I tried Competitive Pokemon in Gen 5. Now I Understand Hackers...

[@MosquitoVGC]

Heya! I actually competed in VGC 2011 (even attended Worlds) and this video brought me back! Prepping for Regionals/Nationals/Worlds on top of keeping my high school grades up was exhausting. Dozens of hours RNG manipulating legendaries, regular breeding (I didn't figure out Gen V breeding RNG at that time), and grinding BP for held items. And it had to be crammed into three months because BW came out in March and Regionals were in May-June. I distinctly remember getting 2 hours of sleep the night before Regionals because my friends and I were last-minute grinding our teams. Or the 3 hours of sleep before Nationals because I accidentally left my Life Orb with my friend who didn't have Wi-Fi. All of this led to teams with non-perfect IVs, no PP ups, etc. and hoping team-design and play could overcome a few lower points. It was exhausting. I share your opinion on hacking culture. The exhaustion and the wasted time on grinding (time that could have been spent practicing) 100% makes me understand why people hack. Because we shouldn't spend dozens of hours just to *begin* to play. However, hacking is still an unfair advantage: if you hack, while your opponent adhered to all the options and limitations the games provide, you now have the advantage of having more time to practice. You've violated the rules you agreed to when you signed up for a tournament, while your opponent didn't. But ultimately, the "enemy" isn't hackers for trying to avoid wasting their life on zero-skill tedium. It's single-player RPG systems being applied to a multiplayer game. Game Freak has made so many advances in saving players time (Gen. 8 felt relatively so quick to train), and I hope Gen. 9 eliminates the last of the barriers. Because it still takes hours to train a team.

[@imablisy]

Thank you so much for this comment! This is my favorite comment on this video by far, and your story about life orb is crazy! I felt like I was going crazy reading all these comments drawing completely crazy conclusions based off of this video, but you understood exactly what I meant. While I never did breeding like this or competed in VGC until around SM, I am a life long smogon wifi player and did tons of non rng breeding until about 2012 dealing with this same crap. Which is why I wanted to make this vid.

[@SuperHexer123]

Honestly has much as I rag on gen 8 for a lot of aspects, I will say its honestly the best game to start building competitive in with how much easier it is. Most of the rng has been removed now, especially if you aren't going for shiny between nature mints, exp candies, bottle caps, TR sellers, etc. Its gotten to the point where the only real tedious process is if you want shiny or egg moves. Now obviously its not perfect as you need to obtain these resources, whereas you just adjust some values in hacking software, but it really does open up team building options for those who may not want to hack in mons.

[@arcadechimera]

You have Showdown to practice. No one honestly practices in the cartridges lmao It's been a well known unspoken secret that everyone with success in VGC hacks.

[@Psynapseful]

@@arcadechimera The point is at some point you have to breed, which removes practice time compared to hacking (unless you outsource to a friend). One person practices and builds for 75 hours, then has to spend 25 hours legitimately making the team. Another person practices for 100 hours and spends 1 minute hacking it in. 33% more practice! Can’t blame anyone for hacking under those circumstances.

[@squachtec1839]

00

[@gearhead6042]

Competitive pokemon without hacking your team in is like a fighting game that takes potentially a week or longer just to get to the character select screen.

[@lakerfan2874]

Honestly that's where I had my fix on getting Pokemon I wanted on my team. I don't really go in too deep into competitive battling but take my feet in and see for myself in Gen 8. Sad to see the scene's more on cheating than it is on what true fighting games take for granted which is skill and strategy. I then used a Follow Me theme team and it was great having an Acrobatics Talonflame out there but I don't really take any time into creating which would be take a wonder traded Pokemon I obtained, max the stats it's great at and get the moves in and if I need to hyper train it which is the true time waster, I'll do it. I mainly use the vitamins as it's easier and quicker and I haven't been charged with anything since I haven't truly tested out any teams for almost a year now.

[@asrig3880]

But shouldn't it be like trading card game competition? If you can't find a card you want to use then you didn't use that card. Or something like a dog show. You "use" "good" dogs that you train or pay big for good dogs that's already trained. I don't really care much about competitive pokemon, but the fact that "world champion" technically "cheats" the competition, everyone thinks that it's OK to "cheat", and the official seems like didn't care about it seems weird to me.

[@Beamin439]

@@asrig3880 no because that has nothing to do with battling. should every baseball player be required to build their bats from scratch? and stitch together their own gloves. that would be stupid. yes the world champion "cheated". guess who else "cheated"? the world champion before him. and the one after him. and every other world champion ever. and everybody you battle online. nobody is doing this ridiculous breeding stuff. and its hilarious that theres still people who think using perfectly legal pokemon is "cheating".

[@asrig3880]

@@Beamin439 well it's in the rules isn't it ? I'd say if the situation is already that f*cked up the official need to prepare something like a showdown, using set of rentals, really enforce the rules by making a tool to check, or ditch the rules all together. And I disagree with the comparison with baseball tools . One, baseball and other sports that use tools have very specific regulation, all stuff used is basically the same and have no significant advantage to other in-regulation tools (sure, all "legal" pokemon is in-regulation, but there's a specific rule as to how they get them AND if someone can point out how a pokemon is actually hacked it should not be "in-regulation" due to the rules). Two, pokémon players referred as "trainer" and that's what makes pokemon "pokemon", so in my opinion, it should not be compared to sport's tool but more to animal competition. (or if you want to compare it to sports, you should treat the pokemon as the athlete's body not the tools used in the game)

[@asrig3880]

@@Beamin439 and I feel like world champions "cheated" is a problem, or maybe [the one who "cheat" can be world champion], or [you can only compete if you also "cheat"] is a problem. Again, I don't really care about it. I hacked pokemon in in my second, third, or more playthrough to have more fun (I'm "role play" kind of guy, usually just hack one team at the start of the game and play the game with only that team). But I just feel weird to see the situation of competitive pokemon.

[@An4lAvenger]

I actually assumed most competitive teams WERE hacked in. It just makes so much more sense. After breeding a couple full teams I don't blame anyone for using hacks, because now me and my friend just use Showdown. I had over 400h in X/Y JUST breeding.

[@mathieul4303]

I was able to finish my very first competitive team in XY in one month. Yes, you heard me. I did everything in game, breeding, maximazing my chance to get a decent ditto and all the stuff to carry over nature and IVs... My very first competitive ready pokémon in XY was Talonflame. After all this grind, I decided to use pkhex instead moving forward and I never looked back.

[@Inaktha]

​@@mathieul4303exactly. A whole month for a single team that you probably didn't even get to test beforehand. Any changes mean at least another week depending on the changes. This is why I gen. Only for competitive because I don't have a month to dedicate to a game.

[@squidgaurd6927]

Pokemon made for BREEDING

[@GILLIGFAN]

680 hours here… And it wasn’t even for official competitions… “Hacking” in stuff that’s game legal just feels so much more accessible and reasonable than people give it credit

[@cheken4326]

I was a breeder in X/Y just for the hell of it, but the majority of my breeding when the game was fresh was to make comp pokemon. I went 3k eggs dry on a perfect chimchar and I still have 6 shiny axews all imperfect 5 IV in my PC... At that point I gave up trying for comp mons and just started going for a legit shiny living dex minus event legendaries as that felt more possible than comp mons lol

[@vince5260]

What’s even worse about grinding a team is that you won’t fully know how it performs UNTIL YOU HAVE IT. Sure you can theorymon, but there is still the whole process of playtesting and making a team that works well. I really have no idea how people had the time for all of this back in 2011/earlier.

[@imablisy]

Yeah this is part of my point! Cheating gives you a huge testing advantage. At least more teams after this will go quicker

[@skybattler2624]

Smogon was actually made precisely to address this issue, actually. Many players trained there while hiring somebody else to do the breeding. It was consistent that before Gen 6, most of the players who won top cuts actually have connections to smogon.

[@techmark3665]

@@skybattler2624 smogon was formed more for online competitive Pokémon on netbattle, continuing from previous communities such as Azure heights, gamefaqs etc… Vgc wasn’t even a thing yet and simulators were the only way to play online.

[@skybattler2624]

@@techmark3665 Gen 3 meta was largely shaped by smogonites, and that didn't change in Gen 4, where VGC simulations was started to be included as a seperate ladder. In fact, several Nugget bridge trainers trained countless hours using the VGC playset rule on smogon and Pokemon Online (another popular simulator that time) before going to VGC, and their system of letting other non-competitive members breed their champion teams while they train is influential to this day that it became a basis of competitive Pokemon itself. This is why every champion is always a team effort, with two or even three competitive players even sharing ideas to win, with a team of unnamed hunters/breeders behind them.

[@techmark3665]

@@skybattler2624 I was more disputing the claim "Smogon was actually made precisely to address this issue". I thought you were implying that smogon was formed for training vgc players. I always figured that online communities such as smogon (and others before it) formed for the purpose of playing pokémon battles online as it was hard to get link battles with a large variety of opponents in person.

[@Dooferification]

I think messing up on timber actually would be closer to the true breeding experience. I use to miss up little stuff like that all the time having to do more work

[@gameinsane4718]

I used a whismur as a Guinea pig when I originally tried to figure it out and i I don’t even remember why WHISMUR anymore

[@xBox360BENUTZER]

I red timber as tinder and got confused for a minute

[@TreeskoTHQ]

@@xBox360BENUTZER me too lol

[@GlitchedRed]

Then there is people like me who would be like "snuff it, good enough" and go on with raising their little mistake of a pokemon

[@CuppaGi]

Love that plot twist, getting us thinking "Oh wow, almost 30 hours... thats rough" only to throw us with the "lol jk, my DS is overclocked".

