Emerald gold prints water types only

So right now I’m trying to beat all of Pokémon emerald with only water type pokemon and I’d love that to include getting the gold prints at the battle frontier. However I’m pretty new to battle facilities, never done them before at all, so my knowledge on how to approach team building for this is spotty to say the least. So far I’ve managed to at least find a team that can pretty consistently win the gold print matches with neutral RNG (tested in pokemon showdown). But the team lacks bulk and will likely fair poorly at getting a streak high enough to challenge the gold print fights in the first place. So I would greatly appreciate advice, input, recommendations, or anything really that will help me go from new comer to gold prints. Thanks so much to everyone who replies in advance. Anyways here's the slap dash team I have planned so far.

Gyarados @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Surf
- Return
- Hidden Power [Flying]
Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 6 Def
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Return
- Rock Slide
Starmie @ Lum Berry
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 50
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic

Basically my whole idea was just I wanted to cover the grass and eletric weakness (gyarados and swampert) and I wanted a powerful pokemon with lots of coverage (starmie). Additionally it needed to be a team that could win the gold prints, and this team, as per my testing in pokemon showdown, should be capable of beating all the gold print fights in a neutral RNG match (no crits or equal crits). Although I did not account for how the AIs play their teams, I just played their teams myself how I felt the AI probably would. I'm unsure if this team can even adequately deal with the AI switching pokemon into unfavorable matchups during gold print fights since it lacks bulk all around. Since I can't really get hands up with the actual gold print fights, I don't know how well the team *really* matches up against them, I just know in a favorable match up this team can beat each pokemon on their teams consecutively.

Some things to note, I am on cartridge and I can't trade and I'm also pretty strict about what I mean by water types only so I don't even want to catch any non-water types for breeding since I don't want them in my pokedex at all (already irritated enough the weather institute forced me to take a castform from them). So stuff like trading a Suicune from FRLG, breeding Leech Seed on Ludicolo, and other things like that are out of the question. Anyways, thanks for your time or consideration and huge thanks in advance to anyone who can give me some pointers or suggestion a team or a mon or a strat or anything really.
 
I think you need to make Gyarados Substitute + Dragon Dance, giving him Leftovers. This will sweep quite a lot of teams if it can set up (not hard vs most opponents). The optimal offensive moves are HP Flying and Earthquake.

The other 2 Mons should support Gyarados and give him more odds to boost. This means that a Thunder Wave Mon would be useful and there are 2 options: Starmie and Lanturn. The former has the advantage of being an already good Mon with epic coverage, outspeeding almost everything (which means it will get to use Thunder Wave). The latter is immune to Electric Moves and can also support with Flash (so, Gyarados will have more chances to use DD).

For last slot you don,t have many options. Probably your Swampert (though without Leftovers) will work best as additional Electric immunity and Rock resist. However, I suggest using another set: Rest, EQ, Surf and Ice Beam, with Chesto Berry as the item. Brave nature is probably optimal for such a set.


Lead in most facilities should be Gyarados to get the intimidate of and switch out if the match-up is unfavourable. The Battle Arena is an exception due to not allowing switches. Here you should lead with either Starmie or Lanturn, whichever you have choosen. Gyarados should be in the second slot and Swampert last.

Hopefully my suggestion helps, this is what I can come up with when having such limited options.
 
Thank you so much. I was actually considering a more defensive gyarados that could setup dragon dance. So basically I'd use the same team I have planned right now gyarados, starmie, swampert but with some major overhauls.

Set swampert up with resto berry and swap some moves around (ice beam, surf) and probably swap his EVs around too since I wouldn't be going full attack with him anymore (maybe invest in Sp Atk instead? Or perhaps defense? Or just leave it with Atk for EQ).

Gyarados loses return and surf for subsitute and dragon dance, EVs stay the same or should he swap for more defensive EVs? Also hold item is now left overs.

Starmie I'll probably keep surf/psychic/thunder bolt (don't need ice beam since swampert has it) and 4th attack with be thunder wave. Same EVs should be optimal I would think. Stick with Lum Berry or whatever I had there, or is there a better hold for starmie?

Anyways thanks so much for your input, I really appreciate it. I do like the gyarados setup idea a lot, I was wondering how I could get it to work reliably and substitute and starmie support seems like a really solid way of doing so.
 

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