My final ongoing streak is dead too. About freaking time considering it's been running since April lol. Posting a 330 win streak in Super Singles.
ok, as unimaginative and hilariously poorly built my team is and although everybody knows what I was using and despite my heavily ambiguous feelings towards it, I'm gonna repost it anyway because that's what people do in this kind of posts. I'm also gonna post a more detailed 'teambuilding' process and some additional insights I've gained along the way, because there's nothing of the sort in my introduction post and my five trophies post (the other ones where I posted the sets).
Skippy (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy -> Parental Bond
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/10/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Power-Up Punch
-Return
-Sucker Punch
-Earthquake
Zar'roc (Aegislash) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/6/31/13
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
-King's Shield
-Swords Dance
-Shadow Sneak
-Sacred Sword
Glaedr (Dragonite) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multiscale
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/18/31/31
EVs: 24 HP / 252 Atk / 232 Spe
-Dragon Dance
-Dragon Claw Outrage
-Extreme Speed
-Earthquake
Why did I use these Pokemon? Quite frankly, because I was left so pissed after losing a streak with Cloyster/Scarf Chandelure/Mega Venusaur at battle 49 in a battle with a really unlucky matchup and, more importantly, some extremely hideous chokes (e.g. using Sludge Bomb against a Chesnaught that I knew was Bulletproof because it had switched in on Shadow Ball... yeah...) that I simply threw together the most overpowered team possible in order to restore that streak as quickly as possible. I had held off on using Khan to get the singles trophy because I kinda wanted to win it with a less broken team (I just find it more fun that way, that's all - but yeah, tbf I also didn't like the idea of having to resort to brokemons in order to win the trophy, but at this point I didn't really care anymore. Plan A was general goodstuff, plan B was Cloyster, plan C was Khan, plan D was Durant); anyway, according to a weird bit of desperate logic, if I were to get back to 49 using a Khan team and then win battles 49 and 50 with the Cloyster team, I would have won battles 1-50 with the Cloyster team and thus deserved the trophy without using Khan. Right. And so it happened.
Anyway, after winning that trophy, I hardly did anything in singles because I still had to win the rotations trophy and, simply put, doubles/triples were a lot more fun. If I did anything in singles, it was ~5 battles between attempts in a different format, using this team over the Cloyster one because I had been adjusting Venusaur's moveset for wifi and I honestly didn't care. (unluckily I had found serebiiforums' maison thread before this one, and that one was flooded with a lot of defeatist crap and the traditional stupid unfounded allegations against the AI, such as antiteaming of course - one guy even went so far as to say the only way to win the trophy was to rotate teams, in order to throw off said antiteaming. I found all this quite disturbing, but rationally I didn't really believe it, especially after I had already won my first three trophies - I mean, if that were true I honestly would've expected to run into more than two thunder wave leads with my Cloyster team in those fifty battles, and, with my current experience, more than one Terrakion lead in 300+ battles with lead Khan - however, I figured 'better safe than sorry', and seeing as I didn't want to rotate teams within one streak I figured challenging different formats and thus using different teams anyway would be sufficient to throw the AI off its balance. I stopped doing this because it got tedious when I started focusing on (moderately) long streaks rather than just trophies, and guess what, it hadn't made any difference at all lol. Ugh, guess I would've been playing singles a lot more open-minded and with a lot more fun if I had found this thread first. Oh, just to make myself clear, I'm not bashing Serebii here, just the mentality of some guys in their maison thread lol.) Because of lack of enjoyment and too many cheap AI strategies I pretty much abandoned singles otherwise. (my perspective here was kinda warped because of the serebii thread, it honestly isn't any worse than in the other formats, it's just that they work less well in doubles/triples. I also remember writing here in my first post that I hated singles, that's honestly not true, but it took me playing in Platinum with Suizomence and a newfound open mind to remember that. Singles are cool.) However, just before I finally won my fifth trophy, I was at ~75 and I continued to 100 because I thought having 100 straight wins in every format not named multi would look rather sexy. Some time later, I was bored and continued to ~150, and because of the godawful teambuilding and synergy (more of that later) I was rather surprised I hadn't lost yet, and at this point it would be a waste of a potentially decent streak to still leave it abandoned. I then continued it on a semi-regular basis (because other stuff was still more fun - i.e. Platinum and especially triples, lol if I hadn't conceived team Clockwork Angels I probably would've posted this weeks sooner), and here I am.
