Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

[QuentinQuonce]

Thanks a ton of your input! Yeah I kinda figured Tentacruel wasn't great. He also dies to Lati's due to psychic weakness. I just liked him because he matches up better against venusaur and grass types in general, but overall he'll be a liability in more intense fights so if I was making a swap out Ludicolo would be preferable. But with Ludicolo then I'm lacking any physical aside from Swampert's EQ which matches me poorly against CM users and Snorlaxes (both of which Anabel Gold uses)

So first off I've been trying to avoid RNG abuse or other mild exploits (TM duping, etc), just for stupid personal reasons. If push comes to shove I will indulge, it's not a hill I'm gonna die on.

I get that. I do admire your resolve but I would just gently push back and say that with this you really do need to seize every advantage (even though the cloning glitch obviously isn't an intended one and is bending the rules of fairness somewhat - I'm more referring to things like breeding, Pickup abuse, and PP maxing). But it is your choice.

As for substitute, I just feel uneasy about it since it cuts HP by so much just to try it, in the past when I've ran substitute I always find it breaking in 1 hit. It just scares me because if you misjudge and use it against a mon that one hits it and outspeeds you then you've given the enemy a free hit, wasted your turn, and lost 1/4 of your HP all for nothing basically suiciding gyarados right away. But that's all likely just skill issue and needing to know what mons and sets its safe to use against. So substitute to replace protect is probably worth doing on my current set.

Well, my point regarding Substitute is that it should be used well. It is a skill issue because using it against something that would otherwise KO won't save you unless you can stall it out of PP, which is situational. But the AI often has trouble dealing with Substitute and will often try to use status moves against it, which obviously nets you free turns. Against more passive mons like Blissey and Shuckle Substitute can be an absolute god-tier move, definitely don't underestimate it.

If you think my current set is good enough to get me to gold with good play and a bit of luck then I will just keep grinding until I get a good run going.

Definitely do persevere with this team, it's good in terms of fundamentals but I do think it probably requires a little tweaking to be reliably assured of getting golds.

I think a big thing I need to get used to is check spreadsheets at the start of every match and taking a few moments to figure out what moves the enemy might have and what mons they might use next. So foresight like that could really go a long ways.

Yes, absolutely this.

Btw if I was gonna run toxic, where would I even fit it? All my slots are pretty well filled atm. I guess I can just throw caution to the wind and let double teamers be RNG, tbh I'm not sure that's really that awful since I only need a 70 streak (not going for insane records or anything, just want to barely squeak out a gold symbol if possible). I was thinking I could maybe rework some stuff to have rain dance and thunder on this team for double teamers and just a generally decent setup thing to do against certain sets.

With Toxic I was really only thinking it's there if Swampert is a dedicated Mirror Coat user, on a set like I suggested such as:

-Mirror Coat
-Rest
-Toxic
-Earthquake

Or I suppose it could fit onto a more offensive set tbh.

-Surf
-Earthquake
-Icy Wind/Ice Beam
-Toxic/Rest

EDIT: Oh yeah I had one closing thought. It's either stupid or genius. Lead Quagsire and use Yawn, swap into Gyarados for free Dragon Dances, should get 2-3 easy. Quagsire can just function as budget Swampert after yawn leading. Probably not worth since Quagsire is so inferior to swampert in every other way, but yawn leading to give Gyarados a basically garaunteed free setup sounds powerful.

Too gimmicky and not reliable. Eventually you'll come up against something with Vital Spirit/Insomnia/Early Bird or a Lum/Chesto Berry or something that knows Sleep Talk. I'm not sure offhand whether the AI switches to avoid Yawn but it's certainly a possibility. It's also a waste of a team slot when Swampert can accomplish so much more. Quagsire gets some good options but it doesn't have a lot of immediate power. It's also slow and is easy prey for any lead Grass-types who will annihilate you even if you fully invest in SpDef.

The other option could be something like running Confuse Ray and Thunder Wave on Starmie to cripple the oppontent lead before swapping in gyarados, but that seems much riskier and means I can't run full coverage on starmie either (plus starmie probably takes a ton of hits and dies setting that up half the time). Yawn should give Gyarados anywhere from 2-5 turns to setup assuming I swap him in on the turn of the yawn. He will always get one totally safe DD and I could just keep DDing until it wakes up and hits Gyarados unless I'm afraid it will oneshot (Not super likely unless it's thunderbolt). 2-5 DDs should let Gyarados sweep pretty decently most the time and then have Starmie as the back up/clean up when gyarados goes down, Quagsire can still function to clean up eletric types. I just feel like losing Swampert isn't worth it since he's such a reliable and powerful pokemon (when he doesn't get freaking frozen).

WRT Starmie, Confuse Ray's accuracy is unreliable and Thunder Wave doesn't guarantee free turns. Sweeping is a far better use of your time (note that crippler leads aren't bad, there are just many mons who do it better). By going the defensive route you forgo the possibility of winning a battle in three moves - easily achievable with Starmie in numerous cases - in exchange for giving the AI multiple turns in which they have the chance to boost or cripple you or just sweep you outright.

Thanks again for all your input, pretty sure you responded to my last inquiry as well, so thanks again.

No problem at all. I've invested a lot of time into Gen III Frontier, I genuinely think it's the best one and I enjoy discussing it. And I've come on a lot since I started so it's always cool to see people coming into it.

 

[Newusername2000]

Yeah I figured most those ideas (crippler lead, quagsire) weren't gonna be any good. But I do think it's worth thinking about Tentacruel a bit more.

Right now grass pokemon are giving me the hardest time. Eletric types are no issue with swampert around getting free switch ins on them, but Ludicolos that know Thunder Punch and Giga Drain are ruining my day nonstop. Venusuars and Ludicolos are really messing with me. I lost my 3rd attempt at round 50 against a trainer who used BOTH. Cradilies are also no fun since they have rock moves to screw with Gyarados. I'm honestly thinking that Tentacruel might be getting slept on here. I'm unsure, but I really feel he might be the secret ingredient. This might just be me getting bad sets or playing it poorly, but Starmie seems to become less useful in many of my battles in the later waves. All too often I find myself not one shotting with it and then it just dies due to it's extreme fragility. It begins to lose most neutral opening matches and thus only really does work if it wins the lead match up (which is fairly common due to great coverage), but even then it typically is too injured to do anything else after that. I absolutely need Gyarados to kill high SpD mons like snorlax and blissey, so I can't get rid of him, also he's still pretty good for grass types. I honestly almost feel like Tenta, Gyara, Swamp might work well. It basically makes grass no more of a nausiace than any other type since only swampert is weak to it and Tenta will crush grass types with sludge bomb/ice beam while gyarados also doesn't fear them. The biggest brain part of tenta is also that with fully invested HP and SpD he *can* survive a fully invested psychic from Lati's *AND* he learns mirror coat, so assuming he's at full HP he can take Lati's down with mirror coat (of course at his own expense, but still). I also suspect this means that basically *ANY* poor match up against a SpA mon (eletric and psychic types) can in a pinch be cheesed by tentacruel just memeing on them with mirror coat as well.

Tentacruel @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Calm Nature
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 0 SpD / 0 Spe
- Sludge Bomb
- Rest/Surf
- Ice Beam
- Mirror Coat

This mon would solve my Vensaur/Ludicolo/Cradily problem and in conjunction with Gyarados even out any grass weaknesses altogether while also being able to kill problematic Special Attackers like Latis and Giga Drain/Thunderbolt Gengar in a pinch. He also opens up the ability to force out EQs and get free swaps into Gyarados in certain cases. My only worry is that while this will solve my grass problem, I'm worried what other issues it might cause to arise in turn by not having starmie (also speaking of starmie, Illuminate should totally just function like a free brightpowder and no one can convince me otherwise). Anyways I'm gonna train up a tentacruel and do some runs with it to see how that feels. If it feels like I just have no killing power at all, I'll bring Starmie back, but I really think Tentacruel might just be the solution to the cracks in my team.

I also looked a tiny bit more at Relicanth, but I just can't seem to justify using him. I do think I'd get good mileage out of him, but if I replace Gyarados with him then I have 2 times 4 grass weaknesses which is just gonna make my grass issues EVEN WORSE. Still having a phyically defensive mon that can swap into any physical attack easily and also easily beat snorlax would be nice and Relicanth's stats, ability, and movepool are all surprisingly good, he can put out 120 BP double edges with no down side, have EQ, and 90 BP (after stab) ancient power. Sadly he just won't fit into the team, but he's really tempting to be honest.

Relicanth @ Leftovers/Chesto Berry
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Double-Edge
- Ancient Power
- Earthquake
- Rest/Whatever else

Also sorry if I'm spamming this thread, just seems like I get the most responses here. Anyways thanks again for your advice, slowly making progress!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Yeah I figured most those ideas (crippler lead, quagsire) weren't gonna be any good. But I do think it's worth thinking about Tentacruel a bit more.

Right now grass pokemon are giving me the hardest time. Eletric types are no issue with swampert around getting free switch ins on them, but Ludicolos that know Thunder Punch and Giga Drain are ruining my day nonstop. Venusuars and Ludicolos are really messing with me. I lost my 3rd attempt at round 50 against a trainer who used BOTH. Cradilies are also no fun since they have rock moves to screw with Gyarados. I'm honestly thinking that Tentacruel might be getting slept on here. I'm unsure, but I really feel he might be the secret ingredient. This might just be me getting bad sets or playing it poorly, but Starmie seems to become less useful in many of my battles in the later waves. All too often I find myself not one shotting with it and then it just dies due to it's extreme fragility. It begins to lose most neutral opening matches and thus only really does work if it wins the lead match up (which is fairly common due to great coverage), but even then it typically is too injured to do anything else after that. I absolutely need Gyarados to kill high SpD mons like snorlax and blissey, so I can't get rid of him, also he's still pretty good for grass types. I honestly almost feel like Tenta, Gyara, Swamp might work well. It basically makes grass no more of a nausiace than any other type since only swampert is weak to it and Tenta will crush grass types with sludge bomb/ice beam while gyarados also doesn't fear them. The biggest brain part of tenta is also that with fully invested HP and SpD he *can* survive a fully invested psychic from Lati's *AND* he learns mirror coat, so assuming he's at full HP he can take Lati's down with mirror coat (of course at his own expense, but still). I also suspect this means that basically *ANY* poor match up against a SpA mon (eletric and psychic types) can in a pinch be cheesed by tentacruel just memeing on them with mirror coat as well.

View attachment 473683
Tentacruel @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Calm Nature
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 0 SpD / 0 Spe
- Sludge Bomb
- Rest/Surf
- Ice Beam
- Mirror Coat

This mon would solve my Vensaur/Ludicolo/Cradily problem and in conjunction with Gyarados even out any grass weaknesses altogether while also being able to kill problematic Special Attackers like Latis and Giga Drain/Thunderbolt Gengar in a pinch. He also opens up the ability to force out EQs and get free swaps into Gyarados in certain cases. My only worry is that while this will solve my grass problem, I'm worried what other issues it might cause to arise in turn by not having starmie (also speaking of starmie, Illuminate should totally just function like a free brightpowder and no one can convince me otherwise). Anyways I'm gonna train up a tentacruel and do some runs with it to see how that feels. If it feels like I just have no killing power at all, I'll bring Starmie back, but I really think Tentacruel might just be the solution to the cracks in my team.

So I got interested in this and ran some calculations and I may have slightly underestimated Tentacruel. With 0/0 HP/SpDef investment and a neutral nature Tentacruel is actually guaranteed to survive Psychic from a neutral natured Latios with 252 SpAtk EVs. From there it only takes a small amount of HP and SpDef investment to guarantee survival from Modest 252 SA Latios; 56 EVs in both guarantees that Psychic is a 2HKO. I'd forgotten that of all the eight Latios in the Frontier (well technically nine as Anabel also uses one) only three are Modest; the rest are Adamant or have neutral natures.

So that's something. It still dies to Earthquake but at least many users of that are slow Rock/Ground-types who Tentacruel can easily beat. I ran the calcs on Ursaring (chosen off the top of my head for being a non-STAB Earthquake user with a high Attack stat) and you basically have to put nearly everything else into Defence to survive. I went with a spread of 248 HP/180 Defence/24 SpAtk/56 SpDef which means that you survive Ursaring's Earthquake but the problem is that you're not 2HKOing unless you run Hydro Pump, which generally isn't a good idea. That spread doesn't even take speed into account which you should as due to being a base-100 mon Tentacruel sits at a very common tier, so that sucks EVs away from other areas.

And running it with purely defensive stats seems such a waste - it's fast and relatively good enough to be offensively capable. I might be biased though as Sludge Bomb is one of my favourite moves so any excuse to run it. But as long as you ensure that you can survive Psychic, you're all good.

On balance I would probably be inclined to go with Swampert, but you've got me interested in Tentacruel now. Kind of tempted to breed a couple and test them out...

I also looked a tiny bit more at Relicanth, but I just can't seem to justify using him. I do think I'd get good mileage out of him, but if I replace Gyarados with him then I have 2 times 4 grass weaknesses which is just gonna make my grass issues EVEN WORSE. Still having a phyically defensive mon that can swap into any physical attack easily and also easily beat snorlax would be nice and Relicanth's stats, ability, and movepool are all surprisingly good, he can put out 120 BP double edges with no down side, have EQ, and 90 BP (after stab) ancient power. Sadly he just won't fit into the team, but he's really tempting to be honest.

View attachment 473684
Relicanth @ Leftovers/Chesto Berry
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
- Double-Edge
- Ancient Power
- Earthquake
- Rest/Whatever else

Oh now Relicanth is also really good fun to use. Admittedly way more so in later generations, but I had a ball using Rock Head Head Smash Relicanth in a playthrough some years ago. Never used it in a battle facility as I can't imagine it'd be much good - it's just too slow and has too many weaknesses. But definitely one for a novelty team sometime.

Also sorry if I'm spamming this thread, just seems like I get the most responses here. Anyways thanks again for your advice, slowly making progress!

