Pokemon Shield Any% FAQ

Q: Why?
A: Because I ran this category as my introduction to PSR in 2019, and I enjoyed it. Since then the DLC has come out and newer versions that warranted a LB split. My old run is on the old boards. I would like one on the new boards. Also there was talk about doing Any% w/ DLC at AGDQ so figured I would derust a little. Also with all the time off for the holidays I have a little more time to invest some time into longer categories, and while I prefer the DS games much more to this, I do want a small break of pace.

Q: What's the fastest route?
A: Shield's best route top end (afaik) is Arcadrill, which involves catching a Growlithe and grabbing a Fire Stone shortly after entering the Wild Area, evolving it straight into Arcanine to give it a busted move pool (Burn Up, Flamethrower, ESpeed, all before lvl 10). After we beat the fairy gym, we pivot to a Drilbur in the Wild Area and use that to finish the last few gyms.

Q: Why Shield? Isn't Sword faster?
A: It is, but the version differences are enough to split the games by version instead of having a mixed leaderboard. For example, Growlithe is a version exclusive, and Vulpix is not good enough on Sword to simply copy this route. Sword opts to main Sobble or a Trade Whimsicott for its top times. Furthermore, the 5th and 7th gyms are completely different types depending on the version. In Sword, the two typings (Fighting and Rock) favor Inteleon over Shield (Ghost and Ice), which is why Arcadrill is considered over Inteleon in Shield.

Shockingly, there are a lot of viable alt-mains/routes in this game that are all pretty competent, to the point where there's too much for me to keep track of. >_<

Q: Any interesting tricks in this game?
A: One. In the 7th gym puzzle, there's a trainer that camps the front edge of a safe platform in the maze. However, you can just barely step onto the platform and get the checkpoint without being seen. This lets you skip an otherwise mandatory trainer. 

Q: Why do you pick the girl?
A: There's no significant gender difference, so I pick the girl out of preference.

Q: Will you use turbo?
A: SwSh give you lots of buttons to mash text with, so there is no point. My typical mashing strat will be to roll/mash A/B with my thumb and mash the bumpers of my controller as well.

Q: What are you playing on?
A: My Nintendo Switch w/ an 8bitdo Ultimate controller (I find the sticks to be more reliable for menuing, my Switch Pro likes to snap back a lot on quick inputs basically cancelling out my intent).