How Do You Decide On a Pokémon Team?

[Mr.Munchlax]

Has anyone ever been incredibly indecisive when picking their in-game team for a game? I don’t do nuzlockes & I’m an avid roleplayer with Pokémon, so it can take me forever to decide on a final team. I usually overthink things take into account stuff like type balance, stats, personalities, & whether or not to evolve my team members since some Pokémon in the anime stay unevolved.

Because of this, it can take me WEEKS to figure out a team to the point that it drives me crazy (my mind feels like the Pepe Sylvia gif when I finally decide). I do stuff like flip a coin or make lists of pros & cons to help me decide, but I always second guess my choice and end up right back at square one.

If anyone else has trouble picking their teams, how do you ultimately make your final decisions?

 

[TwilightBlade]

Normally I try to have a good balance of types and dislike repeating a type if I can help it but sometimes I've done that anyways like in Sapphire where I had a Pelipper and Milotic on my team lol. I also try to avoid using legendary Pokemon because they're usually stronger than others and I hate having an unbalanced team.

The Sinnoh games are the ones where I struggled the most to pick a team especially in Diamond and Pearl since there's only two Fire-type evolutionary lines in their Sinnoh Dex, plus only 151 Pokemon to choose from in said Dex. :[

 

[Marbi Z]

I just play the game and see what’s available in the case of New Gen Pokémon Games and I may plan ahead of time if I see Pokémon I want on my Team in trailers EG Gardevoir and Tyranitar are likely Candidates for my First Scarlet Team. While if it’s a Remake like BDSP I usually know what I want from the Get Go.

 

[janejane6178]

Any Kalos Pokemon is automatically first priority

 

[Leonhart]

I don't put too much thought into forming my teams. I tend to just pick my favorite Pokemon and form my teams based mostly on that, occasionally trading for some of the hard-to-get Pokemon, version exclusives, or Pokemon that simply aren't available early in the games.

 

[treatyofversigh]

Generally speaking, I plan around a starter Pokémon. I pick the one I want, look at its final typing, and then pick others that ideally don't share either type (if it's dual-typed). I try to stick to a grass-fire-water core, and I usually like to have a psychic or poison type if possible, as well as an electric type. In new generations, I like to stick to new Pokémon only, so that can sometimes limit my options. It's usually not terribly hard to find Pokémon of different types that I like, but if I can't, I'm likely to just pick something and hope for the best. I don't like to rotate Pokémon, so the six I plan beforehand are usually the six I stick with the entire game. In Legends, I did cave and have multiple ghost and water types on my team, just because I liked them too much not to use them.

My first run through a game (and sometimes the second), I usually play as myself. I like my main version that I stick with until the new gen to be me. But I do have two characters that I roleplay (one in the "red" version, one in the "blue" version), and for them, they don't care as much about types overlapping, but I do, so that can be a struggle. One of them is an aspiring chef so I tend to give her a lot of food themed Pokémon or Pokémon that could help her with cooking in some way. The other really likes fossil Pokémon and other ancient stuff. I try to look at the Pokémon through their eyes. The fossil girl thinks Pokémon like Feebas and Tyrantrum are super cute, so I tend to go with big dino or kaiju-style Pokémon for her. I tend to go with the fire-type starter in her case, and the water-type for the other one, just for consistency's sake, though.

 

[Pokefan_1987]

I usually do research on the gyms in a game and progressively i make adjustments with either elemental advantages and if i see any pokemon i like.
If it's a older pokemon like Gardevoir i'm more likely to use it since it has consistently been proven to be useful.

A few types i don't use often are Grass and Rock. Grass has a tendency to a have very few advantages with usually slow health draining moves.
Rock pokemon usually has too many moves with rather low accuracy and i get the bad accuracy on those a lot.

 

[masdog]

I don’t plan. I tend to catch one of whatever I come across in the game and adjust my team based on the gym leader’s team and Pokémon that I like.

I would try to bring a balanced high-level team to Victory Road and the Elite 4 in games before Gen 8. In Sword and Shield, I just used the best team with type advantages in the tournament.

 

[Ishiftyounot]

Has anyone ever been incredibly indecisive when picking their in-game team for a game? I don’t do nuzlockes & I’m an avid roleplayer with Pokémon, so it can take me forever to decide on a final team. I usually overthink things take into account stuff like type balance, stats, personalities, & whether or not to evolve my team members since some Pokémon in the anime stay unevolved.

