I've entered a Pokemon Tournament, I need some suggestions

[harvestmgirl]

I decided to go to EB Games today and pre order the new Pokemon Conquest. Apparently they're having a Pokemon Tournament in July and the winner get Pokemon Black or White 2! The only rule was no legendarys. So I need help from all you pokemon players on building my team. What are your suggestions?

[cobalte]

Well, first of all, I can't really help unless I know the rules or battle format. Is it doubles? Singles? What legendaries are banned?

[harvestmgirl]

The only information I got was you can use any gen as long as it wasnt a legendary. I might go see if I can get more information out of them. It's not an official tournament. I assume it will be singles.

[LuvlyMelody]

If its legendary banned, I'm guessing all. We don't want everyone with a Groudon/Kyogre with OP OTK Solarbeam/No-Miss Thunder. It's been so long when I sold my DS and ALL my PKMN games at the time. =_=;

If it helps, I mainly used Sp. Atk pokemon and had pokemon with a Modest nature.

Some people might consider this build 'cheap' But as long as it works...

My Gardevoir had Modest Nature. Stats and Held Item I can't remember but her attacks were:
-Calm Mind
-Psychic
-Hypnosis
-Dream Eater
Use Hypnosis on them, while they're asleep, I keep reusing Calm Mind to boost her Sp. Atk till it won't go any higher, then use Psychic or Hypnosis & Dream Eater afterwards.

That's who I can remember now if it's singles. If I remember any more, I'll post here. Good Luck with the Tournament!

[kaoskat]

Sounds exciting! Best of luck!

[Bergamot]

A tournament sounds like a lot of fun! You should consider a Water/Ground dual type. My "ringers" were always that type in the latest Pokemon games.

[Icecrystalline]

I had a level 87 Blaziken, he was amazing, his flaw was water type though, when I play, I always take one pokemon from each type, eg.1 air, 1 water, 1 ground, 1 fire. It's safety first and if there are any more spaces, my personal best performer.
GL!!
xxx

[Skitterbug]

I haven't played comptetitively since like... gen 2? Is Starmie still the wrecks-everything pokemon it once was?

[ApertureScience]

I absolutely despise this Pokemon, but consider Garchomp.  He's a freaking murderer.  I can't suggest a moveset, but sites like Serebii and Smogon might help.

There's also the option of using a weak Pokemon holding a Focus Sash, and having it use Endeavor and then Quick Attack.

Erm...  I guess that's all I can offer.  I'm not a competitive battle type person (well, not yet, as I haven't really put forth any effort).  I just use Pokemon I like.

[Folly]

Be the guy with six magikarps!


Seriously though, I've never played Pokemon competitively so I'm not sure but best of luck to you!

[Eviecorn]

All I can say is good luck!

[Ribbs]

Aaah tournaments are fun! I've done a few of these before, and have scored pretty well with my teams. (I'm a huge pokemon gamer)

My team-building strategy is pretty basic, really. If you know about types and weaknesses/resistances, it's a lot simpler.

*One thing I always do is never double-type. (Say you have Charizard and a Typhlosion, both fire types, both weak to rock and water. What'll you do if you battle say, a Golem or Milotic? Unless you have a fighting move, or a grass move, you're screwed) In short, you don't want a team with too many of the same weaknesses. The more types you have on your team, the better you will fare.

*I also make sure to have STAB moves. (Same type attack move. There is a slight attack increase if a move used is the same type as the pokemon using it. If Charizard, a fire type, uses a fire-type move like fire blast, it'll be much more effective than if a Dragonite uses it, since Dragonite is not of the fire type.)

*Another thing I like to do is have at least one defensive move in my movepool. Moves like Aqua Ring, Recover, Sandstorm, Hail, Stealth Rock, ect can prove very useful with tough opponents. I tend to fancy healing moves since Items are not allowed in tournaments.

*Keep abilities in mind. Sometimes a move used will unlock a cool ability, like Garchomp with Sand Veil ability. Use Sandstorm and your evasion increases.