Asking for advice about the Frontier in a thread devoted to the Frontier is about as far from the definition of spamming as it gets and this thread is often too quiet so by all means continue. Yours is a really interesting challenge and should be encouraged.

 

[Newusername2000]

So for the tentacruel I'm thinking I'm gonna run Ice Beam/Surf/Rest/Mirror Coat. Sludge bomb actually only works on Ludicolo out of the three grass types that commonly cause me issues, whereas Ice Beam works on all grass types except ludicolo who mirror coat can safely kill since there's never any phyiscal sets for him. Plus doing Surf/Ice Beam means more consistent bang for my buck investing in SpA if I do end up having the extra points (also I used the Sludge Bomb TM on my base game Tentacruel to beat Wallace's Ludicolo so I don't even have the TM to dupe it anymore, I'd have to physically trade to get a new one I think since it's once per game).

So the spread will be heavy HP, minimum SpD for surviving an invested latios physic since I don't wanna get wiped by this stinker

Although I think swampert can feasibly beat that set actually, but still. The rest of the EVs could go one of two ways. I'm thinking either I do full defensive and go Bold nature and invest remaining EVs in defense so that Tentacruel can soak up physical attacks decently as well. Or I go Modest nature and invest in SpA instead so that he can deal better damage.

Also now that you mention physical Lati sets it makes me a tiny bit nervous. Swampert can beat most of them, but some of them run recover which since swampert takes 4 hits to kill them, will likely cause issues since I imagine they will use it. Althought I think Gyarados matches decently against Physical Latis as well since he removes their EQ and forces them to use shadow ball instead + imtimidate and leftovers. Gyarados does enough damage to make recover not so scary. Gyarados takes just over 3 hits to kill them and (if he hits them with intimidate) will basically out heal their damage with leftovers.

The real issue is these stupid split attacker Latis that have EQ and thunderbolt and psychic. Luckily they don't have recover on those sets so swampert can beat them reasonably.

It's just gonna be a huge hassle to properly ID what set these latis run since my response to them has to be significantly different for each one.

 

[dgice]

Why nobody upload my record? :(
Where are the administrator? Also I wanted to ask something to the community, dont know if this is the place. Anyway, seeing the various team I was blown away finding how many of you use the move substitute. And in the tower records its full of this move, adede the man at the top have it in 2 out of 3 of his pokémon. My question is, playing on retail is there some kind of trick that let you teach the move substitute more than once? Cause replaying the game and than trade it over seems just too much, I see people with 8 substitute moves, how is it possible? Maybe with the pomeg glitch? Dont know, please tell me your secret. Thanks and cheers.

My trick to getting substitute is replaying emerald over and over. It's extra easy if you trade out your mudkip and teach it surf, waterfall, and strength right away then trade it back holding a lucky egg (sometimes I trade in a claydol with dig and teleport to save a few steps too). You don't even need to beat the elite 4 just get to lilycove. Honestly replaying the game is not that time intensive compared to breeding pokemon or attempting long runs. Takes maybe 5 hours if you're not paying attention but speed runners do the whole thing in under 3 hours.

 

[Kommo-o]

Why nobody upload my record? :(
Where are the administrator? Also I wanted to ask something to the community, dont know if this is the place. Anyway, seeing the various team I was blown away finding how many of you use the move substitute. And in the tower records its full of this move, adede the man at the top have it in 2 out of 3 of his pokémon. My question is, playing on retail is there some kind of trick that let you teach the move substitute more than once? Cause replaying the game and than trade it over seems just too much, I see people with 8 substitute moves, how is it possible? Maybe with the pomeg glitch? Dont know, please tell me your secret. Thanks and cheers.

Hey there, I'm sorry I have not been active. I recently had a problem with my computer's hard drive and had to get it replaced. I lost access to pretty much everything that I had on my new PC and because of this, I'm still figuring a way out to retrieve the files from my old hard drive. Because this impacts my ability to update the leaderboard accordingly, I won't be able to add new records until I resolve this. Unfortunately, my brother did not backed up the hard drive, so it will take me a while to restore everything.

I'll also take this opportunity to let everyone know that I won't be able to make more updates until further notice. I do take my time on playing with some of the teams on the leaderboard before adding them to the thread, which is crucial in order for me to make an informed decision before adding a team that I feel I need to experience how it plays. It will take me a while until I can get back everything that I need in order to maintain the thread.

 

[Zakelli]

Hello everyone!
This is the first time I post here. I will probably make some mistakes here and there so.
Here I will talk about my 18 tournament win streak on batlle dome duo.

TEAM GOAL/REASONING

There are two particularities in this facility that I want to take advantage of:

1. You know the team of opponents before the fight

2. As there is only two Pokemon's per battle, neither can switch

With those two points in mind Perish song strategies seem to be a good idea for a long streak there. Mr. Mime + Perish song user was my starting build idea. Mr. Mime had the Soundproof ability to not be affected by Perish song plus he had Fake out an incredible move in duo battle letting us use Perish song safely. Next our Perish song user is Altaria because of its good bulk and good speed tier plus the access to Fly that can be a pseudo Protect move. The last Pokemon should cover all the remaining threads that my main strategy cannot cover : aka Soundproof Pokemon's. There are 3 Electrode line, Exploud line and Mr. Mime there are very different Pokemon with different game plans and build so it's pretty difficult to cover those 3 with only one more Pokemon. My best idea was to use Breloom + Mime the goal is to sleep the two opposing Pokemon to lend some Focus Punch. Notice, however, that as there are only 3 there is a pretty low chance to encounter them, plus AI can choose to not even use them. So in 99% case I use Mime + Altaria core.

THE TEAM

BELLY (Altaria) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Perish Song
- Fly
- Protect
- Substitute

You want it max speed to guarantee Perish song to be placed otherwise you lose your win con. Max HP to be as bulky as possible. All the moves are here to stall those 3 turns. You only want him to stay for 3 turns so I prefer Lum berry over Leftover as it can avoid some annoying haxx from the AI. Altaria having a x4 weakness to ice is here an advantage as it's rendered the AI really predictable. As I said I choose Altaria because of its good speed and bulk overall and I'm not sure if there is a better perish song user with better stats available. (Maybe Politoaed?)

ONLYFAN (Mr.Mime) (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 178 Def / 80 SpD
Calm Nature
- Fake out
- Protect
- Substitute
- Psychic

I have to admit the EV's are pretty random as I invested him 6 months ago and I forgot exactly why It's invest like that. I accept any suggestion about a possible new EV's feel free. Soundproof + Fake out is really god tier in this team and that's why It cannot be replace by any Pokemon. Thanks to fake out you can choose to nullify a potential threat to your game plan for the first turn allowing to perish song safely and buy you a turn. Protect, Substitute to stall 3 turns. Psychic in the rare case you have to do damage. Bright Powder or Leftover as you wish, I prefer Bright powder since generally fights last 3 turns.

MELONPAN (Breloom) (M) @ Quick Claw
Ability: Effect Spore
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Focus Punch
- HP Ghost
- Substitute

You want to be as fast as possible to spore everything you can. This Pokemon is only used in 1% case because of Soudproof Pokemon. HP Ghost to cover everything and hit Mr. Mime effectively. Nothing more to say about him I think.

THREATS/ HOW I LOOSE

The main threats are hard hitting physical Pokemon that focus ok killing my Mr. Mime. Unfortunately Mr. Mime had a pretty low Def so it can be easy to be KOed by those kinds of Pokemon's.

The last two times I lost was because of a Rhydon Megahorn and an Ursaring Mega Kick. This is why I'm thinking of heavily investing Mr. Mime in Def but I'm not sure about that.

I had to say a thing about trace Pokemon too, who can trace Soundproof. With my testing I figure out they only trace the first Pokemon of your team. So as long as Altaria is your first Pokemon the battle can go as expected. I'm not 100% sure of it, however as my encounter with trace Pokemon was really uncommon.

IN GAME THINKING

First, when you are checking the opponent team you have to identify the threads : mainly ice moves users, hard physical attackers and Soundproof Pokemon's.
After that you choose your Pokemon. Now I will only talk about Mr. Mime + Altaria pair because the use of Breloom is extremely rare. When you start the battle, turn one will always be Fake out + Perish song. Deciding the Fake out target can really be decisive so be sure to think about your target. Turn 2 regardless of what your opponent do will be double protect. Turn 3 double sub and the last turn double Protect or Fly+ Protect as you want. This is the usual game plan most of the thinking will be when you see the opponent team and your turn one with Fake out, after that it's pretty straight forward. Really try not to deviate of this game plan because your team is not prepared for doing anything else unfortunately.

Thanks for reading. If you want to try this team feel free, it's very fun, even if a bit redundant. I'm really open for any ideas to improve the concept as I'm sure there is a marge for improvements and innovations.

 

[Holthyr]

Hello everyone!
I would like to submit a new battle tower streak of 104 wins. This is level 50 on a cartridge.

So I'm not sure why my last streak was denied. It was added then removed from the battle palace leaderboards. I understand if it was a crazy long streak and made first place but it was only 1 successful round finished after gold with 6 wins after that. Anyways, I have been very apprehensive about submitting any more streaks since.

On my last submission I stated that I was going for 6/7 golds (no factory) and 100 wins for the gold shield in the emerald battle tower. Anyways obviously based on my previous statement I have achieved the gold symbol.

The Team

Slaking @ Choice band
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 252 HP, 252 attack, 6 Special Defense

Shadow Ball
Earthquake
Hyper Beam
Aerial Ace

Latias @ Lum berry
Nature: Serious
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Defense, 6 Special Defense

Charm
Thunder Wave
Recover
Mud Slap

Suicune @ Leftovers
Nature: Hardy
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Defense, 6 Special Defense

Surf
Substitute
Calm Mind
Rest

Threats and Strategy

So I noticed there are several threats, Regis for their bulk and clear body with explosion and regice with the bolt beam combo. Metagross with clear body, lati@s twins especially with calm mind, any water absorb mon, Scizor with silver wind, and other mons sporting high crit cancel moves. Raikou is also in this group especially with calm mind and being super effective against Suicune.

I would actually lead Slaking, if it was something that Latias would have trouble with (Latios, Starmie, some others even like Heracross) I would shadow ball or aerial ace right away. Even sometimes if I had to sack Slaking. It was usually bad news if I attack and they started to set up. If it was something I could cripple and switch in safely on I would. Then it was a matter of just setting up with suicune and sweeping.

Several times I would set up with suicune against something with calm mind and rest then end up having to run it out of PP then proceed.

The Loss

Obviously 104 means I lost on 105, Anabel repeat battle. I mud-slapped Raikou to -6 and had him paralyzed. On the switch in Suicune took a +4 thunderbolt. I doubt it needed the crit but I guess it was just style points. I know I should have waited until all thunderbolt pp was gone but such is life. I'm just glad this didn't happen at battle 70.

So where do I go from here? I guess I will start trying the factory though I said I never would. I will have to go back to the guides people have written and reread them. Now that I am aware of the pomeg glitch I would like to finish my dex finally too. Who knows may even turn my blast burn cyndaquil into a gen 3 ribbon master...

 

[justonepost]

My top Pokémon for the Emerald Battle Frontier:

Emerald S:
Leftovers: Spore, Substitute, Baton Pass, Belly Drum/Dragon Dance/Tail Glow
Choice Band: Hyper Beam, Earthquake, Shadow Ball, Double-Edge/Return
Leftovers: Mirror Coat, Counter, Destiny Bond, Encore
Leftovers: Surf, Ice Beam, Recover, Refresh/Confuse Ray/Hypnosis
Lum Berry: Dragon Dance, Earthquake, Aerial Ace, Rock Slide/Substitute
Leftovers: Calm Mind, Dragon Claw, Recover, Refresh/Charm/Protect(for Trick); Charm, Flash, Recover, Thunder Wave/Icy Wind
Lum Berry: Calm Mind, Psychic, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam
Leftovers: Earthquake, Rock Slide, Rest, Sleep Talk
Salac Berry: Meteor Mash, Earthquake, Explosion, Agility/Endure
Salac Berry: Ability:Swarm: Swords Dance, Reversal, Megahorn/Rock Slide, Substitute/Endure
Chesto Berry: Dragon Dance, Rest, Earthquake, Hidden Power(Type Flying)/Body Slam/Return; Dragon Dance, Flail, Earthquake, Substitute/Endure
Salac Berry: Substitute(breed), Belly Drum, Flail, Shadow Ball; Trick, Charm, Sand Attack, Thunder Wave/Icy Wind
Lum Berry: Ability:Synchronize: Psychic, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch; Trick, Torment(for Protect), Kinesis, Reflect/Thunder Wave
Choice Band: Ability:Thick Fat: Trick, Torment(for Protect), Flash, Reflect/Icy Wind

Emerald A:
Leftovers: Ability:Rain Dish: Rain Dance, Surf, Ice Beam, Giga Drain; Leech Seed, Toxic, Protect, Synthesis
Leftovers: Spore, Substitute, Focus Punch, Swords Dance/Hidden Power(Type Rock); Spore, Substitute, Charm, Flash
Chesto Berry: Curse, Amnesia, Rest, Aerial Ace/Hidden Power(Type Steel); Thunder Wave, Mud-Slap, Rock Tomb, Rest
Lum Berry: Ability:Trace: Calm Mind, Psychic, Thunderbolt, Fire Punch/Destiny Bond; Hypnosis, Reflect, Light Screen, Memento
Chesto Berry: Ability:Sturdy: Sand Attack, Rest, Attract/Thief, Whirlwind/Roar
Bright Powder: Ability:Natural Cure: Psychic, Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt
Lum Berry: Grudge(for Trick), Endure, Spite, Disable/Hypnosis
Leftovers: Toxic, Seismic Toss, Milk Drink, Heal Bell; Mud-Slap, Growl, Milk Drink, Thunder Wave/Icy Wind
Choice Band: Earthquake, Rock Slide, Fly, Quick Attack; Attract, Sand Attack, Rock Tomb, Rest
Bright Powder: Substitute, Swords Dance, Baton Pass, Sand Attack; Protect, Substitute, Double Team, Baton Pass
Chesto Berry: Rain Dance, Surf, Ice Beam, Rest; Attract, Smokescreen, Icy Wind, Rest

