Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

[light-upgold]

Emerald Battle Factory Level 50 Singles.
Done on MGBA
I just achieved a streak of 59 on the same run I got the gold print on!

I had Umbreon 1, Swampert 1, and Rapidash 1 in my final fight, and lost to a double crit poison from Vileplume 4 on Umbreon, which allowed Latias3 to take care of the rest of my team. I feel pretty good about getting going higher, though!

VOD of fights 52-60

 

[V17]

Reporting my PB 318 streak in Battle Tower Doubles, using Kommo-o Reptomons team with just a few personal adjustments (and a few less than optimal stats/moves because I just didn't have access to it):

View attachment 835796
Hariyama (F) @ White Herb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 30 HP / 180 Atk / 4 Def / 240 SpD / 52 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 25 Def / 30 SpD / 27 Spe
- Fake Out
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Ghost]
- Protect
View attachment 835798
Latios @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind
View attachment 835799
Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 68 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 180 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 20 HP / 22 Atk / 12 Def / 25 SpA / 2 SpD / 24 Spe
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Protect
View attachment 835800
Marowak (F) @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def / 12 SpD / 156 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 29 HP / 22 Atk / 23 Def / 15 SpA / 20 Spe
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Body Slam/Attract
- Protect

It was when I was playing through XD I realized how strong the duo of Gyarados and Marowak's Earthquakes were that I really wanted to build a team around it and when I checked on the leaderboards for somewhere to start, I found Reptomons sitting well up on the leaderboards. Add Hariyama with Fake Out support and Latios for premier Spatk damage and I was sure I wanted to try the same team out, so I got to work.

I already had Gyarados from when I first started breeding mons in the frontier, only now am I realizing how awful its IV's are I'm a little embarrassed, gonna have to try for a better one soon! The Marowak I also bred but to relatively better results. His EQ is ungodly strong of course everyone here knows that but it's so satisfying OHKO'ing the likes of Registeel, Quagsire, Metagross and others. The Speed IV is not the greatest but I mean it hardly matters to be honest however I did see that the EV's invested does outrun base 60 mons with no investment and it helped me win a battle against a Wailord so thank goodness that was invested well. Body Slam worked as a pretty good third attack move plus a para chance helps Marowak outspeed things, but I will say Perish Song as Kommo-o suggested is defintiely the right play as it negates any Double Team spammers that just take forever to put away, I just didn't want to spend time doing the Pike Sketch glitch to get Perish Song on my Marowak, although maybe I will for my next run.

As for the two lead mons, I put my newly learned skill of RNG manipulation to use to get the exact Hidden Power I wanted and nearly perfect IV's. The spdef investment on Hariyama makes him soooo tanky he lives almost evey STAB Psychic and can throw back an HP Ghost of equal damage. I swear only like Dodrio Drill Peck and then Jynx and Latios Psychic are the only raw moves that I saw OHKO.

There are however TWO adjustments I made that I think might suit this team better and might have lead to me getting as long of a streak as I did

1. White Herb on Hariyama. So many Intimidate leads that Hariyama can shrug off and do full damage to as well as being able to waste any speed drops or for example, Jynx-4 trying to use Fake Tears. Focus Band is nice for survivability but I don't like using the RNG items at all, I prefer consistency and knowing exactly when my items will proc.

2. Protect, Protect, Protect. Many scenarios where having this move on my three physical attackers really changed the outcome of battles. It was so good I contemplated putting it on Latios too but Calm Mind was just too important. Being threatended with an explosion lead from say Metagross and I can't take it out in time, worst case scenario Latios and both enemies die bc Hariyama protected and then I can trust the rest of the team to win the 3v2.

I got pretty close to getting 2nd place and I was feeling like I could reach it but then...

I underestimated Cooltrainer Bryon.

As far as I know, He had Regirock-1, Regice-4, and a Latios with Ice Beam. it really came down to underestimating Regice-4's physical bulk as I don't believe I ran into one the whole run. I doubled into it with Psychic and Brick Break but it still lived pretty easily while it T Waved my Hariyama instead of Latios and Regirock finished it off with Superpowers.I had to switch in Gyarados bc I couldn't risk getting hit by an Ice Beam with Marowak but instead it used T Wave on Gyarados. after an Earthquake it still barely hung on and if I had doubled up with Latios there it might have went down but I was sure it was in range of EQ. After that things just fell apart and it hurts me to even watch the replay because of how poorly I played that battle especially because I wasn't even fatigued or autopiloting. If I had just went to Marowak way earlier instead of fearing the Ice Beam so much, maybe it would have ended differently but alas, that's the Frontier for ya.

Now that I've written this report, I'm gonna RNG manip for a much better Gyarados and run it back. I'm confident I can hit 400 with this crew. I also am definitely motivated to stream these runs now, just gotta get the proper equipment when my budget can fit it in.
View attachment 835801

I’ve always been a fan of the Reptomons team, nice work!

I have an ongoing streak going with the team that I will post, I’m currently at 259 wins. White Herb being something that always works is probably a better call for Hariyama than Focus Band being randomly helpful sometimes. I might consider changing to that myself, although I’ve mostly been playing with the mindset that Hariyama is just a fake out/helping hand bot that sometimes clicks brick break haha

Substitute on Gyarados has been pretty huge for avoiding status and has single handedly won me games that I thought were lost, especially since you can use sub to abuse the game’s targeting algorithm to protect your other pokemon in play (I forget the exact details, but with a SE target, the opponent will target the mon with lower hp). For example this let me set up late game calm minds with Latios without needing Fake Out.

 

[False Prophet]

New streak of 71 in Battle Factory Level 50 singles! Done on MGBA.

Write up below though it’s probably pretty confusing and has terrible formatting.

() denote drafted mons with first being lead.

* denotes round 9 mons with imperfect IVs

Round 6-9 Notes are pretty sparse since I wrote them in the aftermath.

Rounds 6-9

Round 6

(Electabuzz 3, Salamence 3, Weezing 3) Feraligatr 4, Lanturn 3, Houndoom 4



No swaps this round



Fight 6 was pretty scary into Skarmory 3, Cradily 3, Arcanine 3. I misplayed trying to pp stall the cradily which allowed Salamence to get killed and Weezing to get chunked and then outsped and killed by Arcanine. Arcanine could have ended me if it went for overheat into espeed on Electabuzz, or went Espeed into Espeed with either of them critting. But, it went Espeed into overheat allowing Electabuzz to get 2 thunderbolts in to finish it off.



Noland2 had flygon 3, forretress 3, Houndoom 3. Electabuzz took down flygon and Weezing was able to kill forretress with flamethrower and houndoom with explosion.



Round 7

(Blastoise4, Metagross4, Salamence8) Raichu4, Fearow 4, Tentacruel 4



Switched Milo4 for Blastoise4 in fight 1

Switched Salamence 8 for Gengar 4 between fights 3 and 5



Round 8

(Swampert 4, Metagross 6, Latios 8),Blissey 3, Golem 1, Clefable3



Metagross had 12 IVs after a round 1 rest, Latios had 15



Beat with no swaps.



Round 9

(Kangaskhan 3, Suicune 1, Claydol 2) Raichu 3, Ampharos 4, Dewgong 2



Heavily considered Dewgong 2 with lead Claydol but didn’t trust myself to pilot it and it made me worse into most grass types+water absorb mons.



Noland 3 had Garde2, Electrode 3 or 4, and Espeon 3. Claydol and Suicune combined powers to PP stall the Gardevoir and Suicune got fully set up on it, allowing for a sweep of the rest of the team.

Notes get more detailed for round 10

Round 10

Round 10

Battle 1: Grass Spec Slow and Steady

Draft

(Tauros3, Dusclops4, Raikou4) Ursaring 6, Slaking 1, Rhydon 2



Fight 1

Tauros3 vs Vileplume3

Tauros eqs, Plume Stun Spores

Plume gigadrains, Tauros is fully para’d

Plume gigadrains, Tauros finishes with Double edge

Shiftry 4 comes in

Fake outs Tauros,

Misses mega kick, Tauros clicks flamethrower(should have double edged, since it killed)

Shiftry explodes

Jynx4, Raikou comes in

Raikou kills with 2 thunderbolts, Jynx gets a fake tears off before going down.



Fight 2:

No type, High Risk High Return

I really like the idea of shiftry 4 but no swaps.



Tauros vs Victreebel 2,3, or 4

Tauros ohko’ed with double edge.

Kingdra3 comes in Dragon Dances, then misses hydro pump. crit hydro pump would have ko’ed tauros, and hit would have caused Tauros to die to double edge recoil.

Tauros KOs

Moltres 2/4 comes in, Tauros hits double edge chunking it, raikou comes in and finishes it off with TBolt.



Fight 3

No type spec, free spirited

No swaps



Blaziken 1/2 lead into Tauros who ohkos with earthquake. Worst possible luck is quick claw+flamethrower+crit, but I think sunny day would have had higher score.

Manectric1 missed Flash and Tauros ohkos with earthquake

Milotic 3/4 comes in, Tauros double edges, takes about 50% from surf, and finishes it off



Fight 4

No type, slow and steady

No swaps

Huge misplays on this fight, it was really dangerous.



Tauros vs Lapras1

Tauros chunked with double edge, and Lapras put it to sleep with sing.

Tauros stayed asleep, and got surfed, bringing it down to about half after leftovers.

It woke up on the next turn and hit with double edge again, fainting to another surf.

I send out Dusclops, who Lapras confuses, and I click curse, forgetting how it works on ghost types.

I click rest, Lapras then kos with a surf crit

I switch in Raikou, and Lapras faints to curse damage.



Metagross comes in, hoping it’s not an eq set, I click thunderbolt, which paralyzes it, but it breaks through to EQ me, bringing me down to 21 hp. It looked like it was metagross 3/4/5/8. I finish it off with another thunderbolt. Better play might have been to go for bite flinch, but if it were Metagross 2, Bite into TBolt wouldn’t have killed, and it would always 2HKO me with earthquake.



In comes Armaldo.

At that point my heart is thumping out of my chest. I am panicking. Thanks to Dave Glorbus for talking through it with me.



We determine the best chance to kill it is Bite flinch into TBolt. It has a chance of not killing(doing the math it was around 92.5% chance to do enough damage), but, if it was a quick claw set, that gave me the best odds of surviving at around 17.75%(1-(.925*.3*64)). With a pit in my stomach and shaky hands, I clicked bite and got the flinch. If it was non-quick claw it was closer to 28%.



There was the additional chance it didn’t flinch but clicked a move that missed since it would definitely go for random move, and had a chance to use rock slide or iron tail but, nevertheless. We advance





Fight 5

Psychic type spec, high risk high return

Swapped Dusclops for Metagross3



Tauros vs Medicham1/3/4: Outspeed and ohko with double edge. Can’t be medi2 since it doesn’t fake out.



Ninetales 4 comes out.

It out speeds and clicks overheat, bringing tauros down to 4 hp who finishes it off with eq.



Xatu2 comes in, tauros outspeeds and does about 75%. Raikou finishes it off with TBolt.



Fight 6

Weird save state shenanigans happened with mgba on 3ds here after switching from PC which put me back to Fight 2



Fight 2 redux:

No type, high risk high return

Ninetales 4 vs Tauros, Ninetales eats its white herb on intimidate, and then dies to EQ

Breloom 3/4 comes out here, and Tauros kills with double edge

Ursaring 4 comes out and I miss double edge thanks to bright powder, going down to aerial ace.

Dusclops comes out here and chunks Ursaring with 2 double edges before going down to 2 eqs and recoil

Raikou comes out and finishes it off.



Fight 3 redux:

No type, test of endurance.

No swaps



Lead Metagross1/3 goes down to two earthquakes, hitting Tauros with a meteor mash.

In comes latios5. I ice beam with Tauros to potentially live dragon claw rolls(this might have been a misplay as if dragon claw didn’t kill it probably would have gone for thunder wave instead)

Dusclops comes in and takes a dragon claw before finishing it off with shadow ball.



Scizor2 comes in, it misses steel wing and Clops rests, bringing it back to full.

It takes a steel wing and curses Scizor, who then finishes clops off with a third steel wing. It drops to 50% from curse allowing Raikou to finish it off.



Fight 4

No type spec

High risk high return

Swap Dusclops 4 for Latios5



Lead zard3 vs Tauros, Tauros double edges to chunk zard and takes a flamethrower leaving Tauros low.

Switch out to raikou on a dragon claw and finish it with TBolt

Mence4 comes in, I paralyze it with twave and die to earthquake, switch back in tauros and chunk it with ice beam.

Latias comes in and sets up 2 calm minds while it sets up 2 dragon dances, I ko with dragon claw, and houndoom 4 comes out. It crunches and I finish it off with dragon claw.



Fight 5

Water type spec, depends on battle’s flow.



Lead gyarados3 sets up rain dance, and gets a quick claw proc on surf, bringing Tauros down to 4 health as it finishes it off with 2 double edge.

Regice 2 comes out, Tauros chips with double edged and faints. Raikou comes out and paralyzes it before it proceeds to miss two blizzards while I finish it off with TBolts.

Swampert4 last, I switch to latias on the eq to scout, and set up 3 calm minds for the guaranteed kill with dragon claw while it uselessly mirror coats 3 times in a row.



Fight 6

No type, high risk high return.

No swaps



Dugtrio 3 lead hits Tauros with fissure, switch to Latios and set up a calm mind, take a sludge bomb, then finish it off with dragon claw.

Kingdra(any set) comes out, outspeed and finish it with another dragon claw

Jolteon(1/2/3) comes out and I finish it with two dragon claws while it hits me with 2 tbolts.



Fight 7

No type, High Risk, High Return



Lead Curse Snorlax, Tauros takes it down with 3 double edges while it sits there setting up.

Blastoise 3 comes in and I double edge again getting countered. Raikou comes out and hits it with TBolt proccing focus band and getting eq’ed before Finishing it off with another TBolt.

Ampharos 2 last, I paralyze it while Raikou gets focus punched. Latios comes out and takes it out with two dragon claws, getting twaved after the first but breaking through to secure finish round 10

.

Round 11

Draft



(Registeel 1, Arcanine 2, Blissey 1) Glalie 3, Rapidash 4, Vileplume 1



Fight 1

Grass type spec, slow and steady.





Lead Feraligatr 3/4 vs Registeel, set up a curse to scout move, but probably should have switched to Blissey t1 since eq only did about 24% without crit. I toxic’ed it and sat on it with softboileds + double team



Sceptile 2 came out next and double teamed while I hit toxic which it cured, I missed toxic t2 while it double teamed again, and hit it t3, then sat on it while it attracted me and died to toxic damage.



Last mon was Meganium 2. Blissey missed toxic after a double team and got put to sleep with grasswhistle, allowing Meganium to get a sub up and set up more since Blissey couldn’t do anything.

Blissey was fully set up, and so it dodged about 8 leech seeds after Meganium was set up and behind sub, when it got hit with a leech seed I switched from it, to Registeel, to Arcanine who could break sub and kill with sunny day flamethrower.



I think I played this match pretty close to perfect



Fight 2:

Water type spec, free spirited

Sceptile 2 for Arcanine 2



Dewgong 4 vs Registeel, I set up a curse to be able to two-shot Dewgong, but it hit sheer cold on turn 2.

I sent Sceptile in on it and clicked leaf blade, which brought it down very low, and it got killed by ice beam.

Blissey came in and double teamed and hit toxic it while it used signal beam, blissey double teamed one more time as it fainted but Golduck3/4 was second and hit two cross chops in a row while I went for toxic



I should have stalled out the cross chops with softboiled and prayed for no crit, or tried to put the Golduck to sleep. I also should have sent Blissey in against Dewgong instead of Sceptile, but I miscalced and thought it would kill.

Really dumb end to my run, but nevertheless we can get it better.

 

[derekrw]

Reporting an ongoing retail streak of 350 wins in Level 50 Battle Tower Multi Battle Room (AI Partner)
and a retail streak of 336 wins in Open Level Battle Tower Multi Battle Room (AI Partner).

These are my 2nd attempt and 1st attempt with these versions of the teams, respectively. I had much less successful runs with Tauros(CB)/Latios + Aerodactyl(CB)/Latias and other CB lead/EQ Backline + Latios/Latios teams (rarely cracking 100 wins). I'll try a couple more runs with this team to improve on these records before moving on to the Human Partner Battle Tower Multi and getting + writing up a Doubles Battle Tower result I'm satisfied with.

The teams are essentially the same for each format:

Level 50 Team

Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Double-Edge
- Return
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ghost]


Marsha (Swampert) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 210 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Tauros is insanely strong as a lead with a Lati. I tried a handful of Physical EQ pairs before settling on Tauros/Swampert: Swampert/Metagross, Metagross/Salamence, Tauros/Salamence, Swampert/Salamence, and I was going to try Swampert/Gyarados if Tauros/Swampert didn't work out. All of these felt much weaker than Tauros/Swampert to me. Tauros rarely needs to switch out until several opponents are removed, intimidates Rhydon out of seeing a OHKO with Megahorn onto either Lati, puts Snorlax back 1 turn on Curse, and combined with a Lati, takes out most threats to Swampert: all Sceptile, Shiftry-3,4, Gardevoir-3,8 go down to Return, Victreebel, Breloom, Gengar to Psychic, and all other Grass-Poisons to Psychic + EQ.

I used Ice Beam over Substitute which seems standard on this kind of Swampert because you can't rely on the NPC partner to target the correct mons while you play defensively. I did keep Protect for the pseudo-redirection you have when low HP with a partner that opponents do not see KOs against, especially when Swampert is outsped by a threat.

