Hello everyone. I know this site is already crowded with Pokemon blogs, but I really felt like writing this guide since there are more members trying to get into the competitive battles, and the fact that I didn't find any blogs about the subject. Of course I can't fit all the teachings in one blog. We will start from the basics to the more complex stuff. I hope someone finds this useful, I'm not going to make a detailed guide, I encourage everyone to research even more about the metagame, take this as an introduction to the concepts, and if you got any suggestion please leave it in the comments. Anyways let's begin.

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The Competition

So, let's get straight to the point. What's the best way to battle someone and assert dominance, win an argument or impress the boy or girl you like? The answer is, a Pokemon Battle. At first it seems easy, just make a team with high level Pokemon and beat the shit out of your opponent Pokemon. Pretty easy, uh? After all you beat all the gyms, the league and even won 25 straight battles in the Battle Tower, you kinda know the types chart too. Then the day arrives where you get to fight some annoying nerd from the internet. The first thing you notice is that his Pokemon are level 100, he has no Charizard or Nidoking... he instead has a Blissey and Skarmory, also everyone carries an item. Then the battle starts, but it's a quick match, even though your Pokemon were high and had great moves he managed to one shot some of them while he was healing and you barely were doing damage. That's bullshit you think, how come his Pokémon are better than yours? Well, it's true that some Pokemon are stronger than others, but it's in your actions that you will find victory once you get a good team of strong Pokemon. How do you win battles with commons Pokemon then? if we want to answer this question its better to start from the very basics and make sure we don't forget anything

The Very Basics

Types

This part is one of the most (if not THE MOST) important aspect of a Pokemon battle, in order to effectively deal damage to your opponent you have to take into account the type/s of each Pokemon in the battle and the moves they may use.
Take a look at the chart

As you can see there are a total of 18 elemental types, each one plays a defensive and offensive role in a Pokemon: every pokemon is based on one or two types and every move they learn causes one kind of type of elemental damage.
The game gives you hints about the effectiveness of the attacks against your Pokemon or your opponent's Pokemon. Some types are strong against others and cause twice (2x) the damage compared to neutral types.The game will tell you when one type is stronger than another by saying "It's Super Effective" after the move is used.
In contrast, if a type is weaker to another "It's not very effective" and cause half (.5x) damage compared to neutral types.
Also, there are some types that won't even hit another type (0x). The game will tell you "It Doesn't Affect" if you come across an Immune type. Some types are even immune to certain Moves or Status Conditions.
Then we come to STAB attacks (or Same-Type-Attack-Bonus) the 1.5x bonus multiplier Pokemon get when using a damaging move that's the same type as them.

Putting things together

With the things we learned we can expect some scenarios, these are some examples that use the concepts we just learned.
· If Fire type Pokemon uses an Fire type move on a Bug/Steel Pokémon it will deal 6x of damage. This is because both Bug and Steel are weak to Fire so 2x + 2x = 4x. On top of that it was an stab attack so total damage is multiplied by 1.5, resulting in 6x of damage. Note: In most cases this would be a 1 HIT KO.
· Fighting-type attacks on a Flying/Poison-type Pokemon mix for .25x damage. This is because Fighting-types moves aren't strong against either Flying or Poison types. Note: The perfect condition to switch your Pokémon to an attack that will barely deal damage.
· Ghost-type attacks on a Normal/Psychic-type Pokemon will cause no damage. Even though a Ghost-type is strong against a Psychic-type, Normal-type Pokemon are immune to Ghost-type attacks.

Conclusion

To get to the top is not that easy, the type chart is one of the many things you'll have to remember in order to perform well in every battle. Although the new generations battles tell you whenever an attack is Super Effective or Not very Effective, nothing will tell you if its immune or if your next attack will deal 4x damage. So it's highly recommended to memorize the chart or have it by your side in battles.
That's it for today, next lesson will be about Base Stats and Battle Stats. Good luck!