Congrats on taking the first steps to trying one! I‘ve been doing Nuzlockes and other challenges in Pokemon for a long time now, and I beat a Pokemon Shield Nuzlocke on my first try. Here’s a couple tips that may be helpful:
Catch first encounter Pokemon in as many areas as you can: I can’t stress this enough. A lot of my past failures in Nuzlockes and other challenges were because I didn’t add enough party members to my team. Only once I started catching as many first encounters as I could did I start doing decent in challenges. Even if your party is full, make sure to catch more to go in your boxes in case someone in your party faints/dies.
Grind as much as possible before taking on a new area/gym: One of the main reasons I’ve been able to beat several challenges in the past is because I took the time to grind levels for my Pokemon and make sure their levels were well above the gym leader’s Pokémon’s levels. This takes awhile to do and it’s not easy, but it not only gives you the advantage in terms of stats, but could possibly give your team members some good moves to use against the enemy as well.
Whatever you do, do NOT face Wobbufet in battle: This last one is really important with regards to Pokemon Sword/Shield in particular. If you face Wobbufet in battle, there’s a chance you may not be able to escape due to its ability, and then it may use a countering move to take your Pokemon out! You can prevent yourself from losing anyone by just not facing one of these Pokemon in battle. I read a rather poorly written article awhile back of someone that tried a Sword/Shield Nuzlocke, but failed because they lost an important team member to a Wobbufet. This can be easily avoided by not engaging them in battle.
There’s a lot more tips and tricks I could share with you, but these are the main ones! Also make sure to use healing items when necessary and to have a good supply of them from the pokemart. Have fun!
EDIT: And also, if you want to post updates about your challenge, feel free to do so in this thread:
This is for people who want to post their Nuzlocke challenges, other challenges, and teams here. Please provide the name of the Pokemon game, your team, and feel free to update your team and status as time goes on. If you end up blacking out, you can just add BLACKOUT to the end of your post...
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