DONE
PROOF VIA MY SHITTY SCREENSHOT SKILLS
Pokemon Showdown! Username: We All Love Birkal
Hall of Fame Standing: GOLD BITCH
Dark Horse Pokemon Currently Working With: Gotha,
Current Ladder Standing on Pokemon Showdown!: 2227 if its Glicko2, 2138 if ACRE, 16th on the actual ladder
How did you choose your Dark Horse Pokemon for this project? What lead you to choose the Pokemon you did? Did you have regrets or were you happy with your selection?
Gothitelle was prolly one of the easier pokemon to use in a Dark Horse challenge, due to it being such a strong but underrated pokemon. Gothitelle gave me pretty strong control over the battle, since I could highlight pokemon it could trap just by looking at Team Preiview, and then make a game plan around it. I was very happy with my choice.
How did you go about building a team for your Dark Horse Pokemon? Which kinds of teammates did you consider? What factors contributed to the team you created?
In all honestly, I have like 50 OU Teams (some of which i had yet to test), so I basically looked at the pokemon on my teams, highlighted the Dark Horse ones, looked at what everyone else was using, and then made a selection. It didn't have to be Gothitelle, it could have ended up has Hippowdon / Meloetta / Amoonguss / Slowbro / Metagross / Ditto / Sandslash or something, I just picked Gothitelle randomly. Confident I could use it easily, and quickly (due to me wanting to speed run this challenge due to the next week or so being rather busy).
The actual team itself was based around Gothitelle trapping and getting rid of counters for my sweepers. Gothitelle was amazing on Rain Teams, since it could trap and kill counters for Breloom and Keldeo, while also trapping and killing Abomasnow and Ninetales, while crippling Hippowdon with trick or Psychic. Gothitelle was also rather neat at destroying the odd stall team I played, since I would be able to shut down whatever was most threatening to me on the stall team, (usually Chansey), Trick it a Scarf, and go from there.
The Team was actually built around Sub Calm Mind Keldeo, since I had always wanted to see how it could do in the metagame, and I used Gothitelle to trap and kill Jellicent, Amoonguss and Celebi, while crippling Politoed which would prevent it from ruining me with Perish Song. I actually used Perish Song Politoed myself, which pissed off a few people since I could bring in Gothitelle if they switched into a Perish Song, and then they would be unable to switch out allowing me to get a free kill. Gothitelle would also trap Breloom for me which was everywhere, a massive faggot in general, and many teams check to water attacks / electric attacks, which opened them up to other members of my team. The rest of the team was standard Rain, basically a Sub CM Jirachi, a Scarf Thundurus-T for revenge killing duties, and a Ferrothorn for Stealth Rock. The team is below and it played pretty similar to my old "Dear Susan" Team. I suspect I could run Gothitelle over Meloetta on that team and still do extremely well but whatever.
Do you think it is more difficult or less difficult to ladder with a Dark Horse Pokemon? Why? Does the element of surprise play a factor in your battles? Is it easier to fight with a "highly used"" team or with Pokemon that are less common?
I think it was slightly difficult to ladder with a lesser used pokemon, but there are some solid Dark Horse options that are really awesome on a team, and that doesn't handicap your team too much. I think if your team is solid, you will be just fine, if you are having problems, you might need to relook at your team.
I think it is easier to fight a highly used team of pokemon, due to actually knowing how much damage they do, sets, etc etc. I remember running into a team which had a bunch of UU pokemon and struggling, because I thought Lickilicky was some random Wish Passer, the fucking thing had Cloud Nine which cancelled my weather, and then promptly Swords Danced in my face and took out half my team. The element of surprise can work very well in the Dark Horse challenge, I was just unable to use it very well myself due to Gothitelle's standard sets being known.
How did you reach the Hall of Fame? Was it easy or difficult? Did having a Dark Horse Pokemon on your team benefit you? What advice would you give to those laddering with Dark Horse Pokemon?
It was easy for me to reach the hall of fame. I speed ran the challenge, and had a massive amount of points so it was fairly simple for me to get onto the ladder. My Dark Horse Pokemon I suppose benefited my team since I had actually built the team around it, but I suspect I could drop it for something else, make a few minor changes and the team would still work fine. If anyone wants advice I guess for this challenge, just I guess make sure you have a solid team, and that your Dark Horse pokemon has a purpose being on that team, since if its randomly tacked on its going to be much harder to ladder.
Cheers