I EV'd Swampert to 106 speed unlike the common 91-speed Swampert I've seen. I think outspeeding everything between 91 and 105 is worth getting KO'd to extra rolls on grass moves from pokemon that already have other sets that always OHKO (Vileplume, Meganium). The real tradeoff are the Gardevoir-3,8 37.5% Magical Leaves instead of having no rolls to KO. But I played with a 91 speed Swampert in my first attempt and lost at 204 wins when one of those Gardevoir crit Magical Leaf. Anyway, I prefer to outspeed Articuno-2,3,4, Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Ursaring-3, Kingdra, Blaziken, Shedinja, Milotic, Misdreavus-1,2,3, Claydol, Gyarados-1,3,4, Shiftry-2,3,4, Venusaur-2,3,4, etc.

Level 50 NPC Team

Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam


Ballista (Latias) (F) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

I chose to record mix an NPC with both Lati since the NPC partner doesn't switch for defensive pivoting, doesn't use choice band effectively (double choice band would be nice, but the NPC doesn't switch out to reset being locked into ineffective moves), and has a random mon order each round of 7. The consistency of having a Lati at all times feels very strong.

I tried Hidden Power Fire on Latios and Aerodactyl with Hidden Power Rock, but I realized the NPC doesn't do damage calcs correctly with Hidden Power and randomly uses it over stronger coverage and fails to see OHKOs with it. I chose Waterfall over Surf and Dragon Claw because Waterfall OHKOs Rhydon and Golem, helps with Fire and Rock types, and secures the double-up KO with Tauros/Swampert EQ on Armaldo and Steelix. Surf could be nice as a spread move, but misses most of these ranges. Dragon Claw provides limited extra damage on opposing Latis (not OHKO on very many since these are Timid instead of Modest), Kingdra, and a handful of Psychics. I think Ice Beam does plenty here since I'll be using Return or Double-Edge with Tauros on opposing Lati and Psychics anyway.

Explosion feels like a glaring weakness and a lack of answers to Double-Team makes some matches feel dodgy, but Waterfall helps to get Exploders before they boom, and Swampert has done a great job at cleaning up Hikers. Double-Team seems like it would be the death of this team, but there is a lot of firepower to stomp teams before too many evasion boosts. I do fear my side getting KO'd and the NPC entering an infinite loop that I can't surrender against, so I started taking pictures of my streaks every few rounds.

Open Level Team

Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Double-Edge
- Return
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ghost]


Marsha (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Torrent
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 32 HP / 252 Atk / 16 SpD / 210 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Ice Beam
- Protect

Open Level NPC Team

Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 32 HP / 240 SpA / 16 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam


Ballista (Latias) (F) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 Def / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

Nothing really to talk about in Open Level besides Waterfall feeling even nicer against Tyranitar, and Swampert being speedier instead of bulkier is even more upside than tradeoff, in my opinion.

The Loss

PKMN Breeder Tess

1. Quick Claw Flareon Overheats Tauros and Jolteon-4 (194 speed since Tess has 21IVs) Thunder Waves Tauros. Tauros gets full para’d. Latias Waterfalls Flareon.
2. I switch Tauros into Swampert, Jolteon Thunderbolts into Swampert and Latias misses the KO range with Thunderbolt into Flareon instead of Psychic or Waterfall which guarantee the KO, so Flareon gets a free double edge into Swampert and the recoil takes itself out (bringing in Milotic).
3. Jolteon Bites Swampert, Latias Thunderbolts Milotic, Swampert Flinches, Milotic Ice Beams Swampert. Swampert is now in range of both Bite and Ice Beam, Milotic Leftovers activates and is not in range of another Thunderbolt KO.
4. I protect with Swampert (drawing both attacks) while Latias Psychics Jolteon (finally in KO range by another Psychic).
5. I went for the double protect since Bite has more than a 50% chance to KO Swampert, but I failed the double. Jolteon Bites Latias instead, Latias finishes Jolteon with Psychic (Crobat comes in) but Milotic KOs Swampert with Ice Beam, bringing in Paralyzed Tauros.
6. Crobat KOs Tauros with Sludge Bomb, Latias Misses Psychic into Crobat (guaranteed KO). Allowing Milotic Ice Beam to put Latias in range of Shadow Ball (thanks to the Bite chip from earlier).
7. Latias gets KOd by Shadow ball and Latios takes an Ice Beam when forced to switch in (Frozen but Lum cures it).
8. Latios takes a Shadow Ball, KOs Crobat with Psychic, but goes down to Milotic Ice Beam.

Few unlucky events did not happen here (Latias attacked after a bite, Latios hit Crobat after the battle was already lost). Even a higher Quick Claw Overheat roll to KO Tauros would have been better (25% to OHKO).

1/8 for Tauros to be fully para’d since Jolteon has a 50/50 to target Tauros at all, and it is no problem if Latias is chosen and no problem if Tauros gets the EQ out. Small chance that Latias chooses Thunderbolt to miss the KO on Flareon which allowed Flareon to chip down Swampert (Waterfall has to do at least 34% and then the Thunderbolt damage check roll has to be enough for the KO, Thunderbolt must be chosen over Psychic and Waterfall 33%, AND Thunderbolt actual damage has to low roll. I think this is roughly 75% x 33% x 25% ~ 6.18% or roughly the chance of a critical hit). 30% for Swampert to flinch after Bite. 50% double protect fail. 10% Crobat bright powder. Any one of these going the other way makes the battle very winnable. Altogether, this is roughly 1 in 8,600 if I cancel out the "Flareon could have made it easier by KOing Tauros" with "Latias has to attack successfully after bite".

Why calculate this? To make sure I'm not building teams that lose to trivially common events (>1/500).
This doesn't take into account team composition, critical hits in either direction, and other positive luck in my favor. I don't need these odds to be perfect, just good enough for relative comparison against my other teams

 

[An Urban Skier]

I’ve always been a fan of the Reptomons team, nice work!

I have an ongoing streak going with the team that I will post, I’m currently at 259 wins. White Herb being something that always works is probably a better call for Hariyama than Focus Band being randomly helpful sometimes. I might consider changing to that myself, although I’ve mostly been playing with the mindset that Hariyama is just a fake out/helping hand bot that sometimes clicks brick break haha

Substitute on Gyarados has been pretty huge for avoiding status and has single handedly won me games that I thought were lost, especially since you can use sub to abuse the game’s targeting algorithm to protect your other pokemon in play (I forget the exact details, but with a SE target, the opponent will target the mon with lower hp). For example this let me set up late game calm minds with Latios without needing Fake Out.

So true with Gyarados, I’ve since switched to Sub and I much prefer it. As for Hariyama I can see bow good Helping Hand is but yeah I didn’t breed it onto him and I click a ton of Brick Break with him it does great damage like getting OHKO’s on Ursaring

 

[ghaymes]

Hi all, I last posted here way back in 2022 when I achieved a PB of 62 in Battle Factory Open Level Singles. Over 4 years later, I'm back with a new PB of 106! Here's my write-up of the streak (as well as a link to videos of my last 9 battles before it finally ended). I'm attaching screenshots from Battle Factory Buddy showing my starting 'Mons for each round (starting with round 5), along with any swaps I made during each round, and a turn-by-turn recap of each of my battles against Noland:

28-35:
Started with:

No swaps

35-42:
Started with:

No swaps

2nd battle with Noland:
I sent out Clefable, he sent out a Salamence. He hit me with a Dragon Claw, taking around half of my HP as I took Salamence out with an Ice Beam. He sent out a Medicham. He hit me with a Mega Kick, confirming this was Medicham-4, and taking me down to low red HP. I hit him with an Ice Beam, taking around 40% of his HP. He missed a Mega Kick as I hit him with another Ice Beam, taking him down to about 20% HP. He then took Clefable out with a Rock Slide. I sent out Raikou and took Medicham out with a Thunderbolt. He sent out a Snorlax. I hit him with a Thunderbolt, taking around 20% of his HP as he used Curse. I used Substitute as he Cursed again. I hit him with another Thunderbolt, taking around 20% of his HP, as he hit me with an Earthquake, knocking out my Substitute. I Substituted again as he Earthquaked again, knocking out my Substitute. I Substituted again as he Earthquaked again, knocking out my Substitute. I Substituted again (I was at 2HP now) as he hit me with a Rock Slide, confirming this was Snorlax-2, and again knocking out my Substitute. I Rested back to full health and used my Chesto as he hit me with a Rock Slide, taking around 40% of my health. I Substituted again, and he hit me with an Earthquake, knocking out my Substitute. I Substituted again (now on red HP), and he used his last Earthquake (due to Raikou’s Pressure), knocking out my Substitute. I Rested back to full health, and he hit me with a Rock Slide, taking around 40% of my health. I remained asleep as he Rested back to full health and used his Chesto. I remained asleep as he Cursed again. I woke up and used Substitute as he Cursed again. I used Calm Mind as he took my Substitute out with a Rock Slide. I used Substitute (taking me down to red HP) as he used his last Rock Slide and took out the Substitute. I Rested back to full health as he Cursed again. At this point, I had successfully PP stalled him, and after waking up, I maxed out my SpAtk via Calm Mind, and then took Snorlax out with two Thunderbolts.

42-49:
Started with:

No swaps

49-56:
Started with:

Swapped Tyranitar for Regice-1

56-63:
Started with:

Swapped Blastoise for Latios-1

Third battle with Noland:
I sent out Latios, he sent out an Umbreon. I swapped into Registeel and he hit me with a Faint Attack, doing minimal damage that I then recovered with Leftovers. He used Confuse Ray and I hit myself in confusion, but then regained the health with Leftovers. He Double Teamed and I snapped out of confusion and used Substitute. He Double Teamed again and I hit a Toxic. We both Double Teamed and he recovered some health with Leftovers, meaning this was Umbreon-4. He used Confuse Ray for some reason (which doesn’t hit through the Substitute) and I Double Teamed again. He continued to inexplicably Confuse Ray (with a couple of Faint Attacks thrown in) as I maxed out my evasiveness over the following turns. It finally succumbed to poison, and I was at full health behind a Substitute. Noland sent out an Aerodactyl. He missed a Fire Blast and I hit a Toxic. Because it used Fire Blast and did not use Earthquake, this was virtually guaranteed to be Aerodactyl-3. Over the following turns, it continued missing Fire Blasts before eventually running out and hitting a Dragon Claw, which still wasn’t enough to take out my Substitute. I just spammed Substitute the whole time just in case he hit a Fire Blast. After the Dragon Claw hit, Aerodactyl went down to poison damage. Noland sent out a Flygon. It used Sunny Day, confirming this was Flygon-2 as I hit a Toxic. Flygon proceeded to miss Fire Blasts until poison damage plus a Registeel Focus Punch took it out, defeating Noland and achieving a new personal best streak of 63.

63-70:
Started with:

Swapped Dragonite for Zapdos-2 after 3rd battle
Swapped Zapdos for Raikou-6 after 4th battle
Swapped Raikou for Latios-1 after 6th battle

70-77:
Started with:

Swapped Gengar for Milotic-2 after 1st battle
Swapped Milotic-2 for Vaporeon-4 after 2nd battle
Swapped Alakazam for Latias-3 after 3rd battle

77-84:
Started with:

No swaps

4th battle with Noland:
I sent out Gengar, he sent out a Rapidash. I used Thunderbolt, taking around 60% of his HP. He used Iron Tail (confirming this was Rapidash-4), and unfortunately got a crit and knocked Gengar out. I sent out Marowak. He hit me with a Double-Edge, taking around 40% of my HP as I took Rapidash out with an Earthquake. He sent out a Sceptile. I switched Regice in and took a Leaf Blade, which took around 20% of my HP. Sceptile missed a Leech Seed, confirming this was Sceptile-1. I hit him with a Thunder Wave. I then hit him with an Ice Beam, leaving him on low red HP as he hit a Leech Seed, which brought him back up to low yellow HP. He then used Detect to block my Ice Beam, bringing himself back up to around 50% HP. I then took Sceptile out with an Ice Beam. He then sent out an Electabuzz. He used Light Screen (confirming this was Electabuzz-1) as I hit him with a Thunder Wave (which he cured with his Cheri Berry). He then Thunder Waved me and I Thunder Waved him again. He then hit me with a Brick Break, taking me to around 1/3 HP (I’d also been taking Leech Seed damage), and I was fully para’d. He hit me with another Brick Break, taking me down to mid red HP as I hit an Ice Beam, taking only around 1/4 of his HP due to the Light Screen. He then recovered most of the damage via Leech Seed. He took Regice out with a Brick Break the following turn. I sent out Marowak and took Electabuzz out with an Earthquake.

84-91:
Started with:

Swapped Rhydon for Zapdos-4 after 6th battle

91-98:
Started with:

Swapped Milotic for Suicune-6 after 5th battle

Finally, here's a link to a YouTube playlist showing my final battles before losing battle #107 (if you want the TL;DW, a Dragonite with Earthquake, Double-Edge, Aerial Ace, and Dragon Dance - aka Dragonite-2 - was what finally did me in): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMu0a1I0pId4

While the loss was definitely disappointing, I'm proud of how far beyond my prior PB I made it. Hope this is enough documentation to update the leaderboard!

 

[Valentino23]

The leaderboard has been updated! Thank you to everyone as usual for their streaks and patience. As always, please reach out if you have any questions.

 

[Luciano Pagliarini]

Hi everyone, and sorry in advance for my English, since I know it is not perfect.

I am a big fan of the Pokémon Emerald Battle Frontier. One of the things I appreciate the most about it is how the different rules of each facility can bring out the potential of almost every Pokémon.

I wanted to share some of my streaks, starting with the most recent one: Battle Arena, which I personally consider the hardest facility in the whole Frontier.

In my opinion, the lack of switching makes the Arena especially difficult. Pokémon that are extremely strong in other contexts, such as Tyranitar or Salamence, have a much harder time here because of their heavy weaknesses. On top of that, Gen 3 power creep is still nowhere near what it would become in later generations. Getting a clean OHKO is almost impossible for anything that is not named Slaking.

And if you fail to take a KO on the first turn, you immediately expose yourself to RNG. A paralysis or confusion turn can stop you from attacking and make you lose by judging.

This is exactly the reasoning behind the lead of the trio that, after a long chase, finally allowed me to win the Gold Symbol.

Kangaskhan, level 100
Nature: Jolly
Item: Lum Berry
Moves: Earthquake / Return / Shadow Ball / Safeguard

Taunt is still too limited in Gen 3, since only the Pokémon using it can really take advantage of it. This makes it fine on something like Dragon Dance Tyranitar, but less useful on many other Pokémon. I needed something different to stop strategies based on Confuse Ray and Thunder Wave, and this is where the idea of Safeguard came from.

Among all the Pokémon that learn Safeguard, I chose Kangaskhan because I think the Arena rules make it shine. It has only one weakness, it has a movepool that lets it hit almost everything hard, it has great bulk, and with some Speed investment its base Speed allows it to outspeed a large portion of what I would call the facility “metagame”.

As for the EV spread, I used 252 HP EVs, then enough Speed EVs to outspeed the fastest Blaziken and Medicham sets in the Arena, with the rest going into Attack. Since, outside of legendaries, I do not use RNG abuse but regular breeding, my Kangaskhan has 31 IVs in HP and Attack, but a slightly lower Speed IV. A flawless Kangaskhan would need less Speed investment than mine, and could therefore have a little more firepower.

The result is a Pokémon with three different roles: KOing slower Pokémon that are weak to its attacks, beating annoyers such as Blissey and Umbreon by judging, and preparing the field for the teammates that come after it.

Another important detail is that Lum Berry triggers the Arena AI in a very useful way: after Lum Berry activates, the AI will often use the same status move again. So, if Kangaskhan absorbs a status move on turn one and then blocks the second attempt with Safeguard on turn two, it has basically already won that matchup by judging.

After Kangaskhan comes a much more straightforward Pokémon, but one that is perfect for the specific role I gave it, with a small tech as well.

Latios, level 100
Nature: Modest
Item: Petaya Berry
Moves: Calm Mind / Psychic / Dragon Claw / Surf

With Safeguard already up, Latios can use Calm Mind without fearing confusion, paralysis, or freeze stopping its sweep. Psychic, Dragon Claw and Surf allow it to hit every Pokémon in the Gen 3 Pokédex for at least neutral damage.

Thunderbolt is obviously tempting, but I did not want to give up either of my STAB moves. Psychic is stronger and, importantly for avoiding bad surprises, it is not a contact move. I also did not want to replace Surf with Thunderbolt, because then this team would be unable to hit Pokémon such as Steelix properly, and Steelix can be annoying for this trio.

Since status is not a major concern, the only thing that can really ruin a sweep after one Calm Mind is a critical hit. This is exactly why Petaya Berry is there.

A critical hit from a non-STAB Ice Beam will usually leave Latios somewhere between 5% and 20% HP. That is not enough to safely use a second Calm Mind, which often makes the difference between merely damaging something and OHKOing almost everything except extreme special walls such as Blissey and Umbreon. With Petaya Berry, however, Latios gets that second +1 Special Attack boost in a different way and, outside of Quick Claw, BrightPowder, or particularly bad matchups, it can often close the game from there.

I have also games where, after two Calm Minds, Latios survived two non-critical Ice Beams from Lapras and then obviously KOed it with +3 Psychic.

My Latios comes from Southern Island and was, of course, obtained through RNG abuse. The spread is very straightforward: 252 Special Attack / 252 Speed.

The third slot is the one where I think a Choice Band user fits perfectly. Locking yourself into a move before the final 1v1 can seriously backfire, but when you are facing the opponent’s last Pokémon, what you want is immediate firepower to avoid nasty surprises.

So here is the third member of the trio:

Aerodactyl, level 100
Nature: Jolly
Item: Choice Band
Moves: Earthquake / Double-Edge / Aerial Ace / Rock Slide

Aerodactyl does not have Slaking’s monstrous Attack, nor Tauros’s Intimidate, but it has two extremely important STAB moves.

