It's known that if you set the win streak to 9998, winning that battle advances to 9999, but winning again just says "Next is Battle No. 9999" and you can't make any further progress. If you set the win streak beyond that, say to 10000, it shows up in record lists as "?000" and winning a battle just moves you back to 9999 again.
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Battle Maison Discussion & Records
- Thread starter NoCheese
- Start date
Hello! Reporting an ongoing triples streak of 1000, using rain once again.
After the end of my subway doubles streak, I have been building up a save file in gen VI, and was looking for a quick way to get BPs with my limited resources. Triples seemed like a good place to start and had a “low stakes” feel I appreciated, but I might have gotten carried away since.
To be upfront, yes triples is easier and more forgiving. I wasn’t there in 201x when most of these posts were made, but it does feel like you can, let’s say, get away with a lot… There’s still value in it, of course; this was the opportunity to throw out my doubles team and rebuild it from scratch into hopefully something better. Therefore, most of this post will be about team construction; I like to believe that the building process and the opportunity to discuss rain more generally is interesting - if not to read, then at least to write about :)
Drizzle, Timid Nature
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Stats: 166 HP / 72 Atk / 96 Def / 142 SpA / 121 SpD / 133 Spe
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Protect
- Perish Song
Politoed is similar to the subway variant, with a few changes.
Lightningrod -> Intimidate, Timid Nature
EVs: 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 244 Spe
Stats: 145 HP / 72 Atk / 80 Def / 157 SpA / 82 SpD / 171 Spe -> 145 HP / 85 Atk / 100 Def / 187 SpA / 102 SpD / 204 Spe
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
- Protect
- Flamethrower
This Manectric set is largely straightforward. Thunder is strong and cannot miss, which is incredibly valuable for Walrein, Pinsir, Gothitelle, and even Tangrowth (deals 47% minimum). Volt Switch is another must both in general and in the context of a rain team that might need to switch Politoed in and out efficiency, and Protect is also good.
Flamethrower is usually terrible, but it becomes very useful for Sun and Hail. Specifically for Sun, instead of stubbornly fighting three grass types because they all might have Sunny Day (this often means keeping Politoed in for Ice Beam, by the way), I can calmly switch Politoed out for Scizor and invite the Sun to come up, where Flamethrower gets OHKOs on all relevant targets. Overall, though, I’m reminded of Turkstain’s Rotom-W for triples with 3 electric moves and HP Water; Manectric is basically the same… it has Electric moves and outsources Water coverage to Politoed/Greninja. Anything more is extra, in my opinion. However, unlike Rotom-W, Manectric is frail, and a good bait. It lures all the Earthquakes around, and water moves as well. It’s sad I don’t have a ground immunity on this team, but drawing ground moves over something else is still good.
Of course, I won’t go into it, but Lightningrod and giving your entire water-based team an electric/Twave immunity is amazing. The 12 SpDef EVs are to resist Scarf Heatran’s Earth Power (non-crit) after Mega, which can come into play in very niche but scary situations; read the threats section for more info.
Protean, Timid Nature
EVs: 4 Hp / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Stats: 148 HP / 101 Atk / 87 Def / 155 SpA / 91 SpD / 191 Spe
- Surf
- Dark Pulse
- Mat Block
- Grass Knot
I really wish Greninja could fit Ice Beam, not having it makes grass types on the right hard to take down, but it's more annoying than it is a genuine weakness. I'm surprised how long it can stick around, sometimes a lot longer than I want. With Intimidate, type shifting, a frail center, and a Focus Sash, I really wish sometimes it would faint and let me get something else in. I guess that’s not the worst problem in the world, though.
Swift Swim, Modest Nature
EVs: 44 Hp / 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 196 Spe
Stats: 156 HP / 90 Atk / 115 Def / 161 SpA / 117 SpD / 130 Spe
- Scald
- Dragon Pulse
- Protect
- Ice Beam
Kingdra is the same exact set as in the subway, with Scald over Surf. Manectric, Greninja, and Scizor that can't take water moves, so I can't afford my backups to deal spread damage. Besides, it's mostly overkill; Kingdra's job is to snipe away threats, without too much care for longevity. Dragon Pulse being cross-field ends up being a lot more valuable than I initially thought, and is enough for me to not consider backline Ludicolo for the time being.
The speed is for Scarf Manectric, though maybe there’s a case for Kingdra to go to 133 or 134 for rare cases where rain isn’t up? I’m thinking of Lati@s at 130 too.
Storm Drain, Quiet Nature (0 speed IV)
EVs: 164 Hp / 92 Def / 252 SpA
Stats: 207 HP / 88 Atk / 100 Def / 158 SpA / 102 SpD / 39 Spe
- Scald
- Earth Power
- Harden
- Ice Beam
Harden is laziness that might have turned into some forbidden tech. I wanted to eventually give it a fourth move, but I hadn't made my final decision (Surf? Clear Smog? Icy Wind? Rebreed and Hidden Power?) before I had a flight to take. Because this was on a fresh save, I figured I'd go through regular triples first and choose the last move after gaining some experience. Well, all those battles later… I still haven't bothered to change.
Clear Smog is probably the best for Calm Mind Lati@s and Zapdos, if I’m unable to pull Perish Song off for some reason. But! Through 1000 battles I have baited a number of Taunts, crucially from Bisharp-4, which is otherwise very, very strong and scares me. So do I even bother changing? If I put Clear Smog, I know it wouldn’t be used often anyway since I’ve come this far without it.
Outside of that, Gastrodon is amazing. It’s the main middle slot, it does well in sand, and baits Grass moves well. Assault Vest has done me a lot of good, but I must admit that the EVs are a little random. 100 defense just felt in the ballpark of “right”, and prevents SpA download boosts. Its main job is still tanking special hits. One last note: even with the minimum speed, Gastrodon is faster than Trevenant-4, which is nice.
Technician, Adamant Nature
EVs: 212 Hp / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Stats: 172 HP / 200 Atk / 120 Def / 67 SpA / 100 SpD / 91 Spe
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Protect
- Swords Dance
Scizor is this team’s only physical attacker. How big of a burden is this? Not that big, actually, but it requires a little more care than usual; depending on the matchup, it can often be the most precious member. It very rarely comes in the middle; usually you bring it on the side in front of something harmless, and let the other two slots make sure Scizor can setup safely.
I’ve seen faster Scizors, and I’m aware I could bump mine up, but 106 is probably too much. We’ll see.
I have a bunch of replays, it will give me something to talk about on the next post.
I’m confident this team is more consistent than then subway one, but I’m not sure how it performs in absolute. I’ll find out if I keep playing : )
After the end of my subway doubles streak, I have been building up a save file in gen VI, and was looking for a quick way to get BPs with my limited resources. Triples seemed like a good place to start and had a “low stakes” feel I appreciated, but I might have gotten carried away since.
To be upfront, yes triples is easier and more forgiving. I wasn’t there in 201x when most of these posts were made, but it does feel like you can, let’s say, get away with a lot… There’s still value in it, of course; this was the opportunity to throw out my doubles team and rebuild it from scratch into hopefully something better. Therefore, most of this post will be about team construction; I like to believe that the building process and the opportunity to discuss rain more generally is interesting - if not to read, then at least to write about :)
From first principles, there’s a case to be made that rain would benefit tremendously from going from doubles to triples, beyond the general uplift that every team gets in the format. I talked about it in the subway post, but rain teams have this fundamental tension when it comes to the role of Politoed. You would like to tuck it away to safety when possible, both to protect the weather setter and because there might be opportunity costs of staying with Politoed instead of a potentially stronger teammate. But at the same time, rain is usually very aggressive and tempo-driven, which encourages Politoed to stay in and keep momentum; it can be hard to “find time” to switch out when KOs require its damage assistance. In the subway, I tried to solve this with Eject Button; while the catalyst was the Abomasnow matchup, it was essentially a way to switch out while keeping the pressure on. When going from 4 to 6 members, however, a lead Politoed is now only one of three on the field, meaning its share of total damage contribution is smaller. It’s much, much easier to switch out without losing momentum when you have two other teammates staying and picking up the slack instead of one. Add to that Greninja’s Mat Block making switches more safe, and it now looks quite a bit easier to control the weather. Politoed having the freedom to switch out was also an opportunity to lean into Perish Song lines more, which is not only super consistent, but also sounds effective in triples.
Yes, rain lasts 5 turns only now, yes Surf deals less damage, yes there are more enemy weather setters, no there’s no dynamic speed or Pelipper yet, and no there aren’t obvious mega fits (Mega Scizor is the most straightforward I guess? But you lose status immunity), but I still think the rain “engine” is powerful enough where you can afford to only focus on threats and sources of disruption. So let’s list them out; here is every potential threat to the subway doubles team. They’re not all equally dangerous, but let’s be comprehensive:
I keep making references to the doubles team, but I’m not describing a “port” of the doubles team into triples where you add two middle slots and call it a day. There will be similar slots, of course, but let’s start from scratch.
Yes, rain lasts 5 turns only now, yes Surf deals less damage, yes there are more enemy weather setters, no there’s no dynamic speed or Pelipper yet, and no there aren’t obvious mega fits (Mega Scizor is the most straightforward I guess? But you lose status immunity), but I still think the rain “engine” is powerful enough where you can afford to only focus on threats and sources of disruption. So let’s list them out; here is every potential threat to the subway doubles team. They’re not all equally dangerous, but let’s be comprehensive:
- Hail through Snow Warning (now with Aurorus)
- Hail set up manually
- Blizzard, freeze
- Sand & Sun (now with Ninetales)
- Trick Room (now with Trevenant, notably)
- Tailwind
- Paralysis & Static
- Toxicroak (Fake Out, Dry Skin, Gunk Shot)
- Lax incense / Bright Powder (Walrein)
- Quick Claw (Muk, Ursaring, Escavalier, Donphan)
- Scarf Manectric (because of Static mostly)
- Grass types (especially those with bulk that randomly use Protect) (not really a threat, just annoying)
- Swift Swim Seismitoad (poison move crit on Ludicolo)
I keep making references to the doubles team, but I’m not describing a “port” of the doubles team into triples where you add two middle slots and call it a day. There will be similar slots, of course, but let’s start from scratch.
Step 1: I want Politoed leading on one side, and Greninja on the other. This is not particularly daring: Politoed should be on the side so it’s less exposed, and side Greninja is obvious too. What will shape my future decisions, however, is that I want both to have Surf; I don't intend to have a spread attacker in the middle, I want two spread attackers on the sides. There are three reasons for that:
Step 2: Not putting a Swift Swim set in the front means that you need one in the back; it's too strong not to include. Now, the question is, Kingdra or Ludicolo, maybe both? Let's start with choosing one.
Ludicolo has better staying power with Giga Drain (especially if you put a Life Orb on Kingdra), Kingdra has more enemies with the new fairy type, Dragon Pulse is now just 85bp, and backline Fake Out is very nice (I have very fond memories of Toxicroak), but Ludicolo also has problems. I know it won't be able to fit Protect, which is probably important. On top of that, it's slow, requiring 244 Speed EVs just for scarf Terrakion (not even thinking about Manectric). I wasn’t sure if I wanted my fast cleanup sweeper to sacrifice this much bulk just for Terrakion while also attracting all the cross-field flying moves, it felt inconsistent.
All this to say, I'm using Kingdra. It has a similar role to my subway Kingdra as a backline, somewhat frail sniper. It can easily go in the center as well to tank Surfs; I need a couple of those water resists / immunities if I want to be able to use Surf on the side freely enough, and Kingdra is a start.
Step 3: Scizor is just very, very good… I bent over backwards in doubles just to try to function without it, and I'm not doing it again. For grass types, ice types, and annoying psychics/ghosts (Calm Mind spam, Trick Room), Scizor is obviously the right thing for the job. Besides, if I want to not rely on rain too much, having a Toxicroak would be a big mistake. I already know I want a Bullet Punch / Bug Bite / Swords Dance / Protect set with Lum Berry, respectfully borrowed from Eisen's tower & subway teams.
2 slots left! I need
I could just add Ludicolo and call it a day, but this is instead the opportunity to hedge against some risks that are currently unaddressed. Big risks that remain include hail, Trick Room, and Electric moves/paralysis. There's also a new one: Swift Swim Floatzel. I've implied at the idea that the center lead won't necessarily be able to take ally Surfs well, meaning it will not take Floatzel's Life Orb Waterfall all that well either.
Luckily, we can patch the Trick Room, electric, and Floatzel risks while also fitting nicely with the existing gameplan with Gastrodon. What I learned to appreciate while playing is that Gastrodon doesn't rely on rain at all despite being put in the rain synergy bucket. It feeds on ally Surfs more than on the weather, and even that is just a bonus. Overall, it’s a good center backup with nice bulk, and a water immunity.
Step 5: Looking at the risks, I still want something more for electric types & Thunder Wave spam. Gastrodon is good at protecting one thing by switching in its place, but from my previous experience, Thunder Wave / Tbolt / Thunder targeting is very unpredictable, so Gastrodon can’t protect the entire team. I'm kind of forcing the argument here, but there are only 2 megas that can help: Mega Sceptile and Mega Manectric, both because of Lightning Rod. Let's look at their characteristics.
Mega-Sceptile:
But! How do you run a team with two Surf leads with a center that can't take Surf? Isn't this impractical? No, and the reason explains why Manectric is more than Raichu, which otherwise would be very nice: on T1, Manectric is protected by Mat Block, then if you mega evolved on T1, on T2 it will be faster than Greninja, and Volt Switch (for honest damage) before either Surfs are fired. And if you switch Gastrodon in (as you would often do), it gets 2 Storm Drain boosts right away. So yeah, Manectric can't take Surf, but it ends up working out. I know I'm repeating myself, but this really is the best outcome, as picking something that could actually take Surf would for sure increase the frontline's reliance on rain.
So, you can think of this team as two Surf users on the side, a pivot in the middle, Gastrodon as the main backup center, a pocket Kingdra like in doubles that could go in the center too, and a pocket Scizor.
Wait a minute, this is looking a bit familiar… let's take out the two centers…
I said before that this wasn't a port of a doubles team, and I never meant it to be, but isn't this basically a standard rain structure? It's so, so similar to Politoed/Ludicolo/Toxicroak/Kingdra when you consider that Greninja is basically Ludicolo (fast attacker with Surf and grass STAB). I am overplaying how fixed the roles and positions are for the sake of simplicity, but it's interesting how I have reverted to a tried-and-true doubles core.
- Relying on two side Surf users is less risky than relying on a single, big Surf spammer in the center, where it's more vulnerable and there's only one of them
- Hitting your own Greninja, which is often not even resisting water, is stupid if it's holding a Focus Sash (and it should)
- Related to that, having one big Surf spammer in the center would require 2 allies that can handle water type moves instead of 1. Finding 2 sets that can take Surfs would most likely mean a very rain-reliant lead, which I’m trying to avoid for consistency reasons.
- Kingdra
- Ludicolo
- Toxicroak
- Gastrodon
- Ludicolo: Fake Out sounds nice, but if you're going to use Mat Block anyway, it must be less useful (my mind has changed since). Also, the timing for activating Absorb Bulb is weird; T1 Mat Block blocks the activation from Politoed's Surf, and on T2 Ludicolo would be the fastest thing, so it would spend the first 2 turns unboosted… Overall, it feels like it can’t live up to its potential there.
- Kingdra: same Absorb Bulb missed opportunity as Ludicolo, plus having your center lead be a Dragon Pulse sniper sounds wrong
- Toxicroak: same Fake Out problem as Ludicolo, and your Focus Sash is taken by Greninja. This won't work unless I get comfortable with another item.
- Gastrodon: it looks strong, but in the lead it doesn’t accomplish much. The Storm Drain gimmick won't even work well anyway because T1 Mat Block blocks Storm Drain triggers.
Step 2: Not putting a Swift Swim set in the front means that you need one in the back; it's too strong not to include. Now, the question is, Kingdra or Ludicolo, maybe both? Let's start with choosing one.
Ludicolo has better staying power with Giga Drain (especially if you put a Life Orb on Kingdra), Kingdra has more enemies with the new fairy type, Dragon Pulse is now just 85bp, and backline Fake Out is very nice (I have very fond memories of Toxicroak), but Ludicolo also has problems. I know it won't be able to fit Protect, which is probably important. On top of that, it's slow, requiring 244 Speed EVs just for scarf Terrakion (not even thinking about Manectric). I wasn’t sure if I wanted my fast cleanup sweeper to sacrifice this much bulk just for Terrakion while also attracting all the cross-field flying moves, it felt inconsistent.
All this to say, I'm using Kingdra. It has a similar role to my subway Kingdra as a backline, somewhat frail sniper. It can easily go in the center as well to tank Surfs; I need a couple of those water resists / immunities if I want to be able to use Surf on the side freely enough, and Kingdra is a start.
Step 3: Scizor is just very, very good… I bent over backwards in doubles just to try to function without it, and I'm not doing it again. For grass types, ice types, and annoying psychics/ghosts (Calm Mind spam, Trick Room), Scizor is obviously the right thing for the job. Besides, if I want to not rely on rain too much, having a Toxicroak would be a big mistake. I already know I want a Bullet Punch / Bug Bite / Swords Dance / Protect set with Lum Berry, respectfully borrowed from Eisen's tower & subway teams.
2 slots left! I need
- A mega (not technically a constraint, but it would be nice I guess)
- At least 1 set that can tank ally Surfs (Kingdra shouldn't be the only one)
I could just add Ludicolo and call it a day, but this is instead the opportunity to hedge against some risks that are currently unaddressed. Big risks that remain include hail, Trick Room, and Electric moves/paralysis. There's also a new one: Swift Swim Floatzel. I've implied at the idea that the center lead won't necessarily be able to take ally Surfs well, meaning it will not take Floatzel's Life Orb Waterfall all that well either.
Luckily, we can patch the Trick Room, electric, and Floatzel risks while also fitting nicely with the existing gameplan with Gastrodon. What I learned to appreciate while playing is that Gastrodon doesn't rely on rain at all despite being put in the rain synergy bucket. It feeds on ally Surfs more than on the weather, and even that is just a bonus. Overall, it’s a good center backup with nice bulk, and a water immunity.
Step 5: Looking at the risks, I still want something more for electric types & Thunder Wave spam. Gastrodon is good at protecting one thing by switching in its place, but from my previous experience, Thunder Wave / Tbolt / Thunder targeting is very unpredictable, so Gastrodon can’t protect the entire team. I'm kind of forcing the argument here, but there are only 2 megas that can help: Mega Sceptile and Mega Manectric, both because of Lightning Rod. Let's look at their characteristics.
Mega-Sceptile:
- Disgustingly bad in hail
- No switch moves
- Giga Drain is weak for a main attacking move, Dragon Pulse got nerfed
- No good coverage
- Overlaps with Kingdra and Ludicolo in typing
- x4 resistance to water to take ally Surf
- Thunder is strong and can't miss(!)
- Volt Switch is incredible
- Flamethrower is a nice way to hedge for Sun and Abomasnow
- Intimidate is a nice bonus
But! How do you run a team with two Surf leads with a center that can't take Surf? Isn't this impractical? No, and the reason explains why Manectric is more than Raichu, which otherwise would be very nice: on T1, Manectric is protected by Mat Block, then if you mega evolved on T1, on T2 it will be faster than Greninja, and Volt Switch (for honest damage) before either Surfs are fired. And if you switch Gastrodon in (as you would often do), it gets 2 Storm Drain boosts right away. So yeah, Manectric can't take Surf, but it ends up working out. I know I'm repeating myself, but this really is the best outcome, as picking something that could actually take Surf would for sure increase the frontline's reliance on rain.
So, you can think of this team as two Surf users on the side, a pivot in the middle, Gastrodon as the main backup center, a pocket Kingdra like in doubles that could go in the center too, and a pocket Scizor.
Wait a minute, this is looking a bit familiar… let's take out the two centers…
I said before that this wasn't a port of a doubles team, and I never meant it to be, but isn't this basically a standard rain structure? It's so, so similar to Politoed/Ludicolo/Toxicroak/Kingdra when you consider that Greninja is basically Ludicolo (fast attacker with Surf and grass STAB). I am overplaying how fixed the roles and positions are for the sake of simplicity, but it's interesting how I have reverted to a tried-and-true doubles core.
Drizzle, Timid Nature
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Stats: 166 HP / 72 Atk / 96 Def / 142 SpA / 121 SpD / 133 Spe
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Protect
- Perish Song
Politoed is similar to the subway variant, with a few changes.
- There’s no need for underspeeding Tyranitar, so we can go back to the much more convenient 133 speed, which catches a lot of 132 set4, but specifically Braviary-4 with Tailwind (it never wants to click it anyway, but you never know), and the Lax Incense Latios/Latias at 130.
- No more Eject Button nonsense! I put Sitrus Berry without much thought, as I didn’t initially any particular need for more damage or anything else. So far, it’s served me well, but I’ll have to consider Rindo Berry too.
- Helping Hand wasn’t accomplishing much, and there’s a desperate need for ice coverage in the lead, so Ice Beam ends up being more useful.
Lightningrod -> Intimidate, Timid Nature
EVs: 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 244 Spe
Stats: 145 HP / 72 Atk / 80 Def / 157 SpA / 82 SpD / 171 Spe -> 145 HP / 85 Atk / 100 Def / 187 SpA / 102 SpD / 204 Spe
- Thunder
- Volt Switch
- Protect
- Flamethrower
This Manectric set is largely straightforward. Thunder is strong and cannot miss, which is incredibly valuable for Walrein, Pinsir, Gothitelle, and even Tangrowth (deals 47% minimum). Volt Switch is another must both in general and in the context of a rain team that might need to switch Politoed in and out efficiency, and Protect is also good.
Flamethrower is usually terrible, but it becomes very useful for Sun and Hail. Specifically for Sun, instead of stubbornly fighting three grass types because they all might have Sunny Day (this often means keeping Politoed in for Ice Beam, by the way), I can calmly switch Politoed out for Scizor and invite the Sun to come up, where Flamethrower gets OHKOs on all relevant targets. Overall, though, I’m reminded of Turkstain’s Rotom-W for triples with 3 electric moves and HP Water; Manectric is basically the same… it has Electric moves and outsources Water coverage to Politoed/Greninja. Anything more is extra, in my opinion. However, unlike Rotom-W, Manectric is frail, and a good bait. It lures all the Earthquakes around, and water moves as well. It’s sad I don’t have a ground immunity on this team, but drawing ground moves over something else is still good.
Of course, I won’t go into it, but Lightningrod and giving your entire water-based team an electric/Twave immunity is amazing. The 12 SpDef EVs are to resist Scarf Heatran’s Earth Power (non-crit) after Mega, which can come into play in very niche but scary situations; read the threats section for more info.
Protean, Timid Nature
EVs: 4 Hp / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Stats: 148 HP / 101 Atk / 87 Def / 155 SpA / 91 SpD / 191 Spe
- Surf
- Dark Pulse
- Mat Block
- Grass Knot
I really wish Greninja could fit Ice Beam, not having it makes grass types on the right hard to take down, but it's more annoying than it is a genuine weakness. I'm surprised how long it can stick around, sometimes a lot longer than I want. With Intimidate, type shifting, a frail center, and a Focus Sash, I really wish sometimes it would faint and let me get something else in. I guess that’s not the worst problem in the world, though.
Swift Swim, Modest Nature
EVs: 44 Hp / 252 SpA / 12 SpD / 196 Spe
Stats: 156 HP / 90 Atk / 115 Def / 161 SpA / 117 SpD / 130 Spe
- Scald
- Dragon Pulse
- Protect
- Ice Beam
Kingdra is the same exact set as in the subway, with Scald over Surf. Manectric, Greninja, and Scizor that can't take water moves, so I can't afford my backups to deal spread damage. Besides, it's mostly overkill; Kingdra's job is to snipe away threats, without too much care for longevity. Dragon Pulse being cross-field ends up being a lot more valuable than I initially thought, and is enough for me to not consider backline Ludicolo for the time being.
The speed is for Scarf Manectric, though maybe there’s a case for Kingdra to go to 133 or 134 for rare cases where rain isn’t up? I’m thinking of Lati@s at 130 too.
Storm Drain, Quiet Nature (0 speed IV)
EVs: 164 Hp / 92 Def / 252 SpA
Stats: 207 HP / 88 Atk / 100 Def / 158 SpA / 102 SpD / 39 Spe
- Scald
- Earth Power
- Harden
- Ice Beam
Harden is laziness that might have turned into some forbidden tech. I wanted to eventually give it a fourth move, but I hadn't made my final decision (Surf? Clear Smog? Icy Wind? Rebreed and Hidden Power?) before I had a flight to take. Because this was on a fresh save, I figured I'd go through regular triples first and choose the last move after gaining some experience. Well, all those battles later… I still haven't bothered to change.
Clear Smog is probably the best for Calm Mind Lati@s and Zapdos, if I’m unable to pull Perish Song off for some reason. But! Through 1000 battles I have baited a number of Taunts, crucially from Bisharp-4, which is otherwise very, very strong and scares me. So do I even bother changing? If I put Clear Smog, I know it wouldn’t be used often anyway since I’ve come this far without it.
Outside of that, Gastrodon is amazing. It’s the main middle slot, it does well in sand, and baits Grass moves well. Assault Vest has done me a lot of good, but I must admit that the EVs are a little random. 100 defense just felt in the ballpark of “right”, and prevents SpA download boosts. Its main job is still tanking special hits. One last note: even with the minimum speed, Gastrodon is faster than Trevenant-4, which is nice.
Technician, Adamant Nature
EVs: 212 Hp / 252 Atk / 44 Spe
Stats: 172 HP / 200 Atk / 120 Def / 67 SpA / 100 SpD / 91 Spe
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Protect
- Swords Dance
Scizor is this team’s only physical attacker. How big of a burden is this? Not that big, actually, but it requires a little more care than usual; depending on the matchup, it can often be the most precious member. It very rarely comes in the middle; usually you bring it on the side in front of something harmless, and let the other two slots make sure Scizor can setup safely.
I’ve seen faster Scizors, and I’m aware I could bump mine up, but 106 is probably too much. We’ll see.
I want to emphasize how much more consistent this team is than the doubles version. Let's go back to the list of threats I showed earlier, and how this team can deal with them.
The main Quick Claw threats are Leafeon, Muk, Ursaring, and Donphan. They all go from easy to handle (Leafeon is very predictable), to ok (Ursaring is frail, Muk usually ends up exploding), to annoying (Donphan, because of EQ+Seed Bomb, especially if it’s under the sand). These are helped by Intimidate, and the fact that Ursaring and Donphan like Earthquake, but overall, I miss Fake Out.
Grass types are mostly annoying when they’re alone, since if there’s a critical mass (2 or 3) Scizor can come in and feast. But alone, they can restrict your options by preventing Politoed/Gastrodon from coming in. The most annoying grass type is Virizion, since it’s fast, it has very good special bulk, and its fighting moves hit Scizor. Serperior also has to be respected (Choice Specs Leaf Storm / Lax Incense ambiguity), and I’ve had some trouble with slower, bulkier, Protect spamming grass types as well (Venusaur, Roserade, etc.), though I suspect it’s more on me playing incorrectly than a genuine threat.
Finally, I have to mention Tailwind, specifically Articuno and Moltres. I've never had to fight the enemy under Tailwind, but I'm assuming that if I let it go off against a Veteran, there's a high chance I'll lose. There are clear KO patterns: Moltres is OHKOed by either Thunder or Greninja's Surf (Politoed is too slow), and Articuno has is a 13/16 range for Thunder, so Thunder + Greninja should be good. However, there are slight openings that could be devestating:
**This wouldn't have been a problem if Thunder hadn't been nerfed :(
Of course, the odds are in my favor. For 12 veterans, the only way I lose is by rolling Moltres-1 + in the left slot + Terrakion-1 or Landorus-1 + Terrakion/Landorus crits + Moltres clicks Tailwind. 34 and 1234 Veterans have a few more outs.
To see what are the odds of clicking Tailwind, I only have 3 recorded encounters of Moltres-1 and Articuno-4 combined (maybe I saw them when I just started?, but haven't recorded the video. I know the battle 50 Chatelaine has Moltres-1). Moltres-1 is rare because of White Herb, which Latios-2, Latias-2, and Heatran-2 all carry + Landorus-4 on 1234 veterans. Here are their behaviors on turn 1 after rebattling them a bunch of times:
Moltres-1
Used Tailwind 24% of the time, sample size of 50
Lead: Terrakion-2, Landorus-1, Moltres-1
This was harmless because Moltres wasn't on the left
Moltres-1
Used Tailwind 6% of the time, sample size of 100
Lead: Suicune, Latios-1, Moltres-1 (Moltres has the highest damage move!)
This was harmless because Moltres wasn't on the left, and there were no scarf sets
Articuno-4
Used Tailwind 16% of the time, sample size of 50
Lead: Moltres-4, Heatran-3, Articuno-4
This isn't super scientific, but it gives an idea that even if the matchup is very bad and the enemy gets their crit, you would only be punished a fraction of the time. Articuno is the most annoying because it used Protect 75% of the time, which is bad if Greninja didn't use Mat Block.
Having to fear Quick Claw and Tailwind really show how much Fake Out was holding rain together in doubles. Maybe Raichu would be good after all? It would be a hard decision, 135 base speed and Intimidate are so, so convenient. Or... Ludicolo is always there. Now that I think about it, with Ludicolo, it would be possible to fit U-turn on Greninja to bring Politoed back in and change the weather, and Fake Out would would help offset the fact there's no Mat Block anymore... Anyway, I'll have to think about this some more.
- Snow Warning: Volt Switch + Mat Block to bring rain on T1, Scizor, Flamethrower for Abomasnow
- Manual Hail: same as Snow Warning. Also, it's easy to kill the hail setters on sight, especially with Dark Pulse and Thunder (Articuno)
- Blizzard / Freeze: Mat Block, 3/6 members have freeze immunity
- Sand & Sun: Sun boosts Flamethrower, Volt Switch + switch to bring back rain T1, 2 sand immunities
- Trick Room: Gastrodon, Scizor, Greninja's Dark Pulse, 4/6 members have Protect
- Tailwind: KO pattern for every setter (thanks to Thunder, notably), but there are tail risks (fitting huh)
- Paralysis & static: Lightning Rod + Gastrodon, Lum Berry, no Fake Out triggering Static
- Toxicroak: Toxicroak-4 doesn't even have Fake Out, Thunder takes care of it, and no poison-weak Ludicolo to bully
- Lax incense / Bright Powder: Thunder, Perish Song
- Quick Claw: Nothing on paper
- Scarf Manectric: Lightning Rod
- Grass types: Flamethrower (if sun), Scizor. Remains a problem
The main Quick Claw threats are Leafeon, Muk, Ursaring, and Donphan. They all go from easy to handle (Leafeon is very predictable), to ok (Ursaring is frail, Muk usually ends up exploding), to annoying (Donphan, because of EQ+Seed Bomb, especially if it’s under the sand). These are helped by Intimidate, and the fact that Ursaring and Donphan like Earthquake, but overall, I miss Fake Out.
Grass types are mostly annoying when they’re alone, since if there’s a critical mass (2 or 3) Scizor can come in and feast. But alone, they can restrict your options by preventing Politoed/Gastrodon from coming in. The most annoying grass type is Virizion, since it’s fast, it has very good special bulk, and its fighting moves hit Scizor. Serperior also has to be respected (Choice Specs Leaf Storm / Lax Incense ambiguity), and I’ve had some trouble with slower, bulkier, Protect spamming grass types as well (Venusaur, Roserade, etc.), though I suspect it’s more on me playing incorrectly than a genuine threat.
Finally, I have to mention Tailwind, specifically Articuno and Moltres. I've never had to fight the enemy under Tailwind, but I'm assuming that if I let it go off against a Veteran, there's a high chance I'll lose. There are clear KO patterns: Moltres is OHKOed by either Thunder or Greninja's Surf (Politoed is too slow), and Articuno has is a 13/16 range for Thunder, so Thunder + Greninja should be good. However, there are slight openings that could be devestating:
- Moltres-1 in the left slot if a Scarf set OHKOs* Manectric before Mat Block goes off
- Articuno in any slot if a Scarf set OHKOs* Manectric before Greninja and Manectric can move
- Articuno in any slot if Greninja didn't click Mat Block (to not take a chance on the 13/16 range**) and a set with >172 speed OHKOs Manectric (2 Latios sets, 1 Latias set, plus a few more if crit)
**This wouldn't have been a problem if Thunder hadn't been nerfed :(
Of course, the odds are in my favor. For 12 veterans, the only way I lose is by rolling Moltres-1 + in the left slot + Terrakion-1 or Landorus-1 + Terrakion/Landorus crits + Moltres clicks Tailwind. 34 and 1234 Veterans have a few more outs.
To see what are the odds of clicking Tailwind, I only have 3 recorded encounters of Moltres-1 and Articuno-4 combined (maybe I saw them when I just started?, but haven't recorded the video. I know the battle 50 Chatelaine has Moltres-1). Moltres-1 is rare because of White Herb, which Latios-2, Latias-2, and Heatran-2 all carry + Landorus-4 on 1234 veterans. Here are their behaviors on turn 1 after rebattling them a bunch of times:
Moltres-1
Used Tailwind 24% of the time, sample size of 50
Lead: Terrakion-2, Landorus-1, Moltres-1
This was harmless because Moltres wasn't on the left
Moltres-1
Used Tailwind 6% of the time, sample size of 100
Lead: Suicune, Latios-1, Moltres-1 (Moltres has the highest damage move!)
This was harmless because Moltres wasn't on the left, and there were no scarf sets
Articuno-4
Used Tailwind 16% of the time, sample size of 50
Lead: Moltres-4, Heatran-3, Articuno-4
This isn't super scientific, but it gives an idea that even if the matchup is very bad and the enemy gets their crit, you would only be punished a fraction of the time. Articuno is the most annoying because it used Protect 75% of the time, which is bad if Greninja didn't use Mat Block.
Having to fear Quick Claw and Tailwind really show how much Fake Out was holding rain together in doubles. Maybe Raichu would be good after all? It would be a hard decision, 135 base speed and Intimidate are so, so convenient. Or... Ludicolo is always there. Now that I think about it, with Ludicolo, it would be possible to fit U-turn on Greninja to bring Politoed back in and change the weather, and Fake Out would would help offset the fact there's no Mat Block anymore... Anyway, I'll have to think about this some more.
I’m confident this team is more consistent than then subway one, but I’m not sure how it performs in absolute. I’ll find out if I keep playing : )
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That's five; I've gone on record several times that I'd never even attempt this, but I can't be trusted I suppose. Posting a streak of 60 wins in Omega Ruby Super Multi with AI, with Brendan. Time to call bingo on this for real this time.
(receptionist photo)
First things first, let's take a look at what he's bringing.
and, well, my heart sank when I first saw these sets eleven years ago, my heart reflexively sank just now despite literally having won with him already, and I'm sure your heart is doing its share of sinking too.
Even the quality of the Pokemon aside I just honestly truly don't understand it, when all of Maxie/Archie/Wally/Steven have decidedly offensive teams featuring their known ace as a Mega paired with another Pokemon they also are known for, and here we have Brendan shattering that pattern as hard as he can. Like, my starter on this file was Treecko, Brendan canonically has a Mega Blaziken in my game, I probably could get that to work idk, and even other Mega Hoenn starters should have enough potential for us to work with as well. Of course that is a joke and I get that giving him starters let alone variable starters would not have been practical for a handful of reasons, but even with the other Pokemon on his in-game roster being uhhh let's leave it at questionable... unless the anime has a thing here that idk of, where are these two coming from suddenly? Fair enough and no arguments here if Raichu + Swellow is considered beyond saving for working towards an in-game achievement, but if you are gonna deviate from "canon" then, rather than engineer something tailor-made for the format, why just functionally pull two new ones from a tombola anyway? What we end up with is a roster that just reminds us of a generic Route 121 Trainer, certainly nothing more than that and also not the Brendan or May we have come to know elsewhere, and it makes no sense.
Lore and consistency aside, though, the main reason for the aforementioned heart sinking is of course the quality of the Pokemon in question, as well as their usability in a multis context, or rather lack thereof. Rather than comparing to the other partners or complaining about the lack of Mega Evolutions, let's reiterate what makes a good multi partner:
- Predictability: if we need to work with them, then it's kind of convenient if we have a credible hunch on the move they are picking. Generally this means that attacking moves are good news, Choice items come with upside beyond their native effect on account of uhhh making the guesses on turns 2 and beyond very clear, and status or support moves are questionable at best even if they'd be good in the hands of a human pilot, think the AI's tendency to waste turns with Protect or Thunder Wave rather than just playing for a 2HKO or a focus fire KO;
- Damage output: of course them being able to kill things is good, but this also kind of doubles as a side function of predictability when of course access to guaranteed KOs helps a lot with clicking the right moves. It's also why e.g. Steven's Aerodactyl is the worst thing ever when it will e.g. click Thunder Fang into Bronzong over targeting Braviary because it's not tickling either one either way in the end. Inability to properly switch only makes "kill them before they kill you" even more important as well;
and then let's take another look at these sets and cry in solitude as this is one of those cases where the atrocity is so obvious and intense that we can make do with leaving it unspoken. We are still yapping though, and while certain other partners had some shaky elements on their sets, Brendan really does, without exaggeration, get absolutely everything wrong here. This is most clear on dual support move full defensive investment Claydol, but Exploud is not it either, which in addition to well. being Exploud is prone to being made a sitting duck even more often thanks to its lack of Speed investment and also, despite all-out attacking sets being acceptable for multis purposes, between its lack of a boosting item and its main STAB move's spread penalty and lack of super effective coverage throws in so many variables for it to mess up its move choice on that a lot of the time it feels like Brendan must have accidentally reverse calibrated his touchscreen in the same way as Steven's Aerodactyl. At least in theory, you really can't count on either of these to do anything at all reliably, and they don't even have the raw stats to make up for it either. Claydol's screens and Exploud's spread-moves-for-the-sake-of-spread-moves are also not in fact assets with the way they go against the core tenets of predictability and damage output, not to mention screens in particular being kind of a noob trap even when piloted by humans; I've honestly wondered if Brendan's sets are like. intentionally bad for the sake of teaching new players the hard way that these are not in fact good doubles strategies, and I'm still not sure I'm actually wrong on that one.
This is where it's time for a history lesson, since I very much ended up standing on the shoulders of giants here, or rather shoulders of a giant (singular), namely the only and only turskain i.e. among many other things the only one (until now I guess) on record with a trophy-winning run with Brendan in this community, pairing him up with Choice Scarf Sawk + Mega Salamence after initially failing with a Snarl Arcanine + Mega Slowbro setup that aimed to take advantage of Claydol's screens. Check out his report in the middle section of the post here, but the important part and the main thing I kept in mind for myself was that he just kind of gave up on cooperating with Brendan thus ended up taking an approach that was basically self-sufficient balls to the wall hyper offense and Brendan gets to come along for the ride if he is so inclined.
For my own starting point, we're using... not exactly that since that would imply I had made "Brendan" a genuine goal even before finding an idea of what to pair up with him, but the idea first popped into my head when another Choice Scarf-using Sturdy Pokemon ended up on my wishlist of things to use: Magnezone, with one of the coolest moves available in Doubles in Volt Switch. Said coolness is very much the kind of thing that's much easier to grasp in practice than in theory, but for an attempt at putting it into words, we can take a look at earlier teams using it like turskain's Triples LukeNinja / my Triples Mega Manectric for examples pairing it with Mat Block Greninja and my Tree KangaKoko for one pairing it with Fake Out. What makes those teams tick is Volt Switch's ability to make the opening into a two-turn setup by mitigating otherwise questionable matchups on the spot. Think of it like this: it gives you access to not just Rotom-W but to all of Rotom-W, Rotom-W + Garchomp, Rotom-W + Talonflame, Rotom-W + Scizor; not just Mega Manectric but all of Mega Manectric, Mega Manectric + Blaziken, Mega Manectric + Hydreigon, Mega Manectric + Azumarill; not just Tapu Koko but all of Tapu Koko, Tapu Koko + Latios, Tapu Koko + Celesteela, all the while attacking at the same time, so rather than losing momentum on a matchup not ideal for Electrics by having to hard switch out, you actually get to gain momentum here while potentially just positioning yourself for the win on the spot. Sturdy would give Magnezone in particular another leg up over these specifically in the Volt Switch department by letting it assuredly tank one hit and still pivot out even in situations where it can't avoid these, which is of course a very real scenario with frickin base 60 Speed.
Another way of looking at this if you think about it hard enough (but not too hard) is that Volt Switch doubles as some sort of Ultra Burst / Relic Song / whichever analogy you want to use by genuinely turning Magnezone into a different Pokemon without any major loss of momentum, thus also substantially expanding the toolkit of the "Pokemon" you're deploying when we almost get to use all of them in the same slot. This is also where we can refocus on Multis and also Brendan, since pairing a Volt Switch user with him just kind of makes a lot of sense with the crappy hand he deals us. Volt Switch in Multi is probably weaker than in other formats but also not really, since while of course we have to make do without Fake Out or Mat Block positioning support here and only have a single potential recipient, the additional strain put on switching also makes the ability to do so without momentum loss even more valuable. This is also where Brendan, and turskain's observation about him, comes in: when the entire crux of using him as a partner is that he almost forces us to fight our battles 1v2, would it not make sense to, rather than try to have our two Pokemon cover "everything" but still only be able to have one of them at the field at the same time, give ourselves the option to let them seamlessly "Ultra Burst" into each other depending on matchup?
So that is a lot of words convincing myself that Magnezone could at least be part of the solution here, but of course we'll also still need a Volt Switch recipient to go with it. With the whole 1v2 situation still hanging over our heads we are also restricted by the fact that it'll pretty much have to be an absolute juggernaut; while Magnezone of course will get the job done fine in terms of deploying its backup, it will for obvious reasons be significantly worse at handling the majority of a 1v2 on its own, so said backup will have a lot of ground to cover there. Maybe there is something shameless about plugging a pre-nerf Mega Salamence in this slot, but I mean let's be honest surely it's not unfair to feel like the end justifies the means when a trophy with Brendan is what we'd be going for here, and more importantly this was not an autopilot broken for the sake of broken choice and had enough genuine thought going into it. Specifically, you want a Volt Switch recipient to have clean defensive synergy with Magnezone, where the main box to tick right away is of course an Earthquake immunity to allow Magnezone to cleanly zipline out of that weakness. With resistances to all of Salamence's weaknesses, Magnezone also does a good job making sure Salamence never has to switch into any of those, but with Magnezone's STAB types, it doesn't stop there; Electric/Steel is honestly perfect from an offensive synergy pov, sniping all of enemy Ice-, Fairy-, and Rock-types and even covering the Water-types that commonly run Ice coverage to mess with Salamence after all. In turn, Salamence also does a good job switching in on the types of attacks Magnezone tends to bait, with the exception of Fire being a bit suspect for obvious common 10% odds reasons (though with the ultimately goal being at 50 wins here rather than infinity, this one too is a bit of a matter of perspective compared to the sort of challenges we usually engage in), which especially in tandem with Intimidate makes getting it on the field even more painless, and of course Fighting-types pretty much invariably being Aerilate fodder only amplifies our ability to keep up momentum here. While not remotely as important as their ability to support each other, Magnezone / Salamence's ability to protect Brendan's side is not the worst thing to point out either, with the pair of them handling Water and Grass for Claydol and Salamence additionally covering Fighting for Exploud. As much as the bar for their ability to contribute offensively is obviously on the floor, and even if supporting them is not exactly the right thing to focus on, there is still a lot to be said for what's basically keeping your meatshields alive; as long as they are on the field, the enemy is not fully focusing on Magnezone/Salamence, which even if we're embracing the whole 1v2 situation is still a thing that the longer we can avoid it the better.
I'll discuss set details for both in one go, since they genuinely couldn't be more straightforward.
We're running Scarf Magnezone as mentioned earlier to be able to snipe weaknesses and/or pivot out as quickly as possible; nature-wise, Timid is the only choice, since missing out on the Starmie tier would all but defeat the point of the whole Choice Scarf Electric situation we're going for here. Three out of Choice Magnezone's four moves are locked in from the get-go, with the only variation coming from the choice of Hidden Power; Fire is not exactly what it is in competitive without any use for trapping Scizors not to mention the IV drop would have closed the door on the Starmie Speed tier after all, so Ice it is instead for some reassurance against the standard gauntlet of Dragons, as well as who knows a certain Ground/Flying Genie if a certain battle were to play out that way. I also considered Ground as always with how nasty some of those targets can get, but this was the one point where I felt it might be reasonable to actually count on a little bit of help from Brendan after all, not to mention I was going to have an Earthquake Salamence in the back; however, on other teams it is an option I could understand. Grass might have been an option as well, but I felt like those targets would be easier to play around, and I guess so far at least I've had it right there.
Salamence runs a physical set for the maximum take on ultimate wrecking ball, with Aerilate Return being much better suited to this than Aerilate Hyper Voice, and Claydol also gets bonus point here with Levitate to make Earthquake pretty painless to use and its overall survivability to keep the non-immune Exploud out of the adjacent slot for as long as possible. The main half interesting choice to make about the set is Adamant versus Jolly, where the latter is kind of the only choice for a backup. Especially without any support for setting up a Dragon Dance cleanly, Adamant's Speed tiers are just not really good enough overall especially with the pre-Mega Speed also being a factor, and the power drop is much less of a factor when Salamence inherently comes in on chipped enemies much more often. Otherwise, Return was chosen over Double-Edge on a hunch that even with the Jolly nature it was surely strong enough that I did not have to dip into the pool of treating basically my one Pokemon versus the world as a kamikaze, and surely I could change it later should the hunch somehow be wrong. Also saving me the extra levels of grinding and stuff. The final two moveslots are also standard, with physical Mega Salamence's other attacking options being redundant at best and pointless at worst anyway, but with the lack of support from allies, Dragon Dance and Protect end up being kind of filler in practice as well. The latter in particular doesn't serve a real purpose other than safely reaching the Mega Speed, with its usual ability of buying space for a partner being wholly wasted on Brendan's Pokemon and its purpose as a positioning tool versus enemies that might otherwise beat Mega Salamence falling flat in practice as a result. Dragon Dance also went relatively unused due to a combination of lack of space (especially with Brendan's Pokemon not doing a good job baiting neutral attacks) and +0 Return honestly being strong enough most of the time anyway lol, but it still came in handy versus the likes of stallers and predictable Protect users, with the main one I remember being an otherwise sticky late-game situation versus Eelektross4. Preemptive positioning is also somewhat of a thing, with Salamence actually being a bit treatened by the base 120+ crowd; while screens certainly help with this, squeezing in a boost versus a not so offensively threatening lineup is always worth considering, and there was also that one instance where an Earthquake-locked Aerodactyl switched out when Salamence got on the field and I had to do at least something to anticipate a faster Choice Band Stone Edge getting back on the field later in the battle.
For formality's sake, I also should say a few words about how Brendan's Pokemon played beyond theory, but there is simply nothing relevant I can say about Exploud that I haven't yet ngl lol. It's really just kind of there, trying to contribute some chip damage with semi-random moves so it gets to say "look mum I'm helping", and realistically MenceZone has softened the opposition up enough by the time it gets to come in that it usually gets to live to see the end of the battle, but aside from very specific niche synergies just about any pointless bulky attacker could have been swapped into this slot and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. I do have to give it a shoutout for one battle in the 40s when I though I had thrown away the run by misplaying Salamence against Kingdra but it managed to solo Bastiodon4 by clicking Fire Blast consistently, getting a quick burn, and also having enough luck with Bastiodon picking non-Metal Burst moves when I needed it to. Otherwise though it was the most forgettable Pokemon I've ever used, which in this context yes very much offense. Claydol on the other hand does probably deserve credit for (expectedly) the vast majority of the time clicking its screens first. Which one it actually goes for is not something that can really be predicted as far as I've seen and not something where I have been able to detect actual intelligence, but I suppose that's where the whole "unreliable partner don't count on them for anything" comes back in anyways, and at the very least one way or another it certainly is a better contribution to the whole MenceZone vs the world situation than generic chip from Earth Power / Psychic would have been.
The way things ended up playing in practice was kind of weird. It worked as expected in theory but at the same time was also almost insultingly simple, where most battles did in fact turn into a properly positioned Salamence just wiping the floor with everything as if I was facing random Route 121 Trainers. Of course it's good at just killing things as is, but with Intimidate and Claydol's screens it really was almost an unkillable wrecking ball. Seriously just look at this, sneak preview to the misplay-littered loss:
Battle "video" time! First there is of course the Chatelaine battle, which went surprisingly clean--in part thanks to a little bit of luck but it should at least show that this team does not fully flounder in neutral matchups.
#50: vs. Morgan / Nita
#61: vs. Cyril / Stanislaw
No warstory for the loss because it's honestly kind of embarrassing. Clicking Earthquake into the Cobalion + Drifblim board despite Return being the harder hit on Cobalion did not actually matter in the sense that it was put into Earth Power range either way, but critical misplays involved taking enemy Salamence's Outrage to the face (for like 45% lol, see aforementioned calc but yea...) due to spacing out on the pre-Mega Speed tie and also forgetting to run my calcs to see that Return actually one-shots Drifblim while Thunderbolt does not. Getting either of those right would realistically have won, but this time I put myself into an auto-checkmate against Entei1 with its Flame Charge and Drifblim in Custap Destiny Bond range. So yea that could have been a pretty painless 2v1 with also a very favourable matchup into the Veteran's side and I can only apologise for throwing this one away and cheating the world out of seeing Brendan's true potential. I have no excuse other than the obvious one of focus really just dropping that hard once the only real goal has been met and the sane way of mitigation via pausing the streak for a couple days not being an option thanks to functionally-forcing-a-single-sitting ORAS multis; at least uhhhhh Brendan having a true potential at all to cheat the world out of seeing is quite a significant thing to prove in its own right I suppose?
