Synergies: Types, Thresholds, and Team Bonuses

Synergies — the type bonuses — are what make Pokémon Auto Chess a strategy game rather than a collection of stat blocks. A board of nine strong Pokémon with no active synergies loses to a board of nine mediocre Pokémon that all share two types. This chapter explains how they work; the synergy pages have the exact numbers for each one.

The basic rule

Every Pokémon has one to three types (Fire, Water, Psychic, and so on — there are 31 in total, some familiar from the main series and some invented for this game like Amorphous, Artificial and Gourmet). When you have enough different Pokémon of a type on your board, that synergy activates and grants a bonus to some or all of your team.

The count is by distinct evolution family, not by unit. Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard are the same family, so having two of them on the board still only counts as one toward Fire and Dragon. To raise a synergy's count you need different Pokémon lines that share the type, not more copies of one.

Thresholds and tiers

Each synergy activates at a first threshold and then gets stronger at further thresholds. The exact numbers vary by synergy:

• Most synergies step at 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 — activate with 2 of the type, then upgrade at 4, 6 and 8.
• Some step at 3 / 5 / 7 or 2 / 4 / 6.
• A few larger ones (Normal, Grass) go 3 / 5 / 7 / 9, and a handful have their own custom curves.

A synergy sitting one unit below a threshold is doing much less for you than it looks — Fire at 3/4 is only the "Fire 2" bonus. Getting to the next threshold, or dropping the type entirely for something you can actually complete, is usually right. This is the subject of the next chapter.

What synergies actually give

The bonus depends on the synergy, and they're all different — that's most of the game's depth. Broad patterns:

• Defensive synergies grant shields, DEF/Special Defense, or damage reduction to the team or to units of that type.
• Offensive synergies grant ATK, Ability Power, Speed, crit, or extra on-hit effects.
• Mechanic synergies do something unique — summon extra units, manipulate items, change the weather, apply status effects, or let you pick special upgrades each round (Fairy's wands are the classic example).
• Some bonuses apply to your whole team; others only to Pokémon of that type. This matters a lot when deciding whether a splashed synergy is worth it — a team-wide buff from three units can be great, a type-only buff on those same three units often isn't.

Weather is tied to synergies too: reaching a high enough level of certain types sets the battlefield weather (Rain, Sandstorm, Sun and so on), which helps some Pokémon and hurts others. See the weather pages.

Reading a board through synergies

Once you're comfortable with the concept, you'll start seeing boards as "3 Fire / 4 Field / 2 Psychic" rather than as nine individual Pokémon. That's the goal — it makes every decision (which unit to add, which to cut, whether to level) concrete. The Team Builder shows this live: add Pokémon and every synergy's count and next threshold update instantly, with the active ones highlighted.