Pokemon was Sunnydoom standard set.

What was yours?

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

No shit, I think Sunnydoom was my first as well!

Followed by Shadowball Eevee. cuz I was like it fits with both Psychic and Dark pokemon (yes I was more focused on if it 'fits' then if it was good), which led me to the realisation that it was competitively good for Eevee since he was the Normal Type, and for Espeon to defend herself from Ghosts, and fur Umbreon cuz it was a stronger attack then Faint attack (I didn't take in account STAB). Oh the days.

[Lady Vulpix]

I've never had any competitively minded Pokemon. Whenever I played a game, I gave my Pokemon movesets that would help me through the game, and tried to improve the stats those Pokemon needed the most, but I never focused on battling against other players. In fact, the only time I ever battled against someone else on a Pokemon video game was when I went to my cousin's place and we played Pokemon Stadium, so I used the Pokemon the game had by default.

I guess I could say that my first competitive-minded Pokemon (in more than one way) was Hero.

[Blademaster]

I never much got into the competitive scene. I would stick moves on different Pokemon willy-nilly in the games just for errant type coverage. Seriously, even a few years ago I did that. Look up my Fighting Monotype Challenge in FireRed. Thunder on Primeape? Fire Blast on Machoke? Crazy shit.

The first Pokemon I ever had that I remember having solely for an edge against the E4 was back in GSC, when the strategy guide advised waiting to evolve an Eevee into an Espeon until Level 36, when it learned Bite. I had a Psychic Pokemon that could use a Dark attack. Thought that was insane, proceeded to waste Will, Koga, AND Bruno straight with that crazy little fucker.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

I started to train Pokémon in a competitive way when the Pokémon Championship arrived back in 2000. I wanted to advance as much as possible and made an extra team for the event. I placed second in the end so I guess it was worth the extra effort. Later on I often battled with a friend so I kept my Pokémon in decent shape around the time of Diamond/Pearl. It's a lot of work though so I try to avoid it nowadays.

[Drago]

At first, my sister and I thought sticking as many different type-moves on a Pokemon would make it the best. Hence, she had Pin Missile on her Jolteon, and I (briefly) had Fire Blast on my Aggron.

My tactics were horrible, so I finally started following the tactics of others. And though I never battled competitively, I still saw great success in-game from it. My favorites were Trapbat and Mean Look/Doom Desire Mismagius.

[firepokemon]

Slapping Double Team on everything. Truth is I got stuck trying to get my 7th badge in Red/Blue and just gave up. I do remember the old PBS and I did battle on occasion with the irc bots. The first time I ever entered R/B/Y I literally copied my attacks from the pokemon handbook that use to be about. The team must have been absolutely awful.

I tended to just read what others would do particularly those who appeared to know what they were talking about. And slowly started rating teams. Its funny because at the time I could recall so much. Today I wouldn't even know how to start. GSC was always more confusing as I found the items being attached rather strange. I likely used a Starmie set and Houndoom set as those two pokemon were absolutely huge when G/S first came out. Umbreon too with mean look/lock was popular as well.

I remember going to Azure Heights too and Pokedaily that attempted to be the gsc of Azure Heights. They were nasty to me but looking back at a few posts I make I really really shudder.

[Jeff]

I remember when I learned about STAB thorough the Stadium guide and I started making sure all my Pokemon had at least two moves of their type, so they'd be sure to have moves that are more powerful than usual. I'm not sure how I realized that type coverage was more important, but I do remember being amazed that Starmie can learn Thunderbolt, and started using my first decent sweeper and doing pretty well with it. It was Starmie with Surf, Psychic, T-bolt, and Recover.