Pokemon Shuffle Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Pokémon Shuffle is a match-three / battle game from The Pokémon Company. In this game, you match up Pokémon heads to perform attacks against other Pokemon. If you whittle down your target’s energy, you can opt to catch it and make it fight for your cause. Gamezebo’s Pokemon Shuffle Tips, Cheats and Strategies will help keep you well-armed as you travel through tall grass.

The Pokémon hierarchy is king

How well do you know the Pokémon hierarchy? If you’re going to play Pokémon Shuffle, you should make sure you have a vague idea of how it goes. There are several types of Pokémon, each with weaknesses and strengths.

Don’t think too hard about memorizing who’s weak to what, however. When you face off against another Pokémon, arrows will indicate how well the Pokémon in your line-up will fare against your foe. If the arrow points up, it means that Pokémon’s attacks will be super effective against the enemy (meaning they’ll do twice as much damage). If the arrow points down, it means that Pokémon’s attacks will do half damage. Succeeding in Pokémon Shuffle means exploiting your rivals’ weaknesses whenever humanly possible.

If you enter your Pokedex and tap “Pokémon list,” you’ll be able to sort your Pokémon according to type. This feature becomes pretty handy as your roster grows.

Use the optimize button — and tap it more than once

Before entering a battle, you have the option to “optimize” your roster. This lets the game select the Pokémon from your roster that are best-suited for the upcoming battle (usually based on type).

The game’s first picks aren’t always the best option, though. Tap the optimize button at least twice to cycle through your Pokémon and pick the most balanced team possible.

Train up a varied team of different types

You’re going to come up against a slew of different Pokémon types in Pokémon Shuffle — and frankly, the odds are often stacked against you. Most of your opponents are quite strong, can handicap you in several ways, and have a lot of hit points to whittle down.

That’s why you should make sure you train up your Pokémon by raising their levels. Simply having one strong flying type or one decent water type won’t cut it, either — stronger enemies often require a whole team of super effective attackers to take it down.

Some level-grinding may be necessary. Try beating up a few Normal types, since they have very few elemental advantages or weaknesses.

Mega-evolve as soon as possible in fights that offer a lot of turns

Mega-evolved Pokémon are another crucial way to hit hard against strong enemies. While it’s usually not worth mega-evolving in fights that require you to finish up in ten moves or less, you should ascend during longer fights. Mega-evolved Pokémon can clear rows and columns, which comes in especially handy in stages with a lot of obstacles.

Don’t feel obligated to “Catch ’em All”

Some Pokémon are easy to capture. Others are stupidly hard, even if you finish the fight with enough moves left over to raise your capture percentage. While you should work on building up a roster of different types of Pokémon, it’s not necessary to grab every single one you run across. Of course, if you’re an avid collector and you don’t mind spending hard currency for completion’s sake, go nuts.

Nadia Oxford

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In the early aughts, Nadia fell into writing with the grace of a brain-dead bison stumbling into a chasm. Over the years, she's written for Nerve, GamePro, 1UP.com, USGamer, Pocket Gamer, Just Labs Magazine, and many other sites and magazines of fine repute. She's currently About.com's Guide to the Nintendo 3DS at ds.about.com.