Rock Slide, with its flinch chance, saved me on more than one occasion. Aerial Ace, in my opinion, is almost irreplaceable in the Battle Frontier. It lets you safely finish off Pokémon that abuse Double Team or rely on BrightPowder or Sand Veil.

The EV spread is obviously 252 Attack / 252 Speed.

With these three Pokémon I reached 72 wins. I was eventually stopped by OHKO moves, which were the only scenario I had no real answer for.

But in a facility where you only play with three Pokémon and cannot even switch, you have to make choices. During teambuilding, I had already decided to leave myself exposed to OHKO moves in order to cover almost everything else.

 

[derekrw]

Update on my retail streak in Level 50 Battle Tower Multi Battle Room (AI Partner): ended at 484 wins.

Here is the team again for quick reference. Original post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-iii-battle-frontier-discussion-and-records.3648697/page-87#post-11041092

Level 50 Team

Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Double-Edge
- Return
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ghost]


Marsha (Swampert) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 210 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Ice Beam
- Protect

NPC Team

Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam


Ballista (Latias) (F) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Waterfall
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam

I record mixed with myself to create this team, but the order is random when you meet the NPC in the lobby. The EVs make it so each Lati outspeeds Tauros by 1 speed, and Tauros outspeeds the base 120 mons. I figured it was better to let the NPCs take the OHKOs that they see, and take out airborne opponents before EQ. The Latios is the same one I use for regular doubles, mostly max SpA but enough bulk to take all Medicham (+0) Shadow Balls, Walrein and Articuno Ice Beams, Scizor (+0) Silver Wind (non-Swarm). The lost 2 points of SpA on Latios don't drop any guaranteed OHKOs, but does drop 1 OHKO roll on a handful of sets. Latias takes all Jynx Ice Beams with max SpA and the leftover defensive EVs.

The Loss

Psychic Stanly (The left opponent is just there for show, only the roster for the right opponent is used)

0. Hypno and Starmie lead

1. My Latias uses Thunderbolt on Starmie, Tauros EQs to KO starmie and do ~45% to Hypno (low roll and confirms Hypno-1 or 2. 3 and 4 are cleanly 2HKOd by EQ). Gardevoir comes in and Traces Intimidate. Hypno misses Hypnosis.
2. Latias misses Gardevoir with Ice Beam (if it targets Hypno instead, Tauros would stay awake), Tauros misses Gardevoir with EQ (both Brightpowder misses here end up costing the game) and takes Hypno to 1%. Gardevoir DTs and Hypno hits Hypnosis into Tauros.
3. I switch out Tauros, Latias finishes Hypno with Psychic (bringing in Claydol), and Gardevoir continues to DT.
4. Latias hits Claydol with Ice Beam (doing ~50%), Gardevoir goes for Magical Leaf into Swampert and gets the 37.5% OHKO. (I should have recognized Gardevoir-8 here and protected, not switched out Tauros, or pivoted right back. I wanted to put Claydol in range of another attack from Latias so Latias wouldn’t waste turns on Gard). Claydol goes for DT and reveals Leftovers.
5. Latias misses, Tauros takes first turn of sleep, DT from Gardevoir, Psychic from Claydol into Tauros (doing ~35%).
6. Latias hits Ice Beam into Gard, Tauros remains asleep, Gardevoir KOs Tauros with Psychic, Claydol sets up Cosmic Power.
7. Latias hits Claydol with Ice Beam, takes Psychic from both opponents.
8. Latias hits Claydol with another Ice Beam (2% left), takes Psychic from both opponents.
9. Latias hits Claydol with Waterfall for the KO, takes Psychic from Gardevoir
10. Latias misses Ice Beam, Gardevoir takes out Latias with another Psychic.
11. Latios hits Gardevoir with an Ice Beam, Gardevoir hits another Psychic.
12. Latios misses TBolt, but then Gardevoir goes for attract.
13. The only attack Latios ever lands again is a Waterfall (immobilized twice). The Waterfall leaves Gard at 1HP (instead of Thunderbolt or Ice Beam which would have KOd). 3 more Psychics from Gard finally ends the streak.

Something like this was eventually going to end this team’s streak: misses from Brightpowder and evasion boosts, suboptimal move selection and targeting from the NPC partner, missed turns from status, but surprisingly no Critical Hits in either direction. Also very little variance from Psychic SpD drops, Ice Beam Freezes or Thunderbolt para. I should have played around Magical Leaf from a revealed Gardevoir-8, but mistakes happen.

I’ve been bailed out of a few games during this streak, and I think 484 is quite high for this format. I might go for 500+ in Level 50 eventually, but I want to gradually work on my 3rd Open Level Multi run (2nd ended after 171) and try other formats before revisiting. Multi Battle with Human Partner on console is a big PITA (I have 2 Gameboys and a connection cable, but the delays for communication add up), but there's definitely room for innovation there.

 

[Minoooo]

Hi, I'm new here.
I've been on this thread for a couple of weeks now. I just became really interested in Battle Tower Level 50 and I want to put my team on the leaderboard. As of now I have an ongoing 322 emulator streak using Grumpig + Registeel + Salamence. I want to see how far can this team go.

NOTE: English is technically my third language so there might be a lot of grammar issues with my explanation.

My team and explanation

PETUNIA- (Grumpig) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 214 HP / 204 Def / 92 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Torment
- Protect
- Reflect

As you can see this is an exact copy of Kommo-o's grumpig set with a minor tweak so big thanks to him.

Grumpig has some of the best utility learnset in Gen 3 that makes her a very good pick for me. Grumpig's typing also forms a very good defensive synergy with Registeel and Salamence with thick fat ability that covers both of their weaknesses.
Now, the main use of Grumpig is to trap a foe pokemon to a certain move using Trick and Choice Band Item. If it's trapped with a move that deals heavy damage or special attack then I'll use Torment to make them not use the move twice in a row and force a struggle. Reflect is used against pokemons that i don't want to trick like Metagross, Heracross and Ursaring because of their staggering high physical attack and certain moves that might trigger a critic. Protect is mainly use for scouting, switch Pivot, and most of all to block Quickclaw OHKO users like Rhydon and Explosion QC users like Steelix.

Grumpig's nature and Speed EV allocation allows her to reach an exact 123 speed threshold which outspeeds majority of the mons in battle tower and all Metagross sets and set 1 Heracross that are threat to the team. It's HP and DEF EV spread is enough to survive most banded mon's shadowball, Metagross's meteor mash, double edge users.

TIN MAN- (Registeel) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 190 Atk / 68 Def / 16 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 11 SpA / 30 SpD
- Hidden Power [Steel]
- Curse
- Amnesia
- Substitute

This is the standard Registeel EV spread and moveset, but I deviated a bit and gave the SpD EV investment to Def instead; different from most people do since my team can pretty much cover all the special attack types so I decided to transfer it to def.

Registeel also resists all of Grumpig's and Salamence's weaknesses which is another reason why it's great for my lineup.

There's nothing really much to say about Registeel that hasn't been said but imma still try.
Registeel acts as an all around defensive sweeper due to its high base defensive stats along with curse and amnesia boosts. Its stab move hp steel hits every single type in the game. At +6 curse boost it can guarantee a 2hko against Zapdos, 3hko-4hko against water type bulky mons if they're not using rest and can ohko pretty much everyone if it deals neutral and x2 damage. (One thing I make sure is that I always try to memorize and calculate when's my substitute gonna break so that the enemy foe have no room to apply status moves, random crits and OHKO moves.)

Its EV spread is tailored to make it an all rounder with it's HP ev specifically added to reach an odd stat number (185 hp) so that u can use substitute exactly 4 times due to 1/4 hp consumption when it's used. Along with it's leftovers items that gives an exact 11 hp per turn, that ensures you can get at least 22-44 hp back when sub breaks depending if the enemy uses an effective move or not at +6 amnesia and curse boost.

JEANNE- (Salamence) (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 246 HP / 188 Atk / 60 Def / 4 SpD / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 22 SpA
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Rest

Im really glad that one of my favorite mon is part of this winning team.
Salamence is one of the best (if not the best) setup sweeper of all time and it compliments my other two pokemon as well. It resist fighting, fire and immune to ground which Registeel would be very happy to; along with it's intimidate ability that makes the physical mons even weaker. It heavily counters both Rhydon and Heracross that threatens both Grumpig and Registeel because both usually has earthquake and megahorn in most sets.

One of its move like Aerial Ace is a standard stab move that also counters bright powder and annoying double team mons, but it has lower attack compared to HP Flying so it depends on the player's priority. Earthquake is also a standard move for a physical setup sweeper because of its raw power; only levitate and flying mons are unaffected to it but most of them are frail and will get ohkoed to a +4 to +6 dd boost Aerial Ace attack except Skarmory, Zapdos and Aerodactyl. Dragon Dance is what makes a setup sweeper and +2 boost from it makes you outspeed every single mon there is. Rest is the last move option along with Lum Berry since no one's using it. A combination of both helps with sustaining and removing status and passive damage moves.

Its HP EV is close to maximum for bulkiness, something that I need when setting up along with it's 60 Def EV. 188 attack ev reaches a 196 attack which is enough to ohko 2-3hko all skarm sets without curse boost. 12 ev speed makes it reach 122 speed stat which covers most base 80 speed mons with no speed EV like Metagross. Its speed also bumps up at 183 with just 1+boost, and its enough to cover 99% of the mons except Jolteon, Crobat Aerodactyl and Ninjask.

Strategy

1. Lead Grumpig and use Trick on every lead pokemon except Metagross, Heracross, Slaking, Ursaring etc. Just avoid using Trick on Double Edge Stab users, Megahorn users; and MUK. Switch entirely or use Reflect/Protect depending on the situation if you ever face them.
2. Use Protect against QC OHKO and QC Explosion users.
3. If Grumpig is a bit slower but survives and lands a Trick; quickly use Protect to scout what move the foe is trapped in and then it'll be the decider whether Registeel or Salamence comes out as a sweeper.
4.Setup boost and win.

Threatlist

• 
  
  : Double Edge or Hyper Beam from strong mons like Ursaring and Granbull are way too strong and getting banded makes them even more dangerous along with their broken critical rate (base on experience). Reflect should always be one of the priority move against them.
• 
  
  
  
  : Always use Protect against QC OHKO users, switch to registeel and back again at Grumpig then use Protect or Reflect. As long as you can trap them with non-OHKO move or doesn't get hit by one then you're good. Needs some kind of luck with this one.
• 
  
  
  : Again, you're playing a guessing game against QC Explosion Pokemons and they usually do it if you're killable. From what I've encountered, none of them have ohkoed my Grumpig so far, so it's safe to use Reflect/Protect and then switch stall until you trap them with their other moves using Trick.
• 
  : This pokemon along with all other roar users especially if it's not a lead or against Registeel is annoying. You have to make sure to not get past +2 boost so that it wouldn't use roar.
• 
  : Sticky Hold prevents you from using trick, it's a hassle but Registeel can handle it along with its explosion.
• 
  : Rhydon is just annoying due to Megahorn and QC+ OHKO.
  
  So far they're the ones that gave me the most problem. I'm sure there are more.

315-322 STREAK VIDEO

Exportable

https://pokepast.es/3a06dbd47b03d937

 

[Bpwjr1]

Hello, I have been playing Battle Factory (Open Level) for a few years on cartridge/retail and just found this forum. I am reporting a streak of 110 which I achieved June 16-17, 2025. I don't stream and didn't record any battles (although I did save my Noland 5 battle on my Battle Record; I can upload a recording of it). What I do have evidence of is: 1) screenshots of my streak at the end of each round from Round 9 until the end of my streak (during round 16), and 2) handwritten notes about rounds 7 to the end of my streak. I also took a photo of the Latios mirror match in Noland 4 because it was so crazy to see. I think I ran out of paper in my notebook and had to switch to a new notebook for the last page of the streak. My notes include switches (although not directly, but some can be inferred) and I used winning %s from the AI 1v1 analysis on LRXC's discord to help determine whether some switches were worth doing. Some final rounds are missing since I wasn't going to be making switches for those. I think this is everything I have as far as evidence except for my Battle Record of Noland 5. Would be cool to have this streak recorded to show friends and family. I appreciate this forum! S/o LRXC for getting me into this years ago. I created a spreadsheet with all my notes, see below (green means I picked and kept it through the round, yellow means it was picked but swapped):

 

[potatobagel]

Hello, reporting a 207 win streak for Level 50 Battle Arena. I used this team, only swapping Shadow Ball for Return on Snorlax. I prefer the damage output and don't like the tradeoff just to do more damage to Psychic/Ghost types.

It was streamed, and the recording of the streak is on Youtube:

VOD Links

Set Details

Snorlax (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 236 HP / 4 Atk / 244 Def / 20 SpD / 4 Spe
Impish Nature
- Yawn
- Return
- Earthquake
- Rest

Latios @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 36 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic

Medicham @ Salac Berry
Ability: Pure Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brick Break
- Shadow Ball
- Endure
- Reversal

Loss

Last opponent Pokemon - QC Critical Hit Ice Beam by Vaporeon 4 on Latios, makes it a 1 v 1 with Medicham. Because Vaporeon uses Acid Armor on Turn 1 - after 2 turns it is difficult to say how much health it has, and Medicham Brick Break may not KO. I know I definitely made a mistake because Brick Break was still the right move (to at least go for the damage roll), but for whatever reason I thought I would be able to out-do the Mind category by getting the Endure off correctly vs the Vaporeon using Acid Armor on its one turn. Either way it was a very unfavorable matchup and there was a good chance I had already lost anyways.

I don't have much to expand on the original team writeup, since the playstyle is essentially the same. Because the AI logic is more accessible now than before, I do not think it is as difficult as before to do well in Arena. I am in the process of making a Battle Arena Assistant to combine the Arena scoring and AI logic into one site, but it's not quite ready at the moment. I had intended make the writeup when the tool was ready, but I realized if I waited any longer, then my VOD stream evidence would expire.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

It has been three years since I last continued on my Battle Pyramid streak. It has also been 20 years since I first started on this streak. The Pyramid was the first facility I got the Gold Symbol from, which was a huge milestone for me back in 2006. Because it has been 20 years since then, I felt that it was time to go back to the streak once more in order to celebrate. I also find it impressive that my Emerald cart still works after more than 20 years, I got it in October 2005. And the DS Lite that I play on still works well too, I have had it for almost 20 years. The battery is still amazing, I only had to charge it once during this run!

Anyway, I completed 30 more rounds, which means that my streak now stands at 777 floors in a row, still ongoing. Level 50, retail cart.

Previous posts about the streak: 70 wins (and the longer version), 301 wins and team details (two posts), 350 wins, 567 wins

Resources I use when playing:
Golden Blissey’s Pyramid Floor layout guide
Expert Evan’s guide to wild Pokémon in the Pyramid
Bulbapedia’s list of Battle Frontier trainers
Eisenherz' Battle Facility damage calculator

Plus some of my own notes from my previous posts.

As usual, I have written short summaries for every round. Not sure if anyone is interested in reading these, but I thought I should do them anyway since this post would be very short and uninteresting otherwise. I wasn’t sure what to include, but I have tried to focus on the things that felt the most notable or interesting.

Round 82-96

Round 82:

Poison. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

The very first thing that happened on the first floor here was that I ran into a trainer battle. My opponent was a Cooltrainer with an Ursaring which had a Quick Claw. It activated twice in a row, 2HKOing Starmie with Crunch + Facade. That felt like a bad start. Fortunately, things got better from there as I found the exit almost immediately afterwards.

After that, nothing really special or notable happened for the rest of the round, and I got through it pretty quickly too. It has been three years since I last played in the Pyramid, so I felt a bit unused to it, but things got better as I kept playing.

Round 83:

Burn. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

On floor 5, I met a trainer with a Male Sceptile-3 that was a little annoying to beat since it knew Double Team and Attract. Thankfully, it wasn’t that bad as Blissey was able to 3HKO it with Seismic Toss quite quickly.

There was another trainer which put me up against a Machamp that used Double-Edge to KO Starmie, but the Machamp fainted from the recoil afterwards.

Round 84:

PP stalling. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey. I was considering trying a different Pokémon than Houndoom here, but I decided to stick with it.

Nothing special or notable happened here.

Round 85:

Levitate and a Brandon battle at the end. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

One of the trainers here had a Scyther with Double Team. It was faster than Slaking and kept setting up, I missed twice with Return, then hit with the third. This could have gotten very dangerous since the Scyther is fast and has Swords Dance plus dual STABs.

Round 86:

Trapping Abilities. In the past, I have always used Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey for this round, but I decided to try a different strategy this time around, with Slaking as the lead. I did some damage calculations, and Slaking should be able to beat all of the wild Pokémon here without too many issues. Wobbuffet can potentially survive if it rolls high enough HP/Defense, but it should be safe most of the time. The wild Dugtrio can outrun Slaking if they roll high enough Speed, the Dugtrio and one Trapinch set also have Protect, but they can’t really hurt Slaking much. So my new team for this round is Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

There were trainers around the entrance on floors 3, 4 and 5. On floor 3, I defeated two of them in single battles. On floor 4, I defeated two of them in a Multi battle. And on floor 5, I managed to avoid all of them.

On floor 7, I met a trainer with a Salamence, the Brightpowder set with Dragon Dance and Double-Edge. I switched to Starmie, but missed with Ice Beam. Slaking then missed with Return as well! The Salamence set up a Dragon Dance and started attacking. I won by using some Hyper Potions and a Revive, the Salamence eventually fainted from Double-Edge recoil. That was a scary battle.

After clearing this round, I have completed over 600 floors in a row! Onward!

Round 87:

Ice-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

On floor 2, I met a trainer with a Walrein, the Quick Claw set. The QC activated on turn 1, it used Sheer Cold which hit and KO’d Slaking. Starmie then 2HKO’d with Thunderbolt.

