>>15953470Go on Showdown and start dicking around with Cookie Cutter Smogon sets for your favorites.
You will lose.
Ask yourself WHY you lost; was it certain move types that gave you too much trouble? Switch out a couple mons for similar ones with a typing that resists it. Was it that your team had no way of dealing with certain types? Switch around your movepools for better coverage.
Try again.
Over time, this will narrow the field; "ice was a good coverage type for dealing with the pseudo-dragons, but my best attackers with ice-type moves couldn't go first and died anyway. I need to get that coverage on faster mons, or switch to priority. I wonder what mons can use Ice Shard well..." "I figured that after one Swords Dance this mon would be a real threat, but I keep having to switch him out because he can't take a hit. Maybe I could invest some more EVs in his defenses and HP..."
etc.
Over time (and a lot of losses) you'll have built a team with good SYNERGY, which you can switch between easily to cover their weaknesses and emphasize their strengths. From there, you'll probably have centered on a team of 6 good mons you can try to build in game.
The interesting thing is, as you've been doing this, you'll have started to develop the skills needed to play the game well; an ability to predict the opponent's moves based on what's common, an intuitive sense of what isn't going to go first when it matters or what's definitely going to die in one hit, and what you can use in different circumstances to make the opponent start reacting to your choices rather than you reacting to theirs ("momentum").
Once you have these skills, it's easy to get creative; you're already able to think synergistically, and when building a mon you can see where its weaknesses lie and know that they can be covered by other team choices. This makes it easier to look at new mons/builds and immediately know how they can fit into your team, and what advantages/disadvantages they have.
