Pokemon Team Builder
Build a championship-caliber 6-slot roster and audit your defensive type chart in real time. Our Pokemon Team Builder calculates compounded 4x/2x weaknesses, 0.5x/0.25x resistances, 0x immunities, and Terastallization overrides across all 18 elemental types.
💡 Tip: Change any slot's Primary, Secondary, or Tera Type dropdown to immediately recalculate the 18-type defensive matrix on the right. Need to inspect a single dual-type creature in detail? Open our Pokemon Type Calculator.
How to Use the Pokemon Team Builder to Eliminate Roster Weaknesses
Whether you are preparing for a Generation 9 VGC Regional Championship, laddering on Smogon OverUsed (OU), or completing a hardcore Nuzlocke run in Scarlet and Violet, stacking three or four creatures that share an unresisted weakness to Ground, Ghost, or Fairy attacks is a recipe for an instant sweep. Our Pokemon Team Builder gives you a bird's-eye defensive audit of your entire six-slot squad before you invest a single Tera Shard or Ability Patch.
- Assign Your Six Team Slots: Enter each creature's name and select its Primary and Secondary elemental types (or choose None for single-type picks like Rillaboom). You can also load one of our tournament-proven presets at the top of the Pokemon Team Builder.
- Audit the 18-Type Weakness & Resistance Grid: Every badge in the right-hand matrix displays
W:x | R:y (z Imm)—showing how many of your six team members are Weak (taking 2x or 4x damage), Resistant (taking 0.5x or 0.25x damage), or Immune (taking 0x damage) against that specific attacking element. - Test Defensive Tera Type Flips: In Generation 9, Terastallization lets one team member shed its original dual typing and become a pure single type defensively. Use the Tera Override column in the Pokemon Team Builder to simulate turning a 4x Ice-weak Dragon/Ground sweeper into a Steel or Water resistor mid-battle.
Once your defensive backbone is locked in, verify that your sweepers can break through opposing walls using our Pokemon Coverage Calculator and compute exact 16-roll KO thresholds in the Pokemon Damage Calculator.
The 3 Foundational Defensive Cores Every Competitive Team Uses
Top tournament builders rarely pick six random high-stat creatures in isolation. Instead, they anchor their roster inside a Pokemon Team Builder around proven two-slot or three-slot defensive cores where every weakness of Partner A is absorbed by Partner B or Partner C:
| Competitive Core Name | Core Elemental Typings | Signature Gen 9 Examples | Key Immunities Provided | How the Synergy Triangle Works |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fantasy Core (DFS) | Dragon + Fairy + Steel | Raging Bolt / Dragapult + Flutter Mane / Primarina + Kingambit / Gholdengo | Dragon (0x), Poison (0x) | Steel resists Fairy & Dragon; Fairy is immune to Dragon & resists Fighting; Dragon resists Fire & Water aimed at Steel. |
| Fire-Water-Grass (FWG) | Fire + Water + Grass | Incineroar + Urshifu-Rapid + Rillaboom / Amoonguss | Spore / Rage Powder (Grass), Burn (Fire), Prankster (if Dark) | Water douses Ground/Rock/Fire threats to Fire; Grass absorbs Water & Electric threats to Water; Fire melts Ice/Bug/Grass threats to Grass. |
| Ground + Flying / Levitate | Ground + Flying (or Steel/Flying) | Landorus-T / Great Tusk + Corviknight / Tornadus | Electric (0x), Ground (0x), Poison (0x if Steel) | Ground blocks Electric attacks aimed at Flying; Flying is completely immune to Earthquake and Ground attacks aimed at Ground/Steel. |
| Ghost + Dark + Normal/Fighting | Ghost/Steel + Dark + Fighting | Gholdengo + Kingambit / Ting-Lu + Zamazenta | Normal (0x), Fighting (0x), Psychic (0x), Poison (0x) | Ghost is immune to Fighting moves aimed at Dark; Dark resists Ghost & Dark moves aimed at Ghost and is immune to Psychic. |
Notice that our default VGC preset inside the Pokemon Team Builder actually fuses both the Fire-Water-Grass core (Incineroar + Urshifu-Rapid + Rillaboom) and the Dragon-Fairy-Steel core (Raging Bolt + Flutter Mane + Gholdengo) into a single six-Pokemon roster! That overlap is why this exact six-type structure has dominated World Championship top cuts across multiple VGC regulations.
