Welcome to Nugget Bridge

Oh… Oh hi. Didn’t hear you come in. Sorry about the mess, things are still getting off the ground, you know? The Wright brothers didn’t make it to the moon in one day after all.

Welcome to Nugget Bridge! Here at Nugget Bridge we do two things: have fun and play the Pokémon games really, really well. We play competitive Pokémon which is quite different from what you’ve experienced in the games so far, and the trainers you’ll see at Nintendo and The Pokémon Company International’s official tournaments will be in the same percentage of Pokémon Trainers as Youngster Joey’s Rattatta – the top percentage. How do you join Youngster Joey and his Rattata? Well, that’s what Nugget Bridge is for.

We’re a group of passionate and skilled Pokémon players made up of top ranked Pokémon Video Game Championships players including past, present, and future National and World Champions, the Wi-Fi traders who have supplied them with their winning Pokémon, as well as experienced staff dedicated to sharing their skills with the community. They are all united in their desire to hone their competitive skills and provide a platform for newer players to learn from the best.

Nugget Bridge is a place where players help each other. Our goal is to foster a heightened level of competition among all Pokémon players. In the past our competitive community has been insular with top players being hesitant to share their secrets with potential opponents. While this has occasionally proven to be a superior individual option on the local level, it has had the unfortunate side effect of weakening our community as a whole. We believe that by discussing our own teams and those used by winning players all over the world, offering tutoring services to new users, competing frequently at a high level of play, and sharing our insights from all of this and more we will be able to raise the skill level of the entire community, thus ensuring that we will all perform better in our quests to play on Pokémon’s most meaningful stage at the Pokémon Video Game World Championship than we would on our own.

Though we are producing articles and other content such as podcasts and videos, we are by no means the end-all be-all of competitive Pokémon. Nugget Bridge is unique in that our content doesn’t simply provide information for players to copy but instead helps players actively learn to make their own winning movesets and teams. We recognize that there are too many playstyles and options to choose from for there to be a definitive “best” team or strategy. Because of this we take a more editorial approach to our content. We aren’t looking to hand down the Ten Commandments of VGC strategy but instead to help you find what works best for you. This allows our contributors free rein to write about whichever topics in the metagame interest them in their own voice. In this way we offer uncut access to the thoughts and styles of the premiere Pokémon trainers of our day, each as unique as a snowflake.

We also recognize that articles and theory are no substitute for actual battling experience. There are plenty of times a team or strategy will look amazing in theory and then fail miserably in competition. Our goal at Nugget Bridge is to increase the frequency and stakes of non-official tournament play. While we’d love to meet up and have giant tournaments every few weeks, that isn’t feasible for the majority of us given our global membership. Distance, however, is not an excuse not to practice. While laddering on simulators helps, you can’t beat the pressures of tournament play. To this end Nugget Bridge holds frequent tournaments and events to battle each other more often and on a higher level. Theory can help us all go a long way, but battling, and discussing the battles we have, is necessary for us all to improve.

We place a high value on good sportsmanship at Nugget Bridge. While we do take the game seriously and are constantly striving to become better at it, it’s just as important to remember that we started playing to have fun. Good sportsmanship is the grease that keeps the community running smoothly in both off- and on-line interactions. We all know that sometimes these games don’t go quite the way we want them to and sometimes we feel robbed because of that, but that’s what we signed up for when we decided to play Pokémon competitively. Pokémon on/off the internet shouldn’t be so serious all the time. We aren’t really the type of people who want a bunch of strict rules here, so let’s all just be reasonable — everything will work out if we respect each other.

If you haven’t been scared off, then thanks for reading this. We hope you’ll stick around as we get the site fully up and running — we’re adding new features constantly! — and participate and contribute when you can. We look forward to meeting you and hearing from you.

Enjoy your stay!

Nugget Bridge