Slaking then fainted again against a trainer’s Aerodactyl on floor 4. It would probably not have happened if I had just played better. I beat the Aerodactyl with Starmie afterwards.

Round 88:

Self-destructing moves. Slaking/Gengar/Blissey.

A simple round on the whole, nothing notable happened. And best of all, I didn’t need to use a single item during the whole round!

Round 89:

Psychic-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

Another simple round where nothing notable really happened, though I did have to use a Hyper Potion this time.

Round 90:

Rock-types feat. non-Rock-type Steelix and non-Rock-type Brandon. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

Another easy round, no problems at all.

Round 91:

Fighting-types. Salamence/Starmie/Blissey.

On floor 5, I was surrounded by trainers on entrance. I got into a Multi battle against two of them, the opposing Pokémon were Latios and Zapdos. Not good. Starmie used Ice Beam on the Zapdos, it got Frozen! Only to be cured by a Lum Berry. It proceeded to use Thunderbolt on Starmie for a OHKO. Out with Blissey. Salamence used Rock Slide, but missed against both opponents! The Latios used Dragon Dance. On the next turn, the Latios used Earthquake, but it barely did anything to Blissey, and Salamence KO’d the Zapdos with Rock Slide. From there, I beat the Latios with ease. This battle was a bit scary at first, but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.

Round 92:

Weather. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

During this round, I met the same trainer twice, on two different floors. The trainer in question was Cooltrainer Gillian. Both times, she had a Regirock, and it might even have been the same set. Not sure though as I wasn’t able to confirm. Either way, it was an odd coincidence.

Starmie fainted once against a trainer’s Hariyama. I beat it with Slaking afterwards.

I found the exit almost immediately on floor 5. I got lucky and walked in the right direction, it was just a few steps away.

Round 93:

Bug-types. Salamence/Gengar/Blissey.

Nothing notable happened during this round, and it felt like it went quite quickly. I didn’t get into a lot of trainer battles, and all the wild Pokémon were easy to defeat.

Round 94:

Dark-types. Heracross/Starmie/Blissey.

One trainer here had a Crobat with Double Team. A bit annoying, but Starmie managed to 2HKO with Psychic after a while.

Heracross got KO’d by a Machamp which got a Crit with Cross Chop. Starmie defeated the Machamp with Psychic afterwards.

On floor 7, one trainer had an Alakazam, the TrickBand set. I switched to Blissey, expecting the Zam to try and KO Heracross with Psychic. To my surprise, it used Trick, taking Blissey’s Leftovers and giving it a Choice Band instead. I beat this Alakazam with Blissey and Starmie, and after the battle, Blissey was still holding the Choice Band from the battle. Thankfully, I had more than one Leftovers in my bag, so I could just give it a new one. I think this is the first time I have been Tricked in the Pyramid, which taught me that I lose the original item if it happens. Something to keep in mind for the future.

Round 95:

Water-types and a Brandon battle. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

During this round, I found the exit quite quickly on both floors 2 and 3.

Some of the trainer battles here were a bit scary, but nothing I couldn’t overcome. I completed the round and beat Brandon in the end.

Round 96:

Ghost-types. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey.

On the first floor, I immediately ran into a trainer who had a Weezing. It tanked a Flamethrower and OHKO’d Houndoom with Sludge Bomb. Not a good start.

Fortunately, things went better soon afterwards. On floor 2, I found the exit almost immediately as I got very lucky and walked in the right direction, it was in the area right next to the entrance. I then found the exit very quickly on floors 3 and 4 as well.

On floor 6, one trainer had an Armaldo. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I decided to sacrifice Houndoom so I could send in Salamence safely. Houndoom used Flamethrower and fell to a Brick Break, Salamence then KO’d the Armaldo with Earthquake.

Round 97-111

Round 97:

Steel-types. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey.

Here, I found the exit very quickly on floors 1,4 and 7!

This was an easy round without any notable battles, and going through it went quickly too, which is always nice.

Round 98:

Dragon-types and dragon-like Pokémon. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

On floor 6, I got into a Multi battle against an opposing Starmie and Sceptile. A pretty bad matchup. Slaking missed with Return against the Sceptile due to Brightpowder, and they landed several crits during the battle, which led to both Starmie and Slaking fainting, the latter even fainted three times! This battle cost me a total of four Revives. I realized afterwards that I could have used a Sacred Ash after the battle instead of two Revives, but too late for that now.

This round was annoying because of the above battle, and it took a while to get through it. But I made it in the end.

Round 99:

Elemental Evolutions. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

Starmie fainted once against an opposing trainer’s Medicham. It tanked a Dynamicpunch on the switch and then fainted to a Thunderpunch on the next turn. I could have beat the Medicham directly with Slaking, but it was an unknown set and I didn’t want to risk it being the EndRev set since that could have been very dangerous.

Other than that, this was a simple round. It went quickly, and I found a lot of useful items too!

Round 100:

Normal-types. With Hyper Beams. That hurt a lot. Plus Brandon, don’t forget him. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

Slaking fainted once against a wild Tauros. I missed with Hyper Beam, the Tauros used Earthquake followed by a Crit Hyper Beam. Starmie 2HKO’d it with Surf afterwards.

Other than that, no problems.

I have cleared 100 rounds, and 700 floors in a row! This is really a special occasion, so it calls for something extra. But before we go into the final room of Spire 4, let’s stay a while to relax and listen to the music.

…

Wait, wrong game!

Anyway, let’s continue. We’re not done yet.

Round 101:

Back to the beginning again, with the theme being Paralysis feat. level 30 Plusle/Minun and friends. Salamence/Starmie/Blissey.

I found the exit almost immediately on floor 2. And I didn’t meet any wild Pokémon at all on the first 2 floors!

On floor 3, Salamence fainted against a trainer’s Charizard. I missed with Rock Slide, the Zard used Dragon Claw for a ton of damage. It moved first on the next turn (Speed tie) and KO’d with Flamethrower. I beat it with Blissey afterwards, though I suppose I should have used Starmie for a faster win.

On floor 5, I was surrounded by trainers upon entry. I had to face two of them in a Multi battle. They had Electabuzz and Gardevoir, which was a pretty bad matchup. In this battle, Salamence fainted yet once more.

This round was strange because it felt like I had to face a lot of trainers, including several long battles against powerful Special attackers that I had to stall out with Blissey. But I didn’t meet a whole lot of wild Pokémon. I guess that was because Salamence’s Intimidate reduced the encounter rates.

Round 102:

Poison. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

This round was easy on the whole, no notable battles to speak of. It took a while to complete, but I found a lot of useful items along the way, so that’s great.

Round 103:

Burn. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

On floor 4, I found the exit immediately, I walked in the right direction and it was in the zone right next to the entrance.

On floor 6, I met a trainer who had a Scizor, it tanked a Surf and OHKO’d Starmie with Silver Wind. Slaking beat it with Earthquake afterwards.

Round 104:

PP Stalling. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey.

Salamence fainted once in a trainer battle. It was a Multi battle against a Slowking and Swampert, which was a really bad matchup. I beat the Slowking with Houndoom and Salamence on the first turn, the Swampert then used Ice Beam to OHKO Salamence. I beat it with Houndoom and Blissey afterwards.

Round 105:

Levitate and Brandon. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

A simple round on the whole. While some of the trainer battles seemed a bit scary at first glance, they were generally easy, and none of my Pokémon fainted during this round, which is always great since that means I can save my Revives.

Round 106:

Trapping Abilities. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey again.

On floor 3, there were trainers around the exit, I was careless and got into a Multi battle against two of them. They had Blaziken and Slaking. I beat the Blaziken with Starmie and my Slaking, the opposing Slaking then used Shadow Ball to defeat Starmie. Fortunately, it turned out to be the CB set, making it locked into Shadow Ball, so it couldn’t hurt Blissey or my Slaking afterwards!

On floor 7, I had a somewhat annoying battle against a wild Dugtrio. It used Protect on the turns Slaking could attack, three times in a row! It was clever enough to use damaging moves on the loafing turns, which damaged Slaking quite a lot. But then it finally stopped using Protect, allowing me to beat it.

Round 107:

Ice-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey. Jojo watches from the sidelines and is a little sad that she won’t get to take part in the fun, but also happy that she got to contribute to the streak 20 years ago.

On floor 3, the exit was three steps away from the entrance! I saw it immediately as I entered the floor.

This was an easy round on the whole. It went quite quickly, I found the entrance quickly on most floors and I didn’t have to battle a lot of wild Pokémon. I had to face several trainers though, including some Multi battles, but all of them were easy.

Round 108:

Self-destructing moves. Slaking/Gengar/Blissey.

Slaking fainted once against a trainer’s Salamence. I used Return, it lived and used Dragon Claw, got a Crit and an OHKO. I beat it with Blissey afterwards.

I also met an Electrode at level 45 that was faster than Slaking, it used Thunderbolt before I beat it with Earthquake.

Round 109:

Psychic-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.

On floor 5, the exit was almost right next to the entrance, just four steps away.

This was another easy round, it went quickly and there were no difficult battles.

Round 110:

Rock-types with some stray Steelix and a Brandon battle. Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.

Starmie fainted once against a trainer’s Forretress, it used Double-Edge and got a Crit, which was enough for a OHKO. I beat it with Slaking afterwards.

On floor 7, I had a really annoying battle against a trainer with a Registeel. It was the ChestoRest set, which is an annoying opponent for this team. I switched to Slaking, hoping to beat the Registeel with Earthquake, but it never happened. Instead, the Registeel set up some Curses and Amnesias, then it just kept using Rest over and over again. Slaking couldn’t 2HKO, and I didn’t get a single Crit from all 16 Earthquakes. I ran out of PP, but fortunately, the Registeel also ran out of PP for Rest. I switched to Starmie to hit it with Surf, the Registeel set up some more and beat Starmie with Metal Claw. I then sent in Slaking to finally land the KO with Hyper Beam.

On the whole, this was a quite slow-paced round, it took a while to complete. But I made it in the end. I beat Brandon, which is the 21st time I beat his Gold team. That’s quite a lot. And I have now completed 110 rounds in the Pyramid! But I’m not done yet. Let’s go for one more round.

Round 111:

Fighting-types. Salamence/Starmie/Blissey.

Salamence fainted once against an opposing trainer’s Alakazam. I didn’t have a guaranteed OHKO with Earthquake, and I didn’t really want to switch in Blissey to risk getting TrickBanded again to lose another Leftovers (it was an unknown Zam set). So I stayed in with Salamence. EQ didn’t KO, Salamence got OHKO’d by Ice Punch instead. I beat the Zam with Starmie afterwards.

Later on, Starmie fainted against another trainer’s Gyarados. I switched to it to KO with Thunderbolt, but the Gyara used Thunder, bringing Starmie down to low HP. It then got a QC activation and KO’d Starmie with Surf on the next turn. I beat the Gyara with Blissey afterwards.

After making it through this round, I have cleared 777 floors in a row, which means that my streak has now reached Togedemaru status!

Items in my bag:
Hyper Potion x99
Ether x56
Sacred Ash x11
Leppa Berry x53
Max Revive x14
Lum Berry x99
Revive x38
Full Restore x20
Leftovers x4
Choice Band x11

I have increased my stash a bit during these past 30 rounds, which is nice.

I will not say that this is the end of the streak, but I'm not planning to keep going further anytime soon. Maybe I’ll go back to it again in the future. If so, it won’t be until next year at the earliest. I don't know yet. 1001 floors in a row isn’t that far away now, which would make it my first 4-digit streak. Or 868 floors, which would make it my new highest battle facility streak ever.

With that said, there is another Battle Facility I’m planning to revisit, in another generation. I’m planning to start on it next month, but first, I need to take a break from facility battling.

 

[light-upgold]

New PB for Open Level Factory Singles of 61 Wins!

Rounds 5 and 6 my notes are pretty sparse, only noting my selected draft on round 5, and my draft and enemy teams for round 6. Rounds 7, 8, and 9 have a per battle description of how I beat the fight.

Rounds 5 and 6

Round 5:
Draft: Heracross 4, Nidoqueen 1, Kingdra 4

Swapped Kingdra for Entei 6 around fight 4 or 5.

Played through these first few rounds with speed up to speed run to get to Noland 2 faster

Fight 7 had a forretress 3, shuckle 2, and Houndoom 3

Round 6:
Draft: 31 IV Typhlo 4, Tenta(Liquid Ooze) 1, Salamence 1, 21 IV Latias* 5, Tyranitar 3, Magmar 2

Fight 1: no spec, high risk

Regirock 4, Ninetales 4, Granbull 1

Fight 2: steel, high risk, no swaps
Hera 1, Skarm 1, Aggron ¼

Fight 3: psychic, one of endurance
Garde 4, Starmie 5, Eggy 1

Fight 4: no spec, no phrase
Charizard 3, Granbull ¼, Gengar 3

Fight 5: no spec, high risk
Electrode 4, scizor 4, ursaring 6

Fight 6: no spec, high risk
Blastoise 2/4, Jolteon any set?, Gardevoir DBond set

Fight 7: NOLAND 2
Latios 6, Clefable 4, Zapdos ⅓(more likely to be 1 since 3 was a speed tie and it outsped typhlosion.

This was a pretty easy round, with a lot of free setup opportunities for Latias 5.

Round 7

Round 7:
Draft: Magmar 1, Gengar* 5, Houndoom(flash fire) 2, Swampert 4, Sceptile 3, Meganium 2

Fight 1: no spec, high risk
Latios 4, Lapras 5, Miltank 2

This was a hax fest, Latios froze meganium with an ice beam so I couldn’t seed it, Swampert managed to kill it but died to Lapras double edge, and Miltank would have killed Gengar, if it weren’t for Gengar critting it with psychic. Nevertheless, we perservere.

Fight 2: water spec, missed phrase
Flareon 2, Starmie 3/5/8(⅜ if no phrase, 5 if of endurance), Golduck 1

Pretty easily swept by Swampert and gengar

Fight 3: no spec, slow and steady, no swaps
Salamence 6, breloom 2, Jolteon 1

Swampert took out Salamence, sacked itself to Breloom, and Gengar took out Breloom, switched to Meganium in case of Jolteon 4, and sat on it while leech seed took Jolteon out.

Fight 4: no spec, no phrase, no swaps
Articuno 1(modest max spa), whiscash 2, Ursaring ⅘

Gengar took out the first two and hit Ursaring twice for about 90% since it dodged a rock slide and lived future sight, allowing Swampert to finish Ursaring off easily

Fight 5: no spec no phrase, no swaps
Latios 6, Clefable 3, shiftry 1

Meganium was able to seed and set up on Latios 6 pretty easily(though it got pretty close as Latios hit 4 dragon claws in a row), and Clefable was easy fodder for a set up Meganium, putnshiftry to sleep for a safer switch to Gengar and koed with fire punch

Fight 6: no spec, high risk, no swaps
Registeel 3, Latias 7, Entei 6

The full legendary team taken out by some seeds… Gengar took out Registeel pretty handily, Meganium switched in on Latias and stalled it out, it kept clicking psych up to get the same evasion boost over and over lmao, and entei got seeded, and put to sleep using up the chesto berry, before roaring meg out to Gengar, who hit it into rest range and then switched on the rest turn to Swampert who took it out with an earthquake and leech seed damage.

Fight 7: no spec no phrase no swaps
Hypno 4, Ninetales 3, ursaring

The Meganium Morass caught another unwitting team and whittled it down to nothing.

Round 8

Round 8:
Draft: 31 IV Gyarados 1, Typhlosion 3, Regice 1
Cradily 4(9/31/31/18/29/21)
Gengar 5(3/22/4/14/16/25)
Jolteon 1(21/7/22/2/23/29)

Fight 1: no spec, no phrase
Suicune 6, Arcanine 1, Sceptile 2/4
Regice crit ko’ed suicune, typhlosion took care of Arcanine and Sceptile.

Fight 2: no spec, high risk
Ursaring 6, Regirock 6, Slowbro 4

Typhlosion endured but dodged a hyper beam t1, overheated and ursaring ko’ed it with hyper beam t2 because I didn’t know hyper beam didn’t cause a recharge if it missed. Suicune came in and set up a calm mind before ko’ing with surf. Then Regirock came in which it set another calm mind up to secure the ko, and ko’ed Regirock, before it got hit by a psychic crit by Slowbro, who was in turn finished off by regice

Fight 3: grass spec, no phrase, no swaps.
Ludicolo 1, Meganium 4, Manectric ¾

Fight 4: no spec, no phrase
Ninetales 4, Ttar(some TBolt variant), slaking 1

Fight 5: no spec, high risk
Metagross 4/8, entei 6, Dodrio 2

Typhlosion lived a quick claw earthquake(roll in my favor for metagross to ohko) and hit Metagross with an overheat, Entei came in and I endured to scout set, and switched to Suicune. Despite it getting 2 crits in a row(the first one of which bringing me down to 3 health before Suicune rested), I was able to out damage it and secure the KO, Suicune then lived a Dodrio drill peck and ko’ed it.

Fight 6: no spec, no phrase

Milotic 3, claydol 1, slowking 3

Since Milotic wasn’t clicking mirror coat despite my use of special moves on it, it seems that this was Milotic 3, which was easy setup fodder for Regice, claydol was swapped in after I went for tbolt once, and spammed psych up over and over while I whittled it down. Slowking and Milotic were then taken down by Regice.

Fight 7: dragon spec, high risk
Dragonite 2, Latias 4, Ninetales 2

Switched to Suicune upon seeing Dragonite, and was able to set up a calm mind, taking it down with an ice beam while it double-edged me. Next in was Latias, who I rested on, a crit tbolt would have ko’ed, but it used reflect revealing Latias 4, who I comfortably set up on, and the last was Ninetales who I took out with one surf.

Round 8 complete!

