Introducing the Random Battles Room

By A.

Introduction

Random Battles is arguably the most played format on Pokémon Showdown! and has always had a huge following and playerbase but never really had a room to present themselves in. However, this all changed with the introduction of one of the server's newest public rooms, the titular Random Battles. This article will be looking over the room, the community, and other details as well.

History

Random Battles is one of the newest public rooms on Pokémon Showdown, with a slow and steady community that's rising, aiming to create a community space to discuss randomized formats and play tournaments because the formats were underrepresented at the time. This led to the creation of a groupchat for people who just wanted to talk about random battles, relax, and play. It managed to cement itself into a private room on May of the same year and has been growing ever since, reaching peaks of up to 60 users and managing up to 25 during times of low activity. Over time, Random Battles has expanded with constant bursts of new and creative projects and events: the room has hosted the inaugural Random Battles Team Tournament with over 100 signups, and it has also made its appearances on the PS! subforum via the USM Random Battles Role Compendium and Threatlist. On March 19 2018, the room finally became public, which caused a huge spike in its userbase, peaking at over 350 users! Now, the room is much more active and vibrant with constant chat and play of RandBats.

Highlights and Features

Aside from discussing and playing the various randomized formats, there are also several activities present that can be explored. These events and activities have grown with the room, and there's always more to come!

Tournaments

The Random Battles room hosts all randomized formats via tournaments, ranging from Generation 1 Random Battles to current gen, alongside the ever-popular Monotype Random Battle, Battle Factory, Challenge Cup, and Hackmons Cup (and the doubles variants of the latter two). These tours allow everyone to have a chance to play a variety of random metas, especially those with dead or no ladders on the simulator. Tournaments are also great fun when trying to avoid the stress of laddering while climbing the room's leaderboard yourself!

Monthly Marathon

The Monthly Marathon is an event that spans over the course of an entire day and aims to cover every timezone with regular tournaments with short breaks inbetween; this means that almost every random format will be played! The Monthly Marathon follows a schedule, so you'll always know when your favorite format is! The Marathon is also where important announcements for the room take place.

Role Compendium

The Role Compendium, which can be accessed here, aims to categorize the available Pokémon and their identities via their possible niches in the game. The project is still ongoing and continues to receive frequent updates as new developments occur. It's mostly similar to the Role Compendium of standard tiers, albeit with some variation, as it's not guaranteed that some Pokémon will have certain moves, just that it's possible for them to have it. Because RandBats is ever-changing, the RC is a constant discussion topic for everyone to join!

Auth Challenge

The Auth Challenge is a monthly event over three days where players can duke it out with selected auth members on the randomized formats, race for the most points, and gain glorious awards for gaining the most points. The first iteration of this event has concluded, and it was extremely successful; when the Auth Challenge returns, will you make it to the top?

Team Tournament

The Random Battles Team Tournament is an annual Snake Draft-style tournament where players sign up to be drafted by managers (staff members), get paired up in groups, and battle for the most points across several weeks. The first iteration concluded with Team Hoopa emerging as victors, but the entire community were winners because they had the amazing opportunity of becoming part of a team and integrating with and creating a RandBats community.

RandBats Choice

The RandBats Choice is a relatively small project that features a handpicked Pokémon from the staff with a brief description about its strengths in the format. This is updated daily, and the current featured Pokémon can be accessed via Kid A. It serves to highlight a Pokémon, be it a known threat or a hidden gem, for insightful discussions. RandBats Choice really shows you how almost every Pokémon can stand out in the format and be memorable. If you want to choose a Pokémon, winning any room event gives you this chance!

Threatlist

The Threatlist is the newest project that the room has to offer and it aims to categorize all Pokémon that are in the current generation Random Battles format, be it offensive, defensive, or utility, as well as assessing how much they impact they possess over a game. This project is still a work in progress and is regularly maintained and updated. If you have any suggestions for Pokémon to be added, feel free to post in the thread!

Room Owners

The Random Battles room has four Room Owners: A, nui, martha, and Quote. Each Room Owner loves to play randomized formats and Pokémon in general and is always willing to answer questions about the room as well as develop new projects and ideas. Ranging from being a Room Owner for around a year to only recently stepping up, the range of experiences and ideas makes this team a perfect fit for the room.

About the Room Owners

Quote is one of the original Room Owners of Random Battles during its phase as a private room and has done significant contributions for the overall growth of the room. He enjoys the community for being a mix of casual and competitive players alike as well as the format, which is a breath of fresh air from tiers that require teambuilding.

A is the Room Owner that's currently writing this article! In addition to that, he mostly works in the sidelines, getting ideas and new features, as well as maintaining projects for the room including Randbats Choice, the Threatlist, and many more. He loves playing Random Battles and has also created a guide for playing the format. His favorite game mode is Hackmons Cup, due to the absolute randomness and chaos of the format.

Martha joined the Random Battles room during its groupchat stage and has risen through the ranks of Room Owner. She contributes a lot regarding policy and projects for the room, the main one being the Random Battles Role Compendium; her favorite randomized format is Challenge Cup 1v1 due to the simplicity.

Nui is the newest appointed Room Owner and has helped streamline a lot of elements for the room such as organization and policy-related objectives. He expects the room and community to gradually grow into a large and respectable playerbase. His favorite format is DPP Random Battles.

Get out there!

After reading this article, why not give the room a visit? There's tons of activities to participate in, and the community would love to see new faces.

HTML by Naziel

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