Okay
@Eruvala, take note, I've got some corrections to make, some information to give you, and I'm also going to save you some money in the long run (well, maybe).
Okay, so here's what you've got:
What I would recommend:
Go get a 64-128gb mSD. It must be Samsung. No fakes. Buy off of Amazon. 128gb will cost you about $50-60. Get the Orange & white one. Not the green, not the red. Link below:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06X...sung+128gb&dpPl=1&dpID=41f0wvcDjYL&ref=plSrch
The 16gb is fine for the R4i. We only need it once.
This is your best and cheapest solution:
http://www.nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=490
Buy that. Wait for everything to arrive in mail. Don't do anything to system yet. Just be patient.
In the meantime, go here:
https://3ds.guide
Read everything and follow through all the way till the end of the guide. DON'T DO ANYTHING, JUST READ!!!! Leave the 2DS alone for now.
Just to help, you're going to want to do an ALL SYSTEMS NtrBoot Flashcart install.
Now go get out your wallet... get the flashcart, MicroSD card, and be patient. Go play some games and whatnot. Come back here when you are ready.
If at some point you accidentally update your system's firmware while playing games, relax. You're covered.
Why must the microSD card be Samsung-branded? Don't be asinine, the brand doesn't matter. Samsung is a good and recommended brand but there are other good brands - particularly, SanDisk and Kingston.
The card you linked to is a U3 card - the 3DS can't handle U3 speeds so that's unnecessary, as the increased speed over a U1 card will only typically be noticed on a device that supports the speeds (such as a computer you're using to transfer files, and that's IF you are using a U3-compatible adapter).
If you're using the SD card for the flashcard, unless you plan on storing a TON of DS games, you can get away with a pretty small card. Heck, I use a 4GB one and I've got plenty on it.
For the 3DS, you have to specially format it (something a lot of people miss) if it's over 32GB else it will not work. This SanDisk Ultra, sold directly from Amazon, is a 128GB card which is cheaper than the Samsung you linked and should be more than adequate for any 3DS console:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010Q57S62/
However, if you have already ordered the 32GB one as I believe you said, that'll be fine. It's not ideal but I use a 32GB one myself (I should upgrade at some point but them's the breaks when you're poor) and it's fine.
If you want an all-in-one flashcard solution, I
highly recommend paying twice the price (it's still cheap) for the R4i Gold Plus (
http://www.nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=575) as it's the upgraded version of the previous go-to flashcard, the R4i Gold RTS. The difference is that the Plus has a switch inside for activating NTRboot mode without needing to flash your card manually, which makes the whole process easier and arguably safer.
Okay everyone, listen up, because I'm only explaining this once...
Custom Firm Ware (CFW) is basically a hacked 3DS that doesn't require a flashcart. Everything goes to SD card. Everything, including emulators work on it. We also have something called FreEshop. Works like eShop, only it doesn't use your Nintendo Network ID. Anyhting and everything you find in eShop is available in FreEshop. But first you must install the CFW.
The reason why everyone suggests you buy an R4i Flashcart is so you can install the CFW. After you have, you won't need it again unless you hack someone else's 3DS.
As for PKHex...
There are homebrew apps that you can install on CFW that do everything PKHex does. It is called PKSM. Works on all Pokemon games. 3DS, DS, etc.
The only things PKSM can't do that PKHex can is edit trainer info, check for fake/bad pokemon, and re-roll pokemon ID #.
However... they are working on fixing this. So soon you may not even need PKHex.
While PKSM works like an editor and a free pokebank, there are other apps like JKSM which allow you to make savedata backups and restore them to the .CIA games. So it is very simple to save before you choose your trainer pokemon, make a backup, choose pokemon, transfer to PKSMbank, restore backup, and choose the other two. Then use PKSM to transfer all and now you have all three trainer pokemon without having to play through the game three times.
The possibilities are endless... but it doesn't go to flashcart. It goes all on your system's SD card.
Got it? Drooling yet? Okay... but getting it to work is not easy. So don't get too excited.
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Any system with CFW cannot play in legal pokemon VGC tournaments. You will get banned.
So... most players will have x2 systems. One with, and one without CFW. Then they simply do all their genning on the CFW and transfer to their retail pokemon cartridge.
However, pokemon does check cartridges, so be careful. If something is not right, it will flag the judges and you will get disqualified and even banned.
So there. Pokegenning explained. Good luck, don't get caught, and keep your mouth shut. That's what all the pros do.
I know you're trying to help but holy misinformation, Batman.
I also know you're trying to simplify it but simplifying it quite that much can cause problems.
First: not EVERYTHING goes onto the SD card. The exploit itself is installed into the CTRNAND (or something like that - the pros can correct me, but the point is that it's injected into the console's on-board firmware), and then when you install a custom firmware such as Luma, you are asked to copy it to CTRNAND so that the 3DS will boot with custom firmware even without an SD card inserted. Ergo, your 3DS is then hacked "permanently" (you can un-hack it but... why would you ever want to do that?) even if your SD card isn't inserted.
The R4i series of flashcards are not the only compatible flashcards for NTRboot. They are, however, the cheapest and most highly-recommended, primarily because of the reliable source which is nds-card.com (still a site sponsor, I believe, and they have good customer service too).
People tend to recommend nds-card.com because it's trustworthy - there are plenty of clone flashcards out there, especially using the R4 and R4i names, so it helps to have a trusted source. Also, the R4i Gold RTS/Plus have auto-patching built in (to be fair, most Slot-1/DS flashcards have this nowadays, but it's still a bonus, especially for some of the later Pokemon games).
