Oh god, I've been there. Trust me friend, its not worth the effort.

I played a lot of Pokémon Showdown (the online, unofficial browser-based competitive battling scene) back around gen6. It gave me an understanding of IVs and EVs, as well as the kind of movesets and types that are good for walls/stalling/trolling/tanking/etc etc.

But it was impossible - even though I played probably many thousands of games, my ranking never really increased. I got much better at predicting attack patterns, for example I could recognise that someone was going to bring out a mon and use a particular move, so I'd switch to a different Pokémon that would resist it. But if I wanted to climb, I had to restrict myself to using only a couple of different Pokémon, essentially abandoning using my favourites which I had been using up til then. I didn't want to do that, as it felt against the spirit of the game. So my rating remained stagnant.

I sort of fell off after gen7 and 8 were released, and have since gotten into Chess. Much more straightforward, everyone has the same pieces and it truly is about skill rather than team composition etc.. ...my rating has improved by several hundred points after about 6 months of consistent play.

"Padraic, every time you speak to me now, I'm going to cut one of me fingers off with me pair of shears at home, and give em t' ye. Starting now."

...

"Padraic, what'd'ye do? He'd rather maim himself than speak to ye, ye must've done something"