[@LeafGreen906]

pokemon should just make their own showdown and separate competitive play entirely from their main series story games

[@SpectreXS]

Conflicting the role play side with competitive is a major flaw with pokemon, that was relevant even back in gens 1 and 2 (in brazil, there were live competitive events at least as far as gen 2, and there were already gameshark oddities being brought to them). With every new mechanic they add such as bottle caps, destiny knot, nature mints, ability changers, I just keep thinking "make a team editor for competitive already". Even if they made non-31 IV modifier items and solved the once-per-save legendary issue, people are still gonna use hex / sysbots / 999x item saves because it's a few clicks away, and people test or play with 10s of teams, to which the grind time adds up quickly.

[@LeafGreen906]

@@SpectreXS fr and them having to make the games competitive hub worlds really limits the games, just look at arceus its not perfect but its at least new and engaging gameplay

[@19spacecats]

It’s a thing other sports don’t have to contend with. Tennis players don’t have to build their own racquets? Or at least they aren’t judged for it if if they buy one. Heck, a lot of professional equipment has guidelines so they’re somewhat uniform. A racquet larger than your opponent’s would be an unfair advantage. And in those spots what’s being tested is the skill of the player, not their skills in building equipment. I don’t know how a building equipment and building personal skill competition could co-exist, but maybe it shouldn’t be on one player to do everything

[@LeafGreen906]

@@19spacecats its just bc they think its good gameplay still (its not) and board of directors in japan is usually a bunch of ancient dudes who dont take advice

[@skycastrum5803]

@@LeafGreen906 It’s fine gameplay in other situations. A single player RPG? Sure. An MMO? Also fine to a degree. Issue is how big the competitive scene is for Pokémon and how much variety there is in teams. Like, you don’t swap builds nearly as much in MMOs.

[@dadiscoverychannel]

I entered the 2011 VGC as a kid since the regional was in my town. I EV trained but the concept of IV's seemed too daunting and time exhaustive. I didn't even consider legendaries for my team at all since I didn't want to start a new save (and as it turned out, Thundurus DOMINATED 2011) I lost on something like Round 3 and spoke with the guy who won my bracket and I asked about IV's and he told me that his team was RNG manipulated and it was practically necessary to have a shot at winning. It's cool that the systems exist to make the game more complex, but even in the newer games there's still such a barrier to entry to competetive for newer players.

[@Ulysses96331]

Same here in round 2 when I was a kid, though it didn’t help I was super clueless about Ivs, natures, and didn’t know legendary Pokémon where legal. But Atleast I got a cool tote bag out of it.

[@bamweasel]

That was always something that frustrated me about competitive Pokemon. Legendaries being allowed at all meant "well yea, of course you're hacking those in. You're only able to get one per game, and if you already caught one before dabbling in competitive and knowing what IVs are, tough shit"

[@nate_venture]

The wild thing to me is that all the stuff with IVs, EVs, natures, and the rest of the randomization was clearly initially designed to be unknown and not manipulated. It was a method to make it so that you and your friend could both catch the same Pokémon, and yet they would perform differently and therefore feel like 2 different creatures. So you’d battle and yours would be a little faster but your friend’s did a little more damage using the same move, and so they would feel unique to you. Like, EVs weren’t included to perfect stats, they were included so that your Pokemon’s stats would reflect the challenges they’d faced; beat a fast Pokémon, get a little faster. In a perfect world where these systems weren’t exposed and open to manipulation to achieve perfect results, I’d agree hacking in ideal Pokémon is bad. But since it can be achieved, it’s just a matter of eliminating a massive unrealistic time investment which means allowing hacking to skip that time sink keeps participation open to more people. Doing it the legit way wouldn’t be so much a test of skill or knowledge but a test of who does and doesn’t have time or the ability to outsource that work.

[@Justpassingby204]

Pokémon showdown

[@dadiscoverychannel]

@@Justpassingby204 Showdown has entirely replaced my experience of the Pokemon franchise since Gen 7

[@MD-vs9ff]

Also, while team building is easier than ever, I still wouldn't call it easy. So many competitive items are locked behind BP or some other currency that you need to grind for. Why can't I just buy Ability Capsules or Patches with regular gold? Why can't I buy Weakness Policies from an in-game insurance agency or Air Balloons from a clown on the street? Why isn't there an industrial supply store selling Safety Goggles, Heavy-Duty Boots, Protective Pads, and Rocky Helmet? A pharmacy selling Throat Sprays?

[@sikusher]

It's important to remember the sandbox nature of the games and grinding being one of the core characteristics of most JRPG games. Making everything easy af to acquire would result in a boring game. Take Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon for example. Recruiting unlike previous mystery dungeon titles is easy af now and despite all 6 generations of pokemon being included the game can be 100% completed in roughly 100 hours without speedrunning it and by the time you're done almost every pokemon will be up to level 80+ on their own. On the other hand previous titles of the spin off series like explorers and rescue teams will take you about double the amount of hours just to recruit every pokemon alone, getting all of them up to level 80 is a whole different story. My point is; some grind is necessary in rpgs and that's the whole point of the game. But of course it shouldn't be extreme as well like 20k+ eggs required for a 6iv egg (gen 4) for example. I honestly believe that UsUm are the best example of healthy grind comparing to any other main line title of the franchise.

[@Magic_Ice]

@@sikusher if it’s a sandbox then why is every good item at the exact same place and require the exact same currency which is only available through one method? Pokémon is already so easy that having these items being available a lot easier would probably make in game playthroughs more fun because they allow for more options instead of being locked in the post game.

[@Magic_Ice]

@@sikusher ur probably right

[@clydefrosch]

It's like actually, no one was meant to have absolute perfect units in every slot.

[@PollexLLC]

@@clydefrosch And all it takes is one person grinding for it to make it required for everyone, which someone did, so here we are.

[@chrishall5570]

Plus you have to take into consideration how hard it would be for a new player to not only understand but to research how to do all of this. Without hacking and pokemon's crazy popularity I don't think competitive battling would be what it is today with the barrier to entre being as high as it is.

[@petelee2477]

Pokemon showdown was how I got into battling. It allowed me to skip the endless grinding and go straight to battling.

[@Shenaldrac]

Yeah I had zero idea what he was talking about during any of the stuff involving RNG manipulation. So even if actually doing it isn't that hard or time consuming, having to learn _how_ to do it is still a barrier for entry. If you even realize that rng manipulation is a thing you could learn to do in the first place, which a new player might not!

[@davidburke4101]

@@Shenaldrac If you didn't RNG manipulate it could take over 1000 if not 1000's of hours.

[@Shenaldrac]

@@davidburke4101 Yyyyup!

[@joaquincasascortes624]

@@davidburke4101 It's virtually imposible to get a 100% perfect competitive team without rng manipulation tho.

[@maniakk1300]

Old school Competitive player here. I started in DPP. I remember it taking me over 400h for my first team (it is possible I might have gone too hard on having Shiny Weavile...), because I didn't know of RNG manip or anything like that, I did it legit because 2006-ish wasn't the easiest time to get info as a lonely kid (and thank god for knowing about Ditto, couldn't even begin to imagine without that...). Since then, it's been genning in new mons, because I feel like that Emerald cartridge is enough of a reason to NEVER do anything close to similar. :D (also, that 400+h team got swept at my first local to a F.E.A.R rattata)

[@selfloathinggameing]

Lmao is FEAR an actual thing pokemon players call the focus endeavor quickattack strat

[@JoelDZ]

@@selfloathinggameing yeah it's just the name that was used in the most famous post about it, mostly as a joke, but it ended up sticking

[@ultraininja]

Fuck everything and rattata

[@absollnk]

@@selfloathinggameing it's a fitting name

[@HannibalKantter]

@@selfloathinggameing Focus Sash, Endeavor, quick Attack, Repeat. It stuck out, because Rattata was just the pioner. Later on, Sturdy Aron/Magnemite joined the fray, although they don't use priority moves and have more specialized strategies. Magnemite uses Berry Juice, Recycle/Toxic/Protect, and Aron uses Endeavor, but with a Shell Bell(which restores all its HP because of the high amount it deals and the little HP it has) and Sandstorm chip damage to finish off the Pokémon

[@happyhappyist8171]

While gamefreak has made things *easier* they haven’t made things perfect. Oh you got Calyrex? Nice! Now you can only use it in one form! Wanna use ice rider? Cool grind for a 0IV one if you’re doing a trick room team! Want shadow rider? Cool easy enough catch any old thing and give it a bottle cap. Oh but the meta changed?? And now the other one is more optimal? Damn guess you’re playing through the whole game again to get another calyrex!

[@imablisy]

This is exactly why I hope for them to make it better! I think bottle caps are a bit too rare and they shouldn't require level 100 to use!

[@happyhappyist8171]

I don’t even know why there is a level requirement for them! It’s not like it does anything except take time to reach that level (or recourses such as candies) They wanna lock it behind end game content? Fine make it a champion only thing or beat the battle tower or something to that extent at least then you “earn the super secret training method”

[@SpectreXS]

The 1-of pokemon ("legendaries") have been a big issue, even on the bottle cap era because of that. In the video, blisy skipped the time it takes to reach post game, but it would be included every single time you needed a new legendary pokemon roll. Fixing that as well as being able to manipulate an IV to a non-31 value makes me believe they should just include a battle sim or "custom rental pokemon" system in the game. On gen 4 the non-renewable items (such as TMs) would require restarting the entire game as well. At least there was GTS clonning, but it could take multiple attempts to get.