Emerald B:
Lansat Berry: Leaf Blade(50%), Thunder Punch, Dragon Claw, Crunch/Giga Drain
Liechi Berry: Ability:Early Bird: Flail, Steel Wing, Agility, Substitute/Endure
Leftovers: Yawn, Protect, Surf, Ice Beam; Yawn, Protect, Mud-Slap, Icy Wind/Growl
Scope Lens: Confuse Ray, Air Cutter, Shadow Ball, Steel Wing
Leftovers: Confuse Ray, Toxic, Night Shade, Destiny Bond; Flash, Icy Wind, Rest, Memento
Leftovers: Spikes, Light Screen, Reflect, Explosion
Chesto Berry: Ability:Huge Power: Amnesia, Defense Curl, Rest, Rollout
Light Ball: Volt Tackle, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power(Type Ice), Agility
Chesto Berry: Charm, Thunder Wave, Flash, Rest; Encore, Wish, Charm, Thunder Wave
Lum Berry: Charm, Flash, Moonlight, Thunder Wave/Sweet Scent(for Sleep Powder/Hypnosis); Encore, Wish, Charm, Thunder Wave
Choice Band: Ability:Swarm: Trick, Thunder Wave, Flash, Moonlight

Emerald C:
Chesto Berry: Thunderbolt, Fire Punch, Hidden Power(Type Ice), Rest; Flash, Growl, Rest, Thunder Wave/Cotton Spore
Bright Powder: Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, Destiny Bond/Explosion; Smokescreen, Rest, Memento, Attract/Thief
Choice Band: Ability:Static: Explosion (Screech, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power(Type Ice))
Salac Berry: Earthquake, Ancient Power, Shadow Ball, Explosion
Quick Claw: Swords Dance, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Rest/Body Slam/Return
Lum Berry: Swords Dance, Sky Uppercut, Earthquake, Rock Slide
Chesto Berry: Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Rest, Thunder Wave
Lum Berry: Swords Dance, Protect, Silver Wind, Shadow Ball
Lum Berry: Endure, Endeavor, Steel Wing, Return
Lum Berry: Hypnosis, Charm, Flash, Icy Wind/Rest
Choice Band: Transform

FireRed S:
(COL) Chesto Berry: Calm Mind, Rest, Surf, Ice Beam
(COL) Chesto Berry: Calm Mind, Rest, Thunderbolt, Crunch/Hidden Power(Type Ice)
Bright Powder: Charm, Double Team/Sand Attack, Baton Pass/Snatch, Moonlight/Rest
Chesto Berry: Charm, Thunder Wave, Sand Attack, Rest; Protect, Substitute, Double Team, Baton Pass
Leftovers: Ability:Thick Fat: Curse, Rest, Shadow Ball, Body Slam/Return
Chesto Berry: Swords Dance, Agility, Rest, Baton Pass; Swords Dance, Agility, Silver Wind, Steel Wing
Leftovers: Ability:Natural Cure: Toxic, Seismic Toss, Soft-Boiled, Heal Bell
Lum Berry: Thunderbolt, Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Destiny Bond; Perish Song, Protect, Mean Look, Destiny Bond
Bright Powder: Charm, Thunder Wave, Flash, Soft-Boiled; Encore, Wish, Charm, Thunder Wave
Choice Band: Ability:Rock Head: Double-Edge, Earthquake, Ancient Power, Aerial Ace

FireRed A:
Chesto Berry: Dragon Dance, Earthquake, Aerial Ace, Rest/Brick Break
Lum Berry: Calm Mind, Charm, Morning Sun, Baton Pass; Calm Mind, Morning Sun, Psychic, Bite
Leftovers: Surf, Ice Beam, Wish, Protect; Sand Attack, Rest, Charm/Acid Armor, Icy Wind/Baton Pass
Bright Powder: Conversion 2, Flash, Recover, Thunder Wave/Icy Wind
Leftovers: Sleep Powder(97%), Substitute, Flash, String Shot
Bright Powder: Sleep Powder, Flash, Synthesis, Charm/Sweet Scent(for Sleep Powder/Hypnosis)
Leftovers: Yawn, Protect, Toxic, Seismic Toss
Salac Berry: Belly Drum, Earthquake, Aerial Ace, Rock Slide/Ancient Power/Substitute
Lum Berry: Thunderbolt, Psychic, Ice Punch, Fire Punch
Choice Band: Earthquake, Hidden Power(Type Ghost), Body Slam/Return, Hyper Beam/Double-Edge
Leftovers: Rest, Sleep Talk, Toxic/Shadow Ball, Seismic Toss/Body Slam/Return; Attract, Mud-Slap, Icy Wind, Rest

FireRed B:
Chesto Berry: Dragon Dance, Earthquake, Rock Slide/Ancient Power, Rest/Aerial Ace
Thick Club: Ability:Rock Head: Swords Dance, Double-Edge, Earthquake, Rock Slide/Ancient Power
Salac Berry: Swords Dance, Reversal, Aerial Ace, Substitute/Endure
Chesto Berry: Thunderbolt, Hidden Power(Type Grass), Drill Peck, Rest
Chesto Berry: Agility, Mind Reader, Sheer Cold, Rest
Chesto Berry: Ability:Intimidate: Howl, Rest, Extreme Speed, Dig; Flamethrower, Dig, Crunch, Aerial Ace
(LG) Lum Berry: Ability:Keen Eye: Aerial Ace, Dig, Brick Break, Shadow Ball/Swords Dance
Choice Band: Ability:Sand Veil: Earthquake, Ancient Power, Aerial Ace, Sludge Bomb
Chesto Berry: Baton Pass(for Calm Mind), Barrier, Recycle, Rest; Psychic, Thunderbolt, Ice Punch, Fire Punch

FireRed C:
Leftovers: Sleep Powder, Flash, Synthesis, Cotton Spore/Substitute
Chesto Berry: Lovely Kiss, Flash, Rest, Icy Wind/Substitute; Lovely Kiss, Ice Beam, Psychic, Water Pulse
Leftovers: Ability:Compound Eyes: Hypnosis(78%), Substitute, Flash, Attract
Chesto Berry: Feather Dance, Sand Attack, Rest, Attract/Thief
Chesto Berry: Flamethrower, Aerial Ace, Steel Wing, Rest
(LG) Chesto Berry: Ability:Oblivious: Calm Mind, Rest, Psychic, Surf; Yawn, Protect, Flash, Thunder Wave/Icy Wind/Growl
Leftovers: Ability:Water Absorb: Surf, Ice Beam, Psychic, Thunderbolt
Scope Lens: Bulk Up, Cross Chop, Earthquake, Rock Slide
Lum Berry: Earthquake, Rock Slide, Megahorn, Sludge Bomb

 

[justonepost]

Hi, I finalized my Tier List.
Things to note:
1.) There is no ranking inside a tier (because they're all about equally good in specific uses/teams).
2.) Ranked for general usefulness in all of Battle Frontier but specifically for Battle Tower (Single Battle).
3.) Ranked for specific uses/roles: e.g. Salamence is better than Dragonite, therefore Salamence is "S-tier" and Dragonite only "A-tier".
I'd be happy to hear any questions, objections or recommendations!

Nature and EVs of Pokémon: (only first sets)

Emerald S:
Nature:Jolly,EVs:252HP/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Bold,252HP/128Def/128SpD; Bold,252HP/252Def; Adamant,252HP/252Atk;
Timid,252HP/252Spe; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Adamant,252HP/128Def/128SpD; Adamant,252HP/252Atk; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe;
Adamant,252HP/252Atk; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Timid,252HP/252Def
Emerald A:
Modest,252HP/252Def; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Adamant,252HP/252Atk; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Careful,252HP/252SpD; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Careful,252HP/252SpD; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252HP/252Spe; Modest,252HP/252SpA
Emerald B:
Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Adamant,252Atk/252Spe; Modest,252HP/128Def/128SpD; Adamant,252Atk/252Spe; Careful,252HP/128Def/128SpD;
Careful,252HP/252SpD;Adamant,252HP/128Def/128SpD;Timid,252SpA/252Spe;Timid,252HP/252Spe;Timid,252HP/252Spe;Jolly,252HP/252Spe
Emerald C:
Bold,252HP/128Def/128SpD; Jolly,252HP/252SpD; Adamant,252Atk/252Spe; Adamant,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252HP/128Def/128SpD;
Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252Def; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk,252Spe; Jolly,252HP/252SpD; Impish,252HP/128Def/128SpD
FireRed S:
Timid,252HP/252Def; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Jolly,252HP/252SpD; Timid,252HP/128SpD/128Spe; Impish,252HP/252SpD;
Careful,252HP/252SpD; Bold,252HP/252Def; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252SpD; Adamant,252Atk/252Spe
FireRed A:
Adamant,252HP/252Atk; Timid,252HP/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252Def; Bold,252HP/128Def/128SpD; Timid,252HP/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252SpD; Bold,252HP/252SpD; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Timid,252SpA/252Spe;Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Impish,252HP/128Def/128SpD
FireRed B:
Adamant,252HP/252Atk; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Timid,252SpA/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252Def; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe;
Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Timid,252HP/252Spe
FireRed C:
Timid,252HP/252Spe; Timid,252HP/252Spe; Timid,252HP/252Spe; Jolly,252HP/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Bold,252HP/252Def;
Modest,252HP/252SpA; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe; Jolly,252Atk/252Spe

 

[Newusername2000]

Ight so I finally got time to build up a tentacruel and made another water types only battle tower attempt, this one was a bit shorter at only ~30 or so, but it ended mostly because I misplayed pretty hard, the team was solid enough to probably make it into the 50s if I had been playing better.

Gyarados (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0/21+/18/8-/26/8
- Earthquake
- Return
- Protect
- Dragon Dance

Swampert (F) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 3/22/10/14/24+/0-
- Earthquake
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Rest

Tentacruel @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Modest Nature
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 204 SpA / 48 SpD
- Rest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Mirror Coat

This what my team looks like now, swapping Starmie out for tentacruel seems to be viable enough, fights tend to last longer but when push comes to shove and I find myself against a bad set with a lot of grass/eletric types I feel much more equip to deal with them. Remember that tentacruel not only shuts down grass types, but with mirror coat he can kill eletric attackers as well and his liquid ooze+poison typing shuts down many stalling sets too since he's immune to toxic and weaponizes enemy giga drain/leech seed. He worked pretty well, he is a bit situational sadly so most fights tend to rely mostly on Gyarados and Swampert, but tentacruel can normally at least take down one enemy since he's got a full heal from rest and a decently strong surf. He can basically just swap into and kill any run of the mill special attacker, so he pulls his own weight most the time unless it's a team of 3 physical attackers in a row. So I had zero issue with any grass types which were my previous issue (that and thunderbolt sets which are also much less problematic), I even saw quite a few really annoying grass types like double team+ingrain vileplume and a few others. I fought at least one trainer that had 2 grass types and was able to shut it down very easy. My new issue is physical attackers and crits. Without starmie's amazing ability to clean house quickly, battles draw on longer. With how bulky my team is long fights tend to favor me, but random crits can very quickly skew the battle and when fights tend to last 5-10 turns, you end up seeing crits often enough that it can be problematic. I had several fights that should've been easy in and out wins that turned iffy because of an enemy crit. On top of that, my entire line up has good special defense, but only one (Swampert) also has good physical defense, so powerful physical attackers, especially ones on the bulkier side, can be very problematic. Gyarados's intimidate and swampert's impressive bulk are typically enough for most sets, but the guy I lost to had both a kangaskahn and an exploud (both were running "off brand snorlax" sets with lots of HP and attack and spamming normal STAB in this case dizzy punch and hyper voice). I lost to the exploud at the end of the fight because I just hail mary'd a mirror coat betting that it was running the thunderpunch set, it was not and I got critted by hyper voice twice and lost. Even with the double crits I would've won if I hadn't thrown out a mirror coat at a bad time. It was honestly a really stupid move, but for some reason in my head I was absolutely convinced that exploud was gonna be the modest one that has thunderpunch and so I just screwed myself there. If I'd just gone for Surf instead I would've won that fight. Also funny enough this means 2/5 of my attempts thus far ended to an enemy team running exploud of all things. In fact I think that's why I was so convinced that exploud was gonna be running the thunderpunch set, because a thunderpunch exploud was part of the team that ended one of my other attempts lol.

Anyways, thinking about how to solve my new found issues. Crits I think are just always gonna be a thing, only solution would be lean harder on offense to end fights quicker, but I'm not sure that's super viable in my situation. But I think I might really need something to shut down physical attackers. I was thinking maybe breeding a new swampert and going all in on physical defense for him and *maybe* even giving him counter to really seal the deal on shutting down any physical attackers who try to fight him. My issue with that though is that I like having a decent amount of special bulk on swampert so that he can take down Lati's that lack recover via ice beam and rest. I'll probably run a few more attempts with this line up just to see how it fairs in the 50+ rounds. I need to break up my attempts, I was playing for like 2 hours straight and just wasn't thinking perfectly straight since I was losing focus. Sadly this was my shortest attempt yet, but it was entirely just because I was playing bad. If I had taken a break after set 4 (which was like 2 hours in) and gone for a walk and done other stuff for a bit to clear my mind I would've been sharper and more on my game for set 5.

This got me thinking though, Milotic can also get mirror coat and is just generally bulkier (Much higher HP, very similar but slightly higher defenses, better recovery in recover instead of rest which can pair with leftovers) and is stronger to boot (high SpA). Milotic also isn't weak to EQ so that's nice. Milo should be just as capable as Tentacruel at shutting down most nasty threats including grass types due to a powerful ice beam. Tentacruel does have his uses, he matches better against toxic users, grass types, and any one with leech seed/giga drain and he can pretty safely swap into grass types which is something milotic probably won't like doing as much. But I do think Milotic will see much better general usage and be less mirror coat reliant (while still having access to it for stick situations).

