Smogon: Who we are/Why we do what we do.

[Rogue]

Hello friends, I wanted to make this post to help some of you who might be curious/misinformed about Smogon. I see it in the chat here and there and I just wanted to try and help out. [:
The last thing I want is arguing in a great community like ours.

I have been a competitive player for years, and I was recently ranked #4 on the OU ladder for pokemonshowdown before I decayed/ladders rest, so I know what I'm talking about. We were founded in 2004. We were created to work on what VGC didn't have; A competitive format for singles. (6v6) For the simple reason of not everyone likes doubles. Now, let's get to what every non smogon player is confused by, or hates. Our bans. Let me clear by saying a few things, and please try to keep these things in mind.

1. We are not dumb. (most of us, at least.) We know what can kill whatever pokemon you name. So saying something like "Mega Blaziken can be OHKO'd by Talonflame" is not something we do not already know. I'll get back to this.

2. We do not see ourselves as law. Just like how there are bad cops, bad doctors, and bad people; There are bad Smogonites. Disregard these people and we encourage you to have fun in whatever way you see fit. HOWEVER; If you challenge a Smogon player to a battle and you have 6 Uber pokemon, and we DC without battling you; That is not us "rage quitting", we just simply do not want to fight it. Just like how VGC players will DC if they see the same thing.

3. Our bans are for us. Not for gamefreak, for VGC players, but for our community. We have a respective ban system, and it's not as simple as you think. There is no Smogon god that rules over us and says "Mega Blaziken is banned. Don't use it." We undergo a suspect test of the Pokemon. Where we look at damage calcs, speak to our community, and hold a voting system. (Not just anyone can vote, most are held on Showdown and you have to have a high rating.) and all of that will determine if it'll be banned.

Now, let's talk about the first one into more detail. We do not ban a pokemon because we "cannot beat it". That's a common misconception and I'm not sure where this all came from. PLEASE keep in mind that this is singles battles, with people that take the singles meta game very seriously. They know how to abuse a set, what to switch out on, what can take out what, and how to make predictions in a singles environment. Just like how VGC players know what their mons can live, can outspeed, if they can  Two completely different things, but both equally as skilled. That being said, the problem isn't solved by "Throw in Talonflame, use bravebird, kill mega Blaziken. Done." Because the player would switch out into something that completely hard counter Talonflame. Heatran, Garchomp, Tyranitar, etc; and picks up the KO on Talonflame, switches back to Mega Blaziken, and sweeps. The issue is not just the pokemon, by its self. It's also determined on building a team around that mon, for flawless usage. If there's any more questions, feel free to ask. We support all play styles!

Too long, didn't read; I'm sorry if a smogon player was rude to you, that's not how we all are. We do not ban things because we don't know how to beat it. We ban something because it puts too much pressure on all teams making us HAVE to run 1-2 pokemon to counter it, we shouldn't have to keep running pokemon we don't want to just to counter something. Singles is very different from Doubles. Our bans are for our community only, it shouldn't affect others. We support all play styles, not to mention a lot of us are VGC players as well!

Have a story you wanna share about this? Feel free to drop it down below. c:

[Justin]

You are on the smogon board? I don't think anyone here really hates on Smogon too much. We joke, but both major formats have their faults. Personally, I prefer VGC because it's faster and it's the official format. However, I love and respect what Smogon does. Someone has to balance the game, we know GameFreak isn't trying to mess with 700+ Pokemon haha.

[Rogue]

I don't think everyone here does, but I just see a whole lot of it on the facebook group. Like just a lot of negative stuff saying we're dumb/don't know how to beat anything. But yeah I play both! I prefer singles at the moment, I like being able to use six pokemon and have them all support eachother fully. But I also have fun with VGC. Who knows, as I do VGC more I may end up liking it more! Thanks for the comment though Flynn. Can't wait to have your streams back! One week for ORAS/Smash 4 Wii u!

[evilsabre]

I liked smogon rogue but i think all the mega bans coming out started to kill enjoyment for me as i kept having to rebuild new teams, although i also lean away from vgc because i don't like doubles as much. I liked the sleep clause and many of the clauses felt very good for the game being enjoyable but i was always running sub top tier teams and i often got told if i didn't like the bans play ubers but i don't think milotic was going to make an effective wall in ubers so i was left with basically rebuilding a team from scratch or playing in a format with very little chance of winning. After loosing mega lucario this took a lot of time to rebuild my team up to work then i just gave up when i lost mega mawille. i'm hoping with the new mega's that some of the banned megas will be re-evaluated otherwise i see so many of the new megas going to ubers as well (although mega mence will go uber a physical and spec att sets and a dd set up possibility it has too many options while also having the potential to set up a full sweep). I also think that at the lower end of the smogon ladder some players have the lol (moba) effect you only won because you had mega lucario whose being suspect tested... yea we'll ignore the fact he only ko'd 1 pokemon where as milotic took out 3 members of your team by herself... i clearly only won because mega lucario is op. Still thankfully a small number and presumably they exist in vgc as well but they can't message you in the game like they can on showdown.

Overall neither rule set really suits me so i end up just doing in game end game for the most part. i just feel that because smogon is balanced according to the top tier players many of the lower tier players playing competitive but for fun get hurt by the bans as they significantly effect the viability of their teams. Who knows i might get back into smogon is mega lopunny can fill the niche mega lucario left on my old team. Noivern, Garchomp, Lucario, gardevoir, milotic, ferrothorn was my old team if anyone was interested (my first competitive team don't judge me too harshly XD ).

Edit: that said i don't dislike smogon since its where i started competitive and playing there was enjoyable while it lasted for me

[MegaChewbacca13]

I completely agree. I play smogon to learn new strategies and their battle simulator is very useful for building teams especially when you have a friend and can test out your team against the most popular pokemon in the meta. Although there is a lot of hate to and from smogoners it is still a great format.

[Carsonith]

Thanks so much for this post, I don't think I was completely misguided but I do think this has helped me see both sides of the "argument" (couldn't find a better word) so I just want to say thank you for educating people, including me on this topic.

[Joushou]

As much as I enjoy the convenience of the Showdown simulator, I do not like the difference in pace from in-game battles and so I try to battle in the game as much as I can because I think you feel more stress and think more since you cannot cancel your actions once you have confirmed them. That aside I do think that the Smogon formats are important for single battlers. What I really want to see in battles though is not what Pokemon can make their way to the top of their respective tiers but new and interesting ways of running Pokemon. I feel like I encounter that more in the VGC format which is why I choose to mainly play that.