I don't really have more battle videos than this; I avoided saving them liberally because limited slots, and I also went into this expecting that close calls and wacky escapes would be more the norm than I'm used to even for multis anyways. More than anything else, though, this... was done on first try, I mean I'll take it but no I can't really believe it either. This is also your explanation for this writeup probably being a bit shallow in places if that's what it felt like with only 61 battles worth of experience (no I was not gonna do new runs just for the sake of more thorough research), but of course it also makes for a bunch of complicated feelings for obvious "Brendan was supposed to be lunacy" reasons. Without making too much of the whole first try situation, which would lead to a landslide of fallacies if we end up factoring it into actual conclusions, at least the comparison with Maxie is one where I have a few things to say. For context, my record with him is exactly 50, which was gotten on the fifth try (third or second idr which if we only count the ones where I got the natures/EVs right; I lost to the Chatelaines once plus had another two runs into the 40s before I got the winning one) with Mega Lopunny + Gastrodon to complement Maxie's Crobat + Mega Camerupt. Of course Maxie is better (read: less bad but yea) than Brendan not just in theory, but... while the whole "first try" thing is quite obviously the dice happening to fall right quickly and Maxie just as easily could have been a second try trophy while Brendan could have been the one to take five attempts instead, 60 wins with Maxie is something I am not capable of believing I could make without genuinely absurd matchup luck. This is not just based in statistical extrapolation of the other scores I'd set with him; I'll keep it short, but the tl;dr is that earlier attempts without Gastrodon left Camerupt so easy to overrun that I lost in the single digits and felt forced to employ Storm Drain, where Gastrodon did a good job protecting Camerupt and keeping me out of 1v2 states but at the same time only exacerbated Crobat / Camerupt's awful matchups into a range of threatening enemies such as Veterans (with Morgan's Latias as possibly the worst offender lol) and others where Crobat's base stats in particular ended up falling short--and being left to rely on just a single slot to try and fix that that also has to synergise with Crobat properly is of course not sustainable. This was exactly the reason why I consistently made it into the 40s without major trouble but struggled comparatively with making the final step, and making that final step essentially twice in a row is quite a lot to ask. Of course it's also possible if not outright likely that 60 with Brendan was a lucky run, but especially with the context of the loss I don't think it was a full-on ceiling either; I am not going to be so arrogant as to believe I managed to catch lightning in a bottle on my very first try, and at the very least this Brendan configuration should have an easier time re-approaching these numbers than Maxie should have getting to them outright. Maybe that just means the Pokemon I paired with Brendan were better than the team I ran with Maxie? Well, yes, as a start lol, of course it does, but that's also exactly the point I'm trying to make: we're not just building these teams from scratch but trying to complement existing cores, and certain Pokemon have better natural synergy with the ones the AI provides us with than others do. And if Maxie closes the door on certain all-around strong Pokemon in this way that Brendan does not, and Brendan does not constrict building in the same ways as Maxie's Camerupt, then if nothing else that is a relevant factor for the question which one of them can make it to the trophy more easily. Multis being an exercise in teambuilding more than any other format only makes this more pertinent in terms of evaluating partner usability too.
Definitely don't take this as an attempt to defend Brendan as an underrated partner though, because yes of course he sucks and again this run was just outright awkward to play. I've found myself struggling to find the best way to put this into words, but I think the gist is: you know how storymode despite being 99% singles always has the odd double battle, either just with your team in doubles mode or paired up with a random NPC whose team makes uhhhh maybe not quite Brendan but let's say Archie look competent, and since your team is obviously built with just singles in mind you just kind of shuffle things around to make it work sort of, and you win not through competency as a doubles player or synergy of the team but entirely through having your Pokemon just outmatch the enemy's? That was pretty much how this run felt start to finish, and while yes I suppose that was kind of the idea in the first place, a me against the world approach just feels weird and unrewarding to play compared to a team where everyone cooperates on even footing. Like, I think I managed to make all other partners feel competent in their own way--of course intentionally nerfed compared to what I'd usually play, but with a clear intended synergy across both sides that also ended up playing out the way I wanted to. Brendan, not so much. Salamence also exacerbated this feeling for what it's worth, since quite blatantly playing it as just "click Return, probably win" was not a good way to make me feel like a competent player, but maybe I also don't really get it as a Pokemon (yet?). Odds also are though that it's not just unfamiliarity but Brendan genuinely putting him in the position where that was the best way of playing him. Who is to say.
I don't... really know how to continue this writeup... but I feel like I should still say more things, since it feels wrong to treat the genuine completion of the ORAS AI partner set, all five of them, without any "100% of 114%" loopholes or any other ifs or buts to explain away the omission of Brendan or anyone else, especially when I did not at all phone in my partner choices either, as just another team report. Let's go over all the other partners again real quick, for a proper recap of what can be/has been done in this mode over the years, I suppose?
Starting off with the, for worse not better, face of this mode, Steven, where our teams were the following:
:xy/metagross-mega: :xy/aerodactyl:
writeup (score 73)
At face value, this team follows a significant core tenet of good multi partners, namely "reliability" via avoidance of status moves to make sure it'll always attempt to land damage, and of course there is no denying that having a Mega Metagross's sheer stats on your side is always a tempting prospect. In practice, though, the simple fact is that Steven is a textbook noob trap; and since in this mode we are all noobs by default, everyone, and I do mean literally everyone, flocked towards him after ORAS's initial release. Without tearing him apart too much, the reliability of full attacking moves is more than offset by its horrendous accuracy across the board and its inability to use Bullet Punch properly, and Aerodactyl similarly is completely incapable of clicking the right moves because one way or another it's not really doing damage anyway. While it's hard to ruin Metagross's stats, the game also does a great attempt at that via the obvious fantasy EV spread that makes it clear they should have used a better metric there than just "invest in highest base stats". It's important to stress Steven's noob trap-ness, since a look at the leaderboard would suggest that he's the strongest partner of the lot by far; nothing of that though, and it's genuinely little more than just a matter of him having the power of probability on his side, where yea if you roll the dice thousands more times you are gonna roll more sixes than otherwise; but that doesn't really mean a whole lot if the world never gave the other partners a fair shot.
For my own take, "literally everyone" flocking towards him unfortunately includes me as well, so he was the partner I used to first get the trophy eleven years ago, and one single glimpse at the babyraging paragraphs from the five trophy post should make it clear that no I did not have a good time, pretty much entirely on him. Encouraged by rave reviews from early ORAS multi players (which were probably just fuelled by contrast with more unlucky XY partners), I thought I could get away with being creative before being rudely punished in practice; I don't actually remember what I tried, other than a Greninja + Gastrodon where the idea was to protect Aerodactyl from enemy Water-types but that failed miserably in practice due to Steven just not handling Grass-types with any sort of consistency. I then switched to a more standard lineup with the goal of operating more independently, where I'm sorry if my memory of my rationale is not exactly on point with an 11 year time gap + PTSD to block it out not being very helpful, but it went kind of like this: Greninja and Mega Metagross were a sensible lead pairing for Mat Block support to activate Mega Metagross's wasted-but-still-better-than-base-forme Speed stat and offensive synergy against the likes of Fighting-types and offensive Ghosts, while Gardevoir in turn made sense as a backliner for being very hard to KO to special attackers at least and access to a spread nuke for the ability to clean up multiple enemies at the same time after they'd been chipped by the leads. The resulting team was... good enough, making it to a streak of 73 in the end; the loss was about what you'd expect, with Metagross trading itself with enemy Destiny Bond Drifblim via incompetent Bullet Punch usage (when I was actually trying to trade Greninja) for absolutely no reason at all, letting in Scarf Braviary to sweep non-Sash Greninja and Gardevoir while Aerodactyl was entirely useless against the other side as is unfortunately often the case. This still leaves Steven as my second-best performing partner numerically, but I can't stress enough that this proves nothing whatsoever other than that something with Mega Metagross's stats is still pretty hard to sink within 50 battles even in the face of a triple sabotage attempt in Steven's teambuilder. turskain did in fact have a much better time with this exact same lineup, so odds are 73 is not where my peak with him would be either if I give RNG some more chances to do its thing, but of course RNG being a thing like that is exactly the issue. More importantly, nothing of that can undo the fact that playing with Steven is just a heinously aggravating and nerve-wracking experience beginning to end for no reason. We play this game to have fun, so if any other partner can make 50 reliably while giving the player a better time in the process, then Steven should never have had any business being considered "the only choice", unlike what unfortunately happened when the generation was active.
So, on that note, let's look at Wally...
:xy/gallade-mega: :xy/magnezone:
writeup (score 145)
I tried out Wally on a whim once when I was bored and felt like using Doubles Kangaskhan, where the trick I had in mind was removing enemy Fighting-types via Fake Out + ally STAB Psychic move. When Steven's Metagross popped into my head as someone who technically met criteria here but at the same time I had had enough of to last several lifetimes, the pivot to Wally's Mega Gallade happened pretty much automatically, and while of course "literally everyone" had collectively written him off before, especially with this being multis the worst that could happen was that I'd burn a couple hours I'd otherwise waste on something else unproductive anyways to see firsthand that he did indeed suck. He very much did not suck though--Gallade is still by far the best multis partner I've paired with, where the instantaneous red flag in Swords Dance ended up being fine in practice thanks to base 165 Attack STAB Close Combat in particular being strong enough that Gallade almost always went for unboosted attacks just fine. At that point, what we have is a genuinely very solid fast and strong attacker, with the right secondary STAB move to handle the main threats to Kangaskhan and a coverage move that, while not technically optimal in a vacuum, handles a common range of tricky enemies in the landslide of Water / Ground tyoes that might otherwise Curse boost over a dual physical lead pair as well. The Adamant nature is the main hiccup, but giving Kangaskhan turn initiative is not a bad tradeoff, allowing it to save Gallade from itself when it surely would want to click Close Combat into a lot of Sturdy users otherwise that now Kangaskhan can simply snipe first, as well as just generally redirect its attacks a lot more easily as I think is wise. The status moves on Magnezone are, uh, considerably less unproblematic than those on Gallade, but at least if it's used as a backup it'll have more enemies in Flash Cannon range--and hopefully Flash Cannon range it is, since Thunder is not exactly a choice that helps with its reliability either. While Magnezone is certainly a stereotypical "what were they thinking" multis Pokemon, the fact that it at least has usable STAB moves that enemies can be chipped into makes it better than the likes of Aerodactyl, but more than anything else Gallade is just good at carrying it. Gengar was an autopilot addition for extra help against Ghost-types, but it kind of ended up working out in practice, with Levitate having helpful synergy with Magnezone as well and Destiny Bond pairing well with Magnezone's much greater defensive presence in case I need to simplify late-game situations.
Maybe Wally's consistency still needs a bit of work, but the main praise I can sing about him is that for the most part battles including him just aren't stressful, with Gallade's power and reliability meaning that it actually just beats the enemies it's supposed to beat lol, and the Pokemon I've been able to pair him with do a good job complementing this reliability, to the point that I will very much die on the hill that this is the optimal setup to win the trophy in this mode--which is of course the only thing that really matters here in the end. The actual scores I've gotten with him are almost secondary at this point, but they're very much good enough to match the quality of the team.
Archie was next, mostly for the challenge of completing the bingo sheet where he was the one square left at the time on account of the very few odd souls not fully subscribing to the Steven bandwagon all having played on Omega Ruby during the current generation.
:xy/crobat: :xy/sharpedo-mega:
writeup (score 65)
Somehow more painless than it would seem on account of at least both Crobat and Sharpedo being functional attackers in their own right; the main downside is the obvious weakness stack between Crobat and Sharpedo, where the likes of Jolteon and Manectric just sweeping Archie's side on cue is just as fun as it sounds, and Sharpedo's somewhat questionable Speed makes for a bleh cocktail with its frailty too when Crobat is not good at breaking through attackers on lead that it can't easily clear with Brave Bird. My hunch at the time was, rather than try to go out of my way to mitigate this, just accept it as a reality to deal with and at least try to salvage offensive momentum by overloading on Fake Out users (suppose that logic is not too unlike pairing Brendan with a standalone offensive board??), with Weavile being a great dedicated user with decent synergy with Crobat and Kangaskhan being the best option for the me against the world late-game scenarios that surely would end up being a thing too with a partner like this. It worked out surprisingly decently, with the team clicking instantly and the final score of 65 happening after an acceptable number of brute force attempts. I don't think there is a secret sauce to Archie that is gonna push him too much closer to triple digits, when one way or another relying on double Fake Out to support a partner that gets swept on sight by fast Electrics is still asking for your luck to run out sooner rather than later, but at the very least it seems like it's good enough at postponing the fatal matchup roll long enough for a trophy with Archie to be more than reasonable. Fun stuff.
Where there's... water, there is fire, but despite his team following the same template as Archie's, Maxie was one I initially had in "never happening" category.
:xy/crobat: :xy/camerupt-mega:
writeup (score 50)
Crobat still does Crobat things, but between heinous Speed plus major vulnerability to common threatening attacking types and reliance on inaccurate moves (or outright sabotage in the case of Yawn), Camerupt is a textbook case of how not to build an AI multis Pokemon, and Maxie was also the only non-Steven partner where I did not get my own team right on the first try. See the linked post for a more in-depth breakdown, but the first attempt involved using After You Mega Lopunny to counteract Camerupt's Speed, which unfortunately did not work out in practice at all since I was giving up Lopunny's turn in order to salvage Camerupt's plus it did nothing to actually defeat the Camerupt checks that were on the field to outspeed it, not to mention Camerupt ordinarily getting on the field before Lopunny being another reason for it falling flat in practice. Lopunny got to stay on account of good synergy with Crobat, but the partnership with Camerupt got constricted into Gastrodon as the only real proactive way I saw of fixing the Water issue, where the Ground vulnerability was at least mitigated a little bit by only being a 2x weakness plus its most common move by far having a spread penalty to deal with. This was fine for making it into the 40s very consistently, and barely fine for beating the Chatelaines with a final score of literally 50; again read the initial post for more commentary on this, but like I mentioned earlier, in the end Maxie's main issue turned out to be not inability to fit in an overall synergistic team, but rather just a sketchy matchup against Veterans and other enemies where Crobat loses the BST race for good, combined with Gastrodon actually exacerbating this vulnerability and trying to get the final Pokemon to patch up all of that on its own not being a reasonable ask. The fact that one of those all but unbeatable enemies in Latias1 is actually on the Chatelaine's roster is certainly a thing lol and kind of forces people to just hope they won't bring it (or be me and get an instantaneous Scald burn plus connect every single Fire Blast of course) and also is the reason why I think even 60 is a stretch with him; at least he was surprisingly more apt for having a good time in the first 40 battles than one would think.
That also makes for a nice bridge back into the thing no one was looking for but I probably can't get out of, namely the actual power rankings between partner options. Brendan getting a better score than Maxie here, and more importantly a better score than I realistically foresee being in the cards for Maxie at all, is certainly a thing, but rather than Claydol / Exploud being a better team than Crobat / Mega Camerupt I think this more just means that Brendan leaves more room to run Pokemon on the team that can handle the enemies that x / Gastrodon + Crobat / Mega Camerupt can't keep up with. So there is... that, but at the same time Brendan is noobish agony to play while Maxie feels synergistic, and with building constraints, potential Pokemon power level, and just enjoyment of play to be able to commit to the trophy grind properly without wanting to smash your 3DS that's just so many variables here where I feel like this is the best case in point that an outright ranking just gets too subjective. So, rather than that, let's just leave a few words on all of them with those criteria in mind.
- Wally: Gallade is the best Pokemon across all these rosters; easy to support in multiple good and enjoyable ways and weaknesses that are very doable to cover; potential to unravel if Magnezone needs to take centre stage unexpectedly; peace of mind in neutral matchups, which is most of them; very pleasant pick for going for 50.
- Steven: A+ power level even with nerfed Pokemon; slightly constrained building in terms of finding good options to support Metagross; potential to beat almost enemy lineup with neutral luck; substantial consistency issues in-game that are never not there and can also throw away almost any matchup; plausible but consistently stressful pick for going for 50.
- Archie: two perfectly serviceable Pokemon with good offensive synergy; acceptable synergy with strong Pokemon for your own partners; comfortable pilot in neutral matchups; deplorable defensive synergy that makes for consistency issues in terms of matchup and capable of losing on preview in several cases; plausible pick for reaching 50 but just as capable of losing around 30.
- Maxie: very possible to build a synergistic team across both halves of the board; Camerupt is a liability in the end despite getting the job done for the role it's trying to be; extremely constrained building that comes with major matchup issues in later round; consistent and enjoyable pilot in earlier rounds; sane pick for reaching 40, Russian roulette-level one for 50.
- Brendan: absolutely deplorable in terms of offensive presence; know that you'll be fighting 1v2 in practice a lot of the time and that this will catch up with you at some point; somewhat okay in terms of keeping enemies occupied; barely acceptable in terms of enabling highly offensive partner setups; demands very specific playstyle that is both highly alien compared to conventional high-level play and outright not enjoyable; better at reaching 50 than it would appear but insanity pick to touch outright.
I think my personal power rankings does still shine through here a little bit lol, but at least it should be more helpful than a raw ranking. For the ride home, have a sixth partner, or at least a thought experiment.
since... yes, for all the obvious hype this Pokemon has gotten compared to a lot of other Megas, this has in fact ended up being a bring your own Mence format, and there also is an obvious character who would have brought theirs; the person with arguably the best theme in the franchise and possibly video game history outright is actually kind of a notable omission as well when we do get to pair up with most prominent characters in the game (wow, it's also now occurring to me that we're actually 5 out of 5 on male partner options... sexism much??? in my Pokemon games???). Leaving aside the question of what her other Pokemon would be (Aster might honestly be a more logical fit than Dragon spam, and there's no love lost about Brendan having to ditch Exploud anyways...), how Salamence would perform in the hands of the CPU is actually a bit more complicated than it would seem. Let's assume a set like this:
:xy/salamence-mega:
Zinnia's hypothetical Salamence (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate -> Aerilate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Adamant (?)
- Double-Edge
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Crunch / Fire Fang / ????
Thankfully there should be no Metagross-like BST noob traps about Salamence that would change the EV investment away from max Attack / Speed, and for the nature I would of course welcome Jolly more but keeping in line with the "boost highest base stat lol" pattern from elsewhere I assume they'd roll with Adamant instead. Moveset-wise, I'm choosing to be an optimist and trust they won't let Salamence walk into the AI's Return bug and go with Double-Edge instead for its Aerilate move. Dragon STAB and Earthquake would have uhhh probably been surprising omissions I suppose, and while you really don't need any extra coverage at this point and Salamence does have enough sensible non-attacking moves for that final slot, that would have to be the likes of Protect which is still as risky as ever and Dragon Dance which thanks to Speed tiers entering the AI's thought process is a much bigger wildcard than Gallade's Swords Dance; thankfully though GF has historically had enough of a fetish for all-out attacking Salamence set that a fourth attacking move would probably be realistic. I honestly have no clue which one they would actually roll with, but let's be real it's probably not clicking it anyways in practice right...
So there we have a set that would draw players like moths to a flame even quicker than Steven's Metagross, but the Return bug is not the only unhelpful AI behaviour we have to contend with here, since them not knowing they'll be gaining Aerilate when they're starting the turn as base Salamence is yet another thing in practice. It's why GF assuredly including Dragon STAB is honestly not too bad despite it absolutely being redundant with Flying / Ground so that Zinnia at least has a good move to click turn 1; and let's once again be optimistic and assume Dragon Claw here, since Outrage in addition to being Doubles Outrage locking her out of going for Aerilate STAB at least turn 2 would be all the wrong kinds of funny. So there we have an awkward turn 1 to deal with thanks to the AI not understanding Mega Evolution mechanics, and while that is fixed come turn 2 the Return bug also pretty much forces Double-Edge on the set, which is overkill powerwise and mostly just adds a kamikaze mode. As a result, we're also all but forced to run Salamence in the lead position, for the extra board control turn 1 when it's not clicking a good move yet as well as having a Pokemon able to swap in once Salamence has burned through its own health--and when said switch-in might honestly end up being literally Exploud, then, well, that is one we have some slightly mixed experiences with.
My subtext here is probably at least a little bit misleading, because like even with all of these asterisks Zinnia would probably still be better than Steven lol, we're still being carried by a Salamence here that is hard to mess up as much as they messed up Metagross. I'm not sure she'd be better than Wally though, but that is also a testament of how great a job they did there. Mostly though it's just fun to think about how it would actually work, especially when Steven has been right there for 11 years to teach us the hard way that we should know better than broken Mega = guaranteed trophy; and of course me really being dead serious in terms of Zinnia being a glaring omission from the partner roster that we should have been able to partner up with, not just for girl power reasons but also because as a character she's just prominent enough to warrant it. Let's not forget that theme of hers either, especially with the added context of this crazy mission of mine having come to mean a lot to me; with her theme being an absolute masterpiece in particular in terms of capturing melancholy and finality, I could not have asked for a better backdrop to see me off.
On that note, I'm still writing because I don't want this post to end... since it also realistically represents the end of ORAS multi from me. I can surely still mess around in other generations, but they don't have the same clean "five partners" challenge built in, and the only thing I can still think of here is unironically going for Starf with Wally, which I am not fully ruling out but is uhhhh limited by practicality in addition to sanity thanks to the stupid random lead thing. It's not really the right way to play anyways, since yea triple digit multi streaks are certainly possible but with the extra variance outright going for them is almost setting oneself up for failure, and going for more modest goals except with more teams just kind of works better here; the lower stakes help a lot to offset the more than occasional frustration, and it's also just a radically different challenge than we're used to, being more focused on building to make the most out of an intentionally suboptimal unit than on truly approaching perfect consistency. And it's much much much more fun than it's given credit for if you play it for what it's trying to be. I hope I'll still get to play it, and get stories to share about it, in the future, but even if this is all I get to do out of it, surely this has to be the perfect note to end on after, shoutouts Steven, where I came from initially. Mission complete, for real this time and in more ways than one.
(receptionist photo)
First things first, let's take a look at what he's bringing.
:xy/claydol: Claydol @ Light Clay Ability: Levitate EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 Nature: Calm - Reflect - Light Screen - Earth Power - Psychic | :xy/exploud: Exploud @ Assault Vest Ability: Soundproof EVs: 252 SpA / 252 SpD IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 Nature: Modest - Hyper Voice - Fire Blast - Blizzard - Shadow Ball |
and, well, my heart sank when I first saw these sets eleven years ago, my heart reflexively sank just now despite literally having won with him already, and I'm sure your heart is doing its share of sinking too.
Even the quality of the Pokemon aside I just honestly truly don't understand it, when all of Maxie/Archie/Wally/Steven have decidedly offensive teams featuring their known ace as a Mega paired with another Pokemon they also are known for, and here we have Brendan shattering that pattern as hard as he can. Like, my starter on this file was Treecko, Brendan canonically has a Mega Blaziken in my game, I probably could get that to work idk, and even other Mega Hoenn starters should have enough potential for us to work with as well. Of course that is a joke and I get that giving him starters let alone variable starters would not have been practical for a handful of reasons, but even with the other Pokemon on his in-game roster being uhhh let's leave it at questionable... unless the anime has a thing here that idk of, where are these two coming from suddenly? Fair enough and no arguments here if Raichu + Swellow is considered beyond saving for working towards an in-game achievement, but if you are gonna deviate from "canon" then, rather than engineer something tailor-made for the format, why just functionally pull two new ones from a tombola anyway? What we end up with is a roster that just reminds us of a generic Route 121 Trainer, certainly nothing more than that and also not the Brendan or May we have come to know elsewhere, and it makes no sense.
Lore and consistency aside, though, the main reason for the aforementioned heart sinking is of course the quality of the Pokemon in question, as well as their usability in a multis context, or rather lack thereof. Rather than comparing to the other partners or complaining about the lack of Mega Evolutions, let's reiterate what makes a good multi partner:
- Predictability: if we need to work with them, then it's kind of convenient if we have a credible hunch on the move they are picking. Generally this means that attacking moves are good news, Choice items come with upside beyond their native effect on account of uhhh making the guesses on turns 2 and beyond very clear, and status or support moves are questionable at best even if they'd be good in the hands of a human pilot, think the AI's tendency to waste turns with Protect or Thunder Wave rather than just playing for a 2HKO or a focus fire KO;
- Damage output: of course them being able to kill things is good, but this also kind of doubles as a side function of predictability when of course access to guaranteed KOs helps a lot with clicking the right moves. It's also why e.g. Steven's Aerodactyl is the worst thing ever when it will e.g. click Thunder Fang into Bronzong over targeting Braviary because it's not tickling either one either way in the end. Inability to properly switch only makes "kill them before they kill you" even more important as well;
and then let's take another look at these sets and cry in solitude as this is one of those cases where the atrocity is so obvious and intense that we can make do with leaving it unspoken. We are still yapping though, and while certain other partners had some shaky elements on their sets, Brendan really does, without exaggeration, get absolutely everything wrong here. This is most clear on dual support move full defensive investment Claydol, but Exploud is not it either, which in addition to well. being Exploud is prone to being made a sitting duck even more often thanks to its lack of Speed investment and also, despite all-out attacking sets being acceptable for multis purposes, between its lack of a boosting item and its main STAB move's spread penalty and lack of super effective coverage throws in so many variables for it to mess up its move choice on that a lot of the time it feels like Brendan must have accidentally reverse calibrated his touchscreen in the same way as Steven's Aerodactyl. At least in theory, you really can't count on either of these to do anything at all reliably, and they don't even have the raw stats to make up for it either. Claydol's screens and Exploud's spread-moves-for-the-sake-of-spread-moves are also not in fact assets with the way they go against the core tenets of predictability and damage output, not to mention screens in particular being kind of a noob trap even when piloted by humans; I've honestly wondered if Brendan's sets are like. intentionally bad for the sake of teaching new players the hard way that these are not in fact good doubles strategies, and I'm still not sure I'm actually wrong on that one.
This is where it's time for a history lesson, since I very much ended up standing on the shoulders of giants here, or rather shoulders of a giant (singular), namely the only and only turskain i.e. among many other things the only one (until now I guess) on record with a trophy-winning run with Brendan in this community, pairing him up with Choice Scarf Sawk + Mega Salamence after initially failing with a Snarl Arcanine + Mega Slowbro setup that aimed to take advantage of Claydol's screens. Check out his report in the middle section of the post here, but the important part and the main thing I kept in mind for myself was that he just kind of gave up on cooperating with Brendan thus ended up taking an approach that was basically self-sufficient balls to the wall hyper offense and Brendan gets to come along for the ride if he is so inclined.
For my own starting point, we're using... not exactly that since that would imply I had made "Brendan" a genuine goal even before finding an idea of what to pair up with him, but the idea first popped into my head when another Choice Scarf-using Sturdy Pokemon ended up on my wishlist of things to use: Magnezone, with one of the coolest moves available in Doubles in Volt Switch. Said coolness is very much the kind of thing that's much easier to grasp in practice than in theory, but for an attempt at putting it into words, we can take a look at earlier teams using it like turskain's Triples LukeNinja / my Triples Mega Manectric for examples pairing it with Mat Block Greninja and my Tree KangaKoko for one pairing it with Fake Out. What makes those teams tick is Volt Switch's ability to make the opening into a two-turn setup by mitigating otherwise questionable matchups on the spot. Think of it like this: it gives you access to not just Rotom-W but to all of Rotom-W, Rotom-W + Garchomp, Rotom-W + Talonflame, Rotom-W + Scizor; not just Mega Manectric but all of Mega Manectric, Mega Manectric + Blaziken, Mega Manectric + Hydreigon, Mega Manectric + Azumarill; not just Tapu Koko but all of Tapu Koko, Tapu Koko + Latios, Tapu Koko + Celesteela, all the while attacking at the same time, so rather than losing momentum on a matchup not ideal for Electrics by having to hard switch out, you actually get to gain momentum here while potentially just positioning yourself for the win on the spot. Sturdy would give Magnezone in particular another leg up over these specifically in the Volt Switch department by letting it assuredly tank one hit and still pivot out even in situations where it can't avoid these, which is of course a very real scenario with frickin base 60 Speed.
Another way of looking at this if you think about it hard enough (but not too hard) is that Volt Switch doubles as some sort of Ultra Burst / Relic Song / whichever analogy you want to use by genuinely turning Magnezone into a different Pokemon without any major loss of momentum, thus also substantially expanding the toolkit of the "Pokemon" you're deploying when we almost get to use all of them in the same slot. This is also where we can refocus on Multis and also Brendan, since pairing a Volt Switch user with him just kind of makes a lot of sense with the crappy hand he deals us. Volt Switch in Multi is probably weaker than in other formats but also not really, since while of course we have to make do without Fake Out or Mat Block positioning support here and only have a single potential recipient, the additional strain put on switching also makes the ability to do so without momentum loss even more valuable. This is also where Brendan, and turskain's observation about him, comes in: when the entire crux of using him as a partner is that he almost forces us to fight our battles 1v2, would it not make sense to, rather than try to have our two Pokemon cover "everything" but still only be able to have one of them at the field at the same time, give ourselves the option to let them seamlessly "Ultra Burst" into each other depending on matchup?
So that is a lot of words convincing myself that Magnezone could at least be part of the solution here, but of course we'll also still need a Volt Switch recipient to go with it. With the whole 1v2 situation still hanging over our heads we are also restricted by the fact that it'll pretty much have to be an absolute juggernaut; while Magnezone of course will get the job done fine in terms of deploying its backup, it will for obvious reasons be significantly worse at handling the majority of a 1v2 on its own, so said backup will have a lot of ground to cover there. Maybe there is something shameless about plugging a pre-nerf Mega Salamence in this slot, but I mean let's be honest surely it's not unfair to feel like the end justifies the means when a trophy with Brendan is what we'd be going for here, and more importantly this was not an autopilot broken for the sake of broken choice and had enough genuine thought going into it. Specifically, you want a Volt Switch recipient to have clean defensive synergy with Magnezone, where the main box to tick right away is of course an Earthquake immunity to allow Magnezone to cleanly zipline out of that weakness. With resistances to all of Salamence's weaknesses, Magnezone also does a good job making sure Salamence never has to switch into any of those, but with Magnezone's STAB types, it doesn't stop there; Electric/Steel is honestly perfect from an offensive synergy pov, sniping all of enemy Ice-, Fairy-, and Rock-types and even covering the Water-types that commonly run Ice coverage to mess with Salamence after all. In turn, Salamence also does a good job switching in on the types of attacks Magnezone tends to bait, with the exception of Fire being a bit suspect for obvious common 10% odds reasons (though with the ultimately goal being at 50 wins here rather than infinity, this one too is a bit of a matter of perspective compared to the sort of challenges we usually engage in), which especially in tandem with Intimidate makes getting it on the field even more painless, and of course Fighting-types pretty much invariably being Aerilate fodder only amplifies our ability to keep up momentum here. While not remotely as important as their ability to support each other, Magnezone / Salamence's ability to protect Brendan's side is not the worst thing to point out either, with the pair of them handling Water and Grass for Claydol and Salamence additionally covering Fighting for Exploud. As much as the bar for their ability to contribute offensively is obviously on the floor, and even if supporting them is not exactly the right thing to focus on, there is still a lot to be said for what's basically keeping your meatshields alive; as long as they are on the field, the enemy is not fully focusing on Magnezone/Salamence, which even if we're embracing the whole 1v2 situation is still a thing that the longer we can avoid it the better.
I'll discuss set details for both in one go, since they genuinely couldn't be more straightforward.
:xy/magnezone: Magnezone @ Choice Scarf Ability: Sturdy EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe IVs: 31/2/30/31/31/31 Nature: Timid - Thunderbolt - Flash Cannon - Hidden Power Ice - Volt Switch | :xy/salamence-mega: Salamence @ Salamencite Ability: Intimidate -> Aerilate EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31 Nature: Jolly - Return - Earthquake - Dragon Dance - Protect |
We're running Scarf Magnezone as mentioned earlier to be able to snipe weaknesses and/or pivot out as quickly as possible; nature-wise, Timid is the only choice, since missing out on the Starmie tier would all but defeat the point of the whole Choice Scarf Electric situation we're going for here. Three out of Choice Magnezone's four moves are locked in from the get-go, with the only variation coming from the choice of Hidden Power; Fire is not exactly what it is in competitive without any use for trapping Scizors not to mention the IV drop would have closed the door on the Starmie Speed tier after all, so Ice it is instead for some reassurance against the standard gauntlet of Dragons, as well as who knows a certain Ground/Flying Genie if a certain battle were to play out that way. I also considered Ground as always with how nasty some of those targets can get, but this was the one point where I felt it might be reasonable to actually count on a little bit of help from Brendan after all, not to mention I was going to have an Earthquake Salamence in the back; however, on other teams it is an option I could understand. Grass might have been an option as well, but I felt like those targets would be easier to play around, and I guess so far at least I've had it right there.
Salamence runs a physical set for the maximum take on ultimate wrecking ball, with Aerilate Return being much better suited to this than Aerilate Hyper Voice, and Claydol also gets bonus point here with Levitate to make Earthquake pretty painless to use and its overall survivability to keep the non-immune Exploud out of the adjacent slot for as long as possible. The main half interesting choice to make about the set is Adamant versus Jolly, where the latter is kind of the only choice for a backup. Especially without any support for setting up a Dragon Dance cleanly, Adamant's Speed tiers are just not really good enough overall especially with the pre-Mega Speed also being a factor, and the power drop is much less of a factor when Salamence inherently comes in on chipped enemies much more often. Otherwise, Return was chosen over Double-Edge on a hunch that even with the Jolly nature it was surely strong enough that I did not have to dip into the pool of treating basically my one Pokemon versus the world as a kamikaze, and surely I could change it later should the hunch somehow be wrong. Also saving me the extra levels of grinding and stuff. The final two moveslots are also standard, with physical Mega Salamence's other attacking options being redundant at best and pointless at worst anyway, but with the lack of support from allies, Dragon Dance and Protect end up being kind of filler in practice as well. The latter in particular doesn't serve a real purpose other than safely reaching the Mega Speed, with its usual ability of buying space for a partner being wholly wasted on Brendan's Pokemon and its purpose as a positioning tool versus enemies that might otherwise beat Mega Salamence falling flat in practice as a result. Dragon Dance also went relatively unused due to a combination of lack of space (especially with Brendan's Pokemon not doing a good job baiting neutral attacks) and +0 Return honestly being strong enough most of the time anyway lol, but it still came in handy versus the likes of stallers and predictable Protect users, with the main one I remember being an otherwise sticky late-game situation versus Eelektross4. Preemptive positioning is also somewhat of a thing, with Salamence actually being a bit treatened by the base 120+ crowd; while screens certainly help with this, squeezing in a boost versus a not so offensively threatening lineup is always worth considering, and there was also that one instance where an Earthquake-locked Aerodactyl switched out when Salamence got on the field and I had to do at least something to anticipate a faster Choice Band Stone Edge getting back on the field later in the battle.
For formality's sake, I also should say a few words about how Brendan's Pokemon played beyond theory, but there is simply nothing relevant I can say about Exploud that I haven't yet ngl lol. It's really just kind of there, trying to contribute some chip damage with semi-random moves so it gets to say "look mum I'm helping", and realistically MenceZone has softened the opposition up enough by the time it gets to come in that it usually gets to live to see the end of the battle, but aside from very specific niche synergies just about any pointless bulky attacker could have been swapped into this slot and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. I do have to give it a shoutout for one battle in the 40s when I though I had thrown away the run by misplaying Salamence against Kingdra but it managed to solo Bastiodon4 by clicking Fire Blast consistently, getting a quick burn, and also having enough luck with Bastiodon picking non-Metal Burst moves when I needed it to. Otherwise though it was the most forgettable Pokemon I've ever used, which in this context yes very much offense. Claydol on the other hand does probably deserve credit for (expectedly) the vast majority of the time clicking its screens first. Which one it actually goes for is not something that can really be predicted as far as I've seen and not something where I have been able to detect actual intelligence, but I suppose that's where the whole "unreliable partner don't count on them for anything" comes back in anyways, and at the very least one way or another it certainly is a better contribution to the whole MenceZone vs the world situation than generic chip from Earth Power / Psychic would have been.
The way things ended up playing in practice was kind of weird. It worked as expected in theory but at the same time was also almost insultingly simple, where most battles did in fact turn into a properly positioned Salamence just wiping the floor with everything as if I was facing random Route 121 Trainers. Of course it's good at just killing things as is, but with Intimidate and Claydol's screens it really was almost an unkillable wrecking ball. Seriously just look at this, sneak preview to the misplay-littered loss:
I don't assume I need to provide reference calcs for pre-nerf Aerilate Return, but yea those things combined to make most battles so that I was just clicking unboosted neutral attacks and winning without even caring too much about taking damage between attacks, with as mentioned before actual setup definitely being a luxury. This also makes for a nice bridge to discussing the only reference point I have in terms of trophy-winning Brendan teams with turskain's attempts from ten years ago in a bit more depth, since yea I would not have been able to make the "just ignore Brendan's side" click myself. Salamence is another thing we ended up sharing; while his Sawk provided maximum wreckage and I ended up taking the positioning angle with Magnezone, and Magnezone was in fact the first Pokemon I chose, this of course is something where "creativity claim" and sportswomanship mandate a quick apology on my end. I do think I've at least argued why Salamence is genuinely the best fit behind Magnezone here, not to mention that the list of viable me against the world Pokemon is short enough to the point that it was kind of inevitable, but yea is what it is. We can actually also discuss turskain's failed earlier attempt here, which involved attempting a Mega Slowbro setup with support from Claydol's screens and Arcanine's Snarl but ultimately fell short due to things like Slowbro getting overwhelmed and Brendan unhelpfully taking out Slowbro's intended setup bait; the thing that is worth mentioning is that this Slowbro was actually more like Mega Salamence than it would seem, in that it too was an attempt at leaving Brendan's offensive support optional by setting up a me against the world Pokemon. The (honestly only relevant) difference? Salamence makes do without setup a lot of the time, while Slowbro does, well, not. I've mentioned a few times before that the number 1 to 500 core tenet of picking your Pokemon for AI multis should be "keep it simple", for the sake of accepting our inability to ever rely on the AI to do more than striking its killing blows, and it's easy to see that Salamence does a much better job checking that box than Slowbro does. Too bad that it has not left us with more distinct flavours of Brendan teams, but I guess that's the lunacy of going for Brendan trophy runs at all for ya.
Battle "video" time! First there is of course the Chatelaine battle, which went surprisingly clean--in part thanks to a little bit of luck but it should at least show that this team does not fully flounder in neutral matchups.
#50: vs. Morgan / Nita
#61: vs. Cyril / Stanislaw
No warstory for the loss because it's honestly kind of embarrassing. Clicking Earthquake into the Cobalion + Drifblim board despite Return being the harder hit on Cobalion did not actually matter in the sense that it was put into Earth Power range either way, but critical misplays involved taking enemy Salamence's Outrage to the face (for like 45% lol, see aforementioned calc but yea...) due to spacing out on the pre-Mega Speed tie and also forgetting to run my calcs to see that Return actually one-shots Drifblim while Thunderbolt does not. Getting either of those right would realistically have won, but this time I put myself into an auto-checkmate against Entei1 with its Flame Charge and Drifblim in Custap Destiny Bond range. So yea that could have been a pretty painless 2v1 with also a very favourable matchup into the Veteran's side and I can only apologise for throwing this one away and cheating the world out of seeing Brendan's true potential. I have no excuse other than the obvious one of focus really just dropping that hard once the only real goal has been met and the sane way of mitigation via pausing the streak for a couple days not being an option thanks to functionally-forcing-a-single-sitting ORAS multis; at least uhhhhh Brendan having a true potential at all to cheat the world out of seeing is quite a significant thing to prove in its own right I suppose?
I don't really have more battle videos than this; I avoided saving them liberally because limited slots, and I also went into this expecting that close calls and wacky escapes would be more the norm than I'm used to even for multis anyways. More than anything else, though, this... was done on first try, I mean I'll take it but no I can't really believe it either. This is also your explanation for this writeup probably being a bit shallow in places if that's what it felt like with only 61 battles worth of experience (no I was not gonna do new runs just for the sake of more thorough research), but of course it also makes for a bunch of complicated feelings for obvious "Brendan was supposed to be lunacy" reasons. Without making too much of the whole first try situation, which would lead to a landslide of fallacies if we end up factoring it into actual conclusions, at least the comparison with Maxie is one where I have a few things to say. For context, my record with him is exactly 50, which was gotten on the fifth try (third or second idr which if we only count the ones where I got the natures/EVs right; I lost to the Chatelaines once plus had another two runs into the 40s before I got the winning one) with Mega Lopunny + Gastrodon to complement Maxie's Crobat + Mega Camerupt. Of course Maxie is better (read: less bad but yea) than Brendan not just in theory, but... while the whole "first try" thing is quite obviously the dice happening to fall right quickly and Maxie just as easily could have been a second try trophy while Brendan could have been the one to take five attempts instead, 60 wins with Maxie is something I am not capable of believing I could make without genuinely absurd matchup luck. This is not just based in statistical extrapolation of the other scores I'd set with him; I'll keep it short, but the tl;dr is that earlier attempts without Gastrodon left Camerupt so easy to overrun that I lost in the single digits and felt forced to employ Storm Drain, where Gastrodon did a good job protecting Camerupt and keeping me out of 1v2 states but at the same time only exacerbated Crobat / Camerupt's awful matchups into a range of threatening enemies such as Veterans (with Morgan's Latias as possibly the worst offender lol) and others where Crobat's base stats in particular ended up falling short--and being left to rely on just a single slot to try and fix that that also has to synergise with Crobat properly is of course not sustainable. This was exactly the reason why I consistently made it into the 40s without major trouble but struggled comparatively with making the final step, and making that final step essentially twice in a row is quite a lot to ask. Of course it's also possible if not outright likely that 60 with Brendan was a lucky run, but especially with the context of the loss I don't think it was a full-on ceiling either; I am not going to be so arrogant as to believe I managed to catch lightning in a bottle on my very first try, and at the very least this Brendan configuration should have an easier time re-approaching these numbers than Maxie should have getting to them outright. Maybe that just means the Pokemon I paired with Brendan were better than the team I ran with Maxie? Well, yes, as a start lol, of course it does, but that's also exactly the point I'm trying to make: we're not just building these teams from scratch but trying to complement existing cores, and certain Pokemon have better natural synergy with the ones the AI provides us with than others do. And if Maxie closes the door on certain all-around strong Pokemon in this way that Brendan does not, and Brendan does not constrict building in the same ways as Maxie's Camerupt, then if nothing else that is a relevant factor for the question which one of them can make it to the trophy more easily. Multis being an exercise in teambuilding more than any other format only makes this more pertinent in terms of evaluating partner usability too.
Definitely don't take this as an attempt to defend Brendan as an underrated partner though, because yes of course he sucks and again this run was just outright awkward to play. I've found myself struggling to find the best way to put this into words, but I think the gist is: you know how storymode despite being 99% singles always has the odd double battle, either just with your team in doubles mode or paired up with a random NPC whose team makes uhhhh maybe not quite Brendan but let's say Archie look competent, and since your team is obviously built with just singles in mind you just kind of shuffle things around to make it work sort of, and you win not through competency as a doubles player or synergy of the team but entirely through having your Pokemon just outmatch the enemy's? That was pretty much how this run felt start to finish, and while yes I suppose that was kind of the idea in the first place, a me against the world approach just feels weird and unrewarding to play compared to a team where everyone cooperates on even footing. Like, I think I managed to make all other partners feel competent in their own way--of course intentionally nerfed compared to what I'd usually play, but with a clear intended synergy across both sides that also ended up playing out the way I wanted to. Brendan, not so much. Salamence also exacerbated this feeling for what it's worth, since quite blatantly playing it as just "click Return, probably win" was not a good way to make me feel like a competent player, but maybe I also don't really get it as a Pokemon (yet?). Odds also are though that it's not just unfamiliarity but Brendan genuinely putting him in the position where that was the best way of playing him. Who is to say.
I don't... really know how to continue this writeup... but I feel like I should still say more things, since it feels wrong to treat the genuine completion of the ORAS AI partner set, all five of them, without any "100% of 114%" loopholes or any other ifs or buts to explain away the omission of Brendan or anyone else, especially when I did not at all phone in my partner choices either, as just another team report. Let's go over all the other partners again real quick, for a proper recap of what can be/has been done in this mode over the years, I suppose?
Starting off with the, for worse not better, face of this mode, Steven, where our teams were the following:
:xy/metagross-mega: :xy/aerodactyl:
writeup (score 73)
:xy/metagross-mega: Metagross @ Metagrossite Ability: Clear Body Nature: Adamant IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def - Meteor Mash - Zen Headbutt - Hammer Arm - Bullet Punch | :xy/aerodactyl: Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash Ability: Rock Head Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe -Rock Slide -Fire Fang -Ice Fang -Thunder Fang |
:xy/greninja: By-Tor (Greninja) @ Focus Sash Ability: Protean Nature: Timid IVs: 31/X/31/31/31/31 EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe - Mat Block - Ice Beam - Grass Knot - Dark Pulse | :xy/gardevoir-mega: Gardevoir @ Gardevoirite Ability: Trace -> Pixilate Nature: Timid IVs: 31/X/31/30/30/31 EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 248 SpA / 252 Spe - Hyper Voice - Psyshock - Hidden Power Ground - Protect |
At face value, this team follows a significant core tenet of good multi partners, namely "reliability" via avoidance of status moves to make sure it'll always attempt to land damage, and of course there is no denying that having a Mega Metagross's sheer stats on your side is always a tempting prospect. In practice, though, the simple fact is that Steven is a textbook noob trap; and since in this mode we are all noobs by default, everyone, and I do mean literally everyone, flocked towards him after ORAS's initial release. Without tearing him apart too much, the reliability of full attacking moves is more than offset by its horrendous accuracy across the board and its inability to use Bullet Punch properly, and Aerodactyl similarly is completely incapable of clicking the right moves because one way or another it's not really doing damage anyway. While it's hard to ruin Metagross's stats, the game also does a great attempt at that via the obvious fantasy EV spread that makes it clear they should have used a better metric there than just "invest in highest base stats". It's important to stress Steven's noob trap-ness, since a look at the leaderboard would suggest that he's the strongest partner of the lot by far; nothing of that though, and it's genuinely little more than just a matter of him having the power of probability on his side, where yea if you roll the dice thousands more times you are gonna roll more sixes than otherwise; but that doesn't really mean a whole lot if the world never gave the other partners a fair shot.
For my own take, "literally everyone" flocking towards him unfortunately includes me as well, so he was the partner I used to first get the trophy eleven years ago, and one single glimpse at the babyraging paragraphs from the five trophy post should make it clear that no I did not have a good time, pretty much entirely on him. Encouraged by rave reviews from early ORAS multi players (which were probably just fuelled by contrast with more unlucky XY partners), I thought I could get away with being creative before being rudely punished in practice; I don't actually remember what I tried, other than a Greninja + Gastrodon where the idea was to protect Aerodactyl from enemy Water-types but that failed miserably in practice due to Steven just not handling Grass-types with any sort of consistency. I then switched to a more standard lineup with the goal of operating more independently, where I'm sorry if my memory of my rationale is not exactly on point with an 11 year time gap + PTSD to block it out not being very helpful, but it went kind of like this: Greninja and Mega Metagross were a sensible lead pairing for Mat Block support to activate Mega Metagross's wasted-but-still-better-than-base-forme Speed stat and offensive synergy against the likes of Fighting-types and offensive Ghosts, while Gardevoir in turn made sense as a backliner for being very hard to KO to special attackers at least and access to a spread nuke for the ability to clean up multiple enemies at the same time after they'd been chipped by the leads. The resulting team was... good enough, making it to a streak of 73 in the end; the loss was about what you'd expect, with Metagross trading itself with enemy Destiny Bond Drifblim via incompetent Bullet Punch usage (when I was actually trying to trade Greninja) for absolutely no reason at all, letting in Scarf Braviary to sweep non-Sash Greninja and Gardevoir while Aerodactyl was entirely useless against the other side as is unfortunately often the case. This still leaves Steven as my second-best performing partner numerically, but I can't stress enough that this proves nothing whatsoever other than that something with Mega Metagross's stats is still pretty hard to sink within 50 battles even in the face of a triple sabotage attempt in Steven's teambuilder. turskain did in fact have a much better time with this exact same lineup, so odds are 73 is not where my peak with him would be either if I give RNG some more chances to do its thing, but of course RNG being a thing like that is exactly the issue. More importantly, nothing of that can undo the fact that playing with Steven is just a heinously aggravating and nerve-wracking experience beginning to end for no reason. We play this game to have fun, so if any other partner can make 50 reliably while giving the player a better time in the process, then Steven should never have had any business being considered "the only choice", unlike what unfortunately happened when the generation was active.
So, on that note, let's look at Wally...