[@munchrai6396]

It is a little weird that they removed reset mechanics for EVs I'll give you that. Like where do you even get EV reducing berries these day? Why isn't this a thing built into some of the grinding modes like it was with Super Training? Definitely a weird step back for the series and probably why some people miss Super Training despite its suboptimal speed

[@sblack53]

@@munchrai6396 -EV berries are still berries that drop from trees.

[@Infindox]

Even with all the ways we have now in gen 8, it's still easier if you are interested in competitive Pokemon to just do it on Pokemon Showdown. That's why I don't blame hackers at all.

[@sonario6489]

Now if only Showdown actually allowed you to set the battle music rather than be random

[@acekun6493]

@@sonario6489 Or you know, just mute it and play your own music

[@Perry....]

@@acekun6493 You don't fucking say?

[@acekun6493]

@@Perry.... I wouldnt say the obvious if I didnt have to

[@Perry....]

@@acekun6493 Then Showdown shouldn't exist because we can just play the og game. What a shit way to justify new additions not being added to the game 😂

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

"...back then, it became the cultural norm in the community to just hack in your teams." Ok, so I'm not crazy. I started playing competitive in Gen 5. I mostly played on Pokemon Online and later Showdown, but I had a couple of IRL and online friends who I would do in-game battles with. And most of us owned Action Replays and just hacked our teams in. In fact, only one person in our group did not own an Action Replay, but we would just lend him ours or hack is Pokemon for him. Point is, it was absolutely the norm back then. If you weren't hacking, you were out of your mind. At least, that was my experience in my pocket community. But then somewhere in Gens 6-7 there was a cultural shift. Suddenly hackers were "ruining the game". And guess what? Now nobody from my original group plays competitive anymore. It's just not worth the dozens of hours to get a team ready. I gave Gen 8 competitive a shot, and I had a lot of fun with it! .....When I was actually battling. Problem was, I would spend the vast majority of my time riding in circles in front of the Day Care. Because despite all the baby steps GameFreak has taken to make competitive mons easier to get, it still takes dozens of hours. I finally quit when I finished putting my team together *just in time for the "season" to change.* Suddenly the rules were all different, half my team was banned, and I would have to start over from scratch in a new meta. I was devastated. And that was it for me. The barrier to entry is just too much. This is a game design problem, not a community/hacking problem.

[@David-vk5sv]

The culture shift was the generation shift. The people like you and your friends, myself and that generation who grew up playing gen 1-5, they either dropped competitive from the time requirement as they adopted responsibilities, or they rejected responsibilities completely to just play video games 24/7. The later is salty that they spent so much time "doing it the right way" and thus wants to gatekeep people from VGC unless they also grind everything out. The generation of players who started pokemon with the 3DS are either too young to value their time or just never experienced how bad it was, and simply cant understand why anyone would cheat, because cheating is immoral and wrong. Even though the mons from pkhex and indistinguishable from legit and everyone has equal access to it. Its 100% a game design problem, if you have a prefence to grind it out, then thats on you as an individual. The attitude you mention about "ruining the game" is just wrong. Whats ruining VGC is not having a complete dex and not banning legends

[@maxspecs]

I miss having the time and patience to actually do all of this. Adults with full time jobs that *aren’t* making content can’t put all this time in, and it makes you truly realize why 10 year olds are constantly called on to save the world.

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

This is why I don't get why it's a problem to gen teams. Nobody in competitive tournaments wins because they spent hours and hours getting their 31 IV perfect 'mons, they win because they know how to build good teams and play well. The end result would still be the same, it would just be a lot, lot more accessible.

[@denzellizasuain563]

Less acceable* You just saw what he went through to get those Pokémon. You think someone will have the 2 copies of the game, 2 handheld, a pc and 2 days worth of time to make a team that you don't even know if is going to be good team till tested or you think someone will have the game, a hand held, a cheap SD card, and a pc to install the hack and make it, test it, see that is shit so you change what's wrong and make it better

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

@@denzellizasuain563 Did you even read a single word I said?

[@AmanomiyaJun]

@@denzellizasuain5632 days vs ran:Float(1000, inf).

[@l.psimer6124]

I once heard someone say that IVs should be removed cause there is no strategy with them except to have the best IVs possible and they just make it harder to build Pokemon teams for competitive. I agree Edit: that person was MandJTV

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

@@l.psimer6124 Honestly I kinda agree. Aside from minimum attack IVs for Foul Play or niche Trick Room teams, there is no reason not to have 31. With the IV training introduced it makes it easier but still, it's absurd.

[@RinaShinomiyaVal]

PKHex itself serves as a way better hackcheck than the actual games. Especially during the 3ds era. I mostly use it for Trade Evolution skipping.

[@imablisy]

yeah it does!

[@JazzyWaffles]

Word! I ended up using PKHex a week or two ago to check for hacks on sketchy traded pokemon and pokemon I got from pre-owned cartridges (and I found a lot of hacked ones this way). The fact that PKHex was able to catch it, and both the GTS and Bank couldn't... that's really funny to me. I'm pretty sure even Home isn't as good as PKHex at detecting hacks from what I've heard. (I still kept the hacked pokemon tbh, I just fixed what was wrong with them and called it a day lol)

[@hbarudi]

@@JazzyWaffles Interesting, but how can I be able to copy my save file from 3ds/switch to look in pkhex and determine if a pokemon I get in trade is hacked or not? Nice to see the very hacking tools can also detect hacked pokemon.

[@charginginprogresss]

@@hbarudi If a mon is hacked right, it will be the same as it was legit and there will be no way to tell. Otherwise it will be very obvious.

[@retro_aqua_]

its shocking what gets through in trades, in gen 6 i got a lvl100 shiny magikarp with moves such as roar of time from a wonder trade :')

[@grunkleg.2934]

Even nowadays with all the improvements, there are still big barriers to entry in obtaining competitive Pokemon, such as: - Why aren't we allowed to see the exact IVs, EVs, and base stats of our Pokemon? It's not like seeing that stuff would ruin the experience, casual players still probably know what they are and you could very easily lock that stuff to the postgame - Why isn't there a way to see what Egg Group(s) a Pokemon is in-game, or what Egg Moves it can learn? Sw/Sh sorta addressed this by getting rid of a ton of Egg Moves and making a lot of them TMs, but I dunno. I really like the concept of Egg Moves - Why does it take so long to hatch Eggs, even with Flame Body? And why can't you mass release your Pokemon? Changing these would also be beneficial for all the Shiny breeders out there. Maybe make it like the Recycling Bin on your computer, where a released Pokemon just sorta sits there for 60 days, and you can either take it back or delete it for good - Why isn't there a way to at the very least drop an IV to 0? Trick Room has been a thing since the infancy of VGC - Why is it so difficult to change a Pokemon's EVs and IVs? They got Natures down perfectly with the Mints, and Hyper Training is almost good, save for some of the odd restrictions like needing to be Lvl 100, but why can't we have an easy way to change EVs? I think they should make EVs so that acquiring them is the same as before, but once you have them, you can invest as many and whatever arangement you want. A best of both worlds if you like EV training, and this wouldn't nullify Power Items & Pokerus - Why are PP Ups still a pain to get? If you have an exact team in mind, getting them isn't that bad in Gen 8 IIRC, but wanting to experiment with moves or Pokemon makes them such a huge barrier. At least for Singles; PP isn't nearly as important in VGC

[@HuskyTorchiks]

Obviously can’t confirm this but at least one of your points in the batch/mass release could be a thing in gen 9 with it being a thing in Legends Arceus

[@gavinyeet5821]

These changes would be so incredibly nice for anyone that enjoys the grind. During covid I went back and completed the dex in ORAS and started breeding pokemon for the battle facility and just for the hell of it. I decided I want a shiny so I've been hatching eggs at the resort and it would be great if I could just dump the excess mons (that sounds cruel though), especially since I can't access pokemon bank until next year! I don't see an issue with genning myself, but GF could easily remove it by implementing some kind of mainline Showdown game, which would also bring in slightly more sales as many people just use Showdown.

[@charlesfreeze3997]

I will comment on the EV invest thing with a very very great example: There is a pokemon-like fangame. When you kill mons you get these sorta points. You go into the stats and you just...throw them in the stat you want. you can even see the stat change as you do so. you can REMOVE them too. It helps so much in this particular game cuz end game stuff requires essentially perfect mons. You also get to see its nature and all that too. Im terrible with competitive pokemon, but being able to do all this stuff in this particular game was MASSIVE in helping me. so if you want a casual's input in how it would impact base pokemon, there you go. Even for CASUAL PLAYING it'd be nice to have something like that, just because then just playing the game won't kill stuff because "oh boy this trainer has EVs I don't want!"

[@ImPyroChad]

A while ago I saw someone have a rant on why competitive Pokémon is giant clusterfuck and why it should be separated into its own thing from the mainline games, I'm starting to see his point...

[@nerdstop5025]

*why showdown is superior*

[@swipeslogjack_tgaming9472]

​​@@nerdstop5025*why showdown is serperior*

[@NintennoCollector]

i personally would love them to add something that is opposite of hyper training. An item that reduces an IV to 0. if they are going this far to make competitive more available and easy to get into, this one change would drastically improve things for players. Many pokemon would need this, especially as meta changes, for stats like Attack and Speed.

