Competitive Stages in Shuffle

I've already discussed how I deal with various stages in Pokémon Shuffle, and now I want to go deeper into one of those stage types. As can be expected, the Competitive Stages pit your best score on a single stage against other players' best scores, and depending on how well you do, you can stand to earn bonus items. Of course, it's not as simple as that; these stages have their own intricacies, and anticipating them is the key to (better) success. It's something that I'm not always able to do well, but at least I try to.

First, a little history. Competitive Stages in the early days were quite rudimentary. They offered few items aside from the Mega Stone for the Pokémon featured in the stage. Most notably, Mega Stones for certain Pokémon were also provided through these stages before they became available through other means. The field was quite narrow as well, with only a few hundred or so players getting the Mega Stones, while the others would only receive minor assist items. Today, a few thousand players can get Mega Stones with additional enhancement items, and the stages are not limited to Pokémon that can Mega Evolve. Players still have to expend quite a bit of effort, however.

Like most other stages, items are available for use in the Competitive Stages. However, very often the items that can be used are a limited subset of those that can be used on special stages, depending on the Pokémon. Even so, it can be presumed that most other players will use all the available items, so the use of all items is as necessary as it is totally to one's own benefit. This means coins will have to be spent to use the items; the other alternative is to use the recently-introduced Item Bundle, which uses up a Jewel and is therefore reserved for even richer players. In short, the items are necessary, even if they don't appear to be so.

The Pokémon to be used in the stage also need to be in the best condition possible, being raised as maximally as possible, using enhancements if necessary. I sense that I'm not doing a good job in this regard as my scores always lag behind the best of other players, but this is mostly because of unfavorable circumstances. I still try to have the best Pokémon possible to deal with the stage.

Finally, it is also important to check the rankings to see what items will be gotten, and to see how other players did and what Pokémon they used. This last bit is even more important, because it shows what strategies work for any player... and everyone else. The downside of this is that once strategies are known, everyone will use it, essentially turning the competition into one to see who has the best-raised Pokémon. In the early days, only the top five players were presented, but now the rankings have the details I mentioned above.

The Competitive Stages in Shuffle are a great way to test puzzle mettle and Pokémon-raising skills at the same time. Granted, they require a great deal of preparation, but this at least pays off in item gifts to improve and prepare Pokémon for other stages. It's a necessary interactive complexity that helps to deal with other complexities in the game.