About the teambuilding, there honestly wasn't any. After losing with Cloyster, I thought 'k, so lead Khan because I'm not gonna waste more time than I need to, and what are some other powerful singles mons? Aegislash and Dragonite, k, let's go' and thus this 'team' was born. I hadn't paid any attention at all to synergy and whatnot. This was not a team, this was three egocentric strikers thrown together. It was three physical attackers with no protection against status bar a single Lum Berry, for crying out loud. The irony of having Zar'roc and Glaedr on the same team is so damn real lol.
However, during the streak it became apparent that the team happened to have the defensive synergy it needed. Aegislash could take strong Fighting-type attacks for Khan (I kinda lied a few lines back, this much I did take into consideration when building, but that's frankly all), Dragonite could take Ground- and Fire-type attacks for Aegislash (also cool for popping White Herbs) and Aegislash could take Rock-, Dragon-, and Ice-type attacks for Dragonite. Still, some weaknesses weren't covered and Fighting-types with EdgeQuake coverage were kinda shit, but this defensive synergy honestly isn't half bad, right? About status users, despite the notion I had planted in my head, in hindsight there weren't really more than one/two status leads every ten battles, and I think I usually just utterly destroyed them... And anyway, confusion can be switched around, a poisoned Khan isn't really a problem, a paralysed Khan still has that monstrous +2 Sucker Punch, and a burned Khan still is ridiculously powerful when set up considering one PuP negates the burn attack drop (people tend to forget this I guess, I mean I know it's annoying and pressuring and all, but I honestly got rather annoyed every time someone said about Mega Mawile 'just burn it - i.e. effectively sack your Rotom - and you're good' because you're not lol, seeing at the 260 base Attack monster already has set up an SD that you're just negating - but I digress), not to mention Khan can also set up more than once against shit like Weezing :) and if Khan does go down, Aegislash and Dragonite can sweep entire teams as well (the latter getting a free switch, thus having its berry intact). I'm not saying Khan (and the team) doesn't mind status because it's honestly really annoying and 'playing around it' can only go so far (fuck Swagger Steelix, especially because I only have physical attackers), but it's given me far less problems than I would've thought. Aegislash is far more vulnerable to the status that Khan minds anyway (well maybe not sleep. Takes more turns of burn damage, and have fun getting full paralysis in blade forme). The biggest specific threats are Steelix4, lead Terrakion, and Hurrrrnadus. Terrakion is, well, extremely annoying, and if it haxes me, I'm in some serious trouble. However, I can handle it, even without any previous setup. Terrakion3 and 4 can't OHKO Khan without a crit or an extremely high damage roll and are defeated in return (Earthquake OHKOes 4; because of its Sitrus Berry, 3 can survive on an extremely low damage roll, but is even then killed by a follow-up Sucker Punch). 1 and 2 do OHKO Khan, but I then switch out to Aegislash, which forces out 2 and defeats 1 with a SwordSneak combo. Against the trainers who run all four sets (who I haven't run into with lead Terrak) I think it would've been better not to switch out Khan, simply because I pretty much auto lose if 3 sets up an SD on the switch (especially considering that's the only one the SwordSneak combo doesn't kill because Sitrus), and that's still worse than having a dead Khan and a weakened Aegis. I've run into lead Hurrrnadus only once, and Aegislash set up on it, but I was very lucky Dark Pulse didn't flinch. A more reliable way is to switch to Dragonite, set up, and OHKO with Outrage. (Focus Blast+Hurricane only KOes in the event of a crit or a SpD drop). But yeah, it's kind of a bitch >.> So is Steelix actually, when I ran into it my plan was basically 'switch around the Swagger, don't waste turns setting up because it'll Swagger, and thank Azelf all my team members can at least hit it super effectively'. The few instances I faced it, it usually took down Aegis iirc, but the combined efforts were enough to overcome it, and fortunately Dragonite and Khan also sweep teams by themselves.
