5th Gen Advice for someone beginning competitive battling?

I'm terribly sorry if there was a threat made on this already. I looked through them and couldn't find one myself.

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of the Pokemon World Championships videos this evening and have decided to begin competitive battling. I know basic information about EVs/IVs and such, and I have a lot of experience with the games in general, but I've never really gotten into honing my team into a fit-for-battle competitive team.

So, I was wondering, are there any battlers out there with advice for a newbie competitive battler? I know this isn't very specific, but I've been curious for a while now.

Try looking around in our Battle Center. It's actually made specifically for competitive battling, and they do have some guides there I believe. Otherwise, this section is for Fifth Generation discussion only, meaning the games, Pokemon, characters, features, etc, but since we have a section for competitive battling, that's why it doesn't belong here.


Good luck!