*Another thing to keep in mind is your pokemon's personal stats, and weather or not they excell in physical or special strength. If you have a Raichu with a higher attack stat than it's special attack, then you'd do better to teach Raichu physical moves as opposed to special.

*Also, items! My favorites are accuracy-boosting items like Wide Lens (works great for stuff like Blizzard and Thunder with low accuracy) and healing items like Leftovers and Black Sludge, and some of the newer items like Rocky Helmet are pretty cool. Berries are also good to have around, though since Black and White, they have been a lot harder to obtain since there's no place to grow them outside of the Dream World.

Here is one of my teams on Black version that has done pretty well, just as an example.

Hydreigon--Dark/Dragon
ability: Levitate
item: White Herb
moves:
.Draco Meteor
.Crunch
.Dragon Pulse
.Work-Up

Chandelure--Ghost/Fire
ability: Flash Fire
item: Wide Lens
moves:
.Fire Blast
.Flamethrower
.Hex
.Will-O-Wisp

Scolipede--Bug/Poison
ability: Swarm
item: Black Sludge
moves:
.Megahorn
.Poison Jab
.Steam Roller
.Toxic

Eelektross--Electric
ability: Levitate
item: Leftovers
moves:
.Wild Charge
.Thunder
.Thrash
.Thunder Wave

Conkeldurr--Fighting
ability: Sheer Force
item: Rocky Helmet
moves:
.Superpower
.Hammer Arm
.Rock Slide
.Bulk Up

Gothitelle--Psychic
ability: Frisk
item: Shell Bell
moves:
.Psychic
.Future Sight
.Energy Ball
.Fake Tears

I hope that helped! If you have any more questions, feel free to shoot me a PM. Good luck!

[harvestmgirl]

Thanks everyone. My computer broke yesterday do I may not be posting much. :-(  I'll try to keep up on this thread though. Thanks you Ribbs I'll definitely pm you if I have any questions

[egyptiondragon]

my oly sugestion is to use wat you ove here is a link to a competive pokemon site http://www.smogon.com/ gl on your torny

[cobalte]

Oh dear. Bad advice errywhere. I will use this to try and illustrate the competitive mindset, though. Excuse my essay

If you're playing singles, you must know about entry hazards.

Spoiler

These are Stealth Rocks, Spikes and Toxic Spikes. They deal damage to your Pokemon when the Pokemon switch in.
Stealth Rocks in particular can be very nasty, as they do damage based on whether you are weak to rock or not! If you double-resist Rock, it's only a little over 3% to your health, and if you single resist it's only 6.25% damage to your health. If you are neutral to Rock types it jumps up to 12.5%. Single weak to rock and that's 25% of your HP gone, and double-weak means that's half your health off. Luckily Stealth Rocks do not layer, but they still make sure those with rock weaknesses are hardly used.
Spikes works on layers (how many times the opponent uses the move). 1 layer does 1/8 of the opponent's HP, 2 layers 1/6th, three layers 1/4th.
Toxic Spikes is also layer based. One layer poisons the opponent, two layers Toxic poisons.
They're not as prevalent as they used to be but they must be considered when making a team. Rapid Spin gets rid of SRs, Spikes and Toxic Spikes so if your team is a bit weak to them it may be useful

Switching is more seen in singles than any other format, as it can mean giving yourself an advantage. Forcing the opponent to switch is very useful. Moves like Roar and Whirlwind can do this as well as just having a Pokemon on the field that walls or could really hurt the opponent.

If you're playing doubles, forget stat boosting moves. Doubles are just too fast paced to be wasting a turn on setting up a buff like that. You can try Trick Room, Gravity and Tailwind, as they provide more significant changes than just +1 in a certain stat on one Pokemon.