The sets are rather standard - Aegislash is generic StanceDance, Dragonite is generic DD, and Khan is generic Khan - but there may be some anomalies. On Dragonite, I run Extremespeed because it's nifty in order to reliably finish off Quick Claw users and because I don't like being walled to death by Togekiss. I can see Roost being useful too, but (in hindsight) considering Aegislash's wonderful defensive synergy with Dragonite I don't think it would've been needed to stall out non-STAB Stone Edges or w/e. As for the STAB move, I used to run Dragon Claw because I didn't like being locked into Outrage, the obvious reason really. Dragon Claw was kinda weak, however (often didn't OHKO neutral targets that weren't frail), so after like 300 battles I reconsidered Outrage. I thought 'well when exactly is it gonna backfire - against Steels and Fairies of course - honestly, does it matter? i mean, is there any steel or fairy that isn't utterly murdered by Khan and/or Aegis? - guess there isn't'. Of course battles are more complex than that and there are of course scenarios conceivable where it would backfire if Khan or Aegis had already been killed, but I figured DClaw's lack of power was more likely to put me into trouble. Honestly, I would like a boosted Dragonite to OHKO an uninvested Zapdos, tyvm.
On Khan, I opted for Earthquake because I honestly found this a lot more useful than Crunch. To each their own, but I liked to hit the stuff that resisted Return with a super effective attack, rather than an unSTABed neutral 80BP coverage move (only a little bit stronger than a resisted Return). It was also really nifty to have a non-contact move at my disposal against opposing Static/Flame Body mons. As everybody knows, Crunch is unequivocally better against status ghosts, but I honestly don't think this is worth losing out on hitting Rock- and Steel-types super effectively. Also, I've already posted once why the 'status ghosts' point is imo given more weight than it deserves; the only non-attacking ghosts Earthquake doesn't hit are Gengar1 (hardly ever appears later on), Drifblim (2HKOed by non-Mega Return, and likes to use TBolt anyway), and Mismagius4. Also, have fun hitting Cofagrigus with Crunch :p Crunch would have saved me in my losing battle so I'm not sure I'm in the position to dismiss it, but there were far more moments where I thought 'man I'm glad I have Earthquake' than 'man I wish I had Crunch'. And once again, to each their own :) Also, I opted for Adamant cuz moar powah (e.g. unboosted OHKO on opposing lead Tyrantrum4, yes please) and because most relevant speed issues were mitigated by Sucker Punch anyway.
