Introduction / Foundational Concepts

As a forward to this guide: Pokémon is an incredibly challenging and complex game at every step of the process. There are more Pokémon teams possible than there are atoms in the known universe. There are more options available to you in one turn of battle than you could ever hope to think through in the time you have for one turn. 

To navigate this astronomically huge space, players create principles of teambuilding and battling for themselves. This guide to VGC contains ours. Although we’ve spent a lot of time playing the game and had success at large tournaments, our principles and opinions are not the only way to play VGC, and they may be wrong in some ways. Please do not view them as authoritative or unilaterally correct, because we are still learning and growing as well. We've followed our own principles and come up short many times. Many players have found success in ways that we haven’t yet mastered.

In short, please use this guide to form your own opinions of how to succeed in VGC and how to play Pokémon in a way that feels good to you. Pokémon, despite its elements of luck, is a game of immense personal control and preference: you are in control of which Pokémon end up on your team and what their stats and moves are. You are in control of which teambuilding and battling theories and principles you subscribe to, and how other people’s opinions affect your own. Take what we say with a grain of salt. 

Furthermore, please respect that other players will play Pokémon in a way that feels good to them-- remember, it’s all subjective. If someone wants to play with their favorites, you probably are only going to annoy them by telling them to use popular Pokémon. On the other hand, if you’re asking a serious player for advice on how to use your favorite Pokémon, don’t be upset if they tell you that those Pokémon are flawed. Be kind when working with other people.

That being said, this guide contains our definitions, thoughts, and reflections about Pokémon the way we’ve learned how to play it over much of our adult lives. We hope you learn something from what we have to say!