A new game, a brand new system, a brand new format, and a brand new season. Nothing quite sets the tone for a new competitive game than its first competitive season. In this case, Z–A had plenty to offer with two-hundred twenty-seven Pokémon to choose from. With a roster that size and a team half the size of our normal teams, this presented a unique opportunity for discussion: How do you choose a team composition in this format?

For this first season, I decided to center a team around Mega Gyarados. I didn't know anything about the meta at the time, so I decided to go with what I instinctively knew: There would be a TON of dragons because it's a good typing, so everyone would want to carry a threat to check Dragon-types on the field. Mega Gyarados gave me an option that can take advantage of the typing without the main weakness on field.

Clefable sounded like a good pairing for Mega Gyarados. Clefable had access to either shield I wanted (I went with Light Screen, personally), Calm Mind, Fairy-type moves to counter any lingering Dragons, and a Fire-type move to counter any Ice-types on field that were sent out explicitly to counter Dragons or any Grass-types sent out to counter Gyarados specifically. The strategy with Clefable would be simple: Try to set a shield as soon as possible, and if the opponent gave me an opening, either swap into a different Pokémon or set Calm Mind. I decided to give Clefable a Quick Claw on the occasional chance that either the Shield move or the Calm Mind can activate faster and I can get an extra move in while the opponent is still setting up.

Finally, Glaceon was an obvious pick for an Ice-type anti-Dragon tech choice. Glaceon's fast, it has great STAB Ice moves, and it can easily knock out any threat on board if you let it. I gave Glaceon a King's Rock under the assumption that the flinch would occasionally give me an extra turn to act. If it did, I never noticed. I would probably swap that item with an Occa (-Fire) or Babiri (-Steel) Berry.

Overall, this was a fun season. I enjoyed the format significantly more than I expected going into this game, and I'm happy with how well I performed. I did not keep track of my overall win rate this season, but the team was overall rather consistent. I'm looking forward to Season 02 in a week and what access to the Legendary Pokémon brings.

The first thing that I would change will probably be replacing Clefable. I think base Clefable just isn't able to pull its weight compared to the other Fairy-types in this game. I'm not sure which Fairy I'd probably put in its place, but I'll probably consider Base Gardevoir, Sylveon, or Xerneas if Xerneas translated well into Z–A.

The second thing I would change would be redistributing Glaceon's EVs. It does not need all those Sp. Atk EVs, and I think giving it some bulk would be worth it in the long run. I just need to figure out which benchmarks I want to use for damage calculations.

The final change I would make, and this may depend on that Fairy type I run instead, would be to consider running an Assault Vest Gyarados instead and using a different Mega Evolution. Regular Gyarados was just as capable of dealing damage on its own, and the typing change when Mega Evolving means that opponents would have to debate whether they think Gyarados is about to Mega Evolve without realizing that's not an option. In theory the Assault Vest would improve Gyarados's survivability enough where I would not need to change their EVs too much. I don't think Gyarados would need as different an EV spread compared to Glaceon, though.