I don't know if I'm gonna go for a new spin soon, because I'm still not sure about Gliscor. Aegislash and Gliscor both complement Khan amazingly well, but put them together and the team gets boned by Steelix rather painfully. However, with the current team there's still that status weakness that Gliscor would mitigate (as I'm typing this, I remember Dragonite gets Safeguard and has a rather flexible moveslot anyway. Shitty gimmick alert, please ignore me.) Guess I'd have to figure out a third teammate not named Suicune for Khan/Gliscor, but atm I'd rather capitalise on all my streaks being dead here and focus on the Subway and Platinum's frontier. Also, I'd rather do a new run on Triples than on Singles because of a stronger emotional bond with that team. (I've read the comments on that team but forgot to reply just yet lol, will do soon)
I guess I've given this team more shit than it deserves. The individual members may be textbook examples of 'strong pokemon, weak pokemon, that's only the selfish perception of people' (well Khan and Aegislash that is, not really Dragonite because I really like him regardless), but at least they lived up to their broken reputation, and in the end they did turn out to be an actual team that had far less problems than I originally perceived. Also, it was occasionally fun to play with; it's no Clockwork Angels or Suizomence, but I've played far worse teams.It was a lot more fun than the Cloyster team lol. Most of my hostility towards this team simply comes from it being a mindless pile of brokemons without a teambuilding process. I'd like nothing more than actually building some cool teams and getting good streaks with them; that's also why losing this streak leaves me rather cold, whereas losing my triples streak left me quite devastated, even though that one was even less impressive than this one. (Don't get me wrong, I was getting into the leaderboard vibe a little and I'm a bit sad it got cut short before the top 10, but 'a bit sad' is frankly all I am. No emotional bond with this team and no achievement in the 'teambuilding' part.) Anyway, with a mindset like that, there's nothing that destroys your motivation like attaining your best streak by a long shot with a brainless team like this one. Let's just call it a learning experience with a more or less preset team in learning the ropes of long streaks, because I guess this has shown me I eventually did roughly know what I was doing. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it to 330.
Good luck to all of you. I'm gonna grab some popcorn and a front row seat for the triples race, and I certainly hope Mercury is joining back in ^_^
ok, as unimaginative and hilariously poorly built my team is and although everybody knows what I was using and despite my heavily ambiguous feelings towards it, I'm gonna repost it anyway because that's what people do in this kind of posts. I'm also gonna post a more detailed 'teambuilding' process and some additional insights I've gained along the way, because there's nothing of the sort in my introduction post and my five trophies post (the other ones where I posted the sets).
Skippy (Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Scrappy -> Parental Bond
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/10/31/31
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Power-Up Punch
-Return
-Sucker Punch
-Earthquake
Zar'roc (Aegislash) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Nature: Brave
IVs: 31/31/31/6/31/13
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
-King's Shield
-Swords Dance
-Shadow Sneak
-Sacred Sword
Glaedr (Dragonite) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Multiscale
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/18/31/31
EVs: 24 HP / 252 Atk / 232 Spe
-Dragon Dance
-
-Extreme Speed
-Earthquake
Why did I use these Pokemon? Quite frankly, because I was left so pissed after losing a streak with Cloyster/Scarf Chandelure/Mega Venusaur at battle 49 in a battle with a really unlucky matchup and, more importantly, some extremely hideous chokes (e.g. using Sludge Bomb against a Chesnaught that I knew was Bulletproof because it had switched in on Shadow Ball... yeah...) that I simply threw together the most overpowered team possible in order to restore that streak as quickly as possible. I had held off on using Khan to get the singles trophy because I kinda wanted to win it with a less broken team (I just find it more fun that way, that's all - but yeah, tbf I also didn't like the idea of having to resort to brokemons in order to win the trophy, but at this point I didn't really care anymore. Plan A was general goodstuff, plan B was Cloyster, plan C was Khan, plan D was Durant); anyway, according to a weird bit of desperate logic, if I were to get back to 49 using a Khan team and then win battles 49 and 50 with the Cloyster team, I would have won battles 1-50 with the Cloyster team and thus deserved the trophy without using Khan. Right. And so it happened.