Because of this, it can take me WEEKS to figure out a team to the point that it drives me crazy (my mind feels like the Pepe Sylvia gif when I finally decide). I do stuff like flip a coin or make lists of pros & cons to help me decide, but I always second guess my choice and end up right back at square one.

If anyone else has trouble picking their teams, how do you ultimately make your final decisions?

I wish I could figure out how to roleplay with Pokemon because the idea of being a character and basing a team off of their goals seems so cool!

Making decisions for Pokemon teams was something I really struggled with in my teens, but nowadays I either already have a concept in mind for what I want to do or I mind-map it. My last two teams reflect both of these actually!

Let's Go Eevee team:

This team was based off of a concept - what if I used a Pokemon of every type + Eevee and rotated them? I'd tried to rotate teams before but it tends to get a bit overwhelming for me, but this game seemed perfect for giving it a go! Plus it makes the game a bit harder as my levels are low across the board (I'm in Silph Co. now and my team is the same level as the Team Rocket Grunts' Pokemon). I went a bit overboard and planned out which Pokemon I'd use for each major "boss" fight, if only to ensure each team member got roughly equal usage for major fights and nobody was left behind, as tends to be the case when using slow experience grouped Pokemon (Dragonite, Melmetal, Lapras, Arcanine, Snorlax, Pinsir).

Brilliant Diamond team:

This team I mind-mapped, based off of a bit of prior experience regarding the early-game of BDSP as well as some personal preferences. I split my mind-map into 4 groups:

• "Guarantees" included Electivire and Togekiss - my favourite Sinnoh Pokemon who were always going to make it onto the squad. Togekiss then had Staraptor and Roserade split off from it - Staraptor competed for the Flying type spot on the team, whilst Roserade was another Shiny Stone evolution in a game where there's only one obtainable before the post-game without grinding.
• "Trades" included Electivire (who linked to it from the "guarantees" group), Magmortar, Rhyperior, Weavile and Porygon-Z. They are all either evolved via trade with an evolutionary item or obtainable too late (or not at all) which would necessitate a trade to get them or their evolutionary item earlier.
• "Starter" only had Empoleon or Torterra because I didn't want to use Infernape (Torterra is my favourite Sinnoh starter whilst Empoleon was my first starter in Diamond - my first owned Pokemon game that I never completed). Roserade, Garchomp and Rhyperior all split from Torterra here because they share a type. The same applies to Lucario splitting from Empoleon.
• "Random" only had Weavile and Lucario, because they didn't fit any of the other groups really.

From there I narrowed down my options even further by colour coding them based upon three categories:

1. Obtainable by Floaroma Town (when you can access trading) - my experience with BDSP was that you would over-level unless you had a second team member before the first gym to split experience. Pokemon grouped here were Empoleon, Torterra, Roserade, Magmortar, Porygon-Z and Staraptor.
2. Obtainable via the Grand Underground (i.e. when you first gain access to it in Eterna City) - this group included Electivire, Togekiss and Rhyperior.
3. Obtainable after Eterna City - this group included Weavile, Lucario and Garchomp.

Togekiss and Electivire were guarantees which took spots 1 & 2. I removed the post-Eterna options and Staraptor from the options available, which led me to picking Roserade and by extension Empoleon afterwards? This took options 3 & 4 and removed Torterra and Lucario from the options. I think the nightmare of getting Porygon + Upgrade + Dubious Disc removed it from the running which only left Rhyperior and Magmortar left over, which I was happy with.

Doesn't always work - I tried the mind-map route with Let's Go earlier in the year and couldn't really decide, so it's hit-or-miss. Depends on the game really! But these are my processes.

 

[KingMinun]

Any Kalos Pokemon is automatically first priority

So you’re telling me that every game, the Kalos Pokémon take priority? Even over new ones too? Wow….

I mainly go off if I like them, but will also consider their types too. I may have Pokémon that I don’t evolve because I prefer them to their evolved form, e.g. Turtwig, Cyndaquil, Psyduck, Marill, Galarian Zigzagoon, Nickit, etc.

Although with the easy rotation system that the newer games offer, the type match ups don’t matter too much as I can always rotate them out with something else at a different point.

For the new games, I tend to have new Pokémon on my team. For a few years I had a system where I’d have a team of 6 Pokémon in a new generation, then when a remake game came out, I’d take 4 of those team members into the remake and add 2 Pokémon I hadn’t used in the remade gen the first time round e.g. DP I had garchomp, shieldon, toxicroak and turtwig on the team and took them into HGSs and added Politoed and Forretress to my team.