Considering I run leftovers on Gyarados I think Milotic would have to use a lum berry

Milotic @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Bold Nature
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Mirror Coat

Something like that maybe? High Def investment so that he can tank physical moves good as well. Suppose Modest + 252 SpA is also a decent choice, but I figured that +def would be better for helping with not being so weak to physical attackers and a well placed mirror coat can still shut down any latis or eletric types in a pinch while uninvested ice beam should be fine for grass types.

EDIT: Lost another streak on the 5th set (29-35) with this team, this time to a Gardevoir that had magical leaf and physic and was all SpA and Spe. Tentacruel could've just barely survived a hit to mirror coat it if he had full HP, but he did not. Gyarados also could've beaten it, but he was low on HP from killing the opponent's lead. This presents one of many issues with the current line up. I'm thinking I should raise a milotic and try that instead since results with tentracruel have been rather subpar. Sad because his toxic immunity and liquid ooze ability are absolute life savers against the stall sets, but ultimately the team just lacks something still and falls apart too easily so i feel like a tried and true mon like milotic might be what I want. I'm starting to think I might be best off having a dedicated crippler as my lead to try and always setup 6 dragon dances on gyarados to just one size fits all solve all my issues at once. Just not sure what mon would work for that role.

 

[Alex_Super_Tramp]

When will the new records be updated? Kommo-o did you fix your PC? I need to show my 111 streak at the battle tower to brag during the festivities with my relatives. I have a cousin with a medical degree and another who is a lawyer so I have to show them my golden trainer card of pokemon emerald to shut them up. Come on man update. Cheers and happy things to everyone.

 

[JoebertIII]

I am endlessly pleased with what I have accomplished. After literal years of failed attempts, the stars have finally aligned for everything to go perfectly and for a win streak of mine to hit triple digits. On 12/7, my best ever win streak in the Open Level Battle Factory ended with 112 wins! I won't draw it out because I have a lot of ground to cover.

Proof Pic

Rounds 1 - 3

(11/20) For the first two rounds, I swapped every battle no matter what. Round 3 ended with a dicey Noland1 battle!

Rounds 4

(11/21) I remember having a workable starting draft, especially since I had a Metagross4, which was my lead for the entire round. I swapped after the majority of the battles this round. After Round 4 is when I kick up my focus and start to dissect what the aide tells me. From here on I write down every opponent and item, and I turn on battle animations to avoid missing a move or ability.

Round 5

(11/21) A strong draft whose team lasted the entirety of the round! Seeing any Natural Cure Blissey in your starting draft is amazing, even the worst set, Blissey2. A Metagross as a lead is probably a B+ tier without a Flying/Levitate user in the back.

On the second battle, I prepared for defeat when I heard Grass7's and saw Ludicolo first out. There was a sigh of relief when I softened it up with Psychic and saw Shell Bell afterwards, meaning it wasn't the deadly Ludicolo3/4.

I think a big help overall to my streak was adjusting how I play when up against Resto/Chesto to get free turns; Like in the very next battle, I got a Tauros2 to Resto/Chesto first, and upon Resting the second time, I got a turn to safely switch into Swampert1 and the next turn to Curse before Tauros2 woke up. (Even though I had to switch out when I saw a Vileplume next).

The battle against the first Rock opponent went well thanks to the battle starting with me crit'ing Meteor Mash and OHKO'ing a Tyranitar.

So the second Rock match felt much tougher by comparison (and/or I played like garbage). A lead Slowking wasn't good for my Metagross6. I went into my Blissey2 and went for Attract, actually forgetting about Oblivious. But it all paid off as Slowking must've been Own Tempo. I end up KO'ing him above half health behind a Sub. An Armaldo was out next, and Blissey2 got a Seismic Toss in before Armaldo broke the Sub with an Ancientpower. I then went into Swampert1 and unsuccessfully tried to do the "Curse and Rest" dance, but Armaldo1's second Slash crit to took down Swampert. Metagross6 took a little chip as it missed a Meteor Mash, before the second one OHKO'd Armaldo1. An Aerodactyl was out last, and the fear of missing another Meteor Mash was real. Aerodactyl went for EQ and Metagross lived on a sliver (telling me Choice Band) and Metagross retaliated with a Thunderpunch. It was all up to Blissey2 at nearly full HP. Aero EQ'ed Blissey to just over half HP, Blissey Seismic Tossed. Aero EQ'ed Blissey to red HP, and Blissey finished with a final Seismic Toss. One crit from Aero and it was over.

Round 6

(11/22) This marks the third Metagross in a row in my starting draft! The legendaries were all smart picks with great movesets (except they all shared an EQ weakness), and the non-legendaries were all meager. So factor in that the first opponent used Flying types, and the team fell into place. Plus, I planned to ditch one of my EQ weaknesses for an immunity if I won.

Later on, my Raikou3 got banged up trading blows with an Ampharos (thankfully no Para) and a Porygon22 out second was a problem (since Metagross7 is EQ/Shadow Ball/Ice/Thunderpunch, it couldn't break any P2 set). P2 Twaved my Salamence on the switch, but I broke through three times with Dragon Claw while P2 set up Sun and used Solar Beam, rather than use Recover to stall to victory... (But tbf, all Porygon22 only had Solar Beam, so Salamence8 could have drained him of PP and won the hard way.)

A little later, a NoClear4 battle came down to lucky circumstances: Metagross7 switched into Glalie3's Blizzard, and then took 2 EQ's before Metagross7 could use 2 EQ's to bring down Glalie3. So since Metagross7 was at ~5% HP, the final mon, Umbreon4, saw the KO with Faint Attack instead of starting up Double Teams. Metagross7 EQ'ed, Umbreon KO'd, my Raikou5 Tbolt'ed, Umbreon Double Teamed and Raikou5's Tbolt crit to KO Umbreon4. Phew.

The Entei6 battle would have gotten out of hand if I had mispredicted the Entei6's Rest. It came down to Salamence8 spamming Dragon Claw as Entei6 used Calm Mind, Resto/Chesto, Calm Mind again and then a final Rest to stay asleep. Metagross7 came in on the exact turn he fell asleep and 2 slow EQ's KO'ed Entei6.

Noland2 was 4 or 5 Thunderbolts from Raikou5 until everyone was dead.

Round 7

(11/23) Regirock5 was an intriguing one, but without any recovery, it was a letdown. Regirock5 and Marowak1 were pretty similar: they can break a Special Wall and share a Water and Grass weaknesses. Starmie6 is not a strong lead pokemon either, but Natural Cure is a great lead ability, because you usually get banged up in the lead slot. Plus, having a safe Electric switch in could go a long way. Moltres would have added another Water weakness and is more of a lead.

In the very first battle, a Metagross4 had me sweating because of all of the potential variables flying around: Bonemerang miss/crit/timely Metagross4 Quick Claw. Once I realized I was fighting a Wailord3, I went into Salamence1, who walled him out. So Salamence1 was out when Metagross came out, and Mence chipped Metagross4 before going down. Marowak1 was knocked low before it finished Metagross with a Bonemerang. And after scooping up that Metagross4, I (prematurely) dubbed the streak "The Streak of Metagross", since I've had him on my team 4 times so far.

The next battle I marked as a good example of what you can deduce while playing. Opponent has Flying types and Free Spirited and Unrestrained. My Starmie6 vs an Articuno, I didn't like, so I switched my Metagross4 in on a Blizzard. Articuno outsped and put up Reflect so Meteor Mash didn't OHKO (Told me Articuno4). At least Articuno4 wasted Reflect-turns Chesto/Resting and then Resting again. Out next was Crobat who Double Teamed, took a Psychic and then ate Leftovers. This told me Crobat2, who eventually went down to another Psychic, and last out is Dragonite. Alright pause and weigh all of the info:

I know Articuno4 had one High Risk High Reward move, Double Edge. So I eliminate 4 of 10 the Dragonite sets because one more "High Risk" move would have triggered the High Risk High Reward quote. But also, since Crobat2 didn't have any Super Effective moves and came out against my Metagross4 before Dragonite, the Dragonite mustn't have any Super Effective moves either. Which eliminates 5 of the 6 remaining Dragonite sets, leaving Dragonite7 as the only possible set.

The Ground4's battle got hairy as well. Rhydon went down, no shenanigans there. Starmie6 2HKO'ed Flygon with Surf, as Flygon crit an EQ onto Starmie. So it was my ~20% Starmie6 vs final pokemon Miltank. Worried about the Endure/Reversal set, I Thunder Waved, Miltank ate its Lum Berry and KO'd with Double Edge. Worst case scenario, Miltank4, who could Curse/Double Team/Milk Drink on my team easily. (Kind of a choke, but) I sent out Salamence1 for Intimidate and then immediately switched into Metagross4 as Miltank used Curse. Miltank4 used Curse again, Metagross Psychic'ed. Miltank Double Teamed, and another Psychic brings Miltank low. Miltank4 then, instead of winning the game with Milk Drink, used Double Edge and went down to a final Psychic. I expected to see Milk Drink and streak end, so I saved the replay ...but then along came the 7th battle:

Turn one appeared ballsy, staying in on an unknown Regice, but Starmie6 could live even a Thunder, and I really didn't want to let Metagross4 get Paralyzed for the entire battle. And Gardevoir2 was a worthy final boss for the round. Having STAB Aerial Ace in the back, allowed me to play the Resto/Chesto-Then-Rest-and-Stay-Asleep game. If Gardevoir2 would have just spammed Psychic a little more, it could have been brought down Starmie6...

Round 8

(11/25) I finally got a draft with little to work with... Porygon24 with perfect IV's is the standout. Gyarados3 had FINE IV's and Hariyama4's strong Fake Out could pick up a KO or it's Cross Chop may have broken through a Snorlax or Blissey.

Speaking of Snorlax, first pokemon Snorlax managed to get Hariyama4 to use up 4 Cross Chops before Hariyama4 could take the Lax out. The Swampert used Curse which revealed Swampert1, who Gyarados3 could wall. Glalie eventually fell too.

I had a tough call on whether or not to take that Snorlax1. I already had Porygon24 with perfect IV's and a physical attacker/special wall answer, so I considered Swampert1. Pros: electric immunity, setup and recovery Cons: mono EQ is risky, 2 water types. That being said, mono EQ just meant I had to maintain Flying/Levitate answers (Gyarados3 Thunder and P2 Tbolt/Ice Beam/Psychic [for Gengar/Weezing] work great) and 2 waters are fine since Grass isn't a threatening type, bar Sceptile Leaf Blades, who I could have maybe handled anyways.

After beating the terrible Lati set and sweeping with Swampert1 I was feeling good. So the next gem of a battle hit me like a truck:

I switched into P2 turn one because after an Intimidate, P2 should be able to Recover/Chip/Stall most Whiscash... I switched Gyarados3 in on what could have been a massive Mega Kick or a Tbolt. But the highlight of the battle was definitely Gyarados' Quick Claw Thunder+Para followed by Lum. Because that told me exactly what EV spread Latios I was up against. Swampert1 was thrown out afterwards to stall a few PP, but the Latios crit him down anyway. And remember that Fissure Porygon24 dodged turn 2? A very dicey battle that resulted in an excellent new lead for the team.

The next couple battles weren't exactly smooth sailing either. Latios4 dealt some chip damage before being OHKO'd by a crit Mega Kick from a lead Ursaring. Swampert1 revenge KO'd and a Blissey came out next. Thankfully Swampert1 was equipped to set up Curses and Rest off the Toxic. But last out was a Moltres with no Physical Moves for Swampert to even Counter... So Swampert1 had to stay put while Moltres set up 6 Double Teams. Moltres3 used 2 Fire Blasts and Swampert1 rested. But Moltes3 finally set up sun and narrowly avoided the 2HKO onto Swampert1, even with a burn. So the final Fire Blast PP took down Swampert and Porygon2 didn't have to risk the potential OHKO to a crit Fire Blast in the sun (even though Tracing Pressure could have been clutch). The Porygon2 only hit one Thunderbolt before running out of PP, and eventually hit a Psychic to end the nightmare.

After long deliberation I eventually take the Blissey1 with Toxic/Double Team/Softboiled for Swampert1. But it was really not a smart trade.. my matchup was made worse against all Steel types and Shuckles (especially Shuckle4 with Toxic since I didn't know yet if I had Natural Cure or not). But against "No clear favored types + Free spirited unrestrained" my gut told me Blissey1 can hand those type of pokemon. Latios and Porygon24 had a Psychic coverage move for Fighting Types. I talked myself into the swap by looking up 31IV Porygon24 vs 3IV Machamp/Hariyama Cross Chop and seeing it outspeeds and MIGHT live... (But Cross Chops can crit through Swampert's Curses and Swamp wouldn't outspeed after a Curse...) I thought that between Blissey1 and Porygon24 I could PP stall the world. And alas, I shredded my team composition and listened to the wise words from the sign out front:

Sign Out Front

The gravity of the trade sunk in immediately as an enemy Hariyama scared my Normal types in the back and I no longer had my Ground type for the final pokemon Manectric.

Noland4 wasn't so bad though. My Latios4 was outsped and 2HKO'd by Aero2, but not before getting off a Thunderbolt. Porygon2 took an Aerial Ace and KO'd. MrMime came out and I went straight into Blissey1. Blissey gets +6 evasion before Toxic KO's MrMime4. Wailord was the final pokemon and Fissure was actually a huge problem. But Blissey landed Toxic asap, Wailord Double Teamed and Resto/Chesto'd, and after another round of Toxic damage Wailord went to sleep again. Porygon24 switched in and it was a speed tie. Wailord3 stayed asleep and Porygon2 missed a Thunderbolt. Next two turns, Porygon24 outsped and landed 2 Thunderbolts for the KO.