Round 9

Round 9:
Draft: 31 IV: manectric(lightning rod) 2, Electabuzz 1, Metagross 2, Arcanine(flash fire) 4
Mixed IVs:
Hypno 1: 30/8/17/15/17/9
Lapras(water absorb) 1: 26/3/16/23/19/20

Fight 1: psychic spec, no phrase
Slowking ¾, Vileplume ⅔, Espeon 1/2/3


Fight 2: no spec, no phrase
Salamence ⅚(more likely to be 6, since it didn’t go for EQ on metagross after 2 DDs, despite it being a range to KO, though this could be because it low rolled), Donphan(any set), Manectric(any set)

Arcanine went for an overheat as it DD’ed, seeing it was a bulky dd set, since Metagross would outspeed after a psych up, I switched to metagross, psyched up 3 DD boosts, and KO’ed it and Donphan with meteor mash, then eq’ed manectric.

Fight 3: ground spec, no phrase, swap Metagross for Salamence revealing Mence 6
Dodrio ⅓, Dugtrio 2, Nidoking 2

Fight 4: steel spec, high risk
Hariyama 3(had EQ and didn’t fake out), forretress(any set), metagross Mash+EQ set, unlikely to be 1 since it didn’t rest or double team.


Fight 5: no spec no phrase
Electabuzz 3, Machamp 1, Meganium 1

Easy Arcanine sweep here

Fight 6: no type, no phrase
Dragonite 6, Lanturn 4

Lost on this fight to a Dragonite 6, Lanturn 4 combo. Dragonite was the lead, and I switched in Lapras to put it to sleep, after hitting it with surf twice, the trainer switched out to Lanturn, I confuse rayed, and it used its lum berry revealing set 4, then I switched between arcanine and lapras a few times to bait surf to heal lapras. After it was back to full health, I tried to put the Lanturn to sleep with Lapras, but it confused me, Lapras self hit in confusion, it crit thunderbolt, and I self hit in confusion again, which KO’ed Lapras. I switched in salamence to get chip and fish for flinch with headbutt, but it ko’ed me with ice beam, arcanine came in, finished it off with double edge, the dragonite came back in, arcanine hit it with overheat, and it woke up that turn to hit with surf and finish me off.

Overall, I still see a lot of room for me to improve, and I'm thankful I didn't lose this time to a double team spammer, which is how a lot of my previous streaks were felled. Hopefully one day I'll be able to hit a streak of 100, but until then, we perservere.

 

[24kbuddha]

Hello everyone, reporting streak 324 in Battle Tower Singles level 100 (on emulator). A good result since I’ve broken my previous record with Salamence, Snorlax and Suicune team (SSS for short).

Teambuilding

The team I’ve used is a reworked version of a team I made for fun years ago. The SSS team had suffered a defeat caused by Walrein(3) deadly combo of quick claw and ohko moves around a 270ish streak, and after watching a Latias, Registeel and Salamence team obtain very good results in gen 4 battle tower, I wanted to try it on Emerald too, before moving on to something else. As I said, this was a team for fun, so I used a Latias with trick, even if not obtainable, Salamence and Registeel. Registeel was not very functional, though; it is too passive, and since there are many steel resist mons with roar and psych up, I decided to replace it. I couldn’t find another steel type that could fill its role (Metagross sadly has no set up moves), so I changed my approach: instead of doing a tricker + 2 sweepers, I tried a tricker + 1 bpasser that could resist latias weaknesses + a sweeper. That bpasser had to be a steel type because of the amazing synergy with Latias and sand immunity. I tried with Scizor but, also because of my inexperience with trick teams, he didn’t work well, getting destroyed by an Aerodactyl(3) rock slide crit and flinch combo. Beyond Scizor I had another option on the table: Mawile. At first I was skeptical, but I wanted to give it a try, since intimidate + a steel type with decent bulk, iron defense and baton pass was what I was looking for. And with this team I got over a 500 streak, almost close to 600. Sadly it was illegal, due to latias trick, so not eligible, but it was a good way to gain experience. And this lead to the team I’ve actually used. I had to replace Latias to make the team legal, and with few available trickers, I chose Alakazam. I kept Mawile since it worked very well, but I had to replace Salamence. Alakazam can’t provide the same level of support as Latias did, and Salamence lacks a reliable recovery, so I had to go with Latios.

Members

Alakazam

Trickery (Alakazam) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 HP / 40 Def / 8 SpD / 208 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 4 Atk
- Trick
- Thunder Wave
- Torment
- Skill Swap

Speed evs to get to 360 and outspeed anything but Jolteon(4), and 8 evs in sdef to survive a Tyranitar(4) crunch in case of quick claw. Inner Focus is way better than Synchronize, since it allows to trick after a fake out or to prevent flinches after quick claw activations. Skill swap is very good to remove annoying abilities, like sticky hold, pressure, guts, huge power, static and others. Thunder wave and torment offer extra support to Mawile. Alakazam is going to use trick turn 1 always except vs Muk/Swalot and Crobat. The first one can have sticky hold, while Crobat has some sets faster than Latios, which can be a bit risky, so I prefer thunder wave. Mawile can deal with it easily even without a move locked.

Mawile

Chomper (Mawile) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 21 SpA
- Baton Pass
- Iron Defense
- Substitute
- Protect

Her role is to pp stall the enemy mon after getting tricked. Scizor has better stats and typing, but Mawile has intimidate. I don’t use her in case I tricked a ground type mon locked in earthquake, or if I couldn’t thunder wave an earthquake user. But in that case, Latios has all the time to set up without risks (the lack of +6 def can matter with the next 2 mons but the probability is low). Intimidate is very valuable, removes the choice band buff, and helps Alakazam with Muk. Also, in case of a turn 1 bad incident with a quick claw user, like Rhydon, I can still try to get a win, since pure steel type gets actually helpful since it baits earthquake, so I keep switching between Latios and Mawile to stack up atk drops. At first I wanted to give Mawile some speed to outspeed mons up to base 70 speed uninvested (basically Dewgong), including many ohko moves users, to pp stall those moves after getting locked (or also if a turn 1 incident had happened), but Mawile needs full Hp and sdef to stall Houndoom(2,4) crunch so I have to rely on Latios to do it before switch her in. In case of a user locked in swagger, it’s better to just wait for a miss or a para instead of just ignore it and bpass the + atk. This is something I thought way later in the streak, but in the case of psych up users like Metagross(2) or Registeel(6), I don’t want to give them +atk since they might actually attack instead of spam psych up.

Latios

Hope (Latios) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Dragon Claw
- Calm Mind
- Recover
- Substitute

Classic evs spread, Latios odd hp to set up 4 subs. Since I don’t have aerial ace, if I lock a mon in double team, I have to hope to hit. Since dragon claw has many pps it’s very hard to miss 18 times, but if it should happen, I save up 6 pps and wait for the enemy to die by struggle. For this reason it’s fundamental to remove pressure to mons locked in double team. Dragon claw also is considered a contact move, using hidden power dragon could work but the extra power of dragon claw actually matters to secure important ohko like steel type mons with roar. Removing static or other status inflicting abilities is important too, when possible; eventually, lum berry is there. Once Latios is fully set up behind a sub, it’s very hard to defeat him. I noticed AI tends to use endure turn 1 when facing a +6 def/sdef/satk latios, in that case if they trigger a salac berry and they run reversal/not stabbed flail, consider to sub the next turn, if the sub was not at full hp. It should be able to survive most of them when at full hp.

Threats

Quick claw/bright powder users: during turn 1, the activation of one of those items can be a serious problem.

Muk: can have sticky hold and set 4 also has explosion. I switch in Mawile, intimidate, switch back to Alakazam, skill swap, switch in Mawile again, switch back to Alakazam and trick. If nothing funny happens, this works well vs all sets but 3, since this one it’s special. In that case, I still skill swap, but then I sacrifice Mawile because Alakazam can’t survive another switch in hit to use trick.

Metagross: immune to intimidate and meteor mash can give it atk buffs.

Jolteon(4): faster than Alakazam, if thunderbolt crits turn 1, it’s over since it also runs bite + thunder wave, which destroys Latios unless there’s a lot of luck, while Mawile can’t do anything.

Steelix(1): 43,7% to resist a +6 dragon claw and roar.

Heracross & high atk double-edge users: a critical hit in the first turn Mawile is in leads to serious troubles.

Houndoom(2,4): stab crunch with maximum investment into satk hits hard. Mawile’s substitutes have a good chance to resist 1 hit, making the pp stall easier. In case of turn 1 sdef drop, Mawile can still pp stall it but will not survive. Thanks to intimidate, Latios’ substitute will be able to survive one or two struggles, and set up.

Videos

The whole run has been recorded, I post here just the last 2 videos, but the whole series is on the playlist:

Defeat

Jolteon(4) thunderbolt crit turn 1.

Proof

View attachment 814491

I’m interested in trying out your latios what would you replace for aerial ace

 

[dgice]

I’m interested in trying out your latios what would you replace for aerial ace

I think you're misreading that, he's lamenting that not using Salamence also leads to not using Aerial Ace. Too many constraints to balance to fit all good aspects.

 

[derekrw]

Reporting an ongoing retail streak of 1120 in Battle Tower Doubles Level 50.

Team Building
I have completed attempts with a handful of teams, trying to optimize for 1000+ streak lengths. The strategy I consistently build around is Ground Immune + Choice Band Earthquake. I started keeping loss records in a notes app so I could compare how these teams fared against each other and spend more time experimenting and running attempts with the more successful builds. These are not all of the teams I've used, but all of the ones that led to my first 1000+ streak with my favorite Pokemon: Gengar.

Someday, I'll try Rain and Dragon Dance, but setup has been tough for me to make more consistent than 173+ speed and hitting hard from turn 1. Credit to Jheisinho for inspiring a significant portion of these teams with the specific Latios + Tauros sets.

Too Frail

I started with the "173+ speed and hitting hard principle" to a fault. This team aims to almost never let the opponent move, but it is severely weak to Quick Claw, Brightpowder, Focus Band, Regice, and Jolteon. Aerodactyl doesn't even take Explosions particularly well, which is part of its inclusion incentive (along with being the one of the only Base 110+ Speed physical attackers off the ground). I didn't record my streak lengths with this team, but they consistently got around the mid 200s with about 1 in 5 ending before 100. I was certainly a worse pilot when I made attempts with this team, so maybe it has more merit than I'm giving it credit for. I was definitely using the wrong speed on Gengar when I used Haze over Perish Song (should use 176 instead of 173 to outspeed Latios and never tie with Tauros and Aerodactyl).


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Moonstone (Aerodactyl) (F) @ Hard Stone / Soft Sand / Bright Powder / Rawst Berry
Ability: Rock Head
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 Def / 56 SpD / 184 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 7 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Double-Edge / Protect
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Aerial Ace

Fantasnow (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 44 Def / 244 SpA / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Haze / Perish Song
- Protect

Intimidatin

Intimidate is so nice, why not use it twice? ICE! This team does reasonably well, but really fears Ice moves, not just Ice-Types. Stacking intimidate can be so satisfying, but Critical Hits are going to happen often on the road to 1000. I got a few 400+ streaks with this team, took it to open level for 506, but then got stomped twice before 100. I really like this Salamence as a "Follow-Me" to all the Ice-Type moves, but you have to be really careful about getting it onto the field, and Substitute gives an opening for Quick Claw. In this team, I firmly prefer Perish Song to Haze since intimidate stacking is nice to keep my mons healthy while running out the clock.

Other variants of this team I tried kept Latios, Tauros, and Gengar the same but changed Salamence to:
1) Jheisinho's Swampert. This was fine, but still feels really weak to Psychics.
2) Snorlax @ Chesto with Earthquake, Return, Protect, and Rest. This did well, but felt too slow, weak to Black Belts and Battle Girls if something happened to Latios, and Rest + Chesto is probably not the best for Doubles.


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Sgaeyl (Salamence) (F) @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 9 SpA
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

Pseudo-Spam

This team is really fun to play. Choice Band Metagross gets a good number of OHKOs with EQ that Tauros does not, you can swing with much less fear of Explosion, and blasting Articuno + Regice with HP Steel is so satisfying... but fast Fire-types are everywhere. Switching into Salamence risks crits that can be hard to come back from, and errant Blizzards from the legendary trainers, Bird Keepers, and Psychics could be waiting when Metagross is forced out. I have a few 500+ streaks with this team, peaking at 633 and 637 for Level 50, 515 for Open Level.

It does a lot of things right:
1) No fear of Choice Band EQ friendly fire just like the "intimidatin" team.
2) Two! Switch-ins for Heracross Megahorn.
3) Two! Switch-ins for Quick-Claw EQ or Fissure against Metagross.
4) Clear Body makes Metagross more effective against Granbull, Gyarados, Salamence, Icy Wind, Screech.
5) Salamence can PP stall Blizzards with Sub + Protect.
6) Aerial Ace for Brightpowder, Double Team on Grass and Bug-Types.

But the team is structurally weak to:
1) The Psychic class, which carries Entei, Moltres, Quick Claw Flamethrower Slowking, and many Fire Punch users.
2) Kindlers, obviously force Metagross out and any Crit, Brightpowder, Focus Band, Quick Claw could put the run in jeopardy from there.
3) Collectors, who have Charizard, Typhlosion, and Blaziken on a roster of only 9 different species, while Blastoise, Feraligatr, and Swampert have Ice Beams.
4) Battle Girl / Black Belts also have many Fire types and Counter.

I also tried Salamence with HP Rock over Aerial Ace. I did not like this change since Bug Maniacs and Double Team becomes more threatening, but the idea was a better answer to Charizard and Moltres.

All-in-all, the matchups have a lot of variance, which isn't great for consistently getting 1000+ wins.



Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Hidden Power [Steel]
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Brick Break

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Sgaeyl (Salamence) (F) @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 9 SpA
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

Fake Out

Another enjoyable team to play, but I fear another high-variance team that wins already high-probability win games super hard and risks too much bad RNG during setup in general. Setting up with Latios feels unbeatable when you can ignore one of your opponents and just Fake Out the other, but these are not the kinds of games to build around. Opponent lead Swampert, Shuckle, Meganium, etc. are already extremely high-probability wins. My first 2 attempts with this team got 446 and 432 wins, but many games were close, and the following 4 streaks averaged 231 (none over 400).

Fake Out can be really nice to support Perish Song and scout items like Leftovers, Sitrus Berry (with a double-up) on Steelix which otherwise holds QC and others like Snorlax, Slowbro, and Slowking who can hold Leftovers or Quick Claw. Protect on Kangaskhan can really enable Latios setup, combined with the immunities from Gengar. Leading with 2 berries that cure Paralysis is also great. Being able to switch between Earthquake and Double-Edge on the lead also felt nice. I think the lack of speed control and intimidate hurts this team too much, unfortunately. If only we had Fake Out on Hitmontop :(

I think this team is more difficult to pilot than my other teams. Much more often, I found myself recognizing misplays in retrospect (luckily this facility can be very forgiving for a while).

On the bright side, I am looking forward to bringing this Kangaskhan to the Battle Dome; I think it will really shine offensively in a 2v2 and when its speed is effectively 168, outspeeding Starmie, Raikou, Gengar, and Espeon.


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Calm Mind / Protect / HP Fire

Hoptimus (Kangaskhan) (F) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Early Bird
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Fake Out
- Protect

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Leftovers / Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Protect / Aerial Ace

(These are the ones that got 1120)

Team Immunity

Named for the 5 collective distinct type immunities and double Toxic immunity. This team has a member that resists or is immune to every type except Dark, which is not a big deal in Level 50. We'll see how much Tyranitar Crunches hurt soon.

The main appeal of this backline is its ability to play around Explosion and other hard-hitting normal moves. Metagross is a solid answer to Psychics (the trainer class) once Entei and Moltres are dealt with. Tauros is great at eliminating Fire types for a Metagross endgame. Gengar's typing helps against Bug, Poison, Fighting, Normal, and Ground moves for the leads, and then Protect can act like an immune Follow-Me when the opponent sees KOs against it. Metagross notably resists Ice, Dragon, Rock, and Normal attacks, and can draw in Fire moves while Protecting to allow partner 2HKOs. Cycling intimidate while taking advantage of Fighting/Normal immunity + Ghost Immunity has also been useful from time to time.

Protect on both Gengar and Latios is mandatory so Tauros can safely EQ in front of QC threats to the levitating bros without getting punished by the instant switch mechanic or becoming locked into hitting Metagross.

This current run of 1,120 is my 2nd attempt with this version of the team. My 1st attempt ended at 578 wins against lead Ursaring and Levitating Gardevoir. Latios hit Ursaring with Psychic, but Brightpowder activated for the Ursaring on Tauros's Return while I tried to double-up KO it. Gardevoir critical hit Tauros with Psychic. Anticipating Ursaring attacking into the same slot, I sent in Gengar mid-turn, but Ursaring used Double-Edge into Latios instead. I swapped Metagross in for Gengar right away instead of Protecting since Latios could be in trouble as well into Ice Punch Gardevoir. Latios took out Ursaring, but Gardevoir unfortunately did have Ice Punch and got the KO onto Latios. Starmie came in for Ursaring, and I was forced to bring in Gengar. I protected with Gengar, Metagross took out Gardevoir (bringing in Lapras), and Protect blocked Thunder Wave from Starmie. Lapras tanked the Thunderbolt and Brick Break and retaliated with Horn Drill into Metagross. Starmie Thunder Waves again. Gengar takes out Lapras while Starmie finally Paralyzes Gengar. Then Starmie 2HKOs Gengar with Surf since Gengar Thunderbolt was not enough to KO. I should have mid-turn sent in Metagross after the Tauros KO instead of Gengar since Gardevoir threatens both Gengar and Latios IF Ursaring targets Latios and Gardevoir has Ice Punch. Then Latios can Protect, drawing both attacks while Metagross sets up a 2HKO on Gardevoir and Gengar can switch in during that 2nd turn when Ursaring tries to Double-Edge again or risk another Brightpowder. Swapping allows Gengar to Protect or attack while Metagross could pick up the Ursaring KO with EQ the following turn, depending on what comes in for the fainted Gardevoir.