PKHeX can be obtained here:
https://projectpokemon.org/home/files/file/1-pkhex/
PKSM is indeed useable on the 3DS itself but PKHeX is a far superior program and is kept up-to-date more readily than PKSM (not by much but still).
What you want to do once you've got your custom firmware up and running (3ds.guide will explain how to install CIA files so once you've done that, this next part will be a cinch) is install the Homebrew Browser:
https://github.com/Wolvan/Homebr3w/releases/latest
This will allow you to fetch the latest version of many popular
3DS homebrew apps without hunting down CIAs manually.
Then just download JKSM (JK's Save Manager) or Checkpoint and you can use it to extract saves. You need to boot a game once to initialise the save before you can back it up.
Pokemon saves are "main" files. Open these in PKHeX (just copy them off your SD card from JKSV/Saves/Pokemon-Whatever/whateveryoucalledtheexportfolder, for JKSM - I haven't used Checkpoint yet but it'll have a similar folder structure) and make sure automatic backups are enabled (it'll ask you when you open it for the first time). That'll save you from any problems which may arise.
Any system with CFW
CAN play in legal Pokemon VGC tournaments; you
will not get banned. There are plenty of things you can be banned for (such as playing a new game online before its release date), but this is not one of them. As long as you do not sync to the Pokemon Global Link with obviously hacked stats (e.g. in Gen 6, maxed-out PokeMiles - this is a red flag to Nintendo if you had only a handful the day before, for example) and do not try to use hacked/unreleased/illegal (i.e. a Pokemon that has a stat or move or met location or whatever that makes its mere existence impossible) online, you will be fine with Pokemon.
I've never heard of people having two 3DS consoles just for playing in tournaments. I certainly don't see the point, but I suppose if you're someone like Verlisifag, you'd do that anyway.
There have been so many World Championship winners with hacked Pokemon at this point that it's laughable.
If you're smart, it's EASY to make your game look completely legitimate and still hack. PKHeX has a legality checker built right into it anyway.
Go check out the various subreddits dedicated to this stuff, read up on projectpokemon.com, or even go lurk over on /vp/ (that's the Pokemon board on 4chan, in case anyone is wondering. You're welcome, and yes, you will regret going there immediately).
To add on to some of the other things which have been said:
DS games run natively on a 3DS. The best way to do this is with a regular DS game card or, of course, a flashcard.
There is TWLoader (
https://gbatemp.net/threads/twloader-ctr-mode-nds-app.448375/) which is always advancing - this allows you to play DS games natively on the 3DS but directly off of your 3DS SD card rather than needing a flashcard. It is, however, still incompatible with a fair number of games, and has issues with plenty more.
There
is a DS emulator on 3DS, surprisingly - a port of DeSmume (
https://gbatemp.net/threads/wip-3desmume-ds-emulator-for-3ds.430223/) which only runs on the New 3DS/2DS models and frankly runs quite slow. It's impressive that it runs as well as it does but I have my doubts on whether or not it'll ever be able to run at full speed, so the previous two options are by far your better bets as of now.
Powersaves doesn't always give you legal Pokemon (the way it modifies some of your existing Pokemon at least used to cause problems - I know they fixed some of that such as shines but I'm not sure if they've necessarily fixed everything).
All your ROMs will be on the 3DS' SD card. The R4i or other DS flashcard is
only for playing DS games (although you can emulating older systems such as Game Boy on it, but (technically) not GBA).
There is a GBA emulator for the New 3DS/2DS which works fairly well, from what I understand, but I personally think the best option is to install GBA games directly to your 3DS as the 3DS is capable of playing them natively (it essentially under-clocks itself and reboots into "GBA mode", to put it simply, meaning you can't use any DS/3DS features whilst playing GBA games, nor is there any way to use link cable functionality).
Yes, PKHeX works for all generations of Pokemon (and will likely continue to be adapted for the future, though with the Switch now in the picture, it's not immediately clear if it will continue into Gen 8).
Any Virtual Console games you download (legally or otherwise) are stored on the 3DS SD card too. FreeShop works by obtaining the unique IDs called "titlekeys" for each game from a file (encTitleKeys.bin) and, together with the seed file for each game (think of it as a password or a key to a door or something), will let you download those games directly from Nintendo's servers... without paying. To my knowledge, they have no way of detecting this outside of seeing if you're using the FreeShop app, so the chance of this getting you banned is probably non-existent (but there's always a slim chance). Obviously, these titlekeys have to come from somewhere - they're ripped from legitimate copies of the games and then people submit them to
that titlekeys site. We're not allowed to specify the site, of course - that's against the rules and it's also technically illegal, but using everyone's back-stabbing friend Google, you can find
that titlekeys site pretty easily. Oh, and there's a Wii U one as well. So specify the console you want when you search~
Finally, I know it might seem helpful when you're just starting out but
DO NOT USE VIDEO TUTORIALS. They are rarely up-to-date and we tend to frown upon them around here. It's fine as a visual reference but don't follow their instructions or anything - the instructions you want are on 3ds.guide, period.
If you need help, there's a mega-thread on reddit, I believe 3ds.guide links to a Discord channel, and there's the Noob Paradise thread here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/3ds-noob-paradise-ask-questions-here.359035/
Just don't create a new thread for every question you have unless you've spent hours searching and turned up nothing (and if I can go find it in 2 seconds despite that, I will hunt you down and- well, you get the idea).
