Well, look at that, there's finally an honest-to-goodness non-Global Link distribution coming up! Yup, that's right, it's the original ultimate creation, Mewtwo!


Starting February 12th, Mewtwo will be available in the US, Canada, and UK using Mystery Gift via Nintendo Wi-Fi, meaning you'll be able to pick up the legendary Pokemon from the comfort of your own home (or wherever it is you have Wi-Fi access)! It's virtually the same Mewtwo that Japan received a couple of months back, meaning it will have the zippy Electro Ball attack.

This is all part of a recent promotion promoting Mewtwo's all-around awesomeness, since it is one of the star cards in the powerful new BW: Next Destinies Trading Card Game set (released on the 8th). You can see the full details of the Wi-Fi promotion right here on the official website, as well as some other goodies, such as a timeline of Mewtwo's appearances in the series as well as an animated special, The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon. Nice!

There's no word on official dates outside of North America, but the UK has a page set up suggesting it will be revealed shortly, so I'm assuming other countries will follow. You'll be able to see on the side event ticker when it will be available in your area, otherwise I'll see to making a post about its availability in Europe and Australia when I know (hey, any international viewers, I'd love a heads up if you happen to find out before I do!).

Update: It's been confirmed for the UK and any presumably any country using English-language games. No word yet on Australia or other European countries, but I would assume it will be around the same time.

What's been keeping me busy behind the scenes in January? Well, when I'm not answering questions at the Marriland Help Center or posting new Pokemon White or Pokemon Yellow videos, I've been working diligently behind the scenes on a massive project aimed at revolutionizing Pokemon.Marriland.com.


Meet the first public preview of the new layout for the site. (Keep in mind there's still A LOT I'm going to do to this; it's like version 0.1a or something.)

It is designed to be sleek, elegant, but also mindful of the viewer's viewing experience. I'll be restructuring a lot of the navigation to make it more sensible and easy to find stuff, while keeping the overall structure of the site the same (the "three column" look).

Since the majority of Pokemon.Marriland.com's viewers now have browsers compatible with fancy CSS effects like the ones you see used in the layout (CSS is what makes things look pretty, for those of you who don't know), I'm going to shift my focus solely to those browsers rather than try to keep compatibility for vastly outdated browsers, like Firefox 3.6, Internet Explorer 6, and early versions of Chrome. While the site should still look alright in those browsers, it will not be designed with them in mind. However, I will keep the old template backward-compatible, as well as possibly bring back other retro templates, so you will have choices of more than just the color scheme of the site.

In addition to being visually improved, I am planning on recoding just about every single page on the site, essentially rebuilding it from the bottom up. I first learned web programming back in 2003, almost 9 years ago, and among my first projects were a database for Pokemon cards as well as a Pokedex for Ruby and Sapphire. In these 9 years, my expertise as a programmer has come a long, long way, but I've been building on top of a lot of the old scripts and old ways of doing things from back in the day. Though this should mean little to the average viewer, for a programmer like myself, it means a lot that I'm going to do a recode of the site, because it will give me a good opportunity to make sure things are more functionally sound and will give me a chance to future-proof things even further.

It will allow me to make much cooler scripts and programs much quicker!

This work is going to preempt the work I've done on Team Builder 2.0, but it will make for a much smoother development of it. And for those of you wondering about Team Builder 2.0, it has come a long way over the past few months. It's not as far as I would like it to be due to all of the additional work on the videos as well as other projects, but it's still getting there. The ability to have it dynamically suggest recommended Pokemon will be very powerful, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing this project as complete. But the new design of the site will allow for even better work on this, so I'm putting that on the pedestal for the time being and will resume work on Team Builder 2.0 after that is done.

Just thought I'd give you a bit of an update on the state of the site!

Happy New Year, Trainers! The holiday season has been busy behind the scenes to say the least, but mostly getting caught up on videos and the like. However, there have been several other projects that have been worked on, just not completed. ...until now, that is.