Anyway, after winning that trophy, I hardly did anything in singles because I still had to win the rotations trophy and, simply put, doubles/triples were a lot more fun. If I did anything in singles, it was ~5 battles between attempts in a different format, using this team over the Cloyster one because I had been adjusting Venusaur's moveset for wifi and I honestly didn't care. (unluckily I had found serebiiforums' maison thread before this one, and that one was flooded with a lot of defeatist crap and the traditional stupid unfounded allegations against the AI, such as antiteaming of course - one guy even went so far as to say the only way to win the trophy was to rotate teams, in order to throw off said antiteaming. I found all this quite disturbing, but rationally I didn't really believe it, especially after I had already won my first three trophies - I mean, if that were true I honestly would've expected to run into more than two thunder wave leads with my Cloyster team in those fifty battles, and, with my current experience, more than one Terrakion lead in 300+ battles with lead Khan - however, I figured 'better safe than sorry', and seeing as I didn't want to rotate teams within one streak I figured challenging different formats and thus using different teams anyway would be sufficient to throw the AI off its balance. I stopped doing this because it got tedious when I started focusing on (moderately) long streaks rather than just trophies, and guess what, it hadn't made any difference at all lol. Ugh, guess I would've been playing singles a lot more open-minded and with a lot more fun if I had found this thread first. Oh, just to make myself clear, I'm not bashing Serebii here, just the mentality of some guys in their maison thread lol.) Because of lack of enjoyment and too many cheap AI strategies I pretty much abandoned singles otherwise. (my perspective here was kinda warped because of the serebii thread, it honestly isn't any worse than in the other formats, it's just that they work less well in doubles/triples. I also remember writing here in my first post that I hated singles, that's honestly not true, but it took me playing in Platinum with Suizomence and a newfound open mind to remember that. Singles are cool.) However, just before I finally won my fifth trophy, I was at ~75 and I continued to 100 because I thought having 100 straight wins in every format not named multi would look rather sexy. Some time later, I was bored and continued to ~150, and because of the godawful teambuilding and synergy (more of that later) I was rather surprised I hadn't lost yet, and at this point it would be a waste of a potentially decent streak to still leave it abandoned. I then continued it on a semi-regular basis (because other stuff was still more fun - i.e. Platinum and especially triples, lol if I hadn't conceived team Clockwork Angels I probably would've posted this weeks sooner), and here I am.
About the teambuilding, there honestly wasn't any. After losing with Cloyster, I thought 'k, so lead Khan because I'm not gonna waste more time than I need to, and what are some other powerful singles mons? Aegislash and Dragonite, k, let's go' and thus this 'team' was born. I hadn't paid any attention at all to synergy and whatnot. This was not a team, this was three egocentric strikers thrown together. It was three physical attackers with no protection against status bar a single Lum Berry, for crying out loud. The irony of having Zar'roc and Glaedr on the same team is so damn real lol.
However, during the streak it became apparent that the team happened to have the defensive synergy it needed. Aegislash could take strong Fighting-type attacks for Khan (I kinda lied a few lines back, this much I did take into consideration when building, but that's frankly all), Dragonite could take Ground- and Fire-type attacks for Aegislash (also cool for popping White Herbs) and Aegislash could take Rock-, Dragon-, and Ice-type attacks for Dragonite. Still, some weaknesses weren't covered and Fighting-types with EdgeQuake coverage were kinda shit, but this defensive synergy honestly isn't half bad, right? About status users, despite the notion I had planted in my head, in hindsight there weren't really more than one/two status leads every ten battles, and I think I usually just utterly destroyed them... And anyway, confusion can be switched around, a poisoned Khan isn't really a problem, a paralysed Khan still has that monstrous +2 Sucker Punch, and a burned Khan still is ridiculously powerful when set up considering one PuP negates the burn attack drop (people tend to forget this I guess, I mean I know it's annoying and pressuring and all, but I honestly got rather annoyed every time someone said about Mega Mawile 'just burn it - i.e. effectively sack your Rotom - and you're good' because you're not lol, seeing at the 260 base Attack monster already has set up an SD that you're just negating - but I digress), not to mention