Yes, Shoddy Battle is a great way to test your team before you get serious in-game.
And also, it's near impossible to correctly train your Pokemon with IVs / EVs / Natures early on. You're always going to face a random in-game trainer early on, who uses random Pokemon; that forces you to mess up all your EV points.
Never use Psypokes though. Go to
Smogon.