Back in 2020, I wrote this blog to help casual and beginning Pokémon players (as well as those unfamiliar with Pokémon Showdown) to be ready to to participate in Divine Crusader's Pokémon Showdown tournament back then, and now that I'm holding a Pokémon Showdown tournament of my own, I figured that I'd write a new blog to help people to prepare for it.

First of all, as I mentioned above, the tournament will be conducted on Pokémon Showdown, which is an online Pokémon battle simulator that won't work in some devices' web browsers (such as my own O2DS's one, or that of my mom's old BlackBerry), but that should work on most PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
(It works pretty good on this REALLY old tablet with Android 5.1 that I'm using RN, for example.)

If you can play this battle replay (of a battle that me and DCTheGamr had on Showdown last year) in your device's web browser, then you should be able to battle on Pokémon Showdown in it as well.
(My mom's old BlackBerry could load the webpages for battle replays like that, but couldn't actually play them, nor could it handle actual Pokémon battles on Showdown.)

It is worth noting that even if you can't use Pokémon Showdown in your device's web browser you can still come up with a team for somebody else to use in the tournament for you, similar to what I myself had tried to do back in 2020 with Divine Crusader's tournament.
(Kind of a way participating in the tournament indirectly.)

On that note, I'll now explain how Pokémon Showdown's teambuilder works.

The teambuilder essentially allows you to enter any sort of Pokémon that could possibly exist in any of the core series Pokémon games and start battling with it, rather than having to catch or breed Pokémon and train them like you would in an actual Pokémon game.

In the case of my tournament, it's going to use a NatDex format (specifically NatDex Doubles OU), which means that not only are Pokémon that exist in Scarlet/Violet Version allowed (as well as Terastallizing), but so are all of those that exist in the Gen 8 games and the Gen 7 games, as well as things like Mega Evolution and Z-Moves that were removed with "Dexit" in Gen 8.
(No Dynamaxing allowed, though.)

This means that you can do all sorts of cool things that wouldn't normally be possible in any of those aforementioned Pokémon games, such as having a Regidrago holding a Dragonium Z use its signature move Dragon Energy as a 200 power Dragon-type Z-Move (which would be strengthened by its Dragon's Maw Ability BTW), or having a Blastoise holding a Blastoisinite Mega Evolve while using Shell Smash (which it couldn't learn in Gens 6 or 7) to double its Attack, Sp. Attack, and Speed stats.
(The possibilities are nearly endless.)

Because of the high level of flexibility in this format, whether you're more familiar with the older Pokémon games for the 3DS and DS (like myself), or whether you're into the Gen 8 or 9 games for the Switch, you shouldn't have too much trouble coming up with a team of 6 eligible Pokémon for the tournament, so long as your team doesn't include any of the (mostly Special) Pokémon that have been banned from it.

[Spoiler=List of Banned Pokémon]Annihilape
Arceus (all formes)
Calyrex-Ice
Calyrex-Shadow
Dialga
Eternatus
Genesect
Giratina
Giratina-Origin
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Koraidon
Kyogre
Kyurem-White
Lugia
Lunala
Magearna
Melmetal
Mewtwo
Miraidon
Necrozma-Dawn Wings
Necrozma-Dusk Mane
Palkia
Rayquaza
Reshiram
Shedinja
Solgaleo
Urshifu-Single-Strike
Xerneas
Yveltal
Zacian
Zacian-Crowned
Zamazenta-Crowned
Zekrom[/Spoiler]

Now, as for how you actually enter your team of Pokémon...

There are basically 2 different ways of entering your team into Pokémon Showdown, either by entering them as text, or by using the teambuilder itself to customize your Pokémon.

If you're entering your Pokémon into Showdown as text, it should look something like this:

Shellshock (Blastoise-Mega) (F) @ Blastoisinite
Ability: Rain Dish
Shiny: Yes
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Pulse
- Dragon Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Shell Smash

Copying this and pasting it into Showdown's teambuilder would result in a female Shiny Level 100 Blastoise nicknamed Shellshock, holding a Blastoisinite, with its Hidden Ability Rain Dish (prior to Mega Evolving), a Timid Nature, maxed out Sp. Attack and Speed stats, the lowest possible Attack stat that it could have, and that knows the moves Water Pulse, Dragon Pulse, Aura Sphere, and Shell Smash

It is worth noting that while you have to set a Tera Type for each of your 6 Pokémon, Pokémon holding Mega Stones or Z-Crystals won't be able to Terastallize anyway, and so Shellshock's Tera Type here makes no difference whatsoever.