Khan can also set up more than once against shit like Weezing :) and if Khan does go down, Aegislash and Dragonite can sweep entire teams as well (the latter getting a free switch, thus having its berry intact). I'm not saying Khan (and the team) doesn't mind status because it's honestly really annoying and 'playing around it' can only go so far (fuck Swagger Steelix, especially because I only have physical attackers), but it's given me far less problems than I would've thought. Aegislash is far more vulnerable to the status that Khan minds anyway (well maybe not sleep. Takes more turns of burn damage, and have fun getting full paralysis in blade forme). The biggest specific threats are Steelix4, lead Terrakion, and Hurrrrnadus. Terrakion is, well, extremely annoying, and if it haxes me, I'm in some serious trouble. However, I can handle it, even without any previous setup. Terrakion3 and 4 can't OHKO Khan without a crit or an extremely high damage roll and are defeated in return (Earthquake OHKOes 4; because of its Sitrus Berry, 3 can survive on an extremely low damage roll, but is even then killed by a follow-up Sucker Punch). 1 and 2 do OHKO Khan, but I then switch out to Aegislash, which forces out 2 and defeats 1 with a SwordSneak combo. Against the trainers who run all four sets (who I haven't run into with lead Terrak) I think it would've been better not to switch out Khan, simply because I pretty much auto lose if 3 sets up an SD on the switch (especially considering that's the only one the SwordSneak combo doesn't kill because Sitrus), and that's still worse than having a dead Khan and a weakened Aegis. I've run into lead Hurrrnadus only once, and Aegislash set up on it, but I was very lucky Dark Pulse didn't flinch. A more reliable way is to switch to Dragonite, set up, and OHKO with Outrage. (Focus Blast+Hurricane only KOes in the event of a crit or a SpD drop). But yeah, it's kind of a bitch >.> So is Steelix actually, when I ran into it my plan was basically 'switch around the Swagger, don't waste turns setting up because it'll Swagger, and thank Azelf all my team members can at least hit it super effectively'. The few instances I faced it, it usually took down Aegis iirc, but the combined efforts were enough to overcome it, and fortunately Dragonite and Khan also sweep teams by themselves.
The sets are rather standard - Aegislash is generic StanceDance, Dragonite is generic DD, and Khan is generic Khan - but there may be some anomalies. On Dragonite, I run Extremespeed because it's nifty in order to reliably finish off Quick Claw users and because I don't like being walled to death by Togekiss. I can see Roost being useful too, but (in hindsight) considering Aegislash's wonderful defensive synergy with Dragonite I don't think it would've been needed to stall out non-STAB Stone Edges or w/e. As for the STAB move, I used to run Dragon Claw because I didn't like being locked into Outrage, the obvious reason really. Dragon Claw was kinda weak, however (often didn't OHKO neutral targets that weren't frail), so after like 300 battles I reconsidered Outrage. I thought 'well when exactly is it gonna backfire - against Steels and Fairies of course - honestly, does it matter? i mean, is there any steel or fairy that isn't utterly murdered by Khan and/or Aegis? - guess there isn't'. Of course battles are more complex than that and there are of course scenarios conceivable where it would backfire if Khan or Aegis had already been killed, but I figured DClaw's lack of power was more likely to put me into trouble. Honestly, I would like a boosted Dragonite to OHKO an uninvested Zapdos, tyvm.
On Khan, I opted for Earthquake because I honestly found this a lot more useful than Crunch. To each their own, but I liked to hit the stuff that resisted Return with a super effective attack, rather than an unSTABed neutral 80BP coverage move (only a little bit stronger than a resisted Return). It was also really nifty to have a non-contact move at my disposal against opposing Static/Flame Body mons. As everybody knows, Crunch is unequivocally better against status ghosts, but I honestly don't think this is worth losing out on hitting Rock- and Steel-types super effectively. Also, I've already posted once why the 'status ghosts' point is imo given more weight than it deserves; the only non-attacking ghosts Earthquake doesn't hit are Gengar1 (hardly ever appears later on), Drifblim (2HKOed by non-Mega Return, and likes to use TBolt anyway), and Mismagius4. Also, have fun hitting Cofagrigus with Crunch :p Crunch would have saved me in my losing battle so I'm not sure I'm in the position to dismiss it, but there were far more moments where I thought 'man I'm glad I have Earthquake' than 'man I wish I had Crunch'. And once again, to each their own :) Also, I opted for Adamant cuz moar powah (e.g. unboosted OHKO on opposing lead Tyrantrum4, yes please) and because most relevant speed issues were mitigated by Sucker Punch anyway.
