It is the year of our Lord 2025, and the meta in my favourite game, the Digimon TCG, is at an all-time low (in my opinion). But I am hearing of salvation in the form of Pokémon champions. In this promised land, there is no bricking, and god willing, there will be no solitaire loops to sit through for 10 minutes while you await the sweet release of the OTK.
So, in plain English, I want to shift from competitive Digimon TCG to competitive Pokémon VGC. I am aware of a local shop that runs about 2 events a month, and I live close enough to London that there should be a few major events that I can attend next year. But, I have a small obstacle before I can really consider any of that: I have never played VGC before. As a child, I loved the Pokémon games, and I have watched some VGC content over the years, but I have never dabbled in it myself. So, I will be sharing my adventures here to chronicle my (hopeful) rise through the ranks to become the very best (like no one ever was…).
Week one begins with me assuming the best thing I could do to progress my minimal knowledge would be to slam some games on Pokémon Showdown. However, to double-check this, I joined a coaching Discord and shamelessly asked for some free advice on where to begin. From here, I was given a spreadsheet of 100 meta teams, so I grabbed the first team on the list and proceeded to grind. Since I plan to start attending locals when Champions drops, I’m focusing on grinding Showdown for now to build fundamentals, then I’ll reassess once we know the details of the first regulation.
In my initial games, I ignored Landorus and Urshifu to keep things simple for myself. And somehow I was able to win about half my games. The strategy was simple: lead Archaludon and Pelipper, then follow with some major panic swapping of the Pelipper into my other mons as the situation called for it. Through repetition, I began to understand the basics of weather control, such as preserving my Pelipper for future rain setting, or leading Incineroar so that I can Parting Shot into Pelipper in time for Archaludon to fire a 1-turn Electro Shot and take the weather back from a team I would assume would start with their own weather setter. As well as this, I now know all the moves and abilities of the four “core” Pokémon I was using.
It was at this point that a lad in the Discord I joined took pity on me and decided to try to give me some advice. First, he informed me that the two mons I had been ignoring were actually some of the best in the meta right now, so after messing around with some of his teams as he coached me, I continued my grind, but this time, I would actually use all 6 mons. And by about game 100, I was becoming confident about who to bring to each game (well, not every game, but a lot more than when I started). By the end of these 100 games, I had gained 100 ELO and had about a 50% win rate.
It was also around this time that I did a couple of best-of-3 open team sheet games with a friend of mine who has dabbled with VGC a bit. And with a little difficulty, I was able to reverse sweep both times after he dunked me in both game 1s. This could be a good sign of my ability to adapt to given strategies.
Then on my final day of the week, I picked up a Sun team from a prior regulation by THE Wolfe Glick. It may have been outdated, but this low on the ELO ladder, that does not matter, and I seemed to be able to win more frequently with his team than the rain team I had been grinding. I was informed by my generous friend that this team would fall off on the ladder quickly, so I think I will try to find a good Sun team with Torkoal so that I can enjoy this style of gameplay a bit longer, while getting practice in the current format.
All in all, I am happy with how week 1 has gone. The road ahead looks long and difficult, but I am enjoying things so far, and feeling tangible progress this week has me excited to see how good I can push myself. While grinding this as-of-yet unbuilt Sun team this week, I also plan to use the tool Anki to learn things like type matchups or interactions, which is something I hope will cement my learning long term.
Week 2 begins with me grabbing the sun team gifted to me by my Poké Mentor. It still uses the ever-so key Torkoal with Incineroar and Farigiraf from the Wolfe team, but this time pairs them with Walking Wake, Raging Bolt, and Flutter Mane.
The main goal of the team and the week is to set up Trick Room effectively and start sweeping with Torkoal’s Eruption and Farigiraf’s Hyper Voice. Luckily, Raging Bolt and Walking Wake can both comfortably hold their own and really cause havoc with Torkoal’s Helping Hand when Trick Room isn’t active. If only I knew what to do with the Flutter Mane though…
For now, I’m trying to keep the mentality that win rate doesn’t really matter yet. I mainly track it so that I can see if a certain team worked really well off the bat for me. That way, when I look back, I will see if any teams worked well for me naturally.
Some losses are frustrating, but I think that normally comes from my opponent just absolutely gapping me on knowledge (which is understandable at this point). Overall, I would say I am thoroughly enjoying the grind and am happy to see tangible improvements in my ability to make reads or cover myself for potential misplays I have made in the past.
I got a 49% win rate in this week’s 100 games, similar to what I achieved last week with the rain team. Being in the pleb ELO and winning about half my games at least means I am not terrible at the game, which, for the first couple of weeks, is what I would consider a good start.
One thing I am loving about this week’s team is the pure ecstatic feeling I get spamming Eruption on Torkoal after setting Trick Room and sweeping an entire team. This style of gameplay is a lot of fun when it gets going, and feels more explosive and exciting than the rain team’s strategy.
I don’t feel like I lean on the sweep too much, so I am still getting experience trying to clear Pokémon with the rest of the squad.
Getting Torkoal in after setting Trick Room can be quite hard for me. My best plan was to spam recoil moves on my Incineroar and hope my opponent would KO it for a safe switch. From there, I hoped there were enough turns of Trick Room remaining to either sweep or nearly sweep.
This highlighted how fragile my game plan can be when I rely on my opponent to help enable it rather than creating those opportunities myself.
Throughout the earlier part of the week, and still at points toward the end, I struggled with being blindsided by Tera types in closed team sheets. While I could try to abuse this myself, I worry it would become a crutch, especially since tournament play uses open team sheets.
Because of this, I am unsure how much this issue can even be addressed during Showdown ladder grinds. Predicting surprise Tera types often feels like a fool’s errand. For now, I will ignore it and focus on more transferable skills that apply to open team sheet formats, and seek advice from stronger players when possible.
The most team-specific issue I faced was learning how to use Thunderclap properly. Since Raging Bolt is fairly popular, understanding this interaction feels critical. I was often punished by opponents switching, not using moves that trigger it, or clicking it when I was already faster and should have chosen a safer option.
Although I improved over the week, I still made this mistake more than I would like. Going forward, I need to be more disciplined and resist clicking it unless it is genuinely game-deciding or low-risk if it fails.
Something new I introduced this week was using Anki to learn type matchups. I try not to look at a type chart during games, as I do not want to rely on it. Instead, I am hoping spaced repetition helps lock these interactions into memory.
One week is not really enough time to judge its effectiveness, but I have already picked up a few matchups, such as Ghost being super effective against itself, so it seems worthwhile.
Once I finish my current deck focused on type effectiveness, I plan to add cards for recognising the types of common meta Pokémon as well.
I am also considering rotating in matches with older teams each week, so I continue to get exposure to a wider variety of Pokémon.
Next week, I plan to put together a team dedicated to Perish Trap strategies. I have typically done well with rogue decks in Digimon TCG, so hopefully this translates here. If nothing else, I should at least learn how to beat them.
I had a lot of fun learning about speed control and spread moves. Of the two teams, this was my favourite to play. Teams that build toward a strong endgame win condition may be my preferred style.
It was especially satisfying to learn how to safely set up Trick Room. Early on I struggled significantly, but by the end of the week I felt confident bringing Incineroar into many matchups to Fake Out or flinch threats so Farigiraf could set it up.
My newfound respect for setup Pokémon like Farigiraf will hopefully carry forward into better focus and targeting decisions with future teams.