[@virustheglitch9836]

Especially non breedables like legendaries

[@abrahamcoronelbeltran6033]

They did in gen 6

[@MaidenOfAir]

@@abrahamcoronelbeltran6033No, there's still no way to lower IV's, just to raise them. Are you thinking about the EV lowering berries?

[@abrahamcoronelbeltran6033]

@@MaidenOfAir yeah, thats on me but i meant the ev training with the white bag

[@notrickzdumbo]

Usually I would just pull up a long video like this and just leave it running in the background but this one had me hooked on it. Keep the content going!

[@imablisy]

Thanks, I styled it to be easily listenable.

[@PapaJefeYT]

Having watched the full video now, it cannot be overstated how excellent and thorough this is. I really hope this gets the attention it deserves, because it's so much more than just an in depth exploration of why hacking became the norm in competitive play. It's a celebration of the ingenuity of the Pokemon community, a revelation about what's possible in the games now with all our modern tools/research, and a demonstration of how deep the rabbit hole can actually go. Bravo friend. Bravo.

[@speedinturtle00]

How many homies do you have in the fucking collective?

[@PapaJefeYT]

@@speedinturtle00 mf SIX 😤😤😤

[@arcadechimera]

Now imagine trying to get good Pokemon without all the extra apps and shit. My buddy spent 3 months breeding every day for hours before he got a 31/30/31/30/31/30 IV Gastly for HP Fire.

[@shydog7276]

This is why I've never cared about "legitimacy." As long as the team is legal (could naturally happen in a game with enough time/planning) then I'm good. I remember having a small "business" back in the original Ruby and Sapphire where I did IV breeding and EV training in exchange for shinies lol. All I can say today is... Thank Arceus for mints and hyper training 😂

[@Oreca2005]

And no need to farm in a special place to just get vitamins and held items are easier to buy

[@Oreca2005]

Also another thing Glad ev reducing berries is a thing

[@muximurr]

I remember when this channel was a lot smaller when I was using the cute charm glitch guide on my Platinum copy. Awesome to see this channel is getting the attention it deserves, love these videos :D

[@imablisy]

thanks

[@henshaw33]

Really cool video, definitely expands a lot on how laborious it used to be to make a competitive team. Of course, this is all with the context of already knowing what you want your team to be in the first place. Now I'm imagining that you want to test out a variety of pokemon for your prospective team, each with different possible stat spreads and sets. Sure, you can use things like showdown to do the testing without losing your mind painfully grinding all these perfect mons to test, but the testing itself would still take a considerable amount of time, then doing the research to see how you would actually get all the pokemon with correct moves and such or even if you could for the specific pokemon you chose. If something didn't work out because of incompatible egg moves then it's back to the drawing board.

[@SnoFitzroy]

yeah and PkHeX's legality checking lets you bypass all of this pointless time investment. Also "used to be"???? I get it was worse in older generations but it's not exactly speedy these days. Like some of us have other things to do. Some of us DON'T have a dozen DS consoles and a copy of every main series game to do trades and transfers, and can't afford that.

[@XenithShadow]

@@SnoFitzroy It's pretty fast in the newer games, no hidden power mean no weird iv's are required. pokemon can't legally use moves that are transfer exclusive in the newer games. The only slow part would be getting good iv's on legendaries, but that can be resolved using bottle caps.

[@Mialentia]

@@XenithShadow yeah. And grinding EVs, and getting egg moves, and leveling up to 100 to use the goddamn caps, and...

[@lunamaster123]

@@Mialentia You can buy EV training items, so that isn't a problem (especially if you know your mechanics). You can get any Egg Move on a Pokemon by having the desired Pokemon have an empty slot in their move list and being put in the breed with the same Pokemon that has the desired egg move. (To put it in simplest terms, you only need to get an egg move on a Pokemon _once_ to give to *ALL* your future Pokemon.) You don't need to get any Pokemon to level 100 for Bottle Caps unless it's a legendary or a shiny with bad IVs. Breeding is always faster and gets even faster the move perfect IV Pokemon you have.

[@TiredFawx]

This video is honestly such a good insight into what it was like to make teams and just how much time it took for ONE team. Props to those who never hacked and even bigger props to you Blisy for the fantastic videos as usual!

[@imablisy]

Thanks so much!

[@arcadechimera]

The list of people who never hacked and had VGC success is likely close to 0.

[@pyromaniacforhire]

We had started a "Pokemon League" at our uni back in 2011 (BW only), and making a team worth a damn was a fucking nightmare at first cause we had some "purists" in the group that were like "No Action Replay assistance allowed." After a month and a half their tunes changed, and we all started using ARs.

[@dillmo28]

wym hackers are the heroes of this situation, it keeps competitive pkmn from being freemium pay to play bs

[@3DHDcat]

it's a game , it's absolutely tedious and requires high luck to get good teams . It's too time consuming , if you have no life then yea go ahead . Those hours can be put into something more better than hatching garbage

[@henrychen4947]

This was a great video. I think doing a video like this for gen 6 or gen 8 VGC could be fun to compare the time differences between more modern generations and gen 5. I started breeding competitve pokemon in gen 6 and even with all the new mechanics, it still takes me about 24 hours on the long end to breed my perfect pokemon without any RNG manipulation (not including hidden power).

[@ChaosKnuxxx]

Gen 6 breeding was so smooth, between the ditto safaris and virtual IV training, I could have 5IV mons within an hour and IV trained in like 30. The setup however is another thing

[@kleinshui9082]

Plus ORAS hidden bases with lvl 100 Blisseys for easily leveling to 50. In B/W a team took me a week of breeding, checking and losing nerves to Audino. In ORAS 1-2 days chill grind. The difference was huge!

[@RockRoxDaL1fe]

You seriously deserve a sub just for commiting to do this for real...I've been into competitive pokemon and breeding since gen 4 and I always did it legally...it's a complete pain in the ass. You may have taken close to 50 hours, but what wasn't taken into account was all the time Ray took to theorycraft that team, you should only commit to build a team like that when you are 100% sure of the team, you have to consider so many factors in a forever changing meta that I'm not even bothering to list em all out. This brought me back so many memories, thank you, I really enjoyed it man.

[@patathatapon]

I remember this being the reason I couldn't get into trying to make a competitive team. If you don't RNG manip, your effectively fucked. This took a lot of time with the RNG manips.

[@Napkiner]

As a comparison, doing this in gen 8 would be cool, just to see how accessible it is nowadays. In particular without any RNG manipulation since you hardly need to breed anymore with bottle caps and mints

[@LordLucario12]

If you have all the right resources it takes no time at all. But actually getting those resources takes hours and hours and hours and HOURS! Took me around 200-300 before I had an optimized setup and that was after some..."help".

[@Azaytio]

If you have some friends to do delibird raid exp candy grind ( also gives pp ups) with 6 pokemon from level 1-100 takes like 1-2 hours depending on exp growth rate of each can be less depending on mons. Breeding with 6 iv ditto takes like 10-40 mins per pokemon (depends on egg steps) and dynamax adventures is like 15 mins per legend run, all the other legends depends on which cause story reasons but most you can get in like 10--20 mins. Items are stupid easy to obtain since BP is given like candy in gen 8 and cram-o-matic as alternative way to obtain a lot of items and TRs shouldn't take more then an hour to get all the moves. So 6 pokemon like 5 hours from nothing but if you got stuff not even that. I have so much of a lot of resources it takes me an hour to make a new team from not having any of the pokemon.

[@rhuntern]

@@Azaytio You don't need to actually do raids for leveling. Just do the training exploit and you get to level 100 in like 20 minutes for the entire team.

[@Azaytio]

@@rhuntern I was talking about no exploit or anything just pure gameplay and a few friends

[@brandonfulstone7628]

@@Azaytio i definitely agree about the 6iv ditto taking no more than ~40 minutes per Pokemon, especially if one knows what one is doing

[@imablisy]

I want to be clear I don’t know or care how Ray got his Pokémon! He could’ve rngd, used pksav or did it full legit, I just used the world champs team as an example that this is tough to do! Hey everyone, let me know in the comment what Meta you'd like to see me cover! Gen 3 Smogon, Gen 4 Smogon, Gen 4 VGC, Gen 5 2013 VGC, Gen 5 Smogon, Gen 6 Smogon, Gen 6 VGC, Gen 7 Smogon, and Gen 7 VGC!

[@indy5280]

Gen 3-4 would be cool to see but atm I’m most interested in gen 6 smogon or vgc

[@SpectreXS]

Isn't the rng manip in gen 6 super awful? If then, it would be... "fun" to see a team of one of those metas, with as many legendaries as possibles, being made 😂

[@imablisy]

@@SpectreXS lol it’s not great!

[@hokagejason4732]

Gen 4 will always be my favorite, I think it had the perfect balance of gameplay and mons. Prior gens lacked things I think were a huge addition to the game, like the split of Sp. Atk and Sp. Def (still loved older gens) and newer gens are filled with pokemon designs I'm not a huge fan of (not here to hate on them, just not for me, new pokemon games are still fun!) Amazing video btw!

[@buchlo]

gen 3 cause i’m trying to breed for some battle frontier pokemon and it would be cool to see

[@ChaoticMeatballTV]

I was 10 years old back during VGC 2011, and MAN the grind was absolutely atrocious for it. I was gonna try doing everything legitimately, but then there was a lot less in terms of resources, I didn't have as much understanding as I do now because of my age, so I just used an Action Replay for everything, including a single shiny in Hydreigon since it's my favorite Pokemon. I still advocate using things like PKHex though, as the IV system is dumb to begin with and shouldn't exist, and to a lesser extent natures not being a choice without an item that you have to grind for. Especially for content creators, as they were needing a ton of different mons to test and do wifi battles. Super cool to get insight on how long it would take to build a team with RNG manipulation though, great vid!