:xy/gallade-mega: :xy/magnezone:
writeup (score 145)
:xy/gallade-mega: Gallade @ Galladite Ability: Steadfast Nature: Adamant IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe - Close Combat - Psycho Cut - Leaf Blade - Swords Dance | :xy/magnezone: Magnezone @ Air Balloon Ability: Magnet Pull Nature: Modest IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 SpA / 252 SpD - Thunder - Flash Cannon - Thunder Wave - Reflect |
:xy/kangaskhan-mega: Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite Ability: Scrappy Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/X/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe - Fake Out - Double-Edge - Sucker Punch - Low Kick | :xy/gengar: Gengar @ Focus Sash Ability: Levitate Nature: Timid IVs: 31/X/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe - Shadow Ball - Sludge Bomb - Destiny Bond - Protect |
I tried out Wally on a whim once when I was bored and felt like using Doubles Kangaskhan, where the trick I had in mind was removing enemy Fighting-types via Fake Out + ally STAB Psychic move. When Steven's Metagross popped into my head as someone who technically met criteria here but at the same time I had had enough of to last several lifetimes, the pivot to Wally's Mega Gallade happened pretty much automatically, and while of course "literally everyone" had collectively written him off before, especially with this being multis the worst that could happen was that I'd burn a couple hours I'd otherwise waste on something else unproductive anyways to see firsthand that he did indeed suck. He very much did not suck though--Gallade is still by far the best multis partner I've paired with, where the instantaneous red flag in Swords Dance ended up being fine in practice thanks to base 165 Attack STAB Close Combat in particular being strong enough that Gallade almost always went for unboosted attacks just fine. At that point, what we have is a genuinely very solid fast and strong attacker, with the right secondary STAB move to handle the main threats to Kangaskhan and a coverage move that, while not technically optimal in a vacuum, handles a common range of tricky enemies in the landslide of Water / Ground tyoes that might otherwise Curse boost over a dual physical lead pair as well. The Adamant nature is the main hiccup, but giving Kangaskhan turn initiative is not a bad tradeoff, allowing it to save Gallade from itself when it surely would want to click Close Combat into a lot of Sturdy users otherwise that now Kangaskhan can simply snipe first, as well as just generally redirect its attacks a lot more easily as I think is wise. The status moves on Magnezone are, uh, considerably less unproblematic than those on Gallade, but at least if it's used as a backup it'll have more enemies in Flash Cannon range--and hopefully Flash Cannon range it is, since Thunder is not exactly a choice that helps with its reliability either. While Magnezone is certainly a stereotypical "what were they thinking" multis Pokemon, the fact that it at least has usable STAB moves that enemies can be chipped into makes it better than the likes of Aerodactyl, but more than anything else Gallade is just good at carrying it. Gengar was an autopilot addition for extra help against Ghost-types, but it kind of ended up working out in practice, with Levitate having helpful synergy with Magnezone as well and Destiny Bond pairing well with Magnezone's much greater defensive presence in case I need to simplify late-game situations.
Maybe Wally's consistency still needs a bit of work, but the main praise I can sing about him is that for the most part battles including him just aren't stressful, with Gallade's power and reliability meaning that it actually just beats the enemies it's supposed to beat lol, and the Pokemon I've been able to pair him with do a good job complementing this reliability, to the point that I will very much die on the hill that this is the optimal setup to win the trophy in this mode--which is of course the only thing that really matters here in the end. The actual scores I've gotten with him are almost secondary at this point, but they're very much good enough to match the quality of the team.
Archie was next, mostly for the challenge of completing the bingo sheet where he was the one square left at the time on account of the very few odd souls not fully subscribing to the Steven bandwagon all having played on Omega Ruby during the current generation.
:xy/crobat: :xy/sharpedo-mega:
writeup (score 65)
:xy/crobat: Crobat @ Life Orb Ability: Inner Focus Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe - Brave Bird - Cross Poison - Super Fang - Roost | :xy/sharpedo-mega: Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite Ability: Rough Skin Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe - Waterfall - Crunch - Poison Fang - Aqua Jet |
:xy/weavile: Catweazle (Weavile) @ Focus Sash Ability: Pressure Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe - Fake Out - Knock Off - Ice Punch - Protect | :xy/kangaskhan-mega: Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite Ability: Scrappy Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/X/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe - Fake Out - Double-Edge - Sucker Punch - Low Kick |
Somehow more painless than it would seem on account of at least both Crobat and Sharpedo being functional attackers in their own right; the main downside is the obvious weakness stack between Crobat and Sharpedo, where the likes of Jolteon and Manectric just sweeping Archie's side on cue is just as fun as it sounds, and Sharpedo's somewhat questionable Speed makes for a bleh cocktail with its frailty too when Crobat is not good at breaking through attackers on lead that it can't easily clear with Brave Bird. My hunch at the time was, rather than try to go out of my way to mitigate this, just accept it as a reality to deal with and at least try to salvage offensive momentum by overloading on Fake Out users (suppose that logic is not too unlike pairing Brendan with a standalone offensive board??), with Weavile being a great dedicated user with decent synergy with Crobat and Kangaskhan being the best option for the me against the world late-game scenarios that surely would end up being a thing too with a partner like this. It worked out surprisingly decently, with the team clicking instantly and the final score of 65 happening after an acceptable number of brute force attempts. I don't think there is a secret sauce to Archie that is gonna push him too much closer to triple digits, when one way or another relying on double Fake Out to support a partner that gets swept on sight by fast Electrics is still asking for your luck to run out sooner rather than later, but at the very least it seems like it's good enough at postponing the fatal matchup roll long enough for a trophy with Archie to be more than reasonable. Fun stuff.
Where there's... water, there is fire, but despite his team following the same template as Archie's, Maxie was one I initially had in "never happening" category.
:xy/crobat: :xy/camerupt-mega:
writeup (score 50)
:xy/crobat: Crobat @ Life Orb Ability: Inner Focus Nature: Jolly IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe - Brave Bird - Cross Poison - Super Fang - Roost | :xy/camerupt-mega: Camerupt @ Cameruptite Ability: Magma Armor EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31 Modest Nature - Fire Blast - Earth Power - Flash Cannon - Yawn |
:xy/lopunny-mega: Lopunny @ Lopunnite Ability: Limber -> Scrappy EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31 Jolly Nature - Fake Out - Return - Low Kick - Protect | :xy/gastrodon-east: Gastrodon @ Sitrus Berry Ability: Storm Drain EVs: 164 HP / 108 Def / 220 SpA / 16 SpD IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/31 Modest Nature - Scald - Earth Power - Clear Smog - Protect |
Crobat still does Crobat things, but between heinous Speed plus major vulnerability to common threatening attacking types and reliance on inaccurate moves (or outright sabotage in the case of Yawn), Camerupt is a textbook case of how not to build an AI multis Pokemon, and Maxie was also the only non-Steven partner where I did not get my own team right on the first try. See the linked post for a more in-depth breakdown, but the first attempt involved using After You Mega Lopunny to counteract Camerupt's Speed, which unfortunately did not work out in practice at all since I was giving up Lopunny's turn in order to salvage Camerupt's plus it did nothing to actually defeat the Camerupt checks that were on the field to outspeed it, not to mention Camerupt ordinarily getting on the field before Lopunny being another reason for it falling flat in practice. Lopunny got to stay on account of good synergy with Crobat, but the partnership with Camerupt got constricted into Gastrodon as the only real proactive way I saw of fixing the Water issue, where the Ground vulnerability was at least mitigated a little bit by only being a 2x weakness plus its most common move by far having a spread penalty to deal with. This was fine for making it into the 40s very consistently, and barely fine for beating the Chatelaines with a final score of literally 50; again read the initial post for more commentary on this, but like I mentioned earlier, in the end Maxie's main issue turned out to be not inability to fit in an overall synergistic team, but rather just a sketchy matchup against Veterans and other enemies where Crobat loses the BST race for good, combined with Gastrodon actually exacerbating this vulnerability and trying to get the final Pokemon to patch up all of that on its own not being a reasonable ask. The fact that one of those all but unbeatable enemies in Latias1 is actually on the Chatelaine's roster is certainly a thing lol and kind of forces people to just hope they won't bring it (or be me and get an instantaneous Scald burn plus connect every single Fire Blast of course) and also is the reason why I think even 60 is a stretch with him; at least he was surprisingly more apt for having a good time in the first 40 battles than one would think.
That also makes for a nice bridge back into the thing no one was looking for but I probably can't get out of, namely the actual power rankings between partner options. Brendan getting a better score than Maxie here, and more importantly a better score than I realistically foresee being in the cards for Maxie at all, is certainly a thing, but rather than Claydol / Exploud being a better team than Crobat / Mega Camerupt I think this more just means that Brendan leaves more room to run Pokemon on the team that can handle the enemies that x / Gastrodon + Crobat / Mega Camerupt can't keep up with. So there is... that, but at the same time Brendan is noobish agony to play while Maxie feels synergistic, and with building constraints, potential Pokemon power level, and just enjoyment of play to be able to commit to the trophy grind properly without wanting to smash your 3DS that's just so many variables here where I feel like this is the best case in point that an outright ranking just gets too subjective. So, rather than that, let's just leave a few words on all of them with those criteria in mind.
- Wally: Gallade is the best Pokemon across all these rosters; easy to support in multiple good and enjoyable ways and weaknesses that are very doable to cover; potential to unravel if Magnezone needs to take centre stage unexpectedly; peace of mind in neutral matchups, which is most of them; very pleasant pick for going for 50.
- Steven: A+ power level even with nerfed Pokemon; slightly constrained building in terms of finding good options to support Metagross; potential to beat almost enemy lineup with neutral luck; substantial consistency issues in-game that are never not there and can also throw away almost any matchup; plausible but consistently stressful pick for going for 50.
- Archie: two perfectly serviceable Pokemon with good offensive synergy; acceptable synergy with strong Pokemon for your own partners; comfortable pilot in neutral matchups; deplorable defensive synergy that makes for consistency issues in terms of matchup and capable of losing on preview in several cases; plausible pick for reaching 50 but just as capable of losing around 30.
- Maxie: very possible to build a synergistic team across both halves of the board; Camerupt is a liability in the end despite getting the job done for the role it's trying to be; extremely constrained building that comes with major matchup issues in later round; consistent and enjoyable pilot in earlier rounds; sane pick for reaching 40, Russian roulette-level one for 50.
- Brendan: absolutely deplorable in terms of offensive presence; know that you'll be fighting 1v2 in practice a lot of the time and that this will catch up with you at some point; somewhat okay in terms of keeping enemies occupied; barely acceptable in terms of enabling highly offensive partner setups; demands very specific playstyle that is both highly alien compared to conventional high-level play and outright not enjoyable; better at reaching 50 than it would appear but insanity pick to touch outright.
I think my personal power rankings does still shine through here a little bit lol, but at least it should be more helpful than a raw ranking. For the ride home, have a sixth partner, or at least a thought experiment.
since... yes, for all the obvious hype this Pokemon has gotten compared to a lot of other Megas, this has in fact ended up being a bring your own Mence format, and there also is an obvious character who would have brought theirs; the person with arguably the best theme in the franchise and possibly video game history outright is actually kind of a notable omission as well when we do get to pair up with most prominent characters in the game (wow, it's also now occurring to me that we're actually 5 out of 5 on male partner options... sexism much??? in my Pokemon games???). Leaving aside the question of what her other Pokemon would be (Aster might honestly be a more logical fit than Dragon spam, and there's no love lost about Brendan having to ditch Exploud anyways...), how Salamence would perform in the hands of the CPU is actually a bit more complicated than it would seem. Let's assume a set like this:
:xy/salamence-mega:
Zinnia's hypothetical Salamence (Salamence) @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate -> Aerilate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Nature: Adamant (?)
- Double-Edge
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Crunch / Fire Fang / ????
Thankfully there should be no Metagross-like BST noob traps about Salamence that would change the EV investment away from max Attack / Speed, and for the nature I would of course welcome Jolly more but keeping in line with the "boost highest base stat lol" pattern from elsewhere I assume they'd roll with Adamant instead. Moveset-wise, I'm choosing to be an optimist and trust they won't let Salamence walk into the AI's Return bug and go with Double-Edge instead for its Aerilate move. Dragon STAB and Earthquake would have uhhh probably been surprising omissions I suppose, and while you really don't need any extra coverage at this point and Salamence does have enough sensible non-attacking moves for that final slot, that would have to be the likes of Protect which is still as risky as ever and Dragon Dance which thanks to Speed tiers entering the AI's thought process is a much bigger wildcard than Gallade's Swords Dance; thankfully though GF has historically had enough of a fetish for all-out attacking Salamence set that a fourth attacking move would probably be realistic. I honestly have no clue which one they would actually roll with, but let's be real it's probably not clicking it anyways in practice right...
So there we have a set that would draw players like moths to a flame even quicker than Steven's Metagross, but the Return bug is not the only unhelpful AI behaviour we have to contend with here, since them not knowing they'll be gaining Aerilate when they're starting the turn as base Salamence is yet another thing in practice. It's why GF assuredly including Dragon STAB is honestly not too bad despite it absolutely being redundant with Flying / Ground so that Zinnia at least has a good move to click turn 1; and let's once again be optimistic and assume Dragon Claw here, since Outrage in addition to being Doubles Outrage locking her out of going for Aerilate STAB at least turn 2 would be all the wrong kinds of funny. So there we have an awkward turn 1 to deal with thanks to the AI not understanding Mega Evolution mechanics, and while that is fixed come turn 2 the Return bug also pretty much forces Double-Edge on the set, which is overkill powerwise and mostly just adds a kamikaze mode. As a result, we're also all but forced to run Salamence in the lead position, for the extra board control turn 1 when it's not clicking a good move yet as well as having a Pokemon able to swap in once Salamence has burned through its own health--and when said switch-in might honestly end up being literally Exploud, then, well, that is one we have some slightly mixed experiences with.
My subtext here is probably at least a little bit misleading, because like even with all of these asterisks Zinnia would probably still be better than Steven lol, we're still being carried by a Salamence here that is hard to mess up as much as they messed up Metagross. I'm not sure she'd be better than Wally though, but that is also a testament of how great a job they did there. Mostly though it's just fun to think about how it would actually work, especially when Steven has been right there for 11 years to teach us the hard way that we should know better than broken Mega = guaranteed trophy; and of course me really being dead serious in terms of Zinnia being a glaring omission from the partner roster that we should have been able to partner up with, not just for girl power reasons but also because as a character she's just prominent enough to warrant it. Let's not forget that theme of hers either, especially with the added context of this crazy mission of mine having come to mean a lot to me; with her theme being an absolute masterpiece in particular in terms of capturing melancholy and finality, I could not have asked for a better backdrop to see me off.
On that note, I'm still writing because I don't want this post to end... since it also realistically represents the end of ORAS multi from me. I can surely still mess around in other generations, but they don't have the same clean "five partners" challenge built in, and the only thing I can still think of here is unironically going for Starf with Wally, which I am not fully ruling out but is uhhhh limited by practicality in addition to sanity thanks to the stupid random lead thing. It's not really the right way to play anyways, since yea triple digit multi streaks are certainly possible but with the extra variance outright going for them is almost setting oneself up for failure, and going for more modest goals except with more teams just kind of works better here; the lower stakes help a lot to offset the more than occasional frustration, and it's also just a radically different challenge than we're used to, being more focused on building to make the most out of an intentionally suboptimal unit than on truly approaching perfect consistency. And it's much much much more fun than it's given credit for if you play it for what it's trying to be. I hope I'll still get to play it, and get stories to share about it, in the future, but even if this is all I get to do out of it, surely this has to be the perfect note to end on after, shoutouts Steven, where I came from initially. Mission complete, for real this time and in more ways than one.
One of my first posts on here was about my absurd alomomola-cm pass sylveon-mega aggron maison team. Mola was great wish, that's not the weird. The weird was the main thing was cm pass to an otherwise normal Fire Blast aggron. 140 is a much higher atk than 50 SpA, but iirc I did great. Would love to find that post with the evs. Anyways, was fun for a grind-y reward thing. Anyone think anything of this? Like in terms of unusual mixed sets in general? It really helped to get SpD and shore up the SpA, obviously, and strong ish fire special can save you when burned.or tangrowth, skarms, other misc steels, or like something shows up. Fire dang isn't always stronger with no and pass. It was fun, main thing. Woulda tried eventually in ranked oras
Okay, operative word "at least" one final post I guess, since here is the followup and the Cloyster / Gliscor / Chansey streak is still ongoing at 2400 straight wins.
| :xy/cloyster: | :xy/gliscor: | :xy/chansey: |
Imprisoned (Cloyster) @ Focus Sash Ability: Skill Link Nature: Naughty EVs: 252 Atk / 12 SpA / 244 Spe - Icicle Spear - Surf - Shell Smash - Rock Blast | Deadwing (Gliscor) @ Toxic Orb Ability: Poison Heal Nature: Impish EVs: 212 HP / 4 Atk / 36 Def / 164 SpD / 92 Spe - Earthquake - Toxic - Protect - Substitute | Full Circle (Chansey) @ Eviolite Ability: Natural Cure Nature: Bold EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe - Seismic Toss - Toxic - Soft-Boiled - Growl |
For more detailed descriptions check out the report from last year's 787 run and the initial post about this run; I (thankfully, at this point) don't have any hugely new insights about how the team plays compared to the most recent post in particular, so I'll just get right into the videos.
#2400: vs. Backpacker Perdido
As uneventful as any generic milestone proof video; this time Altaria4 is the poor sap that guarantees a +6 Cloyster sweep simply by being in the lead spot, with Gliscor + Chansey easily stalling out Moonblast and Hypnosis for Cloyster to set up on Dream Eater and Cotton Guard.
#2373: vs. Pokemon Breeder Teppei
The closest call and the most loseable matchup at least in the last several hundreds of battles. For set 4 Trainers, the go-to Empoleon strategy is go to Empoleon to Growl stall its attacking moves, then in the final handful of Whirlpool PP (once Blizzard is gone too of course...) go to Gliscor and use Substitute to break the trapping effect so that I can immediately go to Cloyster for setup once attacking PP are gone; this is important since, with even +6 Spear realistically being a 3HKO here with a Substitute that usually takes three hits to break in the way, Empoleon can actually cheat me out of full setup here if I still need to wait out a handful of Whirlpool turns with Chansey first. Now of course since this a starter Breeder, we can have any Empoleon set here:
219 | Empoleon1 | Lax | Sitrus Berry | Yawn | Swords Dance | Aqua Jet | Metal Claw | HP/Def
394 | Empoleon2 | Lonely | Muscle Band | Drill Peck | Aqua Jet | Metal Claw | FeatherDance | HP/Atk/SpD
569 | Empoleon3 | Quiet | Lum Berry | Surf | Ice Beam | Signal Beam | Icy Wind | HP/SpA
744 | Empoleon4 | Calm | Petaya Berry | Surf | Substitute | Blizzard | Whirlpool | HP/SpA
where for set 3 the Chansey switch works just fine too of course, same for set 2 where Gliscor should be able to win as well. Set 1 is obviously a much more major problem though, with Swords Dance and basically infinite attacking PP ruling out any Gliscor stalling; Swords Dance + Yawn (+ Sitrus Berry) also pretty much shutting down Chansey from muscling through it; and Cloyster itself being an obviously lol tier answer in the first place. However, set 4 requiring all three team members to handle and creative ways to account for set 1 without shooting myself in the foot for other sets pretty much not existing, combined with basic expected value logic, means that turn 1 still remains a Chansey switch and just winging it if it does turn out to be the feared set. With it showing up here, I decided to brute force through it and hope that, between Aqua Jet's lack of power and the AI's general lack of prioritisation on Swords Dance, I'd have enough time to take it down before it would boost over me. Things did not go fantastically on that front; after Chansey got hit by Yawn on the switch I went for a Seismic Toss to take both the Sitrus Berry and plausible Torrent range (which barring miracle rolls Empoleon would be in after two immediate Earthquakes) out of the equation, but just for once the AI was actually smart and, rather than click Yawn again on my Seismic Toss, went for Swords Dance, and another one right after on the Gliscor switch. At this point I kinda didn't see any other option than just try to take it out with two Earthquakes, which is kinda sorta Focus Blast level odds but went my way here. Sceptile comes in:
214 | Sceptile1 | Timid | Focus Sash | Quick Attack | Endeavor | Detect | Leaf Storm | Spd/SpA
389 | Sceptile2 | Hasty | Scope Lens | Leaf Blade | Night Slash | Earthquake | Swords Dance | Atk/Spd
564 | Sceptile3 | Timid | White Herb | Leaf Storm | Dragon Pulse | Energy Ball | Detect | Spd/SpA
739 | Sceptile4 | Calm | Leftovers | Leech Seed | Endeavor | Energy Ball | Toxic | Def/SpD
which can hopefully be Chansey food but first it's time to click Protect to get Gliscor's remaining health into a less sorry state--only to be met with apparently the other starter Breeder Swords Dance set not being shy to set up. Yes I suppose it's a risk I'm taking right here, but once again expected value is a thing and there are so many third Pokemon possible here where Gliscor may need every HP possible--or, heck, forget third Pokemon, if this is Sceptile4 then realistically I'll be swapping Gliscor back into an Energy Ball to reset Leech Seed/Toxic on Chansey later this battle, which it was in guaranteed KO range for at this point. Once again expected value and all that, once again getting the one set out of four where it falls flat. Now the good news is that Cloyster is still in the back as a hard check to Sceptile2; the bad news is that there's no way to actually get it in properly without a sack and by extension a major hole in my defensive core. Normally the Pokemon preservation prioritisation ladder is Gliscor > Chansey > Cloyster, where now it's obviously going between Gliscor and Chansey and Gliscor's weakened state might even out whatever edge it normally has over Chansey, especially with Chansey's matchup into certain parts of the starter roster. AI switch prioritisation means that the third Pokemon being a Water-type is all but ruled out at this point though, with just about all of them having a move with a higher effective Base Power than Leaf Blade's 90; with those being by far the main reason for keeping around Chansey over Gliscor, the choice for which one to sack makes itself, and after I let Chansey flounder for a few turns for the sake of it, Sceptile goes down to a boosted 1HP Cloyster. The last Pokemon is... Infernape, which okay a Fire-type is in line with the matchup foresight and good to see into boosted Cloyster, but Infernape is quite a bit more complicated than say Blaziken or Delphox here.
218 | Infernape1 | Jolly | Kings Rock | Fake Out | Encore | Fling | Acrobatics | Atk/Spd
393 | Infernape2 | Mild | Charcoal | Heat Wave | Will-O-Wisp | Grass Knot | Calm Mind | HP/Spd/SpA
568 | Infernape3 | Hasty | Life Orb | Fake Out | Close Combat | Overheat | Stone Edge | Atk/Spd
743 | Infernape4 | Jolly | Focus Sash | Fake Out | Encore | Flare Blitz | Close Combat | Atk/Spd
Infernape clicking Fake Out into 1 HP Cloyster is not exactly guaranteed (more often than not Infernape4 clicks presumably CC instead and just goes down to +2 Rock Blast if it shows up second into Cloyster in this position), but either way yea that's three of them having that move right there, two of which also can easily pick off a 77 HP Gliscor and that's bye bye streak. Unless... both Overheat and Flare Blitz have higher effective Base Powers than Leaf Blade into Gliscor, meaning those two would have come out before Sceptile after Empoleon went down--ergo we are assuredly dealing with set 1 or 2 here and I am kind of cursing myself for not paying attention to whether Sceptile was in the AI's second or third slot (latter of which also would have ruled out set 2 I'm 99% sure), but also not really since it doesn't affect anything in practice; this is where I click Surf, unless this is Infernape1 clicking Fake Out I win, if Fake Out does happen then uhhh at least set 1 has some pretty pathetic calcs into Impish-leaning Gliscor and I mostly just need to not choke into Encore. Turns out I was also misremembering Heat Wave's Base Power at the time and set 2 would also have been sent out before Sceptile, so, you guess it, Fake Out does happen, but after I (eat Fling and) hit Infernape with Toxic and intentionally get Encored into Protect, all is well that ends well. For what it's worth, yes, with Earthquake's OHKO odds Toxic is realistically a mistake here (matter of accuracy versus 110 BP Acrobatics crit in the event of missing the roll); truth is the stress of the battle and the fixation on having to play around Encore made me hallucinate Infernape4's inability to be OHKOed here and I absolutely wanted to have it in the bag with just one connecting hit, but I guess it worked out either way in the end.
219 | Empoleon1 | Lax | Sitrus Berry | Yawn | Swords Dance | Aqua Jet | Metal Claw | HP/Def
394 | Empoleon2 | Lonely | Muscle Band | Drill Peck | Aqua Jet | Metal Claw | FeatherDance | HP/Atk/SpD
569 | Empoleon3 | Quiet | Lum Berry | Surf | Ice Beam | Signal Beam | Icy Wind | HP/SpA
744 | Empoleon4 | Calm | Petaya Berry | Surf | Substitute | Blizzard | Whirlpool | HP/SpA
where for set 3 the Chansey switch works just fine too of course, same for set 2 where Gliscor should be able to win as well. Set 1 is obviously a much more major problem though, with Swords Dance and basically infinite attacking PP ruling out any Gliscor stalling; Swords Dance + Yawn (+ Sitrus Berry) also pretty much shutting down Chansey from muscling through it; and Cloyster itself being an obviously lol tier answer in the first place. However, set 4 requiring all three team members to handle and creative ways to account for set 1 without shooting myself in the foot for other sets pretty much not existing, combined with basic expected value logic, means that turn 1 still remains a Chansey switch and just winging it if it does turn out to be the feared set. With it showing up here, I decided to brute force through it and hope that, between Aqua Jet's lack of power and the AI's general lack of prioritisation on Swords Dance, I'd have enough time to take it down before it would boost over me. Things did not go fantastically on that front; after Chansey got hit by Yawn on the switch I went for a Seismic Toss to take both the Sitrus Berry and plausible Torrent range (which barring miracle rolls Empoleon would be in after two immediate Earthquakes) out of the equation, but just for once the AI was actually smart and, rather than click Yawn again on my Seismic Toss, went for Swords Dance, and another one right after on the Gliscor switch. At this point I kinda didn't see any other option than just try to take it out with two Earthquakes, which is kinda sorta Focus Blast level odds but went my way here. Sceptile comes in:
214 | Sceptile1 | Timid | Focus Sash | Quick Attack | Endeavor | Detect | Leaf Storm | Spd/SpA
389 | Sceptile2 | Hasty | Scope Lens | Leaf Blade | Night Slash | Earthquake | Swords Dance | Atk/Spd
564 | Sceptile3 | Timid | White Herb | Leaf Storm | Dragon Pulse | Energy Ball | Detect | Spd/SpA
739 | Sceptile4 | Calm | Leftovers | Leech Seed | Endeavor | Energy Ball | Toxic | Def/SpD
which can hopefully be Chansey food but first it's time to click Protect to get Gliscor's remaining health into a less sorry state--only to be met with apparently the other starter Breeder Swords Dance set not being shy to set up. Yes I suppose it's a risk I'm taking right here, but once again expected value is a thing and there are so many third Pokemon possible here where Gliscor may need every HP possible--or, heck, forget third Pokemon, if this is Sceptile4 then realistically I'll be swapping Gliscor back into an Energy Ball to reset Leech Seed/Toxic on Chansey later this battle, which it was in guaranteed KO range for at this point. Once again expected value and all that, once again getting the one set out of four where it falls flat. Now the good news is that Cloyster is still in the back as a hard check to Sceptile2; the bad news is that there's no way to actually get it in properly without a sack and by extension a major hole in my defensive core. Normally the Pokemon preservation prioritisation ladder is Gliscor > Chansey > Cloyster, where now it's obviously going between Gliscor and Chansey and Gliscor's weakened state might even out whatever edge it normally has over Chansey, especially with Chansey's matchup into certain parts of the starter roster. AI switch prioritisation means that the third Pokemon being a Water-type is all but ruled out at this point though, with just about all of them having a move with a higher effective Base Power than Leaf Blade's 90; with those being by far the main reason for keeping around Chansey over Gliscor, the choice for which one to sack makes itself, and after I let Chansey flounder for a few turns for the sake of it, Sceptile goes down to a boosted 1HP Cloyster. The last Pokemon is... Infernape, which okay a Fire-type is in line with the matchup foresight and good to see into boosted Cloyster, but Infernape is quite a bit more complicated than say Blaziken or Delphox here.
218 | Infernape1 | Jolly | Kings Rock | Fake Out | Encore | Fling | Acrobatics | Atk/Spd
393 | Infernape2 | Mild | Charcoal | Heat Wave | Will-O-Wisp | Grass Knot | Calm Mind | HP/Spd/SpA
568 | Infernape3 | Hasty | Life Orb | Fake Out | Close Combat | Overheat | Stone Edge | Atk/Spd
743 | Infernape4 | Jolly | Focus Sash | Fake Out | Encore | Flare Blitz | Close Combat | Atk/Spd
Infernape clicking Fake Out into 1 HP Cloyster is not exactly guaranteed (more often than not Infernape4 clicks presumably CC instead and just goes down to +2 Rock Blast if it shows up second into Cloyster in this position), but either way yea that's three of them having that move right there, two of which also can easily pick off a 77 HP Gliscor and that's bye bye streak. Unless... both Overheat and Flare Blitz have higher effective Base Powers than Leaf Blade into Gliscor, meaning those two would have come out before Sceptile after Empoleon went down--ergo we are assuredly dealing with set 1 or 2 here and I am kind of cursing myself for not paying attention to whether Sceptile was in the AI's second or third slot (latter of which also would have ruled out set 2 I'm 99% sure), but also not really since it doesn't affect anything in practice; this is where I click Surf, unless this is Infernape1 clicking Fake Out I win, if Fake Out does happen then uhhh at least set 1 has some pretty pathetic calcs into Impish-leaning Gliscor and I mostly just need to not choke into Encore. Turns out I was also misremembering Heat Wave's Base Power at the time and set 2 would also have been sent out before Sceptile, so, you guess it, Fake Out does happen, but after I (eat Fling and) hit Infernape with Toxic and intentionally get Encored into Protect, all is well that ends well. For what it's worth, yes, with Earthquake's OHKO odds Toxic is realistically a mistake here (matter of accuracy versus 110 BP Acrobatics crit in the event of missing the roll); truth is the stress of the battle and the fixation on having to play around Encore made me hallucinate Infernape4's inability to be OHKOed here and I absolutely wanted to have it in the bag with just one connecting hit, but I guess it worked out either way in the end.
#1939: vs. Pokemon Breeder Teppei
Chansey is the only plausible defensive switch-in to lead Samurott, and Samurott3 is for all intents as benign as it gets, not even mandating quick Toxic stalling to avoid taking chances with Ice Beam freezes like set 4; I end up Growl stalling Waterfall entirely so that I can safely proc Gliscor's Toxic Orb without surprise crits and also mitigate odds of Chansey ending up in a compromised position via a late flinch during a Toxic stall. Going against conventional takedown priorities I do choose to win with Chansey here rather than with a Subbed Gliscor, because "Feraligatr" and because Chansey has a comparatively decent matchup into the starter Breeder roster; after all, even against the Fire / Fightings there is no functional difference between them coming in on Chansey and them coming in on lead Cloyster. Chesnaught is not exactly a Fire / Fighting but does mandate an obvious Gliscor switch all the same... only to reveal the one set that, rather than being hard countered, carries one of the few moves that give this entire backline headaches.
9 | Chesnaught1 | Adamant | Leftovers | Taunt | Spiky Shield | Feint | Wood Hammer | Atk/Def
I will say right away that I kind of floundered here (for more reasons than the obvious choke of "okay I'll Sub here then I can Toxic after"), but other than Taunt + Wood Hammer being obviously kind of lol into Gliscor + Chansey, it's also worth pointing out that Leftovers (+ Spiky Shield) messes up the reflexive anti-Taunt strategy of slowly breaking through it with chip damage and Wood Hammer recoil. After a handful turns of the aforementioned floundering, I position myself so that I can take it out with a +0 Icicle Spear after a few rounds of Toxic damage; this does involve hard switching Cloyster into Wood Hammer and putting myself into a more than slightly compromised position, but sadly it's the lesser of several evils at this point and the final Pokemon will just have to be merciful. The last Pokemon is in fact... Feraligatr, validation for anticipating that one I suppose?
213 | Feraligatr1 | Careful | Lax Incense | Screech | Aqua Jet | Earthquake | Block | HP/SpD
388 | Feraligatr2 | Adamant | Liechi Berry | Superpower | Aqua Tail | Ice Fang | Dragon Dance | HP/Atk/Spd
563 | Feraligatr3 | Adamant | Lum Berry | Aqua Jet | Waterfall | Earthquake | Ice Punch | HP/Atk
738 | Feraligatr4 | Adamant | Liechi Berry | Dragon Dance | Waterfall | Crunch | Substitute | Atk/Spd
Feraligatr1 is a lol set that is not worth worrying about unless it somehow traps Chansey early in the game, set 3 is one that even Gliscor can beat okay should it come down to it, and set 2 is already ruled out from Superpower having a higher effective Base Power into Chansey than Chesnaught's Wood Hammer. Set 4 is still the same minefield as ever though, and with me just having given up Cloyster's Sash I can't even do the usual "good enough" lead strategy of +2 Spear 2HKO. Fact of the matter remains though that set 4 is the only one to seriously anticipate at this point, and clicking Shell Smash to be instantly picked off is not in fact a misplay even with the pretty much guaranteed KO on Cloyster coming up; as long as Chansey gets in safely on a +0 Feraligatr one way or another it Growls it to death anyway barring serious hax, and should a rogue Dragon Dance somehow happen then the Smash at least gives me the out of trying to take it out with +2 Rock Blast into Seismic Toss rather than assuredly losing me the game should it happen on a Chansey switch (and I guess a Crunch Defense drop would also be a thing). While the set is in fact Feraligatr4 it indeed just clicks Crunch like it was always gonna do in a non-major-freak-accident scenario, and Chansey has no trouble handling it. I will leave it to your imagination how I feel about the optimal play with this team in this position being an almost objective misclick, but yea one way or another all's well that ends well, somehow even after a majorly disruptive second Pokemon into one of the biggest late-game threats to this team outright.
9 | Chesnaught1 | Adamant | Leftovers | Taunt | Spiky Shield | Feint | Wood Hammer | Atk/Def
I will say right away that I kind of floundered here (for more reasons than the obvious choke of "okay I'll Sub here then I can Toxic after"), but other than Taunt + Wood Hammer being obviously kind of lol into Gliscor + Chansey, it's also worth pointing out that Leftovers (+ Spiky Shield) messes up the reflexive anti-Taunt strategy of slowly breaking through it with chip damage and Wood Hammer recoil. After a handful turns of the aforementioned floundering, I position myself so that I can take it out with a +0 Icicle Spear after a few rounds of Toxic damage; this does involve hard switching Cloyster into Wood Hammer and putting myself into a more than slightly compromised position, but sadly it's the lesser of several evils at this point and the final Pokemon will just have to be merciful. The last Pokemon is in fact... Feraligatr, validation for anticipating that one I suppose?
213 | Feraligatr1 | Careful | Lax Incense | Screech | Aqua Jet | Earthquake | Block | HP/SpD
388 | Feraligatr2 | Adamant | Liechi Berry | Superpower | Aqua Tail | Ice Fang | Dragon Dance | HP/Atk/Spd
563 | Feraligatr3 | Adamant | Lum Berry | Aqua Jet | Waterfall | Earthquake | Ice Punch | HP/Atk
738 | Feraligatr4 | Adamant | Liechi Berry | Dragon Dance | Waterfall | Crunch | Substitute | Atk/Spd
Feraligatr1 is a lol set that is not worth worrying about unless it somehow traps Chansey early in the game, set 3 is one that even Gliscor can beat okay should it come down to it, and set 2 is already ruled out from Superpower having a higher effective Base Power into Chansey than Chesnaught's Wood Hammer. Set 4 is still the same minefield as ever though, and with me just having given up Cloyster's Sash I can't even do the usual "good enough" lead strategy of +2 Spear 2HKO. Fact of the matter remains though that set 4 is the only one to seriously anticipate at this point, and clicking Shell Smash to be instantly picked off is not in fact a misplay even with the pretty much guaranteed KO on Cloyster coming up; as long as Chansey gets in safely on a +0 Feraligatr one way or another it Growls it to death anyway barring serious hax, and should a rogue Dragon Dance somehow happen then the Smash at least gives me the out of trying to take it out with +2 Rock Blast into Seismic Toss rather than assuredly losing me the game should it happen on a Chansey switch (and I guess a Crunch Defense drop would also be a thing). While the set is in fact Feraligatr4 it indeed just clicks Crunch like it was always gonna do in a non-major-freak-accident scenario, and Chansey has no trouble handling it. I will leave it to your imagination how I feel about the optimal play with this team in this position being an almost objective misclick, but yea one way or another all's well that ends well, somehow even after a majorly disruptive second Pokemon into one of the biggest late-game threats to this team outright.
Funny coincidence that both of the scary matchups are against the exact same Trainer isn't it, well yes kind of but also not really. Of course sketchy battles versus set 4 Trainers also exist. I'm thinking of one that I didn't save where lead Bisharp left me with Taunted Gliscor into followup Sceptile, and being unable to Toxic it right away meant I had to dance around Leech Seed / Toxic with Chansey and foolishly switched Gliscor into 1HP Endeavor on the turn Sceptile went down--of course there are still heaps of sets where fresh Cloyster and mostly fresh Chansey win on their own, but Absol4 is not necessarily one of those so it took some switching and turn grabbing to get Gliscor back into a winning position. Regardless, starter Breeders are absolutely the kind of opponent that is more capable of beating me than others. I've mentioned before that this team is close enough to hard stall that it hard wins most of its battles on preview but, at least theoretically, also risks hard losing on matchup should an enemy appear that it does not have covered properly--where of course practice has proven that odds of this are low enough into the narrow roster that at this point I can list in my dreams that is the set 4s for this streak to keep going for this long, but at the same time ultra rare sets or instances of set ambiguity offer up a lot more sets where matchup can very much not be on my side, and once these sets actually hit the field it does not in fact matter anymore that they're as rare as they are. Abd starter Breeders in particular do have a handful of potential wildcards up their sleeves for. The obvious culprits here are users of disruptive or stallbreaking moves, most notably Taunt, Encore, and Swords Dance, which tend to force uncharacteristically proactive strategies into the relevant set 4 mons as is and by extension can get very awkward very quick if they have any different additional toolkits for me to respond to or I'm forced to make midground plays.
The good news is that for the most part these Pokemon are still not 1v3ing me and the rest of the matchup still needs to complete a counterteam; we can even look at the terrifying Empoleon battle as an example, where even if Gliscor had in fact missed the roll on Empoleon, what would have happened was Cloyster picking it off with Surf, taking out Sceptile with +2 Spear just the same, and even if Infernape1 defeated Cloyster that set in question is not breaking a full health Chansey either. So, while of course I am not just gonna gleefully sack Gliscor into Empoleon1 should it show up again at some point, it is not exactly another Medicham3 lurking in the shadows either and very much needs additional support from a full-on nightmare matchup; still, we can take another look at some rare Pokemon where I might end up on the back foot unexpectedly.
218 | Infernape1 | Jolly | Kings Rock | Fake Out | Encore | Fling | Acrobatics | Atk/Spd
393 | Infernape2 | Mild | Charcoal | Heat Wave | Will-O-Wisp | Grass Knot | Calm Mind | HP/Spd/SpA
568 | Infernape3 | Hasty | Life Orb | Fake Out | Close Combat | Overheat | Stone Edge | Atk/Spd
743 | Infernape4 | Jolly | Focus Sash | Fake Out | Encore | Flare Blitz | Close Combat | Atk/Spd
Already indirectly mentioned above, but this one is obnoxious; it's already a vaguely tricky enemy if it's just set 4, since Encore takes Sub/Protect out of the picture as a strategy, while Fake Out and Cloyster having a chance at tanking Close Combat (which otherwise would have taken Fake Out out of the picture for turn 1) means Shell Smash won't work here either, meaning the line of play is a hard switch to Gliscor on turn 1 followed by an immediate Earthquake to take it out as it breaks its own Sash via Flare Blitz. Now this certainly works, but it also chips Gliscor quite heavily, which can make for awkward positions especially given the fact that Infernape is on Black Belt / Battle Girl rosters; good thing uhhhh that if they also have a non-Fighting-type in the back that one will realistically come out second? In any case, the risk of eating an Overheat from set 3 let alone Wisp from set 2 makes a turn 1 Gliscor switch kind of a non-starter here, meaning that... yes the play becomes a turn 1 Shell Smash (checkmate for sets 2 and 3 at least), and if it's set 4 or to a lesser extent set 1 then seems like Cloyster is not getting to keep a Sash during this battle. All sets are very much beatable, but the forced midgrounds here could certainly come back to bite me
222 | Samurott1 | Mild | Splash Plate | Retaliate | Razor Shell | Assurance | Encore | HP/Atk
397 | Samurott2 | Quiet | Zoom Lens | Blizzard | Giga Impact | Detect | Hydro Pump | Atk/SpA
572 | Samurott3 | Adamant | Custap Berry | Aerial Ace | Waterfall | X-Scissor | Aqua Jet | Atk/Def/SpD
747 | Samurott4 | Modest | Salac Berry | Hydro Pump | Ice Beam | Grass Knot | Protect | Def/SpA/SpD
Sets 2 to 4 are obvious Chansey food, with 2 and 3 also giving me the option to win with Gliscor if I so choose (technically 4 too but Ice Beam stalling too cavalier etc). It's set 1 that is the problem, obviously walling Cloyster while also messing up Chansey and Gliscor with Encore. I've faced it once in the Maison as far as I remember, in last year's streak, where I recall not loving how I played around it. The optimal way is probably something along the lines of go to Chansey right away, Toxic, go back to Cloyster on what's hopefully the baited Encore, go back to Chansey and intentionally get Encored into Soft-Boiled while it dies; however, Samurott can be annoying with unexpected move choices and Razor Shell drops, and of course even best case you're still left with one turn of Encore lock when the second Pokemon comes out. There may be ways of baiting Encore twice or something like that, but that would require more testing off an actual battle video and probably would still not be reliable anyway.
212 | Typhlosion1 | Rash | Passho Berry | Flame Burst | Flamethrower | SolarBeam | Sunny Day | Spd/SpA
387 | Typhlosion2 | Naive | Wide Lens | Inferno | Focus Blast | Extrasensory | Will-O-Wisp | Spd/SpA
562 | Typhlosion3 | Modest | Choice Scarf | Eruption | Focus Blast | Heat Wave | Extrasensory | Spd/SpA
737 | Typhlosion4 | Modest | Power Herb | Extrasensory | Lava Plume | Bulldoze | SolarBeam | Spd/SpA
This one is very much not in the same category as everything else but gets a mention because it's just dumb lol. Typhlosion4 is handled fine by Chansey (how I wish the turn 1 Solar Beam was guaranteed enough to just Shell Smash on it though), and for the most part all of these sets are, but it's an inconvenience if it shows up second into a +2 non-Sash Cloyster; since... yes set 1's Passho Berry does actually force us into Rock Blast here, and sun specialist Chef Frank is another one who can bring this one in addition to starter Breeders. Just taking the gamble with Surf here is at least in average board states not a thing either; it's simple math, with 25% odds of losing Cloyster (or even 50% in Frank's case) as opposed to Rock Blast's 10%. Of course all sets are still Chansey or Gliscor food all the same, so this is at most a sweep interruptor, just for dumb reasons.
393 | Infernape2 | Mild | Charcoal | Heat Wave | Will-O-Wisp | Grass Knot | Calm Mind | HP/Spd/SpA
568 | Infernape3 | Hasty | Life Orb | Fake Out | Close Combat | Overheat | Stone Edge | Atk/Spd
743 | Infernape4 | Jolly | Focus Sash | Fake Out | Encore | Flare Blitz | Close Combat | Atk/Spd
Already indirectly mentioned above, but this one is obnoxious; it's already a vaguely tricky enemy if it's just set 4, since Encore takes Sub/Protect out of the picture as a strategy, while Fake Out and Cloyster having a chance at tanking Close Combat (which otherwise would have taken Fake Out out of the picture for turn 1) means Shell Smash won't work here either, meaning the line of play is a hard switch to Gliscor on turn 1 followed by an immediate Earthquake to take it out as it breaks its own Sash via Flare Blitz. Now this certainly works, but it also chips Gliscor quite heavily, which can make for awkward positions especially given the fact that Infernape is on Black Belt / Battle Girl rosters; good thing uhhhh that if they also have a non-Fighting-type in the back that one will realistically come out second? In any case, the risk of eating an Overheat from set 3 let alone Wisp from set 2 makes a turn 1 Gliscor switch kind of a non-starter here, meaning that... yes the play becomes a turn 1 Shell Smash (checkmate for sets 2 and 3 at least), and if it's set 4 or to a lesser extent set 1 then seems like Cloyster is not getting to keep a Sash during this battle. All sets are very much beatable, but the forced midgrounds here could certainly come back to bite me
222 | Samurott1 | Mild | Splash Plate | Retaliate | Razor Shell | Assurance | Encore | HP/Atk
397 | Samurott2 | Quiet | Zoom Lens | Blizzard | Giga Impact | Detect | Hydro Pump | Atk/SpA
572 | Samurott3 | Adamant | Custap Berry | Aerial Ace | Waterfall | X-Scissor | Aqua Jet | Atk/Def/SpD
747 | Samurott4 | Modest | Salac Berry | Hydro Pump | Ice Beam | Grass Knot | Protect | Def/SpA/SpD
Sets 2 to 4 are obvious Chansey food, with 2 and 3 also giving me the option to win with Gliscor if I so choose (technically 4 too but Ice Beam stalling too cavalier etc). It's set 1 that is the problem, obviously walling Cloyster while also messing up Chansey and Gliscor with Encore. I've faced it once in the Maison as far as I remember, in last year's streak, where I recall not loving how I played around it. The optimal way is probably something along the lines of go to Chansey right away, Toxic, go back to Cloyster on what's hopefully the baited Encore, go back to Chansey and intentionally get Encored into Soft-Boiled while it dies; however, Samurott can be annoying with unexpected move choices and Razor Shell drops, and of course even best case you're still left with one turn of Encore lock when the second Pokemon comes out. There may be ways of baiting Encore twice or something like that, but that would require more testing off an actual battle video and probably would still not be reliable anyway.
212 | Typhlosion1 | Rash | Passho Berry | Flame Burst | Flamethrower | SolarBeam | Sunny Day | Spd/SpA
387 | Typhlosion2 | Naive | Wide Lens | Inferno | Focus Blast | Extrasensory | Will-O-Wisp | Spd/SpA
562 | Typhlosion3 | Modest | Choice Scarf | Eruption | Focus Blast | Heat Wave | Extrasensory | Spd/SpA
737 | Typhlosion4 | Modest | Power Herb | Extrasensory | Lava Plume | Bulldoze | SolarBeam | Spd/SpA
This one is very much not in the same category as everything else but gets a mention because it's just dumb lol. Typhlosion4 is handled fine by Chansey (how I wish the turn 1 Solar Beam was guaranteed enough to just Shell Smash on it though), and for the most part all of these sets are, but it's an inconvenience if it shows up second into a +2 non-Sash Cloyster; since... yes set 1's Passho Berry does actually force us into Rock Blast here, and sun specialist Chef Frank is another one who can bring this one in addition to starter Breeders. Just taking the gamble with Surf here is at least in average board states not a thing either; it's simple math, with 25% odds of losing Cloyster (or even 50% in Frank's case) as opposed to Rock Blast's 10%. Of course all sets are still Chansey or Gliscor food all the same, so this is at most a sweep interruptor, just for dumb reasons.
344 | Leafeon1 | Impish | Scope Lens | X-Scissor | Leaf Blade | Swords Dance | GrassWhistle | HP/Spd
519 | Leafeon2 | Naive | Liechi Berry | Leaf Blade | Giga Impact | Substitute | Yawn | Atk/Spd
694 | Leafeon3 | Adamant | Heat Rock | Sunny Day | Leaf Blade | X-Scissor | Synthesis | Atk/Def
869 | Leafeon4 | Adamant | Quick Claw | Leaf Blade | X-Scissor | Aerial Ace | Detect | Atk/Def
Moving to non-starter sets but keeping with the earlier Swords Dance theme, it would be so nice if Cloyster could just outspeed and KO this with unboosted Spear. Sets 2 and 3 are the nicest ones to face here, becoming easy Cloyster setup bait after they're stalled out; set 4 is of course the common one, which is like slightly obnoxious but can be Growl stalled okay for Gliscor to win (or Gliscor stalled directly, but Quick Claw makes that awkward of course). Set 1 is the potential nightmare; with Swords Dance, Gliscor and Chansey can't handle it at all, so it forces a turn 1 Shell Smash, which from a further positioning lens alone also makes set 4 more annoying by leaving Cloyster wide open to simply being taken out by a Quick Claw proc on turn 2 with nothing to really do about it. Grasswhistle is of course the actual headache though, since if it connects turn 1 and you get a three turn sleep then it's probably just kind of a loss on the spot. Thankfully "if it connects" is very much the operative word there, not to mention it will just as happily click Leaf Blade or Swords Dance anyways, so even a bad run-in here is far more likely to end in a scare than an actual loss; still, Leafeon1 is one of those where the Maison may just end up telling me "you lose" and I just lose.
