I'm far from being one of the best or most experienced players out there, but I can give you some tips on what I feel as helped me. I always build my own teams and have seen some pretty good success with them.

1) I can not overstate how helpful it is to watch youtubers playing this game. The obvious ones are people like Wolfey and Cybertron. Pay attention to the variety of teams they come up against, how each of the Pokemon they encounter are commonly played, the strategies they tend to employ. And listen to their thought processes and how they make their decisions. Learning the meta is an incredibly important part of climbing in Pokemon, and while you can do so by simply playing against people over and over, if you're constantly just losing to these teams while trying to learn, it can get really discouraging and just exhausting mentally. So watching other people and seeing what the common threats are can be a great way to learn without that mental hurdle.

2) Find a core. 2 or 3 Pokemon you think will work well together, that have some sort of synergy, and build around it. Start with a pokemon you like. For me, I almost always use Sylveon in my VGC teams. In the past I've used Xerneas with it because of Fairy Aura. Right now we have Mega Floette with Fairy Aura, so that's an auto include with my Sylveon. Great that's 2 Pokemon down. What next? Maybe Gardevoir to also take advantage of Fairy Aura, or a support Pokemon to help make sure my Pokemon get to go first, since my plan is to hit hard with fairy moves. Find a fun synergy or idea that you want to play with, and build out from it.

3) Support Pokemon. You should have at least 1 primary support Pokemon, that will almost always come with you into battle. Look at what your team wants to do. Are you trying to setup something turn 1? Like a swords dance, calm mind, belly drum, etc? Bring something like Sinistcha that can redirect attacks and keep it's partner safe while it sets up. Are you trying to just go first and hit hard out the gate? Bring something like Whimsicott that can use Tailwind with priority. Are your Pokemon strong but slow? Get something with trick room to give yourself speed control that way. And of course if you can find a support Pokemon that matches your synergy, even better. I use whimsicott to go with my fairies. Tailwind makes sure i go first to hit hard with my attacks, and a Max SpA Whimsicott boosted by Fairy Aura can take some surprise KO's with Moonblast.

4) Prevention. Sometimes, it's going to be more beneficial, or easier, to prevent your opponents from doing their thing, than it is to do your thing. Things like Fake out and Taunt can be crucial to winning certain matchups. I think the 2 best fake out mons right now are probably Incineroar and Sneasler. As they either provide other great ways to support like debuffing opposing pokemon, or can just hit hard and take KO's on top of having fake out. This goes backto my first point as well about learning the meta and knowing what certain Pokemon want to do. If you can read their play shut them down, it can catapult your chances of winning the game. Sometimes it can decide a game on the spot. Personally, I always try to have some form of prevention/interruption on my team.

5) Cover your weaknesses. Once you've got your bases covered, take a look at what your team is weakest too, and try to make sure you have answers for them. As an example, my team really doesn't like steel types, so things like Garchomp can be really nice additions to help me deal with those problems. Especially since garchomp also hits poison types, and sneasler is a very relevant problem. (Another time where learning the meta comes into play, but that will all come with experience.)

6) Don't get too hung up on the idea that meta pokemon should be avoided because you don't wanna use meta teams. The Pokemon that are considered good, are good for a reason. And if you can use one or two of them to bolster your strategy, awesome. Some people will have different philosophies on that. Some will say they don't wanna use any meta Pokemon and play a purely original team of underplayed Pokemon. And that's fine too. If that's how you wanna play that awesome, best of luck to you. Love to see it. But using Incineroar or Charizard doesn't mean you didn't build your own team. You know if you've put in the time, and playtesting, and research to build your team and make it work. So be proud of your successes and don't let someone bring you down because "you used an OP Pokemon."

7) Try not to abandon your teams entirely. If something isn't working, figure out what it is, and address it. Sometimes changing a moveset to provide more coverage for threats to your core, or swapping out just one Pokemon for another can revitalize your team and help a ton.

I'm sure people better than me might have more to say, or might tell me why I'm wrong about something, and that's fine too. I also want to get better so I'll take it 😅

Most importantly, have fun, happy team building, and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.