First and foremost, long overdue, the invaluable Basic Breeding and Advanced Breeding guides are now available on the site! These detailed guides, written by site contributor Chris V., cover just about everything you ever wanted to know about Pokemon breeding but were too afraid to ask! There's stuff on Egg Groups, Natures, and Egg Moves in the Basic Breeding guide, while the Advanced Breeding guide covers how to pass these Natures on, as well as IVs. These two guides, combined with the ever-useful EV Training guide, should prove to be a fine resource for the budding breeder.

Additionally, one other big update I've been very excited to release is finally here, and what better time to start it off than the new year, huh? That's right, the Marriland Help Center is now live and ready to go! What is the Help Center, you ask? It's sort of like a forum, but focused exclusively on asking and answering Pokemon-related questions, so it is more of a support forum than a social one. We already have the Marriland Forums for that!

What the Marriland Help Center is designed to do is help people get the answers to their question. Previously, if someone had a Pokemon question, their primary option on my site here was to send me an e-mail and hope I reply. Since I get a lot of e-mails, and not all questions are easily answered, quite a lot slip through the cracks, and I also have to deal with a lot of repeat questions. By having these questions asked in a public support forum, it suddenly becomes easier for viewers to read through previously asked questions (potentially saving an e-mail), easier for people in need of help to get an answer to their questions (since they're not restricted to just one busy guy answering them, but can have any number of helpers answer), and easier on me, because that means I eventually won't be the only one answering questions.

For now, I'm going to be making an effort to answer whatever questions there, but I'm hopeful that, in time, more and more people will stick around to help answer other questions and support the Marriland community. My vision for the site has always been to help those who need it, and I feel that the Marriland Help Center is a great way for people to get answers to their questions in a way that is friendly and approachable, rather than bitter and unpleasant like a lot of other places tend to be in the world of getting support (and not just in the Pokemon world!).

Hopefully it winds up to be a worthwhile idea, but do realize there may be a few bugs here and there. At least you know you can post them there!

Also, one bit of bad news I'm afraid I've gotta share. It seems that sometime in December, a portion of the site's database storing data for all of the Weekly Polls became corrupted. I had assumed that it was just out of polls to spit out, because I had enough to go to the beginning of December, but unfortunately it looks like it was even worse than that and I was none the wiser. It seems like all of the polling data since 2007 or so is regrettably gone for good. The backup I made of it was deleted without thinking while panicking over a critical disk space issue affecting the site's database server. Fortunately it was only the polls that suffered any data loss (which is weird), but it is still rather saddening, as they were a cool thing and contained a lot of insight. Because of this, I've removed the weekly poll bit, and it will be down for an indefinite amount of time. I really don't want to start fresh on it just yet or seek out a different system, yet the one is so outdated and old anyway, that I'm probably going to have to go that route in time (my goodness, there were polls since 2003!).

That's all the update I've got in me for now, but now that those two projects are out of the way, you can expect a few more cool updates for the month of January!

Yep, it's that traditional two-month break that seems to happen from time to time, although it's mostly because I have been busy working on things behind the scenes and haven't been able to actually get any of the large projects I'm working on finished (ah the joys of juggling).

Point is, it's time for a catch up, so let's get to it!

The 2011-2012 Autumn Pokemon Regional Championships took place over the weekend! There were a total of 7 of these events, and they were scattered all across the country. I attended the one down in St. Louis, MO, but regrettably I was unable to get any internet connection on my phone down there, so there goes my coverage! There wasn't a whole lot of notice for the events, so I do apologize for not getting that out, but worry not: there will be another batch of the Regional Championships in April! You can find all of the locations for the Spring events here, and I'll tell you right now that I'll be at the one in Madison, WI, supporting my home state for the first time ever! How awesome is that!


There is a special Victini Wi-Fi event for North American and European versions of Black and White coming up in December! From December 3rd through December 31st, you'll be able to get a special Victini on Wi-Fi that knows some awesome moves: V-Create, Fusion Flare, Fusion Bolt, and Searing Shot. Sweet! There is also a German Darkrai event at Gamestop as well as a Wi-Fi event for Japanese versions to give you either Tornadus or Thundurus, depending on which one you can't get in your version. Hopefully these events will make it internationally eventually!

There is also a new Dream World area available: the Rugged Pass! The Dream World is really growing, that's for sure; so fast that it would take a whole site dedicated to it just to keep up with it, huh! Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that I'll probably be adding a better section on that sometime. Right now, though, I've got a lot of other useful projects going on that I think will be even more important, though.

What's on the menu for things I'm working on for the site? Well, here's a quick little bullet point list to let you know my main priorities that I'm hoping to have finished shortly:

• Breeding Guide and a special Advanced Breeding Guide for stuff like IV Breeding, written by site contributor Chris V. (So you know it will be awesome!) (I'm so behind on getting this done, d'oh!)
• The Marriland Help Center for people to ask and answer questions about Pokemon to ultimately help as many people as we can. I'll, of course, be answering tons of questions there.
• Team Builder 2.0 has gotten some good progress on it and should have some amazing functionality once it's done. It will blow the old one out of the water.
• My personal goal is to finish my Pokemon White video series by the end of the year, so that should mean plenty of videos are coming up. November is going to be rather busy, so expect a rush of videos come December!

Those are the main things I'm working on now, although there's always a whole ton of other behind-the-scenes stuff I'm poking around with (not too much at once, don't worry).

Alright, guess that's lengthy enough of an update. Whoops! Here's to another attempt at posting more often than a month or two, haha!

Yes, that's right, it's that update you've been waiting patiently over 8 months for...



It's taken a whole summer's worth of reconverting and reuploading over 190 episodes (!!), but it's finally done and done right. You'll find the entire library of Marriland's Pokemon Diamond Adventure videos, Marriland's Pokemon Yellow Adventure videos, Marriland's Pokemon Platinum Adventure videos, and the 12 episodes there are of Marriland's Pokemon SoulSilver Adventure videos. They're all up there, including some extra stuff added to both Diamond and Yellow that you're going to want to be sure to see.

Additionally, you can now leave comments on these videos by registering on the Marriland Forums and staying logged in while you browse Pokemon.Marriland.com. It may not be the tidiest solution in the world (integrating stuff like that across two servers is tough to do!), but it does get the job done, plus you're supporting both the site and the forums, which is cool.

Just so it's clear: I am continuing Pokemon Yellow in October! (Not October 1st, but sometime before the end of October. Don't be impatient.) It's such a fun series to do and it's been one of my most popular, so I'll definitely continue it and continue entertaining you with my Yellow shenanigans. Also, Pokemon SoulSilver will NOT resume until AFTER Pokemon White is finished! I'm going to be juggling two video series already (White and Yellow), so I'm not taking on a third. Deal with it. But that also doesn't mean I'm giving up on SoulSilver, either; it just has to wait until after White is finished.

Speaking of White, I appreciate your patience over the summer regarding new episodes. So much of my time has been spent working on about 190 old videos that I just didn't have the time to really work on it if I wanted to meet my "end of summer" deadline. My "summer project" was to reupload the aforementioned video series of mine and, guess what, I accomplished that goal. Summer ends tomorrow for me. So now I can look ahead and look towards the future, meaning I'll try to get a White video or two out by the end of the week, and then try shooting for four a week in future weeks (that being a goal, not a requirement).

Enjoy the show, everyone, and be sure to tell all of your friends who enjoyed (or never got a chance to enjoy) the series!

