what's up guys today I'm going to break down the steps to building balance and show you all an example as we go along I've broken the process down into five distinct steps I'll be using OU as an example throughout this process but these steps can be applied to nearly every singles format in competitive Pokémon also the replays I show as background footage is the example team I built being tested on the ladder let's get right into it step one pick a viable Pokemon or for to build around and since this is a guide to balance make sure the Pokemon fits on a balanced team let's address viability first since that's simpler what I mean by viability is can it work well in top level competitive play finding out if a Pokemon or particular set on the Pokemon is viable or not is usually quite easy something like Choice specs curum and U is obviously viable as it sees a ton of usage something like basculin in OU is obviously not viable it's outclassed by so many stronger water types sometimes it's a bit harder to tell though is blazic inv viable probably is com viable maybe if you're using a lower tier Pokemon it may be a bit more difficult to determine if you are wondering if a Pokemon is viable or not I advise placing it over a Pokemon with a similar role on a known successful team if it's absolutely awful when testing on ladder don't try to build around it but if it's seems all right or actually does surprisingly well continue with the building process also if you do decide to build around something unviable suppose it's your favorite Pokemon or something that's totally okay the steps of building around furet would be the same as the steps building around King Gambit however bad the Pokémon the process to reach an optimal balance team is the same now let's address what fits on a balance team and what doesn't although no rules in team building are truly 100% there are some po that should almost never be on a balanced team this mostly involves extremely passive Pokemon like dondoo hit or miss Pokemon like a booster energy iron moth or Pokemon that are meant to die like roaring Moon these are all terrible unbalanced teams the problem with a passive Pokemon like dondoo is that it lets in a lot of powerful things if your opponent decides to switch a choice specs raging bolts on a dondoo there's not much you can do if your dondoo needs to use rest and heal where are you going to find the turns to wake up you might have enough time if you are running a full stall but balance teams need to move faster and likely can't afford the loss of momentum and turns it would take to let dondoo Wake Up Now why can't you run a hit or miss Pokemon like booster energy iron moth well it's in the name what if it misses balance teams are all about consistency each Pokemon having a role to play in the game you have bulk your Pokemon and pivots that enable more offensive Pokemon if one Pokemon on your team does something only 50% of games you're basically playing with a five Pokemon team the majority of the time now this is no problem if you're running a hyper offense the entire idea of hyper offense is to use a lot of inconsistent but threatening Pokemon to overwhelm your opponent on a balance though having something is unreliable as booster energy iron moth is a bad idea and lastly the problem with Pokemon that are meant to die like roaring moon is simply that they won't be around after they enter once a great Bal has carefully placed Pokemon with certain roles to create a cohesive team and although you will certainly have to let Pokemon die in practice having a Pokemon that is meant to die on its first entry game after game is going to leave the rest of your team unsupported especially in generation 9 you can't afford not to make the most of your six slots note that avoiding passive hit or miss or meant to die Pokemon will apply to the entire team not just the Pokemon you decide to build around so keep that in mind as we continue now with all that in mind the Pokemon I decided to build around for my example is Choice specs iron Valiant I love spamming High base power moves like moonblast with no immunities and 100% accuracy so I thought it would be fun to make a team around it step two identify the best Pokemon to support your initial core notice how I didn't say pick a good Pokemon that works well I said the best after selecting your initial Pokemon this is the place in the team building process where you have the most Freedom eventually you're going to have to add stuff like Hazard control fast Pokemon a curm switch in a Wellspring switch in make sure you have an answer to gouging fire and so much more team building in generation 9 is difficult and there are a ton of threats to answer this will probably be the only step where you can add Pokemon that perfectly complement your initial Pokémon before your choices are if not controlled at least heavily influenced by the tornado of threats in the metag game take your time test various Partners look into lower tiers and make sure you find a partner you're happy with you also want to make sure you're thinking offensively what I mean by that is you're focused on developing a breaking core rather than covering your chosen Pokemon's defensive weaknesses a breaking core is a group of Pokemon that with minimal support from other team members are completely or nearly unwalled longterm a good example of this is Choice band Hoopa Unbound plus Garian slow King given enough time this core