639 | Carracosta3 | Adamant | Damp Rock | Rain Dance | Waterfall | Rock Slide | Earthquake | Atk/Spd
No case of set ambiguity here thankfully, since it only exists on Beauty Lana with no other sets proccing the "rain set" flag (thank you crappy algorithms for only checking non-hidden abilities for Swift Swim...), but still a very nasty one that I remember making for a close call once. It's kind of a catch-22 where the reflexive strategy of Chansey stalling it is already too reckless because of the potentially life-changing nature of Waterfall flinches and the rain boost here elevates it to an outright throw without substantial luck in my favour, and the safe play of going to Gliscor first to stall Waterfall doesn't even work here because of the risk of Rain Dance on the switch + Swift Swim. The good news is if it uses Rain Dance on one of its first two turns out then Cloyster can actually turn it against it for an outright KO with boosted Surf (of course unless it's Sturdy but if it's Sturdy then it's not Swift Swim) and even if it does go for the 2HKO with Rock Slide it's still in Gliscor (or Chansey) range, where Chansey hard counters enough of Lana's roster for it to be safe enough.
332 | Gardevoir1 | Timid | Wide Lens | Hypnosis | Dream Eater | Imprison | Dazzling Gleam | HP/Spd
507 | Gardevoir2 | Timid | BrightPowder | Stored Power | Thunderbolt | Calm Mind | Double Team | Spd/SpA
682 | Gardevoir3 | Timid | Lum Berry | Psychic | Shadow Ball | Energy Ball | Dazzling Gleam | Spd/SpA
857 | Gardevoir4 | Modest | Babiri Berry | Psychic | Moonblast | Focus Blast | Thunderbolt | Spd/SpA
Set 4 on regular Trainers is pretty easy Chansey food even with Focus Blast thanks to Soft-Boiled and Gliscor to reset any potential Sp.Def drops, same of course for set 3, and (at least in theory) won't be hard to stall down to Imprison for Cloyster to set up on. It's set 2 that is, well, a thing; there's no reason to deviate from the Chansey switch here, but this also is one where a (more likely than usual, for obvious reasons) early Toxic miss can snowball a little harder than otherwise, and even if Toxic only connects when Stored Power has started outdamaging Thunderbolt then Chansey also kind of has to weather the storm--of course we don't have the option of playing it safe with Seismic Toss here, so if this set also rolls Synchronise then even if Chansey does get through the evasion boosts we may still be left in a hopeless position for any followup enemies. Of course it's an insanely rare set that will still most of the time lose anyways, but yea it's there and if it decides to have a moment then there's really just kind of nothing you can do about it.
364 | Gyarados1 | Lonely | Muscle Band | Ice Fang | Aqua Tail | Thunder Wave | Dragon Dance | HP/Atk/Spd
539 | Gyarados2 | Naughty | Chesto Berry | Waterfall | Rest | Bulldoze | Giga Impact | Atk/Spd
714 | Gyarados3 | Jolly | Wacan Berry | Dragon Dance | Waterfall | Stone Edge | Earthquake | Atk/Spd
889 | Gyarados4 | Careful | Chesto Berry | Dragon Dance | Aqua Tail | Earthquake | Rest | HP/SpD
Not a threat on lead for a change; click Shell Smash right away, where the Speed tiers will confirm if the Dragon Dance set you're dealing with is 1/3 versus 4 (with the one-point Speed cut additionally ruling out Thunder Wave from set 1), and since sets 1 and 3 go down to +1 Spear while set 4 needs at least +2 it works out nicely. Gyarados showing up into Gliscor is a different case though; for guaranteed set 4 it's once again whatever since a healthy Cloyster is still a hard counter and even Chansey can pull through okay, but in the case of "any" set Gyarados the aforementioned Speed tier thing doesn't even work anymore since there is no real way to tell set 4 from set 1; this basically forces me to go for Toxic asap, which (if it hits) is fine for set 1 but does not in fact beat set 4 directly and it does not get identified until it's already boosted past the point where Cloyster is still a response. That is not necessarily a problem, but you better make sure Gliscor has enough PP to stall Aqua Tail, and if Gyarados comes in in a position where that's not the case then get ready to think outside of the box I guess...
489 | Shuckle2 | Bold | Quick Claw | Power Trick | Encore | Rock Slide | Bug Bite | HP/Def
teehee
519 | Leafeon2 | Naive | Liechi Berry | Leaf Blade | Giga Impact | Substitute | Yawn | Atk/Spd
694 | Leafeon3 | Adamant | Heat Rock | Sunny Day | Leaf Blade | X-Scissor | Synthesis | Atk/Def
869 | Leafeon4 | Adamant | Quick Claw | Leaf Blade | X-Scissor | Aerial Ace | Detect | Atk/Def
Moving to non-starter sets but keeping with the earlier Swords Dance theme, it would be so nice if Cloyster could just outspeed and KO this with unboosted Spear. Sets 2 and 3 are the nicest ones to face here, becoming easy Cloyster setup bait after they're stalled out; set 4 is of course the common one, which is like slightly obnoxious but can be Growl stalled okay for Gliscor to win (or Gliscor stalled directly, but Quick Claw makes that awkward of course). Set 1 is the potential nightmare; with Swords Dance, Gliscor and Chansey can't handle it at all, so it forces a turn 1 Shell Smash, which from a further positioning lens alone also makes set 4 more annoying by leaving Cloyster wide open to simply being taken out by a Quick Claw proc on turn 2 with nothing to really do about it. Grasswhistle is of course the actual headache though, since if it connects turn 1 and you get a three turn sleep then it's probably just kind of a loss on the spot. Thankfully "if it connects" is very much the operative word there, not to mention it will just as happily click Leaf Blade or Swords Dance anyways, so even a bad run-in here is far more likely to end in a scare than an actual loss; still, Leafeon1 is one of those where the Maison may just end up telling me "you lose" and I just lose.
639 | Carracosta3 | Adamant | Damp Rock | Rain Dance | Waterfall | Rock Slide | Earthquake | Atk/Spd
No case of set ambiguity here thankfully, since it only exists on Beauty Lana with no other sets proccing the "rain set" flag (thank you crappy algorithms for only checking non-hidden abilities for Swift Swim...), but still a very nasty one that I remember making for a close call once. It's kind of a catch-22 where the reflexive strategy of Chansey stalling it is already too reckless because of the potentially life-changing nature of Waterfall flinches and the rain boost here elevates it to an outright throw without substantial luck in my favour, and the safe play of going to Gliscor first to stall Waterfall doesn't even work here because of the risk of Rain Dance on the switch + Swift Swim. The good news is if it uses Rain Dance on one of its first two turns out then Cloyster can actually turn it against it for an outright KO with boosted Surf (of course unless it's Sturdy but if it's Sturdy then it's not Swift Swim) and even if it does go for the 2HKO with Rock Slide it's still in Gliscor (or Chansey) range, where Chansey hard counters enough of Lana's roster for it to be safe enough.
332 | Gardevoir1 | Timid | Wide Lens | Hypnosis | Dream Eater | Imprison | Dazzling Gleam | HP/Spd
507 | Gardevoir2 | Timid | BrightPowder | Stored Power | Thunderbolt | Calm Mind | Double Team | Spd/SpA
682 | Gardevoir3 | Timid | Lum Berry | Psychic | Shadow Ball | Energy Ball | Dazzling Gleam | Spd/SpA
857 | Gardevoir4 | Modest | Babiri Berry | Psychic | Moonblast | Focus Blast | Thunderbolt | Spd/SpA
Set 4 on regular Trainers is pretty easy Chansey food even with Focus Blast thanks to Soft-Boiled and Gliscor to reset any potential Sp.Def drops, same of course for set 3, and (at least in theory) won't be hard to stall down to Imprison for Cloyster to set up on. It's set 2 that is, well, a thing; there's no reason to deviate from the Chansey switch here, but this also is one where a (more likely than usual, for obvious reasons) early Toxic miss can snowball a little harder than otherwise, and even if Toxic only connects when Stored Power has started outdamaging Thunderbolt then Chansey also kind of has to weather the storm--of course we don't have the option of playing it safe with Seismic Toss here, so if this set also rolls Synchronise then even if Chansey does get through the evasion boosts we may still be left in a hopeless position for any followup enemies. Of course it's an insanely rare set that will still most of the time lose anyways, but yea it's there and if it decides to have a moment then there's really just kind of nothing you can do about it.
364 | Gyarados1 | Lonely | Muscle Band | Ice Fang | Aqua Tail | Thunder Wave | Dragon Dance | HP/Atk/Spd
539 | Gyarados2 | Naughty | Chesto Berry | Waterfall | Rest | Bulldoze | Giga Impact | Atk/Spd
714 | Gyarados3 | Jolly | Wacan Berry | Dragon Dance | Waterfall | Stone Edge | Earthquake | Atk/Spd
889 | Gyarados4 | Careful | Chesto Berry | Dragon Dance | Aqua Tail | Earthquake | Rest | HP/SpD
Not a threat on lead for a change; click Shell Smash right away, where the Speed tiers will confirm if the Dragon Dance set you're dealing with is 1/3 versus 4 (with the one-point Speed cut additionally ruling out Thunder Wave from set 1), and since sets 1 and 3 go down to +1 Spear while set 4 needs at least +2 it works out nicely. Gyarados showing up into Gliscor is a different case though; for guaranteed set 4 it's once again whatever since a healthy Cloyster is still a hard counter and even Chansey can pull through okay, but in the case of "any" set Gyarados the aforementioned Speed tier thing doesn't even work anymore since there is no real way to tell set 4 from set 1; this basically forces me to go for Toxic asap, which (if it hits) is fine for set 1 but does not in fact beat set 4 directly and it does not get identified until it's already boosted past the point where Cloyster is still a response. That is not necessarily a problem, but you better make sure Gliscor has enough PP to stall Aqua Tail, and if Gyarados comes in in a position where that's not the case then get ready to think outside of the box I guess...
489 | Shuckle2 | Bold | Quick Claw | Power Trick | Encore | Rock Slide | Bug Bite | HP/Def
teehee
That list is not comprehensive, but I am sure it's common sense that Zoroark sets with similar stallbreaking moves scattered around them are also unfun here, and at the same time there are of course also similar sets that are in fact covered just fine, with e.g. Bunny's Swords Dance Tentacruel2 straight up falling to +2 Icicle Spear and Cobb's Encore + Curse Walrein2 just kinda sorta not really punishing Chansey that much by locking it into Growl + a voluntary forfeit of the Speed advantage also taking some sting out of Encore anyways. I mostly just wanted a bit more words to this post than just "score has been doubled was questionably fun ggs", and of course a closer look into how this team might actually lose was kind of due at this point. This loss will happen at some point, and we'll see when exactly; I obviously was already burned out on this team for a good bit after hitting 1200, but from a leaderboard lens I could still find motivation to continue on on and off over the next few months. Of course there was once again the whole Chansey debate that motivated me a lot to offer up another example of Growl Chansey actually being a really good and cool set that I've definitively delivered on at this point (as well as doubling down on the whole four-digit Cloyster thing), but something else that became a thing over time was putting up a great score with a (non-Durant) team without a Mega Evolution, which is another mission accomplished now. It's a bit less out there than it appears anyways; I've posted before about the whole four quasi-mandatory defensive pieces, where just about every strong non-Durant team has at least one, usually two out of Aegislash / Gliscor / Chansey / Suicune; the third team member then is the main sweeper, which here happens to not hold a Mega Stone but no surprise that Cloyster is also very capable of winning games.
In terms of numeric goals things are different now though, and it is in fact apt that Christmas ten years ago (...) was when my Marathon streak was trucking on in full force; continued Bermuda Triangle play is more motivated by a "wanting to get the team's full potential on record" than the team being the most enjoyable use of my time that I can think of, and if we're looking at the leaderboard, moving up further would mean we're indeed genuinely starting to think about reaching PB range--which uhhh does give me highly mixed feelings lol. First things first, this team is just not better than Marathon is/was, which is a point that has been proven in earth-shatteringly 9k+ fashion anyways, which would mean that adding another 1200 to this might just serve as a permanent reminder of how I choked that streak away rather than letting it play out to a real end lol. Thankfully taking that too seriously would just be textbook hybris for the time being anyways; I will still play this on and off because the box of getting its true potential on record has not been ticked yet, but it might just end up making my pace over the last several months look fast (no grinding 1k battles over my winter break this time I promise...). We'll see if/where it ends, and obviously there's nothing left that can make me dissatisfied with this score; even a choke would just leave things on a level playing field with Marathon, lol. Too bad that would be a bleh end to Maison Singles altogether for me, with the aforementioned promise that this'll realistically be my last serious run here; plenty of other modes where I can find interesting things to do and challenge myself more.
Just like last year late December, that concludes cloyglischan posting for this year; (slightly belated) mari Christmas to those who celebrate and happy holidays!
An update! For real! I know, I don't quite believe it either. Sorry for my slowness, but things should be up to date now. I'm loving these streaks, and it makes me incredibly happy to see people still building and playing fantastic Battle Maison teams. Happy 2026, everyone!!!
My triples team reached 2000! It’s been almost a month at this point.
I ended the last post with a slightly incomplete discussion of Tailwind. In short, I was scared that some very specific Veteran T1 boards would make it impossible for me to prevent Tailwind, which realistically makes it easy to lose. I sat down to find how likely these situations would be, and landed on ~1/21000 odds per battle. I took a few minor shortcuts – for example I didn’t consider item clause – but I like to think I’m in the right order of magnitude? Anyway, I’ll stop thinking about it and considering team changes to cover for it; if it happens, it happens.
Overall, my play in most battles has gotten tighter, which is very nice. But I still will get some days where I become embarrassingly complacent and stupid, with the greatest mistake being that I usually don’t take the hint and stop playing for the day after I make a mistake. So the top 9X% of battles are played better than last post, but there’s still long tail risk. Sadly, this means the best way to improve won’t be to have interesting discussion and analysis of battles and matchups, it will just be making sure I’m focused…
I have plenty of battle videos. A few interesting ones, x2 speed with animations:
This was supposed to just be an update post, but… I actually lost shortly after at 2004 to the exact thing I mentioned above, a streak of laziness and complacency. The loss was very stupid and avoidable … Leads had Haxorus-4 on the left and Volcarona-4 on the right. I let Haxorus setup instead of bringing Kingdra in asap, and Volcarona managed to boost too eventually. Frankly embarassing, but expected I would say, when considering the level of play.
A very unsatisfactory ending to what I hoped could have been a longer story!
One single team change, Politoed now holds a Rindo Berry instead of a Sitrus Berry, something I was considering in the 1000 post. Sitrus was fine, but very rarely has it allowed me to achieve something impactful like staying in or surviving at a key moment. I didn’t really plan for triggers either, it just sometimes gave free health.
Rindo Berry is the opposite, since it directly influences the enemy decisions. The enemy usually ends up not using the grass move, meaning you can be protected for many turns. This is especially true for non-grass with grass coverage; crucially, Lickilicky-4 & Donphan-4 just won’t bother with the move. For grass enemies, staying in front for an extra turn to use Ice Beam is usually quite impactful, especially Virizion.
Fun fact, with Rindo Berry and Lightningrod, Politoed now has no weaknesses! This was never the explicit end goal, but shows how much value there is on protecting Politoed.
As for other changes that should be coming, Kingdra should at least be a point faster for rare cases of needing a desperate attack against Lati@s-1. The scenario is so remote I've been lazy to change it.
Rindo Berry is the opposite, since it directly influences the enemy decisions. The enemy usually ends up not using the grass move, meaning you can be protected for many turns. This is especially true for non-grass with grass coverage; crucially, Lickilicky-4 & Donphan-4 just won’t bother with the move. For grass enemies, staying in front for an extra turn to use Ice Beam is usually quite impactful, especially Virizion.
Fun fact, with Rindo Berry and Lightningrod, Politoed now has no weaknesses! This was never the explicit end goal, but shows how much value there is on protecting Politoed.
As for other changes that should be coming, Kingdra should at least be a point faster for rare cases of needing a desperate attack against Lati@s-1. The scenario is so remote I've been lazy to change it.
I ended the last post with a slightly incomplete discussion of Tailwind. In short, I was scared that some very specific Veteran T1 boards would make it impossible for me to prevent Tailwind, which realistically makes it easy to lose. I sat down to find how likely these situations would be, and landed on ~1/21000 odds per battle. I took a few minor shortcuts – for example I didn’t consider item clause – but I like to think I’m in the right order of magnitude? Anyway, I’ll stop thinking about it and considering team changes to cover for it; if it happens, it happens.
Overall, my play in most battles has gotten tighter, which is very nice. But I still will get some days where I become embarrassingly complacent and stupid, with the greatest mistake being that I usually don’t take the hint and stop playing for the day after I make a mistake. So the top 9X% of battles are played better than last post, but there’s still long tail risk. Sadly, this means the best way to improve won’t be to have interesting discussion and analysis of battles and matchups, it will just be making sure I’m focused…
I have plenty of battle videos. A few interesting ones, x2 speed with animations:
1185:
Starter trainer, the grass types are annoying, but Scizor finds a way
1741:
Looks like a normal hail battle, but Quagsire tries to be threatening
1276:
Very difficult T1 after I try to prevent Trick Room from going on. Goodra is annoying in general, but in this case was managed well
1746:
Lana tries to out-rain me!
1249:
I saved a lot of Veteran battles, and it’s hard to find a small sample that represents the overall experience, but this one is interesting. Registeel can be scary! There are a few ways to better play turn 1... during the 1200s I was very concerned about Virizion after a tough battle earlier, but that was quite misguided here.
1184：
Second veteran battle, with double Calm Mind dogs followed by scarf Terrakion which I was well positioned for.
1252：
Very, very embarassing but impressive too! This turn 1 is so, so bad, and it backfires in the worst way: Politoed is dead, and Hail is up, I’m against a veteran. What’s impressive is that there’s a way out! In doubles it would have been over for sure. Scizor MVP in these situations. To be honest, I was pretty lucky; Articuno/Registeel/Cresselia is quite a passive board, and even with a Heatran in front of Scizor, there’s room to reposition. Never forget that Ice Beam doesn’t OHKO bulky Landorus.
1741:
1276:
1746:
1249:
1184：
1252：
This was supposed to just be an update post, but… I actually lost shortly after at 2004 to the exact thing I mentioned above, a streak of laziness and complacency. The loss was very stupid and avoidable … Leads had Haxorus-4 on the left and Volcarona-4 on the right. I let Haxorus setup instead of bringing Kingdra in asap, and Volcarona managed to boost too eventually. Frankly embarassing, but expected I would say, when considering the level of play.
A very unsatisfactory ending to what I hoped could have been a longer story!
(First time poster, sorry if formatting's wrong or whatever.)
I had too much time on my hands over the past few months, and was looking for a fun XY breeding project for nostalgia's sake. I noticed the top Maison team (Marathon) is mostly single-cart XY, and stall is fun, so I decided to try it out (with some tweaks, see below). I've done about 3-4 runs so far, with my best run failing at 603 - warstory below, I don't care to figure out how to post proof yet while I'm mostly still learning the team. Posting mostly to see if anyone had any thoughts here, particularly regarding some of my more experimental moveset changes.
The team: ("variation on 'a minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon'", I guess?)
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate -> Mold Breaker
EVs: 100 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Substitute
Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Swords Dance
- King's Shield
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 220 HP / 196 SpD / 92 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Careful
- Substitute
- Protect
- Agility
- Sand Attack
Changes from tobiuo's version of Marathon:
Everything except the movesets are copied from tobiuo's most recently-posted iteration (including the most recent Gliscor EV changes). Movesets are slightly different:
Gyarados has EQ instead of crunch mostly because I wanted a single-cart team. This also comes with the advantage of ignoring static/flame body/effect spore (and to a lesser extent aftermath/rough skin) on most mons, except Zapdos/Moltres/Talonflame and Chandelure (infiltrator's possible, so mega+WF immediately). This leads to a few interesting matchups, though:
Gliscor's moveset is a bit more experimental; effectively, I took tobiuo's version of how Gliscor plays (stall something to useless moves, then set someone else up on it) and tried to push it to the extreme. Sand Attack seems like almost a strict upgrade over double team, in that it persists through our switch-stalls. (It's also 15 PP, and works on flying-types, levitate, etc.) This is particularly good if we're doing a switch-stall involving an electric move (ex: Gardevoir4's thunderbolt), where we can sand if Gliscor's at full health and then heal back any damage taken as we continue stalling, resulting in saving some health on everyone else involved (usually Aegislash). The main downside is it not persisting if the opponent switches or dies (ex: explosion, struggle on a few sets like Absol4 especially if I'm lazy about counting PP) against Gliscor, but that really shouldn't be happening much since we really want to be setting Gyarados or Aegislash instead. There's a few bad interactions (especially sub on stuff like Emboar4 and Feraligatr4), but they mostly just make some stalls more expensive (and agility gives us low-value PP to burn); I haven't noticed anything catastrophic. Overall, I think sand attack is just better than double team.
Agility's a bit more questionable - the thought was it's roughly bulldoze for subtect purposes but also gives us many many PP of skip turn button, the extreme example being that if we really have to we can stall 1-2 opponents all the way until they die to their own struggle recoil. (This should very obviously not be the main plan.) It also gives us something good to do against opponents who like to explode. The obvious downside is anything with non-volatile status that outruns Gyarados (canonical example is non-Clear Body Kingklang4, where without bulldoze we have to settle for an Aegislash setup; Sceptile4 is similar. The best example I've found so far for not even getting an Aegislash setup is the sun team Rapidash set; there might be other obscure sets, but I don't see anything in standard set 4), though against some stuff (ex: Tauros4) we can just stall the status move before setting up Gyarados anyway (though this is a lot slower). The other downside is that taunt is a big problem when Gliscor has no attacking moves. On the other hand, having no attacking moves does make certain stalls cheaper (ex: Vaporeon4 feels a lot better with sand and then burning agility PP as it decides to be useless for extended periods of time, such that Gliscor's not useless by the end of it, and Raikou1 can now be stalled down to struggle rather than killed in place or forced to volt switch out). Agility also gives us another option against some DD sweepers and Volcarona4, where we can switch Gliscor in immediately, use agility to outrun them before they get too many boosts, then subtect while faster than them to hopefully save PP from them boosting into our sub, allowing us to agility again to stay faster than them. (Volcarona then gets exciting because of bug buzz, but after sanding down to -6 if you're willing to sacrifice Gliscor and possibly Aegislash if things go really poorly it should turn into a full Gyarados setup eventually. There's also some risk of a sweeper boosting while we protect, and then outrunning us such that we have to start blindly subtecting, which is usually acceptable but expensive; if they boost on our sub, though, we can then get an agility and outrun them even harder.) It is not clear to me whether the subtect play is better than just boosting Gyarados alongside their sweeper and hoping nothing goes wrong; in either case, if things do go wrong they go very wrong very fast.
Some thoughts on EV spread tweaking: I think with agility we can also re-EV to move 2 points from speed into, say, SpD, as to my understanding Gliscor is at 127 speed to outrun Sceptile2 after bulldoze, and we don't need as much speed to outrun after agility. I'm slightly concerned about Kingdra3 at 126 speed (I suspect we can stall pump with King's Shield and Gyarados and then set Aegislash, though it seems a bit sketchy and I don't have a battle video to test against; I'm also vaguely scared of swift swim even at our current speed), but if that's fine, the next thing I'm worried about is Tyranitar23 with DD at 124 speed. The stuff at 125 speed is stuff Gyarados never stays in on (Mienshao4, Mismagius4) so the speed tie there isn't a problem.) Haven't figured out how to do bulk calcs yet, but from random spot-checking, 1 point in SpD seems to do nothing, while 2 points in SpD seems helpful (maybe it'll save some subs or something). I'm also not sold on 8k+2 (currently 178) HP, as opposed to 8k+1 or even exactly 8k. Exactly 8k seems weird, but I've not seen a scenario yet where I need Gliscor to need to live through spamming 7 consecutive subs (as opposed to subtecting to maintain constant HP; maybe we could have some weird switch-stall that burns protect, and then we've got way too much sub PP and need to stall something else??), and I suspect tossing those extra 2 points in something like SpD might also be useful for stuff like sub durability, more so than just having an extra 2 HP that's not directly making our subs bulkier. That said, I've not tested either of those changes since re-EVing takes effort and I don't want to have to re-re-EV if it turns out I've missed something here. Also, if not running attacks on Gliscor, minimum attack might be good to reduce confusion damage (ex: Steelix4), but that's not usually a thing, and it also reduces our struggle damage. This really shouldn't matter, but if we ever happen to get stuck in a really weird strugglefest we might want the extra damage? (Also 8k+1 HP would let us survive an extra struggle, but under any reasonable circumstances this really really should not be something we want to be doing. For unreasonable circumstances see below.)
Admittedly, I haven't tried the bulldoze version of the team yet (agility seemed more straightforward to use given the main priority seems to be stalling things down to uselessness rather than actually doing damage, and I'd wanted to breed baton pass anyway for unrelated shenanigans), so I'm not actually sure if this is better. (Note for anyone interested in experimenting: Agility's an egg move, but Gliscor also learns rock polish via TM, which should usually behave similarly. Rock polish is, however, strictly worse than agility as you lose out on 16 PP (or 28 if you also skip the PP Ups because you wanted a quick test), which usually isn't a problem but probably isn't great if things degenerate into desperate struggle stalls.)
My least-embarrassing loss so far:
Speaking of desperate struggle stalls, my most recent streak ended against Punk Girl Europa. She leads with Absol4, which to my knowledge is always sketchy for Marathon. My working plan against Absol4 is effectively switching between Gyarados and Aegislash until Will-O-Wisp (on hopefully Aegislash but possibly Gyarados), then going to Gliscor and switching between it and my unburned mon (with some weird switches necessary if swagger misses while there's still punish PP). This should roughly result in it alternating between swagger/sub (25 PP total) and punish/wisp (20 PP total), so unless we get multiple instances of swagger missing into Gyarados into swagger again (instead of wisp, which is possible but seemingly less likely) as we switch back to Gliscor, punish+wisp runs out first and we can partially set Gyarados, likely mostly on struggle. (To my knowledge, this is roughly the standard Marathon plan against Absol4. That said, if there were a good way to force a bulldoze through Absol4's sub, which I'm not sure there is, Gyarados could come in on sub once swagger's gone, outrun wisp with sub, and probably get a full setup.)
In this battle, Absol decided to use all its punish PP before wisp, with 4 punishes hitting Gyarados, and Absol down to -4 from intimidates before it put up a sub. This puts Gyarados at 71 HP and Aegislash slightly damaged and burned before I finally get Gliscor in. The switch-stall goes off about as expected, except that I get lazy about counting PP. Absol eventually uses sub on Gyarados->Gliscor, meaning it's out of wisp and I can safely set up, so I go back to Gyarados as Absol uses struggle for the first time. This gives me two more struggles to set up on, and my health is low (now 57) but without having paid too much attention to exact HP values or having run the calcs I start with sub while that's still an option. Naturally, the second struggle takes me down to exactly 45 HP, just low enough for substitute to fail (admittedly, retroactive calc as well as just looking at the HP numbers says I totally should have seen that coming). I DD once on the last struggle and out comes Bisharp4 with pressure.
The good news is Bisharp's not defiant (I lost a previous streak due to mishandling one of those), but I'm worried about taunt, so I plan to break the sash with EQ, sac Gyarados, and finish it off with shadow sneak from Aegislash. This is a mistake; in worrying about taunt I'd forgotten about sucker punch and lose Gyarados for free, leaving me a damaged and burned Aegislash and a basically-fresh Gliscor. This really should result in Aegislash getting worn down and Gliscor dying to taunt-induced struggles, so I send in Gliscor and start sanding desperately, switching in Aegislash after each taunt (sometimes after using a struggle or two for chip damage) until Aegislash eventually dies, mostly to burn. I then start alternating protect and sand; eventually Bisharp hits -6, Gliscor subs and ultimately gets taunted, but apparently taking a full-duration taunt is fine because iron head keeps missing, Gliscor doesn't struggle itself to death before taunt wears off, and somehow we eventually end up with Bisharp at half health from Gliscor's struggles and no taunt PP left, rock smash gets stalled easily with sub preventing any defense drops, and Bisharp dies to 2 struggles (naturally, breaking Gliscor's sub on the last struggle, but Gliscor has long since healed to full). Gliscor now has 57 PP left: 14 sub, 3 protect, 12 sand (because Bisharp had pressure), and 26 agility (yay big skip turn button!), which is actually a lot. It just needs to stall an unknown third mon all the way through struggle, and dark/fire/poison pool shouldn't have anything with ice or water moves, so maybe I'm fine?
Looking back on it, there are three other taunt users in that pool, which are very much not fine, but what I actually get is Drapion4. The immediate problem is that Swords Dance is scary given my limited subtect PP. Against lead Drapion4, my play would be to try to sand it down and hope it doesn't have Keen Eye, ideally stalling down to EQ. If it has Keen Eye (which I'll find out from the first failed Sand Attack) and it starts boosting early (such that I have to start subtecting early), I may have to switch-stall Cross Poison and EQ using Aegislash, but that's fine (in fact, tobiuo's lead guide seems to recommend doing the switch-stall always, which is probably better?). Here, I don't have Aegislash, but Sand Attack works so it doesn't have Keen Eye, meaning I can probably subtect through the attacks. So I start sanding, replacing subs as needed, until it gets to -6 and starts using useless Swords Dances while I have subtect PP to spare.
Unfortunately, I was doomed from the start - I'd had 57 PP, while Drapion4 has a whopping 65 total PP (most mons have no more than about 50), and since I don't have any attacks I'll be the one struggling first. It starts EQ roughly when I start struggle; I can only survive 7 struggles (because 4k+2 rounds up struggle damage, oops!), and by the time I finally die Drapion has about 33% remaining health and about 1 PP of EQ. The battle wound up being 170 turns of strugglefest, burning through basically every move the AI had, and if I somehow had 2ish more PP on Gliscor going into Drapion (ex: using more struggles while taunted against Bisharp?) and if I'd dropped Gliscor's max HP by 1 to survive another struggle I might even win that via Drapion killing my sub with struggle and dying to recoil. Amusingly, if Gliscor takes a second +6 struggle from Drapion then Gliscor has a bad day (so I either need 2-3 extra PP or something like 7 to outright subtect the struggles; 4-5 extra PP also loses), I'm not sure what the tiebreak rules are for struggle recoil, and more importantly I don't think I had any business beating Bisharp4 with a pacifist Gliscor in the first place (obviously, bulldoze happens to be a much more straightforward way of beating both Bisharp and Drapion in this fight in particular, which maybe means I should at least try bulldoze once or twice).
Of course, the obvious solution is to switch Gyarados out of Bisharp4, and stall sucker punch before bringing it back in, and maybe with some sand or intimidate switches Gyarados can eventually just win that directly (or worst-case, get down to sash so I can clear it fast enough that Gliscor can stall Drapion). Or just not letting Gyarados take so many punishments at the start (on rewatching the video, I'd shielded a couple swagger misses to try to bait wisp at Aegislash, but that means Gyarados likely takes punishment so maybe that's bad) so I have enough health left to sub against Absol4 (still probably need to switch out or sac against Bisharp4, but then it's definitely down to 1 HP and I can even clear it with a Gliscor struggle after taunt or something). Test battles against the video also typically go fine, but that's usually because wisp happens sooner and/or I'm worse at counting PP and end up just leaving Scor in as Absol4 struggles to death (maybe that's actually the better plan??).
I had too much time on my hands over the past few months, and was looking for a fun XY breeding project for nostalgia's sake. I noticed the top Maison team (Marathon) is mostly single-cart XY, and stall is fun, so I decided to try it out (with some tweaks, see below). I've done about 3-4 runs so far, with my best run failing at 603 - warstory below, I don't care to figure out how to post proof yet while I'm mostly still learning the team. Posting mostly to see if anyone had any thoughts here, particularly regarding some of my more experimental moveset changes.
The team: ("variation on 'a minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon'", I guess?)
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate -> Mold Breaker
EVs: 100 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Substitute
Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Swords Dance
- King's Shield
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 220 HP / 196 SpD / 92 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Careful
- Substitute
- Protect
- Agility
- Sand Attack
Changes from tobiuo's version of Marathon:
Everything except the movesets are copied from tobiuo's most recently-posted iteration (including the most recent Gliscor EV changes). Movesets are slightly different:
Gyarados has EQ instead of crunch mostly because I wanted a single-cart team. This also comes with the advantage of ignoring static/flame body/effect spore (and to a lesser extent aftermath/rough skin) on most mons, except Zapdos/Moltres/Talonflame and Chandelure (infiltrator's possible, so mega+WF immediately). This leads to a few interesting matchups, though:
- Opposing Gyarados - my rough plan is to stall these with Gliscor, and this should work fairly consistently against Gyarados4 (there's a risk of DD into aqua tail, but it has to do that and hit the crit for me to have problems), but there's some tactical nonsense that can go wrong on Puck/Bunny where if I can't distinguish between Gyarados1 and Gyarados3 (because Moxie; intimidate notification makes everything fine) and the AI plays right, I'm pretty sure I can lose even if there aren't any crits.
- Haxorus4 is actually fine (mega +2 EQ OHKOs, haven't seen it try to phase Gyarados mid-setup; alternatively, having Gliscor blindly subtect everything (blind subtect necessary because with both of us at +6, it outspeeds me) is viable but expensive)
- Noivern is sketchy, but maybe not more than normal? My current plan is mega+DD, switch to Gliscor, switch between Gliscor and Aegislash using Protect as necessary to keep Gliscor at reasonable health and King's Shield always to burn as much flamethrower PP as possible, once hurricane's gone sand down Noivern to -6, go back to swapping back and forth with Aegislash while continuing to shield as much flamethrower as possible, and then setting Aegislash to +6 once flamethrower's gone. There's some risk that Aegislash switches into flamethrower and gets burned on the second switch-stall, and that's probably bad (maybe we can gamble on a Gyarados setup from there?).
- Slowking4/Slowbro4 is slightly worse - plan is DD, mega+DD, DD, sub, EQ as trick room falls off, EQ. On Slowking can replace the first EQ with another DD
- Starmie4 is mostly fine - main plan is to go to Gliscor on bolt, go to Aegislash on beam, dance as much as is safe and OHKO with +2 (or better; +4 is reasonable, +6 is possible) sneak. If frozen on switch (or flinched repeatedly), though, the backup plan isn't great - sac Aegislash, send Gya, mega and go for +2 EQ
- Once set, some grass types (notably Leafeon4, which has quick claw) and dragon-flying types can take a hit from even +6 Gya. This is usually fine (this is what subs are for!); if things get particularly scary, we can usually just treat it like we would as lead (ex: Leafeon4 is an easy Aegislash setup, which feels bad but works I guess)
Gliscor's moveset is a bit more experimental; effectively, I took tobiuo's version of how Gliscor plays (stall something to useless moves, then set someone else up on it) and tried to push it to the extreme. Sand Attack seems like almost a strict upgrade over double team, in that it persists through our switch-stalls. (It's also 15 PP, and works on flying-types, levitate, etc.) This is particularly good if we're doing a switch-stall involving an electric move (ex: Gardevoir4's thunderbolt), where we can sand if Gliscor's at full health and then heal back any damage taken as we continue stalling, resulting in saving some health on everyone else involved (usually Aegislash). The main downside is it not persisting if the opponent switches or dies (ex: explosion, struggle on a few sets like Absol4 especially if I'm lazy about counting PP) against Gliscor, but that really shouldn't be happening much since we really want to be setting Gyarados or Aegislash instead. There's a few bad interactions (especially sub on stuff like Emboar4 and Feraligatr4), but they mostly just make some stalls more expensive (and agility gives us low-value PP to burn); I haven't noticed anything catastrophic. Overall, I think sand attack is just better than double team.
Agility's a bit more questionable - the thought was it's roughly bulldoze for subtect purposes but also gives us many many PP of skip turn button, the extreme example being that if we really have to we can stall 1-2 opponents all the way until they die to their own struggle recoil. (This should very obviously not be the main plan.) It also gives us something good to do against opponents who like to explode. The obvious downside is anything with non-volatile status that outruns Gyarados (canonical example is non-Clear Body Kingklang4, where without bulldoze we have to settle for an Aegislash setup; Sceptile4 is similar. The best example I've found so far for not even getting an Aegislash setup is the sun team Rapidash set; there might be other obscure sets, but I don't see anything in standard set 4), though against some stuff (ex: Tauros4) we can just stall the status move before setting up Gyarados anyway (though this is a lot slower). The other downside is that taunt is a big problem when Gliscor has no attacking moves. On the other hand, having no attacking moves does make certain stalls cheaper (ex: Vaporeon4 feels a lot better with sand and then burning agility PP as it decides to be useless for extended periods of time, such that Gliscor's not useless by the end of it, and Raikou1 can now be stalled down to struggle rather than killed in place or forced to volt switch out). Agility also gives us another option against some DD sweepers and Volcarona4, where we can switch Gliscor in immediately, use agility to outrun them before they get too many boosts, then subtect while faster than them to hopefully save PP from them boosting into our sub, allowing us to agility again to stay faster than them. (Volcarona then gets exciting because of bug buzz, but after sanding down to -6 if you're willing to sacrifice Gliscor and possibly Aegislash if things go really poorly it should turn into a full Gyarados setup eventually. There's also some risk of a sweeper boosting while we protect, and then outrunning us such that we have to start blindly subtecting, which is usually acceptable but expensive; if they boost on our sub, though, we can then get an agility and outrun them even harder.) It is not clear to me whether the subtect play is better than just boosting Gyarados alongside their sweeper and hoping nothing goes wrong; in either case, if things do go wrong they go very wrong very fast.
Some thoughts on EV spread tweaking: I think with agility we can also re-EV to move 2 points from speed into, say, SpD, as to my understanding Gliscor is at 127 speed to outrun Sceptile2 after bulldoze, and we don't need as much speed to outrun after agility. I'm slightly concerned about Kingdra3 at 126 speed (I suspect we can stall pump with King's Shield and Gyarados and then set Aegislash, though it seems a bit sketchy and I don't have a battle video to test against; I'm also vaguely scared of swift swim even at our current speed), but if that's fine, the next thing I'm worried about is Tyranitar23 with DD at 124 speed. The stuff at 125 speed is stuff Gyarados never stays in on (Mienshao4, Mismagius4) so the speed tie there isn't a problem.) Haven't figured out how to do bulk calcs yet, but from random spot-checking, 1 point in SpD seems to do nothing, while 2 points in SpD seems helpful (maybe it'll save some subs or something). I'm also not sold on 8k+2 (currently 178) HP, as opposed to 8k+1 or even exactly 8k. Exactly 8k seems weird, but I've not seen a scenario yet where I need Gliscor to need to live through spamming 7 consecutive subs (as opposed to subtecting to maintain constant HP; maybe we could have some weird switch-stall that burns protect, and then we've got way too much sub PP and need to stall something else??), and I suspect tossing those extra 2 points in something like SpD might also be useful for stuff like sub durability, more so than just having an extra 2 HP that's not directly making our subs bulkier. That said, I've not tested either of those changes since re-EVing takes effort and I don't want to have to re-re-EV if it turns out I've missed something here. Also, if not running attacks on Gliscor, minimum attack might be good to reduce confusion damage (ex: Steelix4), but that's not usually a thing, and it also reduces our struggle damage. This really shouldn't matter, but if we ever happen to get stuck in a really weird strugglefest we might want the extra damage? (Also 8k+1 HP would let us survive an extra struggle, but under any reasonable circumstances this really really should not be something we want to be doing. For unreasonable circumstances see below.)
Admittedly, I haven't tried the bulldoze version of the team yet (agility seemed more straightforward to use given the main priority seems to be stalling things down to uselessness rather than actually doing damage, and I'd wanted to breed baton pass anyway for unrelated shenanigans), so I'm not actually sure if this is better. (Note for anyone interested in experimenting: Agility's an egg move, but Gliscor also learns rock polish via TM, which should usually behave similarly. Rock polish is, however, strictly worse than agility as you lose out on 16 PP (or 28 if you also skip the PP Ups because you wanted a quick test), which usually isn't a problem but probably isn't great if things degenerate into desperate struggle stalls.)
My least-embarrassing loss so far:
Speaking of desperate struggle stalls, my most recent streak ended against Punk Girl Europa. She leads with Absol4, which to my knowledge is always sketchy for Marathon. My working plan against Absol4 is effectively switching between Gyarados and Aegislash until Will-O-Wisp (on hopefully Aegislash but possibly Gyarados), then going to Gliscor and switching between it and my unburned mon (with some weird switches necessary if swagger misses while there's still punish PP). This should roughly result in it alternating between swagger/sub (25 PP total) and punish/wisp (20 PP total), so unless we get multiple instances of swagger missing into Gyarados into swagger again (instead of wisp, which is possible but seemingly less likely) as we switch back to Gliscor, punish+wisp runs out first and we can partially set Gyarados, likely mostly on struggle. (To my knowledge, this is roughly the standard Marathon plan against Absol4. That said, if there were a good way to force a bulldoze through Absol4's sub, which I'm not sure there is, Gyarados could come in on sub once swagger's gone, outrun wisp with sub, and probably get a full setup.)
In this battle, Absol decided to use all its punish PP before wisp, with 4 punishes hitting Gyarados, and Absol down to -4 from intimidates before it put up a sub. This puts Gyarados at 71 HP and Aegislash slightly damaged and burned before I finally get Gliscor in. The switch-stall goes off about as expected, except that I get lazy about counting PP. Absol eventually uses sub on Gyarados->Gliscor, meaning it's out of wisp and I can safely set up, so I go back to Gyarados as Absol uses struggle for the first time. This gives me two more struggles to set up on, and my health is low (now 57) but without having paid too much attention to exact HP values or having run the calcs I start with sub while that's still an option. Naturally, the second struggle takes me down to exactly 45 HP, just low enough for substitute to fail (admittedly, retroactive calc as well as just looking at the HP numbers says I totally should have seen that coming). I DD once on the last struggle and out comes Bisharp4 with pressure.
The good news is Bisharp's not defiant (I lost a previous streak due to mishandling one of those), but I'm worried about taunt, so I plan to break the sash with EQ, sac Gyarados, and finish it off with shadow sneak from Aegislash. This is a mistake; in worrying about taunt I'd forgotten about sucker punch and lose Gyarados for free, leaving me a damaged and burned Aegislash and a basically-fresh Gliscor. This really should result in Aegislash getting worn down and Gliscor dying to taunt-induced struggles, so I send in Gliscor and start sanding desperately, switching in Aegislash after each taunt (sometimes after using a struggle or two for chip damage) until Aegislash eventually dies, mostly to burn. I then start alternating protect and sand; eventually Bisharp hits -6, Gliscor subs and ultimately gets taunted, but apparently taking a full-duration taunt is fine because iron head keeps missing, Gliscor doesn't struggle itself to death before taunt wears off, and somehow we eventually end up with Bisharp at half health from Gliscor's struggles and no taunt PP left, rock smash gets stalled easily with sub preventing any defense drops, and Bisharp dies to 2 struggles (naturally, breaking Gliscor's sub on the last struggle, but Gliscor has long since healed to full). Gliscor now has 57 PP left: 14 sub, 3 protect, 12 sand (because Bisharp had pressure), and 26 agility (yay big skip turn button!), which is actually a lot. It just needs to stall an unknown third mon all the way through struggle, and dark/fire/poison pool shouldn't have anything with ice or water moves, so maybe I'm fine?
Looking back on it, there are three other taunt users in that pool, which are very much not fine, but what I actually get is Drapion4. The immediate problem is that Swords Dance is scary given my limited subtect PP. Against lead Drapion4, my play would be to try to sand it down and hope it doesn't have Keen Eye, ideally stalling down to EQ. If it has Keen Eye (which I'll find out from the first failed Sand Attack) and it starts boosting early (such that I have to start subtecting early), I may have to switch-stall Cross Poison and EQ using Aegislash, but that's fine (in fact, tobiuo's lead guide seems to recommend doing the switch-stall always, which is probably better?). Here, I don't have Aegislash, but Sand Attack works so it doesn't have Keen Eye, meaning I can probably subtect through the attacks. So I start sanding, replacing subs as needed, until it gets to -6 and starts using useless Swords Dances while I have subtect PP to spare.
Unfortunately, I was doomed from the start - I'd had 57 PP, while Drapion4 has a whopping 65 total PP (most mons have no more than about 50), and since I don't have any attacks I'll be the one struggling first. It starts EQ roughly when I start struggle; I can only survive 7 struggles (because 4k+2 rounds up struggle damage, oops!), and by the time I finally die Drapion has about 33% remaining health and about 1 PP of EQ. The battle wound up being 170 turns of strugglefest, burning through basically every move the AI had, and if I somehow had 2ish more PP on Gliscor going into Drapion (ex: using more struggles while taunted against Bisharp?) and if I'd dropped Gliscor's max HP by 1 to survive another struggle I might even win that via Drapion killing my sub with struggle and dying to recoil. Amusingly, if Gliscor takes a second +6 struggle from Drapion then Gliscor has a bad day (so I either need 2-3 extra PP or something like 7 to outright subtect the struggles; 4-5 extra PP also loses), I'm not sure what the tiebreak rules are for struggle recoil, and more importantly I don't think I had any business beating Bisharp4 with a pacifist Gliscor in the first place (obviously, bulldoze happens to be a much more straightforward way of beating both Bisharp and Drapion in this fight in particular, which maybe means I should at least try bulldoze once or twice).
Of course, the obvious solution is to switch Gyarados out of Bisharp4, and stall sucker punch before bringing it back in, and maybe with some sand or intimidate switches Gyarados can eventually just win that directly (or worst-case, get down to sash so I can clear it fast enough that Gliscor can stall Drapion). Or just not letting Gyarados take so many punishments at the start (on rewatching the video, I'd shielded a couple swagger misses to try to bait wisp at Aegislash, but that means Gyarados likely takes punishment so maybe that's bad) so I have enough health left to sub against Absol4 (still probably need to switch out or sac against Bisharp4, but then it's definitely down to 1 HP and I can even clear it with a Gliscor struggle after taunt or something). Test battles against the video also typically go fine, but that's usually because wisp happens sooner and/or I'm worse at counting PP and end up just leaving Scor in as Absol4 struggles to death (maybe that's actually the better plan??).
for what it's worth the optimal two-move coverage if you can't get Crunch is actually Waterfall + Return; enemy Gyarados was the one I actually wanted to counter with my own Gyarados when I first put the team together and I really would not whatsoever want to rely on Gliscor here, and Noivern is another really big one where boosting over it with Gyarados is like, acceptable while a strategy of leaving yourself with a chipped and evolved Mega Gyarados that isn't even set up is overall always best avoided. You've also already noted the Grass-types which in a lead position should indeed be Aegislash switches but having them needlessly interrupt a sweep does suck and there's also dudes like Ludicolo, and just generally it's of course a wash in terms of neutral power / coverage compared to Earthquake. The main (only?) exception that comes to mind is Empoleon, which may or may not end up becoming an actual annoyance in practice but I'd rather find myself having to improvise against that one than a runaway Gyarados or Noivern.
I should also note that the contact abilities argument is kind of overrated. Static is the less threatening one of the two in practice when you're always switching Gyarados out of those on lead and they need a massive amount of luck in both RNG and matchup if they manage to get a proc as backups (reminder that they're going down to your attack i.e. you're 3v1 at that point), and against Flame Body it's mostly pointless in practice; your list of enemies is also missing Volcarona for another one to the pile where Earthquake doesn't help with anything, which leaves just Heatran (valid but also only 1/3 odds plus a more complicated matchup in practice than "click SE move") and Magmortar / Rapidash (easily the least threatening ones which you also should be able to find non-Gyarados strategies around if you really want). Maybe I'm nitpicking a bit here sorry lol since there have also been people adapting the team and slotting in Earthquake over Substitute for the same contact abilities reason, which given the importance of that move does bother me when that reason holds up so poorly in practice, but yea it is a case in point why thinking in terms of actual targets is much better than sticking with more generic reasons.
I'll let tobiuo comment on the Sand Attack thing since I have a couple too many degrees of separation from it and would not at all be surprised if she's actually thought this one through before anyways, but I will say that Bulldoze is realistically better than Agility; being able to "pass" the drops to teammates is in fact that good (basically your reasoning for running Sand Attack over Double Team), and while I don't have any experience of my own with Bulldoze another example involves e.g. Sceptile, which you can stall down easily enough with Bulldoze if you drop its Speed, switch out to reset Leech Seed, and go back so that you can Sub before it clicks Leech Seed again--but if you give up your own Agility boosts then you can't do that. Having the damaging option at all is never something to gloss over either (like people seem to do with Earthquake's extra power over Bulldoze) ( >:( ), where you just need to look at the Absol battle you lost since from what I can tell Bulldoze could have just chipped your way through that entire team once Absol ran out of Punishment PP. I'm not sure I'm really picking up on your reasoning why you *do* want Agility from your writeup--from what I can tell it's just a PP thing, but in practice especially Bulldoze Gliscor's PP stalling abilities are absurd enough that that kind of seems like overkill. tobiuo again will have better examples here than I do.
Sorry if my tone here is overly critical, realistically this is just a case of when the team you're using as base is a 9k+ win adaptation of another former number 1 then it's always gonna be optimised to a point where you're hard pressed to find clear improvements. Experimentation with other Gliscor sets in particular is of course always welcome with that Pokemon's insane potential, so please do feel welcome to share any other insights you end up picking up along the way (either with Gliscor or anything else) all the same!
