February 24th, 2006 was a memorable day in the games section. It was a day where games on Serebii would change forever, and a brand new series of games would be created over the next five years. On February 24th, 2006, Pokémon Royal Rumble was created.
The very first Pokémon Royal Rumble was created by a user named Undertaker88. The premise of the game was simple – ten users signed up as their favourite Pokémon, and attacked other Pokémon to lower their HP and eventually faint them, knocking them out of the rumble. The last Pokémon standing would be declared the winner – in the very first round of PRR, that user was ~*Myuu the Ryuu*~ using Rayquaza. The second round introduced Silent Conversation, the oldest PRR participant still active, who won his first round with Swampert. Round 2 also introduced another very important user – ~Shadow Espeon~, a user who started off as a simple ref, but would later have the greatest impact of any user during PRR’s history. The third round then began, and it was won by a user named Crobatconey, later revealed to be Endoplasmic Reticulum. During Round 4, the idea of the Ultimate Rumble was brought up, where the winners of the first 10 rounds would compete in an ultimate round to determine the greatest rumbler. Round 5 was the round that changed PRR forever, though. ~Shadow Espeon~, being the only ref active, decided that to stop users from overusing powerful moves, created an energy system and a limit of 5 moves per day. However, Round 5 was the last round of the thread, as Undertaker88 had disappeared and ~Shadow Espeon~ was running the whole game, so he decided to start fresh. On April 30th, 2006 – a mere two months after it had been opened – the very first Pokémon Royal Rumble was closed.
One day later, Pokémon Royal Rumble 2 was opened by ~Shadow Espeon~, and as Round 6 began, the game had changed a bit. In addition to the new energy and move limit (which was changed to 3 per day and later on changed to 3 per update), reffings now included a Status Bar and a Field Effects section. Round 7 then introduced the concept of themes for Pokémon you could choose, with the very first theme being Kanto only Pokémon. One of the participants in this round was rotrum, another very active participant in the current PRR. Another competitor was Endoplasmic Reticulum with his current account, and he ended up the winner of this round. Rounds 8 and 9 continued the themes with Johto and Hoenn only Pokémon respectively, and Round 9 introduced yet another important participant – ground tamer, the user considered by many to be the greatest rumbler to date. While he didn’t win that round or the next, he did end up winning Round 11, the round right before the first Ultimate Rumble. It was a very intense rumble, and it ended with ground tamer as the winner, beating out rotrum in a close final match. Now people were vying to win for a spot in the second Ultimate Rumble, and after a mere two rounds after winning the first UR, ground tamer had already won another round and had gained a spot in the second one! However, by the time the next round (Round 15) began, people had noticed that ~Shadow Espeon~ had disappeared, so due to a lack of reffing, the second PRR was closed on February 13th, 2007 – close to a year after the game had been originally created.
It looked like PRR wouldn’t even last a full year, but on August 4th, 2007, ~Shadow Espeon~ made a return with the hilariously misspelled Pokémon Royal Rumbal 3. Long time rumblers who were still active such as Endoplasmic Reticulum, ground tamer and octoboy were excited to compete once again. Round 15 was restarted, but once again it was stopped early due to ~Shadow Espeon~ disappearing. PRR3 closed on September 21st, 2007, not even two months after it had opened. After this quick thread, people were finally accepting that Pokémon Royal Rumble’s three-thread run was over.
…That was until May 4th, 2008, when ~Shadow Espeon~ once again made a very unexpected return, opening The Pokémon Royal Rumble 4. Round 15 was started for the third time, and this time some competitors made an alliance between each other for the first time. One member of this alliance, octoboy, came out the winner, while the other two members of the alliance became 2nd (Endoplasmic Reticulum) and 3rd (crobatman). Seeing how successful this alliance was, two other competitors of Round 16 decided to join – Silent Conversation, who had returned after leaving halfway through PRR2, and The Meddler (then known as The Fad) newcomer who would later own a thread. The alliance proved successful again, as Silent Conversation won Round 16 with Wailord – his second win with a water type. Round 17 gave the alliance its third consecutive win, with Endoplasmic Reticulum winning this round. However, by this time a counter-alliance was being created to oppose the original alliance. During Round 18, ~Shadow Espeon~ started a new project that would later become a very vital part of PRR – the Attackdex, a list that described each attack’s effect in PRR. The original alliance didn’t gain a win again until Round 20, where the final member got a win – The Meddler – but by this point many people were getting annoyed with the whole alliance idea. Round 21 came along, and was very important for three reasons: the implementation of the Protect bar, the creation of the Abilitydex and the how it was won by the cheapest rumbler ever – royo, who reached up to 145 HP and 225 stamina!! This led to putting a maximum on HP and stamina instead of it being unlimited. By Round 22 (in which ground tamer got another Pokémon for the UR2) the alliances were getting too out of hand, so ~Shadow Espeon~ ended them once and for all by banning them. Ultimate Rumble 2 then came around (during which the name energy was changed to stamina), and a mishap involving a tag team round caused confusion and annoyance. However, the UR2 went on and ended with ground tamer winning AGAIN, with other veteran Silent Conversation coming in 3rd. Round 24 started the race to get into the third Ultimate Rumble, and the first one to earn a spot was Silent Conversation with Milotic, a third water type. By the time this round had ended, ~Shadow Espeon~ had left once again, and this time PRR was too successful for everybody to wait for him. So, contestant and ref hoblaph decided he would continue the game series with an all-new thread. Pokémon Royal Rumble 4 was closed on October 16th, 2008, and although it had only lasted five months, it is still considered by many to be the most successful PRR thread.
