Ha, well when I sued to battle competitvley I normally tried to stick to 1-2 teams. Focus on them and make the team well balanced. Normally, defensive temas would fare best, but I always liked heavily offensive team, especially when I was laddering. As far as in game goes, I just caught Pokemon I lied and thought were strong. I like to play Pokemon all sorts of ways, I've played through the games multiple times. Right now I am doing a water Monotype challenge for Pokemon Pearl. It's very fun! ^^