Smogon

This article is about the fansite. For the Pokémon named "Smogon" in German, see Koffing.

Smogon
"Pokémon on the Internet: Let's make it happen"
Language	English
Status	Active
Run	2004 - Present
Date opened	December 18, 2004
Creator	chaos
Current owner	{{{owner}}}
Number of Articles	148*
Forum	Smogon University
Mascot	Koffing
Website	Main Page

Smogon University, commonly shortened to Smogon, is a website whose content encompasses competitive Pokémon battling. It offers guides on battling strategies for people of different Pokémon knowledge backgrounds. The website was founded by 'chaos' (one of the developers of NetBattle) and is a considerably well-known website, visited by competitive Pokémon battling enthusiasts.

The Smogon motto is "Pokémon on the Internet: Let's make it happen" and their mascot is the Pokémon Koffing, the name Smogon itself being the German moniker for this Pokémon.

Site

Website

The official website contains various articles and information about competitive Pokémon battling.

Forums

As of January 5th, 2017, the forum has over 284,000 members and 138,500 open discussions. During Generation IV, Smogon was affiliated with Shoddy Battle, and the official support and discussion forum of Shoddy Battle was a section on the Smogon forums. As of Generation VII, Smogon is affiliated with Pokémon Showdown!, the most up-to-date Pokemon simulator available. Members of the Smogon forum are typically identified as "Smogonites" or "Smogoners."

IRC & Discord

Smogon historically operated several IRC channels on irc.synirc.net, the most important being #pokemon for Pokémon centric discussion. Others included #othermetas, #ubers, #genvuu, #neverused, #littlecup, #adv, #vgc, #tcg, #smogonwifi, #mentor, #insidescoop, #cap, #grotto, #c&c, #grammar, #ratemyteam, #rarelyused, #ruinsofalph, #orangeislands, #smeargle, #circus, #warau, #fluodome, #doubles, #capasb, #tf2, and #showdown. However, as of late 2016, Smogon's official central discussion happens on their Discord.

Spriting

To accommodate their site and Pokemon Showdown, Smogon created the XY Sprite Project that make sprites in the style of the 5th generation sprites. To date the project has front and back sprites for every new Pokemon that has been released. This project has been borrowed by other community sites, fan-games and Pokemon Online. Smogon has also been an area of ripping sprite icons from the 3DS games which have been distributed to other sites such as Veekun and r/pokemon.

Competitive Battling

The term 'competitive battling' within Pokémon refers to battling against other human players using either Wi-Fi Battling via the Nintendo DS, the downloadable programs Pokémon Online, Shoddy Battle, NetBattle, and Pokémon Showdown!, or any of a number of battle simulating bots, usually found on IRC. Both of these are online simulations of Pokémon games, where one may build a team of Pokémon with relative ease. Experienced players, 24-hour servers, diverse communities and an opportunity to test out strategies are just a few advantages of online battling, but perhaps the most vital advantage is battling against sentient players rather than AI - which requires a significant amount more intelligence and strategy to succeed.

Pokémon Showdown!

Pokémon Showdown! is Smogon's official battle simulator created by one of the site's administrators: Zarel. As of July 2, 2012, it was adopted by Smogon and became one of the first battle simulators to support the changes brought about by Black 2 and White 2. The simulator also includes a downloadable application that can be run on the web browser Google Chrome. Pokémon Showdown! also includes unique features such as the emerging tiers "Hackmons" and "Balanced Hackmons", which encompass Pokémon of normally illegal movesets and abilities.

Pokémon Online

Pokémon Online is an application for competitive Pokémon battling, compatible with Generations II, III, IV, and V. On November 21, 2010, Smogon released its official Pokémon Online server, which is usually the second most occupied server, only behind the Pokémon Online test server. On July 2, 2012, Smogon made its transition to Pokémon Showdown!, but retained a Pokémon Online server; this was later phased out due to a severe lack of userbase.

Shoddy Battle

Shoddy Battle is an application for Generation IV competitive Pokémon battling. Due to its increasing popularity during Generation IV, Smogon once ran a dedicated Shoddy Battle server, and later had affiliated with Shoddy Battle itself. Due to Shoddy Battle's incompatibility with Generation V, it was shut down. Smogon planned to host a server on Pokémon Lab, Shoddy Battle's successor. However, Pokémon Online reached completion while Pokémon Lab was still in its beta stages, so this plan was scrapped.

NetBattle

NetBattle used to be one of the most popular competitive Pokémon battle simulators on the Internet. Smogon used to have a server on NetBattle, but due to the decreasing popularity of the program, it was shut down.

Staff

This is a list of Smogon's senior site leaders.

Administrators

• chaos (Site Owner & Founder)
• DougJustDoug (Create-A-Pokémon Project Leader)
• Joim (Pokémon Showdown Programmer)
• Sam (UnderUsed Tier Leader)
• Stellar (General Administration)
• tennisace (Contributions & Corrections Leader)
• Toast++ (General Administration)
• Zarel (Lead Pokémon Showdown Developer)

Trivia

• Contrary to popular belief, Smogon was not the first website to focus on competitive battling. In the past, websites such as Azure Heights and Marble Palace catered to competitive players.
• The badges used on the Smogon forums are based on the in-game badges.
• Smogon discovered the 'Masuda Method', a way to increase the chance of breeding a shiny Pokémon in Generation IV onwards.

External links

• Smogon
• Pokémon Online
• Pokémon Showdown

This article is a part of Project Fandom, a Bulbapedia Project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every aspect of the Pokémon Fandom.