Nice article! That was a fun read. I love it when other players have an interest in competitive Pokémon. However, in the section where you mentioned that players can EV train by defeating wild Pokémon, you should have mentioned Power items, which can be purchased at Delibird Presents. Those are held items with the effect of granting 10 EVs in a specific stat after defeating a Pokémon. Such items are the Power Anklet (Speed), Power Band (Special Defense), Power Bracer (Attack), Power Lens (Special Attack), Power Weight (HP), and the Power Belt (Defense). It should also be noted that the Exp. Share feature makes it even easier to EV Pokémon wearing Power items because every Pokémon that gains Experience Points also gains EVs. Thus, a player can, for example, put an entire party of six Pokémon that need their Attack stat trained and have them all hold Power Bracers. This speeds up the process entirely. The Power items also add to the usual number of EVs that the Pokémon you defeated yields as well. For instance, if you defeat a Tauros with the Power Bracer equipped, you get 10 EVs thanks to the Bracer, plus 2 EVs thanks to the Tauros. This means that you only have to defeat 21 Tauros to fully max your Attack stat with the Bracer equipped. The stat that a Pokémon yields for EVs is often based on its best stat, and the amount of EVs that a Pokémon yields after defeat often depends on their evolution stage.
For instance, Lechonk's best stat is its HP, but because it is a first-stage evolution, it only yields 1 HP EV. Second-stage evolutions or non-legendary Pokémon without an evolution yield 2 EVs, and third-stage evolutions, as well as legendary Pokémon and special Pokémon such as Paradox Pokémon and Ultra Beasts, yield 3 EVs. Some Pokémon also yield two EVs in different stats. A good example is Venomoth, which yields 1 EV for Special Attack and 1 EV for Speed. With that, you can also EV train quicker by giving both appropriate Power items to multiple Pokémon in the party that need them. Thus, each Pokémon can benefit by gaining the EVs they need after beating the same Pokémon. For instance, you can equip Power Lens to three Pokémon and Power Anklets to the other three and defeat 23 Venomoth to train both Special Attack and Speed simultaneously. It should have also been mentioned that Pokérus, the rare condition that doubles EVs gained, is not present in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. If it was, then EV training would have been much quicker. When EV training this way, only one Pokémon has to do the battling too. What I like to do is use my Persian or Gholdengo while holding an Amulet Coin to battle and have it use Pay Day or Make It Rain. That way, I can get a ton of money for simply EV training my Pokémon. I just thought that I'd mention this method in case players don't have the money for Vitamins or can't find enough Feathers.
It takes 26 Vitamins to EV train just one stat, and Vitamins can be quite expensive. It's just to let players know that you can still EV train Pokémon quickly the "hard way," even without Vitamins. Instead, it can be best to simply use Vitamins to top off EVs rather than fully train if you're short on money. Another important aspect of competitive Pokémon that you didn't mention was Tera Types. In this Generation, a Pokémon's Tera Type is very important in competitive play, as it can decide a game. For instance, Koraidon, despite being a great Pokémon and having the ability to set the sun, gets completely wrecked by Fairy-types because of its Dragon/Fighting typing. However, if you make its Tera Type Fire, not only does it resist Fairy-types, but it also benefits from its own sun, making it even better with moves such as Flare Blitz. Tera Blast is a very useful move for Pokémon that might not have coverage based on their Tera Type. You should have mentioned how players should grind Tera Raids to collect 50 Tera Shards of a certain type, which would allow them to change their Pokémon's Tera Type in the restaurant in Medali. Either way, this is a very good article. To answer the question in the article, though, I am going to EV train the Greninja I caught in my Raid, as well as some of its offspring after breeding it. I have much more to do than that when Pokémon HOME becomes compatible though.
