Friend Guard

Friend Guard and all of its variants are teambuilding strategies in pokemon chess using pawn in front of minor piece (rooks, knights, queens, bishops) setups that attempt to defend the minor piece by complimenting the super disadvantage of the pawn with the resistance of the minor piece. (Ex. Normal only weak to fighting is resisted by poison meaning the attacking piece cannot safely take that piece with a fighting piece)

This concept was already ingrained in player teambuilding when Pokemon Chess Discord users "Oliver" and "RoboBunny" decided to run through the best possible friend guards, after the first set where the pawn's weaknesses are always resisted by the minor piece or resisted/immune to via "Friend Guard/Wide Guard/Best Friend Guard" sub variants were created to expand teambuilding flexibility through the addition of Strong and Psuedo Guard where Strong Guard has 1 weakness that is either neutral or shared super effectively (4x) with the minor piece and Psuedo Guard has 2 weaknesses that is either neutral or shared super effectively (4x) with the minor piece

The distinction that makes Psuedo Guard better than it seems is RoboBunny and Oliver deciding to categorize certain uncommon offensive types such as: Dragon, Psychic, Bug, Poison, Electric, and Ghost as "not really a concern" for most players. Any setup with 2 weaknesses that are weak to both types outside of this specific set was not included due to being too hazardous for the average team, the weaknesses were both still included for your viewing and informational benefit.

The method for obtaining Friend Guard and its sub variants was by using Pokemon database's dual type charts and manually cross checking the weakness of the base type (pawn) with how an additional type interacts with it (minor piece) *[We are people and prone to errors so please report any mistakes or uncatalogued Friend Guard/Wide Guard/Best Friend Guard/Strong Guard/Psuedo Guard setups to the Pokechess discord's mods or either Oliver/RoboBunny for quick fixing.]*

Important distinction: Kings work mostly with Best Friend Guard since any resisted hit taken to them will result in a checkmate but king immunities avoid that issue.

### Friend Guard: (resists all incoming attacks as long as first type is pawn, left to right)

* Normal Poison/Flying/Bug/Psychic/Fairy
* Water Grass/Dragon
* Electric Grass/Bug
* Fighting Steel
* Ghost Dark
* Dragon Steel
* Dark Poison
* Fairy Steel

### Wide Guard: (2 pawns together in front of a Rook that fully defends it from incoming attacks)

* Fighting/fairy/dragon steel
* normal/electric bug
* water/electric grass
* normal/dark poison
* electric/normal flying

### Best Friend Guard: (immunities to all super effective frontal attacks as long as pawn is the first type, left to right)

* Electric Flying
* Normal Ghost

### Strong Guard: Friend Guard with only 1 weakness

* Poison Grass/Bug/Flying - Psychic
* Poison Dark - ground
* Poison Steel - 4x ground
* Grass Steel - 4x fire
* Water Fire/Bug/Steel/Poison - Electric
* Water Electric - Grass
* Water Ground - 4x Grass
* Water flying - 4x Electric
* Electric Normal/Water/Ice/Fighting/Ground/Psychic/Ghost/Dragon/Dark/Fairy - Ground
* Electric Fire/Poison/Rock/Steel - 4x Ground
* Normal Fire/Water/Electric/Grass/Fighting/Ground/Dragon - Fighting
* Normal Ice/Rock/Dark/Steel - 4x fighting
* Fire Grass - Rock
* Steel Flying - Fire
* Psychic Fighting/Fairy - Ghost
* Psychic Dark - 4x Bug
* Dark Steel - 4x Fighting
* Dark Flying/Ghost - Fairy
* Dark Fire - Fighting
* Fairy Psychic/Water/Fire/Electric/ - Poison
* Fairy Poison/Ground/Ghost - Steel
* Fairy Rock - 4x Steel
* Bug Rock - Rock
* Bug Steel - 4x Fire
* Ghost Fighting/Fairy - Ghost
* Ground Dragon/Grass - 4x Ice
* Ground Water - 4x Grass
* Ground Fire - 4x Water
* Ground steel - water
* Dragon Fire - Dragon
* Flying Steel - Electric
* Flying Ground - 4x Ice

### Pseudo Guard: Friend Guard that has 2 weaknesses

The secondary weakness is an uncommon type offensively (dragon, Psychic, bug, Poison, electric, ghost)

* Flying water - 4x electric, rock
* Flying fighting - ice, electric
* Fighting Fire - Flying, Psychic
* Fighting electric/rock - Psychic, Fairy
* Fighting poison - 4x Psychic, flying
* Poison normal/water/ice/ground/ghost/dragon/fairy - ground, Psychic
* Poison fighting- ground, 4x Psychic
* Grass fire - flying, poison
* Grass rock - ice, Bug
* Water normal/ice/fighting/psychic/ghost/dark/fairy - electric, grass
* Psychic fire/steel/poison/flying - ghost, dark
* Ghost fire/water/electric/grass/ice/poison/ground/flying/bug/rock/dragon/steel - ghost, dark
* Dark psychic - 4x bug, fairy
* Dark bug - bug, fairy
* Dragon water/ice - dragon, fairy
* Dragon poison - dragon, ice
* Fairy normal/fighting/psychic/flying/bug/dragon/dark - poison, steel
* Fairy grass - 4x poison, steel