Round 9

(11/25) The starting draft was a doozy. The standout was Tyranitar5 (OK IV's) with Resto/Chesto and Dragon Dance. Dugtrio2 had Arena Trap, or else I may have considered Lead Tyranitar5 and having a +1 Evasion Dugtrio in the back. Salamence3 is an awful set but had really decent random IV's (30IV in attack and perfect speed!). And at first glance, it has terrible synergy Tyranitar (Salamence3 cannot Endure with Sand Stream up). But with Salamence3 in front, he can avoid the Sand and the Intimidate might facilitate a Dragon Dance Sweep. Ludicolo1 being Rain Dish was a downer or else it would have given Dragonite9's Rain Dance more purpose. And Dragonite9 contributed a strong Electric move to smack a potential Water/Ice type (in addition to Tyranitar5's Rock Slide) that would threaten the whole team.

This round went very smoothly, all things considered. In second battle I came acrossed a Swampert3/4. I almost didn't swap for it because Dragonite9 had been pulling a lot of weight (and I wanted to ditch Salamence3, but Swampert is a weak lead). But in the end, I needed to have an answer to an oncoming Rock move.

And it was a good thing I took Swampert, because the very next pokemon was the ultimate Factory pokemon: Raikou6! In case you haven't heard, Raikou6 is so good that its uncompetitive. I'd go on record to say it opens up as many doors as a good Blissey set. Even a decent EQ user can get stalled out of PP against this thing.

The next battle wasn't particularly tricky, but it shows off how well the team can function under pressure:

The Noland3 battle was a little tedious for the first 10 turns until I could sweep. Glalie3 with 31 IV's actually speed ties with Raikou6 with 3 IV's. Turn one, Glalie3 outsped and hit an EQ for just under 50% and Raikou6 subbed (good). But next turn, Raikou6 went first, clicked Sub, already had one and Glalie3 broke the sub (bad). But after Resting a few times (and thanks to Pressure), Glalie3 had no more EQ or Blizzard PP, and my Tyranitar5 got 6 Dragon Dances up and swept through the last two mons.

Round 10

(11/26) Holy hell this was a good draft. Team SalaTar was back and better than last round! Not only did I have one of the best sweepers out front, Salamence4, but I had an Exploding Steel type to pair with him. I think of Explosion Steel types as Get Out of Jail Free cards. Salamence4 just ended up sweeping 4 of the 7 battles (with some help from Brightpowder). The two battles against the Water types were the only scary battles all round. And they started the exact same: Lead enemy Water/Ice type, so I switch into Forretress and explode to clear the field. The second Water battle actually may have been a loss if Milotic would have had Recover.

This is the replay is of the first Water battle, which I call "The Tyrant's Gambit". Forretress3, the kamikaze, did what he had to do. But importantly, I noted the damage calcs right before exploding, revealing Lapras2 with Quick Claw. Vaporeon was terrifying to see out next. I didn't know if it was Vaporeon2 or 4 until it was at (what looked to be exactly) 50% and I saw Shell Bell. And I was stubbornly keeping to the motto of "don't concede an inch", whether it be keeping a pokemon alive or saving every single HP that I can. I saw that the damage calc for TTar4's Thunderbolt onto Vaporeon2 did merely 43.6%-51.5% and thought "if only I could stall out a couple of turns of sand to chip Vaporeon into range..." (Full disclosure: I spaced about Shell Bell offsetting some sand damage!) I wasn't too worried about the potential crit Surf onto Salamence4, it would have only done 35% max (though the extra Shell Bell recovery could have been a problem...) The real risk I took was switching Tyranitar4 back in on an Ice Beam that would have ended the streak if it had crit or froze/stayed frozen next turn. But the alternative was letting Tyranitar4 stay in on the highly unfavorable roll and going down, Salamence coming out and wasting his Intimidate on Vaporeon2, being forced to KO (can't setup on Ice Beam) before the unknown final pokemon. In hindsight it looks pretty foolish, but if the final pokemon turned out to be an OHKO move user, Tyranitar4 getting off chip damage onto a final pokemon would likely make or break the game.

Round 11

(11/26) This is one of the most beautiful crops of pokemon with which I have ever been blessed! Raikou3 a good lead, only lacking Reflect or a good secondary attack. Gengar3 is an excellent EQ and big normal type switch-in. And Gengar3 even has Giga Drain, which might prove useful against a Water/Ground that Raikou3 couldn't handle. The last slot was a toss up between Blissey3 and Snorlax8. Both have the ideal abilities. Both have reliable recovery. I chose based off their pool of pokemon that they just can't touch/wall them. Blissey with only Fire Blast and Blizzard is wacky. She loses to Thick Fat pokemon, Water types, Fire types, any old Brightpowder/Double team pokemon (thanks to low PP) and pokemon with Recovery that can stall her out of PP (like a Regice1). Whereas Snorlax8 with Frustration/Shadow Ball on the other hand, only has to worry about Steel and Rock types. But believe me, it was a weird feeling passing up a 31IV Blissey.

It felt like the entire Round 11 was an uphill battle despite the excellent draft. Starting with battle one, Raikou3 vs Hariyama, I switched Gengar3 in on a Fake Out. Gengar Psychic was a 2HKO and Hariyama got a Rock Slide off (damage told me Hariyama4). So Regice came out against my 50% Gengar3, and I see that Modest 252 Special Attack EV'ed Regice Thunderbolt never KO's Gengar from that range. Expecting the Ice move, I switched Snorlax8 in on a Blizzard (Regice2 actually had a 50/50 chance of clicking Thunder, since Thunder would always KO Gengar3 from 50% HP). So Snorlax8 was at 87% and if I Belly Drummed, I would have to take 2 attacks before Resting (because OFC Quiet 3IV Regice outsped 31IV Snorlax by 1 speed point) and Regice3 Thunder was a 53.1% chance to 2HKO. But that assumed Regice2 was going for Thunder both turns, landed both 70% accurate moves, and I really predicted the AI to want to use Rain Dance or miss. So from 87% Snorlax8 took a Thunder (no para) and I cut my HP down to 92/503. Regice went for Thunder again, landed, and Snorlax lived on 3/503 HP (62.5% chance to KO from 92HP) and Rested back to full. Regice2 was then OHKO'd and the Quagsire out last was outsped and obliterated. In hindsight, it looks dumb; But all I knew about the final pokemon was that it didn't have a weather move and could have a good item.

After the second battle, I had only seen Dragon Claw on a Latios and incorrectly assumed it could only be set 1 or 4, crucially overlooking set 3. At the time I had it in my mind that it was set 4, because set 1 probably would have been clicking Psychic for more damage against Snorlax8. So before swapping, I thought both of the possible Latios have a Psychic move to keep Snorlax safe from Fighting types and both hold Lum berry (giving me a status switch in). But only after swapping Gengar3 for Latios did I realize that it was set 3 with Focus Band, no full HP EV's, and worst of all, no Psychic move! Knowing this I probably would have kept Gengar3 with Psychic...

Battle 3 had me yelling at the game. Turn one was Raikou3 vs Swampert, so I go into my Latios3 on Earthquake. But I misplayed by not scouting the Swampert set. I went for Dragon Claw, Swampert used Mirror Coat for the OHKO (and ate some Shell Bell to rub it in). I should have EQ'ed with Latios3 because even a max roll Counter wouldn't have OHKO'ed. So I had to send Snorlax8 out to take an STAB EQ from Swampert4 before taking him out. Next out was Breloom, a perfect answer to my Snorlax8 and Raikou3. I couldn't switch, I had to attack and Breloom tightened his focus, "YES WE CAN BEAT IT", Snorlax8 used Frustration and it MISSED and Breloom KO's Snorlax with Focus Punch. Oh I was livid. Next turn I use Thunderbolt, going for the 2HKO, and it missed again but Breloom missed a Leech Seed (which I barely saw because I nearly threw my phone/emulator when I saw that I missed two attacks in a row). But then Breloom tightened his focus, Raikou3 connected, Breloom tightens his focus again and Raikou3 KO'd, still at full HP. The final pokemon, thankfully, was Dodrio, who Raikou3 obliterated.

I saved the first battle's replay (with Regice knocking Lax low), then saved that battle with the Breloom Brightpowder dodge, but I deleted even that save the next battle:

Granbull1 ThunderWave turn one really sucked. I held onto hope that Granbull1 would see the SmellingSalt at 120 base power and go for that, curing Raikou before he KO'ed. Unfortunately, Granbull1 Mega Kicked, Raikou3 KO'd and Steelix came out. OFC Steelix4 didn't even take Double Edge recoil thanks to his Rock Head ability. So Raikou3 went down, Lati got his chip and went down prematurely thanks to Quick Claw. I had no choice whether or not to Belly Drum. It would have taken 4 or 5 unboosted Frustration's to KO Steelix4, all the while Steelix4 might Explode, or crit EQ, or get the Iron Tail defense drop, or get Quick Claw on the turn I chose to rest and KO. I still risked all of that, but using Belly Drum left fewer turns for Explosion, crit EQ/Iron Tail nonsense. I'm still amazed that Steelix4 never went for Explosion since they had a 3rd pokemon in the back.

After the battle, I took a look at Salamence7. It had the Lum berry for a quick answer to status and Intimidate for possibly facilitating a Belly Drum sweep. The biggest downside was losing Ice Beam for Ground types that Salamence would be switching into. But Salamence had Flamethrower for Steel types (and I had the Steelix battle fresh in my mind), so I dumped Latios3 and took Salamence7.

The swap worked great and Salamence7 swept the next two battles, thanks to a crit on Ursaring and eventually landing Brick Breaks on a Blissey1. The final battle was almost all Snorlax8 with Shadow Ball and Rest, but once Lax got Leech Seeded, Salamence7 came in and ended Round 11.

Round 12

(11/27) My starting draft luck had run out. Gardevoir5 was the best pokemon I had around which to build a team. Uninvested STAB Psychic was strong enough and a method of boosting Speed was useful. But on the other hand, the EV's are split 3 ways between HP, Def and Speed and Enduring in Open Level is riskier because of an enemy Tyranitar's instant Sand KO. Hariyama1 had good enough synergy with Gardevoir5: he could handle Dark or Steel types, Gardevoir5 could nail Poison types or 1v1 a major threat with Destiny Bond. Since I wanted Hariyama, I couldn't justify taking the Grass types or the Wailord3. Wailord3 has Resto/Chesto, and can't really touch pokemon off the Ground (Lati@s, Birds, etc) which is what Hariyama needed. And honestly I liked Armaldo4 from the start. Choice Band makes for many 1v1 trade opportunities (like a pseudo explosion). But the team was slow, usually a precursor to losing to status or flinch.

The very first pokemon of the first battle was already causing problems. Gardevoir5 vs Donphan. I Traced Sturdy, which was actually badass. So I knew I could switch into Hariyama1 without worrying about Fissure. Hariyama1 took EQ, used Fake Out, and then took another EQ to 13% and Countered to KO Donphan. Salamence came out next and it looked like the beginning of the end. Salamence used Aerial Ace and Hariyama1 got the Focus Band + Counter off and did ~33% to Salamence! I sent Gardrvoir5 out next, expecting to outspeed and KO, but Salamence outsped and hit another Aerial Ace before going down to Psychic. This told me the one Salamence with speed, Salamence1. For the final pokemon Weezing, Gardevoir didnt even need to Destiny Bond since Psychic OHKO'd.

The second battle started just like the last one: Gardevoir5 didn't matchup well against a Scizor and I wanted to go Hariyama1 to Counter. But this time I went into Salamence1 first to pivot. Scizor got Intimidated, but crit Metal Claw to knock Salamence1 down to 11%. Perhaps a blessing in disguise, because even at -1, Scizor1 saw the KO with Quick Attack, so I got a nice safe switch into Hariyama1. I Fake Out, Scizor1 Aerial Aces, I Counter and KO. Next out was Rapidash. It Double Teamed and I missed Rock Slide. But then it Bounced up... And did Para, but I got the guaranteed OHKO with Counter. Last up was a Forretress. Hariyama1 had a nice safe game plan with Destiny Bond in the back, but instead took a Double Edge and Focus Band + Counter OHKO'ed Forretress as well! Hariyama1 was the underdog MVP of the round.

The next battle was deceptively hard. I saw a lead Kangaskhan and thought it was time for Hariyama1 to go ham, yet again. Hariyama1 switched straight into a Shadow Ball for respectable chip damage. Next turn, Kangaskhan used Attract as I went for a Counter (and totally misplayed by forgetting about Fake Out! I was pissed at myself for that one.) I tried for Counter again, but I took a Crush Claw, Def drop and stayed infatuated. So I decided for a start fresh and went into my Salamence1 on a Crush Claw. Hariyama1 switched right back in on the -1 Crush Claw. I made damn sure to Fake Out this time. But I must've been rattled by how poorly this battle was going that, while switching Fake Out and Rock Slide's move order, I used Rock Slide instead of the better move Cross Chop! So Kangaskhan2 Attracted as Hariyama1 broke through and connected with Rock Slide... I end up letting Hariyama1 go down to a couple more Crush Claws. (I really did Hariyama1 dirty this battle.) Letting Hariyama1 go down was terrifying since I no longer had a pokemon that could break Kangaskhan2 (besides Destiny Bond). Salamence1 came out for another Intimidate and started spamming Aerial Ace. Kangaskhan2 Rested, woke up, Rested again and then I crucially got a Kings Rock flinch on the turn Kangaskhan2 woke up to 3HKO. Weezing came out next, and I switched Gardevoir5 in on a Will-O-Wisp. Gardrvoir5 went for the OHKO with Psychic, but missed thanks to Brightpowder and Weezing1 hit a Shadow Ball. Next Psychic did OHKO and Shiftry was out last. Burn damage left Gardevoir in the red and Fake Out picked off Gardevoir. Salamence1 Aerial Aced, Shiftry used Faint Attack, and one more Aerial Ace KO'd. Shiftry4 with Explosion would have been a loss.