I also feel I should dedicate a few words to Gliscor, because -as you maybe know- I've been toying with the idea of using it over Dragonite after seeing Jump's new team, in order to mitigate my Terrakion/Hurrrnadus/status problems. However, I'm usually very reluctant to making changes mid-streak (as I already stated back then) so I was having some serious doubts. Don't get me wrong, I do make changes if they make the team obviously better (I mean, I gave Dragonite Outrage, I gave Greninja a Sash in triples, so I can do it), but this would've been a really large one, and I was really afraid I would overlook a few new weaknesses using Gliscor brought. I'm still in the process of theorymonning a matchup against Moltres and (especially) Volcarona, which might become problems for a Gliscor team (I mean, they both beat Gliscor and Aegislash one-on-one - maybe bar Overheat Moltres against Gliscor - but battles are more complex; in the lead position they both usually lose to Khan barring Moltres3 - which Gliscor probably beats given a free switch - and I bloody well hope I have a somewhat set up Aegislash or a Gliscor behind a sub if they pop out later in the match, and I haven't gotten round to thinking out the details.) Also, as I'm typing this post, I realise Steelix would've given that hypothetic team a really, really hard time ^_^ However, the main reason I didn't go through with this yet was that the team would play differently, and I didn't trust myself that I would learn the subtleties quickly enough. I mean, even in the late 100s I was still discovering some subtleties as to how to play with the original team. As lazy as this team is, it does come with a few subtle instructions. E.g. after switching in Aegislash on an opponent locked into a Fighting-type move and thus forcing it out, always use Sacred Sword on the switch - that free Swords Dance means nothing if a status user/extremely strong Earthquake user that you can't Sneak to death comes out. Also, when PP stalling Choice Band users with Aegislash, don't kill them, just keep alternating between KS/SD and let them Struggle to death, that way you'll come out on top just as well, but with a lot more HP. I'm sure there are a lot more that I only know subconsciously. (I've included a replay that shows these two though. There was also a battle where I caught Krookodile on the switch with Sacred Sword, and then Sneaked it to death, rather than having to switch to Dragonite and losing a shitton of momentum). I'm sure this is common knowledge to most of you, but it wasn't to me when I started this streak (it was kinda counterintuitive to me really), and I had to learn this kind of stuff by doing it wrong along the way ^_^ What I mean to say is, I don't trust myself to immediately fully grasp what's effectively a new team, and a long streak is no place for experimenting - because that's what it would verge on if I were to use a 'new' team. Had I gone through with it, there would have been a huge risk of losing to a Gliscor-beginner's mistake, and I'd rather acknowledge the weaknesses of an admittedly alright team that I knew how to play with and hope they didn't prove fatal too soon - that would be a less frustrating end of the streak.