Personally from what I remember I'd always just open with Dragon Dance for what it's worth, if there was a reliable way of sacking Aegislash to Will-O-Wisp that would be one thing, but its turn 1 move choice is way too unpredictable for that and it has just the same odds of just handing you the game on the spot if it opens with Substitute instead. If it's not cooperative with its move choices it's easy to end up in awkwardly compromised positions like you did, not to mention whenever it uses Swagger on the Aegislash switch during a switch-stall you're coinflipping with getting Gyarados burned anyway if you're not risking the 100BP Punishment into Aegislash, so there is really no good way of playing it safe here. I should mention though that I was a lot more at ease defeating enemy leads with Gliscor when I would have any blips with setting up Gyarados since I was using Earthquake + Toxic Gliscor which does not lose momentum in the same way against (most) threatening backups and would always give me a very strong alternative wincon (again though like I said before even Bulldoze Gliscor realistically would have swept the team you lost to), so tobiuo might have a different strategy here.
Interesting. Definitely worth a try; you're probably right about that. Agreed that Empoleon's not that scary in general. Storm Drain Cradily technically exists, but is terrible. To be fair, +6 Gyarados with sub can 2HKO anything even with EQ, so it takes Leafeon or two backups that can survive a hit to interrupt the sweep (and in the non-Leafeon case it also ends up as a 3v1), so the sweep doesn't get interrupted that often, and Leafeon4 is an immediate Aegislash setup so it's at least fast. Not sure why Ludicolo's getting called out separately from the generic grass types - am I missing something here?
Funny you should mention Volcarona - it's unrelated, but Agility Gliscor gives us an interesting line there. If we switch to Gliscor immediately, we outrun Volcarona4 at even speed boosts (and can survive +1 crit heat wave); this means we can agility right after switching in, at which point we outrun. We can now sub whenever we don't have a sub (or either sand or standard subtect if we're ahead by at least one boost), else agility, and this should eventually end up with us at +6 speed and guaranteed to outrun forever, from which we can now subtect through heat wave and hurricane, and should be able to sand it down to -6 accuracy in the process. From there, Bug Buzz gets exciting, since it hits through sub and can OHKO Gliscor with a crit, but it needs two highroll crits to 2HKO Aegislash (because double resist) and then another crit to OHKO Gyarados (though a highroll non-crit puts Gyarados too low to sub); also, protect and shield still work. Technically if we're not counting PP (meaning we don't protect the first buzz) and everything hits and crits Gyarados could die to the sixth buzz, but the odds of that should be crazy low after sanding to -6, and each miss (or non-crit) on Gliscor or Aegislash burns 2 buzz PP because of protect/shield. I've definitely lost Gliscor while testing this, but I'm pretty sure I've never lost Aegislash, let alone Gyarados. Once buzz is gone, we can then set Gyarados on Quiver Dance and clear with EQ (or let it struggle to death, so yeah, I guess EQ isn't actually improving that matchup much anyway). Admittedly, I've previously lost by mishandling agility boosts during the setup phase, which obviously went very wrong very fast from there, but this should be pretty safe assuming no misplays.
Similar idea against Gyarados, though Gyarados3 complicates things by being faster than us at even boosts (which makes me especially scared of Moxie-induced set ambiguity). With agility, Gyarados4 needs to either crit Aqua Tail as we switch in Gliscor to get us too low to subtect (but why is it even trying -1 Tail against our faster Gyarados lead?) or more realistically highroll crit Aqua Tail the turn after and outright OHKO Gliscor (12.5% chance to OHKO if it crits); if none of that happens, we agility, then protect (if crit non-highroll Aqua Tail), and now we're guaranteed enough health to subtect forever. If it instead went for a second DD as we agility, we still outrun, and in that case we want to spam sub until it DDs again (since if it uses a third DD into our protect it now outruns), after which we agility and everything's under control. (Against Gyarados3, I'm pretty sure my best play is to blindly spam subtect, which is fine against a single non-crit non-flinch WF, or -1 non-crit non-flinch Stone Edge+WF; if crit Stone Edge we probably want to agility as WF won't read as a KO, and as long as that succeeds we outrun into subtect (possibly devolves into blind subtect spam if it later DDs into protect).) So not entirely guaranteed, but should be at least 99% fine against Gyarados4. I guess I could see the Gyarados3 matchup being problematic on its own for really long streaks though; not sure if I've saved a test video for that one.
Agreed that Rapidash4 and Magmortar4 can be stalled rather than having Gyarados set up on them immediately to avoid risking Flame Body burn. (Though incidentally, I'm curious if anyone has any clue what to do against Jai's Magmortar2, as I blundered my way through it once but in testing was unable to consistently end up in a position that isn't potentially scary against backups.) There's also maybe an argument for a previously-damaged EQ Gyarados not having to worry about chip damage from Rough Skin/Aftermath/Poison Point (as long as you're subbed and can survive a turn or two of hail/sand you're probably fine), but I forget if that's ever actually been important or if my vague memories are just of me repeatedly forgetting Garchomp can have Rough Skin at all.
Definitely worth testing at least. Agreed that Bulldoze gets you a Gyarados setup on Sceptile4; with Agility, I have to settle for the Aegislash setup. And agreed that Bulldoze (or Earthquake) just wins my Absol battle. The main idea with Agility was to be able to stall high-PP stuff in place so that I'd never have to KO stuff like Raikou1/Zebstrika4/Poliwrath4 with Gliscor active (I think the last two are still fine with DT+doze if you're okay with wasting some subtect, though Zebstrika's getting stalled down to struggle making the subsequent setup sketchy), and ideally preserve enough subtect PP so that I can stall something else if things get weird later (ex: getting forced out after an Aegislash or partial Gyarados setup), as the impression I got from the tobiuo writeups is that KOing stuff with Gliscor is really bad, though you seem more comfortable with it. I've got vague memories of liking having the extra PP from Agility, but I'm having trouble pointing to specific leads where it matters, so this might be a symptom of things going weird off my setups not being as good as they should be due to lack of Bulldoze and Crunch, or me not having a good way to search my notes for those cases.
The other upshot of Agility over Bulldoze is against Explosion - it's hard to carry a sub through that, but carrying Agility through means we can outrun and subtect regardless of what comes in next, which should let us set something up eventually (though it looks like with the exception of Skuntank4, I'm currently handling most explosion cases with either straight Aegislash setup or Gyarados+Aegislash switch-stall until either explosion happens harmlessly or Aegislash is clear to set up). Similar idea for U-turn, though carrying a sub is more likely there.
Yeah, I saw that in your lead guide. tobiuo's guide (possibly out of date?) seems to prefer starting by switching to Aegislash, which I think I prefer. My experience is that while the first move is super random (I've seen everything except punishment as first move in testing), it seems to very much prefer starting with swagger, and once that hits it very much prefers using punishment (to be fair, the preference for punishment might be because I'm taking most of the swaggers with Aegislash), and at least initially I'd rather have Gyarados take a -2 punishment than have Aegislash take a -1 punishment (since that actually hurts). My sequence usually results in Aegislash being the one that gets burned, but stalling out all the punishment PP first has definitely happened at least once in testing (though I think I usually try to take 2 punishments on Aegislash in that case, ideally after some extra intimidates). The good news is if punishment's out of PP, sub's used, and something's been hit with swagger, we know the next attack is wisp and can take it with Aegislash.
You're more than fine - like I said, I was hoping for feedback from experienced people and that's exactly what you gave me. Thanks!
Posting a finished streak of 3717 wins in ORAS Super Singles. I guess the storytelling potential is always there, but this time it's more in the context than in the gameplay, so let's get to the videos first.
Wait, what? Where did Marathon come from? Yes, this streak used CloyGlisChan / Bermuda Triangle for battles 1-3668, then switched back to Mega Gyarados / Aegislash / Gliscor afterwards.
#3561: vs. Dorian
By far the CloyGlisChan battle I genuinely thought I was losing, and indirectly a major case in point of my statement from the initial report about this team that Toxic is actually the ultimate hax protection move on Chansey. The enemy lead is Heatran, which is obvious Chansey food and indeed gets Seismic Tossed to death quite easily under normal circumstances but at the same time also has existent hax potential. Said hax potential is what ends up playing out this time between an immediate Flash Cannon drop on the switch and an early Flame Body burn soon after (which given this was set 1 could have happened on Lava Plume at some point as well of course). All well and good so far, and versus almost any other enemy this would not have mattered even one bit since after an initial Toxic I would simply have Soft-Boiled spammed my way through all the hax anyways; however, Heatran of course has steeled itself against such poisonous tactics, and after a second and a third Flash Cannon drop it's actually one turn away from breaking through Chansey as a special attacker without any boosting moves or attacking moves over 80 BP.
"mari this is why you have Substitute lol", okay let's ditch the pedestals and examine that claim for just one second. With Flame Body being what it is, there was no dodging the burn here, and suddenly we're in a situation where every two turns we're losing a quarter of our health to residual damage on top of the other quarter lost to getting the Substitute up in the first place; i.e. we're stuck in a Substitute / Soft-Boiled loop to simply break even on our health, with no room to think about actually taking out the enemy in front of us. So that is where we simply end up directly attacking Heatran anyway, with no regards for maintaining the Sub which is getting broken every other turn anyway in that Sub/SB loop, at which point what is even the point of running the move? Don't you dare mention fast Chansey either, which even leaving aside all the earlier times in the run where the extra little bit of HP investment actually totally did matter would have been facing 50/50 odds of Heatran straight up breaking its Subs in one hit after the Flash Cannon drop that did happen on the switch, and that's without the Seismic Toss-self-inflicted burn in the picture either. Of course I'm not whatsoever saying Substitute is bad lol, but it's actually overrated as a hax avoidance tool even on something like Suicune, and Chansey is even further removed from having Gliscor-level passive recovery or additionally using it for offensive setup.
Rant aside about more popular sets that would not have fared better in this matchup (granted, not worse either), that leaves us with no other option than to sack Cloyster to reset the drops and the burn, with not even preserving 1HP Cloyster as a viable option thanks to Chansey being too weakened to reliably tank the extra attack from switching back in and the weakened state also making a straight Surf to gamble for the roll to pick off Heatran a questionable idea. So, Cloyster gone, Chansey back at decent health and taking down Heatran though not without another burn, and out comes Articuno, which could be a free win with Gliscor Sub in the case of Articuno1 but also one of the only enemies I could face at this point that defeat Chansey and unlike the musketeers do not allow the option of the Gliscor switch. It is indeed Articuno2 inexorably Mind Reader Sheer Colding Chansey, leaving it to Gliscor to take on the world; this is in fact a thing it can totally do versus Articuno2 so no issues there, other than of course nerves about what might be coming out third. Articuno is procedurally Toxic stalled after wasting all its Ice Beams, though it does leave me in a weakened position by saving (what I vaguely recall being its final too) Sheer Cold for its second to last turn and actually hitting it, getting in some serious Ice Shard chip damage as well while I'm getting a final Sub up. Latios1 is a final Pokemon that can beat me in this position since I have to try and Toxic it right away at this point, and it certainly does try its hardest by forgoing the boosts that would have given me free turns and fishing for the game-ending crit on the one turn I'm without a Substitute, but it does not have Heatran's luck so all's well that ends well.
#3668: vs. Hunter
A simple smash spear spear spear video of CloyGlisChan tying Marathon's 3668.
A few other noteworthy battles, narrations over video recordings again to avoid the prolonged awkward posture required for recordings that nobody is watching anyway, but as usual if I should show any in particular then lmk and I'll do.
#2811: vs. Anastasia
Not something that ended up being a close call in practice, but still some of the ridiculousness of running this team. This is Anastasia, who as a reminder necessitates doing everything I can to defeat her lead with either a healthy Cloyster or a Subbed Gliscor lest I get inexorably counterswept by backup Medicham3, but for Mismagius this is not really an option--against set 4, going for the simple smash spear is the only thing I can really do since while Gliscor can checkmate it with Sub I can't risk hard switching it into Block, and while in a vacuum set 3 gets Growl spammed by Chansey for a free Gliscor Sub I definitely cannot risk actually doing that when there is odds of set 4 showing up as well. So, I do the smash spear thing against what turns out to be set 4, and backliner Medicham shows up--which turns out to also be set 4 so with its lack of Ice Punch is defeated soundly by Gliscor after picking off Cloyster, and the final Pokemon is not a problem either after even the closest scare with the Medi3 spectre still ends up being just that, a scare.
Of course it's after the battle that I realise there technically was a path here, namely just Shell Smashing a second time to sack Cloyster then doing my usual thing of going to Gliscor first, going to Chansey on Perish count 2, going back to Gliscor after and Subbing up when Mismagius switches out (or, had this been Mismagius3 instead, just Growl spamming it as planned). The willful and at least strictly speaking avoidable sack of a team member, not to mention the (small but existent) odds of Mismagius messing up Gliscor positioning anyway by clicking Perish Song directly on the switch back, for something where odds of shooting myself in the foot are realistically way bigger than the hyper-specific scenario that I'm anticipating actually playing out like that does realistically edge a little too close to lunacy, but the fact that I'm considering this at all should be proof positive that no I am not whatsoever gonna miss this Medi3 spectre haha...
#2812: vs. Sebastian
No Aegislash so no good way to reliably avoid the Taunt from lead Toxicroak. Positioning aside, Gliscor still crushes this of course, and what I usually do is (try to) Substitute first, since the Taunt is not fully guaranteed--I have still gotten Subs out of Toxicroak this way, and even worst case you're still burning a Taunt turn so what's the downside here. This time I similarly manage to beat it without getting Taunted, but since Gunk Shot crits Gliscor while I set up Substitute then also crits the Substitute on my Earthquake, I still win without a Substitute here, at the cost of a lot of health as well. Hariyama is a pretty obnoxious backup to face at this point; of course it can be SubTect stalled fine, but Ice Punch has a lot of PP to burn through, it has an uncanny ability to time its Belly Drum on one of my Protects rather than my Substitutes as well as just dodge my free early Toxic if I do win said gamble, and even after Ice Punch is gone you still can't exactly play around +6 Brick Break or Bullet Punch like a headless chicken either. The final point is the main sticking one here, since this becomes even more awkward with the HP loss from Toxicroak's Gunk Shot crits, and it gets to a point where I actually need to worry so much about being outright PP stalled myself instead that I end up having to risk a naked Toxic. Thankfully no crits or unfortunate cycles between Brick Break and Bullet Punch afterwards, and the lastmon Heracross is very much "fine" even for a Gliscor at this state, but yeahhh Hariyama always a headache let alone when showing up in this board state.
#3001: vs. Tanner
Cradily4 is easy Growl bait for a full +6 Cloyster (not that Gliscor couldn't do this either ofc), so I'm geared up for an easy win--except second Pokemon Poliwrath is one that actually does stop +6 Cloyster in its tracks. I use my new and improved strategy for this situation, which is hard switching to Gliscor on the now-guaranteed Circle Throw and spam attacks on mostly-guaranteed Focus Punches with whichever of Chansey and Cloyster gets phazed in, except it backfires when Cloyster is the one coming out and Poliwrath skips enough Focus Punches to actually win the matchup. Gliscor finishes it off only to be met with its archnemesis in Feraligatr, which with Cloyster and its Sash out of the picture the one shot I have of not giving it too much space to spiral out of control is Growl spamming it with Chansey. Despite some serious hax this barely pulls through, but this is for obvious reasons the single worst backline that Rangers and other Water specialists can bring.
#3407: vs. Rasmus
Rasmus's lead Gigalith is one that is delegated to Gliscor, which is beatable with a Sub if it misses a Stone Edge at the right time then booms on my Protect, but this time it times its Explosion so that I'm left with a 70% Gliscor without Sub. Versus most things on Rasmus's roster that is still totally okay, but Tyranitar2 is not most things; with Gliscor in Ice Beam range at this point I am trusting I can SubTect stall those PP without it flipping the Speed tiers through Dragon Dance, but it does in fact click that move twice while it still has Ice Beam PP left. Thankfully both of those clicks are on Substitute turns so no harm done there, and a lastmon Dugtrio is not a threat whatsoever, but yea there is a (shocking...) pattern here of specific tricky sweepers in backlines being an issue if they manage to show up into non-Sub Gliscor.
#3718: vs. Anastasia
The loss; normally Jynx4 would be a simple Mega Evolution turn 1, switch to Aegislash to wait out Blizzard, fully set up Gyarados on the like 30 free turns you have at that point, but this is Anastasia and I am not fully sure how to handle this, so my midground involves going to Aegislash right away and just going for +0 or +2 Sneak if it's set 3. Set 3 is in fact confirmed by damage rolls, but what actually happens is kind of painful to watch, with Jynx breaking Aegislash with an early Blizzard freeze, way too many turns to thaw, plus some extra hax, forcing me to yolo it with +1 Mega Gyarados at this point. Since this is Anastasia that is still not the worst position to be in, but Jynx decides click Focus Blast rather than the obviously-second-preferred move Psychic (possible and valid with the way the AI works... but also very rude) before dying. Gardevoir gets swept aside easily before Starmie comes out last, and the only way I can still lose at this point is if this Starmie3 tanking Gyarados's attack with its Focus Sash (apparently Anastasia does not have Starmie4 but still), then also getting the Surf crit on Gliscor; so, you can guess how this goes. Extra salt in the wound for the possible-but-unlikely Focus Blast click being the reason why Gyarados was even in Starmie3 range in the first place, and you have an extremely deflating end here that I'll have more things to say about later.
So this is gonna require a little explanation plus a "do as I say not as I do" caveat, because this is something I was already vaguely considering with my earlier update though knowing that it was still several leagues off from mattering. In a way I was hoping it would not actually get to this point, because, once again with the caveat that yes of course this is a game and everyone is allowed to play games the way they enjoy, I am just not a big fan of multi-team streaks in general. From the lens of the leaderboard as a competition, there is something that just really rubs me the wrong way about working on squeezing out a team's full potential then just. stopping at some point, and more importantly, from the lens of the leaderboard as a resource ranking teams according to (snapshots of) relative power levels, ditching teams mid-run amounts to intentionally messing up your data in that area. On top of that, not seeing a team through to the end does not do a good job avoiding appearances that, rather than contributing to getting teams' full potential on record, what you really care about is just getting big numbers on your cart, and that is not an impression I would like people to have of me.
There is of course still a different side to that coin though, which is that well. this is a game that is supposed to be fun, and to those who read or more likely skimmed my earlier reports it should come as no surprise that the fun side to this team became questionable hundreds if not thousands of battles ago, with the team generally being my least rewarding singles one skill-wise, the gameplay being extremely sluggish and brain-suffocating a lot of the time, and any future loss being much more likely based in (very specific) poor matchups than in any rewarding decisions in in-game scenarios. Add the sheer amounts of time going into this and self-awareness that you only have one life with 24 hours in a day to dedicate to doing things, and yea mixed feelings should be obvious. Outright abandoning a run midway through is yet /another/ thing that is quite clearly Not Okay from the lens of the leaderboard being both a competition and a resource for relative team power levels, but it was helpful for me to work towards a point where it would feel permissible for me to do "something else" even without actually losing the run; picking Marathon back up was the obvious choice here, with the extremely unsatisfying way the initial run ended on a misclick, the increased amount of fun (in very specific ways but still) involved with playing that team, and the fact that I found a bunch of ways to play it better in the last ten years and understandably kind of looking forward to actually putting those into practice. I think swapping teams at the point that I did was kind of my only option here; there is obvious symbolism involved with "picking the streak back up where I left it off in 2016", but at the same time I felt this was also the point where any sort of "leaderboard as resource" reasoning would run out. Of course taking non-Durant Cloyster to 1k is a very good data point to have on record, of course adding Impish Gliscor to the pile of sets with proven worth is helpful, of course getting a second ultralong 2k+ streak to Growl Chansey's name in particular is a good contribution, but I was already running out of excuses like that when I hit 2400, and the only reason to still keep playing at that point was to show that this team could hold its own compared to the actual goated (and better) teams that had broken 3k or 3,6k; maybe even to never have to wonder if I actually should have ditched the team before tying the others.
Bottom line that reassured my conscience for good simply is that 3668 marked the point that there was well and truly nothing whatsoever left to prove in terms or records to compare with those of other teams (no I was never gonna push cloyglischan for 9k). Yes there was still technically a full potential to squeeze out, but the only thing that was gonna amount to was whether it would end up 200 or 500 or 1000 battles ahead of 3668, and even that was not gonna be the most useful metric in practice when all it would come down to was when exactly I would roll lead Pure Power Medicham3 tanking +0 Spear or the most awkwardly placed Hariyama / Poliwrath / Feraligatr ever or whatever other ultra-specific matchup, rather than any sort of more organic ceiling. Kind of past the point of gauging the team's power level in any actually meaningful way. When the options were either pumping possibly hundreds more hours of my life into this team simply waiting for my number to be up or actually getting some (relatively speaking) new experiences, the sane choice made itself.
"mari why would we care about all of this lol this is a game you are unfathomably critical of yourself here", maybe, but I felt it was worth saying at least for uhhh transparency/perspective reasons.
Of course this is not whatsoever how I wanted the Marathon section of this run to go and I'd almost wish I'd just failed to PB entirely at this point, especially since wanting to "end" my time with the team on a better note than forgetting to click the Mega button ten years ago was such a big thing here. For thoroughness's sake, this team is in fact mostly impervious to turn 1 freezes, with e.g. a lot of them simply being dodged by a turn 1 Sub + Mega if I am actually drawing in the Ice move; Jynx in particular is no such case, but for set 4 it straight up does not matter if it gets the turn 1 freeze when I am clicking the Mega Evolution button that turn and securing myself about 30 (!) turns to unfreeze and set up once Aegislash has waited out the remaining Blizzards. For set 3 that is not an option, and in retrospect I "should" simply have chanced the turn 1 Dragon Dance here, knowing that Anastasia's roster will be extremely hard pressed to hold back a boosted Mega Gyarados with additionally an Aegislash waiting in the wings no matter what she brings, but clearly I was still too rusty to think that far ahead. I was not too worried about rust in the sense that, with everything I have documented about this team plus all the core memories from 10 years ago as well as the Tree run, I would pick all standard plays and tricky enemies back up quick enough anyway, but yea you still know there is gonna be a window where you're still playing catchup with rare enemies and more subtle dynamics where you are vulnerable to things like this. I knew this going in, and of course conflicted feelings about sheer time investment will always be a thing, so in that sense it was not too difficult to process; however, you still don't Actually expect things to go this way when you're inherently so used to not-losing on a run like this, plus such a short Marathon leg after Noiverngate ten years ago will always be painful. It's a serious testament to the team's resilience and power level for still almost clawing back if not for ultimately serious hax and rogue AI clicks, but ofc that doesn't change anything in the end. Extra salt in the wound of course for, after successfully outmanoeuvring the Medi3 spectre for 3668 battles, losing to Anastasia of all people in the end anyway lol. I said that, for time/sanity reasons, this was to be my last serious deep Maison singles run, and I meant and still mean it, but god this game has a way of not letting me tie up my loose ends properly.
If I was given the opportunity to report this as an ongoing "marathon in 4k" streak, that would obviously be a perfect time for some in-game commentary in the form of a snapshot of updated lead notes from my original guide to the team. Thankfully, between the Tree run + experience from elsewhere + generally ever-still-developing brain, I can do that anyway. Let's get into a few things.
Same tactic as on CloyGlisChan, switch back and forth between Gliscor and Aegislash to get rid of both Thunder and Taunt and set up Gyarados. Quite literally any team with Gliscor (or any Ground-type) can do this one fwiw, which would include Greninja + Mega Scizor + Gliscor, Kangliscune, and who knows what else, just keep track of PP properly so that you don't run into the enemy clicking a rogue Thunder into Gliscor should Taunt PP run out first. Chansey doesn't care but the same does not go for other non-Electric-immune Pokemon.
Aversion to taking damage from Explosion I guess, but full health Forretress will be more than taking its sweet time setting up hazards for you to just get up a Sub with the four needed Dragon Dances for the (Mega) OHKO. Even if it does boom early, it'll just come at the cost of your Sub and you still have a turbocharged Gyarados ready to mow through the rest of the enemies, which by all accounts is still a better position to be in than a +6 Aegislash that does still have a habit of getting forced out, except this time to get Gyarados into a Stealth Rock-cluttered field.
Just switch-stall Moonblast and Hypnosis once Aegislash has woken up and set up Gyarados on Cotton Guard and Dream Eater.
Set 1 is fine yes but set 2 can be switch-stalled out of Icy Wind and Thunderbolt once Ice Beam is gone, leaving just Rest for Gyarados to set up on.
Quintessential CloyGlisChan stall that works just as well over here, switch-stalling Ice Fang and the Electric moves between Gliscor and Aegislash, leaving the Light Screen PP for Gyarados to set up on at the cost of just an Aegislash paralysis that won't even matter anymore at this point anyway. Luxray3 is mostly the same, you'll just need to set up on Struggle here but not like that isn't anything we've done before.
If you're stalling Overheat anyway then there's no reason not to go all the way and round it out via Aegislash switch-stalls (be wary of Psychic crits on the switch back to Gliscor of course but it should be okay, worst case you can SD spam your way through the remaining ones), at which point you can set up Gyarados on Struggle.
This was probably prompted by not wanting to switch Gyarados back into Stealth Rock, but just like with Cloyster, once it's up you're not keeping your Water-type in pristine condition anyway. Just stall Rock Slide, then set up Gyarados all the way on a whole lot of free turns.
Mega Evolve Gyarados and get it into a loop where it takes the Taunt first, then switch-stall Taunt and Ice Beam with Aegislash. Of course the loop is not entirely foolproof, but with 10 Ice Beam PP and a "possible 7HKO" on Mega Gyarados, the levels of bad luck needed to actually lose Gyarados here should be quite literally impossible without user screwup on top of it.
One attacking move, lots of "stale" moves for free Gyarados setup otherwise, not sure what I ever was thinking here.
You can get rid of Wood Hammer and Hammer Arm rather than Earthquake if you eschew most of the switch-stalling and get Gliscor's help, letting you set up Gyarados entirely on EQ instead.
There's probably more where that came from (the 2015 guide does not, like, suck of course lol so not sure how much more but), I'm kind of over posting actual untrimmed bibles to my teams for a few reasons so not gonna be more thorough about it but the overall point stands: we always keep on learning, and sometimes certain old strats are just the byproduct of deepseated habits (or are deepseated habits in their own right). I really did want to put this new knowledge and proficiency to the test, and part of me still hopes there is a way I can do that that does not require you know. a run as long as a double Persona 5 Royal playthrough hahaha... Silver lining about the Marathon leg being so short is that it avoids any headaches on the leaderboard maintainers' end lol when they can just list this streak as being CloyGlisChan entirely. I did not actually want to PB with that team for reasons of appearances and "leaderboard accuracy" when Marathon is the categorically better one, but real ones know that to be the case anyway--and even if not, they have tobiuo's efforts to not so gently nudge their perception in the right direction.
But, yes, back to CloyGlisChan, end of the line for that team for real this time and holy heck talk about "I think this has more in the tank than 787" being an understatement. For as much as it's given me some well-documented mixed feelings, on balance it's still been an actually rewarding journey with how thoroughly I've gotten to figure it out. Meanwhile though we're over a full year on since I started on this streak (and two months since I finished it and started writing this up... but I digress...) with other than Brendan not exactly a lot I've done facility wise in the mean time otherwise, so there is my other silver lining when I have another vague idea or two I wanna try and another couple teams I wanna squeeze out more thoroughly. No idea when my facility candle will be in a burnable state again, but at least I've got things to do for when it is, and those things are not Maison Singles. See you around!
Amusingly, I've got a Jynx3 video where both my notes and my video have me making the same plays you do here, except I don't get this level of bad luck so it works fine. So that's scary.
As stated before, I'd previously have made the same plays you made there, assuming everything would be fine. After seeing your analysis, I think I have a new plan that's almost completely haxproof, off the idea that a near-full-health +6 Aegislash should sweep the entire remaining Anastasia pool:
My current notes (which also seem suboptimal, more on that later) say set 1 is a guaranteed Aegislash setup (Regice1 really doesn't want to use Toxic on Gliscor, letting you set Aegislash on Toxic). Subtect Ice Beam, then Gliscor stalling Focus Blast and Thunderbolt in place is cheap if Gliscor runs Double Team/Sand Attack/Agility/another skip turn button. Your Gliscor doesn't have that, but if the concern is subtect PP, you can switch-stall Focus Blast and 10 PP of Thunderbolt using King's Shield (leaving 4 Thunderbolts counting the one Gliscor initially came in on from Gyarados) assuming careful counting, and then Regice1 survives 3 non-crit EQs (more importantly, 2 non-crit then 1 crit) with Sitrus, so unless you're afraid of some specific backup I'd assume spending the 1-2 extra subtect PP to get the Aegislash setup is worth doing? (Unlike Regice2, Aegislash can't survive a full switch-stall of all Regice1 attacking PP without shield, and starting the switch-stall partway through Ice Beam risks freeze on Ice Beam making you unable to shield off all the Thunderbolts, so I don't think I can make this completely free with your setup. Alternatively, run Bulldoze for less damage, but you seem to like EQ for other matchups.)
tobiuo's guide recommends going for a slightly riskier Gyarados setup on Regice1 by switch-stalling Thunderbolt, going to Gyarados on the last Focus Blast, and outrunning Toxic with Sub. The obvious way to do this is to start by switch-stalling beam+bolt and seeing what happens from there, but I think the safest way to do this (double-check the numbers since I don't currently have a saved video) is to take the first beam on Aegislash, determine the set from the damage taken (if no crit, Regice1 does 25-30 and Regice2 does 18-21; if we miss the crit notification and incorrectly assume Regice2, we'll notice when Aegislash eventually starts taking Icy Wind instead of Focus Blast and should be able to salvage things at the cost of subtecting some extra Icy Winds with Gliscor, but that ends in a guaranteed full Gyarados setup anyway so it's fine), and with Regice1 confirmed we shield, go back to Scor, do that 2 more times, and subtect the last 7 beams before resuming the switch-stall, which (if I've counted correctly) should get Gliscor in as Thunderbolt runs out with exactly 1 PP of Focus Blast left. Gyarados comes in on the last Focus Blast, outruns Toxic with Sub, and proceeds to set up. I've been not doing this since I'm scared I'll miscount PP and either have Gliscor take an Ice Beam (catastrophic) or Gyarados take a Thunderbolt (costs a sub but probably fine overall) or Toxic (pretty bad). Specifically, if I forget to King's Shield once during the switch-stall and don't notice, and then I stop after 7 King's Shields were used, Thunderbolt runs out earlier than I expect and I'm switching Gliscor into the last Focus Blast, which hopefully I notice but then I can't get Gyarados in (so set Aegislash). This is less bad than I thought; I'm considering switching to this plan once I've confirmed it works in video. There's also a risk of Aegislash getting frozen early, at which point we probably want to give up on the Gyarados setup, stall Regice1 down to Toxic using Gliscor, attempt to defrost and set Aeg, and since we know about the freeze early, we can do the stall fairly cheaply: Switch-stall beam+bolt until Aegislash health gets unsafe (crit beam does 45 max, so we can do this at least 4 times total including lefties), subtect remaining beam (<=6), switch-stall blast+bolt, stall remaining bolts with Gliscor (should be <=5 at this point), and attempt to defrost and set up Aegislash on Toxic+Struggle (5 Struggles with Sitrus). If you can't defrost in the first 12ish turns (which should be plenty of time to heal Aegislash to full at least), you'd presumably go back to Gliscor and do what Gliscor setup you can, including Sub as Regice dies to Struggle recoil, and even that's not terrible (it's even probably cheaper than your current setup, though Aegislash ends frozen).
I agree that set 2 is always a Gyarados setup. Amusingly, accidentally science-ing this (while hoping that video was Regice1) says subtecting Ice Beam shouldn't even be necessary on Regice2; barring ridiculous numbers of crits you can just immediately switch-stall Thunderbolt and Ice Beam even without shield (in case of freeze), and then eventually Icy Wind does basically nothing to Aegislash (count Thunderbolt carefully, though; crit Icy Wind OHKOs Gliscor if it switches into that!) so you eventually just sit on Aegislash with about 50 HP to spare until you eventually defrost; stay on Aegislash (with shield to regain some health) until Rest, and set Gyarados. And if Aegislash does take freeze plus a bunch of crits such that its health does start getting scary (crit Ice Beam does 32 damage max and Thunderbolt runs out later than Ice Beam), you can go back to Gliscor, subtect down to Rest, and still set Gyarados.
Do you have a full plan in mind here, or is this just "hope for no freeze (in which case start sweeping with crunch), else go to Aegislash on focus blast and hope for no freeze as you set up there"?
As stated before, I'd previously have made the same plays you made there, assuming everything would be fine. After seeing your analysis, I think I have a new plan that's almost completely haxproof, off the idea that a near-full-health +6 Aegislash should sweep the entire remaining Anastasia pool:
- Mega+DD as you suggest, take blizzard #1 (at this point we suspect Jynx3 because no fake out but we aren't certain). Potential freeze+crit on Gyarados, but that's fine
- ->Aegislash, take blast #1 (at this point we know it's Jynx3, as Jynx4 would've used blizzard again and been an easy Gyarados setup after eating remaining blizzards on Aegislash).
- Amusingly, I've seen icy wind instead of focus blast here exactly once (out of maybe 10 instances of Mega Gyarados -> Aegislash), and I'm not familiar enough with the AI to know why. Any ideas? Did it want speed control for some weird reason (Jynx3 outruns Gyarados, this doesn't make sense), or did it simulate misses on both focus blast and blizzard (seems unlikely given I haven't personally seen blizzard on that switch and I'd expect to have seen it about twice by now (in particular, should be more likely than icy wind!), but this is somewhat consistent with stuff like Archeops4 starting to prefer aerial ace over rock slide once my Gliscor gets a few sand attacks off)? Gyarados was high health at this point, so this wasn't some "seeing KO" check (don't remember if it was in Focus Blast KO range; if not maybe that's part of the problem).
- Icy wind in particular isn't a problem here, but if blizzard is somehow possible here a random blizzard random freeze on Aegislash here would get scary. (Probably still winnable if we knew it was Jynx3, which we might if we were paranoid after the turn 1 blizzard and checked damage ranges carefully; that said, I'm not convinced it'd be winnable with enough health to survive a backup Froslass4.) Worse, if we don't check the damage ranges here (or don't know, since the damage ranges overlap) we might incorrectly assume Jynx4, which looks fine all the way until Aegislash doesn't get hit with lovely kiss at all (weird but plausible), Gyarados switches into psychic, and then Gyarados uses DD but takes an unexpected focus blast and now we're roughly in the game state from your video except with Aegislash damaged and possibly frozen, which still isn't great. Again, I'm not even sure blizzard is possible, but that random icy wind scared me.
- Shield blizzard #2
- ->Gyarados on blizzard #3
- ->Gliscor on blast #2
- Protect blizzard #4
- Sac Gliscor (?!) on blizzard #5. Feels bad, but I don't think we need Gliscor here and don't want to risk freezing Aegislash or losing Gyarados to a third crit blizzard. Send Aegislash. (If this blizzard misses, safest answer is to sac Gliscor to an icy wind and continue with the plan, but realistically Gyarados is probably high enough health to survive icy wind with >25% HP so ->Gyarados->Aegislash should be fine.)
- Jynx3 seems to always prefer psychic over icy wind on Aegislash here (22/22 between my tests and Mari's video, and even if it's not completely guaranteed >90% should be good enough for us to stall it out anyway), so we can stall out psychic via shield, SD, shield, ->Gyarados, then ->Aegislash on blast #3. Repeat this 1.5 more times (such that we ->Gyarados on the last psychic and ->Aegislash on the last blast). If for some reason it can icy wind instead of psychic on Aegislash, run the third cycle longer. If Gyarados takes icy wind instead of the last psychic, try to shield the last psychic, and if for some reason that doesn't work either eat the last psychic on Aegislash and reset the SpD drop using Gyarados if that happens. Gyarados can survive crit blizzard x2 plus crit icy wind but dies to a second crit icy wind, but I'm pretty sure we're okay up to now
- Icy wind does negative damage after two rounds of lefties. Max roll crit nets 10 damage after two rounds of lefties. Set Aegislash to +6, alternating shield to preserve health, then KO Jynx with +6 shadow sneak. We should be down at most 10 health with about 5 shield PP left, which should be enough to sweep the rest of the team. Speed drops are irrelevant because shadow sneak.
- +6 shadow sneak OHKOs anything on Anastasia's roster (including Spiritomb34, barely!), barring sash and brightpowder
- Sash: Froslass4 is the scary one; the plan is shield, iron head after likely shadow ball into shield form (75% on max roll crit), spam shield until destiny bond isn't active (if it was active in the first place then we didn't take the shadow ball yet so we're at no risk of dying here) then KO with shadow sneak. Starmie3 is less scary and the same plan should work, and they can't both exist because item clause
- Brightpowder: Mismagius4 does negative damage. Gothitelle4 is more exciting - there's a world where we miss shadow sneak, get hit with flatter, can't attack or risk self-hit OHKO so we switch to Gyarados (who presumably won't take flatter on the switch). If we have at least 25% health, we can outrun, sub, and do whatever we want. If not, Gyarados also risks eventually taking flatter and dying to self-hits, and Gothitelle4 might have shadow tag which prevents switch-stalling flatter. In this case, we hope Gothitelle4 was last mon (likely, as its damage moves are awful; technically not guaranteed, but if not the third mon shouldn't be able to meaningfully hit Aegislash either), and worst-case sac Gyarados and aim to double +0 shadow sneak from full health Aegislash (technically a range, might need a third) before we self-hit to death (first shadow sneak goes off before first flatter, then spam shield until confusion wears off (can probably throw one SD in here in case Gothitelle4 isn't last mon and there's a plausible last mon I'm not seeing that +0 Aegislash should be scared of somehow, or if first shadow sneak missed again or low-rolled) and do a second shadow sneak before it can re-flatter; I'm pretty sure it should be spamming psychic while we're confused, which is maybe enough chip damage to be scary eventually but hopefully not fast enough to matter).
I think your Regice1 line is also suboptimal here.
My current notes (which also seem suboptimal, more on that later) say set 1 is a guaranteed Aegislash setup (Regice1 really doesn't want to use Toxic on Gliscor, letting you set Aegislash on Toxic). Subtect Ice Beam, then Gliscor stalling Focus Blast and Thunderbolt in place is cheap if Gliscor runs Double Team/Sand Attack/Agility/another skip turn button. Your Gliscor doesn't have that, but if the concern is subtect PP, you can switch-stall Focus Blast and 10 PP of Thunderbolt using King's Shield (leaving 4 Thunderbolts counting the one Gliscor initially came in on from Gyarados) assuming careful counting, and then Regice1 survives 3 non-crit EQs (more importantly, 2 non-crit then 1 crit) with Sitrus, so unless you're afraid of some specific backup I'd assume spending the 1-2 extra subtect PP to get the Aegislash setup is worth doing? (Unlike Regice2, Aegislash can't survive a full switch-stall of all Regice1 attacking PP without shield, and starting the switch-stall partway through Ice Beam risks freeze on Ice Beam making you unable to shield off all the Thunderbolts, so I don't think I can make this completely free with your setup. Alternatively, run Bulldoze for less damage, but you seem to like EQ for other matchups.)
tobiuo's guide recommends going for a slightly riskier Gyarados setup on Regice1 by switch-stalling Thunderbolt, going to Gyarados on the last Focus Blast, and outrunning Toxic with Sub. The obvious way to do this is to start by switch-stalling beam+bolt and seeing what happens from there, but I think the safest way to do this (double-check the numbers since I don't currently have a saved video) is to take the first beam on Aegislash, determine the set from the damage taken (if no crit, Regice1 does 25-30 and Regice2 does 18-21; if we miss the crit notification and incorrectly assume Regice2, we'll notice when Aegislash eventually starts taking Icy Wind instead of Focus Blast and should be able to salvage things at the cost of subtecting some extra Icy Winds with Gliscor, but that ends in a guaranteed full Gyarados setup anyway so it's fine), and with Regice1 confirmed we shield, go back to Scor, do that 2 more times, and subtect the last 7 beams before resuming the switch-stall, which (if I've counted correctly) should get Gliscor in as Thunderbolt runs out with exactly 1 PP of Focus Blast left. Gyarados comes in on the last Focus Blast, outruns Toxic with Sub, and proceeds to set up. I've been not doing this since I'm scared I'll miscount PP and either have Gliscor take an Ice Beam (catastrophic) or Gyarados take a Thunderbolt (costs a sub but probably fine overall) or Toxic (pretty bad). Specifically, if I forget to King's Shield once during the switch-stall and don't notice, and then I stop after 7 King's Shields were used, Thunderbolt runs out earlier than I expect and I'm switching Gliscor into the last Focus Blast, which hopefully I notice but then I can't get Gyarados in (so set Aegislash). This is less bad than I thought; I'm considering switching to this plan once I've confirmed it works in video. There's also a risk of Aegislash getting frozen early, at which point we probably want to give up on the Gyarados setup, stall Regice1 down to Toxic using Gliscor, attempt to defrost and set Aeg, and since we know about the freeze early, we can do the stall fairly cheaply: Switch-stall beam+bolt until Aegislash health gets unsafe (crit beam does 45 max, so we can do this at least 4 times total including lefties), subtect remaining beam (<=6), switch-stall blast+bolt, stall remaining bolts with Gliscor (should be <=5 at this point), and attempt to defrost and set up Aegislash on Toxic+Struggle (5 Struggles with Sitrus). If you can't defrost in the first 12ish turns (which should be plenty of time to heal Aegislash to full at least), you'd presumably go back to Gliscor and do what Gliscor setup you can, including Sub as Regice dies to Struggle recoil, and even that's not terrible (it's even probably cheaper than your current setup, though Aegislash ends frozen).
I agree that set 2 is always a Gyarados setup. Amusingly, accidentally science-ing this (while hoping that video was Regice1) says subtecting Ice Beam shouldn't even be necessary on Regice2; barring ridiculous numbers of crits you can just immediately switch-stall Thunderbolt and Ice Beam even without shield (in case of freeze), and then eventually Icy Wind does basically nothing to Aegislash (count Thunderbolt carefully, though; crit Icy Wind OHKOs Gliscor if it switches into that!) so you eventually just sit on Aegislash with about 50 HP to spare until you eventually defrost; stay on Aegislash (with shield to regain some health) until Rest, and set Gyarados. And if Aegislash does take freeze plus a bunch of crits such that its health does start getting scary (crit Ice Beam does 32 damage max and Thunderbolt runs out later than Ice Beam), you can go back to Gliscor, subtect down to Rest, and still set Gyarados.
My notes say we shouldn't even need to get Aegislash paralyzed on Luxray4, as Luxray4 prefers Thunder Wave over Thunder Fang and redundant Light Screen against Gliscor without sub active, after which Thunder Fang and redundant Light Screen seem roughly equally common. Ideally Aegislash got frozen on the switch-stall and we use that to run out Thunder Fang; if that doesn't work, we run out Thunder Wave as described, then go to Aegislash after Light Screen runs out, shield once then go back to Gliscor, baiting two Thunder Fangs. This should (uncertain if it's 100% guaranteed, but it's worked every time I've tried) eventually get us down to just Light Screen for a Gyarados setup. This assumes a skip turn button on Gliscor (or burning subtect PP) for the last two turns each Light Screen cycle and as you said the paralysis probably doesn't ultimately matter since this should be an easy win anyway, so I'm not sure this is better given your Gliscor moveset.
Very cool line! (My previous plan was to at least try to boost Aegislash before the OHKO, but even +2 Aegislash isn't a great board state.) Somehow I don't have a saved video for this, but I assume this consistently leaves Gyarados fully set up with +6 and sub?
Hi Meuhforever. I just saw that you updated your 1000 plus streak in super triples with this post, but on the leaderboard it still says you are on an ongoing streak of 1000 plus. I am wondering because my own triples team reached 1001 wins today. I would love to post it, but I don't know if Smogon keeps everything updated or if I would just waste my time. Do you think it's worth it? Especially since I plan on enhancing my win streak and I will probably gain some more ranks in the next few weeks if I don't lose. Thank you very much if you find the time to reply.
Hi. Yes post about it! Updates happen periodically, but regardless, it's always fun to read about new teams. It will get added when the board gets updated.
Submitting an ongoing streak of 1000 wins in Alpha Sapphire Super Triples! I've decided to dust off my old cart and finally play some Maison seriously. I've dabbled in it in the past but never got anything noteworthy. The team I put together is nothing groundbreaking, mostly inspired by other teams posted on here in the past. Let's begin.
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Relaxed Nature
- Night Shade
- Brick Break
- Foresight
- Trick Room
First up, we have Dusclops. I love Dusclops. It's probably my most used setter across the many teams I've played in facilities. I don't know why I keep going back to it but I do and it's been quite fun to play with here. With the Eviolite, it's pretty damn fat and is very hard to OHKO. There are some minor threats that it has to watch out for (more on that later). I found that Frisk hasn't had much use. As many of you Maison heads might know, a lot of trainers past 40 carry only one set per Pokemon on their teams. So it's pretty easy to sus out what you're facing. Frisk has been useful for exposing Zoroark and also vs the trainers that do carry more than one set per Pokemon though.
The actual set is pretty straightforward though and is good for a FEAR team. Night Shade for picking off Endeavor'd targets, Brick Break for the the Ghost-immune Normals. I did have Gravity over Foresight until about battle.... I want to say 200. I forget when exactly I made the change. I've never really liked using Foresight even in Gen 7 as it felt pretty awkward to use with the FEAR bait always being faster than under Trick Room. However, it's felt better in Triples. If Aron is preoccupied Endeavoring something else for the other Pokemon, Dusclops can spend the turn identifying Ghosts or Evasion spammers if it so chooses. It's made Foresight feel a lot more valuable. Of course, there's still some awkward moments with it but nothing too bad. As for the EVs, I honestly can't tell you what they were for. This was already in my box from a few years ago. I forget what I bred it for exactly but it's been working out pretty well so far.
Aron @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
EVs: n/a
IVs: n/a
Brave Nature
- Endeavor
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
- Protect
Being back in Gen 6 means I have to use Aron. Returning to Aron after spending a long time playing Togedemaru has been an adjustment. It really made me miss a lot of the positive qualities Togedemaru brings to the table. Fake Out..... Helping Hand.... Spiky Shield.... immunity to paralysis..... damn I miss those. Not to say that Aron is bad though. It definitely is not. It spends most of its turns hitting targets with Endeavor so the other two partners around it and pick them off. Sunny Day is excellent for weather control but for also boosting Camerupt's already powerful Eruption. Toxic is mostly filler. I think I've clicked it maybe 5 or 6 times on this run. I couldn't really find anything better. If only Aron learned Helping Hand.... but whatever. One of the more annoying things about Aron is its lack of paralysis immunity. The AI loves to Thunder Wave it if it can. While this isn't a huge disadvantage as Aron will remain to be the fastest Pokemon under Trick Room, potentially missing turns because of full paralysis suuuucks. Outside of that, Aron is an amazing bait and the opponents in Maison seem to focus it down a lot more than in Tree or BDSP Tower.
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Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock --> Sheer Force
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power
- Protect
Next up, we have Camerupt. The camel's another favourite of mine but I don't get to use it a lot! After Mega Evolving, Mega Camel hits a whopping 22 Speed. That's pretty much slower than everything except for Avalugg4 which sits at 21 Speed thanks to its Iron Ball. Figuring out Camel's set wasn't too difficult. I know I wanted a powerful spread attack somewhere and you can't really get much better than Eruption coming off of 145 SpA! With Aron being a great bait, Camel is usually protected and can fire off as many full powered Eruptions as it wants. Of course, you still have to watch out for opposing Water and Ground attacks. The AI sometimes just doesn't care and WILL Surf or Earthquake even if it means it'll be hurting its partners in the process. Earth Power is pretty strong Ground STAB that's also boosted by Sheer Force so its damage is also pretty ridiculous.
Before I settled on Ancient Power, I was running Solar Beam as is also seen on ReptoAbysmal's own Triples team. The idea was to combine it with Aron's Sunny Day and be able to take down a lot of Grass weak Waters, Grounds, and Rocks. However, I didn't really enjoy using it too much and ended up swapping it out for Ancient Power around Battle 200 or so. It's made facing Charizard and Volcarona a little less awkward. It's also boosted by Sheer Force as well so I don't have to worry about getting the omniboost increasing my Speed. One thing I do love about using Camerupt this gen is the Mega speed doesn't get updated on the turn you Mega. So, Camerupt can easily snipe slower stuff before Trick Room goes up if it's safe to do so. It's great when things like Trevenant4, Avalugg4, or Escavalier lead.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Brave Nature
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
Ah, good, old, reliable Hariyama. Another favourite of mine. Nothing really changes for Harry. I gave this one a pretty rushed EV spread which has worked out pretty well. It's in the back, and it doesn't usually see too much action. If anything, it's been a sacrificial lamb a lot of the time. I was originally going to put this in the lead to give the frontline some Fake Out support but ReptoAbysmal recommended I put it in the back and leave Camel out front. The reason was so I can have my spread attacks in the front and Harry can be a break glass sort of situation. It was probably the best advice I ever received when preparing this team. I was a little wary of having it in the back but it's been a great cushion to switch in if things go wrong on turn 1. Outside of being a sacrifice, Hariyama boasts a very strong Close Combat thanks to Guts. Knock Off and Heavy Slam are great for Ghosts and Fairies.