I would listen to arguments for Haze over Perish Song or a different Metagross set, but I haven't used Haze much personally, and I think Gengar is not actually a fantastic Levitating Haze user because of Snorlax and other QC mons that OHKO Gengar at +1. Each of Metagross's current moves gets a great deal of use, and I think I'd miss any of them, but I do wish I could fit Aerial Ace as a backup DT answer when I don't preserve Gengar or at least 3 mons. Salac + Endure + Explosion could be nice, but I fear status and hax items would make it inconsistent, plus the anti-synergy with Perish Song.

Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Protect

Suprise!

Shiny Spotted

Fun fact: I didn't start RNGing shinies until after I saw a shiny Tauros in the Battle Tower and wanted one of my own (this is why many of my "standard" sets are not shiny). Since then I have seen shiny Charmeleon and this pretty heifer.

Check Out the WebApp I Made!
I created frontierace.net as a collection of the tools I wanted while playing in the Battle Frontier and made it available to share with the community. I'm on the Battle Facilities discord under username Dendel if you have questions or find bugs I didn't catch. Hopefully, the UI is intuitive though.

 

[ktaplas]

Streak report for Battle dome singles Lv50 here!

Hi! I have been Playing for a while but this is my first time making a report for one of my streaks, i specially like battle dome, idk maybe because i enjoy the process of scouting by hand even though sometimes i cannot get a clear answer on what to do, or it takes a lot of time and effort to get one. Or maybe it's the fact that i think that in general it's easier than other facilities xd.

Here is the link to the last tornaments i have played:

DISCLAIMER!!!: Lower your volume near 08:40 if you're using earphones, i did a horrible job with the audio.

I'm gonna post another video of tournaments 17 to 22 as soon as it ends rendering. I promise i'm gonna make a better job with the audio. btw that video is probably the last that is gonna be less than 20min of raw gamplay, now it's gonna be an hour of raw gameplay!!. I don't have that much time to edit the videos is just that.

I'm not gonna submit a team list for now because i'm changing the team between tournamets (i'm still not sure of the movesets), this is a team i have been triying for a while, normally i'd play with shed teams in singles but i had many problems with it so i tried changing my focus to other strategies. The description of the video and the title are in spanish, and it's gonna be like that for the rest of the videos of my streaks, as for the reports, they are gonna be on english, don't worry about that. anyway, if someone want to give gime some advice based on my performance on the streaks, i'd love to take the advice, i'm always ready to learn more.

Expect more streak report on battle dome singles and doubles, maybe i'm still not that good, but i'm determined on getting the WR on both at least in Lv50. Maybe open level has to wait, i have a tent on doing reckless KABOOMs in open level, and i have losta lot of good streaks because of that recklessness.

Yes, i know the videos does not have any comentary on my strategies or anything important in general, it's just that i don't know how i am supposed to coment on this type of things at all.

Also i know i have to change the HP rock for HP steel or something else, but i want to test the viability of Meteor Mash too, if someone can give me some advise over what to choose in this situation, i'd love to hear it, or should i say read it?

Note: Sorry if my english is bad, i'm still learning. And yes i'm such a yapper, i just noticed. I normally don't make posts like this en general, i prefer to keep myself quiet about my achievements and learn by myself, but i'm trying to change that for my own good.

Edit: The other video is already up. the next time i made an update here will probably be next week. Bye!

Edit 2: btw i forgot to say that i'm playing on emulator

 

[RosieVGC]

Reporting an ongoing retail streak of 1120 in Battle Tower Doubles Level 50.

View attachment 849792

Team Building
I have completed attempts with a handful of teams, trying to optimize for 1000+ streak lengths. The strategy I consistently build around is Ground Immune + Choice Band Earthquake. I started keeping loss records in a notes app so I could compare how these teams fared against each other and spend more time experimenting and running attempts with the more successful builds. These are not all of the teams I've used, but all of the ones that led to my first 1000+ streak with my favorite Pokemon: Gengar.

Someday, I'll try Rain and Dragon Dance, but setup has been tough for me to make more consistent than 173+ speed and hitting hard from turn 1. Credit to Jheisinho for inspiring a significant portion of these teams with the specific Latios + Tauros sets.

View attachment 849774View attachment 849777View attachment 849776View attachment 849778

Too Frail

I started with the "173+ speed and hitting hard principle" to a fault. This team aims to almost never let the opponent move, but it is severely weak to Quick Claw, Brightpowder, Focus Band, Regice, and Jolteon. Aerodactyl doesn't even take Explosions particularly well, which is part of its inclusion incentive (along with being the one of the only Base 110+ Speed physical attackers off the ground). I didn't record my streak lengths with this team, but they consistently got around the mid 200s with about 1 in 5 ending before 100. I was certainly a worse pilot when I made attempts with this team, so maybe it has more merit than I'm giving it credit for. I was definitely using the wrong speed on Gengar when I used Haze over Perish Song (should use 176 instead of 173 to outspeed Latios and never tie with Tauros and Aerodactyl).


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Moonstone (Aerodactyl) (F) @ Hard Stone / Soft Sand / Bright Powder / Rawst Berry
Ability: Rock Head
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 16 Def / 56 SpD / 184 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 7 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Double-Edge / Protect
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Rock]
- Aerial Ace

Fantasnow (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 44 Def / 244 SpA / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Haze / Perish Song
- Protect

View attachment 849774View attachment 849777View attachment 849776View attachment 849782

Intimidatin

Intimidate is so nice, why not use it twice? ICE! This team does reasonably well, but really fears Ice moves, not just Ice-Types. Stacking intimidate can be so satisfying, but Critical Hits are going to happen often on the road to 1000. I got a few 400+ streaks with this team, took it to open level for 506, but then got stomped twice before 100. I really like this Salamence as a "Follow-Me" to all the Ice-Type moves, but you have to be really careful about getting it onto the field, and Substitute gives an opening for Quick Claw. In this team, I firmly prefer Perish Song to Haze since intimidate stacking is nice to keep my mons healthy while running out the clock.

Other variants of this team I tried kept Latios, Tauros, and Gengar the same but changed Salamence to:
1) Jheisinho's Swampert. This was fine, but still feels really weak to Psychics.
2) Snorlax @ Chesto with Earthquake, Return, Protect, and Rest. This did well, but felt too slow, weak to Black Belts and Battle Girls if something happened to Latios, and Rest + Chesto is probably not the best for Doubles.


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Sgaeyl (Salamence) (F) @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 9 SpA
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

View attachment 849774View attachment 849775View attachment 849776View attachment 849782

Pseudo-Spam

This team is really fun to play. Choice Band Metagross gets a good number of OHKOs with EQ that Tauros does not, you can swing with much less fear of Explosion, and blasting Articuno + Regice with HP Steel is so satisfying... but fast Fire-types are everywhere. Switching into Salamence risks crits that can be hard to come back from, and errant Blizzards from the legendary trainers, Bird Keepers, and Psychics could be waiting when Metagross is forced out. I have a few 500+ streaks with this team, peaking at 633 and 637 for Level 50, 515 for Open Level.

It does a lot of things right:
1) No fear of Choice Band EQ friendly fire just like the "intimidatin" team.
2) Two! Switch-ins for Heracross Megahorn.
3) Two! Switch-ins for Quick-Claw EQ or Fissure against Metagross.
4) Clear Body makes Metagross more effective against Granbull, Gyarados, Salamence, Icy Wind, Screech.
5) Salamence can PP stall Blizzards with Sub + Protect.
6) Aerial Ace for Brightpowder, Double Team on Grass and Bug-Types.

But the team is structurally weak to:
1) The Psychic class, which carries Entei, Moltres, Quick Claw Flamethrower Slowking, and many Fire Punch users.
2) Kindlers, obviously force Metagross out and any Crit, Brightpowder, Focus Band, Quick Claw could put the run in jeopardy from there.
3) Collectors, who have Charizard, Typhlosion, and Blaziken on a roster of only 9 different species, while Blastoise, Feraligatr, and Swampert have Ice Beams.
4) Battle Girl / Black Belts also have many Fire types and Counter.

I also tried Salamence with HP Rock over Aerial Ace. I did not like this change since Bug Maniacs and Double Team becomes more threatening, but the idea was a better answer to Charizard and Moltres.

All-in-all, the matchups have a lot of variance, which isn't great for consistently getting 1000+ wins.



Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Hidden Power [Steel]
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Brick Break

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Sgaeyl (Salamence) (F) @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 28 SpD / 228 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 9 SpA
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Protect

View attachment 849774View attachment 849783View attachment 849776View attachment 849775

Fake Out

Another enjoyable team to play, but I fear another high-variance team that wins already high-probability win games super hard and risks too much bad RNG during setup in general. Setting up with Latios feels unbeatable when you can ignore one of your opponents and just Fake Out the other, but these are not the kinds of games to build around. Opponent lead Swampert, Shuckle, Meganium, etc. are already extremely high-probability wins. My first 2 attempts with this team got 446 and 432 wins, but many games were close, and the following 4 streaks averaged 231 (none over 400).

Fake Out can be really nice to support Perish Song and scout items like Leftovers, Sitrus Berry (with a double-up) on Steelix which otherwise holds QC and others like Snorlax, Slowbro, and Slowking who can hold Leftovers or Quick Claw. Protect on Kangaskhan can really enable Latios setup, combined with the immunities from Gengar. Leading with 2 berries that cure Paralysis is also great. Being able to switch between Earthquake and Double-Edge on the lead also felt nice. I think the lack of speed control and intimidate hurts this team too much, unfortunately. If only we had Fake Out on Hitmontop :(

I think this team is more difficult to pilot than my other teams. Much more often, I found myself recognizing misplays in retrospect (luckily this facility can be very forgiving for a while).

On the bright side, I am looking forward to bringing this Kangaskhan to the Battle Dome; I think it will really shine offensively in a 2v2 and when its speed is effectively 168, outspeeding Starmie, Raikou, Gengar, and Espeon.


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Calm Mind / Protect / HP Fire

Hoptimus (Kangaskhan) (F) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Early Bird
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 236 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Fake Out
- Protect

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Bright Powder
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Leftovers / Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Protect / Aerial Ace

View attachment 849774View attachment 849777View attachment 849776View attachment 849775
(These are the ones that got 1120)

Team Immunity

Named for the 5 collective distinct type immunities and double Toxic immunity. This team has a member that resists or is immune to every type except Dark, which is not a big deal in Level 50. We'll see how much Tyranitar Crunches hurt soon.

The main appeal of this backline is its ability to play around Explosion and other hard-hitting normal moves. Metagross is a solid answer to Psychics (the trainer class) once Entei and Moltres are dealt with. Tauros is great at eliminating Fire types for a Metagross endgame. Gengar's typing helps against Bug, Poison, Fighting, Normal, and Ground moves for the leads, and then Protect can act like an immune Follow-Me when the opponent sees KOs against it. Metagross notably resists Ice, Dragon, Rock, and Normal attacks, and can draw in Fire moves while Protecting to allow partner 2HKOs. Cycling intimidate while taking advantage of Fighting/Normal immunity + Ghost Immunity has also been useful from time to time.

Protect on both Gengar and Latios is mandatory so Tauros can safely EQ in front of QC threats to the levitating bros without getting punished by the instant switch mechanic or becoming locked into hitting Metagross.

This current run of 1,120 is my 2nd attempt with this version of the team. My 1st attempt ended at 578 wins against lead Ursaring and Levitating Gardevoir. Latios hit Ursaring with Psychic, but Brightpowder activated for the Ursaring on Tauros's Return while I tried to double-up KO it. Gardevoir critical hit Tauros with Psychic. Anticipating Ursaring attacking into the same slot, I sent in Gengar mid-turn, but Ursaring used Double-Edge into Latios instead. I swapped Metagross in for Gengar right away instead of Protecting since Latios could be in trouble as well into Ice Punch Gardevoir. Latios took out Ursaring, but Gardevoir unfortunately did have Ice Punch and got the KO onto Latios. Starmie came in for Ursaring, and I was forced to bring in Gengar. I protected with Gengar, Metagross took out Gardevoir (bringing in Lapras), and Protect blocked Thunder Wave from Starmie. Lapras tanked the Thunderbolt and Brick Break and retaliated with Horn Drill into Metagross. Starmie Thunder Waves again. Gengar takes out Lapras while Starmie finally Paralyzes Gengar. Then Starmie 2HKOs Gengar with Surf since Gengar Thunderbolt was not enough to KO. I should have mid-turn sent in Metagross after the Tauros KO instead of Gengar since Gardevoir threatens both Gengar and Latios IF Ursaring targets Latios and Gardevoir has Ice Punch. Then Latios can Protect, drawing both attacks while Metagross sets up a 2HKO on Gardevoir and Gengar can switch in during that 2nd turn when Ursaring tries to Double-Edge again or risk another Brightpowder. Swapping allows Gengar to Protect or attack while Metagross could pick up the Ursaring KO with EQ the following turn, depending on what comes in for the fainted Gardevoir.

I would listen to arguments for Haze over Perish Song or a different Metagross set, but I haven't used Haze much personally, and I think Gengar is not actually a fantastic Levitating Haze user because of Snorlax and other QC mons that OHKO Gengar at +1. Each of Metagross's current moves gets a great deal of use, and I think I'd miss any of them, but I do wish I could fit Aerial Ace as a backup DT answer when I don't preserve Gengar or at least 3 mons. Salac + Endure + Explosion could be nice, but I fear status and hax items would make it inconsistent, plus the anti-synergy with Perish Song.

View attachment 849793View attachment 849794View attachment 849795View attachment 849796


Blur (Latios) (M) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 12 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 228 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
- Protect


Dozer (Tauros) (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD
- Return
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Fantasmo (Gengar) (M) @ Cheri Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 44 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song
- Protect

Tank (Metagross) @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 23 SpA / 30 SpD
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Protect

Suprise!

Shiny Spotted

View attachment 849798
Fun fact: I didn't start RNGing shinies until after I saw a shiny Tauros in the Battle Tower and wanted one of my own (this is why many of my "standard" sets are not shiny). Since then I have seen shiny Charmeleon and this pretty heifer.

Check Out the WebApp I Made!
I created frontierace.net as a collection of the tools I wanted while playing in the Battle Frontier and made it available to share with the community. I'm on the Battle Facilities discord under username Dendel if you have questions or find bugs I didn't catch. Hopefully, the UI is intuitive though.

Congrats on the run! I believe that's a new lvl 50 high score? Regarding the salac anti synergy with perish song, could the answer perhaps be moving 'GenGross' to the front? Explosion as the tool to quickly create a 3v2, with both Tauros and Latios EVing to outspeed Gengar by one in order to take care of possible survivors (or in case T1 invites an immediate endure-salac activation, going explosion-perish on the second turn to immediately set up the win condition)?

 

[Ghalta]

Hi everyone,
I'm happy to share my Pokémon Emerald Battle Frontier journey with you.
I finally managed to earn all the Gold Symbols, something I had dreamed of since I was a kid.
I play single battles at Level 50 on an emulator, without RNG manipulations and without damage calculators during battles.
The only glitch I used was the cloning one in the Battle Tower to build my teams easier.
I also did not use trades to evolve any Pokémon, that’s why I'm using some of the classic Pokémon seen in the Emerald Battle Frontier, but I hope my comments on the set choices will be useful to you.
I find the Steel/Dragon/Water trio particularly strong and I like offensive teams that’s why all my teams are built around Latios, Metagross, and either Swampert, Milotic, or Starmie as the third Pokémon.

Enjoy!!

