Smogon Apprentice Program

Welcome to the Smogon Apprentice Program! If you are new to competitive Pokémon, this is the place for you to learn the ropes!

We here at Smogon feel that the 'one on one' learning experience afforded by our unique system provides the best possible support for any new player who is looking to improve their battling capabilities. Our instruction goes beyond the mundane "Rate my team" thread where people make careless suggestions that come with no guarantee of being helpful.

In Smogon's apprentice program, you learn from the best of the best. Smogon’s experts will teach you how to build solid teams and how to wield them more effectively on the field of battle.

Overview of the Program

Every round of the apprentice program, our aim is to pair each member of our experienced and talented faculty with a Smogon user who wants to improve his or her skills. Through these unique, one-on-one, partnerships we wish to cultivate a community of elite gamers through the dissemination of our communal knowledge. It should be the objective of every tutor and apprentice to help us accomplish this goal by:

  • Building at least one new team or substantially improving an old team of the apprentice each round.
  • Meeting a minimum of two times during the round on a battling simulator. An acceptable level of time spent together is around two or so hours over the course of the round, but of course, longer and more frequent meetings are advantageous and will promote the goal of the apprentice program.
  • Integration of the apprentice into the fold of the Smogon community. Learning how to play is great, becoming a contributing member of this special site is even better.

A new round is started every three weeks when a sign up thread is posted in which you declare your interest in receiving a tutor for that round. You are then assigned a tutor who is in a similar time zone to yours. Over the course of the following weeks, your tutor will guide you through the ins and outs of the particular generation you signed up to learn.

Currently, the only generation available for tutoring is Diamond/Pearl. Others will be added as they become available on the most up to date battling simulators