[@imablisy]

It’s pretty bad in older gens. I’ll admit to having a good time here, but that’s of course in-part thanks to knowing all the rng mechanics. Something like gen 6 is where breeding really became enjoyable without rng. I think my main issue with advocating for PKHeX is that until gamefreak / TPCi explicitly allow it, instead of this weird don’t look mentality they have, it gives you an edge. I really think the ivs and all that are fine in a single player game, and become out of line in multiplayer. They need to truly just build a sim into the game.

[@imablisy]

To add, I’m no stranger to hacking. I bred a ton without rng in gen 4, but I also hacked a lot in both gen 4/5(for smogon play, I never really did vgc until g6), and I think basically everyone online was then as well

[@russelldavis1875]

"Unreasonably time consuming" is an understatement regarding breeding perfect pokemon in Gen IV/V, it's virtually impossible.

[@robertharris6092]

Then go for a hidden power typing.

[@z0h33y]

Imagine showing upto the championship with pokemon you legitimately breeded, lol.

[@sonario6489]

@@robertharris6092 Hidden Power can go fuck itself and die. I'm surprised and glad it was one of the removed moves in sword and shield, AND then it got the best change ever in Legends Arceus.

[@enoyna1001]

The fact that 3 IVs are rolled completely randomly makes it so unlikely to get 6 or even 5 good stats.

[@russelldavis1875]

@@z0h33y Better have started breeding them in gen 3

[@Aether52]

In middle school I decided to hop into competitive breeding in Gen 6. My first mon that I did that with was Garchomp, I went for a 5 IV with the Sp.Atk being the not flawless stat, and a jolly nature. I was in middle school at the time and it took me 2 weeks just to get the Gible. Leveling it to 100, EV training it, and teaching it the moves I wanted on it was easy as hell and took me 2 days (including my school time so it was probably more like 6 hours of me actually playing). Now I'm proud of that Garchomp, and it is a staple on my team to this day, but once I gained the ability to use PkHex I never looked back. I always found more fun in the competition and theory crafting anyway. As long as it was legal, hack away. Makes theory crafting and playtesting team comps a lot easier and faster so you can see which strat you'd rather use. Making the mons the hard way I find is only good for bragging rights. Which if you like that, go ahead. My friend did a couple mons like that though they were strictly ones he had a heart out for.

[@Madssice]

I've always thought that hacking in mons was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, since the winner is determined by the one who wins the battles, not who breeds the perfect pokemon. Even if breeding was added as a qualifier, I don't think it would change anything as people would just grind out the perfect mons anyway. All breeding does is take time away from getting better at battling, which is fine casually but makes no sense for this competition. Imagine if you had to create your own deck of cards to play poker or ball to play soccer. If the argument is that it takes away from the spirit of pokemon, as in you raising your team yourself to compete, then they should just outright ban hacked mons or include breeding in the competition. I just don't think it would add all that much, rather, I think it'll take away from it. Great video though, I've always wondered how long it would take to make one team and you did it so thoroughly.

[@luchotenks2310]

I think Game Freak failed at a fundamental aspect of game design here, and that is to make a game what it is supposed to be: fun to play. If people are ditching your game's features for a third party app that they've been using even at official competitive events, why haven't you fixed your game already? The breeding process is unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming, it takes away all the fun really fast. And that's just for 1 competitive pokemon. A couple of quality of life enchancements I'd like Game Freak to implement would be: - Visible base stats, IVs and EVs (if possible with a graph like the ones at Smogon) - Shorter egg cycles (100 steps max) or stacking the effects of hatching abilities (Flame Body, Magma Armor) - Items to reset IVs to 0 (like reverse bottle caps) and faster ways to acquire these items - Ability Patches can change HA back to normal ability - Return of the VS Seeker and trainers with high level pokemon for faster grinding - Let forgotten tutor moves be relearned like egg moves The more time we spent battling and 'bonding' with our pokemon rather than running in circles in front of the daycare, the better. The anime and the manga make special emphasis on this aspect of pokemon, not the eugenics side of it smh. This would also serve as an incentive to experiment with new strategies.

[@imablisy]

I truly think breeding and EVing is fun on some level as a single player concept. I complain about the length of time in this video, but that's only because this is for an E-Sport style event. Breeding and EVing for frontier content, especially when you get RNG in the mix, is actually quite fun for me.

[@skycastrum5803]

The process of creating a team is appealing to many players. It’s one of the things that made Pokemon as big as it is. People into the competitive scene often laser focus on their own thing, thinking that’s all the games are. But battling other players is really only a side aspect of the games. It’s not even the entire multiplayer experience. Trading was supposed to be a larger part. Should there be more support for battlers? Yes. It’s also a direction the games are going, what with making teams so much easier to create. Hopefully eventually there’s an in game genner that differentiates created mons from game-caught. But there are tons of people who really need to grow up as far as seeing perspectives outside their own. And yes, genning does matter. Not overly so when restricted to just competitive (though there’s a distinct time advantage if VGC), but flooding games with genned mons devalues the effort of those that put the time in. That said, by now I’m more used to MMOs, where you can bet your ass there is public outcry when people get their stuff through illegitimate means.

[@luchotenks2310]

@@skycastrum5803 I speak from my experience as a collector, I rarely battle unless it is to get BP at the Battle Tower/Tree. I'm about to finish 2 competitive living dexes in gens 6 and 7 (the legal way) and most of the time spent was breeding rather than battling. That's not something one does if they didn't enjoy the process even a little bit, but I'd be lying if I said I couldn't have used a little help with the speed, the randomization, and/or the monotony of spinning the C-pad in the same spot for hours. The truth is this process is unnecessarily tedious. They could have at least put mini games to speed up the hatching time. Maybe something that involves the pokemon you deposited in the day care, kinda like they did with super training (Super Hatching? Idk), or one that involves riding your bicycle so that you have fun while completing egg cycles, but the most fun you can get is trying not to crash with npcs. Like a poor man's Excitebike, but with no cpu to compete against. The thing is, this is not that fun of a game mechanic. Players have literally come up with ways to autotomize this process like using a coin to press the directional pad and leaving their console sitting on a desk until the text box pops up. As a game developer, wouldn't you want people to actually want to take the time to actively engage with and enjoy the game you created instead of letting the game play itself or even switching to a third party app altogether?

[@skycastrum5803]

@@luchotenks2310 It’s a balance, and I’m definitely not in favor of tipping it too far towards tedium. Doesn’t really change anything I said though.

[@mesadrums375]

They should just make 2 separate modes in the start menu, one is story and the other is a Showdown style where you can choose to use your story team cause you do grow attached to them, or just build one from the ground up.

[@phoenix7540]

As a somewhat outsider when it comes to comp Pokemon. I think it should be fine to edit your team as long as they're legal. Winning comp isn't just about the Pokemon stats, it's how you use them. Read your opponents and pick your options based on that. Someone with a lot of experience will win against an amateur 9 out of 10 times even if they're using the exact same team.

[@AllergyPuppy]

As a casual, this right here is why I didn’t try anything competitive Pokemon until gen 8. This was absolute madness to watch, I can’t imagine doing it. An interesting challenge would be hand building a team with some of the weirder IV spreads for hidden power that some smogon Pokémon have. I don’t know any specific examples, but it does seem like a good starting point.

[@BGL19283]

I made one team this way on black 2 back then, and I know it took me close to 400 hrs, for non shiny, no rng was available at the time as far as I was aware. I had what I felt like at the time was "good" luck. It's definitively much easier now but I understand why people hack, even with all the changes it's still not ideal. It could still be much, much better.

[@Alaneeeeee]

Even if it's way easier now to make a competitive team, I still think they should make a new Pokémon Stadium game that's just straight up Showdown. It's fun to just go with a random team online or to make up your perfect team without all the hassle of breeding and grinding just to try a new idea you got. Discourage cheaters by just giving them all the tools from the start, or unlock Pokémon and items frequently while playing. I think that's why I liked the Battle Factory back in HGSS so much.

[@MuchWhittering]

Getting mad at people for hacking is like getting mad at a tennis player for not building their own racquet. Team building involves 0 skill and 0 fun. It's just a waste of time that Game Freak insists on.

[@TheChessBros1900]

0 skill my ass you probably the guy that runs 252 252 6 evs one every mon

[@C_Raccoon23]

@@TheChessBros1900They mean the literal team building part, like gathering the Pokemon themselves as the video demonstrates. Not figuring out the best EV distribution and all that. You completely missed the point.

[@johnkekse]

This video was incredibly thorough. Like I kind of did not expect it to go this much into detail. With all the weird hurdles like gen 4 mons with special moves, that 1 chople berry etc. Lol Shoutouts to you for keeping it 100! Furthermore, your conclusion is spot on and I feel pretty much the exact same. The reason I got into vgc in gen 6 was because breeding became really accessible, although maybe at times tedious. I actually really like breeding in generations 6 and onwards. Probably the most significant reason I did not get into vgc in gen 5 was because I did not want to hack my Pokemon and was too incompetent to make rng work lol Mind you, i do not really care how other people feel about getting their Pokemon. This concerns solely me. Although I do have to agree with you that its unfortunate that hacking is still so widespread since in swsh you can just literally play through the game to get the Pokemon you want. Like, you dont want to play the game you bought? Oh well :x PS: I really regret not getting into gen 5 vgc because I love gen 5 sprites and looking back, I really really really like the vgc 12/13 metagames. #NoBattleGimmicks #PlainOldPokemon ;__;

[@imablisy]

Thanks! Gen 5 being so tough is the reason I got into RNG lol. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@PurifiedShino]

And for all us casuals who don't even know where to start with RNG manipulation we might as well give up before Starting.

