Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

[dgice]

I say if you're getting to the 50s, your team is probably good enough to make it all the way. I don't know what most people would consider a reasonable number of attempts, but for the streak I just posted, I think it took me around 10 tries after I started using the team that eventually made it all the way. Best of luck in any case!

The iv's increase at battle 49, so while it might be totally feasible to spike 7 wins to get to battle 56, I would say it's possible there is something missing from his strategy to really claim mastery. I've had a similar situation in the past where I designed a team that was really consistent about getting to battle 50, but hit a hard wall there.

His team does have some of the best pokemon on it though, so I'm wondering what the full sets are.

 

[Uncle Red]

The iv's increase at battle 49, so while it might be totally feasible to spike 7 wins to get to battle 56, I would say it's possible there is something missing from his strategy to really claim mastery. I've had a similar situation in the past where I designed a team that was really consistent about getting to battle 50, but hit a hard wall there.

His team does have some of the best pokemon on it though, so I'm wondering what the full sets are.

That's a fair point. I think I was assuming that each loss was just due to running into perfect counters at the wrong time and other typical Arena RNG shenanigans, but it's possible there's more to it than that. In any case, I share your curiosity about the full sets, which would allow folks to give better and more targeted advice.

 

[meleeisbetter]

I say if you're getting to the 50s, your team is probably good enough to make it all the way. I don't know what most people would consider a reasonable number of attempts, but for the streak I just posted, I think it took me around 10 tries after I started using the team that eventually made it all the way. Best of luck in any case!

ok thanks this is really helpful. Considering I'm like half way to 10 tries I think I can keep things as-is and get gold. Also I wasn't using the frontier assistant in my earlier runs and that thing is a total cheat code.

 

[meleeisbetter]

The iv's increase at battle 49, so while it might be totally feasible to spike 7 wins to get to battle 56, I would say it's possible there is something missing from his strategy to really claim mastery. I've had a similar situation in the past where I designed a team that was really consistent about getting to battle 50, but hit a hard wall there.

His team does have some of the best pokemon on it though, so I'm wondering what the full sets are.

Gengar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: Perfect Speed and Special Attack, rest are random (breeding)
- Ice Punch
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Destiny Bond

Snorlax @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 44 HP / 212 Atk / 204 Def / 44 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: Perfect (except special attack, breeding)
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Yawn
- Rest

Latios (M) @ Twisted Spoon
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Quirky Nature
IVs: Perfect (Sapphire battle tower)
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Claw

Gengar can kill a lot of things and beats dangerous bug sets/OHKO users (bar sheer cold) on lead which I love. If you face a bad matchup, rather than fainting and doing nothing, you can take it down with DBond. From there, snorlax can yawn>damaging move>rest to hopefully win judging and go into the last opponent healthy. Then as long as you survive their first attack and yawn, it usually lets Latios polish them off. I have thought about setup moves, like running Latios with Calm Mind over Dragon Claw, but I feel like best case scenario you get one CM, and if they wake up on an early turn they can hax you. With Gengar and Snorlax, both of which are designed to at least go 1 for 1, Latios feels like it just needs to beat whatever is left. I don't know a better item on Latios.

Feel like at least my last two runs have just been bad luck.
First was armaldo against gengar, dbond to double down. snorlax against medicham 3, which hits and crits dynamic punch to kill me. Latios kills it back but takes a weak ice punch in the process. Last is claydol 3, which takes 80% and crits me with ice beam (wouldn't have killed me otherwise).
My run yesterday ended before battle 30! flareon quick claw shadow ball killed gengar, snorlax KOs flareon and goes up against kingdra (one of the surf sets) which ties me (didn't pay attention to chesto berry, we both rested turn 3). Even if I had attacked 3 turns and knocked it out, I think I would die from their next Pokemon, Blissey. Blissey with seismic toss beats Latios in judging. While I could've used frontier assistant to see the kingdra set, it was an earlier streak so I didn't bother, which cost me here.

 

[ZLiNk]

I recently reached a streak of 89 on level 50 in the battle palace! I built this team around Skarmory since it's able to handle just about any physical threat, and it has access to curse which is a great setup support move. I paired Skarmory with Latios since it's an amazing pokemon that complements Skarmory really well with it typing and special bulk, allowing it to switch in on fire or electric moves. I originally was using Latios as a lead, which worked pretty well, but eventually I realized that Latios was ideal to have in the back with Skarmory. After trying many other different leads, I eventually settled with sassy Slaking as a lead since it can fairly consistently kill whatever's in front of it.

