Beginner's Guide 2 | Building Your First Team: Resources, Recruitment, and Training Explained

You'll receive a starter team right when you begin the game. But to add more Pokémon or power up their stats, you'll need to start building up resources.

1. The Most Important Resource: VP (Victory Points)

• VP is the game's universal currency: used to recruit Pokémon, train stats, and buy items.
• VP cannot be purchased with real money; it can only be earned through gameplay.

2. How to Earn VP

• Battle Tutorial: Complete the Doubles battle tutorial and earn 10,000 VP immediately, don't skip this.
• Daily Missions: Simply log in, recruit a Pokémon, and play one Ranked Battle each day to earn 500 VP.
• Weekly Missions: Log in 5 times and recruit Pokémon 5 times in a week for 4,000 VP. Complete all battle-related missions for an additional 5,000 VP.
• Starter Missions: One-time rewards totaling 10,000 VP.
• Ranked Battle: Earn approximately 300 VP for a win, and around 150 VP even for a loss.
• Season Rewards: Distributed at the end of each season based on your peak rank. Master Ball tier earns up to 20,000 VP, so climb as high as you can.
• Battle Pass rewards: From level 31 onwards, each level earns 500 VP. Just play normally and it adds up.
• Achievements: Covers both Trainer and Pokémon achievements. These accumulate naturally through regular play.

3. VP Spending Priorities

• First priority: Adjusting your Pokémon's moves, EVs, and abilities.
• Second priority: Permanently recruiting teammates you need.
• Third priority: Purchasing held items and Mega Stones.
• Optional: Cosmetics like outfits, music, and victory poses don't affect battle performance, but they're a nice boost to morale.

4. Other Resources

• Official Recruitment Tickets: Can be used in place of VP to permanently recruit Pokémon.
• Training Tickets: Allow you to train a Pokémon's stats without spending VP.
• Speed-Up Tickets: Reduce the recruitment wait time by 1 hour per ticket.
• All of these tickets can be obtained for free through the battle tutorial, missions, the Battle Pass, and achievements.

5. How to Get Pokémon

In-game: Recruitment

• Every 22 hours, you can recruit a Pokémon by choosing 1 from a pool of 10.
• Using 1 Speed-Up Ticket reduces the wait time by 1 hour.
• Trial Recruitment: Free of charge: try a Pokémon out for up to 7 days before committing.
• Permanent Recruitment: Costs 2,500 VP or one Official Recruitment Ticket.

Outside the game: Pokémon HOME Expedition

• Bring Pokémon you already have in Pokémon HOME into Champions.
• Only Pokémon that appear in the Champions roster can be transferred.
• If a Pokémon was already fully trained, it will retain its trained stats on its first expedition.
• You can modify a Pokémon further within Champions, but any changes made will not sync back to HOME.

6. Paid Options

Starter Pack

• +50 Pokémon Box slots
• 30 Official Recruitment Tickets
• 50 Training Tickets
• Battle music: "Battle (VS. Trainer)" from Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! / Let's Go, Eevee!
• $6.99, one-time purchase: the best value for money.

Premium Battle Pass

• Additional Pokémon, items, tickets, and cosmetics each season.
• $9.99 per season. Worth considering if there's a cosmetic in the pass you want.

Membership

• +1,000 Pokémon Box slots
• +15 battle team slots
• Exclusive missions
• Exclusive battle music
• $4.99/month or $49.99/year. Recommended for dedicated competitive players.

7. Closing Thoughts

• The game is fully playable without spending any money: paid options simply enhance the experience.
• The earlier you start, the more resources you accumulate and the more you'll get out of the game!