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Ability: Mega Launcher
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
This was another huge recommendation from Repto. This is probably my first time actually using the shrimp ever so I was pretty excited to finally be able to witness its true power. Mega Launcher+Life Orb gives a bunch of power to Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere. They can put a major dent in a lot of stuff and if you're weak to the attack, you're probably dead. The beautiful thing about Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere is they aren't restricted by Clawitzer's board position so I can have it on the right side and still target opponents on the left side. It's honestly been a lifesaver in some battles where I'm in a bad spot but it doesn't matter because the shrimp can just fire off wherever it pleases. Ice Beam doesn't have this luxury but it's still on here to snipe the various Dragons that exist if it can reach them.
I wanted to have Protect as the fourth move here so some safety but honestly, Clawitzer has proven it can take some hits and fire back if needed. There was some thought about what item to put on this. I was thinking something like Expert Belt or even Specs at some point. The Life Orb was eventually chosen because Specs ended up being taken by something else and while Expert Belt would have been nice, there are a lot of neutral targets that Clawitzer would like to blast away anyway.
Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Swift
Finally, we have Sylveon. Another backup and sponge in case things get dire in the front. Sylveon packs a very powerful Pixilate-boosted Hyper Voice that can dent a lot stuff including some resists. Most of the time when I send this guy in, I lock Hyper Voice without much thought. This is not recommended though as sometimes you will hit something with Soundproof and then be forced to switch. I totally did not do that vs an Abomasnow that didn't roll Snow Warning. Nope. Never ever.
The other moves on Sylveon are copied off of what others have used on their own teams with it. Swift is here for those aforementioned Soundproof targets and is another decently strong spread attack. The fact that it can't miss is a nice bonus. Psyshock is also good for a lot of the specially defensive opponents. Shadow Ball is the least clicked move on here honestly. A lot of the targets where Shadow Ball would be useful into, Hyper Voice or Psyshock is just better. If only Sylveon had access to Mystical Fire this gen. I guess HP Fire could be an option but I don't want to rebreed. Helping Hand has also been considered but being locked in Helping Hand when Sylveon will be next to Aron 90% of the time did not seem worth it at all.
Next up, here's some threats. This isn't a perfect list, and I'm probably missing a lot of stuff. Anyway, here we go.
Now we move onto the Notable Battles. I have 34 videos saved and all of them can be found this playlist. Here's the blurb about each of these and my thought process, or what I can remember about each of them. Also, apologies for the shaky cam and any background noise. I recorded these all on my phone over multiple nights.
Overall, I've been having a lot of fun with Triples. My only real complaint about Maison is the majority of trainers only carrying one set per Pokemon. This run up to 1000 felt pretty fast and most battles were played on auto-pilot. But that is the nature of FEAR of teams, so that probably played a part too. See ya.
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Relaxed Nature
- Night Shade
- Brick Break
- Foresight
- Trick Room
First up, we have Dusclops. I love Dusclops. It's probably my most used setter across the many teams I've played in facilities. I don't know why I keep going back to it but I do and it's been quite fun to play with here. With the Eviolite, it's pretty damn fat and is very hard to OHKO. There are some minor threats that it has to watch out for (more on that later). I found that Frisk hasn't had much use. As many of you Maison heads might know, a lot of trainers past 40 carry only one set per Pokemon on their teams. So it's pretty easy to sus out what you're facing. Frisk has been useful for exposing Zoroark and also vs the trainers that do carry more than one set per Pokemon though.
The actual set is pretty straightforward though and is good for a FEAR team. Night Shade for picking off Endeavor'd targets, Brick Break for the the Ghost-immune Normals. I did have Gravity over Foresight until about battle.... I want to say 200. I forget when exactly I made the change. I've never really liked using Foresight even in Gen 7 as it felt pretty awkward to use with the FEAR bait always being faster than under Trick Room. However, it's felt better in Triples. If Aron is preoccupied Endeavoring something else for the other Pokemon, Dusclops can spend the turn identifying Ghosts or Evasion spammers if it so chooses. It's made Foresight feel a lot more valuable. Of course, there's still some awkward moments with it but nothing too bad. As for the EVs, I honestly can't tell you what they were for. This was already in my box from a few years ago. I forget what I bred it for exactly but it's been working out pretty well so far.
Aron @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
EVs: n/a
IVs: n/a
Brave Nature
- Endeavor
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
- Protect
Being back in Gen 6 means I have to use Aron. Returning to Aron after spending a long time playing Togedemaru has been an adjustment. It really made me miss a lot of the positive qualities Togedemaru brings to the table. Fake Out..... Helping Hand.... Spiky Shield.... immunity to paralysis..... damn I miss those. Not to say that Aron is bad though. It definitely is not. It spends most of its turns hitting targets with Endeavor so the other two partners around it and pick them off. Sunny Day is excellent for weather control but for also boosting Camerupt's already powerful Eruption. Toxic is mostly filler. I think I've clicked it maybe 5 or 6 times on this run. I couldn't really find anything better. If only Aron learned Helping Hand.... but whatever. One of the more annoying things about Aron is its lack of paralysis immunity. The AI loves to Thunder Wave it if it can. While this isn't a huge disadvantage as Aron will remain to be the fastest Pokemon under Trick Room, potentially missing turns because of full paralysis suuuucks. Outside of that, Aron is an amazing bait and the opponents in Maison seem to focus it down a lot more than in Tree or BDSP Tower.
Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock --> Sheer Force
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power
- Protect
Next up, we have Camerupt. The camel's another favourite of mine but I don't get to use it a lot! After Mega Evolving, Mega Camel hits a whopping 22 Speed. That's pretty much slower than everything except for Avalugg4 which sits at 21 Speed thanks to its Iron Ball. Figuring out Camel's set wasn't too difficult. I know I wanted a powerful spread attack somewhere and you can't really get much better than Eruption coming off of 145 SpA! With Aron being a great bait, Camel is usually protected and can fire off as many full powered Eruptions as it wants. Of course, you still have to watch out for opposing Water and Ground attacks. The AI sometimes just doesn't care and WILL Surf or Earthquake even if it means it'll be hurting its partners in the process. Earth Power is pretty strong Ground STAB that's also boosted by Sheer Force so its damage is also pretty ridiculous.
Before I settled on Ancient Power, I was running Solar Beam as is also seen on ReptoAbysmal's own Triples team. The idea was to combine it with Aron's Sunny Day and be able to take down a lot of Grass weak Waters, Grounds, and Rocks. However, I didn't really enjoy using it too much and ended up swapping it out for Ancient Power around Battle 200 or so. It's made facing Charizard and Volcarona a little less awkward. It's also boosted by Sheer Force as well so I don't have to worry about getting the omniboost increasing my Speed. One thing I do love about using Camerupt this gen is the Mega speed doesn't get updated on the turn you Mega. So, Camerupt can easily snipe slower stuff before Trick Room goes up if it's safe to do so. It's great when things like Trevenant4, Avalugg4, or Escavalier lead.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Brave Nature
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
Ah, good, old, reliable Hariyama. Another favourite of mine. Nothing really changes for Harry. I gave this one a pretty rushed EV spread which has worked out pretty well. It's in the back, and it doesn't usually see too much action. If anything, it's been a sacrificial lamb a lot of the time. I was originally going to put this in the lead to give the frontline some Fake Out support but ReptoAbysmal recommended I put it in the back and leave Camel out front. The reason was so I can have my spread attacks in the front and Harry can be a break glass sort of situation. It was probably the best advice I ever received when preparing this team. I was a little wary of having it in the back but it's been a great cushion to switch in if things go wrong on turn 1. Outside of being a sacrifice, Hariyama boasts a very strong Close Combat thanks to Guts. Knock Off and Heavy Slam are great for Ghosts and Fairies.
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Ability: Mega Launcher
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
This was another huge recommendation from Repto. This is probably my first time actually using the shrimp ever so I was pretty excited to finally be able to witness its true power. Mega Launcher+Life Orb gives a bunch of power to Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere. They can put a major dent in a lot of stuff and if you're weak to the attack, you're probably dead. The beautiful thing about Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere is they aren't restricted by Clawitzer's board position so I can have it on the right side and still target opponents on the left side. It's honestly been a lifesaver in some battles where I'm in a bad spot but it doesn't matter because the shrimp can just fire off wherever it pleases. Ice Beam doesn't have this luxury but it's still on here to snipe the various Dragons that exist if it can reach them.
I wanted to have Protect as the fourth move here so some safety but honestly, Clawitzer has proven it can take some hits and fire back if needed. There was some thought about what item to put on this. I was thinking something like Expert Belt or even Specs at some point. The Life Orb was eventually chosen because Specs ended up being taken by something else and while Expert Belt would have been nice, there are a lot of neutral targets that Clawitzer would like to blast away anyway.
Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Swift
Finally, we have Sylveon. Another backup and sponge in case things get dire in the front. Sylveon packs a very powerful Pixilate-boosted Hyper Voice that can dent a lot stuff including some resists. Most of the time when I send this guy in, I lock Hyper Voice without much thought. This is not recommended though as sometimes you will hit something with Soundproof and then be forced to switch. I totally did not do that vs an Abomasnow that didn't roll Snow Warning. Nope. Never ever.
The other moves on Sylveon are copied off of what others have used on their own teams with it. Swift is here for those aforementioned Soundproof targets and is another decently strong spread attack. The fact that it can't miss is a nice bonus. Psyshock is also good for a lot of the specially defensive opponents. Shadow Ball is the least clicked move on here honestly. A lot of the targets where Shadow Ball would be useful into, Hyper Voice or Psyshock is just better. If only Sylveon had access to Mystical Fire this gen. I guess HP Fire could be an option but I don't want to rebreed. Helping Hand has also been considered but being locked in Helping Hand when Sylveon will be next to Aron 90% of the time did not seem worth it at all.
Clawitzer4
A really powerful shrimp that is holding the Choice Specs! This thing is one of the reasons why I thought about putting the Specs on my own. But Clawitzer really likes to switch up its moves every now and then so I didn't go with it. This Clawitzer, however, is a dickhead. Because it doesn't care about what side of the board it's on, it can target Camel with a Water Pulse from the left side or potentially flinch or crit Dusclops with Dark Pulse on the right side. Thankfully, I haven't had it target Dusclops with Dark Pulse yet but I did see it target Camel on turn 1 with Water Pulse. Scary stuff! Outside of that, Clawitzer4 is pretty easy to handle once TR is up. Just focus it down and move on.
Opposing Trick Room
Aside from the fact that the AI will sometimes turn off Trick Room on you, something unique to Maison Triples is the AI will sometimes set Trick Room on you turn 1! This will then lead to some situations where your own setter will turn off Trick Room and you have to spend another turn setting. This makes Aron's life a bit harder as it most likely Protected turn 1 so you can't really try to Protect again. I usually like to switch to Hariyama or Sylveon depending on what's in the front. Camerupt could also be in danger too so I like to switch it out for whoever I didn't put in the middle. This awkward interaction makes setting a danger in front of some setters because they don't always do it! So I can't even skip my own Trick Room in front of them because what if they attack instead? Then I'm left with the same issue. A lot of my notable battles include the AI doing this so small spoiler.
Priority
As with every FEAR team, priority becomes a bit of an issue. The AI will try to use it whenever they see the kill and since Aron is in the middle, it happens a lot. I've noticed it doesn't always happen in Maison though, or at least not as often. For example, sometimes I see Carracosta4 will skip Aqua Jet for Waterfall or Earthquake. Sucker Punch and Feint don't get used too much as Priority vs Aron though so there's a plus. Regarding Fake Out, I've notice Maison AI will skip it entirely if they have a really strong attack that can murder multiple level 1 Arons. Looking at you, Mienshao.
Also, there is a special place in hell for Greninja3. Water Shuriken is a nasty attack to make priority but it is the worst. I'm pretty sure it's mostly just the starter trainers that can carry it but man, it sucks when you're about to click Endeavor and then you lose Aron to three hits of Water Shuriken. Or lose Camerupt to one or two hits.
Status such as Paralysis, Confusion, and Freeze
I've mentioned above the AI likes to use paralyzing moves like Thunder Wave into Aron and its partners if Trick Room is up. This is because it sees you as faster and knows paralysis can make you slower. Of course, this just makes you faster in Trick Room but then there's the added bonus of potentially skipping turns because of full paralysis. There's also Sleep, Confusion, and Freeze. It's a problem for the entire team but it's mostly a problem for Dusclops on turn 1. Since it needs an Eviolite to function, Lum Berry isn't available as a Get Out of Jail free card. I've had a few instances where Dusclops got frozen by a random Blizzard or something and I'm just scrambling trying to get Trick Room up. This mostly happens with stuff like Froslass, Glaceon, and Articuno. There's others but these are the ones that have scored the most freezes on Dusclops.
Confusion isn't too problematic but it can cause some issues if you end up getting hit by a lone Hurricane or Water Pulse.
Taunt
Again, no actual way to block potential Taunts from targeting Dusclops so Trick Room can be stopped this way. I've had at least two nasty run-ins with turn 1 Taunts that threw my whole groove off. Notable Pokemon to watch out for include Sawk4, Electrode4, Ambipom4, Toxicroak4, Bisharp4, Weavile4, Aggron4, Crobat4, Vanilluxe4, Virizion1, Tornadus4, and Thundurus4.
Wide Guard
Given that we are mostly spamming Eruption and Hyper Voice, it should be noted that Wide Guard can fully stop you in your tracks if you're mindlessly clicking. The AI is pretty stingy with its Wide Guard usage but you should still be cautious. The main ones to watch out for are Bastiodon4, Mienshao4, and Regigigas4. Not a huge list but still worth knowing. Regigigas can show up with multiple sets on Veteran trainers so there's a good chance it won't be one of the Wide Guard sets. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry.
OHKO nonsense
This includes Fissure, Sheer Cold, and Guillotine. Horn Drill exists but I don't think it shows up past 40. I could be wrong, of course so apologies. Anyway, OHKO nonsense is a threat to pretty much any team. It can ruin your general strategy or groove or just straight up stop you in your tracks. I've had one battle where Dusclops was blasted by a Sheer Cold from our good friend, Walrein4. It can happen! And unfortunately, there really isn't much that can be done if your setter is targeted. Luckily, the AI is stupid and will try to use the OHKO move on Aron until Sturdy is revealed. So if you Protect turn 1 and got targeted by an OHKO move? There's a good chance Aron will be the target again. So that's a plus.
Anyway, notabe OHKO stuff to watch out for includes Crygonal3, Vanilluxe3, Walrein4, Articuno2, Mamoswine3, Whiscash4, Donphan4, Wailord4, Landorus1, and Pinsir4.
Donphan4
There is only one real notable Quick Claw user I have in my notes that is problematic and that is apparently Donphan4. I'm sure there's others but this is the one I'm most afraid of. 10% chance to go first is always annoying. It can cause some issues especially when Trick Room is up. Having Sturdy+Fissure makes it pretty difficult to deal with if you aren't Endeavoring it. It's usually my Endeavor target if I see it though, unless something else is looking more dangerous in the moment. Of course, with Quick Claw you kinda have to pray it doesn't activate. Which is what I have been doing when I see this beast.
Quick Claw/Bright Powder
As mentioned above, Donphan4 is one of the many Quick Claw users that can be scary. Quick Claw can ruin your day if the turn doesn't go your way because of it activating. Bright Powder is also lumped in this section because a random miss on something that is otherwise 100 accuracy sucks. I guess you can also include the weather evasion abilities such as Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.
Snow Warning
Weather isn't too much of an issue for this team. Rain can be bad because it weakens Eruption however, it doesn't break Aron's Sturdy! Hail does!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to say, playing through SV and a bit of Champions makes me really appreciate the Snow chance GF did. However, going back to a gen with the classic Hail sucks. Luckily in Maison, there is only two Snow Warning users: Abomasnow and Aurorus. Vanilluxe, thankfully, doesn't have the ability this gen and Alolan Ninetales does not exist. Hail sucks because, as mentioned, it breaks Aron's Sturdy. This makes turn 1 Protect a little worrying because it means Aron will most likely only have one turn to do anything. And if the setter is Abomasnow, probably 0 turns because Abomasnow4 carries Ice Shard. Most of the time vs these leads, I like to overwrite the weather if I can. Sometimes, I'll even just switch Aron out for later but that's not always advisable as whatever you switch in can get randomly frozen by a 100% accurate Blizzard.
Also, Snow Cloak users get activated when Hail is up. Froslass4 carries a Focus Sash and it's a Ghost so you can't just Endeavor+Attack to kill it. It carries a pretty nasty Blizzard too.
Water Trainers
This list includes Lana, Caesar, and Kenna. I've noticed these guys tend to carry a lot of Waters or at least usually have teams that are mostly Water types. I've struggled a lot vs these trainers so I made a personal note for them. Water types make it hard to just sit and spam Eruption into them. Sylveon is usually a good switch into some of these if the middle and right side aren't too threatening. Rain can make these teams even scarier especially if you don't have the time or space to set Sun with Aron. I'm usually keeping an eye out for these trainers.
A really powerful shrimp that is holding the Choice Specs! This thing is one of the reasons why I thought about putting the Specs on my own. But Clawitzer really likes to switch up its moves every now and then so I didn't go with it. This Clawitzer, however, is a dickhead. Because it doesn't care about what side of the board it's on, it can target Camel with a Water Pulse from the left side or potentially flinch or crit Dusclops with Dark Pulse on the right side. Thankfully, I haven't had it target Dusclops with Dark Pulse yet but I did see it target Camel on turn 1 with Water Pulse. Scary stuff! Outside of that, Clawitzer4 is pretty easy to handle once TR is up. Just focus it down and move on.
Opposing Trick Room
Aside from the fact that the AI will sometimes turn off Trick Room on you, something unique to Maison Triples is the AI will sometimes set Trick Room on you turn 1! This will then lead to some situations where your own setter will turn off Trick Room and you have to spend another turn setting. This makes Aron's life a bit harder as it most likely Protected turn 1 so you can't really try to Protect again. I usually like to switch to Hariyama or Sylveon depending on what's in the front. Camerupt could also be in danger too so I like to switch it out for whoever I didn't put in the middle. This awkward interaction makes setting a danger in front of some setters because they don't always do it! So I can't even skip my own Trick Room in front of them because what if they attack instead? Then I'm left with the same issue. A lot of my notable battles include the AI doing this so small spoiler.
Priority
As with every FEAR team, priority becomes a bit of an issue. The AI will try to use it whenever they see the kill and since Aron is in the middle, it happens a lot. I've noticed it doesn't always happen in Maison though, or at least not as often. For example, sometimes I see Carracosta4 will skip Aqua Jet for Waterfall or Earthquake. Sucker Punch and Feint don't get used too much as Priority vs Aron though so there's a plus. Regarding Fake Out, I've notice Maison AI will skip it entirely if they have a really strong attack that can murder multiple level 1 Arons. Looking at you, Mienshao.
Also, there is a special place in hell for Greninja3. Water Shuriken is a nasty attack to make priority but it is the worst. I'm pretty sure it's mostly just the starter trainers that can carry it but man, it sucks when you're about to click Endeavor and then you lose Aron to three hits of Water Shuriken. Or lose Camerupt to one or two hits.
Status such as Paralysis, Confusion, and Freeze
I've mentioned above the AI likes to use paralyzing moves like Thunder Wave into Aron and its partners if Trick Room is up. This is because it sees you as faster and knows paralysis can make you slower. Of course, this just makes you faster in Trick Room but then there's the added bonus of potentially skipping turns because of full paralysis. There's also Sleep, Confusion, and Freeze. It's a problem for the entire team but it's mostly a problem for Dusclops on turn 1. Since it needs an Eviolite to function, Lum Berry isn't available as a Get Out of Jail free card. I've had a few instances where Dusclops got frozen by a random Blizzard or something and I'm just scrambling trying to get Trick Room up. This mostly happens with stuff like Froslass, Glaceon, and Articuno. There's others but these are the ones that have scored the most freezes on Dusclops.
Confusion isn't too problematic but it can cause some issues if you end up getting hit by a lone Hurricane or Water Pulse.
Taunt
Again, no actual way to block potential Taunts from targeting Dusclops so Trick Room can be stopped this way. I've had at least two nasty run-ins with turn 1 Taunts that threw my whole groove off. Notable Pokemon to watch out for include Sawk4, Electrode4, Ambipom4, Toxicroak4, Bisharp4, Weavile4, Aggron4, Crobat4, Vanilluxe4, Virizion1, Tornadus4, and Thundurus4.
Wide Guard
Given that we are mostly spamming Eruption and Hyper Voice, it should be noted that Wide Guard can fully stop you in your tracks if you're mindlessly clicking. The AI is pretty stingy with its Wide Guard usage but you should still be cautious. The main ones to watch out for are Bastiodon4, Mienshao4, and Regigigas4. Not a huge list but still worth knowing. Regigigas can show up with multiple sets on Veteran trainers so there's a good chance it won't be one of the Wide Guard sets. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry.
OHKO nonsense
This includes Fissure, Sheer Cold, and Guillotine. Horn Drill exists but I don't think it shows up past 40. I could be wrong, of course so apologies. Anyway, OHKO nonsense is a threat to pretty much any team. It can ruin your general strategy or groove or just straight up stop you in your tracks. I've had one battle where Dusclops was blasted by a Sheer Cold from our good friend, Walrein4. It can happen! And unfortunately, there really isn't much that can be done if your setter is targeted. Luckily, the AI is stupid and will try to use the OHKO move on Aron until Sturdy is revealed. So if you Protect turn 1 and got targeted by an OHKO move? There's a good chance Aron will be the target again. So that's a plus.
Anyway, notabe OHKO stuff to watch out for includes Crygonal3, Vanilluxe3, Walrein4, Articuno2, Mamoswine3, Whiscash4, Donphan4, Wailord4, Landorus1, and Pinsir4.
Donphan4
There is only one real notable Quick Claw user I have in my notes that is problematic and that is apparently Donphan4. I'm sure there's others but this is the one I'm most afraid of. 10% chance to go first is always annoying. It can cause some issues especially when Trick Room is up. Having Sturdy+Fissure makes it pretty difficult to deal with if you aren't Endeavoring it. It's usually my Endeavor target if I see it though, unless something else is looking more dangerous in the moment. Of course, with Quick Claw you kinda have to pray it doesn't activate. Which is what I have been doing when I see this beast.
Quick Claw/Bright Powder
As mentioned above, Donphan4 is one of the many Quick Claw users that can be scary. Quick Claw can ruin your day if the turn doesn't go your way because of it activating. Bright Powder is also lumped in this section because a random miss on something that is otherwise 100 accuracy sucks. I guess you can also include the weather evasion abilities such as Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.
Snow Warning
Weather isn't too much of an issue for this team. Rain can be bad because it weakens Eruption however, it doesn't break Aron's Sturdy! Hail does!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to say, playing through SV and a bit of Champions makes me really appreciate the Snow chance GF did. However, going back to a gen with the classic Hail sucks. Luckily in Maison, there is only two Snow Warning users: Abomasnow and Aurorus. Vanilluxe, thankfully, doesn't have the ability this gen and Alolan Ninetales does not exist. Hail sucks because, as mentioned, it breaks Aron's Sturdy. This makes turn 1 Protect a little worrying because it means Aron will most likely only have one turn to do anything. And if the setter is Abomasnow, probably 0 turns because Abomasnow4 carries Ice Shard. Most of the time vs these leads, I like to overwrite the weather if I can. Sometimes, I'll even just switch Aron out for later but that's not always advisable as whatever you switch in can get randomly frozen by a 100% accurate Blizzard.
Also, Snow Cloak users get activated when Hail is up. Froslass4 carries a Focus Sash and it's a Ghost so you can't just Endeavor+Attack to kill it. It carries a pretty nasty Blizzard too.
Water Trainers
This list includes Lana, Caesar, and Kenna. I've noticed these guys tend to carry a lot of Waters or at least usually have teams that are mostly Water types. I've struggled a lot vs these trainers so I made a personal note for them. Water types make it hard to just sit and spam Eruption into them. Sylveon is usually a good switch into some of these if the middle and right side aren't too threatening. Rain can make these teams even scarier especially if you don't have the time or space to set Sun with Aron. I'm usually keeping an eye out for these trainers.
Battle 71 vs Ace Trainer Jai - Volcarona4 / Latios3 / Magnezone3 / Hydreigon1 or 3 / Porygon-Z3 / Exeggutor1
Endeavor ended up missing Magnezone which got Aron paralyzed. A couple of full paralysis turns which causes Dusclops to also get paralyzed.
Battle 75 vs Chef Cobb - Vanilluxe1 / Cryogonal3 / Beartic3 / Politoed4 / Empoleon4 / Mamoswine1234
First turn 1 freeze of the streak on Dusclops! This was just an awful start to the battle and I was worried my journey would be over right here. Minor mistake this battle was going for Eruption into Empoleon/Politoed. I really should have just Earth Power'd the Empoleon. Oh well.
Battle 82 vs Hiker Rand - Aurorus4 / Conkeldurr4 / Carbink4 / Heracross4 / Rhyperior4 / Mienshao4
Snow Warning from Aurorus + Mach Punch on Conk means Aron doesn't get to play the game today. I probably could have switched Aron out in this one to Sylveon. I know better now.
Battle 134 vs Butler Noah - Excadrill4 / Pinsir4 / Exeggutor4 / Milotic4 / Weavle4 / Lapras4
Eggy clicking Trick Room on my Trick Room.... AI counter teaming me?!?!?!?! Just kidding. This is part of the blurb I mentioned above about opposing Trick Room setters. Annoying, and pretty frequent throughout this run! Camerupt in the middle is terrifying though.
Battle 215 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gliscor4 / Gourgeist4 / Slowking4 / Leafeon4 / Meganium4 / Lapras4
Another Trick Room prevention, this time from Slowking. For this one, I stupidly clicked Protect again on Aron turn 2 but that was obviously a really dumb mistake. Gliscor did go for Counter though which allowed Aron to get the Endeavor off on Slowking.
Battle 260 vs Pokemon Ranger Parker - Slowking4 / Gastrodon4 / Roserade4 / Starmie4 / Marowak4 / Golurk4
This was one of those times where I wanted to let the Slowking set Trick Room. Got a little dicey with all the Hammer Arms Golurk was using.
Battle 263 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Steelix4 / Slowbro4 / Reuniclus2 / Cofagrigus3 / Musharna 2 / Bronzong1
I definitely expected Slowbro or Reuniclus to set for me. This is where I started to realize it is not reliable to have the AI set for you. Also, kinda got greedy with Camel and got frozen.
Battle 282 vs Tourist Chelsea - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Gogoat4 / Granbull4 / Chesnaught4 / Nidoking4
More double Trick Room nonsense. Also featuring Gogoat and Empoleon attacking each other with Earthquake and Surf. This one wasn't so bad as it ended up being the Sylveon show.
Battle 305 vs Ace Trainer Nikita - Leafeon4 / Trevenant4 / Glaceon4 / Sylveon4 / Charizard4 / Walrein4
An excellent snipe on Trevenant and Leafeon on turn 1. Trev holding an Iron Ball makes this very possible but Leafeon could have also targeted Camerupt with that Leaf Blade. Also, Dusclops got frozen. Yay. Big, bad scary Walrein was also difficult to maneuver around.
Battle 357 vs Hex Maniac Anastasia - Cofagrigus3 / Dusknoir4 / Medicham4 / Slowbro3 or 4 / Bronzong3 / Musharna3
Another double Trick Room on turn 1. I did get a nice crit on Dusknoir with Eruption though. A random Quick Claw proc from Bronzong also snipes poor baby Aron.....
Battle 371 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gyarados4 / Politoed4 / Seismitoad4 / Empoleon4 / Excadrill4 / Donphan4
Some annoying Waters scare off Camerupt. I'm pretty sure I missed the Mold Breaker message on Excadrill here too.
Battle 401 vs Scientist Rosalind - Aerodactyl4 / Weezing4 / Eelektross4 / Electrode4 / Carracosta4 / Vileplume4
Giving Carracosta its Weakness Policy by gambling for Sturdy is fine, right? This was just horribly misplayed. Because of the Weakness Policy, Camerupt ended up getting blasted on the next turn. Also, rare Teeter Dance from Vileplume.
Battle 489 vs Beauty Lana - Ampharos4 / Electrode4 / Seismitoad2 / Floatzel1234 / Zebstrika2 / Ludicolo4
Trick Room getting denied twice by Rock Slide flinch. Classic. I'm a little surprised Electrode didn't Taunt once in this battle.
Battle 511 vs Artist Wenge - Gigalith4 / Politoed4 / Rampardos4 / Rapidash4 / Muk4 / Beartic4
I didn't miss the Mold Breaker message this time, haha. Rampardos and Gigalith both EQing Toed down to Earth Power range was pretty neat though. Thanks guys. Also, Gigalith having a higher chance to roll Sturdy this gen is annoying!
Battle 515 vs Pokemon Breeder Gudrun - Bronzong4 / Carracosta4 / Yanmega4 / Ampharos4 / Roserade4 / Mienshao4
Another double Trick Room annoyance. This one was really scary because I don't know where Carracosta is gonna hit next. Gudrun? More like Badrun.
Battle 537 vs Waitress Ilisha - Espeon4 / Steelix4 / Walrein4 / Scizor4 / Snorlax4 / Pinsir4
Dusclops hit by Sheer Cold? No problem! This one had me locking IN. There was a moment in this battle where I should have locked Psyshock instead of Hyper Voice in this one. Got a pretty lucky Hyper Voice crit in the end.
Battle 547 vs Pokemon Ranger Cerese - Slowking4 / Rhyperior4 / Nidoking4 / Meganium4 / Krookodile4 / Abomasnow4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 550 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Quagsire2 / Cofagrigus3 / Bronzong1 / Slowking4 / Aromatisse4 / Reuniclus2
Mara turns off Trick Room and then turns it back on in this one. Thought it was pretty funny.
Battle 559 vs Worker Axel - Forretress4 / Armaldo4 / Aggron4 / Gliscor4 / Skarmory4 / Krookodile4
Aggron actually clicks Taunt on Dusclops here.
Battle 600 vs Tourist Aire - Froslass4 / Cofagrigus4 / Trevenant4 / Blaziken4 / Altaria4 / Musharna4
Triple Ghost lead. Aron actually clicks Toxic.
Battle 650 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Dusknoir4 / Reuniclus2 / Tyranitar1 / Slowbro4 / Cofagrigus3 / Gourgeist2
Mara breaking item clause. This was the first time I encountered this. I had only heard about it but it was pretty cool witnessing it myself!
Battle 673 vs Black Belt Sebastian - Infernape4 / Aggron4 / Sawk4 / Charizard4 / Emboar4 / Toxicroak4
Another Taunt aimed at Dusclops. Sawk rolling Mold Breaker did not make things easy either. Sebastian also brought THREE Taunt users!!! He did not want me setting at all.
Battle 719 - Hex Maniac Celia - Gothitelle4 / Froslass4 / Espeon4 / Trevenant4 / Jynx4 / Slowbro4
Another Blizzard freeze. I hate you, Froslass.
Battle 743 vs Backpacker Perdido - Blaziken4 / Golurk4 / Kangaskhan4 / Barbaracle4 / Whiscash4 / Shiftry4
Kang choosing to switch turn 1 because it couldn't hit Dusclops was annoying. Shiftry getting to Fake Out Aron which prevents Sunny Day, which then allows Golurk to live the Eruption. Aron dies as a result. Thanks Shiftry.
Battle 800 vs Tourist Chelsea - Bisharp4 / Blaziken4 / Forretress4 / Florges4 / Druddigon4 / Sceptile4
An ill-timed boom from Forretress allowed me to immediately remove Blaziken turn 1. I only clicked Eruption t1 because I wanted to bring Bisharp to Sash!
Battle 815 vs Waitress Remora - Nidoking4 / Musharna4 / Trevenant4 / Greninja4 / Empoleon4 / Miltank4
Yet another instance of double Trick Room. This one wasn't so bad as Clawitzer and Hariyama kinda cleaned house.
Battle 816 vs Hex Maniac Ciara - Metagross4 / Mismagius4 / Exeggutor4 / Trevenant4 / Slowbro4 / Mr. Mime4
Double Trick Room again right after! Can you tell I saved a lot of these?
Battle 822 vs Psychic Magus - Mr. Mime4 / Medicham4 / Bronzong4 / Slowbro4 / Starmie4 / Trevenant4
Camerupt being hit by a surprised High Jump Kick. I fully expected the AI to just murder the Aron, hence the Sylveon switch-in. This ended up being a pretty close battle and at one point I very much thought it would be the loss.
Battle 827 - Tourist Incheon - Slowking4 / Electrode4 / Clawitzer4 / Unfezant4 / Quagsire4 / Victreebel4
Slowking setting on my turn again and Clawitzer4 locks Water Pulse. Oh well, better that then Dark Pulse going into Dusclops.
Battle 844 - Artist Azure - Carracosta4 / Empoleon4 / Hippowdon4 / Dugtrio4 / Nidoqueen4 / Bronzong4
Dusclops gets frozen again. The AI also just decided to murder Empoleon.
Battle 879 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Gourgeist2 / Cofagrigus3 / Slowbro4 / Exeggutor4 / Bronzong1 / Avalugg4
Mara breaking item clause again. What a cheater.
Battle 947 vs Monsieur Patrice - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Altaria4 / Vespiquen4 / Sawk4 / Carbink4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 992 vs Artist Azure - Ferrothorn4 / Lucario4 / Forretress4 / Marowak4 / Excadrill4 / Bisharp4
A fun, little 2-turn battle in the final stretch.
Battle 1000 - Pokemon Ranger Tanner - Nidoqueen4 / Rhyperior4 / Abomasnow4 / Cradily4 / Hippowdon4 / Whiscash4
Nothing to really say about this one except this is the 1000th battle.
Endeavor ended up missing Magnezone which got Aron paralyzed. A couple of full paralysis turns which causes Dusclops to also get paralyzed.
Battle 75 vs Chef Cobb - Vanilluxe1 / Cryogonal3 / Beartic3 / Politoed4 / Empoleon4 / Mamoswine1234
First turn 1 freeze of the streak on Dusclops! This was just an awful start to the battle and I was worried my journey would be over right here. Minor mistake this battle was going for Eruption into Empoleon/Politoed. I really should have just Earth Power'd the Empoleon. Oh well.
Battle 82 vs Hiker Rand - Aurorus4 / Conkeldurr4 / Carbink4 / Heracross4 / Rhyperior4 / Mienshao4
Snow Warning from Aurorus + Mach Punch on Conk means Aron doesn't get to play the game today. I probably could have switched Aron out in this one to Sylveon. I know better now.
Battle 134 vs Butler Noah - Excadrill4 / Pinsir4 / Exeggutor4 / Milotic4 / Weavle4 / Lapras4
Eggy clicking Trick Room on my Trick Room.... AI counter teaming me?!?!?!?! Just kidding. This is part of the blurb I mentioned above about opposing Trick Room setters. Annoying, and pretty frequent throughout this run! Camerupt in the middle is terrifying though.
Battle 215 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gliscor4 / Gourgeist4 / Slowking4 / Leafeon4 / Meganium4 / Lapras4
Another Trick Room prevention, this time from Slowking. For this one, I stupidly clicked Protect again on Aron turn 2 but that was obviously a really dumb mistake. Gliscor did go for Counter though which allowed Aron to get the Endeavor off on Slowking.
Battle 260 vs Pokemon Ranger Parker - Slowking4 / Gastrodon4 / Roserade4 / Starmie4 / Marowak4 / Golurk4
This was one of those times where I wanted to let the Slowking set Trick Room. Got a little dicey with all the Hammer Arms Golurk was using.
Battle 263 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Steelix4 / Slowbro4 / Reuniclus2 / Cofagrigus3 / Musharna 2 / Bronzong1
I definitely expected Slowbro or Reuniclus to set for me. This is where I started to realize it is not reliable to have the AI set for you. Also, kinda got greedy with Camel and got frozen.
Battle 282 vs Tourist Chelsea - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Gogoat4 / Granbull4 / Chesnaught4 / Nidoking4
More double Trick Room nonsense. Also featuring Gogoat and Empoleon attacking each other with Earthquake and Surf. This one wasn't so bad as it ended up being the Sylveon show.
Battle 305 vs Ace Trainer Nikita - Leafeon4 / Trevenant4 / Glaceon4 / Sylveon4 / Charizard4 / Walrein4
An excellent snipe on Trevenant and Leafeon on turn 1. Trev holding an Iron Ball makes this very possible but Leafeon could have also targeted Camerupt with that Leaf Blade. Also, Dusclops got frozen. Yay. Big, bad scary Walrein was also difficult to maneuver around.
Battle 357 vs Hex Maniac Anastasia - Cofagrigus3 / Dusknoir4 / Medicham4 / Slowbro3 or 4 / Bronzong3 / Musharna3
Another double Trick Room on turn 1. I did get a nice crit on Dusknoir with Eruption though. A random Quick Claw proc from Bronzong also snipes poor baby Aron.....
Battle 371 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gyarados4 / Politoed4 / Seismitoad4 / Empoleon4 / Excadrill4 / Donphan4
Some annoying Waters scare off Camerupt. I'm pretty sure I missed the Mold Breaker message on Excadrill here too.
Battle 401 vs Scientist Rosalind - Aerodactyl4 / Weezing4 / Eelektross4 / Electrode4 / Carracosta4 / Vileplume4
Giving Carracosta its Weakness Policy by gambling for Sturdy is fine, right? This was just horribly misplayed. Because of the Weakness Policy, Camerupt ended up getting blasted on the next turn. Also, rare Teeter Dance from Vileplume.
Battle 489 vs Beauty Lana - Ampharos4 / Electrode4 / Seismitoad2 / Floatzel1234 / Zebstrika2 / Ludicolo4
Trick Room getting denied twice by Rock Slide flinch. Classic. I'm a little surprised Electrode didn't Taunt once in this battle.
Battle 511 vs Artist Wenge - Gigalith4 / Politoed4 / Rampardos4 / Rapidash4 / Muk4 / Beartic4
I didn't miss the Mold Breaker message this time, haha. Rampardos and Gigalith both EQing Toed down to Earth Power range was pretty neat though. Thanks guys. Also, Gigalith having a higher chance to roll Sturdy this gen is annoying!
Battle 515 vs Pokemon Breeder Gudrun - Bronzong4 / Carracosta4 / Yanmega4 / Ampharos4 / Roserade4 / Mienshao4
Another double Trick Room annoyance. This one was really scary because I don't know where Carracosta is gonna hit next. Gudrun? More like Badrun.
Battle 537 vs Waitress Ilisha - Espeon4 / Steelix4 / Walrein4 / Scizor4 / Snorlax4 / Pinsir4
Dusclops hit by Sheer Cold? No problem! This one had me locking IN. There was a moment in this battle where I should have locked Psyshock instead of Hyper Voice in this one. Got a pretty lucky Hyper Voice crit in the end.
Battle 547 vs Pokemon Ranger Cerese - Slowking4 / Rhyperior4 / Nidoking4 / Meganium4 / Krookodile4 / Abomasnow4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 550 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Quagsire2 / Cofagrigus3 / Bronzong1 / Slowking4 / Aromatisse4 / Reuniclus2
Mara turns off Trick Room and then turns it back on in this one. Thought it was pretty funny.
Battle 559 vs Worker Axel - Forretress4 / Armaldo4 / Aggron4 / Gliscor4 / Skarmory4 / Krookodile4
Aggron actually clicks Taunt on Dusclops here.
Battle 600 vs Tourist Aire - Froslass4 / Cofagrigus4 / Trevenant4 / Blaziken4 / Altaria4 / Musharna4
Triple Ghost lead. Aron actually clicks Toxic.
Battle 650 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Dusknoir4 / Reuniclus2 / Tyranitar1 / Slowbro4 / Cofagrigus3 / Gourgeist2
Mara breaking item clause. This was the first time I encountered this. I had only heard about it but it was pretty cool witnessing it myself!
Battle 673 vs Black Belt Sebastian - Infernape4 / Aggron4 / Sawk4 / Charizard4 / Emboar4 / Toxicroak4
Another Taunt aimed at Dusclops. Sawk rolling Mold Breaker did not make things easy either. Sebastian also brought THREE Taunt users!!! He did not want me setting at all.
Battle 719 - Hex Maniac Celia - Gothitelle4 / Froslass4 / Espeon4 / Trevenant4 / Jynx4 / Slowbro4
Another Blizzard freeze. I hate you, Froslass.
Battle 743 vs Backpacker Perdido - Blaziken4 / Golurk4 / Kangaskhan4 / Barbaracle4 / Whiscash4 / Shiftry4
Kang choosing to switch turn 1 because it couldn't hit Dusclops was annoying. Shiftry getting to Fake Out Aron which prevents Sunny Day, which then allows Golurk to live the Eruption. Aron dies as a result. Thanks Shiftry.
Battle 800 vs Tourist Chelsea - Bisharp4 / Blaziken4 / Forretress4 / Florges4 / Druddigon4 / Sceptile4
An ill-timed boom from Forretress allowed me to immediately remove Blaziken turn 1. I only clicked Eruption t1 because I wanted to bring Bisharp to Sash!
Battle 815 vs Waitress Remora - Nidoking4 / Musharna4 / Trevenant4 / Greninja4 / Empoleon4 / Miltank4
Yet another instance of double Trick Room. This one wasn't so bad as Clawitzer and Hariyama kinda cleaned house.
Battle 816 vs Hex Maniac Ciara - Metagross4 / Mismagius4 / Exeggutor4 / Trevenant4 / Slowbro4 / Mr. Mime4
Double Trick Room again right after! Can you tell I saved a lot of these?
Battle 822 vs Psychic Magus - Mr. Mime4 / Medicham4 / Bronzong4 / Slowbro4 / Starmie4 / Trevenant4
Camerupt being hit by a surprised High Jump Kick. I fully expected the AI to just murder the Aron, hence the Sylveon switch-in. This ended up being a pretty close battle and at one point I very much thought it would be the loss.
Battle 827 - Tourist Incheon - Slowking4 / Electrode4 / Clawitzer4 / Unfezant4 / Quagsire4 / Victreebel4
Slowking setting on my turn again and Clawitzer4 locks Water Pulse. Oh well, better that then Dark Pulse going into Dusclops.
Battle 844 - Artist Azure - Carracosta4 / Empoleon4 / Hippowdon4 / Dugtrio4 / Nidoqueen4 / Bronzong4
Dusclops gets frozen again. The AI also just decided to murder Empoleon.
Battle 879 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Gourgeist2 / Cofagrigus3 / Slowbro4 / Exeggutor4 / Bronzong1 / Avalugg4
Mara breaking item clause again. What a cheater.
Battle 947 vs Monsieur Patrice - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Altaria4 / Vespiquen4 / Sawk4 / Carbink4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 992 vs Artist Azure - Ferrothorn4 / Lucario4 / Forretress4 / Marowak4 / Excadrill4 / Bisharp4
A fun, little 2-turn battle in the final stretch.
Battle 1000 - Pokemon Ranger Tanner - Nidoqueen4 / Rhyperior4 / Abomasnow4 / Cradily4 / Hippowdon4 / Whiscash4
Nothing to really say about this one except this is the 1000th battle.
yes, you can only start considering boosting once taunt is gone after all + you have tons of acid armor and (possibly) mirror coat pp left to set up on at this point
This is a case where suboptimal becomes more relative, in general I don't think going out of my way for an Aegislash setup over a Gliscor KO is particularly worth most of the time (as long as Feraligatr isn't on the enemy roster) with how absolutely brutal Gliscor is, and into Veterans in particular Gliscor's matchup is just outright better than Aegislash's when they can still bring a good bunch of things that can easily force out a +6 Aegislash (Heatran and Entei come to mind right away, who also will be switching in second rather than third) while Gliscor needs extremely specific second and third Pokemon backups to even begin finding itself cornered. Same reason why with Greninja / Mega Scizor / Gliscor I also avoid setting up Scizor versus Veterans and just win with Gliscor instead, their roster is past the point where +6 Bullet Punch still KOes enemy Fire-types and that's not even getting into the Sashes. It's kind of moot in the end because yea if a Gyarados setup is possible then that is always plan A and you can in fact get one of those here that I hadn't figured out myself (I'll just trust it's safe enough even with possible crits and full paralyses and all that); overall though Toxic Gliscor is in fact great at beating teams on its own to the point that I don't think there's a clear preference towards setting up Aegislash instead if Gliscor is in a good position to go for it itself, especially if setting up Aegislash would deplete Gliscor's PP further or require any involved lines that the AI has the potential to mess up via rogue clicks.
(also don't use your Ground move as a skip turn button into Regice, proccing a Levitate switch from Latios into a semi-depleted Gliscor is not something you wanna risk if you can help it).
This is gonna sound a little rich from me at this point but I do think there is such a thing as making lines too involved, rogue clicks still do happen if the AI has other variables to consider in its move choices than just pure damage, and it's so so easy to overlook more specific odds that can mess you up (case in point in your Anastasia line: a Cursed Body proc from Froslass stopping the "guaranteed" +6 Sneak sweep that you just sacrificed Gliscor and most of Aegislash's and Gyarados's HP to set up) that, between standard plays for progress with momentum on your side but slightly more limited setup versus bold plays to hopefully get absolutely maximum value, I'll still tend to prefer the former whenever possible. Anecdotally I've also had more close calls and losses with other teams to finding involved lines in attempts to account for Absolutely Everything versus just going with the highest expected value play; turns out that yes the most reliable play 99% of the time indeed does indeed leave you in a better position 99% of the time (just make sure that the 1% does not make you lose on the spot of course). Granted this is also skill issues speaking to some extent lol and sometimes you also just need the more involved clicks (I still have no idea how I managed to confirm "hard switch Gliscor into lead Vaporeon3" back then), but yea it's why I'm content not doing things like making sacks for maximum over partial setup and why I'll always be too nervous to risk e.g. taking status moves in board states where Science would dictate they can't click them unless I have a Sub up to assuredly rule them out. I kind of forget where I was going with this lol oops, and of course in general it's just easier for me to play it safe with Toxic Gliscor as secondary/tertiary wincon, but tl;dr even if I had come up with the involved +6 Aegislash sweep into Anastasia I think I would still have chanced it with just +1 Mega Gyarados, it should work "a critical mass of almost all the time" and does not take major sacrifices to set up.
this for what it's worth yes, it's very much a secondary choice if they also have a strong SE attack but unless their KO headcalc is guaranteed they can also go for a speed control move. More or less same situation as lead Regice2 also having odds of clicking Icy Wind over Thunderbolt into lead Gyarados and Greninja to get the jump on them without a guaranteed KO; I'm just speaking out loud here but right now I'm even wondering if there is a world where you open with non-Mega Sub versus lead Regice12 so that Gyarados is in guaranteed KO range even for set 2's Thunderbolt when you switch to Gliscor. Not something I'd want to do if Gliscor is beating set 1 since one way or another that Gyarados HP is not coming back, but if we're actually gonna be setting up on both of them then who knows.
sorry for late answer I still have not wanted to post about Marathon for a bit, but finding a moment some later point to still mess around with some of these lines a little more somehow would be good, so additional brainstorming is always appreciated
I hadn't even thought about this. Makes sense given your Gliscor; I've been running pacifist Gliscor, which was supposed to be an extreme variant of tobiuo's DT+Bulldoze set, and even DT+bulldoze probably doesn't want to be KOing anything. (I get the point about the Veteran matchup, though - my plan against an Entei or Heatran backup is to sac Aegislash for a full Gyarados setup, and this works on sets 1/2, but I'm not sure that I've had to handle a set 3/4 variant from that game state yet and those look iffy. And your later point about sacrifices potentially opening you up to other problems also probably holds here.)
Fair point, and you've definitely got more experience with those specific odds than I do.
Right. I'd been confused thinking Jynx3 outran Gyarados (because it does, at least before we boost), while Regice2 doesn't, and I don't think speed control is a consideration when the AI is already faster. Except DD actually does something even when used as skip turn button. Yeah, that makes sense now.
Interesting. Might be good. Somewhat frustratingly (assuming I haven't messed up the calc):
0 SpA Regice Thunderbolt vs. 100 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados: 136-164 (74.3 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
so this still isn't guaranteed (I think? Not sure exactly what the AI does when checking for KOs), but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to throw a second sub at the problem just for this.
To be clear, the tobiuo Gyarados setup play against Regice1 isn't 100% guaranteed; it can fail if Aegislash gets frozen early, at which point it falls back to either an Aegislash setup or (if ridiculously long Aegislash freeze) Gliscor behind a sub, so that's maybe another argument against turn 1 sub. Amusingly, eating two Thunderbolts on subs means switching Aegislash into one fewer Regice1 Ice Beam, which reduces the freeze risk, but still probably isn't worth it.
On further thought, I don't think I like turn 1 sub with my team for fear of Aegislash setup into Moltres1 backup, since it outruns Gliscor and can OHKO it with crit Overheat; my main plan involves taking 2 OH on Gyarados to try to prevent this (which is sketchy even without losing Gyarados health beforehand; unclear if this is better than likely getting Gyarados burned with +1 Waterfall spam). This might not be a concern for you if you go for Gliscor setup instead of Aegislash setup (presumably you start with blind subtect until OH is gone since you're starting with a sub, after which you can safely Toxic, and there should be plenty of subtect PP left for this even after Regice1). Unclear if there's anything else that scares your Gliscor more.