Next battle was fine. Gardevoir5 Psychic'ed a couple times to KO Moltres and then a Slaking came out. I thought "with Endure, he can never KO me right?" Wrong. Slaking used Yawn and I had to stay in, or else I risked the worst case scenario of losing Hariyama1 and Tracing Truant upon reentry. But thanks to Slaking's Truant, Gardevoir5 only took one attack while sleeping before promptly waking up and KO'ing Slaking4. The last pokemon, Walrein3, did get a Quick Claw Surf for the revenge KO. Walrien3 ruined my Destiny Bond plans, but Hariyama1 Fake Out + Cross Chop + Rock Slide did the trick.

The next battle had a hilarious start: Gardevoir5 Traced a Medicham's Pure Power, (Medicham used Fake Out) and then Pure Power Gardevoir5 Shadow Ball OHKO'd Medicham2. Gardevior5 had to Destiny Bond a Charizard3. Raikou revealed Reflect before Salamence1 and Hariyama1 brought him down. And Raikou5 proved to be a valuable addition to the team (even though I'm usually not much of a fan of Raikou in the back because of its lack of switch in opportunities).

I saved the Noland4 battle even though it wasn't the most eventful. I just had to play carefully around the Mirror Coat, before the "dog fight" at the end.

Round 13

(11/28) The draft had me worried before I saw the Dragonite2 at the very end. This round went as smoothly as I could have hoped. Jolteon1 scouted throughout the round with Protect (Knowledge is power!) And after the first battle, the team was rounded out with a bulky water. Plus Dragonite2 got some cheeky Brightpowder dodges.

Shoutout to WildcatFormation for preventing me from choking away battle 3; The opponent had Water types and after Protecting on a Cross Chop, I was planning to sack Jolteon1 for chip damage onto the unknown Hariyama set. Hariyama could have seen a KO on my Jolteon1 with EQ or Cross Chop, but I was certain that it would be too risky to switch in Dragonite2 in on a crit Cross Chop (which would have only done 37-44% lol). And Wildcat reminded me that I'd want Jolteon1 for the 2 Water types in the back, so Dragonite2 came in on EQ and set up +1 while taking ~40% from Rock Slide. A much better game plan.

The only battle that gave me any headache was battle 4:

Boosted Facade at +1 evasion was pretty intimidating, but I had Dragonite2 with Aerial Ace in the back in case it came to it.

Completely Irrelevant Story

(12/1) So when I don't have the time or willingness to dedicate all of my mental focus to playing the Factory, I've been hunting for a perfect IV shiny pokemon in the Ruby Battle Tower. And on December 1st, I found one:

Finding a +Speed, perfect IV, shiny Flygon or beating my personal best in the Battle Factory alone would have me ecstatic. But having these two separate events coincide was mind boggling! And then low and behold, within the next starting draft was a Flygon.

Round 14

(12/2) This was a weak draft and when you hear the first opponent has Psychic types, you dwell on how you're gonna get creamed by Lati@s or Metagross. Lanturn2 had the right ability and against a Lati@s, it would outspeed after Endure/Salac and Flail for respectable damage. A (not shiny) Flygon4 was the standout pokemon to build around. Muk4... had Explosion... And with good IV's always lives 3 IV Lati@s Psychic. But obviously I wanted to dump him asap.

Battle one Lanturn2 was an absolute boss and 1v3'd the whole team, thanks to a crit on Gardevoir. Suicune4 joined the team after much deliberation and remained the lead for the majority of the round. Ice Beam was great new coverage and Lanturn2's Endure/Flail could have always backfired with Tyranitar lurking. Suicune4 literally took care of 12 of the next 15 pokemon. Surf and Ice Beam just happened to crush the majority of the pokemon I fought (and Reflect helped vs Snorlax4). Suicune4 even dodged a Gengar's Thunderbolt turn one of the sixth match for good measure. I end up taking that Gengar with Thunderbolt because the next/final trainer had Water types. Against the final trainer, my new lead Gengar8's Ice Punch OHKO'd a Dragonite, Slowking2 revenge KO's Gengar8, Snorlax4 set up on a Slowking2's Thunder Wave, and after knocking him out, Snorlax4 2HKO'd Lapras with a Brick Break and a Quick Claw Brick Break.

Round 15

(12/2) Another Psychic type opponent to pick a team against... It was a pretty awesome draft despite having half of my starting draft consisting of my own Psychic types. Granbull1 was my justification for taking 2 Psychic types. He could absorb a Shadow Ball or Intimidate a Bug move user. After the first battle, Forretress4 filled this slot a little more reliably with better attacks. For example in the first battle, my Latias8 vs Claydol, I immediately went into Granbull1 and missed a Mega Kick. So I had to go down using 2 SmellingSalt's to guarentee Alakazam4's Ice Punch KO. The round went ridiculously smooth up until the Noland5 battle:

The whole run hinged on Forretress4 breaking though confusion and landing Explosion, so thank god for that. I was relieved when I saw Shell Bell on Metagross, because it meant he couldn't have a tricky item up his sleeve.

Round 16

(12/7) Here was yet another incredible draft and another first opponent with Psychic types. Latios3 was a must and Choice Band Ursaring5 was great backup, being able to muscle past a Special Wall or Aerial Ace a Double Teamer. The last slot was either Articuno4 with RestoChesto and Reflect or Slaking4. Against a Psychic type trainer that could have a Metagross, Articuno4 wouldn't cut it (but that recovery was tempting). Whereas Slaking4 could at least revenge KO a Steel type with Flamethrower. Overall Latios3 and Ursaring5 handled all speed bumps this round.

Battle 2 could have gotten out of hand with worse luck. Kingdra3 got the +1 max power Flail onto Latios3 (a crit might have spelled disaster, especially if Kingdra3 was smart enough to Endure while my Slaking4 attacked). Medicham3 just straight up missed DynamicPunch onto Slaking4 while he KO'd back. The Quagsire out last could only have been set 2 or 4 judging by the hint from the aide. I stayed in and loafed while Quag used Yawn. Next turn I hit Ice Beam, Quag used Curse, and Slaking4 went to sleep. Then I switched to Ursaring5 on a weak +1 Ancientpower, and spammed Choice Band Brick Break until I won.

Slaking4's Truant was a real thorn in my side, so I ended up switching for a Lanturn4 the next battle. Lanturn4 maintained the team's ability to check Steel pokemon and the Lum berry item for a one-time status answer. Lanturn4 also gave me an Ice Beam switch-in and method of punishing Water/Ice types that might scare Latios3.

The sixth battle turned out to be very tedious. Turn one was my Latios3 vs a Zapdos, I didn't want to be paralyzed for the entire match, so I switched in Lanturn4 (with Lum) on a Rain Dance. Lanturn4 took out Zapdos6 and a Latias came out and revenge KO'd Lanturn with a Dragon Claw. I send out Latios3 who ended up getting Paralyzed by Twave before 2HKO'ing the Latias6. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I could switch between Ursaring5 and (paralyzed) Latios3 on the Dusclops2 until it ran out of PP before Ursaring5 could smack him with CB Aerial Aces.

I couldn't justify swapping for any of the 3 decent pokemon I just faced and jumped into the final, and toughest, battle of the round....

Everything should be pretty self-explanatory up until Latio3 went down and I sent out Ursaring5 to Aerial Ace. Judging off the Tbolt damage calc and seeing Ice Beam, I could tell it was Walrein4 with Brightpowder. I would have rather sent in Lanturn4, but I couldn't risk the Brightpowder dodge into Sheer Cold OHKO. So I sent out Ursaring5 to Aerial Ace thinking the only way this could go wrong is if there is a Water type with Earthquake. And lo and behold, Gyarados was last. Gyarados3 got the Quick Claw EQ OHKO to keep things interesting, but Ursaring5 landed the finishing blow (even though Gyarados3 Surf in the Rain was a guaranteed 2HKO).

Round 17/The Loss

(12/7) The draft looked really solid ...until you consider the first trainer used Water types. Suicune3 doesn't have many ways to retaliate against the majority of opposing Water types. Forretress4 is an excellent pokemon, but doesn't resist Water attacks, so he wasn't going to do much besides Explode. Tentacruel4 was the only real pokemon I felt I could rely on to handle a Water pokemon or two. (Magmar3 was a dud vs Water types. Scizor3 may have more special bulk than Forretress4, but Scizor3 lacks immediate power and move diversity. Misdreavus2 was the same story; Less bulky than Forretress4 and no immediate power to nab KO's)

The first minute of the losing battle went as smoothly as many previous winning battles of the streak ...until the painfully long PP stall finale. The dire reality of my situation sunk in once I realized I had no way of breaking Kingdra2 with Rest. By the end, Kingdra2 actually ran out of all 10 Rest PP and my Tentacruel4 had spent every PP, except a couple Mirror Coats. And in hindsight, it appears I could have won if only I would have managed my PP better (by using Mirror Coat more early on? But using attacking moves was how I got him to use so much Rest PP. Or maybe by doing Tentacruel4 vs Kingdra2 first, in hopes that Kingdra2 ran out of Dragonbreath to avoid Para on Suicune3? Or maybe not Roaring and prioritizing Suicune3's damage on Kingdra2 to make him use up Rest PP?). I also incorrectly thought that the sleep turns would reset on Kingdra2 if I Roared it out. And it almost worked out anyway, because the Sludge Bomb just barely missed the 2HKO from that HP range on the sleeping Kingdra2. Then fast forward to the very end after Kingdra2 used up its final Rest PP, the final time Kingdra2 used Dragonbreath it did 53HP or 17% damage, a particularly low damage roll; Tentacruel4 could have survived a max roll Dragonbreath and probably KO'd back with Mirror Coat.

I'm pretty satisfied with how I played, so I don't have any real regrets in terms of the loss. The loss was reminiscent to earlier in the streak when I had trouble breaking through a Resting Kangaskhan2, except there I ended up haxing my way out with a Kings Rock. No such luck this time around. No crit on the perfect turn to knock out Kingdra2. No freeze. Just a long, drawn-out defeat.

Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this! The Battle Factory was finally kind to me after 3 years of attempting, failing, learning and attempting again. The secret sauce is to be meticulous and listen to what the aide tells you. Calc every damage roll, weigh all of the options and make every inference you can. Knowledge is power in the Factory, and the knowledge is not intuitive.

 

[Battle Frontier Account]

I beat battle dome gold tucker (10 tournaments.) Its been a while since I posted so I'll restate my ruleset

No legends
No Pseudo legends
Only emerald Pokemon

For the dome, I looked up tuckers team, and made a team just to beat him. I saw he couldn't beat shedinja, so one pokemon was done. after I experiemented with lots of team comps+shedinja. I knew after 10+ attempts, I'd need a fast sweeper, that could beat 2 pokemon. my options were between gyrados, slaking, hariyama, flygon, and some other pokemon. I only considered physical pokemon because of the choice band. After, choosing slaking, I just used a bulky water. Starmie kept getting blasted by fast thunderbolts, so I switched it out for a non iv bred swampert, that I used for a silver run a long time ago. I thought I'd need to breed a new swampert, but it worked first try. together these pokemon could beat any team on the dome.

I like the dome, because the pokemon sets are very easy. I faced 2 delcattys in later rounds.

Slaking
Choice band bred for attack iv and speed iv
252atk 252speed
Adamant
-return
-shadow ball
-yawn (never used, should've been earthquake, but lvl 99 aipom is being stubborn)
-Slash (never used, should've been hyper beam or brick break)

Slaking usually got through 2 pokemon. If it couldn't beat the last pokemon, that pokemon would be on low health.

Swampert
Awful stats
leftovers
-Earthquake
-surf
-ice beam
-protect

Shedinja (only used for tucker gold)
lum berry (I don't know. put anything you want here.)
perfect speed and attack
-silver wind
-shadow ball
-toxic
-mind reader (to ensure toxic lands?)

I want to do a stream of the battle tower, but I'm not sure if i'll ever get the time to do it. I have 17 credits next semester, and am applying for PhD. I'm thinking of adding each team must have a bug to my ruleset, since I think that I could do that, but after my tower run, I will have exhausted all the good bugs, unless I trade for scyther and scizor. Bug is underated and I hate when people call it the worst type. unlike Fire, emerald actually has good bugs, while fire just has houndoom and blaziken (but only if you start with him).

>why are all your pokemon perfect exp.
I realized the biggest time sink is levels 45-50 so I always use aipoms while training

>why aipom
The only pickup mon in the fast growth group

 

[Battle Frontier Account]

Ight so I finally got time to build up a tentacruel and made another water types only battle tower attempt, this one was a bit shorter at only ~30 or so, but it ended mostly because I misplayed pretty hard, the team was solid enough to probably make it into the 50s if I had been playing better.