Here's the team:

Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: Truant
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Beam

Skarmory @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Atk / 12 Def / 4 SpD / 4 Spe
Hardy Nature
- Drill Peck
- Steel Wing
- Substitute
- Curse

Latios @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Substitute

The loss: I ended up losing to Registeel (5) that thunder waved my Slaking turn 1 after it was incapable of using its power. I switched into Skarmory in hopes of setting up and breaking through, but the Registeel set up double team and my entire team eventually got struggled to death. I was originally messing around with hidden power fighting on Skarmory, but the AI seems to have issues with correctly identifying the hidden power type in the palace, as Skarmory would randomly use hidden power when it made no sense and would not use it sometimes against things like Aggron. If Skarmory had aerial ace it would have eventually beaten Registeel, but then Skarmory is missing out on power it might need in other situations. It would also mean that Skarmory would opt for steel wing more often which is riskier since it can miss. Overall, I'm happy with this streak and I'll likely try to go further. Let me know if you have any suggestions to optimize any of these sets!

Proof:

I'm sorry to revive such an old post, but I have a sincere question, how do you get curse AND drill peck in skarmory? isn't that illegal?

 

[Joplin]

How’s it going everyone, first time posting! I’d like to submit an ongoing retail streak of 105 for the Battle Tower.

TEAM

Metagross (Knight) Lv. 50 @ Choice Band
Ability: Clear Body
Nature: Adamant
IVs: 31/30/31/9/30/31
EVs: 86 HP/252 Atk/172 Spe
-Meteor Mash
-Earthquake
-Shadow Ball
-Explosion

Caught on Emerald cartridge using RNG manipulation. (Frame 307113 on Method 1)

Blissey (Ninian) Lv. 50 @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
Nature: Bold
IVs: 28/30/30/0-1/31/22
EVs: 252 HP/252 Def/6 SpD
-Toxic
-Softboiled
-Counter
-Aromatherapy

Bred on Emerald cartridge using Male Roselia with Aromatherapy and Chansey with a perfect SpDef IV. Roselia was caught on Sapphire cartridge, and Chansey was caught on LeafGreen and also bred through several rounds for good IVs.

Gengar (Azazel) Lv. 50 @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid
IVs: 26/31/26/31/31/31
EVs: 128 def/252 sp. atk/14 sp. def/116 spe
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Punch
-Substitute
-Destiny Bond

Caught on LeafGreen cartridge using RNG manipulation. (Caught on Seed 0D65 [Advance 1476], Frame 6546 on Method H-1. Seed Offset 57 ms, Frame Offset 255 fr)

STRATEGY

Been lurking on here for a couple years and dreamed of making it on the leaderboards! This is my team that I call Bait & Switch; it’s been revised a couple times to account for most scenarios and come out victorious. Enjoy the write up, and please, let me know in any ways I can improve with the team or explanation!

Metagross does most of the work with Choice Banded Meteor Mash/EQ and can pick up a KO on turn 1 often. If the opponent has a Fire type move or might be using EQ, I have the option of switching in Blissey or Gengar respectively. Shadow Ball is there for Pokemon like Latios for example, and also Wobbuffet in case they don’t Counter turn 1. On other Psychic types like Starmie, I usually switch to Blissey to mitigate the risk of a crit. Explosion is there mostly for Snorlax, who I otherwise haven’t found a consistent answer to (other than Destiny Bond).

I trained this Metagross with 112 Spe, specifically with the intention of outspeeding most opposing Metagross and taking them out quickly. Of the 8 sets, 4 of them are OHKO’ed by EQ.

252+ Atk Choice Band Metagross Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Metagross-1: 156-184 (100.6 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO


It’s a 31% chance with the other 4 sets. Not the best, but I can switch to Gengar to pick up a quick KO with Thunderbolt.