How worried even are you about turn 1 Regice2 Icy Wind? My notes say that even if Gliscor dies to turn 1 Regice2 crit Icy Wind, Aegislash should usually still be able to stall out Thunderbolt with King's Shield, at which point you're probably good to either (ideally) stall to Rest on Aegislash (Ice Beam is health-neutral assuming no crits and that you can alternate King's Shields) or if desperate set (mega) Gyarados directly. Ideally you're taking 7 Thunderbolts that do 5% damage net after 2 rounds of Leftovers. Granted, full para on Shield turns can happen (6% health loss since we effectively lose a round of lefties, plus an extra half Thunderbolt taken), and crits can happen (9% health loss), but you have about 50% health to play with and can try for double Shields if things get desperate, so it's probably fine? Might get sketchy if early Thunderbolt paralysis I guess. If non-crit Icy Wind, you can safely switch to Aegislash to remove the speed drop and you should be able to continue with whatever your original plan was from there (switch-stall and/or subtect).
lol started a draft of a reply that started with “I saw this like a month ago, spat out a few comments in Discord before bed, and then forgot about it, oops!! mb” but then I sat on it for *checks notes* half a year, oops!!!! mb!! so I think this draft is incomplete and doesn’t address everything I wanted to but idr what else there was.
This sounds terrifying, since Gyara4 DDs into your Gyara’s face >90% of the time and something like coinflip for it to click AT into slower Gliscor at +0. Best I can tell, the play is to stay in, go up to +3 (at which point you’ll still outrun it with 1 more speed stage), Waterfall, and keep setting up to +5, hoping it goes for Rest twice or otherwise forgoing Sub.
Problematically, this doesn’t work at all against Gyara3, which is just baseline faster than the whole team, threatens Gyara with SE and takes +5 to ohko with Mega Waterfall (also kills you first), and always threatens a t2 Waterfall crit/flinch on a switched-in Gliscor regardless of whether it clicked DD or SE (~coinflip) on t1. Gyara3 basically singlehandedly represents >1/4k loss chance from the lead position despite not even being set 4, you need a move that kills it at +3, which is Crunch (not single-cartridge), Thrash/Outrage (lol), Frustration(/Return, for Gyarados there’s not much difference since Zeb4 is clicking electric moves anyway), Payback (not a totally fake choice but not exactly good either), or Bite (
Hax4 is in an interesting matchup, and in principle almost safe to subtect stall and fully set up Gyara on (which it is generally worth spending all of Gliscor’s PP on) since 7+15+10=32; it clicks DD ~2/3 of the time and needs to basically exactly DClaw crit twice (once with boosting Rivalry ig, it kind of just, doesn’t appear often enough for me to have a fully-baked strat for tho).
I really like Sand Attack and considered it really hard, but the rest of the team can’t really take advantage of it. The long and short of it is, you need Sub + recovery to take advantage of evasion; Gyara carries Sub but no recovery, Aegi carries lefties but no Sub, and neither can really afford to sit in front of something it wouldn’t already be able to set up on. Add to this that accuracy/evasion modifiers don’t work on Struggle, and what we’re left with is a few niche switch-stalls where Aegi leaks hp and the accuracy drop lets you probably come out with a healthy Aegi instead of a damaged one. This is like, Moltres2, Slurpuff4, Garde4, I and Granbull2 offhand, probably some other stuff but nothing that really matters imo
The case for running Double Team is Mienshao4 and Skuntank4. Less facetiously, this is a huge downside, admittedly one that you’re probably not running into that often with 0 attacks Agility Gliscor never killing anything on its own, but the threat here is a bit insidious because the thing that’s causing a problem in combination with suicide moves isn’t on the suicide lead’s set, it’s what’s coming in behind it, and there is a wide range of things that Gliscor is not happy switching out of but you aren’t seeing it coming until you get into that position.
It’s not a trivial thing that Bulldoze counts as a damaging move, and also incidentally also sometimes actually like 3-5hkos a few things.
I don’t think you really need 2 skip turn buttons, because even with DT, which along with SA is the premier skip turn button because it has the side-effect of sometimes saving your sub, the limiting factor is rarely that you’re running out of skip turn pp but that you’re running out of subtect pp despite having turn skips to spare—offhand, it’s just a handful of rare Thunder Wave users where you wish Gliscor, specifically, could keep skipping 15-30 more turns than it already can. Yes, you get increased ability to stall 2 or even 3 things, but overwhelmingly those are things that already weren’t threatening, the things that are concerning are forcing you to use real subtect pp which you don’t have any more of, and with SA over DT you’re not carrying your evasion either.
n.b. coming back to this I immediately thought “it’s Lanturn3” but yeah it’s Lanturn3 and maybe I was thinking of some other twave user when I wrote that. 24, maybe.
You have to consider what you’re actually accomplishing, though. With Vaporeon4, even with Agility you’re down ~20 subtect pp because it overwhelming uses its IB + Surf pp (you can get SB before it runs out of Surf, but that’s still on the rare side, half the time it’ll be your tect turn, Shadow Ball is still ~70% to break sub anyway, and even after you take advatange of the turn to click SA it’s still 75% to land its Surfs. At the point where it’s out of Surfs and you’re waiting on it to run out of Shadow Balls so you can go to Aegi, the thing you’re saving by having Agility as an option isn’t subtect pp, it’s SA pp, which isn’t exactly high value on a Gliscor with ~10 subtect pp left which is unlikely to even come back in from the +3 Gyara you’re setting up.
Raikou1 likewise, getting it down to Struggle sounds like a better position than killing it with Bulldoze, but you end up spending like 40 more pp anyway and Raikou only appears in the Veteran pool, where I feel like a relatively fresh Gliscor setup is acceptable (a bit better than +6 Aegi) anyway.
Volcarona4 is a funny case where while I would normally set Gyara up on it, if it comes in on Gliscor you just keep clicking Bulldoze it’ll mostly QD to try to outspeed you, and any turn where it tries to attack you (and of course with DT it usually misses) is one where it’s net losing speed to taking the Bulldoze and not boosting. It’s like a 9hko so it never gets to the point of clicking Buzz.
I think trying to subtect stall it just gets you killed off by like, any of Buzz crit, any two Buzzes within like 4 turns of each other, or an immediate Buzz hit after any HW/Hurr hit, and that’s not that unlikely to happen before it goes through enough pp that it never hits enough times to kill both Aegi and Gyara. You’re still favored, I think, but those are uncomfortably short odds.
Kingdra13 are almost entirely immaterial to Gliscor’s speed tier since you can’t distinguish non-White Herb Kingdra123-not-4 on turn 1 anyway, you just mega DD because it’s Claire/Lana, set 1 gives you a healthy +6 Aegi no matter what, set 2 gives you +4/5 Gyara for free, and you don’t want to bring Aegi in on set 3 anyway, it unnecessarily risks freeze vs just trying to going to +4 and taking the Gyara sac into +6 Aegi in case you do get frozen and Hydro Pumped 3-5 times.
It doesn’t actually matter that much where the max hp lands between 8k and 8k+3. It’s not really that wrong to just max out hp either, it’s only -1 hp/4 subtect pp, but that does matter against stuff like ti@s1 and Vap4 where you want do an extended subtect stall after potentially losing >60% of your hp.
Conversely, the point of +1-3 over 8k isn’t really 7x Sub, or Struggle, it’s that it’s an extra hp you can lose before you’re not longer able to start a subtect loop. This is more important than your sub bulk, because the things that sometimes but don’t always break your sub are only doing 25% to you and thus fundamentally unthreatening even if you are risking a 20% spdef drop, whereas it is very important whether you get your plushie against things that do a ~50% before crit.
The case for 177/133 is an extra 25% to live the Regice2 Icy crit on the t1 switch btw
(which iirc doesn’t matter because it’s so weak that you stall it and get full gyaru setup anyway but I digress)
The final form of my Absol4 strat was basically to go straight to Aegi and fuck around† until it either got burned or died. Getting Gliscor in safely lets you iirc stall down to an unhappy but still overwhelmingly favored Gyara setup with 98.8% to keep a sub (252 Atk Absol-4 Struggle vs. 100 HP / 36 Def Mega Gyarados on a critical hit: 39-46 (21.3 - 25.1%)) and an almost completely fresh poisoned Gliscor in the back. You’ll never actually get a speed drop with Bulldoze because it’s pretty likely to Sub, and if it doesn’t it’s because it clicked Swagger, and if you still land the attack through that you probably killed it anyway lol
I no longer endorse switching between Gyarados and Aegislash (something something three facilities players four opinions) because, well, roughly the predicament you ended up in—ultimately it’s better to have a healthy set-up Gyarados with a damaged/dead burned Aegi in the back than a damaged set-up Gyarados with a healthy burned Aegi in the back, since a burned Aegi can’t do much stalling no matter how much hp it has left.
It’s also a good example of why it’s not actually a good idea to set up on Struggle—and if you do, you go mega for that unless you’re clicking Sub on the last turn and it can’t break your sub even on a crit. And why you can’t get lazy counting pp in a matchup that you’re already aware is finicky, but I think you’ve already realized that one.
†obviously you still prefer to have Aegi alive, so there are subtleties to what you click in every situation but honestly I just winged it mostly, but one of my favorite bits is that if you come in on Sub you can SS and then KS after Swagger because it never(?) clicks Punishment in this scenario.
Knowing that it’s not Defiant here suggests you got the Pressure message, in which case the play here is to Mega Waterfall, which makes Sucker Punch do less and not kill without a crit. (Of course, if you went mega on Absol you’d also actually have your sub too). There’s no reason to break the sash with EQ, it doesn’t do any more damage and Waterfall has a flinch chance. That’s not exactly relevant into Sucker Punch, but if your plan was to sac Gyara, you should’ve still played to your outs—20% actually comes up shocking often, I could not tell you how often I’ve just gotten the flinch on incoming Chesnaught4 specifically lol
This is admittedly extremely counterintuitive but it’s actually safer to SS when switching into Swagger misses and then try to KS the following Punishment(s). The risk of taking a 50% on a mon that you’re hopefully never switching back in after it gets burned is kind of whatever, and it’s like 40% to break a sub or deny one later (which isn’t all upside, but you have options to play it more up than down).
Backup Empo4 is a 75% roll with +6 Mega Waterfall, 20% flinches off that, clicks Sub and fails half the time from there, and if you weren’t already mega the attack it clicks is Blizzard which misses 30% of the time too (after Petaya it does break your sub if it hits, unfortunately).
Storm Drain Cradily isn’t real, you have Mold Breaker.
It does damage. It was more threatening to 116-121 speed Gliscor.
I think Rapidash4 is probably too suicidal to be worth trying to stall, like it’s true that you have a decent chance of being able to trade tects with it so that you can bring Aegi in to KS a couple times, but it kills itself breaking 10 subs and if it crits before you Sub there’s no salvaging it.
Something like Mega DD, Waterfall; go Glis if you got t1 taunted, tect, doze/EQ, hope you don’t get two of spdef drop and/or crit. This sounds like a sick joke, and it’s a sketchy matchup for sure, but Jai’s roster is very vulnerable to +1 Gyara or +4-6 Aegi just kind of getting away with murder, so you can proooooobably get a favored setup on the second mon anyway even if Glis has to die for it. Without an attack, idk, I think you just have to commit to taking the kill with Gyara, but then going t1 mega is problematic if you get taunted because it opens you up to Focus Miss crit, but that also makes the matchup into sets 3 and 4 worse.
It’s pretty rare that you set up a damaged Gyarados at all, most of the situations where you come out of the lead with a <50% Gyara are also partial setups that don’t even kill everything.
Zeb4 unfortunately prefers to click Wild Charge on Gliscor over Volt Switch, but it does calc more damage with VS than -3 WC on Aegi (and -5 on Gyara), so after 2 rounds of swapping with Gyara (coinflip Thunder Wave and Wild Charge) and 18 rounds of swapping with Aegi (coinflip Thunder Wave and Volt Switch), you can consider whether you want to click a skip turn button (coinflip Thunder Wave and Wild Charge) until Thunder Wave is drained, then do the Aegi KS Glis swap until there’s only pp in one move. The “average case” has you spend 22 skip turn pp for the full stall and gives you 3 Struggle setup turns if it crits 0-1 times, 2 if it crits 2-3. I don’t actually do this setup, more because there’s too little upside for the catastrophic risk of miscounting and getting something paralyzed than because of the cost—assuming perfect play it’s definitely actually optimal to always do the switchstall, but which setup you proceed to is a judgement call.
I think the thing to understand that there is a goal to pp stalling things with Gliscor, and it’s not actually to achieve turn count high scores (obviously you need to switch-stall for that). You stall things like Poliwrath4 down to EQ because it gets a full Gyara setup. You don’t stall Florges4 because even though usually does run out of Round last and you can get a full hp Aegi setup out of that, all you’re buying with it is like ~15% Aegi hp.
I think this has to be tempered by an understanding of of how the team plays with Toxic Gliscor, which does kind of just stay in on whatever and not feel like a liability
+1 gyara is faster after DD, but you shouldn’t really be letting it get to that because the notion of “you can probably get away with +1 gyara sweep” is still contingent on having a mostly fresh team in reserve as a backup plan. You don’t want to sac your whole team to get a +6 aegi, that’s much worse than the +1 gyara.
Shadow Tag btw
This is actually fine, if Aegi gets frozen too early, you just keep switch-stalling until Aegi is in IB crit range, subtect stall the rest of the IB PP, then depending on remaining Thunderbolt PP you can either go to Gyarados on the last Focus Miss anyway and set up with a frozen Aegi (you can also afford to burn 1-2 subs but I probably wouldn’t) or you fully stall out Thunderbolts and try to defrost Aegi, if it defrosts great, you still got a +6 Aegi for a couple of subtect PP, if it doesn’t you still get +3 on Struggle with the backrow alive (a frozen Aegi still switch-stalls fine).
fwiw Aegi “only” needs to avoid freeze on the first 3 IB switch-ins; you take 1 TB t1, 6 over 3 IB switch-ins with KS leaves 8 TBs, then Glis can subtect stall the next 7 IBs and you can stall the last 8 on Focus Miss before going to Gyara. This is safer than risking more freezes and then hoping you defrost at the end.
Yeah, you just have to be aware of when it matters if you miscount PP and when it doesn’t, and just never miscount when it matters. I mentioned a long time ago that writing a convenient PP counter improved my play a lot, and unlike some things I’ve said, that was not even half a joke.
If Aegi doesn’t get statused, you need Gliscor to solo-stall whatever electric PP is left after the switch-stall, which costs ~15 Gliscor PP if you go to Gyara each time LS drops (~25 if you just stay in). You can actually click EQ into Luxray4, but that’s still kind of expensive, and it’s much nicer if Aegi just gets paralyzed so you can just swap into for a bit and try to defrost once it runs out.
fwiw I have a battle on record from an old streak (#1367 from 2023-02-15) where Vap3 clicked Yawn on the Aegi and then Muddy on the Glis switch despite both Yawn and Aqua Ring being live, so I would not do this and just let Aegi facetank Muddy until it dies or stalls all attacking PP. (As far as I can tell, it usually lives?)
The Icy click is quite real, I have it on record in 8/25 Regice2 encounters (#1197, #4455, #4554, #5176, #6139, #6533, #7970, #8371—note that this is like half of Regice leads), but of course it only crits 5% of the time. It just… doesn’t do damage lol, in #8371 it got the crit and then immediately paralyzed Aegi and I was scared for like 2min before realizing that Aegi was probably just going to solo-stall.
wtf it’s justin trick room that’s illegal
Funnily enough my return to Maison saw Solarbeam clicked even less overall than Aron’s Spite (which found a home in depleting Sucker Punch pp from Spiritomb, Shiftry and Honchkrow, who liked to spam it.)Submitting an ongoing streak of 1000 wins in Alpha Sapphire Super Triples! I've decided to dust off my old cart and finally play some Maison seriously. I've dabbled in it in the past but never got anything noteworthy. The team I put together is nothing groundbreaking, mostly inspired by other teams posted on here in the past. Let's begin.
Next up, here's some threats. This isn't a perfect list, and I'm probably missing a lot of stuff. Anyway, here we go.
Dusclops @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Relaxed Nature
- Night Shade
- Brick Break
- Foresight
- Trick Room
First up, we have Dusclops. I love Dusclops. It's probably my most used setter across the many teams I've played in facilities. I don't know why I keep going back to it but I do and it's been quite fun to play with here. With the Eviolite, it's pretty damn fat and is very hard to OHKO. There are some minor threats that it has to watch out for (more on that later). I found that Frisk hasn't had much use. As many of you Maison heads might know, a lot of trainers past 40 carry only one set per Pokemon on their teams. So it's pretty easy to sus out what you're facing. Frisk has been useful for exposing Zoroark and also vs the trainers that do carry more than one set per Pokemon though.
The actual set is pretty straightforward though and is good for a FEAR team. Night Shade for picking off Endeavor'd targets, Brick Break for the the Ghost-immune Normals. I did have Gravity over Foresight until about battle.... I want to say 200. I forget when exactly I made the change. I've never really liked using Foresight even in Gen 7 as it felt pretty awkward to use with the FEAR bait always being faster than under Trick Room. However, it's felt better in Triples. If Aron is preoccupied Endeavoring something else for the other Pokemon, Dusclops can spend the turn identifying Ghosts or Evasion spammers if it so chooses. It's made Foresight feel a lot more valuable. Of course, there's still some awkward moments with it but nothing too bad. As for the EVs, I honestly can't tell you what they were for. This was already in my box from a few years ago. I forget what I bred it for exactly but it's been working out pretty well so far.
Aron @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
EVs: n/a
IVs: n/a
Brave Nature
- Endeavor
- Toxic
- Sunny Day
- Protect
Being back in Gen 6 means I have to use Aron. Returning to Aron after spending a long time playing Togedemaru has been an adjustment. It really made me miss a lot of the positive qualities Togedemaru brings to the table. Fake Out..... Helping Hand.... Spiky Shield.... immunity to paralysis..... damn I miss those. Not to say that Aron is bad though. It definitely is not. It spends most of its turns hitting targets with Endeavor so the other two partners around it and pick them off. Sunny Day is excellent for weather control but for also boosting Camerupt's already powerful Eruption. Toxic is mostly filler. I think I've clicked it maybe 5 or 6 times on this run. I couldn't really find anything better. If only Aron learned Helping Hand.... but whatever. One of the more annoying things about Aron is its lack of paralysis immunity. The AI loves to Thunder Wave it if it can. While this isn't a huge disadvantage as Aron will remain to be the fastest Pokemon under Trick Room, potentially missing turns because of full paralysis suuuucks. Outside of that, Aron is an amazing bait and the opponents in Maison seem to focus it down a lot more than in Tree or BDSP Tower.
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Camerupt @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock --> Sheer Force
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power
- Protect
Next up, we have Camerupt. The camel's another favourite of mine but I don't get to use it a lot! After Mega Evolving, Mega Camel hits a whopping 22 Speed. That's pretty much slower than everything except for Avalugg4 which sits at 21 Speed thanks to its Iron Ball. Figuring out Camel's set wasn't too difficult. I know I wanted a powerful spread attack somewhere and you can't really get much better than Eruption coming off of 145 SpA! With Aron being a great bait, Camel is usually protected and can fire off as many full powered Eruptions as it wants. Of course, you still have to watch out for opposing Water and Ground attacks. The AI sometimes just doesn't care and WILL Surf or Earthquake even if it means it'll be hurting its partners in the process. Earth Power is pretty strong Ground STAB that's also boosted by Sheer Force so its damage is also pretty ridiculous.
Before I settled on Ancient Power, I was running Solar Beam as is also seen on ReptoAbysmal's own Triples team. The idea was to combine it with Aron's Sunny Day and be able to take down a lot of Grass weak Waters, Grounds, and Rocks. However, I didn't really enjoy using it too much and ended up swapping it out for Ancient Power around Battle 200 or so. It's made facing Charizard and Volcarona a little less awkward. It's also boosted by Sheer Force as well so I don't have to worry about getting the omniboost increasing my Speed. One thing I do love about using Camerupt this gen is the Mega speed doesn't get updated on the turn you Mega. So, Camerupt can easily snipe slower stuff before Trick Room goes up if it's safe to do so. It's great when things like Trevenant4, Avalugg4, or Escavalier lead.
Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 124 Def / 132 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/xx/31/0
Brave Nature
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Heavy Slam
Ah, good, old, reliable Hariyama. Another favourite of mine. Nothing really changes for Harry. I gave this one a pretty rushed EV spread which has worked out pretty well. It's in the back, and it doesn't usually see too much action. If anything, it's been a sacrificial lamb a lot of the time. I was originally going to put this in the lead to give the frontline some Fake Out support but ReptoAbysmal recommended I put it in the back and leave Camel out front. The reason was so I can have my spread attacks in the front and Harry can be a break glass sort of situation. It was probably the best advice I ever received when preparing this team. I was a little wary of having it in the back but it's been a great cushion to switch in if things go wrong on turn 1. Outside of being a sacrifice, Hariyama boasts a very strong Close Combat thanks to Guts. Knock Off and Heavy Slam are great for Ghosts and Fairies.
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Ability: Mega Launcher
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
This was another huge recommendation from Repto. This is probably my first time actually using the shrimp ever so I was pretty excited to finally be able to witness its true power. Mega Launcher+Life Orb gives a bunch of power to Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere. They can put a major dent in a lot of stuff and if you're weak to the attack, you're probably dead. The beautiful thing about Water Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Aura Sphere is they aren't restricted by Clawitzer's board position so I can have it on the right side and still target opponents on the left side. It's honestly been a lifesaver in some battles where I'm in a bad spot but it doesn't matter because the shrimp can just fire off wherever it pleases. Ice Beam doesn't have this luxury but it's still on here to snipe the various Dragons that exist if it can reach them.
I wanted to have Protect as the fourth move here so some safety but honestly, Clawitzer has proven it can take some hits and fire back if needed. There was some thought about what item to put on this. I was thinking something like Expert Belt or even Specs at some point. The Life Orb was eventually chosen because Specs ended up being taken by something else and while Expert Belt would have been nice, there are a lot of neutral targets that Clawitzer would like to blast away anyway.
Sylveon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pixilate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Swift
Finally, we have Sylveon. Another backup and sponge in case things get dire in the front. Sylveon packs a very powerful Pixilate-boosted Hyper Voice that can dent a lot stuff including some resists. Most of the time when I send this guy in, I lock Hyper Voice without much thought. This is not recommended though as sometimes you will hit something with Soundproof and then be forced to switch. I totally did not do that vs an Abomasnow that didn't roll Snow Warning. Nope. Never ever.
The other moves on Sylveon are copied off of what others have used on their own teams with it. Swift is here for those aforementioned Soundproof targets and is another decently strong spread attack. The fact that it can't miss is a nice bonus. Psyshock is also good for a lot of the specially defensive opponents. Shadow Ball is the least clicked move on here honestly. A lot of the targets where Shadow Ball would be useful into, Hyper Voice or Psyshock is just better. If only Sylveon had access to Mystical Fire this gen. I guess HP Fire could be an option but I don't want to rebreed. Helping Hand has also been considered but being locked in Helping Hand when Sylveon will be next to Aron 90% of the time did not seem worth it at all.
Now we move onto the Notable Battles. I have 34 videos saved and all of them can be found this playlist. Here's the blurb about each of these and my thought process, or what I can remember about each of them. Also, apologies for the shaky cam and any background noise. I recorded these all on my phone over multiple nights.Clawitzer4
A really powerful shrimp that is holding the Choice Specs! This thing is one of the reasons why I thought about putting the Specs on my own. But Clawitzer really likes to switch up its moves every now and then so I didn't go with it. This Clawitzer, however, is a dickhead. Because it doesn't care about what side of the board it's on, it can target Camel with a Water Pulse from the left side or potentially flinch or crit Dusclops with Dark Pulse on the right side. Thankfully, I haven't had it target Dusclops with Dark Pulse yet but I did see it target Camel on turn 1 with Water Pulse. Scary stuff! Outside of that, Clawitzer4 is pretty easy to handle once TR is up. Just focus it down and move on.
Opposing Trick Room
Aside from the fact that the AI will sometimes turn off Trick Room on you, something unique to Maison Triples is the AI will sometimes set Trick Room on you turn 1! This will then lead to some situations where your own setter will turn off Trick Room and you have to spend another turn setting. This makes Aron's life a bit harder as it most likely Protected turn 1 so you can't really try to Protect again. I usually like to switch to Hariyama or Sylveon depending on what's in the front. Camerupt could also be in danger too so I like to switch it out for whoever I didn't put in the middle. This awkward interaction makes setting a danger in front of some setters because they don't always do it! So I can't even skip my own Trick Room in front of them because what if they attack instead? Then I'm left with the same issue. A lot of my notable battles include the AI doing this so small spoiler.
Priority
As with every FEAR team, priority becomes a bit of an issue. The AI will try to use it whenever they see the kill and since Aron is in the middle, it happens a lot. I've noticed it doesn't always happen in Maison though, or at least not as often. For example, sometimes I see Carracosta4 will skip Aqua Jet for Waterfall or Earthquake. Sucker Punch and Feint don't get used too much as Priority vs Aron though so there's a plus. Regarding Fake Out, I've notice Maison AI will skip it entirely if they have a really strong attack that can murder multiple level 1 Arons. Looking at you, Mienshao.
Also, there is a special place in hell for Greninja3. Water Shuriken is a nasty attack to make priority but it is the worst. I'm pretty sure it's mostly just the starter trainers that can carry it but man, it sucks when you're about to click Endeavor and then you lose Aron to three hits of Water Shuriken. Or lose Camerupt to one or two hits.
Status such as Paralysis, Confusion, and Freeze
I've mentioned above the AI likes to use paralyzing moves like Thunder Wave into Aron and its partners if Trick Room is up. This is because it sees you as faster and knows paralysis can make you slower. Of course, this just makes you faster in Trick Room but then there's the added bonus of potentially skipping turns because of full paralysis. There's also Sleep, Confusion, and Freeze. It's a problem for the entire team but it's mostly a problem for Dusclops on turn 1. Since it needs an Eviolite to function, Lum Berry isn't available as a Get Out of Jail free card. I've had a few instances where Dusclops got frozen by a random Blizzard or something and I'm just scrambling trying to get Trick Room up. This mostly happens with stuff like Froslass, Glaceon, and Articuno. There's others but these are the ones that have scored the most freezes on Dusclops.
Confusion isn't too problematic but it can cause some issues if you end up getting hit by a lone Hurricane or Water Pulse.
Taunt
Again, no actual way to block potential Taunts from targeting Dusclops so Trick Room can be stopped this way. I've had at least two nasty run-ins with turn 1 Taunts that threw my whole groove off. Notable Pokemon to watch out for include Sawk4, Electrode4, Ambipom4, Toxicroak4, Bisharp4, Weavile4, Aggron4, Crobat4, Vanilluxe4, Virizion1, Tornadus4, and Thundurus4.
Wide Guard
Given that we are mostly spamming Eruption and Hyper Voice, it should be noted that Wide Guard can fully stop you in your tracks if you're mindlessly clicking. The AI is pretty stingy with its Wide Guard usage but you should still be cautious. The main ones to watch out for are Bastiodon4, Mienshao4, and Regigigas4. Not a huge list but still worth knowing. Regigigas can show up with multiple sets on Veteran trainers so there's a good chance it won't be one of the Wide Guard sets. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry.
OHKO nonsense
This includes Fissure, Sheer Cold, and Guillotine. Horn Drill exists but I don't think it shows up past 40. I could be wrong, of course so apologies. Anyway, OHKO nonsense is a threat to pretty much any team. It can ruin your general strategy or groove or just straight up stop you in your tracks. I've had one battle where Dusclops was blasted by a Sheer Cold from our good friend, Walrein4. It can happen! And unfortunately, there really isn't much that can be done if your setter is targeted. Luckily, the AI is stupid and will try to use the OHKO move on Aron until Sturdy is revealed. So if you Protect turn 1 and got targeted by an OHKO move? There's a good chance Aron will be the target again. So that's a plus.
Anyway, notabe OHKO stuff to watch out for includes Crygonal3, Vanilluxe3, Walrein4, Articuno2, Mamoswine3, Whiscash4, Donphan4, Wailord4, Landorus1, and Pinsir4.
Donphan4
There is only one real notable Quick Claw user I have in my notes that is problematic and that is apparently Donphan4. I'm sure there's others but this is the one I'm most afraid of. 10% chance to go first is always annoying. It can cause some issues especially when Trick Room is up. Having Sturdy+Fissure makes it pretty difficult to deal with if you aren't Endeavoring it. It's usually my Endeavor target if I see it though, unless something else is looking more dangerous in the moment. Of course, with Quick Claw you kinda have to pray it doesn't activate. Which is what I have been doing when I see this beast.
Quick Claw/Bright Powder
As mentioned above, Donphan4 is one of the many Quick Claw users that can be scary. Quick Claw can ruin your day if the turn doesn't go your way because of it activating. Bright Powder is also lumped in this section because a random miss on something that is otherwise 100 accuracy sucks. I guess you can also include the weather evasion abilities such as Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.
Snow Warning
Weather isn't too much of an issue for this team. Rain can be bad because it weakens Eruption however, it doesn't break Aron's Sturdy! Hail does!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to say, playing through SV and a bit of Champions makes me really appreciate the Snow chance GF did. However, going back to a gen with the classic Hail sucks. Luckily in Maison, there is only two Snow Warning users: Abomasnow and Aurorus. Vanilluxe, thankfully, doesn't have the ability this gen and Alolan Ninetales does not exist. Hail sucks because, as mentioned, it breaks Aron's Sturdy. This makes turn 1 Protect a little worrying because it means Aron will most likely only have one turn to do anything. And if the setter is Abomasnow, probably 0 turns because Abomasnow4 carries Ice Shard. Most of the time vs these leads, I like to overwrite the weather if I can. Sometimes, I'll even just switch Aron out for later but that's not always advisable as whatever you switch in can get randomly frozen by a 100% accurate Blizzard.
Also, Snow Cloak users get activated when Hail is up. Froslass4 carries a Focus Sash and it's a Ghost so you can't just Endeavor+Attack to kill it. It carries a pretty nasty Blizzard too.
Water Trainers
This list includes Lana, Caesar, and Kenna. I've noticed these guys tend to carry a lot of Waters or at least usually have teams that are mostly Water types. I've struggled a lot vs these trainers so I made a personal note for them. Water types make it hard to just sit and spam Eruption into them. Sylveon is usually a good switch into some of these if the middle and right side aren't too threatening. Rain can make these teams even scarier especially if you don't have the time or space to set Sun with Aron. I'm usually keeping an eye out for these trainers.
Overall, I've been having a lot of fun with Triples. My only real complaint about Maison is the majority of trainers only carrying one set per Pokemon. This run up to 1000 felt pretty fast and most battles were played on auto-pilot. But that is the nature of FEAR of teams, so that probably played a part too. See ya.Battle 71 vs Ace Trainer Jai - Volcarona4 / Latios3 / Magnezone3 / Hydreigon1 or 3 / Porygon-Z3 / Exeggutor1
Endeavor ended up missing Magnezone which got Aron paralyzed. A couple of full paralysis turns which causes Dusclops to also get paralyzed.
Battle 75 vs Chef Cobb - Vanilluxe1 / Cryogonal3 / Beartic3 / Politoed4 / Empoleon4 / Mamoswine1234
First turn 1 freeze of the streak on Dusclops! This was just an awful start to the battle and I was worried my journey would be over right here. Minor mistake this battle was going for Eruption into Empoleon/Politoed. I really should have just Earth Power'd the Empoleon. Oh well.
Battle 82 vs Hiker Rand - Aurorus4 / Conkeldurr4 / Carbink4 / Heracross4 / Rhyperior4 / Mienshao4
Snow Warning from Aurorus + Mach Punch on Conk means Aron doesn't get to play the game today. I probably could have switched Aron out in this one to Sylveon. I know better now.
Battle 134 vs Butler Noah - Excadrill4 / Pinsir4 / Exeggutor4 / Milotic4 / Weavle4 / Lapras4
Eggy clicking Trick Room on my Trick Room.... AI counter teaming me?!?!?!?! Just kidding. This is part of the blurb I mentioned above about opposing Trick Room setters. Annoying, and pretty frequent throughout this run! Camerupt in the middle is terrifying though.
Battle 215 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gliscor4 / Gourgeist4 / Slowking4 / Leafeon4 / Meganium4 / Lapras4
Another Trick Room prevention, this time from Slowking. For this one, I stupidly clicked Protect again on Aron turn 2 but that was obviously a really dumb mistake. Gliscor did go for Counter though which allowed Aron to get the Endeavor off on Slowking.
Battle 260 vs Pokemon Ranger Parker - Slowking4 / Gastrodon4 / Roserade4 / Starmie4 / Marowak4 / Golurk4
This was one of those times where I wanted to let the Slowking set Trick Room. Got a little dicey with all the Hammer Arms Golurk was using.
Battle 263 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Steelix4 / Slowbro4 / Reuniclus2 / Cofagrigus3 / Musharna 2 / Bronzong1
I definitely expected Slowbro or Reuniclus to set for me. This is where I started to realize it is not reliable to have the AI set for you. Also, kinda got greedy with Camel and got frozen.
Battle 282 vs Tourist Chelsea - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Gogoat4 / Granbull4 / Chesnaught4 / Nidoking4
More double Trick Room nonsense. Also featuring Gogoat and Empoleon attacking each other with Earthquake and Surf. This one wasn't so bad as it ended up being the Sylveon show.
Battle 305 vs Ace Trainer Nikita - Leafeon4 / Trevenant4 / Glaceon4 / Sylveon4 / Charizard4 / Walrein4
An excellent snipe on Trevenant and Leafeon on turn 1. Trev holding an Iron Ball makes this very possible but Leafeon could have also targeted Camerupt with that Leaf Blade. Also, Dusclops got frozen. Yay. Big, bad scary Walrein was also difficult to maneuver around.
Battle 357 vs Hex Maniac Anastasia - Cofagrigus3 / Dusknoir4 / Medicham4 / Slowbro3 or 4 / Bronzong3 / Musharna3
Another double Trick Room on turn 1. I did get a nice crit on Dusknoir with Eruption though. A random Quick Claw proc from Bronzong also snipes poor baby Aron.....
Battle 371 vs Pokemon Ranger Hunter - Gyarados4 / Politoed4 / Seismitoad4 / Empoleon4 / Excadrill4 / Donphan4
Some annoying Waters scare off Camerupt. I'm pretty sure I missed the Mold Breaker message on Excadrill here too.
Battle 401 vs Scientist Rosalind - Aerodactyl4 / Weezing4 / Eelektross4 / Electrode4 / Carracosta4 / Vileplume4
Giving Carracosta its Weakness Policy by gambling for Sturdy is fine, right? This was just horribly misplayed. Because of the Weakness Policy, Camerupt ended up getting blasted on the next turn. Also, rare Teeter Dance from Vileplume.
Battle 489 vs Beauty Lana - Ampharos4 / Electrode4 / Seismitoad2 / Floatzel1234 / Zebstrika2 / Ludicolo4
Trick Room getting denied twice by Rock Slide flinch. Classic. I'm a little surprised Electrode didn't Taunt once in this battle.
Battle 511 vs Artist Wenge - Gigalith4 / Politoed4 / Rampardos4 / Rapidash4 / Muk4 / Beartic4
I didn't miss the Mold Breaker message this time, haha. Rampardos and Gigalith both EQing Toed down to Earth Power range was pretty neat though. Thanks guys. Also, Gigalith having a higher chance to roll Sturdy this gen is annoying!
Battle 515 vs Pokemon Breeder Gudrun - Bronzong4 / Carracosta4 / Yanmega4 / Ampharos4 / Roserade4 / Mienshao4
Another double Trick Room annoyance. This one was really scary because I don't know where Carracosta is gonna hit next. Gudrun? More like Badrun.
Battle 537 vs Waitress Ilisha - Espeon4 / Steelix4 / Walrein4 / Scizor4 / Snorlax4 / Pinsir4
Dusclops hit by Sheer Cold? No problem! This one had me locking IN. There was a moment in this battle where I should have locked Psyshock instead of Hyper Voice in this one. Got a pretty lucky Hyper Voice crit in the end.
Battle 547 vs Pokemon Ranger Cerese - Slowking4 / Rhyperior4 / Nidoking4 / Meganium4 / Krookodile4 / Abomasnow4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 550 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Quagsire2 / Cofagrigus3 / Bronzong1 / Slowking4 / Aromatisse4 / Reuniclus2
Mara turns off Trick Room and then turns it back on in this one. Thought it was pretty funny.
Battle 559 vs Worker Axel - Forretress4 / Armaldo4 / Aggron4 / Gliscor4 / Skarmory4 / Krookodile4
Aggron actually clicks Taunt on Dusclops here.
Battle 600 vs Tourist Aire - Froslass4 / Cofagrigus4 / Trevenant4 / Blaziken4 / Altaria4 / Musharna4
Triple Ghost lead. Aron actually clicks Toxic.
Battle 650 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Dusknoir4 / Reuniclus2 / Tyranitar1 / Slowbro4 / Cofagrigus3 / Gourgeist2
Mara breaking item clause. This was the first time I encountered this. I had only heard about it but it was pretty cool witnessing it myself!
Battle 673 vs Black Belt Sebastian - Infernape4 / Aggron4 / Sawk4 / Charizard4 / Emboar4 / Toxicroak4
Another Taunt aimed at Dusclops. Sawk rolling Mold Breaker did not make things easy either. Sebastian also brought THREE Taunt users!!! He did not want me setting at all.
Battle 719 - Hex Maniac Celia - Gothitelle4 / Froslass4 / Espeon4 / Trevenant4 / Jynx4 / Slowbro4
Another Blizzard freeze. I hate you, Froslass.
Battle 743 vs Backpacker Perdido - Blaziken4 / Golurk4 / Kangaskhan4 / Barbaracle4 / Whiscash4 / Shiftry4
Kang choosing to switch turn 1 because it couldn't hit Dusclops was annoying. Shiftry getting to Fake Out Aron which prevents Sunny Day, which then allows Golurk to live the Eruption. Aron dies as a result. Thanks Shiftry.
Battle 800 vs Tourist Chelsea - Bisharp4 / Blaziken4 / Forretress4 / Florges4 / Druddigon4 / Sceptile4
An ill-timed boom from Forretress allowed me to immediately remove Blaziken turn 1. I only clicked Eruption t1 because I wanted to bring Bisharp to Sash!
Battle 815 vs Waitress Remora - Nidoking4 / Musharna4 / Trevenant4 / Greninja4 / Empoleon4 / Miltank4
Yet another instance of double Trick Room. This one wasn't so bad as Clawitzer and Hariyama kinda cleaned house.
Battle 816 vs Hex Maniac Ciara - Metagross4 / Mismagius4 / Exeggutor4 / Trevenant4 / Slowbro4 / Mr. Mime4
Double Trick Room again right after! Can you tell I saved a lot of these?
Battle 822 vs Psychic Magus - Mr. Mime4 / Medicham4 / Bronzong4 / Slowbro4 / Starmie4 / Trevenant4
Camerupt being hit by a surprised High Jump Kick. I fully expected the AI to just murder the Aron, hence the Sylveon switch-in. This ended up being a pretty close battle and at one point I very much thought it would be the loss.
Battle 827 - Tourist Incheon - Slowking4 / Electrode4 / Clawitzer4 / Unfezant4 / Quagsire4 / Victreebel4
Slowking setting on my turn again and Clawitzer4 locks Water Pulse. Oh well, better that then Dark Pulse going into Dusclops.
Battle 844 - Artist Azure - Carracosta4 / Empoleon4 / Hippowdon4 / Dugtrio4 / Nidoqueen4 / Bronzong4
Dusclops gets frozen again. The AI also just decided to murder Empoleon.
Battle 879 vs Hex Maniac Mara - Gourgeist2 / Cofagrigus3 / Slowbro4 / Exeggutor4 / Bronzong1 / Avalugg4
Mara breaking item clause again. What a cheater.
Battle 947 vs Monsieur Patrice - Aromatisse4 / Empoleon4 / Altaria4 / Vespiquen4 / Sawk4 / Carbink4
Another round of double Trick Room.
Battle 992 vs Artist Azure - Ferrothorn4 / Lucario4 / Forretress4 / Marowak4 / Excadrill4 / Bisharp4
A fun, little 2-turn battle in the final stretch.
Battle 1000 - Pokemon Ranger Tanner - Nidoqueen4 / Rhyperior4 / Abomasnow4 / Cradily4 / Hippowdon4 / Whiscash4
Nothing to really say about this one except this is the 1000th battle.
The main issue I was having that run, the Rangers and Chefs consistently arranged their waters in a manner that Sbeam either wasn’t going to kill or gain any more momentum than had I used Earth Power. It saw use only versus isolated water types, and at that point there was usually no reason not to Endeavor them. By the latter half of the streak I had soured on it.
The current run also uses Ancientpower, and you’re right, it’s nice having for the airborne fires and is clicked allllll the time, unlike Solar…
Tossing Protect onto Garde was a pretty meaningful change for the 1287, and I clicked Ice Beam so rarely that the current run has that on Clawitzer too. I might recommend it if you’re not finding yourself terrorized by backline dragons, since there were a lot of TR denials that would’ve been easier to manage if shrimp could’ve bought a turn with Protect. Plus we both have good fairy coverage, and Dark Pulse kills the twins better than Ice Beam (arguably the most common dragons.)
You don’t miss having Ice Beam for grasses after noticing you’re almost never attacking them with the shrimp unless it’s Ludicolo or Cradily, and they eat Aura Sphere. If you have a close call with Torterra feel free to publicly embarass me lol
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Yeah, I've since (might've been doing it the whole time actually) started something like that line against known Gyarados4. Except that I've been going to +4 before first WF so I can 2HKO if things go weird (specifically, in case they start spamming AT randomly for some reason) regardless of whether I was Intimidated (+3 seems fine if Moxie, but I've been known to miss ability popups), and I've found you want to sub once you're at +5, since they seem to like boosting to "+7" because of the initial Intimidate (unclear if this is also influenced by it thinking DD is a speed control move and our +5 Gyarados is faster than their +6 Gyarados). DD+Intimidate behavior "fix" is helpful for once, maybe?
Gyarados14 (Puck/Bunny but they have Intimidate and it's slower than ours) can be a problem with TWave, though. I've been going to Gliscor for that, then going for Agility as they DD (they seem to not like using using IF or AT since I'm faster and IF/AT needs a highroll crit to KO, though I reasonably just lose Scor to crit/flinch/freeze if they try; OTOH, I can then send Gyarados, Sub into hopefully TWave, and go from there), after which I outrun and try to maintain sub and speed advantage. I've been worried about Moxie Gya1234 (because I then can't determine set), at which point I'd go to Gliscor, still don't know set if it uses DD (unclear if I can safely assume Gya3; Gya1 seems to always use TWave on turn 1, but I'm not sure if that's fully guaranteed (and if so, why? Does it prioritize status? Does it see TWave as "super effective" because typings?)). Gya3 I want to go into blind subtect (starting with sub, since it usually does DD since +0 WF needs crit to OHKO), which is sketchy and probably a good argument for Return or similar.
Is that >1/4k with standard Marathon with Crunch, or my EQ Gyarados? Gya3 should be roughly 1/32 as Puck lead, 1/68 as Bunny lead, 1/66 as roller skater lead (x4 skaters), assuming they're just picked randomly (not sure how item clause gets handled but I suspect that doesn't skew odds much). So slightly above 1/1k to even show up, but I'm pretty sure even my blind subtect plan is >75% to win that. Not sure if you're also counting the ~1/3k of moxie Gya4 from above trainers which I have to treat as Gya3 and send Gliscor on, but even with set ambiguity Gya4 should only win that with crit AT on turn 1 or 2, which is also pretty unlikely.
What's the difference between Frustration vs. Return in the above comment? I'd thought max-friendship Return and min-friendship Frustration behaved identically; is there some subtle difference I'm not aware of?
How many DTs are you usually getting off against a suicide lead, though? If you've got time for 1 DT, you have time for 1 Agility, at which point you have a mostly-fresh Gliscor that can outrun and subtect basically anything, as opposed to a mostly-fresh Gliscor with 1 DT. (If you've got time for more than 1 DT then that's good for DT Gliscor I guess, but that doesn't seem typical and I can at least use Sand Attack for a slightly better chance to carry the sub.) If anything, I'd think DT Gliscor is maybe scared of something like a backup fast ice type because of freeze risk on a switch, while Agility Gliscor can subtect the ice move and probably sand down from there. Do you have any examples of a backup Agility Gliscor should be afraid of here (in particular, something that DT Gliscor can handle)?
Yeah, fair point about saving Sand Attack rather than useful stuff here. Actually, on further review I'm pretty sure the goal on Vaporeon4 is just to sand to -6 and then start setting up Gyarados directly, making this whole thing irrelevant; Surf should be gone so we can switch back and forth to Gliscor if confused on switch, and we probably get higher than +3 given Sand Attack (and Signal Beam not breaking subs). Stuff like this is how I end up with low-health Gyarados behind a sub not wanting to take further chip damage.
Interesting; Lumari made the same comment about Gliscor behind sub being a better game state than +6 Aegislash against Veterans, which I can see if Gliscor has Toxic. You're saying you prefer that as well, even with DT+doze Gliscor? In this particular case, Agility Gliscor has the PP to stall Raikou1, which with careful counting gets me a guaranteed +2 Gyarados behind sub. There are certainly other Veteran leads where I end up with +6 Aegislash and then get into trouble against Entei/Heatran, though, and until Lumari's comment I hadn't even been considering setting up Gliscor as an option there (admittedly, my Gliscor's setup would be way worse than either of yours). This is maybe an even better argument against Sand Attack.
So the trick here with Sand Attack and Agility is you're not trying to blind subtect stall Volcarona4; you're trying to win enough free turns by outrunning with Agility and baiting more QDs such that you can get some Sand Attacks through (while maintaining sub obviously), and then even if Gliscor dies Aegislash should be able to handle a -6 accuracy +6 SpA Volcarona whose only move is quad-resisted Bug Buzz. Pretty sure Heat Wave is always preferred over Bug Buzz (even with Gliscor behind a sub!) except maybe if Gliscor is really really low on health, and I'm not even sure about that, and Hurricane seems to be very strongly preferred over Bug Buzz (not guaranteed, but Bug Buzz over Hurricane might only be possible if Gliscor is at moderately low health). I've admittedly had a sketchy run exactly once where Gliscor got low enough on health that Volcarona got trigger-happy with Heat Wave instead of continuing to boost, until eventually Heat Wave ran out, and I'm pretty sure my plan from there was at least partly to spam Sand Attack to try to keep Aegislash alive through any remaining PP, but I think part of the problem there was me being overly scared about Protect into Quiver Dance (not recognizing that the Heat Wave spam would likely continue at that point) and maybe also a turn 1 Hurricane. But this is usually pretty clean. Maybe I'm overly scared of Flame Body here, though. (And turn 1 Hurricane confuse is also a potential problem, but that's probably worse with a Gyarados setup? I had one of those happen once on Gliscor and tried switching Gliscor and caught up eventually but it got a bit scary. I've got a note about just trying to Agility through the confusion instead at that point; switching Gliscor out then back in likely loses too much time to be comfortable.)
Not having thought this through, I'd be scared to try this with Double Team+Agility Gliscor (Bug Buzz crit will OHKO Gliscor, and while non-crit +6 Bug Buzz does 32% max to Aegislash, there's no miss chance and SpD drops could get bad). On looking at the numbers, this is maybe less bad than I'd thought, given you're also trying for double King's Shields and should only need to survive 9 PP of Bug Buzz at most (8 if you're counting carefully and can protect the first one on Gliscor). Still probably scarier than I'd like. I wouldn't even try to stall it out without Agility (your Bulldoze spam seems like a workable answer if Volcarona comes in on Gliscor for some reason, but the goal is removal not stall there).
I've seen that argument; unless we're worried about physical attacks or rounding nonsense, I don't think I buy it. Your effective special bulk before you can't subtect should be roughly 7/8*HP*SpD. Ignoring rounding, with a given EV budget, you maximize this by getting HP and SpD as close together as possible; since your HP is going to be higher than your SpD this means prioritizing SpD. (In fact, you want them as close as possible before the +10% SpD bonus from nature, since you get 10% more benefit from SpD EVs, not that that matters since HP is higher than SpD by a lot anyway.) I buy the argument that (barring weird rounding stuff which I'm not aware of) HP >3 mod 8 bleeds more health through subtect loops than you'd save by raising SpD, so I think it's correct to not immediately go for max SpD (max SpD puts you at 171HP, which is 5 mod 8 (bad!) and 139 SpD). Shifting as few points as possible from SpD to HP to hit the next PH number gives EVs of 204 HP and 212 SpD, with final stats of 176 HP and 134 SpD. I'm currently re-EV'd to this and I think I like it.
Rounding makes things messy, and I'm not sure I completely understand the implications. Damage calcs seem to think 134 SpD is a good breakpoint (compared to 132 or 133); chasing through the math, it looks like this is good against base 90 special attacks off neutral-nature invested base 90, 100, 110, etc (multiples of 10 above 90; think Togekiss4 as an example), and base 80 special attacks off positive-nature invested base 100, 110, etc. (there's probably some Shadow Ball or something in here but I forget why I'd checked this). Amusingly, 133 SpD is indeed the breakpoint for Regice2 Icy Wind, but due to weird rounding stuff I haven't fully tracked down, 176 vs 177 HP is still exactly 25% chance to survive the crit there.
