How to Play Pokémon the Video Game Series Competitively

by nschreiber0813 in Living > Video Games

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How to Play Pokémon the Video Game Series Competitively

So I've been participating in online Pokemon tournaments for a while. All of them are just for fun but they are a lot of fun. Pokemon for those of you who don't know is a really intense strategy game that is not just a kids game anyone can play and enjoy it.

When I first started doing pokemon competitively I had no idea what I was doing. My only resource was advice from people who were trying to get into it competitively like myself and advice on my team from the pros.

So let's get started!

Supplies

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of how to play the video game pokemon.
Knowledge about the game of pokemon you own.
A pokemon game.
The ability to play competitively online or locally with friends.

Types of Tourney

Mono type tournaments are pokemon tournaments where everyone battles with one specific type of pokemon. Granted you can have dual type pokemon but at least one type has to be a particular type.
Doubles tournaments are tournaments done in the battle style doubles. Instead of one using one pokemon at a time in a battle you use two. Rules are a little bit different since it is a double battle not single but yeah.
Singles tournaments use the battle style singles instead of doubles or multi ( which multi battles are almost unheard of in tournaments buy yeah anyways).

With all of this said there are a few common things that need to be made aware of regarding each of these styles. Almost always there are legendary or ultra beast restrictions in these tourneys. Not only that there are banned play styles and sometime even banned pokemon as well. Just make sure you are aware of the restrictions on these when picking a tournament for yourself.

Finding a Tournament to Play In!

There are lots of tournaments online or locally. The best place to look would either be reddit or discord or even both. Reddit is a good place for self promotion of these servers on discord so a good subreddit to find these places would be in my honest opinion /r/CompetitivePokemon.
You can also start one. I have participated in at least one tournament from friend who was hosting it. I helped her host it and as long as you have a lot of friends interested in pokemon, looking around and seeing who would be up for it is a lot easier than it sounds so don't be afraid.

Picking Pokemon

There are many things to consider when making a team. A few of them are...

Typing. You want to have a wide variety of types of pokemon as possible. You don't want to be swept very easily like for example making a team of mostly flying pokemon would leave you vulnerable to electric type moves.
Having a wide variety of playstyles is another. Like having all bulky pokemon would leave you vulnerable to pokemon that can out speed and out attack you.
Having a wide variety of pokemon with different ranges of Special attack, attack, special defense, and etc. You don't want to be easily swept by a pokemon for example with a lot of special attack because you have no special defense.

There are many ways you can also help pick your pokemon.

Pokemon showdown is a good tool and resource for picking your pokemon for your team.
Bulbapedia is a good resource for researching your pokemon you may want for a team.
Watching youtube videos of people playing pokemon who are good at it is probably the best thing you can do to get into competitive gameplay of this nature.

Stats are everything in pokemon. A few things to consider doing.

Hyper train your pokemon.
Level up your pokemon.
Give your pokemon an appropriate nature.
IV and EV train your pokemon appropriately. You don't want to just randomly give pokemon IV/EVs for no reason.

Movesets

Pick a move for your pokemon! A few things to consider doing to help pick each of your four moves are...

Smogon gives decent examples of a potential moveset for a pokemon for each and almost every game.
Pokemon showdown can help you learn about a moveset you may want to try and helps you get better at using it at no cost and is not at all time consuming unlike the game itself.
Experimenting with different pokemon on your team to see what works well with what.

TIP: Every pokemon on a team is there for a reason. Every pokemon exists for a reason on a team. Lack of this can doom yourself competitively.

Strategy

Pokemon is a game where the more you know the better you will do. Sadly knowing in this case comes from experience and lots of it. You will not get good over 1 month or maybe even a year. Being into pokemon competitively takes forever and lots of failure as well.

An easy way to get good at using your team you have just made is to practice using it. Wifi and other battles are an easy way to get good at practicing your team.

Advice is also crucial. An easy way to get free advice is to post your team online on a forum or just have a friend give their word. /r/competitivepokemon is a good place to get advice on a team.

Friendly battles against some of the people you will be going up against in a tourney before it starts is also not a bad idea. That is definitely a good way for both players to grow off of each other.

Conclusion

You have to be very passionate about pokemon to get very good at it. With that said I know I am not perfect. I consider myself more of an intermediate at pokemon than anything. Despite it being time consuming to get into competitively pokemon is something worthwhile getting into competitively.

If anyone needs any help with their pokemon team or anything else related to this I can offer my 2 cents.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy!