Welcome to the 1v1 Room
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Art by uppa.
Introduction:
1v1 is Pokémon at its simplest—just your one Pokémon versus your opponent's one Pokémon, whichever is better wins. The short battles and simple gameplay make for a perfect and very addictive quick dopamine hit. At least that's what it appears to be at first glance. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, and as players start to learn more and more about 1v1, they turn to the 1v1 community and especially the 1v1 room on Pokémon Showdown!
The 1v1 community has experienced a lot of growth and became quite large over the last few months, especially in the Pokémon Showdown! room. The chatroom is nearly as active as some Official Metagames; it's the most active Unofficial Metagame, and it's one of the most active competitive rooms, only surpassed by titans like OverUsed, NatDex, and VGC. In addition to just serving as a hub for all 1v1 metagame discussion on the site, the 1v1 room staff has worked hard to create new activities that improve and engage the community.
Official Leaderboard Tournaments:
Official Leaderboard Tournaments often serve as a new player's introduction to truly competitive 1v1, but they also create an ongoing challenge for long-time community members. Winning that Room Prize Winner role is not easy. At least 3 times a day, (2am, 2pm, and 8pm UTC) an Official Leaderboard Tournament starts! These tournaments are single elimination, and they can be from generations 2 through 9, earning players points depending on their placement in them. Unscheduled room tournaments can also randomly occur when there's a lot of chat activity. These tournaments let the community learn some of the old metagames, as well as improve their capabilities in the current generation.
If you're first place on the leaderboards by the end of the month, you will be awarded with the Room Prize Winner role for an entire month!
Pokémon of the Day:
Pokémon of the Day is an exciting project that engages users with a new challenge and serves as an ongoing discussion topic throughout the day. At midnight UTC, a random 1v1-legal Pokémon with a base stat total of 420 or above is chosen as the Pokémon of the Day. This Pokémon is then encouraged to be used by the community in several ways, such as fitting the Pokémon on teams and using it on the 1v1 ladder or creating sets for the two Monopoke tournaments that begin at 5am and 5pm UTC. Keep in mind that these Monopoke tournaments are completely unofficial and do not count for the Official Monthly Leaderboard; however, they are still incredibly popular due to how fun they can be! This feature also helps the community find interesting niches in 1v1, and you can usually find people using the Pokémon of the Day on the SV 1v1 Ladder.
Community Create-a-Team:
Everyone who has ever played 1v1 knows that the actual 1v1 game is only a small part of the 1v1 experience; in most cases, players spend more time thinking about their teambuilding than they do the matches they play with their teams. But teambuilding doesn't have to be such a lonely endeavor, and new and old players alike can always join in our "Community Create-a-Team" events. A CCAT is, to put it simply, a teambuilding collaboration generally hosted by a staff member, with the goal of having a complete 1v1 team by the end of the event. While mostly done just for fun, it has also proven to be very effective as a festive event, mostly themed around Halloween or Christmas. This event encourages users to participate in room discussions about certain Pokémon and their viability while also being part of the collaboration that is creating a team. New players during these events often learn valuable lessons about teambuilding, set optimization, and threat lists, while older players notoriously get their faults highlighted and learn how they can improve their own teambuilding processes. You can find the last 10 CCATs in the public CCAT archive.
Monthly Room and Ladder Challenges:
If you like to just log on to PS! to relax and have a little fun, don't worry, the 1v1 room always has something to celebrate. Throughout the month, we organize themed 1v1 room tournaments and Ladder Challenges. During last Halloween, discussion challenges centered on "spooky" Pokémon: Dark-types, Ghost-types, and otherwise haunting Pokémon. Last December, challenges were related to different Ice-types, and for the Lunar New Year, they were all about snake Pokémon! Challenges can be anything from "first to reach a certain Elo with a mono-theme team" on the 1v1 ladder to a barrage of 1v1 Blitz tours with restrictions all relating to different aspects of the theme. These challenges can also earn you the Room Prize Winner role just like the Official Leaderboard Tournaments.
Top Leaderboard Tournament:
For our most competitive players, the 1v1 room is not to be forgotten. Similarly to the Official Leaderboards, on April 7th, the second 1v1 circuit tournament of the year started and is all about room tournaments—think Monthly Leaderboard Tournaments cranked up to 11. TLT consists of several SV 1v1 room tournaments in which the top 4 of each week will qualify for top cut until 16 players are confirmed. Every day, there are 4 scheduled tournaments evenly spaced throughout the day. Each tournament is a double elimination best-of-1 tournament where players earn points based on the size of the tournament and how they placed. Every week for 4 weeks, there is a new cycle, and each player's top 8 performances will be used to determine if they've qualified for the playoff bracket. The playoff bracket is another double elimination tournament, but this time it's hosted directly on Smogon, and instead of best-of-1, each match is a best-of-5. Making the playoff bracket guarantees points for the 1v1 circuit, but winning rounds will earn more points and help players qualify for the 1v1 Championship bracket at the end of the year!
Conclusion
And that's everything currently going on in the 1v1 room—at least for now. Despite all of these concurrent projects and events, we are not looking to stop. We want the 1v1 room to be a welcoming place for newcomers, a great discussion hub for veteran players, and a way to serve everyone who has any interest in 1v1 at any level! So if that sounds like you, stop by! We'd love to see you!
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