Welcome to the Wi-Fi Room!
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Introduction
If you're looking for a place to trade Pokémon or battle in-game, then Wi-Fi is the room for you! We support trades ranging from missing Pokémon for Pokédex completion to battle-ready shinies, organize tours in various tiers throughout the month and host frequent giveaways. Discussions in the room are centered around the mainline 3DS and Switch games, including side-games such as BDSP, and events are divided into three sections: Tournaments, Small Events, and Giveaways! Furthermore, Wi-Fi has its very own Prize Shop, where participants and winners of events can go to spend the Wi-Fi Points they've earned and receive Pokémon and items of their choice in exchange. Finally, you can benefit from the multiple resources available in the room to guide you through some of the more complex aspects of the games, such as shiny hunting and competitive breeding!
If your curiosity has been piqued, you'll want to keep reading this article! We'll be delving deeper into the nerdy world of Wi-Fi and paint a clearer picture of what goes on in each section of the room.
General Room Resources
Wi-Fi is the perfect place to find experts in areas such as shiny hunting and competitive breeding. Our tech-oriented staff is really nothing more than a bunch of nerds who have spent an absurdly high number of hours exploring every possible feature of the games. You can therefore ask us for guidance with any technical in-game project, and we'll be happy to help! In fact, we have already published guides covering some of the most frequently requested topics, such as competitive breeding in Gen 8. Our website is another great resource, as it compiles most of our room FAQs and guides - if you think of something that would be useful to add to it, feel free to let us know!
Wi-Fi is also known for hosting a lot of high value trades and giveaways. That is why the room has specific rules regarding proofing and trading. For starters, and I can't stress this enough, hacks and discussion of hacking methods are absolutely banned. That's our biggest no-no, and it's really only there in the first place to protect the community. The remainder of our room-specific rules tend to focus on proofing requirements, and they are thoroughly explained in our website. Proofing rules are essential to confirm the origin and legitimacy of mons offered for trade, particularly when their value exceeds a certain threshold. If you ever have questions regarding proofing, you can always ask a Wi-Fi staff member to redirect you to the appropriate section of our rules.
Finally, Wi-Fi staff run a Discord server, appropriately named Wi-Fi Labs, dedicated to learning about in-game RNG abuse. This is where the nerdiest of our nerds reside - I'm talking about those who haven't touched grass in well over 10 years. Wi-Fi Labs follows a very detailed structure. Each channel covers very specific topics, such as cloning or custom firmware (CFW), and the RNG resources offered go from Gen 8 all the way back to Gen 3 and VC. There are also channels for you to show off your coolest RNG projects and a plethora of experienced nerds to help you begin your RNG journey. This is definitely a server you'll want to consider joining if you enjoy or wish to discover a more tech-oriented gaming experience.
Wi-Fi Sections
Activities in Wi-Fi fall under one of four sections: Prizes, Tournaments, Small Events, and Giveaways. These sections all interact with one another through a type of "currency" known as Wi-Fi Points (WP). You'll be able to gain WPs by participating in small events and tournaments and spend them in the Prize Shop to obtain a prize. The WP acquired throughout the month will stack, allowing you to reach for some of our most expensive prizes. Careful though, as a WP reset is planned at the end of every month, which only allow you to carry over 15 WP to the next month.
Feel like going above and beyond? You can sign up to become a Wi-Fi Event Helper and assist us with running some of your favorite sections. As thanks for your efforts, you'll be able to receive helper Wi-Fi Points (hWP). The only difference between WP and hWP is that there's a limit to how many hWP you can obtain in a given month, and that is 150 hWP. Other than that, they have the same value and can be stacked when purchasing a prize from the shop.
Being an Event Helper comes with different roles depending on the section you're helping - we'll talk more about that in a minute! However, all Event Helpers share similar characteristics: they are active members of our community who stand out thanks to their positive presence and willingness to help others. Needless to say, none of our sections would function as well as they currently do without the help of our Event helpers! If you're interested in applying once you're done reading this article, click here!
With that said, it's time to focus on each of our sections individually!
The Prizes Section
Prizes is the core of Wi-Fi events. Our Prize Shop is run by a dedicated team of helpers who provide a wide variety of breedjects, perfect IVs, competitively ready, shiny, or even super rare event mons! As a result, the shop is constantly updated with new prizes, and it even accepts requests for specific Pokémon. Between Sword and Shield and BDSP, we've had over two thousand different Pokémon up for sale, with the vast majority of them being perfect bred shinies!
