CREDITED TO NATE RAILSBACK

I thought that since I'm always fighting in this game (for bigger stats and more moves), I might as well divulge some of the overall strategies I've devised for various monsters in and off the court, especially after several posts I've seen asking how to get certain monsters to higher ranks. Plus, there's an excellent post below about rare monsters, and I don't want to be shown up completely! I'll put up strategies for other monsters later, but I might as well get down the ones I've spent alot of time raising...
First, some terminology for newbies:

Offensive Stats- Power, Intelligence, and Skill

Defensive Stats- Life, Defense, and Speed

One-Hit Wonder- Strategy where you get really high Power/Intelligence and Skill, and try to take the enemy monster down immediately with a powerhouse attack. Pretty effective...until the enemy lucks out and you miss. And if you haven't raised any defensive stats, you're dead meat.

Tank- Monster that works alot on Defense and Life.

Speed Demon- Duh.

Antagonizer- Strategy where you keep withering an opponent's guts away to keep them from doing anything. Effective against Tanks, but not Speed Demons.

Guts Miser- Strategy where you build up your guts really high before making any real attack attempts. Falls to Antagonizers really easily.

Desperation- Strategy where you use moves as soon as you build up guts for them, trying to get in just one hit. Often emphasizes lower-cost moves to keep trying. Downfall is lowered damage and hit rate, but useful against Antagonizers.

Combo King- Using several weaker moves with lower cost and power, combined with high guts regeneration, to keep on almost constant offense, giving the opponent little time to attack, and tearing through low-defense opponents. The only difficulty it has is against opponents with higher guts regen.

Joker- This is one of the most offense-oriented creatures in the game. It gets good boosts in all offensive stats (Power, Skill, Intelligence) with only mediocre defensive stat boosts, which should tell you something right off. The best strategy while facing most opponents is to build up to about 80 guts, and then unleash a killer combination of Death Energy, Death Cutter, and/or Death Slash, using Death Punch/Smash if the opponent is nearly gone and agile enough to dodge most of your attacks (the more times you attack, the better chance of connecting at least once). "Real" helps out alot for this last note, and it should be noted that if you get Real, FINISH THEM. If they manage to wait you out of it, you're in major trouble. As for facing a Joker, try to stay as far away from them as possible if you're a Tank (Unless it has Death Final and enough guts to use it), or at close/mid range for a Speed Demon. Its limited array of moves can be used against it in the matter, forcing to only be able to use a few, non-highly-accurate moves against speedsters, or not very damaging moves against armor freaks. Its other big problem is that aside from Death Punch/Smash, all of its moves have upper mid-level or high Guts cost, making misses expensive.

Mock- Is similar to the Joker in its offense orientation, and the One-Hit Wonder strategy works well with Twister(s). However, it's Life and Defense DO go up better, and since its moves cost more, you're going to have to have to build them in order to survive. It's advantage over the Joker is its greater variety, especially moves that cost less than the Joker's standard 28/29, which are often perfect for beginning or ending a battle. Twig Gatling works great for withering, and Leaf Cutter can easily finish off a weakened opponent. If the opponent the ratio of Your Skill:Their Speed is highly in your favor, a Life Steal can be perfect for deciding the result of the battle in one swift SUCK, draining out tons of life and about 30 Guts from the opponent. Mostly though, this creature's long life span, debatable stat gains, and lack of total effectiveness (not saying it's not a good monster, just not the best in the game) make it infinitely more suited towards finding items on Expeditions.

Zuum- For those of you who haven't gotten it through your heads yet, this is THE definition of a well-balanced monster. In its purest form, you'll have difficulty maxing out or severely weakening any one stat, and its battle strategy reflects that: It depends entirely on the opponent. Use heavy moves like Bite-Throw and Fireball against Tanks, or withering moves like Dust Cloud and Hypnosis. Against Speedsters, the accuracy of its tail-based attacks will take them down most of the time. The list goes on and on...basically, unless you've gotten sub-breed specific stats (Pixie sub-type means you should concentrate on Intelligence and Speed, Golem means Power and Defense), look at the strategies above, as well as the "weaknesses" section of other monsters to determine how best to take them down. A simple back-up strategy is to combine all strategies: Build up Guts to about 70, then attack with Diving Claw, Fire Ball, Claw Combo, or Bite-Throw. Continue with Tail Combo or Million Claws, and then hit them with some Hypnotism to keep their guts down while you regenerate. With about 600-700 in every stat, a Zuum can be the hardest-to-defeat creature in the game (like Ryu in Street Fighter). When fighting AGAINST one, your best bet is to just focus on what your monster does best- heavy hitting, sure shooting, endurance, evasion, withering, regenerating, whatever, and keep your fingers crossed. A Zuum will usually never stun you with any one stat, so if your Golem gets into a direct competition over who has the better Power, for instance, you'll come away the victor.

Centaur- If you're raising a pure-bred Centaur, you'll have troubles, but most Centaur sub-breeds are very powerful, and have a great balance of all types of moves, able to take on any strategy depending on what you raise it in, as well as the opponent's style. Yeah, just like Zuum. The big thing to remember here, though, is that almost all breeds of Centaur have very good Skill, meaning this might give you an easier time. However, unlike the Zuum it has no truly powerful intelligence-based moves. Mind Flare has decent damage and hit rate, good withering, but won't be very useful for a One-Hit Wonder strategy. Centaur also has the awesome Cross Slash and Z Smash attacks that have B or A rank in all four categories (Force, Accuracy, Withering, Sharpness), making them absolutely devastating (but it sucks if you miss, so keep that Skill up!).

Beaclon- Okay, this just isn't one of the most powerful monsters, but it's always seemed very reliable and dependable, coming through in every task I could reasonably expect of it. These things just seem to have good luck. One of their biggest weaknesses is that until they reach B-rank, or get evil, they won't get any mid-range attacks, leaving a gaping hole that a smart trainer/AI can take full advantage of. It doesn't have too many really good moves, but he has plenty of decent attacks, and only one in the bunch (Flying Press) has E-rank accuracy. All of its other moves have at least D-rank, which puts it ahead of other natural Tanks like Golem. Plus it has better Guts Regen, making it sort of like a Golem Redux. Rolling Bomb is probably one of its best moves, but you'll have to be Good-Natured to get it, and Maximal Punch is also a great standard move, its only real downside being that you'll have to use Punch and Heavy Punch 50 times each to get it. This monster works very well with the Guts Miser strategy, but gets defeated nearly every time if forced in Desperation, so clobber Antagonizer opponents quickly, or else build up its speed (Tiger sub-type, anyone?).

Zilla- Again, the Pure version is unimpressive, but the Gooji (Zilla/Tiger) is easily one of the most powerful monsters in the game, with great/good stat boosts in all areas, and the natural goodness of the Zilla's effective, not-to-expensive, and varied array of techniques combined with the Tiger sub-breed's noticeable Guts Regen boost. Tail Lashes, Zilla Rush, Knocking-Up, Bubbles, and Tidal Wave are all great in terms of balanced stats and lower-than-they-should-be guts cost. Overall, though, a Zilla should try to knock out an opponent rather than trying Antagonizer or Combo King strategies. Brutal Moves like Wave Riding can end the battle quickly, but watch out with Roll Assault or Body Press. If either misses, the Zilla takes a LONG time to get up, during which time your guts are frozen but the opponent is preparing for a major assault, and if Body Press misses, you'll get some backlash damage.