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Pokemon team building guide

Updated on July 8, 2015

Make a list of your favorites!

This may seem like it has nothing to do with building a competitive team but really it is a key step. If you use pokemon you enjoy you are more likely to take a long hard look to find a moveset that suits them. So jot down your favorite 20+ Pokemon and then continue to the next step!

Typing

Not nearly as important in todays game as it was back in red and blue, but fundamentals are still important. If you have 6 pokemon who are all weak to water then you are most likely going to have a rough time. So take some time and look at which pokemon will be complementary to each other and which ones may hinder the progress of the others. You aren't going to want to start putting the team together just yet, but keeping this in mind will make the decisions easier later

Abilities

For me this is probably the second most important step. Abilities are huge and must be taken into consideration. As I discussed in the previous section typing matters, but abilities can take advantage of that in a whole new way. If you have a sceptile, it will probably be beneficial to you to have a flash fire pokemon in your party. If your team is susceptible to the enemy setting up on you then having a pokemon with unaware might be a life saver. It is important to match up typing and abilities to make sure you aren't exposed to a whole type, especially if it is common. Now you may have a rough Idea of who you want to use.

Stats

This section will be brief because stats, though important, can be worked around and the best stats don't exactly make for the best pokemon (lookin at you regigigas). That being said, take a look at the base stats of a pokemon to see what you may want to use them for. Knowing the role of your pokemon is key when building a team.

Moveset

By far the most important step. If your pokemon's movesets benefit from each other you are golden. This also brings into effect the other two sections in a big way. Scyther is absolutely destroyed by rock type moves, but stick reversal on him and suddenly he benefits from the low health. However if the next pokemon survives scythers big hit, it will probably be beneficial to have a pokemon behind him that has a priority move so they can finish the pokemon off without taking damage. I really wish I could cover every possible moveset here but the options are endless. Just remember, a level 1 rattatta can beat a level 100 mewtwo with the right moveset.

Items

Items help round out your team in a big way. I love my gengar, and I love my scyther, but running them on the same team isn't optimal because they both benefit so much from the focus sash that using them without it makes them a subpar choice (2 pokemon aren't aloud to hold identical items at the same time). That being said this is probably where you start shuffling your pokemon around a bit and you should just about have your final team after making some tough decisions. Alternatively, you can change movesets to make things work, sometimes I will give my scyther endure if I really feel the need to run him and gengar at the same time.

Be ready to counter common enemies

Its during this step you probably notice you don't have a counter for garchomp or mega gengar yet. This will usually lead to you tweaking movesets a bit. So do yourself a favor, hop on line for a few matches and see what pokemon keep popping up and then start tweaking your team to account for them. For a starter list, here is who you should prepare for

  • Garchomp
  • Gengar
  • Fcizor
  • Ferrrothorn
  • Rotom
  • Landorus/Thundurus/Tornadus
  • Tyranitar
  • Talonflame
  • Metagross
  • Hydriegon
  • Protean Greninja

There are many others that are becoming more and more common, but make sure you are ready for pokemon you are likely to see every battle. If you can get swept by any of these pokemon, there is a good chance you are gonna have a high loss rate.

With all that being said, have fun with building your team. You play pokemon for fun and thats how it should stay, but winning never hurts either!

What skill level are you!?

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