First and foremost, just a friendly reminder (even though it was the previous update): North American Trainers, you can pick up a cool Zoroark via Mystery Gift at your local Toys 'R Us store! It lasts only until the 25th (24th in Canada), so get going! It comes with Snarl, making it pretty cool and stuff. Yeah, basically I'm repeating what I said last time, but you know how it goes.


Now, onto some of the new news.

Pokemon Global Link users, there's a whole ton of news for you.


If you're registered on Pokemon.com as well and if it's the month of your birthday (which you can set in your preferences while signing up), you should receive a message in your inbox, which is accessible by clicking the mail icon in the top right corner of the page next to your avatar. Inside of that message is a special birthday letter; clicking on it will take you to a cool celebration flash thingy and will ultimately give you a free Togekiss that can be picked up from the Pokemon Global Link. You also get 1 Trainer Token. Sweet! Thank goodness my birthday is in September, haha! (I'm assuming this promotion lasts a full year, so you'll be able to get one on your birth month, don't worry.) (Thanks to Bulbanews for this.)

That's not all: in October's issue of Nintendo Power, there's a special password inside that can be entered on the Promotions page of the Pokemon Global Link to give you a free Banette in honor of Halloween! This is available only in North America from what I've heard, though, but it might be available elsewhere as more details trickle in. The password isn't yet out, but I'll be sure to let you know what it is, although you should really pick up the issue of Nintendo Power anyway.

Also according to Bulbanews, there's going to be a new location for you to visit in the Dream World starting on September 28th (internationally, too!): the Spooky Manor! You'll be able to pick up some spooky Ghost-type Pokemon there, as well as Chimecho and I'm sure a few others here and there. Sounds great!


Now, for one more bit of news for tonight: a special Mewtwo is soon going to be available through Mystery Gift via Nintendo Wi-Fi for Japanese versions of Black and White! If you still have your Japanese copy around, now's your chance to score a free Mewtwo! The event lasts from Sept. 26th - Oct. 31st.

There's still some more news, but I'm running out of space and I think I'll save it for tomorrow! (But there's still one more site-related update I want to mention in a separate post.)

September is a good month that brings about a lot of change. In the northern hemisphere, the leaves even change color! It seems like a good month to celebrate the illusory Illusion Pokemon, Zoroark, who may be one thing one moment and then change its form the next! Well, at least that's what the folks at Pokemon.com think, as they're doing a ton of special Zoroark promotions!

First and foremost, as previously mentioned, there is a cool Zoroark C-Gear Skin now available on the Pokemon Global Link. You need to go to the Promotions link while logged in and then enter the password ZoroarkMonth11 to unlock your special Zoroark C-Gear skin! Sweet!


There's also finally another Pokemon distribution for anyone with Pokemon Black or Pokemon White. From September 18th to September 25th, you can stop by your local Toys 'R Us store and use Mystery Gift to receive a special Level 50 Zoroark that knows the secret move Snarl! For those of you who weren't able to get a Zorua or Zoroark through the promotions earlier in the year, now is your chance to finally get the elusive Pokemon! Plus, it comes with Snarl, which is technically a TM move, so you may be able to breed it onto a few different things that can learn it if you're clever like that. The TM for Snarl is not yet released, though, making it a rare move indeed. ( Canadian viewers: this Zoroark is available from the 18th to the 24th instead.) ( Australian viewers: this Zoroark is available at EB Games and GAME stores from September 16th to October 16th. Lucky you!)

You'll be able to watch the Pokemon movie Zoroark: Master of Illusions on Pokemon.com as well, but only on September 17th and 18th! It's pretty sweet to be able to watch a whole Pokemon movie online, so you'll definitely want to check it out!

And, last but not least, there's a sweepstakes going on on the site where you can enter each day (only requires your e-mail address; doesn't appear like it will be sold to spammers or anything, and looks like it's mostly used for internal purposes... sweet!) for a chance to win some sweet prizes! 25 winners each week will win a Zoroark Illusions collection TCG bundle pack thing, a nifty Zoroark figurine, and a Zoroark: Master of Illusions DVD. And then one grand prize winner will win all of that, plus a Black-and-Red Nintendo 3DS (!!), Pokemon Black AND White, a full 36-pack Booster Box of the Pokemon TCG Emerging Powers set, a manga edition of the Zoroark movie, and a deluxe figurine.

You can enter once per day on PokemonSweepstakes.com.


International viewers: It seems that any of the European Pokemon.com websites do not list the Zoroark events for you yet. I will update you when I find out if (and where) you're getting your Snarl Zoroark and when the C-Gear skin will be available. If any of you European visitors happen to find out, let me know!

Two updates in one day? No way! It's true, though, I needed to in order to cover everything going on. The previous update covers the new stuff in the Pokemon world, so definitely check that out after reading this if you haven't already.

I'm proud to finally add one long overdue asset to Pokemon.Marriland.com: the Marriland Movedex! This is basically a Pokedex, except for every single move / attack in the game! There's a sortable list that can also group all moves by type, by their category, and even show you only the new moves. Each Movedex entry also shows you all of the move's stats, what it does in-depth, how effective the move is against different types (as well as a Pokemon chooser for you to see how well a move does against a certain Pokemon!), and also a list of every Pokemon that learns the move, as well as what level or how it learns the move! It's really something that should have been on the site awhile ago, but I wanted to make sure I did it right, so hopefully this proves to be a valuable resource to you!

To go along with this, I've also made massive upgrades to the Black / White Pokedex! Here's a list of some of the updates I've done to that, just so you're aware of what to look for:

• All abilities should be correct now. (Thanks SpaceGoo!) Sorry for any prior confusion; a lot of these were from when the games were still in Japanese.
• "Dream World-only" abilities are now reworded to "Secret Ability", as some of them are obtainable in-game, such as Zen Mode Darmanitan, Telepathy Musharna, and each of the traded Basculin's abilities. (There's also a note underneath it explaining it better.)
• Several stylistic changes have been made to make things look even nicer.
• Evolution information has been clarified to make it easier to understand.l
• All learned moves now link to the Movedex! Yes! You'll still receive the effect if you hover over it, but you can click it to go to the full page.
• All new moves and most old moves (Gen IV and earlier) have had their effects clarified, so they should be correct. Extended details for moves may be available on the move's Movedex page instead of in the hover box.
• Move targets should now hopefully explain Triple Battle targeting better. "Nearby" means a Pokemon that's adjacent (i.e., if you're in the middle, all Pokemon are nearby, but if you're on a side, only the middle one and the one on your side is considered nearby), while "Anywhere" or "Any" means it can target a Pokemon on the opposite side of the field.
• Black / White Pokedex entries are now available!
• Colors should all be correct as well.
• Added a few special moves, such as Secret Sword, although most of these are unreleased so I don't explain how to get them yet (sorry).
• TO-DO: I need to add Dream World-exclusive moves still.

All and all, it's been a huge update to the site over the past few weeks. That's why there haven't been any videos up. A lot of these updates were very necessary, though, and will help even more people than the videos have, so trust me, it was worth the time invested.

Lastly, I've made some great renovations to the site's News Update system! You might see that the news updates look a little bit spiffier, but most importantly you'll hopefully note even more functionality. You can now Tweet or Share any of the individual news updates to your friends on Twitter or Facebook, or also give it a +1 if you're a Google user. You can also leave a comment on the post by registering on the Marriland Forums and clicking the X comment(s) link on the update if you're signed in! Also, if you want to link to an individual news update, you can do that by clicking the Link to this Update link in the bottom right corner, which takes you to a page showing only that update -- very handy! This link will always remain good, even after the news updates have been pushed off the front page, so feel free to link to it if you like it.

I think that the added ease of ways to share news updates to the site will be a big thing for Pokemon.Marriland.com. I'll be tweeting and sharing all news updates to my Twitter (@Marriland) and to my Facebook page. But I can't spread the word without you, so if you use these services, go ahead and share my updates!