Gyarados (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0/21+/18/8-/26/8
- Earthquake
- Return
- Protect
- Dragon Dance

Swampert (F) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 3/22/10/14/24+/0-
- Earthquake
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Rest

Tentacruel @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Modest Nature
Ability: Liquid Ooze
EVs: 252 HP / 204 SpA / 48 SpD
- Rest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Mirror Coat

This what my team looks like now, swapping Starmie out for tentacruel seems to be viable enough, fights tend to last longer but when push comes to shove and I find myself against a bad set with a lot of grass/eletric types I feel much more equip to deal with them. Remember that tentacruel not only shuts down grass types, but with mirror coat he can kill eletric attackers as well and his liquid ooze+poison typing shuts down many stalling sets too since he's immune to toxic and weaponizes enemy giga drain/leech seed. He worked pretty well, he is a bit situational sadly so most fights tend to rely mostly on Gyarados and Swampert, but tentacruel can normally at least take down one enemy since he's got a full heal from rest and a decently strong surf. He can basically just swap into and kill any run of the mill special attacker, so he pulls his own weight most the time unless it's a team of 3 physical attackers in a row. So I had zero issue with any grass types which were my previous issue (that and thunderbolt sets which are also much less problematic), I even saw quite a few really annoying grass types like double team+ingrain vileplume and a few others. I fought at least one trainer that had 2 grass types and was able to shut it down very easy. My new issue is physical attackers and crits. Without starmie's amazing ability to clean house quickly, battles draw on longer. With how bulky my team is long fights tend to favor me, but random crits can very quickly skew the battle and when fights tend to last 5-10 turns, you end up seeing crits often enough that it can be problematic. I had several fights that should've been easy in and out wins that turned iffy because of an enemy crit. On top of that, my entire line up has good special defense, but only one (Swampert) also has good physical defense, so powerful physical attackers, especially ones on the bulkier side, can be very problematic. Gyarados's intimidate and swampert's impressive bulk are typically enough for most sets, but the guy I lost to had both a kangaskahn and an exploud (both were running "off brand snorlax" sets with lots of HP and attack and spamming normal STAB in this case dizzy punch and hyper voice). I lost to the exploud at the end of the fight because I just hail mary'd a mirror coat betting that it was running the thunderpunch set, it was not and I got critted by hyper voice twice and lost. Even with the double crits I would've won if I hadn't thrown out a mirror coat at a bad time. It was honestly a really stupid move, but for some reason in my head I was absolutely convinced that exploud was gonna be the modest one that has thunderpunch and so I just screwed myself there. If I'd just gone for Surf instead I would've won that fight. Also funny enough this means 2/5 of my attempts thus far ended to an enemy team running exploud of all things. In fact I think that's why I was so convinced that exploud was gonna be running the thunderpunch set, because a thunderpunch exploud was part of the team that ended one of my other attempts lol.

Anyways, thinking about how to solve my new found issues. Crits I think are just always gonna be a thing, only solution would be lean harder on offense to end fights quicker, but I'm not sure that's super viable in my situation. But I think I might really need something to shut down physical attackers. I was thinking maybe breeding a new swampert and going all in on physical defense for him and *maybe* even giving him counter to really seal the deal on shutting down any physical attackers who try to fight him. My issue with that though is that I like having a decent amount of special bulk on swampert so that he can take down Lati's that lack recover via ice beam and rest. I'll probably run a few more attempts with this line up just to see how it fairs in the 50+ rounds. I need to break up my attempts, I was playing for like 2 hours straight and just wasn't thinking perfectly straight since I was losing focus. Sadly this was my shortest attempt yet, but it was entirely just because I was playing bad. If I had taken a break after set 4 (which was like 2 hours in) and gone for a walk and done other stuff for a bit to clear my mind I would've been sharper and more on my game for set 5.

This got me thinking though, Milotic can also get mirror coat and is just generally bulkier (Much higher HP, very similar but slightly higher defenses, better recovery in recover instead of rest which can pair with leftovers) and is stronger to boot (high SpA). Milotic also isn't weak to EQ so that's nice. Milo should be just as capable as Tentacruel at shutting down most nasty threats including grass types due to a powerful ice beam. Tentacruel does have his uses, he matches better against toxic users, grass types, and any one with leech seed/giga drain and he can pretty safely swap into grass types which is something milotic probably won't like doing as much. But I do think Milotic will see much better general usage and be less mirror coat reliant (while still having access to it for stick situations).

Considering I run leftovers on Gyarados I think Milotic would have to use a lum berry

View attachment 477336
Milotic @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Bold Nature
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Mirror Coat

Something like that maybe? High Def investment so that he can tank physical moves good as well. Suppose Modest + 252 SpA is also a decent choice, but I figured that +def would be better for helping with not being so weak to physical attackers and a well placed mirror coat can still shut down any latis or eletric types in a pinch while uninvested ice beam should be fine for grass types.

EDIT: Lost another streak on the 5th set (29-35) with this team, this time to a Gardevoir that had magical leaf and physic and was all SpA and Spe. Tentacruel could've just barely survived a hit to mirror coat it if he had full HP, but he did not. Gyarados also could've beaten it, but he was low on HP from killing the opponent's lead. This presents one of many issues with the current line up. I'm thinking I should raise a milotic and try that instead since results with tentracruel have been rather subpar. Sad because his toxic immunity and liquid ooze ability are absolute life savers against the stall sets, but ultimately the team just lacks something still and falls apart too easily so i feel like a tried and true mon like milotic might be what I want. I'm starting to think I might be best off having a dedicated crippler as my lead to try and always setup 6 dragon dances on gyarados to just one size fits all solve all my issues at once. Just not sure what mon would work for that role.

I realize this would require rebreeding, but its what I'd do

Choice band
max attack (iv's and ev's)
-earthquake
-rock slide (battle points)
-brick break (trainer hill)
-return (can be bred down via tm breeding) OR Hyper beam

You can either try to give it max hp or max speed. nature should be jolly or adamant

I like this mon, because stab earthquake is better than gyrados. since you're doing water, getting a special attacker should be no problem.

>how do i get a perfect IV
Keep catching dittos until you find one with that iv. then get to breeding.

Other mons
starmie (Great lead. run bulky ev's and iv's along with enough speed to outspeed the salamence.)

whishcash (leftover toxic bred from something like dustox into water 2, defensive investment) (this is your tank stallmon)

your biggest issue is your iv's are bad. I think you need to spend alot of time breeding

good runs friend.

edit I did the math

Whishcash
leftovers
max out spdef and Hp IV's keep breeding until you get 20+ def EV
Sassy
100 def (just dump 10 vitamins)
252 hp
152 spdef

-Dive (you like dive because leftovers and toxic)
-protect
-toxic
-amnesia

This set beats latias IF you amnesia turn 1, protect turn 2, amnesia turn 3, protect turn 4, amnesia turn 5, protect turn 6, toxic, then dive Just let them take your starmie or your lead.

edit edit
anabel gold doesn't have an out to whiscash on her raikou. switch from your lead (probably bulky max spatk starmie) turn 1, and then just start setting up. hope she sends out latias next. if its snorlax, use banded swampert. swampert with brick break can 2hko if its banded and fully invested adamant evs' and iv's. you use brick break because raikou sets up reflect.

edit edit edit
Getting toxic onto whiscash is hard

Swalot->gardevoir->spinda->wailord->whiscash

you need to do this before breeding for more than 1 IV. only males can pass TM's. delete all moves on your father except the tm. return back to delete any new moves on the male, as you breed. It sounds like alot, but its the only way to get toxic.

 

[Battle Frontier Account]

Need Help teambuilding

IDEA: Natural Cure Battle Pike (heals off status from the old man rooms)

Starmie
252 HP 252 SPatk Modest Perfect IV for hp, speed, and spatk
leftovers
-waterfall (because double battles)
-psychic
-ice beam
-thunderbolt

Altaria
bulky
leftovers
-protect
-fly
-toxic
-earthquake

OR

Altaria
modest Bulky
leftovers
-protect
-dragon claw
-flamethrower
-ice beam/haze

And I don't know what the third pokemon should be. I've been working on this team for a while, and haven't decided on what I want to do, before I start breeding the altaria. I'm willing to hear any suggestions.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Need Help teambuilding

IDEA: Natural Cure Battle Pike (heals off status from the old man rooms)

View attachment 481264
Starmie
252 HP 252 SPatk Modest Perfect IV for hp, speed, and spatk
leftovers
-waterfall (because double battles)
-psychic
-ice beam
-thunderbolt

View attachment 481265
Altaria
bulky
leftovers
-protect
-fly
-toxic
-earthquake

OR

View attachment 481269
Altaria
modest Bulky
leftovers
-protect
-dragon claw
-flamethrower
-ice beam/haze

And I don't know what the third pokemon should be. I've been working on this team for a while, and haven't decided on what I want to do, before I start breeding the altaria. I'm willing to hear any suggestions.

Altaria... isn't great, but if you're absolutely determined to use it it makes a passable Dragon Dancer. Don't be tempted to go with the second set, it's awful as a special attacker and doesn't get STAB on anything worth using.

There's a limited amount of things it can set up on because Flying isn't a great defensive type but given the opportunity it can grab a few boosts easily due to its bulk, especially if you run Rest in place of a third attacking move. STAB on Aerial Ace is nice to have (I always run AA on anything that can learn it given the option because it's insurance against annoying Double Team users like Ludicolo and Shuckle) while Earthquake rounds out your coverage. You still need a few boosts to reliably kill things and there are a few Pokemon you'll be walled by, like Skarmory and Salamence.

One big advantage Altaria has over other Dragons is that it learns Perish Song, which can be an incredibly devastating move when used correctly - especially in the Pike, where opposing NPCs you meet in double battles only have one Pokemon each thus cannot switch. It works best with team support though but is still rather gimmicky for this format - if your third Pokemon is dead you obviously cannot use Perish Song for the same reason, and you'd basically have to adapt the whole team around it, like having your other two Pokemon both be ones that have Soundproof. And none of the species with Soundproof are particularly good.

All in all, while Natural Cure is a good ability to have in the Pike, I'm not convinced that Altaria is a good enough Pokemon to justify its usage. The good news is that there are tons of good options: Guts Heracross or Hariyama, anything with Facade, anything that can abuse Rest/Sleep Talk. It's also worth bringing species that have immunities to certain status conditions as these can potentially block the status infliction room from working, and gives you a lifeline when you get far enough in the challenge to have all of your Pokemon inflicted at once.

Oh, and Surf is superior to Waterfall on Starmie. Surf doesn't hit your ally in this generation and is slightly more powerful than Waterfall, so it's almost always the better choice. I'd also run a Lum or Chesto Berry over Leftovers. Even though Starmie can rid itself of status, you don't always want to be switching, and it doesn't care too much about being burned or poisoned if you can KO multiple Pokemon quickly (which Starmie often can).

 

[Battle Frontier Account]

Altaria... isn't great, but if you're absolutely determined to use it it makes a passable Dragon Dancer. Don't be tempted to go with the second set, it's awful as a special attacker and doesn't get STAB on anything worth using.

There's a limited amount of things it can set up on because Flying isn't a great defensive type but given the opportunity it can grab a few boosts easily due to its bulk, especially if you run Rest in place of a third attacking move. STAB on Aerial Ace is nice to have (I always run AA on anything that can learn it given the option because it's insurance against annoying Double Team users like Ludicolo and Shuckle) while Earthquake rounds out your coverage. You still need a few boosts to reliably kill things and there are a few Pokemon you'll be walled by, like Skarmory and Salamence.

One big advantage Altaria has over other Dragons is that it learns Perish Song, which can be an incredibly devastating move when used correctly - especially in the Pike, where opposing NPCs you meet in double battles only have one Pokemon each thus cannot switch. It works best with team support though but is still rather gimmicky for this format - if your third Pokemon is dead you obviously cannot use Perish Song for the same reason, and you'd basically have to adapt the whole team around it, like having your other two Pokemon both be ones that have Soundproof. And none of the species with Soundproof are particularly good.

All in all, while Natural Cure is a good ability to have in the Pike, I'm not convinced that Altaria is a good enough Pokemon to justify its usage. The good news is that there are tons of good options: Guts Heracross or Hariyama, anything with Facade, anything that can abuse Rest/Sleep Talk. It's also worth bringing species that have immunities to certain status conditions as these can potentially block the status infliction room from working, and gives you a lifeline when you get far enough in the challenge to have all of your Pokemon inflicted at once.

Oh, and Surf is superior to Waterfall on Starmie. Surf doesn't hit your ally in this generation and is slightly more powerful than Waterfall, so it's almost always the better choice. I'd also run a Lum or Chesto Berry over Leftovers. Even though Starmie can rid itself of status, you don't always want to be switching, and it doesn't care too much about being burned or poisoned if you can KO multiple Pokemon quickly (which Starmie often can).

"you don't always want to be switching"

thanks
I think you brought up an important point, that I don't have anything to switch too

how about:


Skarmory
leftovers
max hp
max spdef

-Toxic
-aerial ace
-protect
-steel wing

Along with something that resists electric, so I don't have to worry about jolteon and friends?

 

[Holthyr]

Oh, and Surf is superior to Waterfall on Starmie. Surf doesn't hit your ally in this generation and is slightly more powerful than Waterfall, so it's almost always the better choice. I'd also run a Lum or Chesto Berry over Leftovers. Even though Starmie can rid itself of status, you don't always want to be switching, and it doesn't care too much about being burned or poisoned if you can KO multiple Pokemon quickly (which Starmie often can).

I believe someone once mentioned many pages ago that Starmie benefits most from the increase in power that the mystic water provides.

 

[Newusername2000]

Oi im goin crazy here, I just lost on round 47 to a Quagsire who had curse. Curse users are driving nuts especially the ones that 252 special defense EVs. This particular loss was particularly frustrating.

It opened Milotic v Dugtrio and I knew if I swapped to Gyarados I wouldn't risk the fissure, but I also knew that Gyarados can't one shot and gets outsped so he'd have to take two hits to kill dugtrio and since this particularly trainer (jesse) has like 4 grass types in his potential lineup I knew I couldn't let gyarados get beat up too early. I knew milo could OHKO with surf so I went for that. Fissure, it hit, milo dead, super fun. I killed his dugtrio with swampert after that. At that point I was just completely out of it, like I just stopped even wanting to try after that because it was so frustrating, then he sends in quagsire and this WHOLE streak I've been struggling with curse users. In just the past 10 rounds alone I fought a CurseLax and a CurseCow (which had milk drink, super fun), so I've had it up to HERE with curse users.

I was HOPING the quagsire had damp, it did not it was running water absorb, so I lost a turn there. I hit it with a couple ice beams, they did less than 25% damage, so after the quagsire had like 3 curses up, I tried to predict an earthquake and swapped into gyarados, it used a 4th curse instead. Then it quick claw double edge'd gyarados, dead ofc. So much "fun" stuff happened. I misplayed a ton, but it was just a total mess from the get go. I needed Milotic's ice beam to kill that quagsire since milo is much stronger than swampert, but milo got meme'd on right off the bat so I just didn't have the tools for a water immune curse user with 252 SpD after that. So frustrating. I might've been able to win if I just spammed ice beam on swampert and never tried swapping or using surf, but even then I'm fairly certain swampert couldn't have killed quagsire in time.

