Every year the Pokémon competitive scene becomes bigger and bigger, which means that many new players approach this side of the game for the first time. One of the main factors that contribute to explain why more people have grown interest in Pokémon competitive is how accessible, easy, and fast it has become to make a competitive team. It’s no secret that in older games, especially when the competitive was at its beginning, it was really hard and time-consuming to make a competitive team. However, since Pokémon X and Y, some procedures have been accelerated and therefore become accessible to more players. This has also been the trend with successive games, especially with Pokémon Sword and Shield and the newest Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, allowing you to train your Pokémon in relatively little time. Here there are the steps to follow to make a truly competitive Pokémon.

INDIVIDUAL VALUES

As we all know, every Pokémon has six statistics: Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, Speed, and HP (health points). Individual values are points, with a range from 0 to 31, that are randomly assigned to each Pokémon for each statistic. An easy way to understand how IVs work and why they are so important is to keep in mind that a level 50 Pokémon has an increase of one point in its statistic for every two IVs. When a Pokémon gets to level 100, 1 IV equals to 1 point added to the base statistic. As an example: if a level 100 Piplup has a neutral nature and 0 IVs in its HP statistic, the total value of the HP statistic is going to be 216, while, if it had 31 IVs, it would be 247. In older games, it took a lot of effort to get a Pokémon with all the six perfect IVs and the best way to do so was through breeding.

While still really useful for some things, in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet the process is a lot faster. All that’s needed are Bottle Caps, which can be bought in the Delibird Presents stores. Introduced in Pokémon Sun and Moon, this item allows you to bring one of your lPokémon’s statistics to 31 IVs through Hyper Training. In the newest games, you’ll just need to go to Montenevera and talk to the man with an Abomasnow near the Pokémon Center of the city. To benefit from Hyper Training your Pokémon are required to be at least at level 50. In addition to it, Hyper Training won’t actually change the Individual Values of a determined statistic, but it’ll just adjust it to the value it would have had if it was a 31 IVs statistic. This means that things such as breeding and Hidden Power aren’t conditioned by Hyper Training. Last but not least, there is no way to decrease the IVs of a statistic. While this might sound counterproductive, it would be pretty helpful in Pokémon used for a Trick Room strategy.

EFFORT VALUES

Effort values or EVs are an important part of the making of a competitive Pokémon. Those points are essential in competitive Pokémon, as they allow to increase a determined statistic even more. The total amount of EVs that can be assigned to a Pokémon is 510, while 252 is the maximum for each statistic. When a Pokémon is level 100, every 4 EVs correspond to a 1 point increase in a certain statistic. This is where it starts to be strategic: the EVs assignment mainly depends on the role of a Pokémon in the team and the player’s strategy. One of the most common, yet one of the most efficient EVs distribution is 252/252/4. This means that three of the six Pokémon’s statistics get the EVs increase. In particular, the two highest statistics will get a boost of 63 points (based on 252 EVs), while one statistic will get only one additional point. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, you’ll need to buy Vitamins, a group of Remedy items that assign 10 EVs to a certain Pokémon and statistic. In addition to those, Feathers are also widely used, especially to round up the 250 EVs to 252 EVs. Each Feather will assign 1 EV to one statistic. While Vitamins can be bought in the Delibird Presents stores, Feathers can be found on the surface of Casseroya Lake. Here’s the complete list of both Vitamins and Feathers and their effects:

Another way to assign EVs to a Pokémon is to fight and defeat some wild Pokémon. Some of them can be pretty useful to assign EVs to your Pokémon, especially if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative. It’s surely going to take more time, but it might be handy for some players. Here’s a list of wild Pokémon that will help you with this kind of EV training:

However, keep in mind that if you’re working with a Pokémon you have used during your adventure within the games, it’ll surely already have some EVs assigned. It’s possible to bring the EVs back to 0 with the help of some specific berries. Each one of those will delete 10 EVs from a Pokémon statistic. This can be pretty handy even when we want to make a different EV distribution for the same Pokémon, may it be because we changed our team or because we want to use another strategy. Finding those berries can be time-consuming as they can be found as sparkling overworld items in different Areas. Here’s the list of the berries needed to delete EVs and their location:

An advisable extra step to follow after having distributed all the EVs to a Pokémon is to be sure that all the EVs have been assigned. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, you’ll have to go to Levincia and talk to a woman with a Luxio. She’ll ask you to select a Pokémon and, if all 510 EVs have been distributed, she’ll reward you with an Effort Ribbon!

