Trials and Tribulations

It's 1:25 AM and tomorrow I have to wake at 6 AM for school.

I'm sitting at the computer fighting a metaphoric battle with my own self-control in regards to non-metaphoric-but-atypical-from-the-everyday-sense-of-the-word sort of battling that we all know as Pokemon battling.

I am on the popular Pokemon battling simulator called ShoddyBattle, testing a new team for the first time. This is my first stall team.. The kind with the lead Hippowdon that gets Sandstorm running and some annoying little pest called Vaporeon that switches in on all your weaker hits and water attacks to spam wish.

My first few battles are careless. I'm clueless. I lose momentum. I don't Rapid Spin fast enough. I let my lovely walls get two-thirds worn down.

But it's the failure that makes me addicted to trying again. Just like the streaking loser who always wants a rematch, I keep battling and win some and lose some and notice my little mistakes yet lost in the cycle of spinning clicks and ShoddyBattling, the program freezes, but I reopen it yet like the run-onness of this sentence I just keep on going and clicking moves without thinking.

Like an addiction. To clicking. Where I really wonder if I'm really thinking anymore about my battles. But I seem to be doing alright; I battled many Baton Pass teams for some reason and one of them had every Pokemon sporting the move Taunt, beloved by all stallers.

It's 1:37 AM, and I think I'm gonna go to sleep. Wait! Let me write down my team first. ;)

Those of you who participate in strategic competitive battling should be familiar with the standard single battle rules:

1. Level 100's, 6 Pokemon, no Ubers


2. OHKO Clause - No One-Hit KO moves such as Guillotine


3. Sleep Clause - No more than two Pokemon put to sleep at once (Rest does not count)


4. Evasion Clause - No evasion-raising moves such as Double Team


5. Species Clause - No two Pokemon of the same species may be used


6. Freeze Clause - No more than two Pokemon may be frozen on one side at once

Item Clause, the rule that no two Pokemon may hold the same items, may also be applied sometimes. (See Smogon's Intro to Competitive Battling for more information or background)

In general, these rules are designed to keep competitive battles fair and strategic. For example, although Double Team is not necessarily an overpowered move Evasion Clause reduces the role of luck.

However, as a Pokemon trainer who usually solely does competitive battling, I often forget there is another world out there. To the people who have not read Smogon done simulated battles on Shoddy Battle all night long, the standard rules of competitive battling are, to say the least, rather out there.

Today I met a guy on the internet somewhere, and he was talking about Pokemon. He had challenged someone to a Wi-Fi Pokemon battle, but his challengee(if that's a word) left. I had been surprised to see someone who Wi-Fi battled, so I offered to battle the guy instead.

I prepared one of my teams quickly, attached items, entered the Wi-Fi room. Then it occurred to me to ask my opponent's rules. I had forgotten.

He had intended for an open level double battle. I realized my team was hardly prepared for the affair; the Pokemon were designed for singles and 5 out of 6 of them were not level 100, two being level 50 or under.

I frequently did not train my Pokemon to level 100 because the Wi-Fi tournaments I entered always battled in the level 100's option which auto-leveled Pokemon. And, by not training Pokemon to level 100, I kept freedom to change their EV spreads in the future if I wanted.

I thought I would probably lose. I started switching between my level 76 Salamence and level 50 Gyarados to spam Intimidate onto my opponent while attacking with my only competently leveled Pokemon: a level 100 Scizor and a level 92 Gliscor.

Halfway through the battle, my opponent tells me he will disconnect if I don't stop switching. I want to complain that although I admit my constant switching as cheap, I consider switching as a move in competitive battling that a trainer must account for.

In competitive play, you don't use Thunderbolt on a Gyarados all the time because you know an Electivire or Jolteon or Latias or Gliscor or Hippowdon or Blissey or whatever else absorbs Thunderbolts like a pebble dropped on a cushion is right around the corner. I had, throughout the battle, compensated my better moves for safer moves, expecting him to make certain switches.

But I don't complain. I stop switching and respect my challenger's wishes because he is the challenger, and I really just don't quite feel like arguing.

I win the battle with three Pokemon left, and my opponent demands a rematch in the future with no switching. My pride pushes me to accept to prove to him that I can win even with his nit-picky rules. My opponent argues that each Pokemon I used could have easily been defeated with one attack if I did not switch, but I imagine that he cannot switch into any counters himself if no switching is applied.

I contemplate ways to win in a no-switch environment. I consider: a set-up Pokemon switching in on a Pokemon it walls.

As I write this article, I don't know if I want to rematch the guy. I'd like to prove a point, but I win nothing for winning. No judge shall praise my superiority, and the guy I battled will probably be annoyed, continue to make excuses, rematch until he wins.

Today my dad who plays Pokemon tells me that he has traded 6 Pokemon over from Platinum to HeartGold for EV training. My dad has EV trains most Pokemon differently than I would; the way he battles and builds teams is designed for competing in the AI-controlled Battle Tower while I have been shaped by Wi-Fi battling other people.

I had frequently chained shiny Pokemon in the past, and my dad claimed that many of the Pokemon he had traded over were shinies. I was suddenly worried because I knew almost every single shiny between the games we had were Pokemon that I had caught from long hard hours of shiny chaining... and my dad didn't even know where they came from.

When I heard from my dad that he was planning on EV training shinies, I demanded to see which Pokemon he picked out. Among the assortment were a hasty-natured shiny Electrode, an adamant-natured Makuhita, and an adamant Bagon from one of my past IV breeding programs.

The Electrode was meant as a Rain Dance team lead. The Bagon was meant as a Dragon Dancer. The Makuhita was a swarm I chained. I stuttered a bit and asked my dad if he could let me EV train the Pokemon instead.

He says I don't have time to play Pokemon anyways. I want to yell that I was the one who spent hours obtaining those Pokemon. But I hold myself back.

I tell him to EV train a different Bagon, a female Adamant Bagon with four perfect IV stats that didn't know Dragon Dance(an egg move for Bagon). Other than that, I bite the fact that I can always get a better Electrode for a Rain Dance team lead if I wanted.

It's a funny thing though, I think. To share a Pokemon game with someone else, and to be unable to ever claim any Pokemon completely.