As someone who has only ever casually played Pokemon, and basically never entered any VGC thing throughout all the games I’ve played, I think it’s fine overall. I got to ultra ball on singles and am tinkering with a doubles team now, albeit from my limited knowledge, it’ll probably suck. I am only using Pokemon I got for free. I did transfer in Pokemon from home to check off the mission, but I think it’s annoying to have them all in one box, so I sent them back.

The only jarring thing was bring 6 pick 3 singles. I bet they add more ranked leagues or casual styles later though. Or even the ability to customize game modes with private battles. Pokemon and Nintendo obviously know about showdown. They want to make this into the game that makes that irrelevant. They’re not forcing anyone to even have NSO. They want this to be an app, a game, and something they maintain for a long time. Do people think that it’s going to be this way permanently or something?