That same day, The Pokémon Royal Rumble 5 was created, the first rumble thread since PRR2 that was not owned by ~Shadow Espeon~. At this point the game had changed a lot, as veteran players such as Silent Conversation, Endoplasmic Reticulum and ground tamer had now become refs. Unfortunately, some of the other refs were newer to PRR, so redo reffings constantly had to be done. Also at this point, a forum was being used for discussing PRR rules, making suggestions and being storage for the Attackdex and Abilitydex. Three rounds went by during this PRR – ground tamer earning his SIXTH win during one of them – before it became evident that like ~Shadow Espeon~, hoblaph had left Serebii and was not returning. Thus, the ownership of PRR was passed over to the ref who had basically been controlling PRR5 – Silent Conversation. On December 7th, 2008, a fifth Pokémon Royal Rumble thread had been closed.
A few hours after PRR5 had closed, Pokémon Royal Rumble VI was made (because roman numerals are cool!) One of the very important newcomers to this PRR was KnightofRawr, who shocked people with an unexpectedly great reffing and went on to become one of PRR’s most important refs today. This PRR was also far more interactive than most, with non-refs having much more of a say when it came to rules and themes, and even being able to vote in the PRR Awards, an idea created by Master Blastoise. He was also the winner of Round 29, which still holds the record for shortest round in PRR’s existence – a mere THREE reffings! Later on in the thread, ~Shadow Espeon~ surprised everybody by returning to the game, this time as a participant as opposed to an owner. As Round 32 came along, a problem became evident – three of the main refs of PRR6 were all competing, while the few refs who weren’t competing were beginning to drift away from the game. This made that round extremely slow paced, which led to users leaving the thread and general inactivity. Finally, only a few rumblers remained, and there wasn’t enough to get the thread up and running again. The final post of Pokémon Royal Rumble VI was on February 13th, 2010 (making PRR6 the longest PRR thread yet), and this time people were accepting that after all this, PRR was done. This time it had not come to a halt because of a disappearing owner… it had come to a halt because the game was no longer popular.
However, four months later – June 18th, 2010, to be exact – KnightofRawr decided he would try to get the game back with Pokémon Royal Rumble VII. Round 32 was restarted and completed, and a new round began. It looked like PRR could potentially be back, but with the sudden departure of the owner and co-owner of the game – KnightofRawr and Robotic Wind (then known as .Wind.) – the game couldn’t continue, so by October 16th, 2010, it too had closed. Amazingly, though, only two days later, Robotic Wind decided to come back and continue PRR with Pokémon Royal Rumble VIII. Unfortunately, Robotic Wind realized the hard way he had left PRR for a reason, so this thread dragged on in the signups of its first round for two whole months. Participant winder222 tried to convince people to stay with PRR by making a motivating post on December 23rd, 2010, but clearly it was not motivating enough, because the thread died immediately after. At this point, the people who still thought Pokémon Royal Rumble could stay an active part of SPPf games realized that it was completely hopeless – Pokémon Royal Rumble was gone forever.
2011 arrived and there was no sign of PRR ever making a comeback. Silent Conversation and Endoplasmic Reticulum realized this, so on April Fools’, they decided to jokingly pretend that the game was returning, announcing this in their signatures. One participant since PRR4, The Meddler, noticed this and got excited for its return. When Silent Conversation and Endoplasmic Reticulum informed him it was just an April Fools’ joke, The Meddler decided that now that the thought of PRR returning was in his head, he couldn’t stop it. So, on April 2nd, 2011, he created Pokémon Royal Rumble IX. Endoplasmic Reticulum decided to give the game another chance and soon after Silent Conversation did too, so with veterans and newcomers in the mix, it looked like PRR was finally back as a success. However, things took a very sudden turn for the worst when The Meddler got banned almost immediately after opening the thread, so the thread was forced to close on April 17th, 2011. But then, on May 24th, 2011 the same thread got re-opened and PRR9 continued like it had never left. Three rounds went by in the thread – one of them leading to Silent Conversation’s FOURTH win with a water type – until The Meddler got permanently banned for all of his alternate accounts he had made on SPPf. However, not wanting the game to die once again, The Meddler passed on ownership to Endoplasmic Reticulum before he was banned.
