Arena basics:
- No weather or SolarBeam
- No external water source
- No natural elements (rocks, grass, etc.)
- No digging
- Seismic moves allowed
The pokemon are inside what looks like an evil villain's hideout. The actual arena is a bunch of treadmills set out in several rows. The walls on the sides of the arena have been marked at 10ft intervals and it is clear that the length of the treadmill arena is 100ft, not counting the spike pits at each end.
The key aspect of this arena is position, or more specifically, how far along the treadmills the pokemon are. The treadmills span positions from 1ft to 100ft, and the spike pits are at locations 0ft backwards and 101ft onwards. The treadmills go in the direction of the spike pit that they are closer to. Flying and levitating pokemon are not exempt from this as the gravity in this room is slightly intensified - not enough for the move Gravity's effect to happen, but enough to force flying and levitating pokemon to come to the ground briefly at the end of each action.
Detailed arena mechanics:
At the start of the battle, whoever sends out their mons first sends them out at the 50ft mark and whoever sends their mons out second sends theirs out at the 51ft mark.
At the end of every action, every pokemon will be pulled 1ft by the treadmills. For pokemon whose position is between 1ft and 50ft, subtract 1ft. For pokemon whose position is between 51ft and 100ft, add 1ft. In addition, all pokemon lose 1 energy as they try to stay away from the spike pits. However, if a pokemon chills, cools down after a combo, is under the effects of Ingrain or fails to act at all for any reason (including but not limited to flinch, sleep and full paralysis), the pokemon is pulled 5ft instead but loses no energy.
All direct damaging moves, in addition to doing damage, knock the target away from the user of the move. If the user and target are in the same position, the move knocks the target towards the nearest spike pit. The knockback component is equal to the BAP of the move (before all adjustments except Technician, the *0.75 for multi-target moves and multi-hit calculation) plus the user's attack or special attack rank minus double the target's weight class. The end result is rounded off to the nearest whole number using normal rounding rules, but the knockback component is always at least 0ft.
- For example, a Modest Tomohawk's Hurricane against a Machamp has a knockback component of (12+5-2*5)=7ft.
In this arena, a pokemon may use the
Run command for 5 energy to run to a particular position. The valid range of positions the pokemon can run to is its current position plus or minus 10% of its current speed (rounded to the nearest whole number).
- For example, a neutral-nature Raticate at 20ft can run up to 10ft in either direction, so it can move to 10ft or 30ft or anywhere in between.
Two pokemon can share the same position - it can be assumed that in such a scenario the pokemon are at different points along the width of the arena. If a pokemon attempts to run to a position out of range, it will simply run as far as it can in that direction.
- For example, if the aforementioned Raticate tries to run to 35ft, it will run to 30ft as that is as far as it can go.
The
Run command cannot be Encored or disallowed by any moves at all, including Taunt, and it is not subject to the consecutive move penalty. However, a pokemon under the effects of Ingrain cannot use this command.
Contact moves can only be used if the user is close enough to the target. That is, the difference between the user and target's positions must be no greater than the user's size class.
- For example, a Gliscor at 30ft can only use Acrobatics on an opponent whose position is between 27ft and 33ft.
However, when calculating the knockback for a contact move, multiply the move's BAP by 1.5. If a pokemon tries to use a contact move on an opponent not in range, that pokemon simply runs in the appropriate direction as far as it can or until its opponent is in range, whichever comes first. If the former, the pokemon expends 5 energy as if it had just used the
Run command. If the latter, the pokemon expends 2 energy for the running and then uses the move as normal.
- For example, let us suppose that the aforementioned Gliscor is Adamant. If it tries to use Acrobatics on an opponent at position 20ft, it has 95 speed so it can run (95/10)=9.5->10ft. However, it only needs to run to 23ft to be able to use the move, so it runs to 23ft, expending 2 energy, and then uses Acrobatics. The knockback of the move will be (11*1.5+4-2*Target's WC), rounded to the nearest whole number.
If a pokemon successfully uses U-Turn on an opponent out of its range, it immediately returns to the position it started at. In the Gliscor example, if it used U-Turn, it would travel to 23ft, use the move and then go back to 30ft. If a pokemon tries to use a contact move that has a random target (eg, Thrash), targets already in that pokemon's range will be given priority over targets that the pokemon can reach, and those will be given priority over further away ones.
Note: A pokemon under the effects of Ingrain cannot run at all.
Lastly, if a pokemon is pulled into a spike pit (ie, its position is not between 1ft and 100ft), it is KO'd immediately.