Again I think you're overanalyzing every possible threat to the team without trying it. With FrontierAssistant you can deduce that many trainers only have one set which makes it considerably easier to stall. With regards to these threats - how many times was the threat itself actually the lead? For how many threats there are - there's about 3 or 4 sets that are easy to stall. For example against Experts/Gentlemen/Ladies I would often get Regice as the lead, which is very easy to stall. You're also underestimating the effect of Registeel/Moltres having a Sub up after burn stalling/toxic stalling the first Pokemon and getting an additional chance to burn/poison.Let me be clear; I do think a team like this can get 200. 200 is a lot - for a large part of emerald's history that would have been a top streak - but with the correct play and scouting into every set its possible. Previous teams in that ballpark do directly discuss exactly these kinds of issues though.
I did not doubt it initially but if the plan is to throw moltres against these threats then i doubt it more to be completely honest. There are certain threats where the correct course of action is to just risk Latios in order to reduce the chance of the AI using a move like Swords Dance. This is why I question "I've rarely had any scares using this team" but not "i got 200".
Lets examine Latios-2 in detail against moltres so I can underline for other readers what actually happens here. This is centrally important so I'll leave out the spoiler tags.The thing about OHKO (and I would emphasise that anyone who has played a stall set knows this) is that the AI is not 100% to spam these moves. A first glance would say "ok, OHKO move has 5pp and moltres has pressure. I can protect, sub, protect. That gives it only 1 chance to hit moltres (on the sub turn with QC). that's only 6%, i'm favored".
The problem is that in reality, OHKO moves just sit at a +0 score in the enemy AI. That's the same score (and probability weighting) as a regular status move or as a regular attack. So the move selection protect, sub, protect has a chance of wasting 0 OHKO PP, and instead just delaying OHKO into a future unknown turn. You can generalise this kind of decision mapping into a markov process, but you're going to end up with a baseline rate that using protect on an ohko turn is ~50%. That means sometimes you'll get 3/3 protect on the ohko attempt, and sometimes you'll get 0/3. Sometimes the sub may already be up also, great. but the fact is that you can't rely on the AI behaving this way. In a single, isolated 1v1 its acceptable. In a long streak where you will inevitably have these ohko sets appear multiple times, its not. It's ok to say "OHKO sets are a problem" but this is the opposite of what you're claiming.
The other problem is that dodging a QC OHKO isn't gg. Getting hit by a QC move like Rock Slide or Surf (these appear annoyingly often alongside OHKO) is almost as bad. A QC SE move is going to deal ~60% to moltres, that's instantly going to put you into a HP range where morning sun is forced or if it happens on turn ~7+ that moltres is in, it could outright just KO it. Again, subtect spam on moltres takes you from 16/16 -> 13/16 -> 14/16 -> 11/16 -> 12/16 -> etc... on conseuctive turns. You'll only have a 75%+ HP moltres for the first 6 or so turns. That's fine if the only move you are stalling is 10pp rock slide. It's not fine if the move is 15pp surf/ tbolt and its definitely not fine if the enemy set has 2 moves that deal "too much" damage to moltres. You can use Gliscor like this, but you can't do the same with aerodactyl, moltres or suicune reliably in gen3.
There's also the fact that even something kind of basic like Lapras-7 is going to absolutely demand an OHKO dodge on the regi/moltres switch before sub-stalling PP can happen. And no, you can't safely sub scout with Latios either because there is also a QC OHKO set and various 4-attack spam sets
There's no way to argue your way out of the fact that OHKO spam is a massive problem until a team runs at least Gengar and preferably a pokemon with Sturdy. This isn't an issue, but you claiming that you are safe from OHKO or that its only a 6% risk is wildly wrong. The actual risk is at least 5 times greater than that
We'll assume Latios-2 has 9/10 ice beam (-1 from regi switch), 7/10 EQ (1 used against registeel, 2 from switch into pressure), 15/15 tbolt and 10/10 psychic
turn 1: protect.... 16/16 HP moltres (I will express the HP in fractions of 16, aware that "0/16" is still 1hp as this is the remainder). Thats 13/15 tbolt PP at the end of the turn.
turn 2: sub... 13/16 HP moltres at the end of turn. Note: there is a 20% QC proc here. If QC activates, you have a sub-25% moltres at best and moltres will lose the 1v1. Otherwise, that's 11/15 tbolt pp.
3: protect ... 14/16 ... 9/15 tbolt
4: sub ............ 11/16 ...7/15 tbolt. Once again, a 20% QC activation is gg. (2 QC)
5: protect ... 12/16 ... 5/15 tbolt
6: sub .............. 9/16 ...3/15 tbolt. 20% QC activation is a dead moltres. (3 QC)
7: protect ... 10/16 ...1/15 tbolt.
8: sub ............ 7/16 ...0/15 tbolt. The final Tbolt gets 1 final chance to kill moltres with a QC (4 QC attempts total)
9: protect ... 8/16 ...8/10 psychic
10: sub ......... 5/16 ...6/10 psychic. If QC psychic procs here then it's a roll to kill. even if it doesnt kill, Moltres has no chance but to start spamming morning sun on crit and spdef drop psychic that deals around 50% at base anyway
11: protect ...6/16 ...4/10 psychic
12: sub........... 3/16 ...2/10 psychic. QC on this turn is GG once more.
13: protect ...4/16 ...0/10 psychic. Latios-2 is now out of tbolt and psychic PP but it's not over
14: morning sun to heal to 12/16 from 4/16. QC Ice beam here is GG. That's the 7th potential QC that can ruin moltres. even without QC, frz is gg
15: assume no QC at all. Moltres will be around 46% after non-crit ice beam on turn 14. Morning sun is forced again to avoid a loss to QC on turn 16. QC crit is gg, frz is gg.
16: if moltres reaches this point it should be at ~65% and "safe" to start subtecting
You need 0/7 Quick claw (that's a 20% chance. Not 20% for quick claw, but 20% for you to dodge QC on every sub turn). You can maybe cope that 0/5 is enough for a latios setup, but thats still favoring the opponent.
You also need no ice beam FRZ and no ice beam crit on the first few morning sun turns in order to avoid losing to QC on the next turn or avoid outright fainting to crit ice beam since it can deal ~75%
Moltres is ~15% to win this 1v1 and stall Latios-2 successfully. You say you've done this 3/3 times, but thats a ~0.5% occurence. Not impossible, but very lucky and a shocking amount of risk to take compared to just trying to win the 1v1 with latios or registeel directly and not risk stalling.
You might say "oh but that's fine I got lucky". But there's a second kicker: people who have done pressure-PP stalling in gen 3 know that there is a flaw with the enemy AI which means that after it runs out of its highest damaging move (here tbolt), it no longer functions to select psychic with perfect reliability. In reality, after turn 8 you're looking at 50% ice beam and 50% psychic as both moves get a -1 AI score. I cannot (honestly in all good faith at all) believe you haven't noticed this after 200 battles.
Regardless, this is a "problem" because ice beam also breaks the moltres sub and it means psychic PP is very likely still intact 13 turns in. You could try to morning sun on a guessed ice beam, but this is a potential disaster against psychic and its 10% spdef drop or 6% crit, and that's again ignoring 20% QC.
If you'd said that you need to alternate the morning sun in earlier because of this unreliability from the AI then I'd probably agree, but I'm not sure why you need me to tell you that this is necessary when i'm the one who has never played the matchup. For you to 3/3 into QC 3-spatk latios in this matchup is a massive claim. This is the kind of thing that happens once and you either lose or you realise the massive loss % and dont do it again and talk about it in the writeup as an obvious threat.
The one point in your favor with this strategy is you can argue that once "enough" PP is used up, latios-registeel could switch stall latios-2 which can lead to a fully setup Latios if successful. There is a very real danger of Registeel getting too low through this though (stalling 7 EQ pp to stall means registeel is eating at least 6 attacks, and even ice beam is going to deal ~13%), and setting up on ~20% dmg struggles from QC is uncomfortable at best. Generously, you could claim that effective PP stalling is just 0/5 QC on moltres sub, which is "only" a 32% chance of getting lucky enough to effectively stall. I'd still call that an insane risk to intentionally take - I would rather just take an 80% win from no QC on lati, or a 85% win from Registeel hitting toxic
Furthermore this "You can't just spam subtect because you have to consider your actual HP total" problem is universal to basically every pokemon with multiple damaging attacks and particularly bad on QC
Consider Metagross-4 ("moltres counters metagross easily"). Let's assume it just gets in for free on EQ, that seems fine.
What exactly is moltres supposed to do now to safely (lets say >90%) stall? You can just WOW immediately. Not a bad idea as the ~75% hit chance is probably the end of metagross being a real threat. a spdef drop on WOW would be pretty bad, but you could then pivot into regi to reset it.
subtect spam is an option but definitely uncomfortable. You do not want to get hit by a psychic crit or eat a spdef drop on a QC sub turn.
Once psychic PP is gone, do you continue to stay in? MM is a 20% atk boost chance. It's not always going to select MM as it can select Shadow Ball also (the AI will not be deterministic on this select just as its not deterministic with Latios). A single attack raise is a problem because this removes the safety net moltres has of semi-reliabily being able to just sit on morning sun.
At the same time, after a single attack raise, both latios and registeel want nothing to do with metagross either. Even if all its PP gets stripped, +1 struggle does too much damage to let latios safely setup.
Ok so metagross-4 is meh but not exactly GG. The concern goes up quite a lot more with Metagross-5 though, which is definitely going to take its luck on 2 QC rock slides. It's then quite likely to just explode. Even if all Rock slide and explode miss the QC/ sub 20% dance, you're left with a naked 10/16 moltres (its 9/16 but gets 1 free protect on the following turn) into the next mon. This is not a "good" outcome as a 10/16 hp moltres can only effectively subtect spam 6-7 turns.
This is just me voicing concerns out loud; I'm actually not sure what the optimal play against metagross because the set overlap is annoying.
Metagross-7 can look like metagross-4 because it will also either SBall or MM lati, and then attempt to EQ Registeel (damage rolls will be identical, there will be no item indication)
The problem is you don't really want to do moltres vs metagross-7 either, but for a different reason to metagross-4. SBall + tpunch requires 16 turns of stalling with subtect pressure. As it doesnt have QC, you can safely Subtect until turn 15 with a 12.5% HP moltres. Morning sun here is ok, but a SBall spdef drop would mean a regi switch, and moltres doesnt really want to sit on ice punch either, even if its "only" hit by 15/2/2 = 4 total after pressure and protect, that's 4 chances for moltres to get frozen. The reward for this is that Latios can attempt a setup, except metagross struggle can break latios' sub. Its possible to setup here but uncomfortable and as we know from other teams, a +6/+6 latios with only dclaw coverage isnt gg with 2 opponents left.
Again, I'm not sure why you need me to tell you this. Surely you have seen Metagross at least a few times, and most of its sets either overlap or should create some fear from MM atk boosts. You have no fast way to kill metagross, so I can't believe you just "haven't seen it atk boost".
even outside the turn 1 threadlist pre-scout (this is easily 50+ sets), there are simple combos of enemy sets that can cause trouble.All of this is "ok" if lati@s and metagross were isolated cases, but they're not. Let me just forget the massive QC + Guts list I've already provided (most of these outlast moltres with offensive pressure) and pick out a set like Dewgong-4, milotic-2 or nidoking-3
Dewgong-4 is only "safely" handled by regi but you are forced to risk sheer cold or ice beam frz on the switch before you go for sub. Moltres cant handle this since surf+ice beam + sheer cold is too much PP to safely stall. Latios can 1v1 it if you can dodge crits and sheer colds.
Milotic-2 has safeguard + surf/ice beam. Regi can 1v1 this with SToss, if surf does not crit. There's no safe way to get Moltres in against this without sacking something, but even after that happens a full 13-turn stall still ends with giving milotic a chance to frz moltres. The ultimate upshot (if moltres somehow gets in) is ok because the reward is ultimately +6/+6 latios, but again this is not GG.
Nidoking-3 is another pokemon where I'm not sure what you're supposed to do without thinking for a bit. No way for Latios to safely 1v1 this, particularly when set 2 and 4 need to be scouted and run from. Registeel cant sit on horn drill or fire blast, especially while its slower. Moltres could come in, but Surf's 15pp + Leppa berry giving an extra 10 means moltres needs 100% HP to get the full 13 turn subtect for 8+5 surf PP (note that getting hit by fblast or blizzard means you arent at 100% even after 2 leftover ticks). This sounds ok until you remember horn drill can slip into one of those turns and ruin the perfect count. At the same time, there is absolutely no way you can safely 1v1 without subtect while it still has horn drill PP remaining. The risk of horn drill also makes Moltres/ Registeel pivoting way too risky. Latios could stay in, but Poison Point can burn lum, +0 DClaw is a 2hko roll on nido-3 and unscouted nido-2 will just beat latios in this scenario.
These are not cherry-picked sets. The list of pokemon Latios can't trivially 1v1 but have multiple coverage moves is an extension of this. A single misplay or misread of a set on a single turn can be GG - it's not like Latios or Moltres are actually bulky enough to take a stray hit. Registeel has a longer list of things it "safely counters" but I would be very wary of things like 3/3 self hit from confusion, or 25% prz happening and preventing rest on a critical turn. Again, it's a near-certainty that this has either happened or almost happened to you once in 200 battles.To be blunt, there is a disconnect between your team + streak (which are believable as a combo) and the comments surrounding not only the risk of, but also how to deal with certain threats, as well as how the Gen 3 AI just behaves in general when it comes to PP-stalling and the priority given to OHKO moves or split-decisions on SE attacks.Lead claydol for example. You can sub t1 to scout, but claydol-4 puts you in an awkward position where it beats latios 1v1, moltres cannot safely switch in (from either latios or Registeel) due to the explosion threat. At the same time, no way registeel safely stays in while it spams 252+ EQs (while being faster). You can go to moltres and hope for no explode on the switch, but if it explodes on moltres then you open yourself up to losing to every set not defeated by the Latios-Registeel combo (and this is likely a 75% Latios after the sub-scout). Claydol doesn't 1v3 you like some other sets can, but it does destroy the defensive core and create a 2v2. Again, this is "ok" but the threatlist expansion is going to put your win odds way lower.
Manectric is a similar issue. On paper latios can 1v1 all its sets. In reality, manectric-4 is decently likely to prz latios through the combination of 33% static + twave being fairly likely. You don't get a free sub on twave either since its still ~10% to just use crunch anyway. You don't immediately lose if latios gets paralysed, but you do expand the threatlist to include pokemon such as Starmie and Gengar. Registeel and Moltres aren't coming in and staying in on these STAB electric moves vs manectric safely either. Manectric doesn't deserve a mention as a "counter" but it definitely does deserve a mention as a pokemon that can directly cause a loss. Again I struggle to believe that even the more presumably harmless electric types like electrode havent randomly proc'd 1/3 static twice or at least once and then threatened to do so again.
That comment (avoiding static, maintaining lum) is the kind of advice i would expect from 200 battles of properly playing this team. PRZ almost completely cripples latios' ability to 1v1 a lot of opponents, let alone sweep. It's not the kind of thing you needlessly risk
If you had said how a reasonably long list of sets (even without naming them) actually give this team trouble, how important exact scouting with AI knowledge is, and how often you need to find some very unintuitive lines to safely avoid going down to a 1v2 I'd be more willing to believe it.
I'd also be more willing to believe "oh i just haven't faced latios-2/ metagross/ rhydon/ whiscash/ lapras/ nidoking yet and was not aware of the threat" but I feel like you've put yourself into a corner on this by claiming you've just brute-forced all of them every time they've appeared, never getting "unlucky".
The more confusing part is that in my responses I have given you a free ticket to either directly agree or properly discuss actual issues and make the streak seem more convincing. Trying to claim that the team rarely gets into trouble does not make me believe the streak is legit, it makes me think the opposite. These points I'm raising are not complex, they're obvious and come to mind immediately when considering how a single "10% bad luck" fight could end the streak.
With regards to the few additional Pokemon you have listed:
Milotic 2 - does not Surf every turn, it often interjects with Safeguard, which gives additional recovery turns.
Nidoking 3 - First turn sub to scout. If sub breaks then switch to Registeel on Blizzard - Switch to Moltres on Fire Blast. I've found that it may go for Horn Drill before going for Surf, so I've never had the issue of Leppa restoring Surf.
Claydol - First turn sub to scout, second turn switch to Registeel if it is the Physical offense set. Switch to Moltres on EQ. I've found that after it runs out of Rock Slide it may go for Explosion by itself. I've never had it explode on the Registeel to Moltres turn which is the only turn it is risky.
Manectric 4 - CM to Dragon Claw OHKOs but even if Latios gets paralyzed by Static, Gengar is not a threat (if Manectric 4 then it must be Gengar 4), and Moltres comfortably counters. Starmie 4 is countered by Registeel, Toxic Stall or Toxic + Seismic Toss.
Metagross - Hypothetically only Metagross 5 is a threat but I've never faced it as a lead. MM does not even break sub on Moltres without an Attack boost and Moltres can generally Will-o-wisp without too much trouble. The special sets can be stalled by Moltres easily as well.
You're spending all this time critiquing my team without trying it, and throwing shade on my streak which I did on console, without any streak of your own to post. Your time would be better spent elsewhere.