There are countless individual Pokémon sets like this one as well as entire teams out there for those who might have trouble coming up with one of their own, and if you're interested in doing so, it is simply a matter of copying them from whatever website you find them on and then pasting them into the teambuilder on Showdown, and you can even make whatever adjustments that you might want to make to them afterwards using the teambuilder.

If you're using the teambuilder itself to build your own team of Pokémon from scratch, however, you have the added benefit of being able to see all of the different move, held item, and Ability options available, as well as being able to tweak your Pokémon's stats by adjusting their EVs and Nature and such.
(Which is great if you obsess over this stuff as much as I do, lol!)

As for advice on what sort of team you should actually be using for the tournament, here's a few things to keep in mind:

1. Whichever 6 Pokémon you're using will be shown on the [A=/blog/view.php?id=98687#:~:text=the%20winner%20of%20the%20tournament%20will%20have%20a%20special%20square%20added%20to%20this%20year's%20SDK%20Quilt%20honoring%20them%20and%20their%20team%20of%20Pok%C3%A9mon%20that%20led%20them%20to%20victory]special SDK Quilt square[/A] if you win the tournament, alongside whatever avatar you chose to use on Pokémon Showdown during the tournament.
(Which you can change your by typing /avatar in the "self chat" window on Showdown, BTW.)

2. This a 6v6 Double Battle format, so all 6 of your Pokémon are going to be used in each battle (unlike VGC rules), and coordination between whichever 2 Pokémon you have out at any given time is going to be essential.
(You wouldn't want to accidentally take out one of your own Pokémon with a move like Earthquake, for example.)

3. Any Pokémon on your team that isn't holding a Mega Stone or a Z-Crystal is going to be able to Terastallize, although you can only Terastallize 1 of them each battle.

4. While most Special Pokémon and some Mythical Pokémon are banned, others aren't, and Pokémon that know moves that they can only know by having been received from a particular special event (such as a Victini that knows V-create and/or Blue Flare) are options as well.

5. While duplicate Pokémon aren't allowed, duplicate held items are, and so if you want to give every Pokémon on your team a Focus Sash (which can actually work pretty well BTW) or something you can.

6. There are plenty of ways to take advantage of Terastallization in Double Battles, such as changing a Pokémon's type to Ghost to avoid being hit by an enemy's Fake Out or an ally's Explosion, or changing it to an Electric-type to make an ally Pokémon's Bulldoze super effective against it in order to activate a Weakness Policy.
(There's plenty of other tricks like these, as well.)

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Anyway, below are a bunch of links to blogs and stuff here on Paint, and also some to other websites that I believe will help y'all to be better prepared for the tournament:

Draconid Joashu's Pokémon Center

Contains links to all of my Pokémon blogs here on Paint, some Pokémon blogs written by others here, countless helpful links to Pokémon websites, as well as replays of all of my battles on Pokémon Showdown.

My beginner's Guide to Competitive Pokémon (by Dedode)

My beginner's Guide to Competitive Pokémon II (by Dedode)

Contains basic information about competitive Pokémon battling for beginners.

Smogon's NatDex Doubles Page

Contains detailed information about the NatDex Doubles format, its rules, its metagame, as well as a number of good sample teams that can be used in it.

Pokémon Showdown's Damage Calculator

EXTREMELY useful for calculating exactly how much damage your Pokémon's moves can inflict against potential opponents, as well as how much damage their moves can inflict against your Pokémon.

Pokémon Database

A cool website for looking up what the stats, moves, and Abilities of different Pokémon, and that also has a number of good Pokémon sets on it as well.

Smogon's Battledex

Also a good website for looking up the stats of Pokémon and such, but typically with much more detailed information about their recommended Pokémon sets.
(It's noticeably laggier for me than Pokémon Database is, though.)

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Anyway, if anyone here has any additional questions about any of this stuff, or if anyone else here has any useful information or links that they'd like to share with others to help them to prepare for my upcoming Pokémon tournament, please feel free to share them in the comments.