The Prize Shop is divided under several tabs. The first and cheapest is the Ditto tab (5WP), featuring twelve Ditto, all with perfect IVs and each with a distinct competitively viable nature. Next up are the Monthly BR tab (10WP) where the Pokémon bred for the Tournaments section go, the Item tab (15WP), the Breedjects tab (15WP) where you can find breedable Pokémon with high IVs and/or egg moves, and the Second Chance tab (25WP) which is reserved for Pokémon from the previous month's Official Giveaway. Next up is the BR tab (25WP), which is also where the discounted monthly Battle-Ready Pokémon go once they're done being monthly. The final tabs all feature Pokémon with increasing rarity (due to shininess and other factors) and are therefore priced at increasing rates. The most expensive Rarities (150WP) tab is where you'll find the rarest of Pokémon - I'm talking about shiny flawless Pokémon from obscure events and spinoff games such as Pokémon Colosseum.
As a Prizes helper, you can help by obtaining Pokémon or distributing items for the Prize Shop. You'll receive 20% of the WP value of every prize you submit to the shop!
The Tournaments Section
In-game competitive battling takes place under Wi-Fi's Tournaments section! Every month, the Tournaments Leaders decide on a new tier to be played throughout the month, sometimes under specific formats such as Quickdraw (a 4v4 format, rather than the usual 6v6). The new tier is announced on the first Friday of the month with our Kickoff Tour, which is hosted on PS! and will reward extra WP. During the following weeks, several Sim Tours will be hosted on PS! to allow players to test their teams and experience the tier. Once a week has passed, Tour hosts will also start hosting Switch Tours, where battlers will face each other in-game. Then, on the final Sunday of the month, two Monthly Tournaments will be hosted, awarding a huge amount of WP to the top-ranking players as well as the rank of Room Prize Winner and a Prize Shop prize or custom request RNG to the winners!
In order to assist you with teambuilding, a selection of battle-ready Pokémon, bred and trained towards their most optimal set in that month's tier, will be offered for free via our Tours Bot or at a discount price in the Shop! You'll want to participate in as many Sim Tours as possible early on in the month to be able to purchase the Pokémon you need for you Switch Tour teams. Alternatively, you can turn to one of the in-game sample team codes that we provide every month!
Additionally, the Tournaments section hosts a popular event known as the Nugget Bridge. Players will sign up for the Nugget Bridge at the beginning of the month and face each other throughout the month to acquire WP. The tier played will always be the same as the one selected by the Leaders, so it also provides practice for the Tours! To learn more about the Nugget Bridge, check out this page!
As a Tours helper, you can help in several ways. You can opt to become a Tour host and run some Sim Tours and Switch Tours throughout the month—you can even help with the Monthlies if you're up for it! Alternatively, you can become a Nugget Bridge helper and check the battles submitted by players and award WP to the participants. Finally, you can sign up as a Compmon helper and race to obtain some battle-ready Pokémon of the tier played. The Tournaments section massively relies on its helpers, and it offers a multitude of ways to gain hWP. Be sure to apply if it's something that interests you!
The Giveaways Section
The Giveaways section is perhaps Wi-Fi's most popular one. Giveaways are very frequent in Wi-Fi, and they can be hosted by staff and users alike, so long as the conditions are met. However, the Giveaways section takes things to a whole new level and hosts a massive, 12-hour long (sometimes even longer than that) Official Giveaway (OGA) every single month! Every Wi-Fi reg knows that the final Saturday of the month is OGA day, and some even free up their schedule specifically for that. Honestly, I can't even blame them—who wouldn't want to get their hands on 20 to 30 perfect or shiny (usually both!!!) Pokémon every month?
If the OGA ends and you've yet to win some of the featured Pokémon, don't worry, we've got you covered! Wi-Fi's Prize Shop runs a "Second Chance" tab specifically designed to allow you to get all of the Pokémon that were given away during the previous month's OGA. And guess what—they're even there on sale!
OGAs always focus on a specific theme that varies each month. Some were based on holidays (St. Patrick's Day and several Lunar New Years) or myths (Greek Gods, Arthurian Legends, and Ancient Egypt), while others were just straight-up cursed (looking at you, Leg-endary and Arm-ored). You can find them all here! Of course, we can't mention OGAs without giving an immense shoutout to Ciran, who always manages to surpass our expectations by creating art for the OGAs—we'll be showcasing some of her work towards the end of this article, so stay tuned!
As a Giveaways helper, you can contribute in one of two ways. If you enjoy breeding or hunting for perfect or shiny Pokémon, then obtainment is for you! Obtainment is the longest phase of OGA preparation and basically requires you to pick a Pokémon from the pool to be given away and have it ready for distribution in time for the event. If you prefer interacting with users and being there on OGA-day, consider helping with distribution! We easily host hundreds of giveaways during several hours and can therefore use the extra switch! Of course, if you're feeling up for it, no one will stop you from both obtaining a Pokémon and distributing it. In fact, you can even help decide what the next OGA's theme will be, either by suggesting it yourself or by voting on others' suggestions.
The Small Events Section
What happens to the events that aren't part of the Giveaways or Tournaments sections? They're in Small Events, of course! Small Events are often based on in-game features and aim to breathe new life into already present parts of the game. Participants are able to join an array of events that'll test their competitiveness (like Face Off, Racing Rally, the Digging Contest, etc.), hunting (like the Hatching Contest, Secret Santa, etc.), creativity (like the League Card Contest, Pokémon Match, etc.), or Pokémon knowledge through trivia. In doing so, they are able to earn prizes such as WP or the rank of Room Prize Winner!
To give a few examples, Face Off is a tour-based event where two teams face off (get it?) against each other in random battles to earn points for their respective team’s Pokémon mascot. All participants receive WP and the top 3 contributors to each team receive their respective shiny mascot Pokémon as a prize. The Week Siblings Mini-Giveaways is a daily giveaway event where a few perfect bred Pokémon in rare Balls and holding rare items are distributed at a random time to help players who are new to competitive breeding. Finally, Balltism Bonanza is a competition where participants enter various Pokémon that were bred with a specific balltism—how the aesthetics of a Pokémon match the ball they're in—in mind. These Pokémon are then placed in several categories such as Best Balltism, Anti-Balltism, Shop Balltism, etc...
As a Small Events helper, you're able to build your very own event from scratch and host it in the room, or assist with running your favorite, already established events! We host an Event Workshop every month to allow helpers to share and develop ideas for new events, and we encourage participation in it by rewarding hWP. It's an extremely versatile section that engulfs anything that doesn't fall under Tournaments or Giveaways, so there's almost no limit to what you can suggest!
A look back at Gen 8
We've come a long way since the release of Sword and Shield, and it's been an incredibly fun ride! Before moving on to new things and welcoming Scarlet and Violet, we wanted to take a final look back and share some of the highlights of Gen 8 with you.
Our Biggest OGAs
Everyone remembers the hype that surrounded the release of the Sword and Shield DLCs, but no one celebrated it the way that Wi-Fi did. The Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra OGAs are two of the biggest OGAs to have ever been hosted in the room. Giveaway helpers went above and beyond in order to obtain, train, and clone the newly released Pokémon in-time for the events, which happened to take place just a couple of weeks after the release both times.
The Isle of Armor Giveaway lasted 16 hours (!!) during which 483 Pokémon were given away.
The Crown Tundra Giveaway lasted 24 hours (!!!) during which 1,070 (!!) Pokémon were given away. Fun fact, the Crown Tundra Giveaway beat the room's record for the biggest number of people to have joined a single giveaway: 197 users joined a giveaway for a trio of perfect shiny Hoenn starters in rare Balls! Had we made it to 200, Billo would have changed his name to Nerdo... Oh well, there's always next time!
We also hosted two massive OGAs at the end of Gen 8. Once again, our amazing team pulled through and managed to have a huge number of Pokémon ready in time for the events. As a result, the Sheathing the Sword and Stowing the Shield Giveaway lasted for 12 hours and the Goodbye Galar Giveaway lasted for 16 hours, with a total of 390 and 530 Pokémon given away, respectively.
The Multi-Platform Star Tournament
The Multi-Platform Star Tournament (MPST) was a collab event that brought together the Wi-Fi room and Tournaments room. The event was a series of 20 tournaments that took place on Pokémon Showdown and in-game, both in Swords and Shield and BDSP. These tournaments were hosted throughout the month of January and included eight tiers, those being: BDSP OU, BDSP Monotype, BDSP UU, SS RU, SS VGC, SS OU, SS NU, and SS LC. The prize pool was equally impressive, with the top three prizes being a Switch OLED, a choice of custom avatar, name color change, and disabled PS! username, and a 100 USD Amazon Gift Card.
The MPST was a very enjoyable event that brought together the staff and regs of both rooms. As a result, we intend to host more similar collab events in the future, so keep an eye out for us in the News box!
The Wi-Fi Staff Q&A
Wi-Fi Staff Q&A was probably my favorite event of this year. Over a period of two weeks, our regs submitted questions for the staff team via a Google form, and after compiling everyone's answers, we organized them all in a fun Q&A format. The reason I enjoyed this so much is because it showcased the bonds that exist in Wi-Fi, not only within the staff team, but also among the entire community. The Q&A featured a lot of playful banter and cheeky comments, as well as sweet memories and entertaining trivia. In a more selfish way, it also serves as a wonderful sort of time capsule containing souvenirs of the amazing team that handled the day-to-day chaos of the Wi-Fi room.
Conclusion: What to expect from us for Gen 9!
If you've made it this far, you already have a decent understanding of how our room operates. Well, Gen 9 will most likely follow the same structure, and you can expect each of our sections to provide even more entertainment than we have in the past. As for resources and guides, we will be focusing our efforts on getting them out as soon as possible in order to provide answers to those joining the room in hopes of better understanding the new mechanics and features. We're honestly very hyped for the new games, so if you share the same excitement be sure to stop by the Wi-Fi room and hang out with us!
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