Resource Hub
Everyone has to start somewhere! Many new or returning players may struggle to find VGC-specific resources. From the basics of strategy to team construction or format information, knowing where to read and who’s knowledge to trust can be a hard task. In an information-based game such as ours, the right resources are critical to both learning to play, elevating your game or staying up to date with changes between formats. In response to these challenges, we at Trainer Tower have compiled a convenient resource index for every player, containing all of the most foundational and essential information in one place!
General Resources
Starting out in VGC
These articles are helpful in understanding the essentials and getting involved in the game.
- An Introduction to the Video Game Championships – An official Pokémon article that gives a very basic rundown of how VGC works.
- Making the Jump to Video Game Competitive Play – An official Pokémon article that gives a rundown on the battle format, team preview, the clock, attack effects, partnering and held items.
- A Comprehensive Introduction to VGC – Tamtam’s complete guide to VGC.
- Play! Pokemon Glossary – A list of definitions for common terms used in VGC.
- VGC Glossary – Victory Road goes into more common phrases used in VGC and although it’s originally written in Spanish it’s still very helpful.
- Event Locator – The event locator is the most useful piece of info to find upcoming VGC events all across the globe.
- PokeCal – A Pokémon Event Locator/Subscription Tool allowing you to search easily for events, and subscribe to the calendar.
Format Specific Information
These are general resources that are good to bookmark and can be referred to throughout the season.
- VGC20 Play! Pokémon Season – A break down of rules, championship point breakdown, qualification periods and travel awards.
- VGC20 Events – Announced Regional, Special Event and International Championship locations for the VGC20 Season.
- VGC19 Speed Tiers – Speed Tiers for the VGC19 Ultra Series (legal until January 4 2020).
- VGC19 Sample Teams – Sample teams that players can use to help them get into the format.
- VGC19 Sample Spreads – Sample spreads searchable by Pokémon.
- Pokemon VGC Championshipoints Leaderboards – Official Pokémon Leaderboards.
- Pokemon Global Link QR Rental Teams – Must be logged in to use them as each QR code generated is tied to the account trying to access it.
Beginners
General Content
If you’re struggling to get a team and/or Pokémon ready in-game, these articles should help.
- EV Training Hotspots in Alola – VGC veteran DaWoblefet goes through in-depth on how to efficiently EV Train your Pokemon in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.
- An Intro to Teambuilding – VGC Veteran Smith talks through effective ways of team-building your team and writes it in a way where it’s not specific to anyone VGC format in particular.
- Guide to Competitive Teambuilding In-game – NaociakVGC goes through everything you need to know when creating your competitive team.
- Gen 7 Mechanic Changes – Serebii goes through all mechanic changes that occured in Sun and Moon.
Advanced
General
- Guide to Probability in Pokemon – An article that goes through RNG and probability in Pokemon, how to build a team that favors RNG in your favor, as well as how to minimize bad RNG and probability in your favor.
- Pokémes Amis: Getting Involved in Your Local VGC Community – VGC Player and resident Olympian Mindape goes through how to successfully build a strong local community and encourage players to improve their skill.
Improving Battle Skills
These articles and videos are designed to help shed some light on some important topics that are crucial to know in VGC.
- Trainer Tip Tuesday – Major VGC Veteran Cybertron goes through important VGC fundamentals.
- Cognitive Biases in Competitive Pokémon – Jiwa goes through some common cognitive biases in Pokemon and what to do about them.
- Guide to Team Preview – In this video, 2016 World Champion Wolfey alongside prominent singles player Aim goes through how to approach team preview.
- Defend Yourself With A Question – 4 times Regional champion Braverius talks how to justify the choices you make when in battle.
- Making the Predictions in VGC – 2014 US National Champion Alex Ogloza talks in this video about how predictions in VGC work and how to do them properly.
- Playing to Win – Veteran Zog talks covers what attitude successful players share from his very interesting perspective.
Competition
These articles and videos focus on what you can do to improve your game, both in and out of battle, and some habits that are helpful to form.
- Caution, Trainer Under Pressure – Sportsmanship in VGC – How to be a gracious winner and a good loser.
- Why we Play Pokemon – An inspiring pep talk on why so many people enjoy playing VGC.
- 7 Tips on How to win a Regional Champion – 5x Regional Champion Cybertron shares his tips on how to win Regionals. Article is applicable to events on all level.
- Top Players Talk: Mental Preparation for Nationals – Cybertron and BattleRoom share their thoughts on how they prepare for major weekend long tournaments.
- Preparing Yourself for Competition – VGC Player and 2016 Olympic Athlete Mindape shares how your background preparation can help make you a better Pokemon Trainer.
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Trainers – This article talks about the good habits successful trainers all share and a good attitude to develop.
- Stepping it Up: Small Ways to Improve Your Game – Although written during VGC 2013, this articles talks about the small things you can do to improve that can have a lasting impact on your matches.
