Teambuilding / Putting It All Together

So far, we’ve told you some pretty general elements of teambuilding. We’ve talked about some of the qualities of the Pokémon we look for when we’re building a team, how they might work together, and the moves and strategies that we prioritize. However, at this point you might be wondering: how do I build a team myself? In this portion of the guide, we’ll show you the process that we follow when we build a team from start to finish. We hope that these steps can guide you to assemble your own team. 

Here, we’ll explain our fundamental goals in a rough template that can be applied to any format. Know that the teambuilding process is pretty abstract and you and I might not take the same path from an idea to a completed team, and furthermore, there’s no one right or wrong way to build a team. 

Generally, Pokémon are numbered in the order that they are put onto a team. For example, if I focus my team around Pikachu, Pikachu will be added first-- it’s my first slot. You should loosely keep this ordering in mind-- it’s not important in the long run, but if you talk about your team with other players, hearing about the ordering can help them follow your thought process when building.

Step One: The Main Idea

Every team begins with an idea. Maybe the idea that you have is to use a particular Pokémon or combination of Pokémon; maybe it’s to use a particular move or tactic in a certain way. 

• If you’re starting from a certain Pokémon or combination of Pokémon: put that Pokémon/those Pokémon on your team in the teambuilder. You don’t have to do anything else; maybe sketch out some rough EVs for them, or think about what moves or items you’d like to use.

• If you’re starting from a particular tactic, such as a move: What Pokémon are going to carry out this tactic on your team? Start there: pick the most pivotal Pokémon (or combination of Pokémon) and put it/them on your team.

What we’re beginning to do in this step is forming the core; the key idea or goal of your team. We haven’t added anything to that core yet other than its foundation.

Step Two: Adding to the Core

We’ve got the main idea, but it isn’t complete yet. Remember, you’ll be bringing four of your six Pokémon to every battle– if you started with just one Pokémon in Step One, you’ve got a ways to go before you can even test your team.

At this point, our mission is to add Pokémon to aid the main goal of the team. When adding Pokémon in this step, you should loosely outline how they will fit on your team– there’s no need to fill out a complex EV spread or settle on move/item just yet. 

Generally, you’ll add Pokémon in this step for one of these reasons:

• Complementary offense: this Pokémon synergizes with the offensive capabilities of your core with its own offensive power. Note that complementary offense isn’t limited to the type chart: Speed, priority attacks, or spread moves are also great offensive reasons to pick a Pokémon.
  
  One pitfall at this step is to only add Pokémon that are purely offensive in nature– this can lead you towards a “hyper offense” team. Unless you’re explicitly trying to play this aggressive style, try to pick Pokémon that have a range of offensive and defensive capabilities.

• Complementary defense: If you value switching your Pokémon around often, you might want to add a Pokémon with synergistic defensive typing to your core. Just like offensive synergies, defensive synergy isn’t limited to the type chart. Abilities such as Intimidate or good defensive base stats can allow Pokémon to switch in often, even without a resistance. As a word of caution, defensive capability isn’t everything in VGC– make sure you know what these Pokémon are adding to your team.

• Support: Does your Pokémon from Step One benefit from Tailwind, Trick Room, Fake Out, or Follow Me (or any other supportive tactic? These types of moves may enable your main Pokémon to accomplish their goals in battle.

  Be careful with purely supportive Pokémon, as they can skew the offensive capabilities of your team. Make sure the Pokémon you’re adding still exert pressure on your opponent.

As a rule, in this step, I try to add Pokémon to further my team’s main strength rather than to counter any one strategy in particular. It’s too early to add Pokémon specifically to counter other strategies; we’re still forming the main goal of our team. It’s okay to add Pokémon that are good against other strategies; but that should be a side benefit to the main reasons why that Pokémon belongs. I’m making this distinction because it’s an easy trap to be nervous about the strong teams that you’ll face; but if you keep picking Pokémon to counter different strategies, your team will lack cohesion and focus. We’ll make this consideration in the next step.

Repeat this process a few times-- you’ll want to have three to five Pokémon on your team before ending this step. The goal at this point is to “finish” the main goal and idea of your team.

