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Gaining experience and leveling up Pokémon is an essential part of any Pokémon game. Leveling up increases stats and makes Pokémon stronger, which is mandatory for beating the game.

Leveling up is also important for competitive play. While all Pokémon are set to level 50 in the Battle Stadium, they can only be hyper-trained once they’ve reached level 100. Hyper-training a stat will make its individual value perfect, which is useful for those that can’t be bred for perfect stats, such as Gigantamax or Shiny Pokémon.

Here are the best methods for leveling up in Pokémon Sword and Shield.

Experience Candies

By far the fastest way to level a Pokémon up in Sword and Shield is by using Experience Candies. Players can earn these by winning Max Raid Battles. The difficulty of the raid will determine how many candies are rewarded.

There are five different types of Experience Candy (Exp. Candy) that grant different amounts of experience (exp points):

  • Exp. Candy XS: 100 exp points
  • Exp. Candy S: 800 exp points
  • Exp. Candy M: 3,000 exp points
  • Exp. Candy L: 10,000 exp points
  • Exp. Candy XL: 30,000 exp points

More difficult raids will grant more rewards. There are 10 different types of raids (excluding event raids). Raid dens with a red beam are common raids, while dens with purple beams are rare raids. In the Y-COMM menu, rare raids are indicated by a gold background and a shining Pokémon outline instead of a red background.

Both rare and common raids have difficulty levels between one and five stars. The most difficult raids, which are five-star rare dens, will award three Exp. Candy XL and three Exp. Candy L. Using these will quickly level Pokémon.

The tournament

Players who have beaten the game can replay the tournament as many times as they want. While this is significantly slower than using Exp. Candies, it also grants a lot of Poké dollars and other rewards.

If you’re looking for the Flame Orb or another item obtainable by beating the tournament, gather a group of Pokémon who need experience, give one of them the Lucky Egg, and grind away.

The Wild Area

The Wild Area is an excellent source of collecting items, Watts, and experience. There are plenty of powerful Pokémon roaming around, and knocking them out will grant good experience.

When roaming the Wild Area, you should also keep an eye out for the female Pokémon Breeder. She will appear in random places and battle you. She has all three Galar starters, which grant a decent amount of experience, and she also gives a good amount of money for beating her.

Be sure to stay tuned for more guides about Pokémon Sword and Shield!