what advice would you give a new player?

Hypothetical scenario: you're approached by someone who wants to get into competitive battling and they want some advice. You're allowed to give one piece of advice. What is it?

I would just say learn the meta-game and the general fundamentals of playing the game.

Give them the bulbapedia links to EV and IV training.

Use a popular team to understand the basics of team building.

Externally:

I would simply give them a link to EV's and IV's, and they would be able to figure it out from there.

Internally:

"Strong Pokemon. Weak Pokemon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with the Pokemon they love best." -Karen, Pokemon G/S/C/HG/SS

It's just Pokemon. You can study the game and get really good without becoming one of the countless CBB-tier saltminers who take the game way too seriously. You need to play a lot to get good. Want to make ladder or tournament play not suck? Play the game with joy. Don't get stressed or salty about it and maintain some perspective.

Practice. You can say "learn the meta" or give people tips on team building. In the end though what it really comes down to is practising the skills you learn and battling often. That's how you learn the meta, learn how to make good teams and it's how you learn to think on your feet which is an essential skill.

Use whichever Pokémon you enjoy using and have fun training it!

All the fan favorites are trash

runningO said:

All the fan favorites are trash

Click to expand...

That's uh... not strictly accurate. A lot of fan favourites are extremely viable.

Ehh. Gimmiepie already took my advice, so I'm going to give an unorthodox answer. Study the Principles of Chess and abstract them out onto Pokemon. I've found that you can use some ideas from Chess in Pokemon Battles.

Competitive play is a lot of work. Don't forget why we play Pokemon games in the first place. HAVE FUN! for I know a lot of players with zero chill and it's toxic and can potentially ruin playing for you. Again, just enjoy pokemon battle. HAVE FUN!

Watch some youtuber playing it to progress.

If you don't know how to make a team you can experiment random battle for a while.

Please don't stall.