Azure Heights

Azure Heights Pokémon Laboratory
Site logo
Language	English
Status	Active
Run	2000 - Present
Date opened	c. 2000
Creator	M.W.F et al
Current owner	{{{owner}}}
Forum	Azure Heights Forum
Mascot	Porygon, Koffing, & Magikarp
Website	Main page

Azure Heights was a research website for Red and Blue, Yellow, and Pokémon Stadium. Much of the knowledge regarding the intricacies of these titles can be attributed to the work carried out by the users here. Its purpose in the Pokémon community was largely superseded by Smogon in 2004, wherein its informational updates ceased. It was run through the University of Miami's Department of Mathematics.

The website itself was last updated on December 30, 2004, but its website and forums remain active, albeit with user registration natively disabled as of around 2011.

Website

Azure Heights was one of the first Pokémon websites to feature comprehensive information on Pokémon stats, move statistics, type matchups, stat experience, determinant values, and overall Generation I mechanics. Its website features calculators for damage, stats, and more.^[1] There is, finally, a now-defunct IRC chat section, and outlinks to other Pokémon websites that assisted in Azure Heights' inception, such as The P Files, Pokémon Forever, and Pikacard.^[2] The site also featured a modified version of Porygon's Big Show, an early Pokémon battle simulator for Generation I battles with rudimentary graphics.

Azure Heights forums peaked at over 3,900 members and feature boards for Generations I through IV, as well as general research, online competitive battling, and other miscellaneous topics. The "Azure Arena" forum popularized the "War Story" phenomenon in the Pokémon community^[3], something that would transfer over to other websites well into the 2010s. Being an early adopter of detailed information regarding the Pokémon games, Azure Heights became something of an epicenter for early competitive battling, with players sharing strategies for competitions like the Pokémon 2000 Stadium Tour. Some famous competitive movesets, such as "TobyBro", would be popularized here. Finally, Azure Heights was notably one of the areas where "Tradebacks"—the concept of trading Generation II Pokémon to Generation I through the Time Capsule to get otherwise unobtainable moves—would first be debated, the result of which would lead to Smogon first adopting the ban on Tradebacks during its inception.^[4]

Status

In 2024, various parts of the site ceased to be accessible. Sometime between November 2023 and March 2024, the forums ceased to be accessible, instead just displaying the error message "Yes, we have no Karp today."^[5][6] Porygon's Big Show ceased to be accessible is late 2024—it was last known to be available in September 2024.^[7]

The rest of the site remains mostly in-tact.

Founders

The following users assisted in the founding and creation of the website.^[8]

• M.W.F. (Mawufytuff)
• Master Magikarp-X
• Tiggy
• Toby Martin (Wintermute)
• Cat-Gonk
• Erich Owens
• Jon Ference
• JT Toad
• Dreadite

References

This article is a part of Project Fandom, a Bulbapedia Project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every aspect of the Pokémon Fandom.