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The following content contains subjective advice or recommendations. Please take it into consideration and make your own decisions based on your playstyle and goals.
The early game is a completely different ecosystem compared to the mid or late game. Advice frequently given to players in the mid and late game is not necessarily representative of what you should be doing early game.
The goal of this guide is to help you navigate the early game, dispel some of the many misconceptions floating around, and make the start of your Pokémon Sleep journey easier! By no means is this the only way to play the game, but optimizing certain aspects of your early game will certainly help your progress. Let's begin!
What Pokemon do I focus on catching early game?
Berry mons followed by ingredient mons! The early game should be focused on getting to Friendship Level 10 on berry mons (through catching them) as that guarantees the first slot will be a gold skill. What that means is that the coveted Berry Finding S skill has a 1/7 chance of showing up in the first slot! If you're wondering which berry mons to focus on early, I recommend Pichu, Totodile, Cyndaquil, Chikorita, Spheal, and Mudkip as they're relatively common on Greengrass Isle, and one of the best berry mons of their respective islands. An in-depth berry mon meta analysis is coming soon.
Sometimes you get unlucky and you don't see any good berry mons to aim for, we can aim for ingredient mons during those unlucky mornings! Even though we may not want to use ing mons and cook bigger meals this early, it's still a good idea to start catching them and look for keepers. An in-depth ingredient mon meta analysis is coming soon.
You may have noticed a lack of mention for early game skill mons, and that's because the necessity of an early game skill mon is highly debatable. They require being fed 3-5 Main Skill Seeds to be viable to use so we rate them with higher standards, and they are not worth running without main seeds. Despite this, it might be lucrative to invest in one to speed up your early game at the expense of needing to recover the main seeds used (reminder that with sleep points, premium players get an average of 1 main seed a month and f2p players get one every other month). If you are interested in what skill mons are worth investing in, visit: Meta Analysis: Skill Specialists
For Skill mons, there are 3 skills that could be worth investing in early game: Energy for Everyone, Charge Strength, and Ingredient Magnet. Each of these allows you to take your time hunting for permanent mons in some way. The recommendation is that F2P players skip over temp skill mons as this sets you back much further on your future skill mons. Premium players are allowed 1-2, and dolphins/whales all 3, with the same caveat of it setting back future investments. Temp skill mons can be good in the early game but not at the cost of progress; Do not hunt them and only use them if you get lucky with a good one.
- Charge Strength: This will provide an early game boost without the need for leveling but instead costs main seeds. This lets you raise your standards when settling on your first BFS berry mon per island. Berry mons eventually beat charge strength mons with levels meaning a good Charge Strength mon lasts as long as it takes to find and level a BFS berry mon per island. Mons of note: Bonsly/Psyduck (Decent early with weak lategame potential), Eevee (Espeon), Mareep
- Ingredient Magnet: This buys you time when looking for ing mons. Ing mons are notoriously bad early game so a good Ing Mag mon can allow for some good early game cooking at the cost of consistency and main seeds. Even after getting decent ing mons to 30, one can still get good use out of one to refill your ing bag. Mons of note: Eevee (Vaporeon), Plusle (gets coffee if paired with another plus/minus, not recommended as it's tough to use)
- Energy For Everyone: This allows your pokemon to be healed up throughout the day. Healers are not particularly useful early game when your team is weak but an early one lets you take your time hunting for a really good one later on. These are not really recommended anymore due to acceleration to endgame. Mons of note: Igglybuff (do not catch Jigglypuff), Eevee (Sylveon), and Pawmi (capable of being a permanent healer with the appropriate stats)
How do I tell if my Pokemon is good?
Do NOT rely on PRs or tier lists They do not teach you anything about the game and are frequently missing/assuming some information that tends to lead to misinformed choices. They also cannot compare across different species. A PR85 Xatu will likely beat out a PR95 Musharna, but you will not know that just comparing rankings.
The Pokémon evaluation guides are a good starting point for judging subskills, natures, and matching the right ones to your Pokémon's specialty (ingredient finders are very important for ingredient specialists but less so on skill specialists).
It is highly recommended to move on to one of the various calculators here once you have a feel for how to judge mons:
These calculators are species-agnostic and show you exactly what a mon produces for you to accurately assess between any 2 mons (for example, it can show the AAA dratini you caught can make 120 herbs at 60 while an AAA gastly you've been using makes about 80 herbs as a lvl 60 gengar)
Which Pokemon do I use on the team? What do I cook early game?
Berry specialists!!! Ingredient specialists are terrible before level 30 as their big spike occurs when they unlock the second slot in their ing list, and the early game recipes are incredibly weak so there is little reason to run ing mons early. Skill mons are also incredibly bad with no main seed investment, and are not worth putting main seeds in if they are bad. Do NOT run teams of 3-5 ingredient specialists/uninvested skill specialists.
Go into the game and use the in-game berry team builder, which will display your strongest mons from left to right. Energy is accounted for, so if you have a good berry mon and it's dead tired, it may not show up on the screen. Once your relevant mons have recovered, feel free to replace the last mon with an ing mon that synergizes with the ings produced by your team.
Take a look at the game's recipes and see if an ing mon will unlock any of the 2 ing dishes available for your meal type this week. You may also run an early game skill mon if you've caught a good one to invest in.
When do I leave Greengrass?
It is up to you. Greengrass allows you to see a lot of different types of Pokemon and a lot of different sleep styles (for progression) but it is difficult to hunt for any specific ones. Moving to a new island is tougher, but makes it much easier to hunt for specific mons. Your Area Bonus gain per week is boosted to 15% (usually 5%) up until you hit 250% total across all islands so it is incredibly worth it to increase your AB on harder islands.
I personally recommend trying to save as much of your newbie bonus AB as possible for the later islands by not going to GG and Snowdrop for as long as you can manage it. Some new players have been able to stretch their newbie bonus all the way to Amber Canyon by focusing on sleep styles and manipulating their AB caps (forcing 10% gains instead of the full 15% if you went to Cyan Beach at 30% AB with a cap of 40%)
How often should I be investing in a Pokemon?
On average, people seem to get 1 investable mon a month, with early gamers finding more as they have a lot more pokemon they need and their standards are somewhat lowered for progression. Lategame players tend to find investable mons less often as they hunt only a handful of Pokemon per island and they can afford to be pickier with the ones they catch.