5 Rules for Achieving an "S-Tier" Synergy Grade in the Team Builder
When our defensive grading algorithm evaluates your six slots, it penalizes unresisted attacking types and stacked 4x weaknesses while rewarding immunities and dual resistances. Follow these five checklist rules to elevate any custom squad to S-Tier:
- Rule 1: Zero Unresisted Attacking Types: Ensure that for all 18 elemental types, at least one (and ideally two) Pokemon on your team takes
0.5x,0.25x, or0xdamage. Specifically check Ghost, Ground, Fairy, and Ice—the four most spammed offensive types in Gen 9 competitive play. - Rule 2: Never Stack 3+ Weaknesses Without 2+ Resistances: If three members of your team are weak to Ground (for instance, Incineroar, Raging Bolt, and Gholdengo), you must carry at least one Ground-immune Flying/Levitate pivot or Grass-type resistor (like Rillaboom, whose Grassy Terrain also halves Earthquake's base power!).
- Rule 3: Include At Least One Steel-Type and One Fairy-Type: Steel boasts 10 elemental resistances and 1 immunity (Poison), making it the undisputed king of defensive pivoting. Pairing Steel with Fairy neutralizes Dragon-type lock-in moves like Outrage and Scale Shot.
- Rule 4: Secure Built-In Status & Hazard Immunities: Beyond raw damage multipliers, typing grants vital mechanical immunities: Fire types cannot be burned (protecting physical attackers from Will-O-Wisp), Electric types cannot be paralyzed, Grass types ignore Spore and Rage Powder redirection, Dark types block Prankster status moves, and Ghost types cannot be trapped by Shadow Tag or Fake Out flinched.
- Rule 5: Plan Defensive Tera Types for Your 4x Weaknesses: If you run a creature with a double weakness—such as Garchomp (4x Ice), Volcarona (4x Rock), or Kingambit (4x Fighting)—use the Tera Override column in our squad analyzer to assign a complementary defensive Tera Type like Water, Fairy, or Flying.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Pokemon Team Builder
Yes! Our engine implements the modern 18-type matrix used in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, Legends: Z-A, and official VGC tournaments. This includes the Fairy type, as well as Steel's updated neutral interaction against Ghost and Dark attacks.
Defensively, Terastallization completely replaces your creature's original primary and secondary types with its single Tera Type (eliminating all original weaknesses). Offensively, however, the creature retains its original 1.5x Same-Type Attack Bonus (STAB) on its base types while gaining 1.5x STAB on its new Tera Type (or 2.0x Adaptability STAB if the Tera Type matches one of its base types). You can model exact Tera damage boosts in our Pokemon Damage Calculator.
Steel / Fairy (held by Tinkaton, Zacian-Crowned, Magearna, and Mawile) and Steel / Flying (Corviknight, Skarmory, Celesteela) are mathematically the two strongest defensive dual typings in the game. Steel/Fairy has 2 immunities (Dragon, Poison), 9 resistances, and only 2 weaknesses (Fire, Ground), with zero 4x weaknesses. You can inspect every dual-type combination in our Pokemon Type Calculator.
Even creatures with 5 or 6 weaknesses (such as Tyranitar's Rock/Dark or Celebi's Grass/Psychic) can thrive if their base stats, abilities, and partners cover those gaps. What matters is team-wide overlap—avoid having three or more team members share the exact same weakness without an immunity switch-in.
Absolutely! If you want to pick your all-time favorite creature for each of the 18 elemental types and export a shareable PNG trainer graphic, head over to our interactive Favorite Pokemon Picker.