- Three Habits of Ineffective Players – This articles talks about the mistakes many players make and how to fix them. Works well with the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Trainers” article.
- No More Johns? – A Mini-Treatise on Consistency and Efficiency – This article talks about encouraging and even forcing yourself to not make excuses for when you make bad decisions.
- Ten Minute Tournament Tips: Episode 1: Nutrition – Breakfast – European VGC Commentator Osirus shares his thoughts on how some tips on how to eat well throughout your tournament run.
EV Spreads
Check out these guides to learn about EV Spreads, how to make them better, and how to make them fit well into your teams.
- AchiEVing Perfection: Creating Specialized EV Spreads Part One and Part 2: Two Part Article series on how to create complex EV Spreads to serve certain roles.
- 252 Times Better than 252/252: Article on the benefits of using simplistic EV Spreads.
- Bulking Up: A Guide to Defensive EV Spreads: Article on the strengths of using defensive EV Spreads.
Useful Links and Tools
Tools
- Pokemon Showdown – Online battling simulator. Useful for both building teams and battling other players within minutes.
- Results Database – Online results database by Trainer Tower collecting and displaying all VGC event results.
- VGC Damage Calculator – Tool to calculate the damage of the different attacks that your Pokémon make or receive.
- VGC Survival Calc – Allows you to find EVs of a Pokémon to resist certain attacks.
- Team Sheet Generator – Teamsheet generator from Pokémon Showdown by Jake White.
- VGCStats – Website dedicated to collecting usage from all Midseason Showdowns, Regionals, and International Championships.
- Pikalytics – Competitive VGC Rankings with Spreads/Moves.
- Pokemon Forever Teambuilder – Shows how your team’s typing works versus all 18 types in the game
VGC Websites
- Smogon VGC Forums – A subforum on Smogon for VGC Players.
- Victory Road – VGC Website in English and Spanish.
- Nimbasa City Post – Website that exists to analyzing the VGC metagame, both on each Pokemon and cores in the metagame.
- /r/stunfisk – A Subreddit for competitive Pokemon players with a helpful community. Also has a lot of aggregated content from other websites.
- Mirage Island – The main hub for VGC for the Singapore community.
- VGC with Hats – Canadian VGC website
- Indonesian Pokemon Community – Indonesian VGC website
Facebook Groups
- Pokemon VGC Group
- UK & Ireland VGC
- Pokemon Australia
- Pokemon VGC University
- K.L. Raikous (Malaysia)
- The Mirage Island (Singapore)
- European VGC 2016
- Pokemon UAE (United Arab Emirates)
Content Creators
International
- TrainerTowerPKMN (Twitch)
- NuggetBridge (YouTube | Twitch)
- Pokemon VGC_EU (Twitch)
- Pokemon (Twitch)
- Pokemon VGC (Twitch)
- CriticalHit.gg (Twitch)
United States
- PokemonLabs (Twitch) – Streams Southern California VGC events
- Summit City Gym (YouTube | Twitch) – Streams Midwest VGC events
- Liberty Garden (YouTube | Twitch) – Streams New York & New Jersey VGC Events
- Florida VGC (Twitch)
- Wolfe Glick (YouTube | Twitch)
- Aaron Zheng (YouTube | Twitch)
- Alex Ogloza (YouTube | Twitch)
- James Baek (YouTube | Twitch)
- Ray Rizzo (YouTube | Twitch)
- Joshua Lorcy (YouTube | Twitch)
- Tommy Cooleen (YouTube | Twitch)
- Gabby Snyder (YouTube | Twitch)
- Giovanni Costa (YouTube | Twitch)
- Ryuzaki (Twitch)
- MasterMarkVGC (Twitch)
- Uncle Lou (YouTube)
- The Hyper Voice Podcast (YouTube)
- THATSAplusONE (YouTube | Twitch)
- MrTalent (YouTube | Twitch)
- Jack TheBattler (YouTube)
- PokeaimMD (YouTube, Twitch)
- LugiaVGC (YouTube | Twitch)
- DaWoblefet (YouTube | Twitch)
- MoxieBoosted (YouTube | Twitch)
Europe
- Hibiki – Austria (YouTube | Twitch)
- Barry Anderson – UK (Youtube)
- Markus Stadter – Germany (YouTube | Twitch)
- Jocario – Germany (Twitch)
- Jamie Boyt – UK (YouTube | Twitch)
- Lee Provost – UK (Youtube | Twitch)
- Sekiam – Spain (YouTube | Twitch)
- Haricot [TV] – France (YouTube | Twitch)
- TheSaxlad – UK (Twitch)
- PokeAlex – Spain (Twitch)
- LouLou The Pikachu – UK (YouTube)
- Rykku – Spain (YouTube | Twitch)
- Koffing Sonriente – Spain (YouTube)
- Zumbo De Baya – Spain (YouTube | Twitch)
- Carfer97 – Spain (YouTube)
Rest Of The World