Now jumping in to the meatier parts of competitive Pokémon battling: building your team. There are endless possibilities for your Pokémon "dream team," and you shouldn't feel limited by what is "normal" in competitive Pokémon battling. Smogon can be a decent resource, but it isn't the be-all end-all of Pokémon battling. According to the site, there is no use for Luis (my Ludicolo) outside of a part of a rain team. I beg to differ. Luis has downed many a dragon in his day with Ice Beam, and infuriated quite a few opponents who were unaware of his Grass/Water typing (ergo, not being super-effectively damaged by fire). Every Pokémon, no matter what anyone might say, has their own niche. In the current metagame, certain Pokémon don't have a traditional spot. They don't fit the norms of competitive, and that's okay. But, if you want to be able to do well in tournaments, you have to know what the norms are, and how to counterbalance them. For example:
In Generation 5, Dragons were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Ice Beam was the savior of those without a beast of the type, and priority seemed to rule the Dragon-v-Dragon matchups (and was why I finished 2nd in my first physical tournament). You needed a Dragon, or you needed something with Ice Beam, and that was essentially vital. With the introduction of the Fairy type, those being driven mad by the "reign of [dragon]fire" finally got some relief, and Pokémon normally not considered for the competitive world, like Mawile, finally had their chance to storm into Battle Spot and tournaments alike.
It's not to say that you couldn't win matches without something that was Dragon-type or had Ice Beam, but your odds of doing well were sufficiently heightened with either of those things. There are no "written-in-stone" rules about competitive battling, but there are a few tips that I would personally give you:
- Unless you're going for a mono-type team, have type diversity. Even on a rain/sandstorm/hail team, you can have type diversity because of secondary types. The more diversity you have, the better you can check Pokémon that would otherwise do serious damage to your team.
- Consider a pseudo-legendary. You might want to go against the norm to be "cool," or something...but, come on. You've got to like the look of at least one of the pseudos. They'll help get you out of a bind, but, again, they aren't a necessity. (Morial [Hydreigon] is my usual pseudo, but for tournaments, and especially if I don't have a decent Steel-type move user beyond my Aegislash, I might take Aggron.)
- Don't be afraid of using moves of a drastically different type than the type of the Pokémon using it. You might not get a Same-Type Attack Bonus (STAB), but you get better type coverage and also get to mess with your opponents a bit.
- Don't worry about things like Baton Pass initially. You can have skills that boost your stats, sure, but your main objective, as always, is to get the opponent's Pokémon to faint.
- The Battle Maison is your friend. They can provide items that are very nice for competitive play.
There are also a few things I'd advise against:
- Don't take major legendaries. Things like Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, etc. are okay, but don't go whipping out an Yveltal just because you can. Not only are they banned in tournaments (*cough* and need to be banned in rated play *cough*), but it's just not very fun. Also, it won't guarantee you victory. In the past two days, I've one-hit-KO'd both an Yveltal and a shiny Rayquaza with my Irish Gardevoir's Moonblast. ...and that's without Pokémon eugenics.
- Pokémon eugenics. It's not necessary. As I've said before, eugenicists might have Pokémon with slightly boosted stats, but a good strategy and a bit of luck can undo their work. Poké-eugenics bothers me due to how I think about Pokémon (when I think about them beyond as bits and bytes of data), but I'm not going to say that it doesn't happen.
- Too similar move-sets between Pokémon. I'm not talking about moves that compliment each other here; I'm talking about literally similar move-sets. Just like with type diversity, you want move diversity; don't be afraid to try something new!
- Too many Mega Stone-holders on your team. Using Pokémon that can Mega Evolve is great, but remember: you can only do it once per battle. You can use one or two Pokémon as potential Mega Evo candidates, but loading up too many of your Pokémon with Mega Stones will take away potential for use of other items.
- Loading a Life Orb onto too fragile a Pokémon. Life Orb drains HP whenever the Pokémon uses a move, and I can understand the use of using it with a Pokémon that is very weak defensively but insanely strong aggressively...just, use common sense.
Finally, on testing your team and "how to know if your team works" in a nutshell:
- Just because your team isn't winning games on Battle Spot doesn't mean that it's bad. It might be that you're just having a bit of bad luck, or that you need to tweak some things.
- Can you successfully play the team in Single battles? Great! Can you successfully play in Doubles, too? If yes, you've probably got a fairly solid thing going. If not, there's nothing wrong with your team; just know that you might need to reformat it a bit if you're going to participate in Doubles.
- The Battle Test and Battle Maison are decent, though still flawed, ways to test your team without connecting to the Internet/Battle Spot.
- Eventually, after playing with a team for a bit of time, you'll notice that you really are developing a strategy with it, even if you don't realize. Which Pokémon are you sending out first, consistently? How does this team react to the ebb and flow of battle? How are your opponents reacting to your team? How well can they counter your team, and how well can you counter theirs?
As I said before, there's no all-encompassing set of rules about building your team. You just have to experiment, see what happens, tweak, experiment, observe, tweak, experiment, observe.
As an end note: yes, I did say that you can use Moltres competitively. I love Moltres, and giving said fire-bird a Power Herb and Solar Beam (or using Sunny Day) can help wipe out those nasty Water-types as long as you have priority. I do sometimes use Allegro, my Moltres, on Battle Spot, and I have won games because of that Solar Beam. Say what you will about certain Pokémon species; you can always make it work in some way.
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