It took over a day for the new PRR to come up, but the delay was worth it and on July 21st, 2011 came The Pokémon Royal Rumble
. With the tenth Pokémon Royal Rumble came a completely revamped opening post, transforming the previous simple guideline on how to play in to a rulebook of the game going over every single thing in great detail. This proved high risk, high reward as it brought plenty new players in, but also turned many away.
However, the attempt at the games’ fresh new start at first proved not successful as the rounds were either incredibly hectic, or incredibly drawn out, and sometimes both. This was proved by the second round of the thread that The Meddler won which took barely under two months to finish. The worst example of this problem came when THE ULTIMATE RUMBLE #3 began.
The ULTIMATE RUMBLE #3 was an interesting rumble, as Endoplasmic Reticulum wished to put on the best show for it and really display its importance. As a result, participants had unlimited time to come on and post their command. This proved to be a bad idea due to participant Master Blastoise, who would only come on every two weeks or so to post his command. This caused the ULTIMATE RUMBLE #3 to be extraordinarily slow, and after two months, the rounds planned to be after the UR3 started while it was still going on. Eventually six months later, in the middle of the UR4 going on, Silent Conversation was crowned the winner of the UR3.
Meanwhile, the rounds that were going on during the UR3 were incredibly important as well. Many of the old players had left, leaving very few of them left. This caused many of the new players to have more opportunities to get better and practice. This was first started by the round that occurred right after the UR3; PRR’s ever first round where winners were not allowed to participate. Afterwards, the newbies started to get better and better at the game, with some of them rising to power and even becoming incredible assets to the game with the old ones gone, such as Charze, RubyXIII, and YDT. YDT especially was important as it was found he was the best out of anyone to create stages, and was thus named the chief of stages. This gave him power in creating the stages and also created the stage shop
[see sec. 15.2].
Along with the new players, many old players returned after long absences, including Gryoine, Psiionic, and ground tamer during the UR5.
Another important addition to PRR was the implementation of the chatroom. This is where players gathered to talk to each other. At first it was mainly PRR based, but the longer it lasted the more and more people grew to know each other and eventually became a close group of friends. Not only did this help players become more involved and passionate about the game, but it made a bunch of random strangers become close.
The UR4 was eventually conducted, and it was much shorter than the UR3. The UR4 started out fast, with 4 people fainting on the first turn and Endoplasmic Reticulum fainting shortly after, but The Meddler came out on top.
The summer then caused PRR to enter high speed motion with most rounds lasting a little over a week. The Meddler retired after his UR win, leaving the season to be nearly dominated by players of this era besides Endoplasmic Reticulum, Psiionic, and Gryoine, a player since PRR4, got his first two wins. With that, Charze became the first newbie to win a UR with his UR5 win. The following season then began and after one round was done things made a turn for the worse.
Much like The Meddler himself, Endoplasmic Reticulum had got banned for making several alternate accounts as well as a rough history with the rules. This caused PRRX to be closed on December 5th, 2012. PRRX was an iconic, revolutionary game, for the franchise as not only was it the longest and most active game of the series, but it expanded and found a major fanbase as well as forging a tight community. Unlike PRR9, the next game could not be made immediately afterwards as the mods wished to give PRR a break due to ER evading ban and the circumstances of his banning. That break lasted exactly a month, and on Janurary 5th, 2013 The Meddler decide to revive PRR from the ashes once again after a month of consulting and reasoning with the mods. Pokemon Royal Rumble X-2 was born.
And that brings us back to where we are right now – The Pokémon Royal Rumble X-2. The community is the same, the rounds are the same. The closing of what was such an iconic game that it was named Serebii's Best Game may have dampened things, but hopefully this game will continue things as if it never left as well as continuing its legacy.
The Pokémon Royal Rumble X-2
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Originally Posted by CuriousHeartless
Marshtomp 
: I have a digital watch!
: Digital? You city folk and your fancy computer stuff. I think I’m gonna call you Digi now!
I'm back in with Blissey with Natural Cure. It's what ER wanted me to use before he got banned, so I'm gonna have to stick with that.
Looking for a partner in a writing collaboration! Read up on the details 