[@minorfffanatic]

The only question I have is would it have been more optimal to combine the HP and leveling a bit since Audino also give 2 HP EVs?

[@imablisy]

Oh I didn't think of that. It could be the case.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

easier to keep track of 1 at a time.

[@ToastbackWhale]

@@gregorymirabella1423 …it’s still only keeping track of one thing at a time. Audino just give more EXP than most Pokémon so while you’re grinding them for HP EVs you’d get hella EXP, too, making the actual level grind shorter.

[@winsonzhu4427]

@@ToastbackWhale and if you did the switch training with Audino, then the pokemon who didn't get the KO would be more able to take on the wild pokemon you EV train on solo, making that take less time too.

[@SuperSayianWarrior]

@@winsonzhu4427 but factoring in the odds of shaking grass and and factoring the 20% of it NOT being Audino that would've added Way more time for the HP over the other method. Plus the math of keeping track since it's what, 12 HP per Audino with the Power Item and Pokérus?

[@philos_kun]

Thanks for sharing this! I recently discovered your channel and started Emerald RNG, and is incredibly easy with a dead battery. I wish I figured out about that 15 years earlier... Now to the video: I'd like to point out that many, MANY people hacked back then and I could only feel pity for those who put a lot of effort just to get 2-3IV breed and some useful legendaries just to lose at the first or second rounds of any torunament by some hacker... however, I don't blame hackers either, because it wasn't their fault, it's the disrespect (and stupidity) from the biggest gaming/media franchise in history puts their fans into: mindless, boring and tedious grinding, even to this day, like reaching lvl 100 just to bottlecap (which are still somewhat rare) or still doing hunderds of battles for BP just to get a Nature Mint or something else, compared to any other competitive scene in other games where assets are easily and readily available after some point, you just need to "git gud" to success. Like, we're treated as dumb, that we haven't figured out the mechanics of the games since Gen 3... my (very low) hopes from GF in the future is that every item is at shops only and the Battle (facility, tower, frontier, whatever) is made to test you as a trainer: knowledge and strategy thinking (something like Pokemon Showdown implemented into the main series), but I suspect this would be tied to a paywall/DLC because how greedy and toxic this company has gotten.

[@praggodey]

imagine if game freak makes a good anti cheat and doesn't make getting a competitive team better

[@ZaChemas]

heh, fun fact, they did

[@audreysp602]

nice vid, really puts things into perspective. I wish things were more accessible back then but oh well, too late at this point. I really wish dream world could've gotten preserved in some capacity as well since I never got the chance to experience it but that's just how things are I guess.

[@imablisy]

thanks so much audrey! I agree about dream world, but I think there just was not enough left over to recreate it.

[@oniondesu9633]

@@imablisy pretty sure the reason no one has seriously attempted it is legal concerns. it's one thing to host a backend server that recreates nintendo wifi, but another entirely to host a public facing website filled with copyrighted pokemon company minigames and art.

[@imablisy]

@@oniondesu9633 it was already attempted and they had not enough assets

[@harv612]

This was such a daunting task to undertake, but such an enjoyable watch. You did a spectacular job with the explanations and recording all of the visuals during all of this. Your perseverance and love for the game truly is admirable to witness and to watch. Happy to see this video got a great deal of attention. Thanks for always educating everyone on all of the RNG stuff as well. Although you’ve been a smaller channel (no fault of your own), your impact and the value you bring to this community is immense and very appreciated. From one pkmn fan to the next, Keep it up Blisy!

[@breakfast6723]

I'd be interested to see another one of these done in gen 8 just to show how much easier and faster it can be done now

[@shajack34]

Wow, this was a really great video. And the twist at the end really made me remember how impossible this really is. Great job

[@enjoyerofcake2123]

Additional thing to consider: this was what it took for his final team. To get there took countless battles and trialing other mons to decide on said final team.

[@XerneusVGC]

I always thought the Magmar was completely impossible even with RNG. I'd love to see a video on the 2013 team at some point

[@imablisy]

It is impossible lol.

[@SpectreXS]

You might be able to find a 5-IV one with a different attack stat if you look for it, but as is, it was an impossible mon.

[@PurpleThunderNE]

Fantastic video, I'm genuinely impressed by the thoroughness of this project. The barrier to entry that Pokemon's competitive grind has built cannot be understated and even in the most recent generations there are so many mechanics and forced time sinks a player has to go through to just get into their first comp online battles. Really hope videos like this open people's eyes to the irritations of "legit" grinding for a team and why people would rather just crack open the ol' pkhex.

[@imablisy]

Thanks so much! It’s probably too high in even the latest gen I think, despite it being easier than this.

[@skybattler2624]

Remember, people literally hire a team of breeders as the VGC players themselves start practicing with each other or online using either simulators or suboptimal team comps, which gives them an edge over newcomers who spent most of their time breeding than practicing their teams.

[@ovrsurge4689]

@@imablisy Especially because as a holdover of the old days the community has access to tools like pokemon showdown which builds an expectation that you can create a competitive team at the same speed that you can plan it. I remember grinding several days for a few 5 iv speedboost torchics back in pokemon x and y to share with friends and that process was grueling. Even with hacked dittos the process was still time consuming and stopped being enjoyable in any way after I finished about 12-20 pokemon. Also the benefits of hacking are more than just that initial time save. With hacked pokemon you can perform rapid iterations on your team, changing things like natures or ev and iv spreads without needing to start from complete scratch. Excellent video though. I learnt a lot about gen 5 games from this.

[@GameOn0827]

Imagine doing it without the RNG manipulation...

[@CabroVGC]

For gen 9 they should honestly make a competitive battle team builder showdown style that you can only use online on ladder or in tournaments or something

[@dizzydial8081]

I was watching a video sort of related to this topic. It was nintendo being stubborn about releasing older classics on their digital store or reselling them for the switch and also coming down hard on emulators and ROM hacks. If nintendo can't provide a better service than what people can find for free, then they'll keep going for the free option. Nintendo could very well make a showdown-esque post-game mode.

[@dgtallgamer]

Yep, though I will say there are a lot of competitive players who are strictly against hacking. I was when I played (qualification: I made worlds in 19), but post-retirement any time I play I have a friend hack and send me a team. It still saves time now, especially if you don't care about the game casually. Like I think a huge part of what you missed is the time to beat the game, which is relevant if you already caught a legendary and you need a different nature or hp or speed iv for a different team. Then you have to play through the game again. I remember doing this no less than 8 times in ORAS. Honestly should have submitted some of my Speedrun times XD. But after beating them and playing competitively, playing the story is sooooo anti-fun, like it really makes you hate the game really fast.

[@imablisy]

I actually agree with you about multiple legends issue, but I think it was out of the scope of this video. I just wanted to cover as if a player had just beaten the game and wanted to get into vgc.

[@metalmario1231]

Well yeah....anything can become that way when you do it for the wrong reason

[@dgtallgamer]

@@metalmario1231 I wouldn't say it's "for the wrong reason." I genuinely loved playing Pokemon, both casually and competitively, but limiting 1 legend per game makes getting ones you need without hacking a miserable chore. Also, as an adult, the games aren't challenging to me anymore, just tedious, so it's not really fun to play through the same unfun thing for 3-8 hours depending on the game just to get to the point when you can catch 1 Mon. Don't even get me started on the extra time needed for truck room builds for legendaries. That's why most singles competitive players literally don't even play the actual game and just play in showdown

[@fahkyew7776]

@@metalmario1231 there's a wrong reason to play pokemon?

[@francesco3772]

@@fahkyew7776 yes, mistaking "I like pokemon" with "I like pokemon games".

[@vreeze33]

Making teams is such a struggle. I knew nothing about rng manip so I just bred thousands of eggs. In vgc 17 I went to a regional without using any tapus because I didn't have any good ones and didn't want to replay through the game and reset for who knows how long. The team was surprisingly good, but not being able to build around legendaries is a huge disadvantage. I also arrived at tournaments while still EV training my team and didn't always manage to finish and had to use an old team. Rip my Vileplume team :( Also losing trakc of your evs halfway through is fun.

[@sloth_6333]

Really quality video! I'm for sure going to rewatch this again sometime.

[@wesleyharville-fry]

11:30, “I can trade with myself instead of my ‘friends’.” I felt that.

[@evilsheepmaster1744]

And all of this time was spent getting a specific team from the start. Need to switch out some pokemon or even change some EV's/IV's after play testing your team? Well, back to the grind with you!

[@sSynclare]

very interesting video! it really shows how spoiled we are in newer gens with how customizable you can be with a pokemon. you can stumble upon a wild shiny unexpectedly and there are way more shortcuts today to make it competitively battle and put it to use right away

[@im-deepfriedwater]

I got into gen 5 recently and have experienced a small slice of this trying to get a decent team together to beat the PWT. thanks for this vid!! this is like everything I'm experiencing times 100 LOL

[@willy-8-8]

Damn that reveal at the end of the time! Man what a real grind you did. Part of me was thinking it seemed kind of like a fun challenge to make a truly competitive team, but now I'm having second thoughts if I'm not even going to play competitively with it

[@PapaJefeYT]

Don't get discouraged. It's much easier in the newer games. The games have come a long way like Blisy said, and hopefully Scarlet/Violet are more in that direction.