Thanks for the patience, folks. I'll continue my work on the site throughout the coming months ahead, don't worry! Still have many more large projects I'm eager to work on, so stay tuned!

There's a brand new C-Gear skin available for you in the month of September, to celebrate it turning to Spring inside of your Black or White versions (even though it's looking more like Autumn for those of us in the northern hemisphere!). This one features the seasonal Pokemon, Deerling, and it looks quite lovely!

You can get it right now by going to the Promotions page on Pokemon-GL.com and inputting the password JJW2X97D. (Phew!) Full information, including a screenshot, can be found on the official Pokemon website.

According to that, there will be a new Deerling C-Gear skin released at the start of every new month to reflect each of Deerling's seasons. Neat!

Additionally, there's another C-Gear skin slated for release really soon. As pointed out by Bulbanews, a special Zoroark C-Gear skin will be available starting September 7th. Well, at least that's when the password is going to be revealed, supposedly. Guess we'll have to see, but since there are a lot of Zoroark fans out there, I'm sure this will be one popular C-Gear skin to have!

Last on this update, the newest Pokemon TCG set, Black & White: Emerging Powers, has just been released! Each booster pack of Emerging Powers also comes with a special card inside that contains a code. This code can be entered on Pokemon.com/tcgo to play the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online! Each code is redeemable for a virtual booster pack, which is very handy. If you haven't checked it out already, you should definitely do so, because it's a lot of fun! You can play even if you don't have any cards or codes by using freely available preconstructed decks. I had a chance to play around with it and it's a great way to learn the game, but not only that, it's also very fun for experienced TCG players such as myself thanks to the booster codes available.

Ok, that's all for this news update! But I've got a second one for the night that's focused exclusively on site-related updates, so be sure to read that, too!

Now that the 2011 Pokemon World Championships have come to an end, it's time for some other updates around Pokemon.Marriland.com! Just because you haven't seen any lately doesn't mean I haven't been working hard behind the scenes on some sweet new stuff for you, so let's take a look at what's new and what's in the works!

Most importantly, I am proud to announce there is finally an AWESOME guide on How to EV Train your Pokemon available on the site! A lot of you may have heard about this mysterious "EV Training," but could never quite figure out how to do it. Mind you, it is a complicated process at first, but so is riding a bike, and once you learn how to do either of those things, you don't forget. Take some time to read through that thoroughly, practice it on a few Pokemon of yours, and see just how effective it is at influencing your stats! Huge, huge props to new contributor Chris V. for writing the guide!

On top of that, there's also a very spiffy Flash-based alternative to my own Stat Calculator -- it's the sweet new Flash-based Stat Calculator, programmed and designed by DarkNightwing, who made the old Gen IV downloadable Stat Calculator program. This one has plenty of polish and looks graphically quite appealing, so definitely go check it out if you're looking for a flashier way of checking Pokemon's stats at any given level!

Last, but not least, you haven't seen my Pokemon White videos updated recently due to said behind-the-scenes work on the site. One of the big projects I've been working on lately now that the aforementioned goodies are uploaded is the Marriland Movedex, which is, just as the name suggests, a Pokedex for all of the moves and attacks in Pokemon Black and White! It is the update I've been wanting to work on for a long time, and it will be released and functional by the end of the week, I promise!

Alright, now for Pokemon-centric updates. I'm sure there's plenty more news out there, but I'll cover those in more of a generic news update rather than this already-long post. One thing I do want to point out right now, though, is the availability of another skin for your C-Gear. You can input the password NPCGEAR in the Promotions tab of the Pokemon Global Link to unlock a sweet new Croagunk Poison Jab C-Gear skin! Definitely be sure to unlock it so you'll be able to use it whenever you want.

That's all for today, folks. Expect to see more this week, seriously!