If you want a weather team of either rain or sun, try to get one of the Dream World Pokemon. Namely Poliwag with Drizzle and Vulpix with Drought. Their abilities are basically that of Kyogre and Groudon... they summon rain and sun (respectively) on the turn they enter battle. Make sure to evolve the Poliwag into Politoed though or it won't get Drizzle.
Rain is the premier weather right now and very popular as a team strategy. This is because so many Pokemon have Swift Swim, and that water is a very good attacking type. So make sure there aren't too many water weaknesses in your team.

You want consistency in deciding on movesets. Some people have suggested moves that have really low accuracy (eg Hypnosis). They often end up unreliable however during that crucial moment...
Using a team based around Gravity can fix this however a Gravity team can be challenging to pull off in doubles as it requires a turn to set up.
Moves like Fire Blast and Thunder (120ish base power and 85 accuracy) can be okay if you're comfortable taking the risk to get extra power. I would decide whether you want to go power over accuracy though instead of having something like Fire Blast and Flamethrower on the same moveset, as this is redundant

I tend to fancy healing moves since Items are not allowed in tournaments.

I don't know what kind of odd tournaments you'd been in, but they are allowed. It's just a case of not having the two same items on two Pokemon. Item choice is very important. Here are some useful items...

Spoiler

• Life Orb increases the power of all your moves by 30% at the price of 10% of your HP each turn
• Leftovers is superior over Shell Bell. At the end of each turn the holder recovers 1/16 of their HP
• Air Balloon causes the held Pokemon to be immune from Ground-type moves and entry hazards, but when the Pokemon is hit with an attack it bursts and stops working
• Choice Band increases the holder's attack by 50% but restricts it to using the first attack until withdrawn
• Choice Scarf increases the holder's speed by 50% but restricts it to using the first attack until withdrawn
• Choice Specs increases the holder's special attack by 50% but restricts it to using the first attack until withdrawn
• (If you are using a Choice set only have attacking moves on the moveset)
• The type-boost Gems are insanely useful. One-use items that boost the power of a move that has typing that corresponds with the gem by 50%. Two deadly combos are Dragon Gem Draco Meteor and Flying Gem Acrobatics
• Eviolite when held by a Pokemon still able to evolve increases their defense and special defense by 50%
• Expert Belt boosts the holder's moves that are super effective against the opponent by 20%
• Flame Orb is good with the Guts ability (which I would use on Conkeldurr over Sheer Force). Flame Orb burns the holder at the end of every turn if they do not have a status already. This activates Guts, which will increase attack by 1.5x and negates the attack drop from burn
• Focus Sash acts like Sturdy: if the holder is hit by an attack on full HP that would knock them out, Focus Sash activates and instead leaves them on 1HP (Focus Sash disappears after this)
• Iron Ball helps weather inducers, as the holder's speed is reduced by 50%... but the slowest Pokemon's weather ability activates last, which will overwrite the opponent's weather
• Mental Herb is an interesting one. If the opponent's move infatuates, disables a move or is Taunt, Encore or Torment, Mental Herb heals the user from the effects of these moves. However it is one-time use
• Toxic Orb is the same deal as Flame Orb except your Pokemon is Toxic poisoned at the end of each turn. Seems pointless, but put it on a Pokemon that has Poison Heal ability and they heal HP every turn instead of losing it
• White Herb is also interesting... at the end of using a move, if that move lowered the holder's stats, White Herb restores the stat drops so your stats are back to normal. One-use item
• Don't use the type-boost items such as Charcoal, Magnet etc. They only increase the power of a certain type by 10%. There are better items out there that provide more of a boost
• If you are going to use Rocky Helmet use it on something that has an ability like Iron Barbs and Rough Skin. I wouldn't really recommend it tho

Natures are also vital, as they can boost one base stat by 10% and lower another base stat by 10%. They can give you a defensive or offensive edge over the opponent.


You also want to consider EV (Effort Value) training as this can also help your stats a lot.


There is a whole lot more to competitive Pokemon battling then what I've listed though so please PM if you want to know more