[@willy-8-8]

@@PapaJefeYT Thats true. It seems even pretty decent to do without RNG manip in gen 8. Maybe I will go for it in gen 9! Also love your stuff man! Thanks for the response!

[@imablisy]

It definitely is not this difficult in Gen 8, that I can promise.

[@willy-8-8]

@@imablisy Alright yall sold me on it! Gotta try it at least once I guess!

[@c3_pulsar]

I absolutely LOVE the idea. Great video and I can't wait for more! small edit: some feedback I have is that I would cut down on the hyper fast timelapses a bit. I personally found them a bit rough on my eyes from time to time but that might also just be me. Apart from that I love the editing on the video and this absolutely deserves a loooot of attention

[@imablisy]

Thanks I’ve already decided to slow down the time lapses and show less of the process for future installments

[@mcsmileycorp]

The only thing I could think of that could improve making competitive ready teams from gen 8's system is a way to reset ivs to 0, that's now the only last difficult step in the way of competitive teambuilding. Unless the dreaded hidden power returns for anything other than unown in gen 9.

[@gregorymirabella1423]

or for changing hidden ability mons into regular ability mons. N O G U A R D F I S S U R E M A C H A M P

[@noahpokeemon6503]

@@gregorymirabella1423 that was my biggest fear for ability patches- I assume they can't be reversed by your comment

[@afanofjustice]

Hidden power should comeback

[@luchotenks2310]

@@gregorymirabella1423 Scrappy Pangoro and Keen Eye Drapion say hi.

[@sonario6489]

@@afanofjustice It really shouldn't. At least not how it was before. Thankfully it looks like they've finally changed it for Legends Arceus where it's super effective by default on the opposing pokemon

[@SJrad]

Also thank god there’s an unofficial battle simulator online so that you can practice using that and also make tweaks and test strategies before building your team in game. hopefully it doesn’t get DMCA’d

[@erickozfkay458]

Great video, absolutely crazy how long it would take back in those days. I’d love to see an attempt at gen 3 with this.

[@imablisy]

Thanks! G3 will be insane depending on what smogon team I end up doing, since idk if there is any official Nintendo metas for it?

[@KindaKaon]

As someone getting into VGC over smogon where a Pokemon is as easy to get right as typing in IVs, I would love to see a video like this but in Gen 8 (or the soon to be Gen 9). I still feel as though training, breeding and getting IVs is extremely difficult in today’s games mainly due to the lack of informative and concise resources, and I would love to see a full team being built and explained. Great content, keep it up!

[@imablisy]

Thanks! Expect a new vid this week on a different gen :)

[@kevinfigueroa5444]

Yeah I will never look down on a hacker for making teams quickly cause Game Freak makes team building so inaccesible and extremely time consuming. And this was you doing a lot of manipulations too to make this team. I imagine it would take at least three times as long to do this process without any of those in Gen 5. I'm grateful to Game Freak for making steps toward making this less tedious through the newer generations and honestly I enjoy it making teams a lot more in Sword and Shield than ever but I would like them to make it a tiny bit easier for someone who has limited free time.

[@z0h33y]

I remind you that these tournaments payout thousands of dollars. Try applying this same logic to any other competitive sport.

[@prawnwizard6366]

@@z0h33y no other competitive sport has absurd hundred+ hour time waster barriers to entry

[@prawnwizard6366]

@@z0h33y in what world do you possibly see people legitimately breeding their own pokemon? In a world without hacks or pokemon showdown all the best players become the ones with money because they can just pay other people to breed for them while they play and practice the actual competitive part of the game. Like seriously sit down and think about it. No one at the top competitive level will ever be breeding their own pokemon, even in a world without hacks. We don't live in an anime where people actually have emotional bonds with their pokemon, get over it

[@z0h33y]

@@prawnwizard6366 its simple. Game Freak or whoever is hosting the tournament, supply the Pokemon needed according to the competitors requirements. That way, EVERYONE competing gets hacked pokemon for the tournament. Big brain solution i know.

[@prawnwizard6366]

@@z0h33y okay well until that happens (it won't) why give a shit if people are hacking in pokemon? Its extremely easy to do its not like there's a big barrier to entry

[@twopercentskill]

I got this video in recommended to me even though I don't watch pokémon content that often. I watched all the way through it and enjoyed every second of it. The explanations were very good and the process were even more complex than I expected. I then subscribed without hesitation and when I saw the view count I became very surprised. This video deserves so much more attention than it already has gotten, keep it up man and thanks for the immaculate entertainment. 💜

[@imablisy]

Thanks so much!

[@Evie0133]

Dang!! Massive respects for getting it done for real, can't have been easy, especially considering how much time it takes!! Thoroughly enjoyed it :3

[@kippykippowpow9999]

This is great content outside your helpful RNG guides! A very cool way to apply the knowledge you know in a hypothetical way.

[@therewisfiles8437]

I’d love to see more gen 5 vgc content but something I’ve gotten so interested in since finding your channel is gen 3 competitive builds.

[@imablisy]

I'll keep that in mind!

[@iBenjamin1000]

in the meantime, if you're looking for advanced team stuff then bkc seems like he might be your guy,

[@therewisfiles8437]

@@iBenjamin1000 bkc? Is that a content creator?

[@imablisy]

@@therewisfiles8437 Yeah he makes excellent Smogon meta history videos and videos on how to play in a specific meta. A lot of g3/g4 stuff. Excellent to watch.

[@therewisfiles8437]

@@imablisy awesome! Thanks guys!

[@h.w.s.4591]

Honestly I don't mind hacking in Pokemon. I view Pokemon as a strategy game. If someone is better than me due to their understanding of the game and skill I don't mind if they didn't do a mindless grind beforehand. Grinding for a good team stops many players from joining the competitive Pokemon scene due to that boring repetitive process you have to go through and if hacking is the way for those players to join the community I don't mind it.

[@APootisBirb]

Honestly, this. I wanted to play online in G6, but when I realized what I had to do to even stand a chance online, I just said "fuck it", and dropped the mainline games. A bit extreme, I know, but I was disheartened enough to do that.

[@JABRONISTOMPER]

As someone who used to be involved in the VGC community, EVERYONE (who is actually good) uses pkhex, and everyone knows it, including the judges/TOs. Nobody really cares lol

[@h.w.s.4591]

@@APootisBirb Most competitive players either hack or use Pokemon Showdown. It's obvious something is wrong, when the majority of players have to not play your game in order to play your game. Even the degree of accessibility in the newest games is far too low. It should take a maximum of 3 hours to make a team imo, so people not only play one team, but are encouraged to play multiple

[@nathantheboi9616]

@@h.w.s.4591 in gen 8 its way more easier to make a team now. I could easily make a team within 3 hours, asside from obtaining legendaries. but training legendaries is still not a biggie.

[@pratt17648]

@@JABRONISTOMPER that sounds terrible

[@bakailfrozen1944]

They should have the "team building" part of showdown in their games starting gen 9. It's too convenient. But Keep the current methods for Those who wish to run around in circles hatching eggs, and we are all happy

[@Kwikpanik]

Great video, my man! I personally shiny hunt all of my VGC members - and have done so since 2013, so this was incredibly interesting to watch!

[@lalamike25]

I could see a video on SwSh on this topic blowing up. I could see you getting Wolfey to react to it and your channel would probably blow up. You deserve more notoriety for your knowledge and dedication in these videos.

[@PapaJefeYT]

TALK TO EM 😤😤😤

[@imablisy]

I'll be running a poll this week to see what you all want next :)

[@CaptainKiddYT]

Fantastic video. It's insane to see just how much time it takes to get all of these Pokemon legitimately for ONE TEAM. Especially considering all the time saving skills that you have by knowing about RNG manipulation. Gen 5 was when I first got into competitive Pokemon, so I remember spending hours breeding for good IV mons, only to realize that they weren't any good and would have to replace them on my team. While I did enjoy the process back in the day, I've definitely taken the cheating pill and wouldn't blame anyone who hacks their mons in. Competitive Pokemon is meant to test two skills: team building and battling. I think people should be able to focus on developing those skills without putting that same time doing monotonous tasks like hatching eggs or grinding BP. Maybe I just wish that I had been better by being able to spend more time practicing my battling than breeding lol. It's cool to be able to build your own teams with resources in the game, but that's way too much of a barrier to entry for some if competitive Pokemon hopes to continue growing.

[@Xfaction1111]

I have no bad feeling towards Genning as an adult with a full time job. The line I draw is keeping Pokémon legal and not scamming kids. It helps that I’ve completed so many legit shiny hunts when I was younger. But for me RNG and Gen are the same; third party tools to get a specific Pokémon. I will say RNG Man definitely requires more skill and practice but is still a third party tool. Have fun guys, have an awesome day and make safe choices!

[@imablisy]

I made this video and have a full time job.

[@David-vk5sv]

@@imablisy Ok, and what does your social life look like offline? you take care of kids? You have a stay at home wife? You own your own house or rent? I'm not talking shit just saying if you are using the majority of your free off work hours to make the video, then it proves the OP point. Knowledge of the game at a worlds competitive level is already time consuming, the fact that game freak doesnt have a team builder is on them. Feels like hating on hackers making legal mons just to validate your life choices and time expense.

[@MooseCastle]

@@imablisy Yeah and one look at you is all it takes to figure out that this is all you do.