252+ Atk Choice Band Metagross Earthquake vs. 170 HP / 0 Def Metagross-2: 156-184 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

Blissey is a great special wall that switches into most Fire types that Metagross doesn’t like. Blissey does a couple things; it Counters physical moves, and PP stalls out special attacking Pokemon. For Pokemon using Rest and Chesto/Lum Berry, she can stall them out enough so they use up the item and Rest again, at which point I switch. Leftovers is pretty standard to recover on damage taken from switching in.

Blissey’s speed IV is not the best, and it may come in crucial against opposing Blissey, but I figured the IVs in general were good enough. After a couple streaks/losses, I realized Blissey always outspeeds even the faster Hariyama by one point, so it’s always able to Softboiled even on a Rock Slide crit (assuming Cross Chop PP is stalled with Gengar). Given Blissey’s low base speed, I think its speed stat turned out okay enough, but I could see it being a potential weakness.

Blissey is a consistent answer to status moves with Natural Cure, and I’m also running Aromatherapy, which is the reason this Blissey is bred for. I use it in the Battle Pike/Pyramid occasionally, so it’s too good to give up for another move. However, It can situationally remove status afflictions on Metagross, like if Raichu uses Thunder Wave before going down to EQ. It also has some great potential with being able to force foes to reuse status moves on their last turn of Toxic, then getting a free switch into Gengar.

Gengar’s Thunderbolt/Ice Punch coverage allows him to hit most threats for supereffective, or at least neutral. Lum Berry and Substitute with 159 speed ensures he rarely gets statused, other than Attract (looking at you, Jynx-3).

Pokemon like +1 Atk DD Salamence-4 never kill Gengar on a switch in, even if they outspeed on turn 2.

+1 255+ Atk Salamence-4 Aerial Ace vs. 0 HP / 128 Def Gengar: 112-132 (84.2 - 99.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Gengar Ice Punch vs. 255 HP / 0 SpD Salamence-4: 210-248 (104 - 122.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Against the other Salamences with DD (5 & 6), it’s a 43% chance to KO with Ice Punch. Worst case scenario, Blissey has to Counter/land Toxic for the remaining 10% health. It’s definitely not ideal, but it’s not the worst matchup either.

+1 0+ Atk Salamence-5 Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey on a critical hit: 287-338 (79.7 - 93.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

I originally trained this Gengar for the Battle Dome and used Giga Drain for the third move. Instead, Substitute goes so far on a speedy Pokemon like Gengar. It acts as a better Protect that I can use repeatedly use to fish for misses on inaccurate moves, or for hitting a certain HP threshold to ensure I take it out with Destiny Bond. With Gengar’s speed, he’s rarely suffering a status affliction or stat drop with Substitute, and it also has the added function of scoping for opponents’ sets.

Altogether, the synergy between the three allows for most threats to be safely dealt with, even accounting for crits. Gengar’s weaknesses in Dark and especially Ghost are neutralized on Blissey switch in, which makes it fine to bait and switch back into Fighting moves. I’ve had to do this with a couple Pokemon like Machamp and Medicham to stall Cross Chop and Psychic PP respectively.

PS: I used to run Zapdos and Latios with Metagross. Both of them have good damage output, but I found they weren’t as consistent when it came to crits, and they’re also pretty squishy. Blissey and Gengar help to round out the team in a way that consistently deals with most high-risk threats.

THREATS

Blaziken2,4
I switch to Gengar and substitute, or Destiny Bond if I don’t have the health/Blaziken has Quick Claw. Blaziken is one of biggest threats for this team, so I’m usually comfortable sacrificing Gengar for it. If it crits Gengar on switch in, I Counter with Blissey on turn 2 and hope it doesn’t crit again lol

Machamp1,4,5

Machamp carries Scope Lens which I consider a high-risk item. I scope the set most of the time with Substitute, after a free switch in Machamp’s EQ or Counter. If it has Scope Lens, I usually sacrifice Gengar with Destiny Bond. Otherwise, I’m in a decent position to PP stall with Blissey.

Walrein3,4
Sheer Cold is a move I don’t have an answer to, not that there’s much outplay that can happen with it. I Meteor Mash on Metagross twice and hope it connects, but at least Metagross outspeeds.

Lapras7,8
For the same reason as Walrein, I don’t have much of an answer to Sheer Cold other than to Meteor Mash twice and hope it connects, but again Metagross is outspeeding here.