Stuff like this is really wearing on me. This was my 6th run of the tower and my second longest streak. I basically have my lineup finished now and I have answers to basically all the nasty mons there are and I can reliable handle stall sets with ease. I basically get how battles here work, I've finessed and PP stalled my way out of many sticky situations and think I have a pretty good handle on how to play most bad sets at this point. I still make a lot of dumb misplays though obviously. Curse sets are whats driving me up a wall now and honestly I don't even think there's anything more to be done about it. Just need to hammer them with ice beam and such. Is there anywhere I can check the abilities of trainer pokemon or are their abilities random? I thought for some reason they were random, but if they are set is there anywhere I can check that? bulbapedia doesnt list abilities.

Milotic @ Leftovers
Level: 50
Bold Nature
Ability: Marvel Scale
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 5 HP / 14 Atk / 13 Def / 26 SpA / 7 SpD / 28 Spe
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Recover
- Mirror Coat

Gyarados @ Lum Berry
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpD
IVs: 0 HP / 21 Atk / 18 Def / 8 SpA / 26 SpD / 8 Spe
- Earthquake
- Return
- Dragon Dance

Swampert @ Chesto Berry
Level: 50
Sassy Nature
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Def / 128 SpD
IVs: 3 HP / 22 Atk / 10 Def / 14 SpA / 24 SpD / 0 Spe
- Earthquake
- Ice Beam
- Rest
- Counter

This is my final team, no surf on swampert because EQ/Ice Beam is better coverage and hits latis better. Counter is important for powerful phys attackers in tight situations that I don't have any good answers to. No gyarados lead because I just wasn't able to setup DD often enough and I need gyarados to counter special walls, certain stalls sets (once I PP stall their toxic away), and ofc grass types. Milotic lead makes the most sense since he's the most disposable member (if gyara dies I lose to special walls and grass types, is swampert dies I lose to eletric types, but milo is just generally good and not exactly crucial to anything) and Milo is also the most one size fits all since he can 1v1 almost anything since Mirror Coat lets him beat most grass and eletric types if he has to. No fourth move on gyarados because right now it's just protect which is just a place holder. I would like to give him rest, but I used that TM already so I'd have to go grab a zigzagoon and train it to level 50 and get a new TM from pickup. Not bothering with that just yet because in all honestly I'm considering just choice banding gyarados at this point since I just absolutely hate trying to set up DD.

 

[Newusername2000]

I realize this would require rebreeding, but its what I'd do

Choice band
max attack (iv's and ev's)
-earthquake
-rock slide (battle points)
-brick break (trainer hill)
-return (can be bred down via tm breeding) OR Hyper beam

You can either try to give it max hp or max speed. nature should be jolly or adamant

I like this mon, because stab earthquake is better than gyrados. since you're doing water, getting a special attacker should be no problem.

>how do i get a perfect IV
Keep catching dittos until you find one with that iv. then get to breeding.

Other mons
starmie (Great lead. run bulky ev's and iv's along with enough speed to outspeed the salamence.)

whishcash (leftover toxic bred from something like dustox into water 2, defensive investment) (this is your tank stallmon)

your biggest issue is your iv's are bad. I think you need to spend alot of time breeding

good runs friend.

edit I did the math
View attachment 480944
Whishcash
leftovers
max out spdef and Hp IV's keep breeding until you get 20+ def EV
Sassy
100 def (just dump 10 vitamins)
252 hp
152 spdef

-Dive (you like dive because leftovers and toxic)
-protect
-toxic
-amnesia

This set beats latias IF you amnesia turn 1, protect turn 2, amnesia turn 3, protect turn 4, amnesia turn 5, protect turn 6, toxic, then dive Just let them take your starmie or your lead.

edit edit
anabel gold doesn't have an out to whiscash on her raikou. switch from your lead (probably bulky max spatk starmie) turn 1, and then just start setting up. hope she sends out latias next. if its snorlax, use banded swampert. swampert with brick break can 2hko if its banded and fully invested adamant evs' and iv's. you use brick break because raikou sets up reflect.

edit edit edit
Getting toxic onto whiscash is hard

Swalot->gardevoir->spinda->wailord->whiscash

you need to do this before breeding for more than 1 IV. only males can pass TM's. delete all moves on your father except the tm. return back to delete any new moves on the male, as you breed. It sounds like alot, but its the only way to get toxic.

Thanks for the input. I still have my toxic TM so getting toxic on a whiscash if I wanted would not be difficult. Also I'm not catching non-water types at all for the time being so I wouldn't chain breed using them. I am thinking about rebreeding a swampert with an offensive focus, but I'm not entirely certain yet. Whiscash is a fun concept but I don't know that he'd do super well paired with swampert for streaking since grass types would shred the two of them and I regularly see random trainers with 2 separate grass types. I know my IVs are bad, but I have almost zero intention of changing that tbh, it takes soooooo long to breed IVs the "legit" way to the point that it's hardly worth it when you could just spend that time grinding attempts instead. RNG abusing perfect IVs would be helpful, but I don't really want to do that for personal reasons. I will maybe rebreed swampert though. Still unsure about it, with his defensive spread he can take a hit from snorlax with a single curse up and with counter he can win that match up, without any defense EVs if snorlax uses curse he just dies. I had not considered putting a choice band on him, but you might be on to something with that tbh. Fully invested banded EQ w/ stab sounds pretty darn good.

So you've given me a new idea for a rework of my team

So I'd ditch Gyarados since I just plain don't like him personally (No stab, requires setup to function well, I just don't like him I want to like him but I just don't). I'd get a new swampert with brave and attack EVs that looks something like this to function as my physical attacker

Swampert @ Choice Band
Level: 50
Brave Nature
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Return
- Brick Break

And I'd bring in a ludicolo probably. He lacks grass/eletric weakness and has good coverage and decent SpA and moderate bulk. So he'd probably pull weight. Could just bring back starmie instead I guess. I don't know if Ludicolo is even bulky enough for it to be worth picking over starmie. Might be best off just bringing starmie back into rotation tbh. But I was really getting sick of starmie failing to OHKO and then getting OHKO'd all the time against bulky attackers which is like literally everything that I struggle with. Although maybe starmie would do better as a revenge killer, I was using him as a lead, but I think having him swap in after my lead dies to revenge kill with his huge speed and power would actually be optimal. Anyways this is what the ludicolo would look like I think. I'll probably just try starmie out again though tbh. Only issue then is that I will once again have issue with grass types. So I think I need Ludicolo or Tentacruel as my third since otherwise grass types will ruin my day.

Ludicolo @ Chesto Berry
Level: 50
Modest Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA
- Surf
- Giga Drain
- Ice Beam
- Rest

 

[ChickensBtasty]

I would be tempted to go with Tentacruel, but both it and Ludicolo have their problems. Ludicolo has respectable all around bulk, but it commonly struggles offensively due to its middling SpAtk which makes it hard for it at times to do better than a 3HKO against neutral targets. Ludi isn't a universal check to grass due to Sludge Bomb, which mauls it. Flying is another potentially difficult matchup due to the Drill Peck users having an OHKO chance and outspeeding or being something that can survive Ludicolo's attacks, like Skarmory and Zapdos. Giga Drain can be nice but it can falter against several Lapras and Walrein sets which is dangerous given their sets can use OHKO moves, and even Swampert can survive and respond with a fatal Mirror Coat on a pair of its sets if you choose to not breed for max SpAtk. Ludi at least does have solid coverage though.

Tentacruel generally has the same problems offensively, but the Mirror Coat set you mentioned earlier is at least guaranteed barring a crit to destroy an opposing special 'mon and it sits at a useful speed tier if you choose to invest in it. It may be redundant to have two Mirror Coaters though.

It's really cool that you've chosen to do a monotype challenge, good luck with it!

 

[Newusername2000]

Thanks for all your inputs. Sadly, I won't be doing anymore attempts anytime soon since break is now over. With university in session I just don't have the time to make attempts anymore. I'm absolutely sure water monotype is possible without perfect IVs and without trading or glitching. My setup I was running felt like it absolutely could get the gold symbol with cleaner play and a lucky streak with few nasty sets, but I just don't have the time to grind attempts anymore with my studies. The battle frontier was always a side objective for my current playthrough, I was just doing a water monotype/no items/level capped playthrough of emerald recently and figured I'd swing by the battle frontier and give it a shot, I'm honestly suprised I even got a silver symbol considering I'd literally never touched the battle frontier before this. I could probably get most the silver symbols on this playthrough actually, but I just don't have the time for it and I'd rather go for the gold if I'm gonna fully commit to a battle frontier playthrough.

Anyways huge thanks again to everyone who helped out. I do plan on doing the battle frontier someday, probably next break when I have some time to play again. I'll probably try it with some fun little challenge added on because just doing it with a Latios like everyone else would be too boring for my liking (Not trying to shame anyone for using meta picks, I'm just saying the fun part for me is team planning/building so just using someone else's blueprint one for one feels unexciting to me). Since I'm on cartridge and attempts take so long I'll probably have to pick a more moderate challenge, something that gives me a few more options and has a little more room to experiment since monotype basically shoehorns you into the one viable team with little choice to play around and ultimately means your team will never be perfectly balanced no matter what. I might do something like "no IV manipulation/Trading/OU+ pokemon" or something like that so I can play around with slightly underpowered but still viable UU pokemon that nobody really ever uses for the battle frontier and run a viable but slightly harder to use and unique team that won't be so luck reliant to get a good streak going. Anyways good luck with all your streaks guys, see you guys in a couple months probably.

 

[Missing#]

Final Streak: 57
Facility: Battle Factory
Rules: Level 50, Singles
Game: Emerald, Retail

I finally managed to get the Gold Symbol for the Battle Factory in Emerald! Not feeling content to just end my streak after all of the suffering it took to reach Noland a 2nd time, I continued on and got farther than I thought I would!

A bit sad I couldn't reach Noland in the 9th round, but the random IVs made my starting pokémon a bit weak and I got unlucky with my picks in the 9th round.

Still, I'm proud to submit my run for the leaderboard on the forum whose tips helped me get my way through this facility that has plagued me ever since 2005 as a kid.

 

[Churly-Puik]

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing very well. I would like to share with you a couple of winning streaks I have recently achieved in my Emerald cartridge.

Battle Dome Singles. Clear streak: 83. Open Level. Retail.

Team:
King Kong (Slaking) @ Choice Band
Level 100 Stats: 440/460/235/189/166/299
Adamant Nature
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Beam

Metallian (Metagross) @ Quick Claw
Level 100 Stats: 364/405/296/180/216/177
Adamant Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Explosion

Dominence (Salamence) @ Lum Berry
Level 100 Stats: 367/405/196/230/196/264
Adamant Nature
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Dance

Description:
A highly offensive team. Slaking is the lead, he crushes any opponent with DE or Eq/Shadow Ball if needed, then switches out against the second opponent. Hyper Beam is only used in extreme situations. My second pokemon, previously chosen, finishes the job: Salamence for fighting, bug, steel, grass and fire types, double team and fissure abusers, curse Skarmory and reversal users; or Metagross for water, ice, psychic, dragon, ghost and rock types, bulky pokemon in general like Snorlax, the Regis, etc. The spider usually explodes at the end to ensure the KO, even if it's a tie (the judge always chooses me). For Tucker rounds only, I used a Swampert instead of Metagross, as Tucker always sent his own metal spider:

Swampex (Swampert) @ Leftovers
Level 100 Stats: 404/254/303/202/215/135
Relaxed Nature
- Earthquake
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Threats:
OHKO users with the fricking Quick Claw. Also opposing Metagross, Armaldo, some Tyranitars, and anyone who isn't OHKOd by Slaking could become a threat if not handled correctly. Protect, Fake Out and Bright Powder also ruin Slaking's hit and run strategy.

Loss:
The opponent was PKMN Breeder Tess. Slaking's Double-Edge missed against Walrein 4 (thanks to her Bright Powder), and then the fattest walrus ever landed a critical hit on me. During the loafing turn I had to switch out Slaking, who would die if he took another hit, so I had to let Salamence eat an Ice Beam, which OHKOd him. Slaking entered again and pulverized Walrein with Hyper Beam, hoping for the next opponent to make a stupid decision during the recharge turn, but the PKMN Breeder sent Blaziken and finish my streak with a wicked Rock Slide. I didn't choose Metagross fearing the hen's fire moves and the reversal set, but maybe it was a better option than Salamence. You can see the Battle Video here:

Battle Arena. KOs in a row: 114. Open Level. Retail.

Team:
Panzer (Snorlax) @ Lum Berry
Level 100 Stats: 524/281/229/134/256/97
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Yawn
- Rest

Latios @ Cheri Berry
Level 100 Stats: 303/189/190/394/250/310
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind

Darude (Tyranitar) @ Liechi Berry
Level 100 Stats: 382/403/256/203/235/180
Adamant Nature
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power Bug 70
- Dragon Dance

Description:
At first it was only a test, but I ended up breaking my own record with this team, so I continued playing. I consider this as a poor man version of submenceisop's team (see here), I only followed his strategy but using my own pokemon. Snorlax is Adamant, so he can hit harder, and the Yawn/Rest combination is OP in the Arena. Latios has Calm Mind instead of Substitute and is Modest, so he is slower against Starmies, etc. Darude has 180 speed to outrun every single opponent (except for Jolteon 4) after two Dragon Dances.

Loss:
Basically, an opposing Metagross woke up and chose violence: it exploded on Latios' face with its Quick Claw activated after 2 turns sleeping. Darude was ready for the comeback, but the enemy sent out Aerodactyl, who was faster than my DD tar. Here's the video of the loss:

If you want, you can see here a review of all the records achieved on my 12-year-old save file on cartridge:

Bye, and thank you all for reading!
I think I'm going to be semi-retired for a while.