What are EVs? So you want to know what EVs are, eh? Tired of being a n00b? Well, EVs are something most casual players don't know about, and this seperates the nooblets from the pros. EV is short for "Effort Values" and they are gained through battle. Each Pokemon gives at least one EV to every Pokemon that faught it when it faints. Some give two, or even three.

There are Attack, Defence, Special Attack, Special Defence, HP, and Speed EVs, one for each stat. Attack EV's only influence the Attack stat, Speed EV's only influence the Speed stat and so on. Each Pokemon gives an EV in a certain stat, some give 1 EV in two stats. For example, Zubat gives 1 EV in Speed when you KO it, Golbat will give 2, and Crobat 3.

What do EVs do? Any Pokemon can only have a Maximum in 510 total EVs. For every 4 EVs gained in a stat, that stat goes up by 1. The increase is not immediately apparent, however, and you will only be able to see the full effects by Lv100.

It is important to mention that gaining EVs is not EV Training, and all Pokemon will eventually max out their EVs through casual playing. However, EVs in certain stats on certain Pokemon are unuseful, such as an Alakazam with Attack EVs that could have been better spent on Special Attack. This is where EV Training comes in.

What is EV Training? EV Training is the process of giving your Pokemon only the EV that you want it to have, instead of wasting them like in the Alakazam example. 255 is the maximum number of EVs you can give a Pokemon in any particular stat, after that your Pokemon will no longer gain EVs in that stat.

Some of you that are more aware may relize, "Hey, 4 doesn't go evenly into 255, won't there be some extra that don't do anything?" and the answer is yes. When you max out a stat, a total of 3 EVs will be left over, contributing nothing to anything. When you max out two stats, there will be 6 EVs left over, 3 from each of the maxed out stats.

Is there a way to put those extra 6 EVs to use? Yes and no. No, you cannot put all six EVs to use. Yes, you can put 4 of the 6 extra EVs to give a +1 to any third stat, but sadley, there will be 2 left over. Lazy bast-

Anyways, what EV Trainers do is give the two stats they want to "max out" 252 EV's each, and they make sure they do this by keeping the EVs their Pokemon earns on track, using a notebook, or even more conviniently, the Counter App. on the Poketch. The 6 left over EVs the trainer will put into whatever stat they choose, most commonly HP. You'll be grateful when your Pokemon survives by only one Hit Point.

So now you know the basics of EVs and EV Training. From here I would suggest checking out some major forums (Serebii, PokeCommunity, etc.) and going to their "Competitive Battling" section. Talking to some of the experts there will improve your skills. I also strongly recommend you visit smogon.com and reading some of the articles there and visit their forums.