can break any team another example would be Gango plus Meara plus Hazard stack with full hazards up and Gango to make sure they aren't removed meow Scara is nearly unwalla long term now don't mistake thinking offensively for adding offensive Pokemon you may add offensive Pokemon sometimes but other times you need a bulky Pokemon to develop an effective breaking core let's use this example example from earlier Choice band Hoopa Unbound this can break anything on its own given enough time you really don't need another Pokemon to punch holes however Hoopa Unbound does struggle greatly with entering the field due to its terrible physical bulk and middling speed so to develop your breaking core you want to add on a Garian slowen this is the best slow pivot in the tier and it can safely bring Hoopa in with chilly reception you see how I was thinking offensively and yet I added on a b Pokémon developing a breaking core is extremely difficult to do when also accounting for all the threats your team will have to answer defensively so you want to develop it as soon as possible in the team building process you might ask is it really necessary to develop a breaking core immediately couldn't you create a solid defensive core first then add a breaking core later in theory yes but in practice this is very difficult to do and it often won't work out imagine you have four Pokemon on a team and you notice your we to ice ghost and fairy types it's all right though you've got two slots left and you can still cover this weakness maybe add on a king Gambit that helps with two of them but what if you also need to develop a breaking core then this becomes very difficult and there probably won't be an option that will fit forcing you to rebuild there will always be defensive holes to patch up at the end of the team building process so leaving a breaking court till the end is often a bad idea if all you're worried about is covering up weaknesses there are typically many Pokémon that could do the job but when it comes to creating an effective breaking core there will typically only be one or two specific Pokemon that work extremely well with your initial core and leaving it to the end might make fitting that Pokemon impossible you want your final team to be able to break stall that's the ultimate measurement if it can break stall it can break anything for my choice specs iron Valiant I decided to pair it with a specially defensive gly score given enough time Choice specs iron Valiant can break pretty much anything but it needs a safe entrance and Hazards to help it out a slow pivot U-turn glcore gave me a hazard Setter and a way to get Valiant in furthermore slow King gallar and Heatran some of the only Pokemon in the tier that can take a choice specs moonblast are shut down by gcore allowing me to switch in threaten with the knock off pivot out and bring in Iron Valiant again this seemed like a strong partner on many levels and gave gave me a great start toward developing my breaking core step three add supporting Pokemon that provide team requirements and work well with the original core this is the most awkward stage of building by far you've added two or three Pokémon by now and you don't have the freedom of the early stages nor the constraints of the later stages you can't just add whatever you want but it won't be obvious what you need either I would recommend using this middle stage to tackle some of the basic team requirements that you'll absolutely need you know you'll need something like Hazard control a fast Pokemon a Stealth Rock Setter something to take a knockoff an electric immunity and something that can handle salt cure whichever of these aren't handled by your initial core should be addressed now it's also important to remember that this Pokemon should work well with your initial core and fit the central goal of the team if you're making a hazard stack make sure you're putting things that either take advantage of Hazard set hazards or spin block if you're building a sun team make sure you're packing in as many Sun abusers as possible don't fall into the Trap of letting team building become a checklist if all you're doing is checking off boxes making sure you have something fast something you take assault cure an electric immunity and so on you're going to end up making a lot of mediocre teams with Pokemon that lack meaningful Synergy always always make sure what you add on to the team works well with what's already on the team due to the general awkwardness of this step you may have several ideas about what to add if you do just create multiple versions of the team in the Builder and develop them independently I often have over 10 versions with the same initial core and they often Branch out in the middle and later stages of building having multiple versions will keep you flexible and through testing on the ladder you can determine which one is best or which pieces of each version work best on my iron Valiant team I decided to add had a great Tusk next since I knew I would need removal so iron valent could enter the field many times against bulkier teams this also gave me an answer to Cal mind raging bolt a major threat to consider when building my slow pivoting gly score is outsped by most raging bolt and too weak to deal meaningful damage but great Tusk headlong Rush takes care of that issue it also gave me a stealth rocker allowing me to run spikes on gly score and create a nice Hazard core I