Pokemon has always been a game of collecting and making friends with magical creatures with unbelievable levels of destructive power. Another core aspect of the series however has always been battling. What if you want to take your Pokepals and battle with them in a competitive format to prove that you and your buddies are the very best, like no one ever was?
Since Generation 9's official first season of competitive play ended, we've seen a lot of changes to the teams used by the players at the highest competitive level. Here are the strategies employed by the best in the world.
10 Harness The Power Of Trick Room
Logically, if you hit first, you have the chance to take out your opponent before they ever do any damage to you. It’s because of this that speedy Pokemon like Talonflame are competitively viable. However, Trick Room takes this concept and flips it on its head.
Trick Room allows the slowest Pokemon to act first. Not only does this allow for amazing team diversity, opening the gates for Pokemon like Armarouge to step into the limelight, but it also allows you to invest all your EV training into your other stats. Your damage will increase, and your opponent's Speed training will be wasted stats.
9 Utilize Tatsugiri And Dondozo
Generation 9 has added a number of exciting new Pokemon. Two, in particular, have risen to prominence as an outstanding duo: Tatsugiri and Dondozo.
Using Tatsugiri’s ability, Commander, the tiny dragon-fish jumps into the mouth of its partner Dondozo, boosting every single stat by two stages. With the use of Dondozo's move Order Up, depending on the form of Tatsugiri in its mouth, it gains even more stat increases over time.
Additionally, though Tatsugiri cannot use any of its moves while in Dondozo’s mouth, it can’t be hit by any moves either. A fun side effect of this trick is that Tatsugiri’s slot is still targetable which means your opponent can misclick and attack the fish, wasting a move.
8 Palafin: The Hero You Need
Palafin is one of the most unique Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet thanks to the ability Zero to Hero, which turns the mild-mannered dolphin into one of the most ludicrously hyper-stated sweepers in the game.
The strategy for this one is very simple. Swap Palafin out of battle for another Pokemon, and then return it to the field in its Hero Form. This average-seeming Water-type goes from being okay to being an absolute powerhouse. Paired with a partner built to take hits for it, such as Indeedee with the move Follow Me, Palafin can safely put out some truly obscene levels of damage.
Palafin only becomes more powerful when you terastallize them into the Water-type, allowing them to double their same type attack bonus. Paired with its strong priority move Jet Punch, and its access to powerful physical water moves like Wave Crash, Palafin becomes able to take out even some of the bulkiest Pokemon in one or two hits.
7 Bring Pokemon Back For Round Two With Revival Blessing
A move that is learned by only two Pokemon, Rabsca and Pawmot, Revival Blessing is a move with 1PP, and it revives a fainted ally of your choice to 50 percent HP, a thing that's never been something to worry about in competitive formats, until now.
Equipping a Leppa Berry held item to your Revival Blessing user allows it to be used twice! This means that you can play fast and loose with the rest of your team, making what would be equal exchanges of Pokemon and turning them into huge leads.
6 Frustrate Your Opponents With Prankster Murkrow
More of a counter-strategy than anything else, a Murkrow with the ability Prankster can be a nightmare for your opponents. Utilising the small Dark/Fying-type bird’s ability Prankster - which makes its status moves have priority - the move pool of this little ruffian becomes an absolute nightmare when paired with any common threats in the meta.
Whether it’s the aspect of speed control granted by Tailwind, the stat boost nullification of Haze, setting weather with Sunny Day, or utilising Taunt to stop other Pokemon using status and set up moves, this annoying little bird can add a tonne of support to your team.
5 Switch Up Your Opponent With The Defiant Mirror Tech
A common tactic in older games was to cycle Pokemon who had the ability Intimidate. The ability to lower enemy Pokemon's Attack stat by one stage each time an Intimidate user enters the field has made it historically one of the most highly valued abilities in all of Pokemon.
When a Pokemon with Defiant has a stat lowered by anything an opposing Pokemon does, the Defiant Pokemon increases its Attack stat by two stages. This counters the one-stage drop from Intimidate granting a net one-stage increase instead. This created a wonderful counter for the likes of Kingambit and Annihilape. Until now.
Using the Mirror Herb held item allows the holder to copy the first stat increase it sees an opposing Pokemon obtain, mirroring the bonus for themselves. When equipped to an Intimidate user who is facing a Defiant user, there is now a trade. One stage of Attack buff for the enemy, two stages for you, thus swinging the advantage back in the Intimidate user's favour making the use of the ability far less risky.
4 Understand Speed Control
The perfect move is the one that grants you an edge and has no counter from your opponent. In Pokemon the most common of these is fainting an opposing Pokemon in one round, disabling them from affecting you.
For this to occur, you have to go first. That's where Speed Control comes in. Whether it’s through the use of moves that increase your speed, such as Tailwind, or those which lower your opponent’s speed, like Icy Wind, controlling who goes first is a foundational strategic premise in Pokemon.
Making sure that your Pokemon is not susceptible to the latter is difficult as it requires them to be immune to stat-lowering conditions. Though achievable with the likes of the Covert Cloak item, only one copy of each item can be used in your competitive team, so choose which Pokemon has it wisely.
3 Hold Your Ground With Power Spot
Stonjourner’s unique ability grants the moves of any allied Pokemon on the field with it a bonus of 50 percent power above their base.
This beautifully simple strategy sees trainers running Stonjourner with moves like Protect and Wide Guard that allow it to protect itself and its ally from attacks, while it is paired next to a powerful sweeper like Flutter Mane to become a truly incomparable menace on the battlefield.
With access to moves like Rock Slide, Stonjourner can be a nuisance themselves, applying Rock-type coverage and flinch pressure to the roster of defensive abilities it possesses.
2 Gain Elegant Victories Using Dancer
Utilising the power of the ability Dancer - unique to the Pokemon Oricorio - allows it to copy any “dance” move. Among the moves Fiery Dance and Petal Dance, the absurdly powerful boosting move Quiver Dance that increases Special Attack, Special Defence, and Speed is also classed as a “dance” move.
Coupled with the fact that Dragon Dance, a common move among Dragon-type Pokemon, is also compatible, your tiny jitterbug bird suddenly becomes a huge problem. Also, when you utilise Dancer to use a move, Oricorio still gets its regular turn, meaning it can attack twice in one turn or boost and then attack!
1 Destroy Your Enemies With Perish Trap
The move Perish Song doesn’t seem like much, you sing a song that sets a four-turn timer on all active Pokemon in the battle. What is truly terrifying about this is how at the end of that timer all Pokemon who heard it, that are still on the field, faint instantly! The easiest way to avoid this lullaby of demise is to simply switch out your Pokemon removing the condition from them.
This is where Shadow Tag comes in. The Hidden Ability of the Pokemon Gothitelle, a relatively tough Psychic-type that fits in teams fantastically as a support, makes non-Ghost-type Pokemon your opponent control unable to switch out of battle.
With your opponent’s Pokemon trapped in battle, your opponent must race to faint your Gothitelle as fast as they can to not be trapped until the count hits zero. Simply swap your Pokemon out on that final turn, and you get a two-for-nothing trade!