Team Building 101

By Jimmer Sivertsen

In this article, we’re going to cover the basics of building your team. Maybe you’ve already built your first squad or you’re looking for ideas on how to start. A little planning can help you become more competitive without needing to change your in-game strategy.
 
Let’s start with the basics–Movement Points (MP), which sometimes are even more important than attacks. If you’re racing to your opponent’s goal, your Treecko sprinting along at 3 spaces a turn while your opponent’s Groudon is trudging along at 1 space each turn, Treecko is going to win. Further, a Pokémon with a lot of speed can also more readily surround an opponent’s Pokémon, forcing your opponent to pay attention to all of those extra spaces that fast Pokémon can reach.
 
Having three Charizard and three Murkrow seems like an easy call–you always know what your strategy will be. Be careful, though, because that also limits what kinds of in-game choices you can make. If Murkrow has weak odds against one of your opponent's Pokémon, half of your team is going to have a tough time for the entire game. By using a variety of Pokémon on your team, you'll have more choices for battling your opponent.
 
The last aspect to consider when you’re building a team is expanding your choices with different kinds of attacks. Blue, Purple, White, and Miss combine to give a Pokémon its own unique nature. Let’s say you choose a team of all damage-dealing Pokémon, like Charizard. Charizard has powerful White attacks that do damage, as well as a couple of Miss chances. It looks like Charizard would always win … except against Purple. And a Pokémon with a fair amount of Purple is almost guaranteed to beat Charizard.
 
As you can see, variety is important when building a competitive team!