knew I'd need to add something on my team faster than iron Valiant at some point otherwise my team would get smoked by fast threats like dark cry and mosara since I had a hazard stat core as well I settled on dragapult since it provided necessary speed and a spin Blocker in one slot before we continue please remember to subscribe a recent caterp infestation went out of control and I regret to inform you that they have evolved into Metapod I'm sending out teams of Skarmory to Whirlwind these pests away but I only have sufficient funds to cover my subscribers if you haven't subscribed yet you'll have to handle the infestation on your own step four review basic team requirements and look over the tier checking for what your team might lose to add Pokemon that fix these issues by now you have four or five Pokemon added to your team so it's a good time to just scroll through OU look at every Pokémon and see if you have a way to handle it if the answer is no or if you'd like more against it write the threats Nam down once you've gone through the tier try to find one or two Pokemon that finish your team cover these threats and work well with the rest of your team make sure to look in lower tiers as well you might find exactly what you're looking for in BL uu or lower it might also be that there's no way to complete your team it's possible that no one or two Pokemon could possibly cover all the weaknesses your team has if this is the case try deleting some Pokémon from your team and explore alternative options that cover more threats it's possible that your starting core is just unsupportable as well trying to build a balanced team in gen 9 with two or more Pokemon with little defensive utility is almost certain to end in Failure if you notice that during this process your team ended up a bit bulkier or a bit more offensive than you originally intended don't worry I often build balance teams that end up looking like offense teams or seem more like bulky balance or even semi- stall at times as long as you don't stray across the lines of stall or hyper offense you'll be fine for more information on play Styles check out my video on play Styles in the description on my iron Valiant team I realized I was extremely weak on the special side all I had was specially defense of glcore which wasn't incredibly bulky I was also extraordinarily weak to and the ice type in general I defi I decided to finish my team with Garian slow King and King Gambit Garian sling gave me an additional pivot to help bring in Iron Valiant and a wall to scout curum can Gambit gave me an ice resist ghost resist and priority to help limit threatening sweepers step five test and adjust take your team on the ladder and see how it performs however good or bad your team looked in theory actual games are the ultimate decider of whether your team is good or not playing the team on the ladder will help you identify threat strong points weak points and help guide you toward potential changes try out different versions replace things that aren't working and accept that you're probably going to have to go back to previous steps in the process the team building process is iterative and you may cycle through it a few times before getting a product you're happy with in my testing I quickly realized that my team was extremely weak to Great Tusk headlong rush and ice spinner either one shot or two shot my entire team except for my own great tusk this is an unacceptable weakness however my team did perform against better against kurum than I expected I was able to threaten it offensively and sling was mostly satisfactory as a special wall furthermore I wasn't struggling against dragapult or Gango at all especially defensive glcore great Tusk slow King and iron Valiant all helped against these ghosts I figured it might be okay to give up King Gambit my ghost and Ice resist in favor of corvite this would give me a more solid answer to physical sweepers uh with an iron defense body press set and it would give me a reliable switch into great Tusk after this change I got destroyed by an iron moth I couldn't do much with slow King since iron moth could always substitute on the future site and with a bit of luck it could easily steamroll my team with fiery dance boosts especially defensive Glide score wasn't effective since I was running knockoff U-turn protect and spikes I didn't want to give up spikes since the hazard stack element in my team had been very effective but I didn't want to lose any of my other moves either I ended up deciding to replace corvite for a spike Skarmory and giving glcore earthquake over spikes solving my iron moth problem after this the team consistently tested well and gained ELO on ladder after touching up some EV spreads and changing a few terot types I declared the team finished at least for now if you'd like to try my specs iron Valiant team for yourself the Poke paste is in the description also I made a video on common team building mistakes in gen 9 if you notice yourself having consistent issues with many of the balance teams you build you may want to check those videos out and see what you may be doing wrong before I wrap this video up I want to let you all know that I'm accepting viewer submissions for my next fixing my viewers teams video if you want your team to be criticized and fixed please leave the showdown importable in the comments section good luck building your own teams and I'll see you guys next next time