A good Pokemon Sword and Shield team should be a strong balance of attack and defense. Having powerful fighters while covering for their inevitable weaknesses, whether it be an elemental type or a statistical deficit. Players all over the world are now shaping out their best teams to dominate the Galar metagame, and you can bet it'll be a challenge to keep up in online battles without considering what they'll likely be running.
Nintendo have given us up to 400 Pokemon to build our team around and we'll go through all the essential typings and some possible Pokemon for you and your journey in the Galar Region.
Here are our tips and tricks for building the perfect team.
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Essential Typings
This may be the most vital component of your Pokemon team, some typings are a must-have for taking on the Galar Region. We can say some of these Pokemon typings are essential to defeating the gym leaders throughout the Galar Region and how versatile they can be with the wide array of moves they learn.
Some of the no-brainers to include on your team are Pokemon that can learn or are the typing of:
- Water
- Fire
- Grass
The first three typings of the first gym leaders in the Galar Region are Water, Fire and Grass - a great way to introduce trainers to typings.
Water is strong against Fire, Ground and Rock. It is weak against Electric and Grass.
Fire is strong against Grass, Ice, Bug and Steel. It is weak against Water, Ground and Rock.
Grass is strong against Water, Ground and Rock. It is weak against Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying and Bug.
Although it is not necessary to have a specific Pokemon with this typing, having a Pokemon that can learn some moves from this group would be seen as an essential.
Some Pokemon that you can possibly catch and add to your team are:
- RolyColy/Carkol (Ground/Fire)
- Vulpix/Growlithe (Fire)
- Applin (Grass/Dragon)
- Seedot (Grass)
- Wooper (Water)
- Magikarp/Gyarados (Water)
- Leafeon (Grass)
- Pikachu (Electric)
Eevee makes a great addition to any team as it can evolve into many different type pokemon helping you fill a hole in your roster.
Read More: Pokemon Sword and Shield: Tips and Tricks Tutorial For Beginners And Experts
Strong Types To Consider
Moving onwards from the three core typings of Pokemon, we can now look at some typings that are some of the strongest in the game and it never hurts to not have one of these.
Firstly, dragon types have always been some of the most formidable Pokemon throughout the games, they are always the strongest Pokemon in any region and have some of the best move sets in the game. There is ample amount of dragon-type Pokemon in the Galar Region, so this shouldn't be an issue.
Other typings to consider for your team are psychic Pokemon that has access to fairy type moves, as it would be a direct counter to multiple typings; and of course electric types. Direct counters to water Pokemon as well as flying-types, and their hard-hitting moves, make it crucial for this game. Some Pokemon that you can catch are:
- Toxel
- Yamper
- Ralts
- Hatenna
- Dreepy
- Axew
Match Typings
It's important to know which types have an advantage or disadvantage in battle, this chart is very handy to understanding this:
