(Feb 24, 2015, 05:22 PM)Nickdance3 Wrote: Hey! How would we compare the pokemon we have? Like If I have a breloom, how would I actually check if it's legal? Also what would I do if it isn't legal? I forgot what else I wanted to ask but some answers would be nice :D thanks!
If you are talking about legality in Pokemon, there are some terms everyone should know regardless if they play competitive or not. First off, there are 3 terms we use to describe the legality of any Pokemon: legit, legal, and illegal. When someone says their 4 iv Cresselia is "legit" (according to their word, I'll get back to this later), it means that the Pokemon hasn't be altered in any way and is natural found in the game through either breeding/soft resetting. When we're talking about "legal" Pokemon, it can mean several things. 1) Probably the most common is that legal Pokemon (and legit) are the only two can be traded online or battle with/against on Wifi. 2) Don't confuse the terms "legal" and "legit" interchangeably since remember both aren't the same. The main difference is legal Pokemon are hacked/edits but follows all the criteria of the Pokemon's location, starting level, gender, poke ball, etc. Essentially these Pokemon are allowed in Wifi because the game cannot determine anything where it can potentially be hacked and can be used alongside legitimate Pokemon.
Now illegal Pokemon fairly easy to spot since those are hacked Pokemon who don't follow the criteria of the what I mentioned earlier (event, location, met, starting level, ball, gender, fixed OT/SID, etc). Hacked Pokemon like Wonder Guard Sableye, preexisting Mega Salamence with an item, Event Mewtwo with wrong ball, etc. Honestly there isn't a way atm to distinguish legit and legal unless the person admits they made the Pokemon in the first place. One misconception I usually hear from people (and it can get rather annoying at times) is the blue pentagon indicates a certain pokemon is hacked, which isn't true. Pokemon without the blue pentagon means they are transfers from any of the Gen 3-5 games while those with the pentagon indicate they were catch/hatched from the 6th (current) gen. A well made hacked/edited Pokemon can pass as "legal" as long as it checks through the rather less scrutinized legality checkers of battle spot, poke transfer, or online wifi. This where much of the debate/strife is considering certain players may accuse another another of having an illegal/hacked Pokemon while others like me just want to play with everything as long as it legal Pokemon standards.
My best advice is to only worry about if the Pokemon is legal or not since its very difficult to determine whether the Pokemon was found naturally or edited other than "trust" (unless you made a video indicating the Pokemon itself). That said, I recommended everyone to look up Bulbapedia/Serebii regarding the distribution of Regular/Event Pokemon since it will definitely help root out bad hacks and "good' ones.
