One of the best additions to Pokémon Scarlet & Violet is how much easier it is to obtain items that were once quite rare. PP Ups, Nature Mints, nearly every battle item imaginable, and even Ability Capsules can all be easily purchased from common stores across Paldea. That being said, with so much to buy, oftentimes players feel that money can be difficult to come by. Fortunately, there is a way to make getting more Pokémon Dollars reasonably efficient.
Farming in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s Academy Ace Tournament
The feature that serves as the replacement for the Elite Four rematches of past games — the Academy Ace Tournament — is the key here. While the Item Printer is possibly even more efficient, it requires gathering resources to use and is not easy to truly automate, so for the purposes of this guide it will not be considered. If you are interested to learn more about the Item Printer, feel free to check out our guide on the subject.
In the Academy Ace Tournament, the player faces four back-to-back battles against random opponents consisting of school staff and other notable characters from the story. Entry only requires having finished the story and speaking to the NPC at the front desk of the Academy. If you don’t mind paying active attention, it’s pretty easy to win just using a team of Pokémon with high levels. That being said, it can be kind of monotonous to do these battles over and over, so for the purposes of getting rich, it would be best to make the process simple and requiring the least amount of attention possible.
Before we cover what Pokémon and strategies to use, there is an additional wrinkle that must be addressed. After completing the story of The Indigo Disk, all of the opponents in the tournament become much more difficult. Their teams all gain around 15 levels, and they bring with them new Pokémon they didn’t use before. This makes it far more difficult to automate all of the battles with a single Pokémon using a single move, but it’s still possible.
Best Pokémon to use while farming in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s Academy Ace Tournament
For all of the Pokémon used for this, they will need to be trained as well as they possibly can. That means they will need to be Hyper Trained and have specific Effort Values in certain stats. If you aren’t familiar with this process, don’t worry – it is pretty straightforward in Scarlet & Violet. Once a Pokémon is above level 50, the player can spend Bottle Caps & Gold Bottle Caps to Hyper Train their stats. The NPC who will do this can be found right next to the Pokémon Center in Montenevera, standing next to an Abomasnow, and Bottle Caps can be purchased from Delibird Presents in the large cities in Paldea. Effort Values, or EVs, come from defeating Pokémon or using Vitamins. Each stat can have a maximum of 252 EVs, and a Pokémon can have 510 overall. Vitamins can be purchased from Chansey Supply, and give 10 EVs per one.
If you have not finished the story of the Indigo Disk or if you do not own the DLC, then the best Pokémon to use is Sylveon. This Sylveon will need to have its Hidden Ability, Pixilate, which can be obtained by using an Ability Patch or catching any of Eevee or its evolved forms with their Hidden Ability from a raid and breeding an Egg. All stats except for Attack should be Hyper Trained, and make sure it has a Modest nature, either naturally or by purchasing a Modest Mint from Chansey Supply. The EVs needed will be 252 in Special Attack, 172 in Speed, and the remaining 86 in Defense. Level it up to level 100 and teach it Hyper Voice and it should be able to defeat all of the opponents in the tournament on its own while holding an Amulet Coin item for even more money.
If you have completed the story of the Indigo Disk, the best option for the stronger teams is to use Kyurem-White with Ice Beam. Fortunately, Kyurem and Reshiram are both obtainable in-game with the help of Snacksworth. As with Sylveon, this Kyurem will need to have a Modest nature and have all of its stats except for Attack Hyper Trained. For EVs, it will need 252 in Special Attack, at least 140 in Speed, and the remaining 116 can be spent on Defense. Due to the increased levels of the opponents, the item slot needs to be equipped with a Choice Specs to provide the necessary power. This does mean no Amulet Coin unfortunately, but Kyurem is too weak without the extra power boost. One final mention: only Kyurem itself needs to be trained in this way, Reshiram’s stats, level, and moves do not matter so do not worry about that.
Once you have the Pokémon prepared, make sure their go-to move is in the top slot of their move list (Hyper Voice for Sylveon or Ice Beam for Kyurem-White). It also is very important that they be level 100, as otherwise they lack the power and survivability to handle every possible opponent all on their own. Lastly, they need to be the only Pokémon in the Trainer’s party, that way the prompt to switch Pokémon after fainting an opponent does not appear.
Strategy & execution while farming in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s Academy Ace Tournament
Thankfully, getting the Pokémon prepared is the difficult part. The goal of all of this is to make winning the tournament as easy and requiring as little focus as possible. With the Pokémon provided, all that needs to be done is to enter the tournament and press the A button over and over. What makes this even better is that after finishing, the player is standing in front of the same NPC who must be spoken with to initiate the tournament, so if the A button is continually pressed it will enter another tournament automatically. If you own a controller with a turbo function, this makes it possible to completely automate the process with no input at all, meaning that it is possible to leave the game running overnight to accumulate large amounts of money very easily.
With all of that being said, it is still possible to be defeated on very rare occasions. Given how many possible opponents there are, it isn’t feasible to counter every single one with just one move on one Pokémon. The Pokémon setups provided give the best odds at winning, and reduce the chances of failure to only extremely unlucky situations. With that in mind, don’t be alarmed if once in a while you find yourself defeated and healing at a Pokémon Center! All it means is that something incredibly unlucky took place and to try again.
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Written by Abbie Maxwell
Lifelong Nintendo fangirl, Abbie holds a special place in her heart for video games. She has always strived to provide tips and tricks to make the experiences of those who share her passions that much better.