Team​

Metagross
@ ChoiceBand (Pike, Palace) / BrightPowder (Arena) / LumBerry (Dome, Tower)
EVs: 255 Atk / 255 Spe (121)
IVs: 26/29/29/23/1/30
Adamant
- Earthquake
- MeteorMash
- ShadowBall (Pyramid, Dome, Pike) / AerialAce (Arena, Tower) / X (Palace)
- Explosion (Dome, Pike, Arena, Tower) / BrickBreak (Pyramid) / X (Palace)

Latios
@ LumBerry / CheriBerry (Dome, Tower)
EVs: 255 SpA / 255 Spe (170)
IVs: 1/2/2/30/30+/17
Timid
- CalmMind / Surf (Pyramid, Arena)
- Psychic
- DragonClaw / IceBeam (Tower)
- Thunderbolt

Swampert (Pyramid, Dome & Pike)
@ Leftlovers (Dome, pike)
EVs: 255 HP / 155 Atk / 100 Spe (81)
IVs: 28/27/18+/30+/24/25
Brave
- Earthquake
- Surf
- IceBeam
- Protect

Milotic (Palace & Tower)
@ Leftovers (Palace, Tower)
EVs: 255 HP / 243 Def / 12 Spe (102)
IVs: 19/30+/14/31/24/29
Bold
- Surf
- IceBeam
- Toxic
- Recover

Starmie (Arena)
@ CheriBerry (Arena)
EVs: 255 SpA / 255 Spe (180)
IVs: 26/22/21/20/28+/25
Timid
- Surf
- Psychic
- IceBeam
- Thunderbolt

Factory lvl 50 ​

Difficulty
Extreme ~ 20 runs – 42 win streak ongoing

Strategy
Try to have in your team:
- 1 Physical Attacker
- 1 Special Attacker
- 1 AntiWall / AntiEvasion
Keep the Battle Tower Streak Tower at 0 (your opponents will have Pokémon with 3 IVs)
The further you progress, the less you should replace Pokémon from your original team (your starting Pokémon will have increasingly higher IVs)

Best Pokémon I used by set
Set 1: Graveler (+ Grass, Fire) / Delcatty
Set 2: Hitmonlee (+ Dark, Sharpedo) / Pinsir
Set 3: Stantler / Combusken / Gorebyss / Furret / Minun / Absol
Set 4: Espeon (+ Fighting, Heracross) / Flygon / Swampert / Metagross
Set 5: Espeon (+ Fighting, Heracross) / Marowak / Slowbro / Aerodactyl / Snorlax
Set 6: Starmie (+ Ground, Flygon) / Metagross / Snorlax

Winning run
Set 5: Snorlax / Jynx / Slowbro
Set 6: Dugtrio => Salamence / Snorlax / Charizard

Pyramid lvl 50​

Difficulty
Very Easy – 1st run - 140 win streak ongoing

Team

Metagross: MM/Earthquake/ShBa/BrBr
Latios: Surf/Psychic/DrCl/Thunderbolt
Swampert: Earthquake/Surf/IB/Protect

Set explanation
- Metagross:
No Aerial Ace because not a lot of evasion
No Explosion because long run
Full attack for 1v1 ASAP
- Latios:
No Calm Mind to OHKO ASAP without taking damage
Full attack for 1v1 ASAP
Surf DC Thunderbolt > Surf Ice Beam Thunderbolt
- Swampert:
Protect to defend against Explosion R8 and Slaking
> Milotic not offensive enough for OHKO
> I personally consider Starmie too fragile for a long run even if Natural Cure + Recover is interesting, it could have been a good choice too

Strategy (lead by round)
1: Paralysis | Latios
2: Poison | Latios
3: Burn | Latios
4: PP Drain | Metagross => Swampert for Fire
5: Levitate | Metagross => Latios for Flygon
6: Trap/Shadow | Latios
7: Ice | Metagross
8: Explosion | Swampert
9: Psychic | Metagross
10: Rock | Swampert => Metagross for Grass
11: Fighting | Latios
12: Weather | Metagross => Latios for Gyarados & Swampert for Fire
13: Bug | Metagross
14: Dark | Metagross => Swampert for Houndoom
15: Water | Latios
16: Ghost | Metagross
17: Steel | Swampert => Latios for Skarmory
18: Dragon | Latios
19: Eevolutions | Latios => Swampert for Electric
20: Normal | Metagross => Swampert on the last floors for Slaking

Winning run
Choice Band on Metagross at full HP
Shell Bell on injured Pokémon
Protect against Explosion in the 8th round, Forretress and Slaking in the 20th round
Skitty's Tail against Wobbuffet

Threats
Wobbuffet 6th round because no tool in this team and sets against Counter/MirrorCoat users

Dome lvl 50​

Difficulty
Very easy – 1st run - 19 win streak

Team

Metagross: MM/EQ/BrBr/Explos(LumBerry)
Latios: CM/Psychic/DrCl/Thunderbolt(CheriBerry)
Swampert: EQ/Surf/IB/Protect (Leftovers)

Set explanation
- Metagross:
Explosion because HP is recovered between each round
No need for Aerial Ace because evasion users are handled directly if present
No Choice Band to be able to use Explosion on the second Pokémon
LumBerry to avoid confusion and paralysis issues
- Latios:
Calm Mind to deal with Mirror Coat / Counter
DragonClaw > Ice Beam because if it is a Ground-type, Swampert is used anyway, so Ice Beam is not needed
Cheri Berry because paralysis is its major problem
- Swampert:
> Preferred over Milotic and Starmie because its only weakness (Grass) is easy to identify

Strategy (who to choose)
In the order :
If wall => Lead Metagross
If Mirror Coat / Counter => Latios
If Grass-type => not Swampert
If Earthquake user or Fire-type => avoid Metagross
Prefer leading with Metagross to use Explosion

Pike lvl 50​

Difficulty
Easy – 1st run - 177 win streak

Team

Metagross: MM/EQ/ShBa/Explos (ChoiceBand)
Latios: CM/Psychic/ DrCl/Thunderbolt (LumBerry)
Swampert: Earthquake/Surf/IceBeam/Protect (Leftovers)

Set explanation
- Metagross:
Choice Band MeteorMash/Earthquake/ShadowBall allows OHKOs against wild Pokémon
Explosion is viable for battles followed by recovery
- Latios:
CalmMind is viable for battles followed by recovery
I generally prefer stab DragonClaw > IceBeam
- Swampert:
> Preferred over Milotic and Starmie because Earthquake can be used in double battles alongside Latios

Strategy (path)
- Take the Whisper path (nothing or double battle)
if Latios + Earthquake is disponible
- Take the Pokémon Scent path (wild Pokémon or tough trainer battle with recovery afterward)
if Metagross is viable
- Take the Nostalgia path (status condition or 1/2 recovery)
if Pokémon are injured
- Try to avoid the Presence path (single battle or full healing)

If none of the options fit, go left or right
MVP: Metagross

Arena lvl 50​

Difficulty
Medium – 1st run with Starmie (3 before with Swampert) - 66 win streak

Team

Latios: Surf/Psychic/ DrCl/Thunderbolt (LumBerry)
Metagross: MM/EQ/AerialA/Explos(BrightPowd)
Starmie: Surf/Psychic/IB/Thunderbolt (CheriBerry)

Set explanation
- Metagross:
Explosion because HP is recovered between each round
Need AerialAce to deal with evasion
No ChoiceBand to use Explosion, since the order is fixed and Metagross is never the last Pokémon
BrightPowder because any missed attack is highly valuable in the Arena
- Latios:
Full attack for 1v1 ASAP.
Surf/DC/Thunderbolt > Surf/IceBeam/Thunderbolt
- Starmie:
> Milotic is not offensive enough
> Preferred over Swampert because the Grass weakness is too dangerous without switching, and Swampert provides less coverage

Strategy
Use Explosion in difficult matchups

Palace lvl 50​

Difficulty
Easy – 1st run - 56 win streak

Team

Latios: CM/Psychic/DrCl/Thunderbolt (LumBerry)
Metagross: MM/Earthquake/X/X (ChoiceBand)
Milotic: Surf/IB/Toxic/Recover (Leftovers)

Set explanation
- Metagross Adamant:
No Explosion to avoid self-KO
Only MM and Earthquake because they are the strongest attacks
Choice Band to always know which move will be used
- Latios Timid:
Calm Mind to provide more variety
DragonClaw > IceBeam because a STAB move is better with random move selection
- Milotic Bold:
> Swampert and Starmie because Toxic at > 50% HP followed by Recover at < 50% HP is very strong

Strategy
Switch to Milotic against walls
MVP: Milotic

Threats
Registeel with DoubleTeam and Leftovers

Tower lvl 50​

Difficulty
Very hard – 1st run with this exact set /13 run in total with others - 90 win streak

Team

Metagross: MM/EQ/AerialAce/Explos (LumBerry)
Latios: CM/Psychic/IB/Thunderbolt (CheriBerry)
Milotic: Surf/IB/Toxic/Recover (Leftovers)

Set explanation
- Metagross:
Explosion because of recovery between rounds
Need Aerial Ace to deal with evasion
No Choice Band so it can immediately explode on Umbreon and Snorlax (Curse + Rest)
Lum Berry to avoid confusion and paralysis
- Latios:
Calm Mind because setup is useful in 3v3 battles.
Ice Beam > Dragon Claw because, with lead Metaloss, Latios is used to switch in against ground type
Cheri Berry because paralysis is the major problem
- Milotic:
>Swampert and Starmie for dealing with walls

Strategy
Switch to Latios against Earthquake, Fighting-type attacks, or Wobbuffet
Switch to Milotic against Fire-types or DoubleTeam users
Use Explosion on Snorlax and Umbreon (DoubleTeam + Rest + Curse).

Threats
DoubleTeam + Rest users :
Entei with DoubleTeam, Calm Mind, Rest, and Flamethrower - 9
Gardevoir with DoubleTeam, Calm Mind, Rest, and Psychic - 5
Registeel with DoubleTeam and Rest - 7
Snorlax and Umbreon with DoubleTeam, Rest, and Curse

 

[derekrw]

Congrats on the run! I believe that's a new lvl 50 high score? Regarding the salac anti synergy with perish song, could the answer perhaps be moving 'GenGross' to the front? Explosion as the tool to quickly create a 3v2, with both Tauros and Latios EVing to outspeed Gengar by one in order to take care of possible survivors (or in case T1 invites an immediate endure-salac activation, going explosion-perish on the second turn to immediately set up the win condition)?

Thank you!

That’s a pretty clever solution. I’ll add it to my backlog of teams to try :) I am worried about Burns and Quick Claw getting around Endure or the speed boost, and Gengar is forced out by a lot of Quick Claw sets as well. These seem like things that could be played around, not to disqualify the idea. I also need to get more familiar with which species can be carrying BrightPowder or Focus Band. Battle Dome has conditioned me to be very afraid of using Explosion proactively lol

 

[ktaplas]

Hi!
Here not to report any streak but to put in here a team i built for the battle dome (my favourite facility), it is just a shedinja PP stall based team, i already did a stream playing it, but i think i still haven't extracted its full potential and that can be seen on the stream where i made many mistakes, specially misclicks,
The strategy is simple, just pivot between shedinja and suicune untill it has no effective moves against one of them or both, from there you can attack with shed or just set up suicune for a sweep, there will be situations where you would want to bring steelix instead of shed or suicune, specially against the posibility of a dangerous set up set, that's why it is running roar for, but still it's pretty uncommon to face a situation like that and normally shed and suicune should be enough. there are some menacing sets to this strategy, the one that has me terrified is espeon 4, because i already lost to it 2 times due to crits, but i think it could be managable without having to rely on luck.
Anyway, here is the team:

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 140 HP / 116 Def / 4 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Substitute
- Protect

Shedinja @ Lum Berry
Ability: Wonder Guard
Level: 50
Friendship: 252
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Atk / 30 Def / 30 SpD
- Shadow Ball
- Protect
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Bug]

Steelix (F) @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 50
Friendship: 252
EVs: 252 HP / 6 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Taunt
- Protect
- Rest
- Roar

Important to note that the suicune set is not mine but from adedede 370 tournaments streak team.
With this team i expect to atleast get to 100 tournaments that is my objective, and then go for the WR, that as far as i'm aware should be from adedede with 370 tournaments.
Bye!!
Edit: I forgot to say that this is for singles Lv50 xd

 

[DarthHubble]

Hey there! I'm looking for some advice on the second Greta fight in the Arena. Reached her twice but have gotten unlucky both times (confusion, Double Edge crits etc). Just kind of wondering what the optimal play is especially against her Umbreon based on what it first chooses. My IVs are not perfect except a for a few stats (max Atk Metagross for example) My current team is:

Latios @ Lum Berry
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
Modest
Calm Mind
Dragon Claw
Thunderbolt
Psychic

Metagross @ Sitrus Berry
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant
Agility
Explosion
Meteor Mash
Earthquake

Milotic @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpAtk
Modest
Mirror Coat
Surf
Ice Beam
Recover

On my second attempt I tried putting a Persim on Metagross and a Chesto on Milo, but the core issue is their sets struggle against the Gengar in general. If I could keep Latios alive for the Gengar then it'd be no issue (I think) but the Umbreon always has my number. I've thought about switching the order to Milo-Meta-Latios that way I can sack Milo, Explode on the Umbreon, and then Latios cleans up the rest, but that order could make the 6 battles leading up to her more difficult. I also have a DDance Salamence so I could do Salamence-Meta-Latios. Open to ideas! I also have a lot of Pomeg berries if I need to give Metagross less HP and more Speed and run Choice Band with Shadow Ball.

 

[catacrumbs]

Hey there! I'm looking for some advice on the second Greta fight in the Arena. Reached her twice but have gotten unlucky both times (confusion, Double Edge crits etc). Just kind of wondering what the optimal play is especially against her Umbreon based on what it first chooses. My IVs are not perfect except a for a few stats (max Atk Metagross for example) My current team is:

Latios @ Lum Berry
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
Modest
Calm Mind
Dragon Claw
Thunderbolt
Psychic

Metagross @ Sitrus Berry
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Adamant
Agility
Explosion
Meteor Mash
Earthquake

Milotic @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpAtk
Modest
Mirror Coat
Surf
Ice Beam
Recover

On my second attempt I tried putting a Persim on Metagross and a Chesto on Milo, but the core issue is their sets struggle against the Gengar in general. If I could keep Latios alive for the Gengar then it'd be no issue (I think) but the Umbreon always has my number. I've thought about switching the order to Milo-Meta-Latios that way I can sack Milo, Explode on the Umbreon, and then Latios cleans up the rest, but that order could make the 6 battles leading up to her more difficult. I also have a DDance Salamence so I could do Salamence-Meta-Latios. Open to ideas! I also have a lot of Pomeg berries if I need to give Metagross less HP and more Speed and run Choice Band with Shadow Ball.

Is there a reason why you're committed to having Metagross in the 2nd slot? I don't see why a lineup of Meta-Latios-Milo wouldn't work just fine for the Gold Greta round. It's not all that functionally different to have Explosion in the 1st slot than it is to have it in the 2nd slot. Latios is better as a lead, but you should still be fine leading Metagross for a single set of 7, where the last battle is a guaranteed win. I'd also suggest running Ice Beam over Dragon Claw on Latios; Ice Beam has a wider range of types it's super effective against than D-Claw, which will net you more points in the Skill category in case it goes to judging. Also, if you choose to lead Meta for the Gold Greta round, Ice Beam can help you clean up any ground types that Meta fails against. I would probably run Shadow Ball over Agility on Meta if I was in your shoes, unless there are problem mons you feel like you need Agility against.

I absolutely love Milotic just for the fact that it can handle almost every facility with the same basic moveset (Surf-Ice Beam-Toxic-Recover), although I'd say the Arena is undoubtedly its worst facility. It can certainly put in a lot of work there though! I think Dive is an interesting move for it, especially since both Dive turns earn points individually towards the Mind category, and it causes your opponent to lose two points in the Skill category if they choose to attack while you're underwater. But if your current set is working for you, you should stick with it. Has Mirror Coat proved useful? I've tried using Mirror Coat Milotic in the Dome, but I found its uses to be a bit too niche.

 

[encampment6210]

Hello everyone, I'm back with two new Battle Palace streaks to share. First, I hit 224 wins in the Level 50 Singles format, which I believe is the current record. For battles 1–42, I ran a Metagross–Latios–Swampert team (with a similar playstyle to the core described below), then switched to a Salamence–Snorlax–Suicune lineup that carried me through the rest. The entire streak was recorded on emulator using 4x speed (occasionally up to 10x for PP stalling), and I showed the team screens at the end of the video for verification.

The second streak reached 146 wins in the Open Level (Level 100) format using a revamped version of a team that had previously achieved 105 wins. This run was also recorded on emulator at 5x speed, and I displayed the team at the start and end of the video for verification.

Below is a breakdown of each streak with details.

Level 50 - 224 Streak:

Level 50 - Metagross - Latios - Swampert (Battles 1-42)

Metagross @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 220 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Aerial Ace

Latios @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 40 HP / 68 Def / 176 SpA / 224 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Atk / 29 Def / 27 SpD / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 236 SpDef / 20 Spe
Brave Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Curse
- Rest

Set Details

Latios has increased its bulk – this is to reduce the chance of a Crit OHKO/2HKO from opposing Skarmory 4 Drill Peck and improve general bulk on switches, and to last unwanted Calm Mind turns. This new Swampert is Brave – it attacks more often at full health and still has better behaviors overall vs Relaxed which I was using before. I prefer this team in the early rounds because it is better for getting to 42–63-win streaks very quickly.

Level 50 - Salamence - Snorlax - Suicune (Battles 43-224)

Salamence @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Brick Break

Snorlax @ Leftovers
Ability: Immunity
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 220 Def / 252 SpD
Brave Nature
- Body Slam
- Amnesia
- Curse
- Rest

Suicune @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 204 Def / 52 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Rest
- Calm Mind
- Roar

Set Details

The team is inspired by Actaeon’s StruggleLax team, although Suicune and Snorlax both have had their spreads changed for a bit more offensive pressure. At <50%, Calm only having a 25% chance of attacking is too low for my preference. For this reason, I think Modest Suicune is better than Calm Suicune.

Stats at Level 50:
Salamence: 170/187/100/x/111/136
Snorlax: 240/143/113/x/162/45
Suicune: 207/x/161/121/135/112
Salamence - standard Palace CB Mence. Not much else to say, since there’s no other moves worth substituting.

Snorlax - I’ve used two attack Snorlax before and found it underwhelming. I think mono-attacking is much better because of its ability to PP stall and completely nullify many special attackers after one Amnesia boost. The benefit of having Amnesia is that the Palace AI will choose it in the DEF category over Rest at full health. With a two attack Curse-mon, this is not the case – it will probably pick Rest and leave yourself very vulnerable. The SpDef and Def boosts can make it impermeable in many battles. Brave nature is the best for balanced Curse-mons because it will prioritize attacking at full health and Resting below half health. EV spread is a bit arbitrary – I wanted a nice divisible number for the health (240), then maxed SpDef and put the rest in Defense. SpDef over Def because Salamence Intimidate generally already softens the opponent up a bit, and this team is weaker to special threats. It must be Immunity as the nature to counter Toxic stallers; Fire/Ice resistance is already covered by Suicune.

Suicune – RoarCune with speed investment to outspeed the 111 Speed tier. Modest is the best nature for Calm Mind users. Not because it’s optimal (I don’t think it is), but it’s the ‘least bad’. It’s hard to find a nature for Calm Mind because setup and Rest are the same category. The alternative natures are Bold (too much support) and Calm (Not enough offense). At least Modest is unlikely to choose a support-class move at low health (you don’t want Suicune to choose Roar at low health because it will make it move last – making it more susceptible to the opponent). Roar was chosen as the SPT class move simply because all the other choices weren’t very good. I suppose Toxic is viable, but Roar is still okay because it allows phasing/scouting of the rest of the team. Suicune is RNG'ed on retail, with evidence here.

