A Beginner's Guide to Competitive Pokemon Battling

This guide is intended to give absolute beginners a headstart, but in my opinion one of the best ways to learn to play competitively is to watch the videos of other players (and listen to their thought processes during commentaries) to pick up playstyle techniques.

Part 1 (Tiers) (1:10):

Part 2 (Team Building) (3:41):

-Select types to cover any glaring weaknesses, use a variety of types
-Team structure: # of sweepers (damage dealing), # of walls (damage taking)

Part 3 (Setting up each Pokemon) (6:50):

-Ability: choose depending on Pokemon role, e.g. Tinted Lens on offensive Illumise
-EVs: maximum 510 total EVs on each Pokemon, choose to suit the Pokemon role
-Choose the moveset to cover a variety of defensive types
-STAB bonus on moves the same type as the Pokemon: gives 50% power bonus

Part 4 (Same Pokemon, different role) (9:56):

-Change the moveset to fit the role (e.g. status moves on a defensive set)
-Use whichever base stats are highest on the Pokemon to choose its role

Part 5 (Predictions) (11:12):

-Observe how your opponent plays
-Keep a note of their team and predict their roles
-Anticipate what your opponent wants to do, e.g.

You have an Electrode out, they have a Wartortle out. They're fearing the electric type STAB move, so they're likely to switch into a ground type (ground is immune to electric). You could predict this and go for Hidden Power [Ice], which would super-effectively hit the incoming ground type.

-Weigh up risk vs reward, is a prediction worth making based on the risks?
-Best way to learn this is just practise (and watch battle videos)

That's all, folks!

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[jordansinger]

Rate My Team
Unown (F)
Unown (U)
Unown (C)
Unown (K)
Unown (M)
Unown (E)

[dreadfury]

>Politoed in OU
>Clefable in RU

Man, this takes me back.

[bob-lkcw]

Oh the old days, when Politoed used to be OU

[tomkarate]

I don't know what verlisify was talking about. For a beginner guide it is very solid. Well explained.

[sahilmuhammad]

Rate my team

Magikarp
Magikarp
Magikarp
Magikarp
Magikarp
Feebas

I know your thinking it is way better than the team on the video

[kmrskates]

Why didn't you cover what the tiers stand for?
Uber, I get.
OU, Over Used?
UU, Under Used?
RU, Rarely Used?
NU, Never Used?

Is that what those mean?

[Uchuma]

It's funny to see how back when this video was made, politoed was OU and Clefable was RU. Times have surely changed.

[MatMart]

clefable? RU
haha i know this vid was old but welcome to the future OU clefable

[ThatDragonGuy]

it's so stupid how many people in this comment section attack smogon and they don't seem to realize that we can play the game we want

[TheShadowAmateratsu]

profile pic shows pangoro smoking weed, mentions spyro 2 in the first 10 seconds of the video, and made a helpful pokemon video...yep, time to subscribe

[sakuyarules]

This was a really good guide. You gave pertinent information, didn't spend time covering the more complicated things that beginners wouldn't need to worry about, and you gave plenty of examples. Nicely done!

[armaldoaster]

Wow dude, I can't believe it's been 3 years..

I just want to thank you for this video, it was this very video that got me into the competitive Pokemon scene, what got me into the community, like shofu and smogon's forums.
Thanks to this vid, I've been more invested into this game then I ever have as a kid, especially with Sun and Moon that just came out.

Thanks for such a well thought out video, and for pretty much kick starting my way into the Pokemon scene in general <3

[WereDictionary]

This keeps showing up in my feed every now and then and it always reminds me of how wild the times used to be. Clefable in RU, Politoed was the god of OU, Dragonite also OU.

Also Tommy didnt have glasses.

[billyxd]

I remember watching this 3 years ago not understanding anything about this competetive stuff and now i've gotten so much better

[dhvsheabdh]

People seem to be having the problem of drawing a false equivalence between "competitive" and "officially ruled by Nintendo"

[hatcatmoby]

I've always been a fan of Tier Shift, which just lets you play with anything outside of Uber. How it works is that you get your usual 6v6, but Pokemon in the lower tiers get a small boost so they'd be on par with the OU tier. It gives more incentive to be a hipster and try new combos.

[necrobonesgaming]

"A legendary would be better than an electrode, right?"
I can just imagine you glaring at Phione.
Also, damn Smogon haters. If they had their way, Lugia and Kyerum-White would run around in OU. They aren't about pure 100% popularity, people. Those pokes are Ubers for a reason. I get it still skews it a bit, but jeez, these people overreact so damn much.

[ProblemEngland]

Additionally, if your pokemon doesn't rely on physical attacks you should make sure its attack IV is as low as possible (and have a nature that lowers attack assuming you don't have a trick room team). This will cause foul play and confusion(status) to do slightly less damage, which could be meaningful over the course of a battle.

[ashenfire]

"clefable: ru"

Oh, the olden sweet days.

[stewartjenkins]

Just going to highlight a point. The tiers aren't there to say, don't une this pokemon you like cuz its rubbish.

They are their to provide every pokemon a place to do well, in a tier away from the more powerful things that kill it and make it un-usable.

Until recently EVERY TEAM needed a manoswine or something like it to deal with dragons. If you didn't have an ice shard user on your team you would die to a Dragon Danced dragonite or salamence or grachomp.

Obviously fairy types shook that up but the tiers exist for a reason, they are not just there because there are pokemon plays that don't want to deal with certain things and remove them to a different teir