I lost against one of the three opponents that Khan would like to use Crunch on - Mismagius4 - but I only lost because I was stupid. Hex Maniac Lola led off with it, I know the thing is a PerishTrapper, but every option seems equally bad. Leave in Khan and I'll most likely get PerishTrapped. Switch to Aegis and I'll handily defeat it if it uses a beneficial move on the switch, but I'm kinda screwed if it PerishSongs on the switch because Aegislash then won't have the time to set up an SD and defeat it, because it's definitely gonna stall with Protect. And of course there's always the momentum loss that eventually having to switch out of Perish Song incurs, but especially in hindsight that seems kinda trivial. Dragonite doesn't like to get PerishTrapped as well, but also has to worry about eating those PowerGems. I choose to stay in with Khan, because there doesn't seem to be a right alternative, Aegislash is more valuable against Hex Maniacs, and non-Mega PuP+Return+PuP (in this order because I may luck out with a Return crit and it doesn't matter anyway) kills Mismagius and puts me at +2 anyway (two Return only kill rarely, that wasn't gonna be safe). Of course I just should have switched to Aegislash, but that doesn't help me anymore now :X Mismagius PerishTraps Khan, but I would have killed it if Lax Incense hadn't made the final PuP miss. Anyway, so she switches to Trevenant as Khan dies. I send in Dragonite, set up a DD as Trevenant sets up Trick Room. Shadow Ball does damage and Outrage OHKOes Trevenant. Out comes Froslass, pretty much the worst possible opponent to face right now, so I'm probably definitely dead at this point. I don't even need to look up the set - Aegislash OHKOes both Froslass and what's left of Drifblim with +2 Sneak, but if it's Froslass4 - which it is if memory serves, but looking up is pointless - Sash means Aegislash is gonna eat a Shadow Ball in Blade forme. Of course Dragonite is /technically/ alive, but naturally he is slaughtered by a Blizzard from the 'faster' Froslass. Aegislash fares exactly like he normally would against Sash Froslass, and the mindless pile of brokemons is finally conquered. The annoying thing is, Froslass used Icy Wind as I was setting up an SD for god knows what reason (maybe it wasn't Froslass4 and it's not like I could take a hit in Blade forme or that this turn mattered), so if I had gone for the 2HKO with unboosted Sneak, I would have won, but I see no reason why I should have expected Froslass not to go spam Shadow Ball immediately. Could it be TR still being up, and the AI being stupid and wanting to 'slow down' the now faster Aegislash? Who knows, it doesn't matter anymore lol. Can't even remember the last time I lost to something else than TR (actually I totally do lol, just figure of speech because I seem to lose to it quite often. There's my multi streaks and the first streak with team Clockwork Angels, which I lost cringeworthily early against Cresselia2 when Talon and Nidoking were dead. However, my last noteworthy 100+ streak I didn't lose to TR was... my Rotations streak I guess. Ouch, that's an old one.) It's also kinda funny that TR actually would've allowed me to win this battle if I hadn't set up with Dragonite, but again, idk if I can be reasonably blamed for this. My AI prediction skills aren't that godlike, and I lost the moment I kept Khan in.
288: KMQW-WWWW-WWW9-Q95G StanceDancing the way I learned to do it in this streak.
331: 9QNG-WWWW-WWW9-Q95B the loss
that's pretty much it lol, I also saved battles 100/200/300 but there's honestly nothing exciting going on in there, and I'd rather not delete too many triples replays because that team is still gorgeous.
331: 9QNG-WWWW-WWW9-Q95B the loss
that's pretty much it lol, I also saved battles 100/200/300 but there's honestly nothing exciting going on in there, and I'd rather not delete too many triples replays because that team is still gorgeous.
I don't know if I'm gonna go for a new spin soon, because I'm still not sure about Gliscor. Aegislash and Gliscor both complement Khan amazingly well, but put them together and the team gets boned by Steelix rather painfully. However, with the current team there's still that status weakness that Gliscor would mitigate (as I'm typing this, I remember Dragonite gets Safeguard and has a rather flexible moveslot anyway. Shitty gimmick alert, please ignore me.) Guess I'd have to figure out a third teammate not named Suicune for Khan/Gliscor, but atm I'd rather capitalise on all my streaks being dead here and focus on the Subway and Platinum's frontier. Also, I'd rather do a new run on Triples than on Singles because of a stronger emotional bond with that team. (I've read the comments on that team but forgot to reply just yet lol, will do soon)
I guess I've given this team more shit than it deserves. The individual members may be textbook examples of 'strong pokemon, weak pokemon, that's only the selfish perception of people' (well Khan and Aegislash that is, not really Dragonite because I really like him regardless), but at least they lived up to their broken reputation, and in the end they did turn out to be an actual team that had far less problems than I originally perceived. Also, it was occasionally fun to play with; it's no Clockwork Angels or Suizomence, but I've played far worse teams.
Good luck to all of you. I'm gonna grab some popcorn and a front row seat for the triples race, and I certainly hope Mercury is joining back in ^_^
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