Statistically, if you depend on either a 10% flinch rate OR for an opponent's 90% accurate move to miss, within one turn, what are the odds that (failing to get the flinch plus move connects) you'll lose? It's well over 80% unfavorably, is it not?
I had spent a great deal of time replaying and replaying a round of battles out of necessity, because my "best" option at the time, lead Terrakion4, simply could not win a battle in which the opponent lead Mawile3 and carried a Mimikyu3 (Fairium Z variant) as backup. My other two pokemon could not defeat Mawile plus Florges and still be able to break Mimikyu's disguise while surviving the Twinkle Tackle afterward.
Changing Terrakion for another pokemon was out of the question because the two opponents before Veteran Xio used teams that were cleanly beaten by it, particularly a lead Zard Y; never mind the fact that the next best option was a Swampert1 with no water move. This was also the first round out of five, and I didn't want to change such a solid poke like Terrakion and come to find out it would have handled everything else easily. I was getting extremely aggravated by the situation, as the opponent would not change; I just had to find a way to come out on top. But once I resigned myself to those odds, it just became a matter of patiently trying and retrying. Though I did bitch loudly to NZtechfreak about it.
The one thing working in my favor was that sand was automatically generated for every battle. This meant that if I could kill Mawile unscathed, Florges could not OHKO me with any of its moves barring a crit, while a 2HKO was easily within my own grasp. Both Florges and Mimikyu were also much more susceptible to Rock Slide. Even if Terrakion were to die, I simply needed to break Mimikyu's disguise or hit Florges once before doing so, and I had it in the bag. Latios3 (Specs) and Mow Rotom3 (Grassium Z Leaf Storm, Will-O, Volt Switch, Shadow Ball) could handle the remaining two, not necessarily smoothly, but surely.
And after a solid hour or more of attempts, bones were thrown my way. Many, many bones. Needless to say, I got my King's Rock flinch with Earthquake and killed Mawile. But what about those other bones?
-Mimikyu loses Disguise to Earthquake and also flinches
-Rock Slide flinches Mimikyu once again
-0/0 Florges makes a lovely opponent for Terrakion especially in sand, with the SDef and extra damage per turn
So my manageable scenario became my best case scenario before my very eyes. I couldn't believe my luck. I was more than willing to sack Terrakion just to give Latios two clean turns before getting destroyed itself (Specs Psychic was doing nearly 50% to Florges, sand would push it over) and thereby leaving Rotom to either Bloom Doom Mimikyu to oblivion or finish off Florges, whomever came in last.
And I was glad I held onto Terrakion, because just as I'd anticipated, the remaining four rounds were generally easy pickings for it, especially with that sand. Giovanni packed Kangaskhan4 and, even with the intimidate from lead Arcanine, was easily dealt with (albeit not without some bloodshed. Terrakion died a hero.) That victory was sufficient to reach Rank 50, so I'm finally done with that challenge until January when the global mission wants us to return. However, they'll need to provide something besides FC because, just by playing the Agency EXCLUSIVELY, I finished with over 100,000 FC, which is more than I ever had in Moon and more than I know what to do with.
But I've got a lv100 Mega Lucario as my designated poke, which should help NZ quite a bit, as well as anyone else who wants to get into that side challenge and is looking for assistance. I can't wait for Smuckem to start playing it, since it seems like basically everything he likes about using facility sets.