The only new game where I didn’t have a full team of new Pokémon was XY as I found it hard choosing a team of Pokémon I liked. I wound up reusing Minun and Staraptor on my team as only 4 Kalos Pokémon I liked out of the entire region.

 

[Red and Blue]

Most of my teams are made up of the newer Pokemon of the time but I'm not opposed to one or two older Pokemon on my team. Type wise I try to make sure each of my team member has a counter to any of the eighteen types I come across. Types like Fighting, Fire, Water, Dark, and Steel are always priorities for me.

 

[RandomCharizard]

I usually pick the Water-type first, then I pick a Dragon-type if one is available. I also always have a Fire-type and Flying-type on my team, so I choose from any available ones based on which ones have the best stats. The last two spots on my team are wildcard slots for any Pokemon I like.

 

[Mirai]

I don't overthink it I just pick the best Pokemon I can think of. My starter choice is based on which one I like the most out of the region but the other members of my team are just Pokemon with awesome stats.

 

[Ignition]

I have some criteria I generally use:

• All new Pokémon in the region they were introduced in. Main reason I’m playing a new game is for the new Pokémon. Feels like a waste to use an older one unless they have a new form personally.
• Dual Types with no repeating Types. Just for coverage but willing to break that rule occasionally like when I used Seismitoad & Krookodile at the same time during my first time through BW.
• Preferably 3 stages. Just feels like the most rewarding experience seeing a Pokémon fully raised up.
• Early encounter. Nothing’s more annoying than wanting a Pokémon but it’s found at the end of the game. I like to have my whole team by Gym 3-4.

Nowadays I play a lot of challenge runs like Nuzlockes & Monotype so my options are much more limited which is kind of the appeal for those anyway

 

[Ryker101]

I used to plan in advance, looking up locations on where they could be. I would never repeat types, use legendaries and sometimes I’d be picky about the ability. But nowadays I just improvise and it’s pretty fun. The team can overlap but it’s great being able to rotate through many different mons. I haven’t had standard playthroughs in ages, before PLA my last one was on Sun way back. With old games I usually do randomisers or nuzlockes

 

[jaden767]

I usually pick the Fire type Starter Pokemon unless the Water or Grass type has a cooler final evo. I also try to avoid using Pokemon that I trained in previous games and mostly stick with using new Pokemon from that generation and not older ones if I can avoid it.

 

[wobbanut]

I have some pokemon that I use generation after generation, like pelliper, roserade, swampert, raichu, etc. Mostly I like pokemon with a wide range of moves that can hit hard. I prefer flying, water, fire, and ground moves the most, while I use ghost, bug, and rock the least.

 

[Archangel R.J.]

I decide on my team as I play the games. Whichever Pokemon I find in the wild that looks like it would be a good team addition makes it on my team and sometimes I train over a dozen Pokemon and just rotate them around.

 

[The Teller]

Typically, for a first run-through of a new-gen game, I make sure that my team consists of only new Pokemon. There's really no point in playing a new Pokemon game if you actively avoid new Pokemon. The starter will always be in my team (usually grass). In the good ol' days, my party planning took into consideration who was going to be my surfer and who was going to be my flyer, so a water type and flying type were usually included as well. So half my team was already predetermined. Nowadays, it's usually just the first rule- new Pokemon only. I don't really care for Pokemon that don't evolve, so I tend to avoid those, though there have been exceptions (Hawlucha). I also try to have a well-balanced team, type-wise, though sometimes that leads to a team-wide weakness to one type (half my Diamond team was weak to ice, even though no one shared a type). I don't tend to care about abilities or move sets that much.

I will say that for Brilliant Diamond, I rotated between 12 Pokemon, and until I hit the Elite Four, I never had any issues with being behind in level. That was really fun for me. I used my original Diamond team and 6 Pokemon I either hadn't used in decades or never used before, so I got the best of both worlds.

For Scarlet, I'm having a lot of difficulty. I'll use the grass starter again, but beyond that, no Pokemon from the leaks are really grabbing me. The cool type combos are almost all on Pokemon that don't evolve. I guess I'm playing it by ear, which is a first for me.

 

[KyogreThunder]

I typically only use new Pokemon, unless the game introduces form changes such as Megas. I generally avoid overlapping types (although I did use both Gyarados and Staraptor in Platinum, and both Talonflame and Charizard in X). I try using Pokemon with high attacking stats and at least average Speed, and large enough movepools. I avoid using Pokemon that become available late-game (the latest I add new team members is after the 6th Gym, although I only added Swinub after the 7th Badge in SoulSilver).