Spenser Battles with Salamence-Snorlax-Suicune

Any discussion of a long streak in Battle Palace must discuss the strategy against Spenser. He is the most common opponent in a streak, as well as one of the more difficult ones. This is why any excessively long streak that doesn’t have a bulky Water type can be suspect imo. A team should already have an idea of how to optimize the Spenser battle so that it can be repeatable and not subject to too much hax. For example, with this team:

Suicune switches into Arcanine – tries to faint it. Almost no chance Arcanine can KO Suicune. If Suicune is Roar’ed out, just switch it back in. If Suicune Roars to Slaking – stay in and see what happens (switch to Salamence on the Truant turn). If Suicune Roars to Spenser’s Suicune – switch to Snorlax.

Snorlax is always the counter to Spenser’s Suicune. It takes several CM boosts for its Surf to do much to Snorlax, plus Snorlax will likely attack/paralyze it with Body Slam. When the opponent Suicune falls below half, your own Suicune counters it, because the opponent will almost always use attacks and no longer set up.

Salamence is good for cleanup on Suicune, getting Intimidate on Slaking, and Brick Breaking it. It’s a bit of a glue Pokemon in this battle. It should not switch into Slaking unless on a Truant turn though.

General Playstyle, Special Cases, and Threatlist for Salamence-Snorlax-Suicune

General Playstyle:

Salamence usually doesn’t stay and attack unless it can OHKO. It’s usually used as a cleaner and just leads to get Intimidate off.

Attack with Salamence – Aggron, Blaziken, Breloom, Dodrio, Exeggutor, Exploud, Fearow, Hariyama, Heracross, Jynx, Ludicolo, Machamp, Magmar, Medicham, Meganium, Muk, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Rhydon, Sceptile, Shiftry, Umbreon, Victreebel, Venusaur, Xatu

Switch to Suicune – Aerodactyl, Arcanine, Armaldo, Charizard, Claydol, Donphan, Entei, Flareon, Flygon, Forretress, Glalie, Golduck, Metagross, Misdreavus, Ninetales, Regirock, Registeel, Scizor, Shuckle, Skarmory, Steelix, Typhlosion, Vaporeon

Switch to Snorlax – Alakazam, Altaria, Ampharos, Clefable, Crobat, Electabuzz, Electrode, Espeon, Gardevoir, Hypno, Jolteon, Kangaskhan, Kingdra, Lanturn, Latias, Latios, Manectric, Milotic, Miltank, Mr. Mime, Porygon2, Raichu, Raikou, Regice, Slowbro, Slowking, Snorlax (mirror), Starmie, Suicune, Zapdos

More complex cases –

Articuno – Switch to Suicune to stall, then to Snorlax to attack.

Blastoise – Switch to either Suicune or Snorlax. Snorlax if it is Blastoise 4 with Mirror Coat.

Blissey – Switch to Snorlax but use Suicune if it’s Blissey 4 to waste Ice Beam PP and set up.

Cradily – Switch to Suicune to scout. Cradily 3–4 can be handled with Salamence Brick Break.

Dewgong – Switch to Suicune to scout. If not Dewgong 3 or 4, then switch to Snorlax.

Dusclops – Switch to Snorlax for sets 3–4 (offensive), otherwise Suicune is fine.

Gengar – Switch to Snorlax to PP stall, then finish with Salamence.

Granbull – Switch to Snorlax to counteract Intimidate/scout set. With chip, Salamence can come in and KO with Brick Break.

Golem – Attack with Salamence. Generally found on Hiker teams; avoid using Suicune due to risk of Explosion.

Gyarados – Switch to Suicune to reset Intimidate, then back to Salamence. Use Snorlax if it’s Gyarados 2.

Houndoom – Switch to Suicune. If it sets up Sunny Day (set 4), then switch to Salamence to OHKO.

Lapras – Switch to Suicune to scout. If it’s Lapras 4, go to Snorlax.

Quagsire – Switch to Suicune to scout for Water Absorb. Stay in if yes; if Damp, then go to Snorlax. You can rotate back to Salamence on Earthquakes for extra Intimidates.

Salamence – Switch to Suicune to reset Intimidate, then back to Salamence. Rock Slide will 2HKO.

Slaking – Generally switch to Suicune to scout. Intimidate on Truant turns. Snorlax sets up on Slaking 4.

Ursaring – Suicune is good vs Mega Kick set due to low PP. If not Counter, Salamence can return and attack with Brick Break. Often staying in is fine since many sets are OHKO’d by Brick Break.

Wailord – Switch to Suicune to scout, then to Snorlax unless it's the Fissure set.

Walrein – See below, Snorlax handles sets 1–3.

Threatlist:

OHKO users – Dewgong 3, Lapras 7 8, Walrein 4. Lesser extent Whiscash 4 and Wailord 4. The general play is to switch to Suicune to try to Pressure stall the PP from their OHKO moves, but this is a bit risky. Afterwards switch to Snorlax. Whiscash and Wailord are a bit different just because Salamence can be a switch on Fissure in a pinch, but it’s not totally recommended because there’s a random chance that the opponent may select Ice Beam instead.

Espeon – the switch is Snorlax but Espeon’s Psychic can cause a SpDef drop or CM on the switch turn, which would make it do quite a bit of damage.

Gardevoir – the switch is Snorlax, but set 2 is annoying because of CM, Double Team and sets 5-7 can be dangerous because of Destiny Bond.

Marowak – There’s not really a true optimal move here. Suicune isn’t a reliable attacker although it has a good chance to OHKO sets 2-4. On the other hand, Salamence can reliably attack and survive a -1 Rock Slide but it’s not certain to attack next turn to finish it off.

Misdreavus – only set 3. The switch in is Suicune but if it can correctly do Perish Song + Mean Look there could be an issue, since Suicune likes to endlessly CM.

Strong Electric Types – Zapdos, Raikou, Manectric – Snorlax is the switch but one crit, or one para can really threaten the whole team, since Salamence and Suicune are both not good against them. This is a big reason why I chose to max SpDef and add Amnesia over another attacking move.

Counter Users – mainly Ursaring 2, Snorlax 5 6, Registeel 3. Sometimes it’s not possible to scout them and you must attack with Salamence anyways, especially with Ursaring, because it will do huge damage to the rest of the team.

Loss at Battle 225

I switched in Salamence on Breloom 2 – thinking that after Intimidate it would still be above 50%. Well also I didn’t check what Breloom set it was with FrontierAssistant. Since the last being Skarmory was already revealed, I probably should’ve sacked Snorlax, but I didn’t think to do that at the time. Anyways, I think the Focus Punch leaves Salamence at exactly half HP (high roll I think) which makes it unable to pick Aerial Ace the next turn, then Breloom can KO after Spore + FP again. Then the match is essentially over because Breloom beats both Suicune and Snorlax.

Recording:

The video is uncut, recorded using OBS desktop capture and uploaded the day it was recorded.

Open Level (Level 100) - 146 Streak:

Metagross - Latios - Swampert (Level 100)

Metagross @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 36 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 216 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Meteor Mash
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace



Latios @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 48 HP / 60 Def / 180 SpA / 220 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Atk / 29 Def / 27 SpD / 30 Spe
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Substitute

Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 252 HP / 224 SpD / 32 Spe
Brave Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Curse
- Rest

Set Details

Metagross Stats: 310/369/297/x/237/207
Latios Stats: 312/x/188/341/252/341
Swampert Stats: 404/281/216/x/272/147

The EVs are basically the same as for Level 50, with slight modification just to optimize Latios’s HP to be divisible by 4 (so two Substitutes will trigger the behavior change). All 3 still outspeed their speed tier as for Level 50. Latios now has gone back to Substitute instead of Calm Mind. I was using Calm Mind for a while, but it really leaves Latios very susceptible to Heracross. In the case of Heracross vs Latios 1 v 1, Latios choosing Calm Mind while Heracross picking Megahorn basically loses the streak entirely since Metagross and Swampert are not good Heracross counters either. With Substitute, it allows Latios to have another chance to choose Psychic, which has an 88% chance to OHKO sets 1, 3, 4 and does a great deal of damage to set 2 (which wouldn’t have been a guaranteed OHKO with max SpA; also set 2 doesn’t choose Megahorn as often as the other sets because it is Jolly). It also just gives some more insulation for the team as Latios may be able to stay in on some turns and get more chip damage on unfavorable matchups if it had Substitute up from a previous matchup. On the other hand, losing Calm Mind makes the Spenser battle much more difficult (more on that below). Latios is also a bit less useful against other bulky waters; with Calm Mind it could previously shrug off Ice Beams.

I do prefer this team for open level better versus the Salamence-Snorlax-Suicune team I used for level 50. The addition of 8 sets each of Dragonite and Tyranitar – both of which are weaker to Metagross and Latios is a big reason why I think this team is probably better suited for open level.

Spenser Battles with Metagross - Latios - Swampert

For Spenser I developed a pattern to optimize the battle. Always switch to Swampert on Arcanine and let Swampert KO Arcanine. If it gets some Curses up that’s great, if not, it doesn’t matter. Then stay in with Swampert on Slaking to see how it behaves. Hopefully it can get some chip damage, but if Slaking KO’s it with Hyper Beam that’s ok. Metagross should come in next and try to do some damage with Meteor Mash on the Truant turn. The problem here now is that on the next turn, Slaking outspeeds and its most likely move is Earthquake, which would put Metagross below half. Even if Metagross knocks it out, that leaves Metagross in on Suicune locked into Meteor Mash, which does almost nothing. So, this is not the optimal play. Instead – switch to Latios on the Slaking Earthquake turn. There’s about a 1% chance Slaking will choose Shadow Ball – but Latios isn’t KO’d by it (also 1% chance of Hyper Beam), and this probability is very low.

This is where Substitute is also helpful again – Latios can generally get a free turn on Slaking’s Truant turn where it can either Sub or finish it off with Psychic as below:

252 Atk Choice Band Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 6 HP / 0 Def Slaking: 252-297 (57% min)

180 SpA Latios Psychic vs. 6 HP / 0 SpD Slaking: 199-235 (45% min)

The key is that Latios must already be in vs Spenser’s Suicune. Unless it’s a Cursed up Swampert, most scenarios where Metagross is up against Suicune and must switch to Latios generally do not go well, especially since now Latios no longer has Calm Mind. Previously with Calm Mind it could just boost up alongside it, push it below half, and Metagross still had a good chance to finish it off because Suicune would lock itself into an attacking move. With Sub Latios – hopefully it can actually Thunderbolt and not use Substitute repeatedly as Suicune Calm Minds, but I think this is about as optimized as the battle can get.

General Playstyle, Threatlist

General Playstyle:

For most Pokemon, Metagross should stay in and just attack. There’s only a few that switching out would be worthwhile.

Fire/Electric types – switch to Swampert – most can’t really do anything, except for maybe Houndoom/Entei/Rapidash with SunnyBeam. For those you can tell if they have Solarbeam if they set up Sun or charge up, so its easy to switch to Latios then.

Fighting types – switch to Latios – Latios Psychic OHKOs most fighting types, and their moves really don’t do much back.

Opposing Metagross – Switch to Swampert – Earthquake will do much less on Swampert, and generally trainers with Metagross usually have other bulky Pokemon you need to keep your Metagross for.

Blastoise 3 – Switch to Latios. It has a good chance to either use Counter or Earthquake on Metagross, so don’t waste its HP.

Swampert, Whiscash, Quagsire – Switch to Latios. Don’t want Metagross to take an unnecessary Earthquake

Scizor – Switch to Swampert. Two Earthquakes kill all Scizor. Don’t want Metagross to get Counter’ed. Also Scizor often is on Bug Maniac/Catcher teams, which Metagross often has a better matchup for.

Forretress – Switch to Latios on Earthquake and scout. One set (Giga Drain) is countered by Latios. It’s about 50/50 on whether to stay in and attack with Latios vs switching out to Swampert and attacking with Earthquake. Also depends on the trainer (Hiker/Ruin Maniac vs Bug Maniac/Catcher) – Latios is less useful vs the former, Swampert is less useful against the latter.

Gengar – Switch to Latios and KO with Psychic. There’s enough defense to survive a Shadow Ball now as well.

Skarmory – switch to Latios. The defensive investment was made for this matchup, to survive 2 Drill Pecks from Skarmory 4.

Salamence/Gyarados/Dragonite/Flygon – switch to Latios on potential Dragon Dances. It should be able to live a +1 move. Thunderbolt doesn’t OHKO all Gyarados, but Ice Beam will kill all the dragons.

Aerodactyl/Aggron – switch to Swampert. Don’t want Aerodactyl to get a Fire Blast/Earthquake off on Metagross and do big damage when it would barely scratch Swampert. For Aggron – don’t want either a QC activation and big damage on Metagross when Swampert tanks and OHKO with Earthquake.

Steelix – switch to Latios to scout the set. Can stay in one extra turn to see what it uses to attack Latios as well. If it’s set 2 with Dragonbreath, Latios counters quite well. Otherwise, Swampert is a good switch.

Threatlist:

Heracross – Megahorn does huge damage to the whole team. If it’s lead Heracross, Metagross usually will pick the right move and Aerial Ace it. If its Heracross in a later slot, Swampert can be a good sack to a Megahorn to keep Latios/Metagross (if locked into a bad move) alive. Set 2 with Endure/Reversal – just pray it doesn’t execute that combination perfectly, because there really is nothing else you can do.

Houndoom – set 4 with Sunny Beam counters the whole team. Luckily its nature isn’t optimized to attack (it will likely just use Sunny Day repeatedly), but hypothetically it could defeat all three Pokemon quite easily.

Marowak – For lead Marowak the best move is to switch to Latios and Ice Beam, which OHKO all sets except for set 1, which can’t KO Latios back. Still, it is pretty scary seeing it Swords Dance on a switch into Latios. This is another reason why Substitute may be better than Calm Mind here.

Quick Claw users – Whiscash, Walrein, Rhydon. Any QC user that has a super effective move against Metagross or Latios is very threatening, since this team has no recovery for those two. A 2 vs 3 can be a bit difficult, especially because Swampert doesn’t really have much of a physical punch.

Counter users – Regirock, Snorlax, Ursaring. All three of these Pokemon have 8 sets and I still think the best move is to stay in with Metagross and attack, but it really is such a pain when they OHKO back with Counter and make it a 2 vs 3. Generally, the trainer always has some other bulky Pokemon in the back too so I’d really like to preserve Metagross but I really don’t think there’s another way.

Loss at Battle 147

I'm really disappointed in myself for losing against Spenser. I was in a bit of a rush because it was a national holiday and I had an event to go to around 11AM when I was recording this. Swampert was Yawned and finished off the Slaking and I thought it would be ok to let it stay in and try to wake up, but it did not wake up in time as Suicune set up and 3-0’ed the team. The proper risk averse play was to switch to Latios on the Truant turn after Yawn immediately, but I had never really gotten this configuration before in the Spenser battle. Also, had Swampert woken and attacked, it certainly would’ve put Suicune below 50% since it had 2 Curses already, which would’ve assured the win for me given the behavior change.

Recording:

As before, done with OBS Desktop Capture, recorded and uploaded on July 4.

Final Thoughts:
First, I'm happy to be back from the long absence. In the time I've been gone I've repeatedly tried to optimize for the Battle Palace and I think I've done that with these two longest recorded streaks for both singles formats. I may go back and try to surpass the Open Level record, but for the Level 50 record I really think I got very, very fortunate and I don't think I will be able to come close to that without an exceptional amount of additional attempts.

When I was testing these teams, I developed a few small python programs for teambuilding and optimizing battles. There's more details in the Addendum below. Please let me know if you used them or if you have any questions.

Thank you all for reading!

Addendum - Palace Programs

There are 3 programs I wrote to improve teambuilding and battling for the Battle Palace. I have attached all the programs and input files below as txt which can be converted to csv for use.

MovesPalace.py (inputs: pokemon_moves.csv, Move_Class.csv)

I scraped all the moves in Gen III, then took all most viable Pokemon for Emerald Frontier and created a program called MovesPalace to list out all Pokemon’s learnable moves by category. This can be helpful for Palace teambuilding (no longer having to switch between tabs on Bulbapedia between a Pokemon's learnset and the Battle Palace page).

PalaceGenerate.py (inputs: Nature_Table.csv, Move_Class.csv)

This program allows you to input your own Pokemon team and it saves its moves with behaviors into a csv called mypokemon.csv based on its nature. This can later be used as an input to the next program, PalaceAssistant, to calculate probabilities of any categorical event happening during a Battle Palace battle.

PalaceAssistant.py (inputs: Bfpalace.csv, trainers.csv, mypokemon.csv)

I've modified this program from FrontierAssistant, first to correctly calculate team probabilities, then to also incorporate the new CSV generated with PalaceGenerate.py to see the probabilities of yourself vs the opponent AI at a given turn. Now you can see the most likely outcome at any turn and plan accordingly. You can also see all possible outcomes with different health levels by scrolling up too, inputting the health status only shifts the most relevant one to the bottom (most visible). Screenshots below:

View attachment 753390
View attachment 753393

I made this exact team and annihilated the run to maven spencer first try. I made 2 changes though. I IV bred the Metagross with 3 IV's (HP,ATK,Speed) and the Swampert with 2 IV's (HP and Sp. Def). On the Maven Spencer battle I switched to Swampert immediately and only used Swampert for the whole battle. Considered switching from him like the guide said but the Swampert fuckin wrecked. Gold star bitch. Onto the next battle frontier challenge.