Battle Spot: nope, it's not BS
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Pokémon X and Y have sold 14 million copies internationally. However, when you go onto the official Global Link leaderboards, you will find the top ranks dominated by Japanese players. Why is that, when Smogon is such an active community? There are many explanations, such as the centralized nature of the Western competitive community, the simulator culture, and the relative lack of alternative metagames in Japan, but we at Battle Spot are aiming to help make Smogon the top competitive Pokémon community for any format – whether fan-made like the tiering system, or the official Game Freak metagames. This is a call to arms for any competitive Pokémon player with a copy of X or Y to forge new ground!
What is Battle Spot?
Battle Spot is the feature within Pokémon X and Y that allows you to queue for automatic matchmaking against other players around the world. The banlist and clauses are identical to the Battle Maison and comes in four formats: Singles, Doubles, Triples, and Rotation. Battle Spot also offers a Special ladder with a new ruleset every few months, with past ladders including VGCs, Inverse Battles, and Game Freak's variant of UU that bans the 12 most consistently used Pokemon in a format. Between the Special ladder and the various Wi-Fi tournaments, Battle Spot always offers something new and interesting even if you tire of "Maison online".
Battle Spot Singles is fundamentally different than Smogon metagames due to being 3v3 and at level 50, instead of 6v6 and at level 100. While detailing the many differences between the two metagames is outside the scope of this article, suffice it to say that it will be different than what you are used to and will test your skill as a teambuilder, as well as your ability to pick the proper Pokémon from team preview. For the aspiring Battle Spot player coming in from any of Smogon's 6v6 singles tiers, Rotation is actually a great place to start given the diverse amount of strategies, the emphasis on building strong synergetic cores, and transferrable prediction skills. But maybe you don't want to run Kangaskhan and you want to play 6v6. In that case, Battle Spot Triples is just the metagame for you! Battle Spot Triples is a metagame where Mega Blastoise is the Mega Evolution to watch out for, with Fake Out, great team synergy, and Mega Launcher boosted pulse attacks that can hit anything on the field, along with a devastating AoE Water Spout with rain or Tailwind support! If you've never tried Triples, come to the Community Create-A-Team thread. Everyone's input is appreciated and we will be using the final team to actually ladder together and discuss what we have learned for the benefit of other new players. Battle Spot Doubles is generally overshadowed by VGCs, as the rulesets are not the same, but offers a more diverse crop of Pokémon as of the 2014 ruleset.
Yuck! Game Freak!
Now, you might be saying, why should I give this a shot? Aren't the Game Freak tiers really messed up with Mega Kangaskhan, Aegislash, and Swagkey everywhere?
Well, those may be allowed, but you certainly cannot autopilot to win. While these Pokémon are excellent in their own way, skilled players will always find a way to deal with them. Take Mega Kangaskhan for instance – the ingenuity of Battle Spot players means there's several ways to be prepared for it. Some people like offensive checks like Gengar or faster Fighting types, while others like to run defensive ones like Rocky Helmet Cresselia or Ferrothorn. The nature of all of the Battle Spot rulesets means that Mega Kangaskhan (or Aegislash, or whatever else you don't like to play against) will be forced into many more risky 1v1 circumstances than they would in 6v6 singles, where they would have much more support and favorable switch-in conditions.
If the fact that Game Freak is setting the rules intimidates you, one must also remember that VGC is another format endorsed by Game Freak, much like Battle Spot. The VGCs are widely recognized as a competitive metagame, and in some years, Battle Spot/PGL doubles and VGC have used the same ruleset. Battle Spot is very much rooted in competitive traditions that reward skill, even if the banlist is beyond the control of players. Some might see that as a benefit to Battle Spot, as player bias in determining rulesets has long been controversial. While the writers have nothing but respect for the tiering council, we also recognize that not everyone may have a personal preference to play by rules set forth by other players. There are also many toxic members of the community who have directed a lot of hate towards Smogon simply because the tiers are not their own personal preference. We invite those players to use their element of choice productively and try Battle Spot as an alternative, instead of giving up on competitive play over rules that they may not enjoy.
Benefits of Battle Spot
Even if you feel comfortable with your preferences, what benefit is there to playing Battle Spot? Or, if you play on the simulator, why should you play on the cartridge? Pokémon is one of the few competitive video games that does not separate regions in ranked queues. There is no EU server, Japan server, or US server – matchmaking will pair you up with anyone around the world.** While the seemingly random nature of Japanese players may seem daunting, take it as a valuable learning experience. While Pokémon Showdown! has communities for non-English speakers, it is not a complete representation of the players you will find in ranked queue on the cartridge. You might find yourself having a great match versus a player in Spain, Germany, or South Korea you may not otherwise have had. In other video games, people pay for the privilege of playing with people around the world to get acquainted with the gaming culture and metagames of other regions. Battle Spot presents a prime opportunity to play against international players, so playing on the cartridge is a valuable learning experience that other competitive gamers can only dream of without using a VPN proxy or creating a fresh account on a different server.
I understand there are good reasons for separating region servers, such as legal issues, latency, and wanting to promote competitive play within a region rather than it being dominated by a few select regions, but the point is that the demand to seamlessly play with players around the world exists – and Pokémon allows you to do so hassle-free.
As mentioned above, Battle Spot offers many interesting formats that will appeal to almost any taste. Between the Special ladder and tournaments, there's even a variation of "Other Metagame of the Month" in case you get bored. Even if you don't end up liking any of the Battle Spot formats, odds are you will take something valuable away from your experience to make you an even better player. For instance, the item clause taught me about using a more diverse range of items, rather than slapping Leftovers or Life Orb onto everything; the cutthroat nature of the level 50 format allowed me to practice my skills at building effective EV spreads, and I learned to use the information gleaned from team preview more effectively. These are all transferrable skills that Battle Spot forces you to learn that are applicable in almost every other metagame.
In the end, Battle Spot is fun to play and hopefully you will find trying a new metagame fun. (I had fun once. It was horrible.)
Getting started
So you want to get started on Battle Spot, but have no idea where to go. While it is true that we have not yet developed to the point of writing analyses and metagame articles for Battle Spot, the Battle Spot subforum on Smogon is full of helpful players and information to get you going. The Battle Spot forum is committed to maintaining a friendly community with fresh potential. We were all new to competitive Pokémon at some point. Because of low Battle Spot participation amongst the Western fandom, the entire community is, in a sense, fairly new, and we welcome others to the learning process. While it may seem very daunting to try a metagame for the first time, or if you're afraid of posting, we invite you to the Battle Spot forum. As long as you abide by the rules, we welcome on-topic questions and we do our best to make sure you aren't ignored. The Battle Spot channel on Pokémon Showdown! and #battlespot on irc are your best bets for getting your inquiries answered quickly, but posting on the forums is also a great venue for receiving responses to your questions.
If you don't play Battle Spot because you don't want to do the in-game grind, that's fine – we have a couple of people in the forum willing to help you obtain battle-ready Pokémon if you show a dedication to the format and to the community. There is also a Pokémon Showdown! community if you strongly prefer to play on the simulator – we will welcome anyone interested in the format.
Bottom line: if you're new, we will happily help you as much as we can. We at Battle Spot are committed to an inclusive, friendly, and accessible community of competitive Pokémon players with plenty of potential. We hope you join us for some fun times and lots of battling at the Battle Spot!
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