Step Two, part B: How do you know when your main idea is finished?

When we follow this part of the process, we want to feel like our team is near the point where we COULD battle with it (if we filled out all of the details). We want to feel good about what we’ve done and feel like it’s an appropriate time to take what we’ve made and go test our main idea. We don’t expect what we have to be perfect at this point, but we want to know if the ideas we build the team on are actually going to hold up when we finish and start using the team.

There’s no right or wrong way to decide when the core of your team is done– everyone has their own sense of when a core feels complete. For our process, here’s how we can describe it best:

• You don’t feel like anything is “missing” from your team’s core.

• You feel like you’ve covered your major weaknesses

• You can sort of imagine how battles will go

• You feel like the idea that you started with is fleshed out enough that you can use it

Once you have your core Pokémon in your builder, imagine some different teams or Pokémon you expect to face. Try to think about which Pokemon on your team you’d WANT to bring vs those teams, and which you’d likely leave behind. If you don’t like the situations that you imagine, you may have to go back to the drawing board on some of your Pokémon. When you do this, you’re using your theorymon skills. 

Step Three: Round Out the Team

By this step, you’ll have finished your core. Congratulations! You’re done with the main part of your team.  At this point, you probably won’t (and shouldn’t!) have six Pokémon on your team. 

Now is the time to consider other teams and Pokémon. Every core has weaknesses, and yours is not an exception. It’s good to be up front with yourself about what the weak spots of your team are so that you can adjust for them during battle. Are there popular Pokémon or moves that tear holes in your strategy? Is there a popular team or core with a good matchup against your main strategy? Are there any big weaknesses in your team? 

You may not have answers to these questions until after you test– that’s okay. Regardless, at this step, you will have three options:

1. What Pokémon or teams did you identify to be difficult matchups for yourself? Add strong Pokémon to your team that are particularly useful against what you’ve identified to be an issue. Ideally, the strengths of Pokémon that you add at this stage won’t overlap with what your core is already good at. You can think of this as adding breadth to your team - widening the scope of what your team can handle.

2. Add Pokémon that interact with the Pokémon in your core in new and interesting ways. This might give you more than one mode in your core-- you’ll be able to choose how your Pokémon are going to interact with each other depending on the game and opponent. This is a great place to add Pokémon with useful utility moves. This gives your team depth.

3. Add Pokémon that take your team in a whole new direction. For example, if your team is faster paced, your last two Pokémon could set and work well in Trick Room; or if you have a team focused on Trick Room, your last two Pokémon could work well outside of its effects. This process is called adding a mode. The Pokémon you add should complement each other and you should have some reason that they’ll work alongside the rest of your team. You’ll probably need at least two Pokémon slots to add a mode. 

Follow the above guidelines until you have six Pokémon in your builder or box. If you hit a wall, don’t be afraid to unwind some of your work and return to an earlier step with different Pokémon. 

Step Four: Finish the Details

At this point, you should know all of the six Pokémon that are going to be on your team, and you should have imagined some ways that you’d like to battle using them. Now is the time to fill in every aspect you skimmed over in the earlier steps-- EVs, moves, items, et cetera.

Once you’re done with Step Four, the first draft of your team is complete. Congratulations! Building a team from scratch is not easy. 

Step Five: Start Testing

The first draft of your team is unlikely to be the final draft of your team. Throughout this template, you’ve imagined different scenarios you’ll find yourself in when you use this team during battle. The only way to know how right you are is to practice, and to evaluate your guesses. We have a guide on that here. 

You may find yourself returning to the drawing board on some or all of the team. There are no hard and fast rules when you iterate on a team-- if you thought a Pokémon that you added early was essential, but it isn’t working out for you, don’t be afraid to move on!

You might find yourself struggling with one slot in particular on your team. Maybe you love your core Pokémon, but you can’t find one last Pokémon to make it work. This is a common issue that we call “Sixth Pokémon Syndrome”, and you can read about it here.

At the end of the day, if you love your team, great– if you try a few things and they don’t work out, and you don’t like what you came up with, it’s okay to scrap the team and try again. Teambuilding is a muscle, and the more you work on it, the easier it will get, and the more you’ll like the teams that you build.