OTOH, if we actually only care about having enough bulk to start a subtect loop, then I think I've convinced myself that the 3 HP points above 8k (as in moving from 8k+0 to 8k+1, etc, up to 8k+3) actually look like 8/7 value compared to a SpD point (because sub cost is HP/4 floored, so those 3 HP points don't get "penalized" by having to pay for sub). Ex: 176 HP means we need 23 HP to subtect, so 153 loseable HP. 179 HP means 156 loseable HP, so we're getting full value out of those 3 HP points, rather than 7/8 value from the first 176. OTOH, loseable HP is still way higher than (non-nature-boosted) SpD, so we should see slightly more benefit from SpD than HP here. (I'm not certain the math and logic here are exactly correct, but calcs do seem to think we get better special bulk by dumping those two stat points from HP to SpD.)
That said, HP obviously helps against physical attacks as well; I could maybe see this as an argument for more HP. Can't think of any scary close physical leads at the moment though.
Before someone says Togekiss4 is irrelevant, Agility opens up another possible line here. tobiuo's guide suggests straight IH0 despite risk of Heat Wave burn (with Serene Grace possible) or crit (Super Luck possible), since going to Gliscor gets scary from Dazzling Gleam crits (with Super Luck possible). With tobiuo's most recent EV spread:
252+ SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 220 HP / 196+ SpD Gliscor: 66-78 (37 - 43.8%)
252+ SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 220 HP / 196+ SpD Gliscor on a critical hit: 99-117 (55.6 - 65.7%)
If we re-EV:
252+ SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 204 HP / 212+ SpD Gliscor: 64-76 (36.3 - 43.1%)
252+ SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 204 HP / 212+ SpD Gliscor on a critical hit: 96-114 (54.5 - 64.7%)
Now this still looks like a problem, since Togekiss4 outruns Gliscor, so we need to take two Dazzling Gleams and still be able to start a subtect loop. tobiuo's EV spread has 178 HP, so can lose 155 HP before subtect (we get one round of PH after Protect). This means going to Gliscor is always scary, since any non-crit could be followed by a crit that puts us too low to subtect.
With Agility, though, we can switch in Gliscor, take Dazzling Gleam, Protect (PH #1), Agility while taking another Dazzling Gleam (PH #2), Protect again (PH #3), and then Substitute. Effectively, as long as we survive the Agility turn, we heal enough from PH to get the subtect loop going. This means we can lose 200 HP before subtect. So any non-crit is fine; crit is a problem. (On a max-roll crit, we end at 84 HP after PH.) If crit, we have the following (bad) options available (and I'm not actually sure which is best):
- Continue as planned and hope Gliscor can survive a second Dazzling Gleam (needs another crit, and possibly still a range to kill, but if that happens we're super dead; there's maybe an out from there if we can switch-stall Heat Wave with Gyarados and sweep with Aegislash but that should never work)
- Go to Aegislash, go for +0 IH, hope for no high-roll crit or burn on Heat Wave (this is sketchy, as crit on Gliscor means Super Luck is more likely; intentionally sac'ing Gliscor to avoid Dazzling Gleam chip is definitely bad because even if it works we now have damaged +0 Aegislash and Gyarados against 2 unknown backups)
- Go to Aegislash and attempt to switch-stall Heat Wave and Dazzling Gleam, then either set Aegislash or have Aegislash stall down to Aura Sphere and/or Struggle to set Gyarados. Gliscor loses max 16 health per cycle, plus another max 30 per crit. Aegislash loses max 10 per cycle, plus 15 per crit. 5 cycles, so Aegislash lives easily. Gliscor is having a bad day, and can't possibly live through this (remember that we need 44 HP of buffer since PH happens after we've taken the damage!) especially since initial crit means Super Luck is more likely; it might not even live through the first Heat Wave if everything max-roll crits. This means we'll have to stall Heat Wave partially (entirely?) with Gyarados. This might not suck, actually, though it means we're almost certainly sac'ing Gyarados and crits and burns likely make it die before Heat Wave is gone. Upshot is Gliscor still has PP left, so we might be okay if Aegislash can beat either backup and Gliscor can stall the other.
- Intentionally (or as a result of failing +0 IH, ideally due to crit Heat Wave and not burn since we don't want Togekiss damaged at that point) sac Aegislash for an extra PH turn on Gliscor (need 93 health left to guarantee Gliscor lives a max-roll crit, as Protect heals us to 115, then we survive through Agility, Protect, and can now sub; this means we had to take at most 105 on the first crit, which is actually better than 50/50 odds because weird rounding nonsense, and the hypothetical second crit might not even max-roll; calc gives about a 90% chance to survive two crits including two rounds of PH, or 80% if we don't re-EV), which can then probably stall down to Struggle as originally planned (crit Aura Sphere doesn't break sub, giving us Sand Attack turns), getting Gyarados to +2 and sub (could go higher if we've counted carefully and are willing to tank more Aura Spheres but that seems probably bad), which can maybe sweep the backups but if not Gliscor's so depleted that we're probably dead.
- Stall it dry, set Gyarados to +2-4ish and sub, hope to sweep the backups
- Eventual Gliscor Toxic into sweep (if Lumari's set)
- Stall it dry, carry DT, hope something good happens on next backup (if tobiuo's set)
Upshot of standard approach is Gliscor only takes one Dazzling Gleam, thus is guaranteed to stall this. Downside is it's still sketchy, and between crit, burn and relevant abilities it's maybe a 15% chance you get into this state. Upshot of Agility Gliscor approach is it's almost always fine (about 1% chance of double crit into Gliscor including Super Luck chance; 90% chance to survive given double crit if we sac Aegislash after the first crit (and about 8% chance of first crit)). Pretty sure the Agility option is more likely to go right, and not too much worse if things go wrong and we sac Aegislash, with the downside that a second crit into Gliscor and high enough damage rolls could make us lose on the spot (but the upside that burn won't leave us with a damaged Togekiss that limits our Gyarados setup). Probably still worth it.
Making sure I understand: The claim here is that Absol4 won't use Punishment against unboosted Aegislash? Seems plausible (I've definitely never seen it against unboosted Gyarados, though it's not super-effective there), and that's a neat trick if true since there's a decent chance of attack drop if it does go for Punishment after Swagger (and self-OHKO off confusion isn't scary since we're in shield form). Nice!
Checking: Is there a better line against Ludicolo4 than going to Gliscor immediately, hoping for no random Hydro Pump crit, and stalling to useless moves? (I'd assume any immediate Gyarados setup would be way worse, and I'm not sure I trust a potentially seeded Aegislash to tank Hydro Pumps consistently (or does it not seed and this is actually fine?).) I've never seen turn 1 Hydro Pump myself, so I assume it's super rare, but remember someone saying they'd seen it.
Agility+Sand Attack is good here, actually. My rough plan is to try to Sub and Agility (once) on their Protect turns, Protect right after their Protect turns, and Sand Attack when you have a Sub and they've just used Flare Blitz (Sand Attack probably hits Protect, but possibly another Flare Blitz; if they break your subs, Sand Attack means they'll eventually start missing your subs so they take less recoil overall). Once Flare Blitz is gone, we're looking to Sand Attack it down to -6, King's Shield it down to -5 or -6 against Megahorn, and then set Aegislash or (if there's more than about 33% health left, which is surprisingly common) set Gyarados instead and clear it with Earthquake (or if using Crunch like you should be, you probably wait a bit longer so it dies to some type of recoil as you're setting up because of Flame Body).
252 Atk Charcoal Rapidash Flare Blitz vs. 204 HP / 0 Def Gliscor on a critical hit: 129-153 (58.6 - 69.5%)
which is a lot of damage to both sides, but not irrecoverable. Gliscor probably survives (since you weren't using Protect you probably did something productive that turn). Probably means you're ultimately setting Aegislash (on Megahorn) instead of Gyarados though.
Unclear if Double Team works better; I'd guess you could consistently stall Flare Blitz (because you can Double Team on their Protect turns), but I'm not sure you could set Gyarados afterwards because Double Edge keeps 3HKOing your Subs and damaging Rapidash, and you have to maintain Gyarados's Sub or crits are really bad. I'd expect you could almost certainly set Aegislash though.
Sure, or you can switch-stall 19 times, burn 36 Agility PP while confirming the next attack and nothing else is Me First in case you're worried about miscounting, then go to Gyarados on first struggle and get 2 DD and a Sub (and I assume risking crit Struggle breaking Sub is better than losing Intimidate on the partial setup but could be wrong here), meaning no Wild Charge recoil and no risk of miscounting once you've confirmed the last Me First, and all it cost was 36 PP of Agility that shouldn't be needed in case things go sideways and Gliscor needs to stall a second opponent.
You can also switch-stall 10ish times, realize you lost count, panic spam Agility, watch for the first electric move, back out how many switch-stalls you did, and still be safe, at the cost of some more Agility and Sand Attack PP. You can even (not recommended) stall the whole thing in place if you're willing to burn some subtect PP (need 74 PP, of which 65 Agility/Sand Attack is near-free) and don't want to count at all. I've recently started doing full stall-in-place instead of switch-stalling where possible in less extreme cases just so I can math out the turn to switch Gyarados in without having to count (also saves animation time, which is nice), and even when switch-stalling you can get built-in PP counting by using King's Shield every cycle (there's some concern that I'll forget to shield though).
Sure, and I agree on your Florges4 example, but that's because Petal Dance is annoying (confusion self-damage so we lose Struggle turns and PP is annoying to count). If it ran Dazzling Gleam instead of Petal Dance I'd argue for stalling it dry with Gliscor and setting up Gyarados there too. Why would we not want to stall Zebstrika4 down to Struggle to get a +2 Gyarados with a Sub? It's usually game-winning, and we have enough PP on Gliscor to stall something else if needed. (Admittedly, we were probably winning anyway, and opportunity cost of not running Bulldoze is real, but if I'm going to run Agility I think I'll happily take a risk-free 3 turns of Struggle to set up Gyarados on.)
Aegislash is a Ghost type so can't be trapped (which is also why Arena Trap and Magnet Pull are non-factors for Marathon in general). Gyarados would be trapped, but probably doesn't take Flatter on the switch, and hopefully has enough health to Sub and be fine. Lumari's comment about potential Froslass Cursed Body proc still stands though; sac'ing Gliscor probably isn't a great plan.
Agility's cheap. I agree we'd rather get Aeg frozen, but that's mostly so I can't miscount and get it paralyzed instead. Not that any of this should matter, we should have an easy win off a full Gyarados setup anyway.
My current plan against Vaporeon1234 is to start with mega+sub, mostly because of Vaporeon3. Though this does make Vaporeon4 more annoying; my answer is to EQ as sub falls off, then run a variant of my Vaporeon4 plan (go to Gliscor, subtect and sand to -6, go to Aegislash then Gyarados to avoid Signal Beam on switch, sub and set) with the understanding that I might only get a partial setup due to damage from initial sub and Signal Beam being scarier but I have the EQ chip from before so as long as I get +2 behind a sub (and that's mostly just to outrun Jolteon) I'm mostly fine. I'm not sure this is better though.
0 SpA Regice-2 Thunderbolt vs. 84 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados: 136-164 (75.1 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
mari/turskain spread stonks back on top?? ("stats beyond speed and overall leaning of the spread are fake" uhhh not quite but you can find blessed calcs to validate any spread out there ofc)
Agree that with the two extra HP Icy Wind is probably no longer ruled out and a double Sub is definitely not worth, but yea with the old spread I guess it's another option to consider, more on that in a second.
"Do I fear turn 2 1 Regice2 Icy Wind", I mean yes I'm aware it's a thing that can happen and can go wrong but anecdotally the crit has not actually happened on me in 5k+ battles with this team across both games (knock on wood since it's been 10-11 years for most of those but I feel like it would have stuck with me if it had), and between odds of Regice actually being set 2 + actually clicking the move (which I feel like is not hugely common but I definitely didn't keep track of it and contrast with the Greninja team also might make it look like less of a thing than it was) + actually getting the KO roll which is another coinflip on top of it, odds are overall very tiny indeed.
Idk if this mean that I fear it or don't fear it but fact of the matter is that any sane line is gonna involve switching Gliscor into it anyway and there's not a whole lot to do about that; even if there is somehow a line out there that does not involve the switch, then that changes nothing about the fact that that crit is only happening <1% of the time versus any lead Regice12(34), and if the line you're choosing to follow is less clean the remaining >99% of the time then you just end up losing sooner to a not-high roll Icy Wind crit scenario.
If you are doing the t1 Sub then you're also committing to setting up Gyarados against Regice1 as well because yes sacrificing a quarter of its health for just an abundance of caution is not really okay; I see tobiuo responded about the Regice1 stall, and it's good to see that it's almost guaranteed to go right, but like the same goes for the good old t1 Gliscor switch, so in the end you might just be picking between two <1% risks here, which is... yea. Maybe I'll look at odds for the Regice1 setup more closely at some point but ofc I'm way too thoroughly lazy to run numbers like that for a team I don't even have in active use, and it probably kind of misses the point anyways; at least, assuming the t1 Sub trick works as intended, when the failed outcome for one scenario is losing Gliscor vs losing Aegislash for the other then that is a much more relevant consideration than which disaster has slightly more minuscule odds of occurring (hint: always preserve Gliscor).
I'll happily leave any further responding to tobiuo but at least this point was still worth a more direct response I think
I can't do math. This is 3 mod 8. Why do people not just use max SpD? (Smaller PH number, so that's not great, but...)
On review, this was exactly tobiuo's original spread, and apparently the higher PH number gets you better sub and switch-stall survivability. Which seems plausible; I hadn't looked into that and just started from the more recent spread without thinking too hard.
Ended up losing shortly after this at 1334 wins. Since picking the team back up, I made one minor change which was:
Clawitzer @ Life Orb
Ability: Mega Launcher
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/0
Quiet Nature
- Water Pulse
- Dark Pulse
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam --> Protect
I ended up making this change after I saw ReptoAbysmal bring it up a little bit upwards. I never really ran into any situations where it made much of a difference. The logic behind the change was Ice Beam wasn't being clicked too much and Protect could have been used to stall a turn or two if I needed to set Trick Room again... or turn it off for whatever reason. I didn't really get to use it much and like I said, it made little difference in how the team or Clawitzer was played.
Now for the loss. Over the 335 battles I played since hitting the 1000, I didn't really get any notable battles except for the loss. I did save some other double Trick Room nonsense and the like, but nothing too interesting. Let's talk about how I lost.
Battle 1335 vs Chef Cobb - Barbaracle2 / Jynx4 / Glaceon3 / Mamoswine1 or 3 / Samurott2 / Avalugg3
Turn 1
Protect Aron and Camerupt, Jynx and Barbaracle whiff Fake Out+Focus Blast into Aron. Glaceon lands Blizzard on Dusclops, down to 107 and frozen. Not the first time Dusclops has been frozen so I figured I could play around this. I guess I could have attacked with Camel here, but Barbaracle could have clicked Surf, which we obviously do not want. Jynx could also skip Fake Out and click its own Blizzard too. Tough turn, but whatever.
Turn 2
Switch Aron out to Hariyama, switch Camel out to Sylveon. Sylveon avoids a Blizzard from Jynx but Hariyama gets crit by it, and then gets crit again by Barb's Focus Blast. It dies. Oof. Finally, Glaceon lands another Blizzard on Dusclops which brings it down to 23 HP and we stay frozen. It was brought up in the Discord that I probably should have just sacced Aron here instead of switching it out to try and preserve it. I do agree with this assessment and if I had, I could have brought Hariyama in safely on the next turn or something. Of course, how the hell can I expect Harry to get double crit? Dusclops staying frozen was also expected but there was some small hope it would somehow thaw and get the Trick Room off. Oh well.
Turn 3
Clawitzer is sent out. Having Clawitzer come in the middle here was definitely not ideal. I usually like keeping it on the right or left slots since it doesn't usually care about board positioning. But I was still of the mind I can maybe get a last ditch Trick Room off or something, lol. Boy, was I wrong. Jynx lands a Blizzard on all three targets, Dusclops dies. Cobb really said no Trick Room for you. Barbaracle uses Surf, revealing Jynx doesn't have Dry Skin and Glaceon lands another Blizzard. Sylveon is down to 105, Claw down to 60. Hyper Voice removes both Barb and Jynx. Glaceon survives Clawitzer's Aura Sphere. Awful battle so far.
Turn 4
Cobb brings in Samurott and Avalugg while I send Aron back out. I'm still trying my best to preserve Camel's HP here so sending Aron out seemed to be the only option. I Had Clawitzer Protect and Aron gets hit by both Blizzard and Hydro Pump, now at 1HP with no Berry Juice. Hyper Voice brings Samurott and Avalugg to the red. I was a little surprised by Avalugg surviving but then I remembered Avalugg3 can live the Hyper Voice which it is then to be revealed as such because it clicks Hail. Endeavor hits the Samurott, bringing it down to 1. Not sure what I was thinking there with Aron. I definitely should have let it die earlier in the battle though. Anyway, both Aron and Samurott die to Hail.
Turn 5
Cobb sends out his last Pokemon, Mamoswine. Great. I send Camel back out. At this point, I knew it was over. Clawitzer and Sylveon have taken too much damage and there's a Mamoswine in the middle staring down my three last Pokemon. I have Camerupt Protect but Mamoswine decided to just clear the field anyway with Earthquake.
Turn 6
I could not possibly stall this out so Camel Mega Evolves and then dies to Earthquake. Womp womp.
Battle 1335 vs Chef Cobb - Barbaracle2 / Jynx4 / Glaceon3 / Mamoswine1 or 3 / Samurott2 / Avalugg3
Turn 1
Protect Aron and Camerupt, Jynx and Barbaracle whiff Fake Out+Focus Blast into Aron. Glaceon lands Blizzard on Dusclops, down to 107 and frozen. Not the first time Dusclops has been frozen so I figured I could play around this. I guess I could have attacked with Camel here, but Barbaracle could have clicked Surf, which we obviously do not want. Jynx could also skip Fake Out and click its own Blizzard too. Tough turn, but whatever.
Turn 2
Switch Aron out to Hariyama, switch Camel out to Sylveon. Sylveon avoids a Blizzard from Jynx but Hariyama gets crit by it, and then gets crit again by Barb's Focus Blast. It dies. Oof. Finally, Glaceon lands another Blizzard on Dusclops which brings it down to 23 HP and we stay frozen. It was brought up in the Discord that I probably should have just sacced Aron here instead of switching it out to try and preserve it. I do agree with this assessment and if I had, I could have brought Hariyama in safely on the next turn or something. Of course, how the hell can I expect Harry to get double crit? Dusclops staying frozen was also expected but there was some small hope it would somehow thaw and get the Trick Room off. Oh well.
Turn 3
Clawitzer is sent out. Having Clawitzer come in the middle here was definitely not ideal. I usually like keeping it on the right or left slots since it doesn't usually care about board positioning. But I was still of the mind I can maybe get a last ditch Trick Room off or something, lol. Boy, was I wrong. Jynx lands a Blizzard on all three targets, Dusclops dies. Cobb really said no Trick Room for you. Barbaracle uses Surf, revealing Jynx doesn't have Dry Skin and Glaceon lands another Blizzard. Sylveon is down to 105, Claw down to 60. Hyper Voice removes both Barb and Jynx. Glaceon survives Clawitzer's Aura Sphere. Awful battle so far.
Turn 4
Cobb brings in Samurott and Avalugg while I send Aron back out. I'm still trying my best to preserve Camel's HP here so sending Aron out seemed to be the only option. I Had Clawitzer Protect and Aron gets hit by both Blizzard and Hydro Pump, now at 1HP with no Berry Juice. Hyper Voice brings Samurott and Avalugg to the red. I was a little surprised by Avalugg surviving but then I remembered Avalugg3 can live the Hyper Voice which it is then to be revealed as such because it clicks Hail. Endeavor hits the Samurott, bringing it down to 1. Not sure what I was thinking there with Aron. I definitely should have let it die earlier in the battle though. Anyway, both Aron and Samurott die to Hail.
Turn 5
Cobb sends out his last Pokemon, Mamoswine. Great. I send Camel back out. At this point, I knew it was over. Clawitzer and Sylveon have taken too much damage and there's a Mamoswine in the middle staring down my three last Pokemon. I have Camerupt Protect but Mamoswine decided to just clear the field anyway with Earthquake.
Turn 6
I could not possibly stall this out so Camel Mega Evolves and then dies to Earthquake. Womp womp.
More Marathon! I made some (mostly inconsequential) tweaks, and I'm continuing to lose in preventable but not outright embarrassing ways. Changes from last time in bold.
The team: ("variation on 'a minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon'", I guess?)
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate -> Mold Breaker
EVs: 100 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Substitute
Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/25 (giving me 69 Speed)
Nature: Brave
- Swords Dance
- King's Shield
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 204 HP / 228 SpD / 76 Spe (giving me 125 Speed)
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Careful
- Substitute
- Protect
- Agility
- Sand Attack
Aegislash speed reduction:
Aegislash is now 69 speed, down from 79 speed, after a mess involving a Lickilicky4: Iron Head miss into Lax Incense, EQ OHKO into blade form, explosion into Gliscor (which I survived, but was trying to sneak out an Agility so took a lot of damage; note that I don't end with a sub regardless, but also that a crit would OHKO without sub, so that's not great either), into panic. Third mon wasn't scary, but that could've been a problem. The big concern traditionally with dropping below 70 speed is electric attacks from Regice, but you don't really want to be sweeping with Aegislash against Veterans anyway, and even if you are you can either go to Gliscor and continue with the standard Regice plan from there, or (if low on subtect PP) risk para on Aegislash anyway because apparently anything that's left is even less threatening to Aegislash than non-SE Thunder (or more likely Thunderbolt) from a random Regice set.
This doesn't seem to change too many other matchups. Of the stuff that doesn't die to +6 SS, we're now outrun by Scrafty4, but it's not scary unboosted (especially now that we outslow Payback), and we can probably just shield then +6 IH and be fine even after Bulk Up. We're outrun by Torterra4 and Blissey4, but those are immediate Gyarados setup bait anyway. (This might technically get annoying if we've mega'd already, as in an Espeon4/MrMime4 switch-stall, but against non-psychic pool we probably want to extend that stall and partial-set Gyarados on Struggle in case of weird stuff like this.) We're outrun by Ursaring4, but that has Quick Claw anyway so worst case we were taking (and surviving!) that EQ as shield anyway. Hariyama4 isn't concerning. Regice1234 is annoying, especially given paralysis risk, but shouldn't be fatal. Like Lickilicky4, Tangrowth4 also has Lax Incense and EQ, so it's probably better to just underspeed and tank the EQ, though Tangrowth4 at least stalls into a full Gyarados setup if things go wrong so is probably fine either way.
Bouffalant4 is interesting; EQ OHKOs Aegislash, so we no longer want to stay in on it, but because we're slower we now reliably bait EQ instead of Payback on Aegislash, letting us switch-stall Earthquake with Gyarados and then re-set Aegislash (hoping to not take 3 Payback crits out of 4 attacks, I guess; there's also a small risk of Payback when switching out of Gyarados, but overall this should be fine). As a side effect, this also makes Bouffalant4 more consistent to handle as lead (though I'd been inconsistently getting partial Gyarados setups instead when using fast Aegislash since that left a few EQ PP to set on, so this might technically be slightly worse against lead Bouffalant?).
On the other hand, we now outslow and beat (if starting with +6 and sufficient health) Tyranitar4 (sash), Eelektross4 (sheer bulk), Lickilicky4 (Lax Incense), Regirock2 (Sturdy), Registeel34 (bulk and resistance). I don't want to go any slower or Druddigon4 gets risky (EQ crit OHKOs, so we have to switch, but then Druddigon's choiced so they switch, and I guess now we have Gliscor behind a sub but it's not great), plus there aren't many matchups that get improved by being even slower.
I think 69 speed is just better overall for all versions of Marathon.
Gliscor EV spread:
I've moved 2 points from HP to SpD on Gliscor. I also moved 2 points from speed to SpD. The original spread's 127 speed came from tobiuo wanting to outrun Sceptile2 after Bulldoze; I get that for free with Agility (and I think blind subtect is actually just fine against Sceptile2 regardless; worst case you lose Gliscor to the last Night Slash but set Gyarados anyway). After dropping speed, we're now outrun by Kingdra13 (slightly worse, but probably fine, see below) and Lilligant4 (not scary).
As for the payoff, we end at 176 HP (exact Poison Heal number, don't think I care to go higher) and 136 SpD, resulting in:
252 SpA Mismagius3 Icy Wind vs. 204 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor on a critical hit: 144-172 (81.8 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Due to rounding nonsense, dropping SpD to 135 makes the highroll crit do 8 more damage (I'm assuming from crit breakpoint and then 4x SE, all happening after the base damage gets floored). But this now gives us a safe plan against Anastasia's Mismagius34: Go to Aegislash. If Mismagius4 plan to reset the fight per normal. If Mismagius3 go back to Gyarados, then to Gliscor on Thunderbolt, then Agility and begin subtecting, ultimately stalling it dry (I think the safest setup is technically non-mega Gyarados at +2 behind sub here, but +6 Aegislash is faster and almost as reliable against Anastasia). The alternatives for Mismagius3 are sketchy; if switch-stalling, there's apparently a risk of Shadow Ball over Icy Wind on Gliscor, and Gliscor doesn't particularly like taking Shadow Ball either. Cleanest is probably aiming for +2 Shadow Sneak, but that's not a great setup and Aegislash ends up down a lot of health. I wound up facing a Mismagius3, starting the switch-stall, realizing it wasn't working, and just risking the crit Icy Wind on Gliscor before realizing afterward I could EV my way around it.
That said, you need Agility for the above scenario to be relevant. Standard Marathon, especially with Bulldoze, maybe shouldn't move the speed? I think moving the HP ends up being correct regardless.
Agility vs. Bulldoze: Still trying to articulate why I'm liking Agility over Bulldoze after previous discussion. Effectively, Agility does 3 things:
Sand Attack vs. Double Team: Main concern is suicide (or U-turn, etc.) leads. I still haven't seen any suicide lead nonsense that's been actually scary that Double Team would've solved, especially since suicide leads typically mean I'm near full subtect PP, and agility means I'll outrun. I am theoretically scared of specifically Gale Wings Talonflame4, though, since it can boost and Flare Blitz vs. Brave Bird should be random, so Flare Blitz into Brave Bird could catch me without a sub. I suspect the correct play on seeing any Talonflame from here is to immediately switch to Gyarados and WF and hope nothing goes wrong. I'm not convinced Double Team solves this problem, though (maybe you can just blind subtect and let it implode since you're slower specifically because you didn't use Agility?? OTOH faster ice attacks get scary with potential freeze).
Main benefit of Sand Attack is saving health on a few switch-stalls (especially those involving electric attacks) and Gyarados setups on certain weak attacks; in particular, it makes crits even less likely on non-Struggle attacks since they still have to hit in order to crit. I'm still thinking I like Sand Attack over Double Team in general, though maybe you want either Sand Attack + Agility or Double Team + Bulldoze so you at least have one setup move against a suicide lead or in case your sub breaks to U-Turn?
Gyarados (lack of) changes:
TLDR: I'm lazy.
Crunch is clearly better than EQ, but I need a single-cart team. I really probably should be running Return over EQ, but I'm lazy. I'm also slightly scared of Ferrothorn, but this really means I should be Intimidate-switching and letting it Struggle to death rather than setting to +6 and trying to break it myself (which works with EQ against Ferrothorn4, but Ferrothorn2 needs a crit or I'm stalling with subs and can't carry a sub; honestly, I should already probably be Intimidate-switching there). I also still like not having to worry as much about on-contact effects, especially if I'm setting up while taking chip damage (ex: Gliscor using Agility to stall stuff down to Struggle). But I don't like being scared of Exeggutor4 and Leafeon4, which Return would fix. There's also Starmie4, but that really needs specifically Crunch or Bite to be less scary, so that's not happening. (My current plan is getting Aegislash in, either directly (risking para, in which case we ideally aim for +4 IH OHKO so we don't risk surf into blade, or +2 SS OHKO if things are going very wrong) or via Gliscor (risking freeze on Aegislash, in which case we aim to switch-stall Ice Beam, subtect Surf (risking crit or flinch at which point I have to sac something and hope Aegislash thaws quickly or I lose)). Neither's great, but I currently think the para risk is less bad.)
Spread-wise, I'm pretty sure I'm okay with the "Aegislash solo-stall into full Gyarados setup" backup plan against Regice2 turn 1 Icy Wind crit into Gliscor, but even if going for the turn 1 sub to intentionally bleed Gyarados HP as per
How I lost this time:
Chef Andrei (hail), Froslass lead (all sets possible). Lead guides recommend going to Gliscor immediately, which sacs it against Froslass4 (and apparently sometimes also Froslass3) but defends Thunder Wave from Froslass2. Turns out this is Froslass2. Good so far. Recommendations from here involve Toxic stall or Bulldoze into a Gyarados setup. I don't have those, but I can switch-stall Taunt between Gliscor and Aegislash. There is a problem in that Froslass sometimes (maybe 25% of the time?) will use Hex instead of Ice Shard on Gliscor->Aegislash, which does about 25% to Aegislash. (Ice Shard does slightly negative damage though.) At the time, I hadn't convinced myself that using King's Shield to recover health is safe on Aegislash (and I still haven't, but Froslass seems to Taunt un-Taunted Aegislash maybe 95% of the time (and I'm not entirely convinced the last 5% didn't have other weird stuff happening) so it's probably worth doing anyway), so I let Aegislash go down to 62 HP and figured I could take another Hex before I had to start getting worried (hoping to stall out Taunt and/or Hex before then). Naturally, the next Hex crits and faints Aegislash. I send Gyarados, and start switch-stalling between Gyarados and Aegislash before realizing Taunt had already run out (first obvious misplay, and Gyarados notably took a Hex in this process, which does decent damage), apparently even before Aegislash fainted. I proceed to subtect the few remaining Ice Shards, stall Thunder Wave in place, and prepare to set Gyarados on Struggle.
Gyarados comes in with 136 HP; Intimidate drops Froslass to -5. Froslass crit Struggle doesn't care and knocks me down to 89 health. Annoying, but whatever, it's fine. DD, Struggle, down to 79 health (maxroll, apparently, but not relevant). Scared of another crit leaving me too low to sub, I sub now; Struggle hits and the sub holds. DD to +2, and the last Struggle crits a third time and breaks the sub. In retrospect, the non-mega early sub was a mistake; if there's a crit, I'd lose the sub regardless so I may as well not lose the turn as well. Not mega-ing was definitely a mistake; mega sub survives even maxroll crit Struggle, and needs maxroll crit + maxroll non-crit (or two crits) to die from there. Early sub plus mega was probably the safest combination there. Yet another "why didn't I just hit the mega button" Marathon moment, I guess, though at least it wasn't multiple thousand battles in.
I now have a 34 HP +2 non-mega Gyarados and a full health, mostly fresh Gliscor. Second mon is Avalugg, which I clearly can't OHKO with Gyarados. But there's hope - Avalugg is generally non-threatening to Gyarados, so for it to come out second means it's likely Avalugg4 with Stone Edge. In this case, I should be able to go to Gliscor on Stone Edge (or maybe a random status move from something else? I'd guess they'd take the KO instead, but I don't know the AI super well), subtect down to Earthquake, set Gyarados to +6, and hope the third mon dies to a fully-set Gyarados.
Gliscor dies to Avalanche. Boo. Apparently it was set 1.
Gyarados dies to Stone Edge. Apparently it was not set 1, but in fact set 4, but decided it really didn't like me today. Not sure if its choice of Avalanche had to do with Gyarados being low-health (+0 Avalanche is a guaranteed KO; +1 is a range), or was just some low-odds weird AI thing that can always happen.
Weird AI quirks (anyone have any insights here?):
Avalanche over Stone Edge that one turn, obviously. Not sure what's happening there.
Last mon was apparently Aurorus, but it's Andrei so it's the weird hail set (Aurorus2). This suggests Freeze-Dry type effectiveness isn't considered when picking what to send out, which isn't necessarily surprising. (Though that is somewhat disappointing - if that gets sent out first, I clear it with Gyarados, at which point I can happily sac Gyarados to Avalugg and kill it with Struggle recoil.) I'm somewhat curious if it's calculated correctly when picking attacks. I wonder if you'd get similar stuff with Flying Press, for example (not that it's likely to matter for Marathon, but maybe this incorrectly favors sending Hawlucha4 against Rock types or something).
Interestingly, on replaying the video, Hex damage does not seem to (consistently?) consider bonus from non-volatile status when picking attacks. I'd wanted to Intimidate Froslass2 down to -2 to consistently force Hex over Ice Shard on Gliscor to avoid the risk of Ice Shard crit on the turn I start subtect. It seems Hex gets more likely (maybe 50%, up from about 25%) starting around -4 (though I just int'ed it down to -6; didn't do thorough experiments), but isn't consistent ever. Interestingly, the min rolls for -4 Shard, -6 Shard, and +0 Hex are all the same 28 damage on Gliscor (though -4 Shard almost always does 36 damage, and -6 Shard almost always does 28, and Hex is a normal-looking range from 28-34). And yet, even at just -1, there's still a non-zero chance to pick Hex over Ice Shard on Gliscor, which is what got me into this mess in the first place...
The team: ("variation on 'a minor variants of a minor variant &c. of Team Marathon'", I guess?)
Gyarados @ Gyaradosite
Ability: Intimidate -> Mold Breaker
EVs: 100 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 4 SpD / 172 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Adamant
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Substitute
Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/25 (giving me 69 Speed)
Nature: Brave
- Swords Dance
- King's Shield
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 204 HP / 228 SpD / 76 Spe (giving me 125 Speed)
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Nature: Careful
- Substitute
- Protect
- Agility
- Sand Attack
Aegislash speed reduction:
Aegislash is now 69 speed, down from 79 speed, after a mess involving a Lickilicky4: Iron Head miss into Lax Incense, EQ OHKO into blade form, explosion into Gliscor (which I survived, but was trying to sneak out an Agility so took a lot of damage; note that I don't end with a sub regardless, but also that a crit would OHKO without sub, so that's not great either), into panic. Third mon wasn't scary, but that could've been a problem. The big concern traditionally with dropping below 70 speed is electric attacks from Regice, but you don't really want to be sweeping with Aegislash against Veterans anyway, and even if you are you can either go to Gliscor and continue with the standard Regice plan from there, or (if low on subtect PP) risk para on Aegislash anyway because apparently anything that's left is even less threatening to Aegislash than non-SE Thunder (or more likely Thunderbolt) from a random Regice set.
This doesn't seem to change too many other matchups. Of the stuff that doesn't die to +6 SS, we're now outrun by Scrafty4, but it's not scary unboosted (especially now that we outslow Payback), and we can probably just shield then +6 IH and be fine even after Bulk Up. We're outrun by Torterra4 and Blissey4, but those are immediate Gyarados setup bait anyway. (This might technically get annoying if we've mega'd already, as in an Espeon4/MrMime4 switch-stall, but against non-psychic pool we probably want to extend that stall and partial-set Gyarados on Struggle in case of weird stuff like this.) We're outrun by Ursaring4, but that has Quick Claw anyway so worst case we were taking (and surviving!) that EQ as shield anyway. Hariyama4 isn't concerning. Regice1234 is annoying, especially given paralysis risk, but shouldn't be fatal. Like Lickilicky4, Tangrowth4 also has Lax Incense and EQ, so it's probably better to just underspeed and tank the EQ, though Tangrowth4 at least stalls into a full Gyarados setup if things go wrong so is probably fine either way.
Bouffalant4 is interesting; EQ OHKOs Aegislash, so we no longer want to stay in on it, but because we're slower we now reliably bait EQ instead of Payback on Aegislash, letting us switch-stall Earthquake with Gyarados and then re-set Aegislash (hoping to not take 3 Payback crits out of 4 attacks, I guess; there's also a small risk of Payback when switching out of Gyarados, but overall this should be fine). As a side effect, this also makes Bouffalant4 more consistent to handle as lead (though I'd been inconsistently getting partial Gyarados setups instead when using fast Aegislash since that left a few EQ PP to set on, so this might technically be slightly worse against lead Bouffalant?).
On the other hand, we now outslow and beat (if starting with +6 and sufficient health) Tyranitar4 (sash), Eelektross4 (sheer bulk), Lickilicky4 (Lax Incense), Regirock2 (Sturdy), Registeel34 (bulk and resistance). I don't want to go any slower or Druddigon4 gets risky (EQ crit OHKOs, so we have to switch, but then Druddigon's choiced so they switch, and I guess now we have Gliscor behind a sub but it's not great), plus there aren't many matchups that get improved by being even slower.
I think 69 speed is just better overall for all versions of Marathon.
Gliscor EV spread:
I've moved 2 points from HP to SpD on Gliscor. I also moved 2 points from speed to SpD. The original spread's 127 speed came from tobiuo wanting to outrun Sceptile2 after Bulldoze; I get that for free with Agility (and I think blind subtect is actually just fine against Sceptile2 regardless; worst case you lose Gliscor to the last Night Slash but set Gyarados anyway). After dropping speed, we're now outrun by Kingdra13 (slightly worse, but probably fine, see below) and Lilligant4 (not scary).
I agree with this plan for Kingdra12. Kingdra3 prefers Dragon Pulse over Ice Beam on Gyarados, and double Sniper crit Dragon Pulse can KO Gyarados, so with slower Gliscor I'm now forced to switch out immediately (typically turn 1 Rain Dance, then switch on turn 2 Dragon Pulse), stall Hydro Pump with King's Shield and Gyarados (again risking Gyarados KO from double Sniper rain crit Hydro Pump, but even if that happens it's probably fine), activate Toxic Orb at some point before second Hydro Pump (to remove burn risk from possible backup Weezing3; Gyarados takes an extra Ice Beam which shouldn't matter), and get a full Aegislash setup. I'm pretty sure I'm fine with this though; +6 Aegislash and Toxic Orb active (in case of Weezing3) should beat almost anything in rain pool. OTOH, with faster Gliscor we could've played for a Gyarados setup; the unlikely event of double Sniper crit Dragon Pulse KO'ing Gyarados means Kingdra has Sniper not Swift Swim, so faster Gliscor could then outrun and subtect it dry to force an Aegislash setup.
As for the payoff, we end at 176 HP (exact Poison Heal number, don't think I care to go higher) and 136 SpD, resulting in:
252 SpA Mismagius3 Icy Wind vs. 204 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor on a critical hit: 144-172 (81.8 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Due to rounding nonsense, dropping SpD to 135 makes the highroll crit do 8 more damage (I'm assuming from crit breakpoint and then 4x SE, all happening after the base damage gets floored). But this now gives us a safe plan against Anastasia's Mismagius34: Go to Aegislash. If Mismagius4 plan to reset the fight per normal. If Mismagius3 go back to Gyarados, then to Gliscor on Thunderbolt, then Agility and begin subtecting, ultimately stalling it dry (I think the safest setup is technically non-mega Gyarados at +2 behind sub here, but +6 Aegislash is faster and almost as reliable against Anastasia). The alternatives for Mismagius3 are sketchy; if switch-stalling, there's apparently a risk of Shadow Ball over Icy Wind on Gliscor, and Gliscor doesn't particularly like taking Shadow Ball either. Cleanest is probably aiming for +2 Shadow Sneak, but that's not a great setup and Aegislash ends up down a lot of health. I wound up facing a Mismagius3, starting the switch-stall, realizing it wasn't working, and just risking the crit Icy Wind on Gliscor before realizing afterward I could EV my way around it.
That said, you need Agility for the above scenario to be relevant. Standard Marathon, especially with Bulldoze, maybe shouldn't move the speed? I think moving the HP ends up being correct regardless.
Agility vs. Bulldoze: Still trying to articulate why I'm liking Agility over Bulldoze after previous discussion. Effectively, Agility does 3 things:
- Brainless stall-in-place against almost anything (meaning less risk of human error). This usually means the PP counts itself (just add up total PP used by Gliscor, plus 1 for the switch-in, plus 3 per King's Shield if Aegislash decided to help), and when in doubt we can Protect on the first Struggle turn to be certain we didn't miscount. This is the main reason I like it, though it's more of a defense against user error than specific matchups. If the opponent doesn't damage itself or force me to do anything weird to stall it, our worst case should be +2 Gyarados, behind a sub unless last Struggle crits from high attack, with very little opportunity for human error (assuming I can add, which isn't 100% reliable, but it's usually more consistent than PP counting, and in many cases I know exactly how much subtect I'll need and can just precompute the final Agility PP count, meaning I don't even need to add). This also means I'm not damaging the opponent in order to outrun (which might cost a Struggle turn or trigger an immunity switch, though I'm not sure if there are any particular immunity switches I should be afraid of); it also prevents any Volt Switch-related misplays. Finally, if things go weird, we probably have enough PP to also stall one of the backups dry and set something else up if needed (ex: if a partial Gyarados setup can't complete the sweep).
- Free turns against (ideally slower) Dragon Dance and Quiver Dance setup sweepers (most notably Volcarona4 and ambiguous Gyarados sets), meaning I can stall them dry (ideally even saving some subtect PP because of Sand Attack and not having to blindly subtect on boosting turns) and then fully set Gyarados against them.
- Effectively 25% extra health (because Agility buys time for extra Poison Heal turns) before starting subtect against faster ground-immune opponents, which have traditionally been sketchy for Marathon (most notably Togekiss4, but also apparently Mismagius3 and Defiant Braviary3 (which I've now seen, and it crit Aeg (it only needs 1 crit out of 3 attacks to be an immediate problem), and that was terrifying; Agility is probably the least bad way out of that situation since you can sac Aegislash and then (non-crit) +1 Brave Bird won't OHKO Gliscor but will leave it too low to sub immediately). Agility is also useful against non-Speed Boost Yanmega34 (or Air Slash in general, I guess) so you don't flinch while setting up Sand Attack, though subtect notably isn't viable especially against Tinted Lens because Bug Buzz goes through sub.
Sand Attack vs. Double Team: Main concern is suicide (or U-turn, etc.) leads. I still haven't seen any suicide lead nonsense that's been actually scary that Double Team would've solved, especially since suicide leads typically mean I'm near full subtect PP, and agility means I'll outrun. I am theoretically scared of specifically Gale Wings Talonflame4, though, since it can boost and Flare Blitz vs. Brave Bird should be random, so Flare Blitz into Brave Bird could catch me without a sub. I suspect the correct play on seeing any Talonflame from here is to immediately switch to Gyarados and WF and hope nothing goes wrong. I'm not convinced Double Team solves this problem, though (maybe you can just blind subtect and let it implode since you're slower specifically because you didn't use Agility?? OTOH faster ice attacks get scary with potential freeze).
Main benefit of Sand Attack is saving health on a few switch-stalls (especially those involving electric attacks) and Gyarados setups on certain weak attacks; in particular, it makes crits even less likely on non-Struggle attacks since they still have to hit in order to crit. I'm still thinking I like Sand Attack over Double Team in general, though maybe you want either Sand Attack + Agility or Double Team + Bulldoze so you at least have one setup move against a suicide lead or in case your sub breaks to U-Turn?
Gyarados (lack of) changes:
TLDR: I'm lazy.
Crunch is clearly better than EQ, but I need a single-cart team. I really probably should be running Return over EQ, but I'm lazy. I'm also slightly scared of Ferrothorn, but this really means I should be Intimidate-switching and letting it Struggle to death rather than setting to +6 and trying to break it myself (which works with EQ against Ferrothorn4, but Ferrothorn2 needs a crit or I'm stalling with subs and can't carry a sub; honestly, I should already probably be Intimidate-switching there). I also still like not having to worry as much about on-contact effects, especially if I'm setting up while taking chip damage (ex: Gliscor using Agility to stall stuff down to Struggle). But I don't like being scared of Exeggutor4 and Leafeon4, which Return would fix. There's also Starmie4, but that really needs specifically Crunch or Bite to be less scary, so that's not happening. (My current plan is getting Aegislash in, either directly (risking para, in which case we ideally aim for +4 IH OHKO so we don't risk surf into blade, or +2 SS OHKO if things are going very wrong) or via Gliscor (risking freeze on Aegislash, in which case we aim to switch-stall Ice Beam, subtect Surf (risking crit or flinch at which point I have to sac something and hope Aegislash thaws quickly or I lose)). Neither's great, but I currently think the para risk is less bad.)
Spread-wise, I'm pretty sure I'm okay with the "Aegislash solo-stall into full Gyarados setup" backup plan against Regice2 turn 1 Icy Wind crit into Gliscor, but even if going for the turn 1 sub to intentionally bleed Gyarados HP as per
I'd think you probably want to put those extra 2 points in Def rather than Atk for better survivability against Struggle? Maybe I'm biased given I'm now tending to lose to bleeding too much Gyarados health to Struggle, though. And I'm not sure this matters. Haven't cared to run numbers on Struggle breakpoints or re-EV it myself.
How I lost this time:
Chef Andrei (hail), Froslass lead (all sets possible). Lead guides recommend going to Gliscor immediately, which sacs it against Froslass4 (and apparently sometimes also Froslass3) but defends Thunder Wave from Froslass2. Turns out this is Froslass2. Good so far. Recommendations from here involve Toxic stall or Bulldoze into a Gyarados setup. I don't have those, but I can switch-stall Taunt between Gliscor and Aegislash. There is a problem in that Froslass sometimes (maybe 25% of the time?) will use Hex instead of Ice Shard on Gliscor->Aegislash, which does about 25% to Aegislash. (Ice Shard does slightly negative damage though.) At the time, I hadn't convinced myself that using King's Shield to recover health is safe on Aegislash (and I still haven't, but Froslass seems to Taunt un-Taunted Aegislash maybe 95% of the time (and I'm not entirely convinced the last 5% didn't have other weird stuff happening) so it's probably worth doing anyway), so I let Aegislash go down to 62 HP and figured I could take another Hex before I had to start getting worried (hoping to stall out Taunt and/or Hex before then). Naturally, the next Hex crits and faints Aegislash. I send Gyarados, and start switch-stalling between Gyarados and Aegislash before realizing Taunt had already run out (first obvious misplay, and Gyarados notably took a Hex in this process, which does decent damage), apparently even before Aegislash fainted. I proceed to subtect the few remaining Ice Shards, stall Thunder Wave in place, and prepare to set Gyarados on Struggle.
Gyarados comes in with 136 HP; Intimidate drops Froslass to -5. Froslass crit Struggle doesn't care and knocks me down to 89 health. Annoying, but whatever, it's fine. DD, Struggle, down to 79 health (maxroll, apparently, but not relevant). Scared of another crit leaving me too low to sub, I sub now; Struggle hits and the sub holds. DD to +2, and the last Struggle crits a third time and breaks the sub. In retrospect, the non-mega early sub was a mistake; if there's a crit, I'd lose the sub regardless so I may as well not lose the turn as well. Not mega-ing was definitely a mistake; mega sub survives even maxroll crit Struggle, and needs maxroll crit + maxroll non-crit (or two crits) to die from there. Early sub plus mega was probably the safest combination there. Yet another "why didn't I just hit the mega button" Marathon moment, I guess, though at least it wasn't multiple thousand battles in.
I now have a 34 HP +2 non-mega Gyarados and a full health, mostly fresh Gliscor. Second mon is Avalugg, which I clearly can't OHKO with Gyarados. But there's hope - Avalugg is generally non-threatening to Gyarados, so for it to come out second means it's likely Avalugg4 with Stone Edge. In this case, I should be able to go to Gliscor on Stone Edge (or maybe a random status move from something else? I'd guess they'd take the KO instead, but I don't know the AI super well), subtect down to Earthquake, set Gyarados to +6, and hope the third mon dies to a fully-set Gyarados.
Gliscor dies to Avalanche. Boo. Apparently it was set 1.
Gyarados dies to Stone Edge. Apparently it was not set 1, but in fact set 4, but decided it really didn't like me today. Not sure if its choice of Avalanche had to do with Gyarados being low-health (+0 Avalanche is a guaranteed KO; +1 is a range), or was just some low-odds weird AI thing that can always happen.
Weird AI quirks (anyone have any insights here?):
Avalanche over Stone Edge that one turn, obviously. Not sure what's happening there.
Last mon was apparently Aurorus, but it's Andrei so it's the weird hail set (Aurorus2). This suggests Freeze-Dry type effectiveness isn't considered when picking what to send out, which isn't necessarily surprising. (Though that is somewhat disappointing - if that gets sent out first, I clear it with Gyarados, at which point I can happily sac Gyarados to Avalugg and kill it with Struggle recoil.) I'm somewhat curious if it's calculated correctly when picking attacks. I wonder if you'd get similar stuff with Flying Press, for example (not that it's likely to matter for Marathon, but maybe this incorrectly favors sending Hawlucha4 against Rock types or something).
Interestingly, on replaying the video, Hex damage does not seem to (consistently?) consider bonus from non-volatile status when picking attacks. I'd wanted to Intimidate Froslass2 down to -2 to consistently force Hex over Ice Shard on Gliscor to avoid the risk of Ice Shard crit on the turn I start subtect. It seems Hex gets more likely (maybe 50%, up from about 25%) starting around -4 (though I just int'ed it down to -6; didn't do thorough experiments), but isn't consistent ever. Interestingly, the min rolls for -4 Shard, -6 Shard, and +0 Hex are all the same 28 damage on Gliscor (though -4 Shard almost always does 36 damage, and -6 Shard almost always does 28, and Hex is a normal-looking range from 28-34). And yet, even at just -1, there's still a non-zero chance to pick Hex over Ice Shard on Gliscor, which is what got me into this mess in the first place...