Battling Formats

When having a WiFi battle in a competitive environment there are certain 'formats' you can choose to play in. These all have rules which must be abided by in order to keep all battles fair.

The Formats

Standard Battle

This is the most common battling format that people play by. When playing in this format both players agree to follow the below rules

No Ubers

Neither player is allowed to use any uber Pokemon as they are much more powerful than the Pokemon in the below tiers. The most common list of uber Pokemon is the Smogan(A big Pokemon website and community) list. Click here to see the uber list as well as the other tiers. All Pokemon from the overused tier and below are allowed.

Sleep Clause

You can't use any sleep inducing moves on the opponent's Pokemon when there is another Pokemon in his/her team asleep (this includes moves like yawn even though it does not instantly cause sleep). This only counts for sleep that you have caused, sleep caused my moves such as rest is excluded from this rule. Once a sleeping Pokemon has fainted or awoke you are free to use a sleep inducing move but the same rules apply each time.

Species Clause

You can't use two of the same Pokemon in a team.

Evasion Clause

You can't use moves that increases your evasion such as Double Team.

OHKO Clause

You can't use any OHKO (One hit knock out) moves. They are Guillotine, Horn Drill, Fissure and Sheer Cold.

No Hacks

Hacked Pokemon of any kind are banned even if hacked from hacked parent, whether their stats are realistic or not. Obviously there is no way to guarantee this so players have to trust each other to use legit Pokemon.

No Hax Items

These are all the items that rely on luck to activate. These items are: Brightpowder, Focus Band, King's Rock, Lax Incense, Quick Claw, Razor Fang, Lansat Berry and Lucky Punch. Scope Lens, Razor Claw and Stick are also considered hax items but they are allowed in competitive play, as they just increase the odds of something that can already happen.

No Disconnecting

Do not turn off your DS or deliberately move out of your Wifi signals range to disconnect from a battle. However do not assume all disconnections are deliberate as people can have weak connections or other problems that cause this.


These are all the rules that must be followed in standard format.

Standard Uber, Under Used and Never Used battles

These battles follow the same rules as above, but only Pokemon from the named tier and below are allowed. So ubers allow all tiers, under used allows under used and never used and never used it obviously purely never used.
Visit the tier lists page to see what Pokemon are in which tiers.

Other Battle Types

Roulette Battle

This is a which where each player does not choose their own team.
Each player must put all their 'competitive' Pokemon into their pc boxes without any spaces. Each pokemon is given a number going from left to right. Each player then tells the other how many Pokemon they have in total. Then both players say six numbers between one and the total number of Pokemon the other player has. Each number chosen corresponds to the Pokemon in that space and that is added to the team. The Pokemon are added in the order the numbers are stated.
All standard battle rules apply here.

Monotype Battle

This type of battle is pretty straight forward, simply all Pokemon in your team must share the same type. Double types are allowed but one of the types must match with all the other Pokemon.
All standard battle rules apply here.

Anything Goes

Very simple battle, there are no rules, all ubers are allowed and there are no restrictions.

Monocolour Battle

This is another straight forward battle type. Simply all Pokemon must be the same colour. Bulbapedia has a list of Pokemon's colours as listed in the pokedex.
All standard battle rules apply here.

IV Battle

This is not an actual battle, but is used to check a pokemon's IV stats, as this is much easier when you can see what a Pokemon's stats are at level 100 when it is actually a lower level.
Usually people will just disconnect after the stats are checked



Well those are most of the main battle types. If you have any question, feel free to contact me

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