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So I came back recently and noticed that Smogon has moved to a new forum and that a lot of the old conent is gone. Is there a way to access threads from pre-2011 Smogon?
you need to really know what you're looking for, Fire Blast. the search feature on XF is pretty poor and some stuff got tossed around during the migration. like billymills said cold storage is a good place to start. otherwise try to remember who posted the thread your looking for and browse through their threads.
my preferred method is using google search with the keyword site:smogon.com/forums/ (and anything you want to change the date parameters etc.). while it's unreliable and non-comprehensive it can be an instant hit and is a good first course of action before manually searching old threads/posters' profiles