5 tips for beginners to Pokemon VGC

The Pokemon VGC's 2025 season began with the Baltimore Regional Championships. With this tournament reaching its conclusion, many casual players are inspired to give the competitive side of the Pokemon franchise a try. However, newbies will quickly notice that battles against other players are drastically different from those against NPCs in the base game.

Pokemon VGC is not very friendly to beginners, and information regarding builds and strategies can be very overwhelming. This article goes over five basic tips beginners should keep in mind if they want to make their debut on the ranked ladder.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.

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5 Pokemon VGC tips for new players

1) Use Pokemon Showdown

Pokemon Showdown is a free-to-use battle simulator with its own ranking system (Image via Pokemon Showdown)

It can be incredibly time-consuming to theorycraft and train a team of Pokemon one thinks would be good to use, only to find out that they are irrelevant in the metagame.

For this reason, many competitive players use Pokemon Showdown, a website that simulates competitive Pokemon battles. This website allows players to build a team of creatures they would like to use in battle across various formats.

Of course, Pokemon Showdown also has whatever official regulation is in the main series at the time. This means players can use this free resource to test out their teams before committing the time and effort to build them in the official games.

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2) Study the current regulation

Each competitive season has its own restrictions on the creatures that can and cannot participate (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Competitive seasons in Pokemon VGC are known as regulations in the current generation. Each of these regulations lasts around four months and offers distinct rulesets that dictate which creatures can take part in official battles. Metagames between regulations can differ drastically depending on what Pocket Monsters make the cut for the season.

Currently, the Pokemon VGC is in Regulation H. This regulation allows any Pokemon from Scarlet and Violet, including those in the expansion pass, to participate with the exception of Legendary and Paradox Pokemon.

With these powerful picks out of the game, players are free to get much more creative when designing their parties.

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3) Ask the community

There are tons of resources in the community players can use to help ease into the Pokemon VGC (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Being the largest grossing media franchise on the planet, Pokemon's community is massive. There is also an endless supply of content creators on platforms like YouTube that provide helpful insight to newer players looking to get into the competitive scene of the franchise.

Recorded streams of previous tournaments can also be found on the official Pokemon YouTube channel. Watching some of the more recent broadcasts can help players come up with ideas to try for themselves.

Additionally, this may assist new trainers by alerting them to what the current meta looks like, allowing them to build a team that counters some of the most popular picks.

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4) Learn weather or Trick Room strategies

Many teams are built around a certain battlefield condition (Image via The Pokemon Company)

Many teams used in serious competitive play follow an archetype build centered around one or two battlefield conditions, like weather, terrain, and Trick Room.

Many Pokemon have abilities that activate in certain weather conditions, like Chlorophyll or Solar Power in sunny weather. For this reason, most players tend to build their team around creatures that benefit from their condition of choice.

Starting with one of these more generalized strategies can help new trainers learn the basics of Pokemon VGC. It can also teach them about strategy counters and how speed can impact the activation of abilities like Drought or Drizzle, two weather-summoning traits.

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5) Keep track of EVs

Effort Values, or EVs, determine any Pokemon's stats (Image via The Pokemon Company)

EVs, or Effort Values, are hidden stats that every Pokemon gathers when gaining experience from a battle. Every Pokemon has an Effort Value that is given to the creature that defeats it in the base main series games. 252 of these points can be put into a single stat, and 510 total can be collected by one creature.

Most players balance and calculate the Effort Values of their teams by using vitamins. These items grant 10 EVs in their respective stat.

Giving Pokemon 26 vitamins in two different stats followed by a final vitamin in a desired third stat will max out any creature's EVs, which is how most players tend to build up their Pokemon VGC battlers.