NATURES

Each Pokémon has a Nature that determines an increase of a certain statistic and a decrease of another statistic. Neutral Natures are present too. This can be quite interesting in the making of a competitive Pokémon as it will give additional boosts in a useful statistic, especially after all the other extra points gained from IVs and EVs. In older generations, previous to Pokémon Sword and Shield, there was no way to change a Pokémon’s Nature, so the only possible way was through breeding or catching another Pokémon of the same species. In the newest games, changing the Nature of a Pokémon is fast and easy: all that’s needed are Mints.Each Mint is named after the Nature that it will give to the Pokémon. It’s important to keep in mind that just like the Hyper Training, this will change the Pokémon’s Nature, but things such as breeding will anyway be affected by the original Nature of the Pokémon. Here’s the complete list of Pokémon Natures and their effect on the statistics:

ABILITIES

Abilities are another important part of competitive. An important and strong Ability will always find its use in a team. As it’s known, Pokémon might have more than one Ability and you could need the other Ability of a Pokémon. The Ability Capsule, introduced in the sixth generation of the series, will allow you to do so. Keep in mind that it won’t unlock a Pokémon’s Hidden Ability, but it’ll just change the first ability to the second one and vice versa. On the other hand, an Ability Patch will unlock a Hidden Ability. While Ability Capsules can be bought in Chansey Supply stores, Ability Patches can be given as a reward from six and seven stars Tera Raid Battles.

MOVES

The final step in the making of a competitive Pokémon is choosing the right moves. While this guide won’t focus on the strategic choice of a Pokémon’s moveset, it’s still useful to talk about TMs and Egg Moves, as they had an important change in the newest games. TMs, the abbreviation for Technical Machines, have always been a part of the Pokémon series. Despite that, they went through several changes during the history of the games. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, there are 170 TMs and they can be used only once, like in the oldest games of the series. TMs can be found in the overworld, given to us by NPCs and crafted, which is a new feature in the game series. The needed items can be found in the overworld and obtained as rewards from Tera Raids. TMs can also be bought with either Pokédollars or with League Points, another new feature of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Egg Moves also had some interesting changes. These are moves that Pokémon can’t generally learn by leveling up or through TMs. As it’s easily understandable, those moves can be pretty efficient in Pokémon competitive. The name of these moves comes from the fact that the only way to acquire them is through inheritance with breeding. However, in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, that’s not the case anymore. In these games, Egg Moves can now be easily transferred from one Pokémon to another and breeding isn’t even needed! All it needs is a Mirror Herb, available in Delibird Presents stores. The first step is to give the Mirror Herb to the Pokémon that has to acquire the desired Egg Move and delete one from its moveset so that it only has three moves. Then, you’ll need to start a picnic with only the Pokémon holding the Mirror Herb and with the one who will pass the Egg Move to the other Pokémon. After a few seconds, your Pokémon will successfully learn the desired Egg Move!

In conclusion, despite the several steps to work on, it’s pretty clear how fast it can be to create a competitive Pokémon and team. That’s mainly thanks to the availability of items like Bottle Caps and Vitamins and the total avoidance of long methods like breeding. Wishing to see an even faster and easier process in the next generation of games; there’s indeed no doubt that making a competitive Pokémon has never been this easy! Which Pokémon will you train competitively?

Edited by Siddhar and Bobandbill