[@imablisy]

@@MooseCastle I am getting married in 2 weeks lol. Why are you so hostile.

[@lukestorm4566]

@@imablisy I definitely think the other guy was a bit hostile, but it is worth mentioning everyone's situation is different. Some people have intensive jobs or other commitments that eat up a lot of time. Some people want to invest time in other hobbies and just compete casually. I couldn't imagine telling someone that they can't play competitive Pokemon because they need to grind with time they don't have. Even if it's not most people, some people would be hard locked out. And, at least for me personally, if I win a game just because I grinded for 6IVs and they didn't, I don't feel like I won. They outplayed me, but because I was willing to grind for an advantage- something completely unrelated to ones skill. I want to play against my opponent's skill, not their penchant for tedium.

[@Shavan88]

Why ppl complain about having a hacked pokemon if literally nothing changes? you don't get more stats.. so why ppl bitch about it?

[@Cobalt777]

Awesome video man! The detail and explanations were fantastic! Keep up the good work!

[@eli2210]

Literally anybody who says hacking Pokémon is bad is lying to try themselves. Literally could be battling and trying new teams instead of doing tedious work. Which btw, work smarter not harder

[@robinchrisb_]

I think after several years the game devs finally understood how difficult it is to build a competitive team from scratch. Scarlet Violet introduced a lot if not the most of quality of life improvements just to begin playing.

[@kylemckell]

Also in addition to this, you have to still practice with the team. And what if you decide that you want to make changes? Congrats you get to train up more mons.

[@foxbear60]

@ 16:10 - 16:20 My goodness... I seriously tracked my EV gains on paper. Every single time, I'd save, grind a stats to 252 (or desirable number) and then save to lick it in place. Never even once did it dawn on me to use PP as a measuring source. The hours spent when I thought I had missed a count. This makes me so proud for your efforts and so sad for my time invested all those years ago. 😭😂

[@RabidLace]

Hey Blisy! Big fan of your content. I started playing Gen 2 recently and I was building a team to play the story with and then go into Stadium 2 and beat the game over there. I've been watching this series recently and its baffles me that I used to do this back in the day for fun at my school. I was know as the pokemon breeder you needed a mon I could make it for ya hahaha

[@fin3662]

cheating your teams in should be the standard and encouraged, nothing about breeding good pokemon takes skill just time, vgc is there to find out who the best player is, not who the best breeder is.

[@Lordin_]

so funny how you and versilify did a video abaout the same theme, but one did a lazy clickbait and tried to insult as many ppl as he could trying to get hate comments (helping aith yt algorithm) and the other one made the entire opposite, a really well made video with dozens of hours of work. Good job!

[@imablisy]

Thanks. I wasn't really trying to call anyone out or anything either, just show how tough it was lol

[@vegaaltair8478]

The other guy barely care about the community anyway, only wants clouts and views from the aggresive witch-hunting that just makes things worst for the community. Which is why I respect video like this that rly goes into the depth about the whole situation while also explain in detail from other's perspective on why this is occuring in the first place, so bravo!

[@Endymion0021]

As someone who had played in gen3 competitions, getting a team was just such a huge hazzle, needing up to 3 games for pokemon, not knowing exact IV counts, not misscounting on your EV tally checklist and not overleveling for those competitions that wanted lvl 50 only, or much worse getting pokemon to lvl 100 without any good EXP grinds, yuck.

[@antenna8836]

A good quote that I think came from Virtual (the trackmania guy) "Bad players cheat for good times. Good players cheat to get good times faster." A good player is entirely capable of getting the sort of things they want, but cheating is simply *faster*. In today's world, time is a commodity more than ever. And if you don't use already-existing cheat tools designed for the job, odds are you learn something along the way.

[@imaginewagons3305]

This is hella good content. I myself got into competitive gen 7 shiny breeding . took me nearly a month of breeding to assemble a shoddy shiny trick room team. always wondered how the pros did it, if they hired some other guy to do it or jsut simply did em themselves. This was a perfect video imo

[@MrWowh]

I don’t know understand why catching them is necessary for competition. Like players should think of their Pokémon and strategy and the organization that’s doing the tournament or whatever just gives them that. Or they just make it and submit it. Like imagine in League of Legends a pro player not having a hero because they haven’t unlocked it 🧐 riot gives them accounts with everything unlocked. Even skins.

[@eleve28]

Great video, very good watch. Never had a real problem with hacked competitive Pokémon as long as they are fully legit and can be obtained. For me, I value building my perfect competitive team legitimately, since it makes you really feel attached to the ones you’ve trained in the lengthy process. But in the context of rapidly changing meta over games, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect competitive players building their teams legitimately. It would be better if the game provides easier options, but I feel like the current games are already on a point where I don’t get that bonding feeling anymore…

[@imablisy]

I end up thinking that it’s an unfair advantage to those who don’t hack. People shouldn’t be encouraged to use third party tools!

[@eleve28]

@@imablisy Let’s be clear that I agree with you at this point in time, with the more recent generations of games where obtaining competitively viable pokemon isn’t too time-consuming. And of course online battles are impossible to win as a casual player against a player with maxed stats that has cheated them into the game. That’s something the developers should work on. I’m talking more about the highest tier players, where that gentleman rule was in play. Always wondered why there is no sandbox option for tourneys etc

[@JordiumZ]

there's no such thing as a legit hacked pokemon

[@eleve28]

@@JordiumZ legit as in no unobtainable move combinations

[@CammyMeeleTea]

@@imablisy Some third party tools are extremely helpful though. Like Battle Simulators are programs that greatly influence my ability to test teams. Do rigorous testing with a simulator to tailor the IVs before bothering to make the team in game. Even without Hidden Power, you still may want IVs that aren't 0 or 31.

[@The1Corrupted]

This is why I personally have no issues with PKHex and genning Pokemon with perfect IVs, EVs and otherwise legal move sets. You can set up a lot in that program but requires a homebrewed DS which in itself was not an easy process.

[@pebbie510]

i honestly enjoy the competitive roleplay of online pokemon. as its the only game of its kind that provide such thing. but, ever since gen 4, data miners ruined this fun aspect of the game by giving us calculators and ways to determine the values of IVS and EVS. and now since people acknowledge it, they all want to maximize it. which ruined the online role play side of the game. i can only find this kind of fun in fangames now like pixelmon on minecraft, or when playing in a Roleplay Pokemon Discord server (yes these exist and they are very fun). it was a good mixture of competitive and roleplay. Reminder that, compared to other strategic games, Pokemon in gen 5 was considered Easy to master, even with everything. people forget that tournament players in other games spend A YEAR preparing for Worlds, compared to pokemon thats pretty reasonable. people who say its not cheating if its wasting your time. then dont go into tournaments. going into tournaments is already a waste of time. its a luxury. by cheating you made going into tournaments with 1 Iv less considered doomed, therefore creating this snowball effect of people cheating just so they dont get cheated. cheaters created this toxic behavior and are now sugarcoating it. you can use showdown and other testing places to test different teams before committing into one.

[@AndrewRKenny]

Very cool and insightful video. I appreciate all of the tracking you did on everything for some very thorough reporting and conclusions. I remembering breeding and ish for singles battling in Gen 5 & 6 and it was absolutely MISERABLE, and that was when I was ~15-18 and had very few responsibilities. Super respectable opinions all around too.

[@PumpkabooTrainerLiam]

And this is why I love Gen 8 so much, because it fixed a TON of the problems people had to get into competitive battling! Kudos for the hard work you put into this man! 👍🏻

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

You could have speed up leveling even more by trading over your pokemon to another cartridge so they get the 50% exp boost for pokemon with a different OT. In B2W2 though you can simply farm rare candies in the postgame once you roll the pokemon breeders in one of the Nimbasa city stadiums. (In general. B2W2 seems to be when Nintendo started giving concessions when it came to grinding in general, what with the Join Avenue and its various services) I feel though that this whole topics hints at a much greater realization that the more involved part of the pokemon community has made over the last few years: **Grinding Sucks** To give an example from another pokemon sub-community, over the last 2 years the practice of hacking in Rare Candies has become not only accepted but expected in the nuzlocke scene.

[@burdok4138]

The only explanation I can think of when people defend this monotonous process is that they've gone though this process so many times they developed something akin to Stockholm syndrome.

[@bariumselenided5152]

Absolutely

[@Straven93]

I'd say it's more so of an elitist mentality for some.

[@vegaaltair8478]

Some of em are for moral and ethical standpoint, like "It feels better to win with our own team that we breed!" I mean sure, you do you, but from competitive standpoint, it's irrelevant. The legit team can perform just the same, and u can breed ur own perfect team,but in the end, it's the matter of who got the best strategy is what mostly winning the competition and attract spectactor. Ppl who watch VGC doesn't care where or how do u breed/catch ur team, they only care how well u perform ur battle against each other. While I wish that one day, we won't have to rely on 3rd party to make competitive team easier, this is the fact that we have now. This is just my 2 cent, and if anybody disagree, that's fine, we all have different opinion

[@numimio]

The fact there's even an argument about whether or not competitive pokemon players should spend more time PLAYING the GAME or fiddling with the games systems to try and guarantee that they get the thing they want is baffling. Is it not for EVERYBODY'S interest that you get to play more of the game you want to get into competitively? Why are you fighting for the company who has time and time again stolen both your time and money for low quality product? There's reasons why simulators like Showdown exists.

[@arkhalislv2222]

This was a really cool video. Very interesting to see just how much competitive training has evolved in Pokémon, and how much of a pain it used to be.