Scizor2
Quick Claw is scary, and Swords Dance makes it scarier. I switch to Gengar and Thunderbolt/Destiny Bond. Swords Dance gives it the capability to get out of hand, so I’m comfortable with the Destiny Bond sacrifice.

Venusaur
Most Pokemon that are immune to Toxic are threats, but Venusaur can be a threat if it Double Teams/only Blissey is alive.

Dugtrio3,4
Fissure from any Pokemon when Gengar is down is a scary time, and especially if only Blissey is alive. Dugtrio especially is fast and can take out Metagross on a crit, and Metagross cannot be switched in.

Donphan 3,4
Fissure without Gengar again leaves things up to chance, and Metagross has around a 20% chance to get OHKO’ed by Donphan’s EQ.

Gardevoir5,6,7
Depending on the set, Gardevoir can put me in a tough spot by using Destiny Bond on turn 1 and going down to Metagross’ Shadow Ball

I’m going to build on this streak actively so I’ll keep everyone posted with further results. I made an account today just so I could engage with you guys, so please let me know what you think! :)

 

[dgice]

Gengar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: Perfect Speed and Special Attack, rest are random (breeding)
- Ice Punch
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Destiny Bond

Snorlax @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 44 HP / 212 Atk / 204 Def / 44 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: Perfect (except special attack, breeding)
- Shadow Ball
- Earthquake
- Yawn
- Rest

Latios (M) @ Twisted Spoon
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Quirky Nature
IVs: Perfect (Sapphire battle tower)
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Claw

Gengar can kill a lot of things and beats dangerous bug sets/OHKO users (bar sheer cold) on lead which I love. If you face a bad matchup, rather than fainting and doing nothing, you can take it down with DBond. From there, snorlax can yawn>damaging move>rest to hopefully win judging and go into the last opponent healthy. Then as long as you survive their first attack and yawn, it usually lets Latios polish them off. I have thought about setup moves, like running Latios with Calm Mind over Dragon Claw, but I feel like best case scenario you get one CM, and if they wake up on an early turn they can hax you. With Gengar and Snorlax, both of which are designed to at least go 1 for 1, Latios feels like it just needs to beat whatever is left. I don't know a better item on Latios.

Feel like at least my last two runs have just been bad luck.
First was armaldo against gengar, dbond to double down. snorlax against medicham 3, which hits and crits dynamic punch to kill me. Latios kills it back but takes a weak ice punch in the process. Last is claydol 3, which takes 80% and crits me with ice beam (wouldn't have killed me otherwise).
My run yesterday ended before battle 30! flareon quick claw shadow ball killed gengar, snorlax KOs flareon and goes up against kingdra (one of the surf sets) which ties me (didn't pay attention to chesto berry, we both rested turn 3). Even if I had attacked 3 turns and knocked it out, I think I would die from their next Pokemon, Blissey. Blissey with seismic toss beats Latios in judging. While I could've used frontier assistant to see the kingdra set, it was an earlier streak so I didn't bother, which cost me here.

Oh yeah 5 is such a small sample size, probably just need to use the assistant and practice.

You worry about getting haxed if they wake up while you calm mind, but I don't see how dragon claw is helping you at all in that scenario. In a facility that directly rewards you for type effectiveness, running a move only effective against one type seems sub optimal. You want to be able to take advantage of the sleep turn so you can reverse sweep multiple pokemon.

Cheri berry and persim berry will probably help more than the amount of time twisted spoon would save a damage roll ( https://eisencalc.com/honkalculate.html?mode=one-vs-all looks like it matters against hitmonchan hitmontop, poliwrath, sudowoodo, lickitung, nidoqueen, miltank, greta silver heracross, machamp, raikou -special attack boosting nature would eliminate this list though). Though I wouldn't mind substitute leftovers as a worst case (though petya berry sounds better since at most you'll be on the field 9 turns, but the free health is better than nothing). If you predict status move you can out skill them with substitute.

To get into the realm of bad advice, I'd rather run dive leftovers than dragon claw because it would be a fun puzzle doing calculations about whether i win skill/mind/body by using dive twice even if it wouldn't be as good as something else.

 

[meleeisbetter]

I'm sorry to revive such an old post, but I have a sincere question, how do you get curse AND drill peck in skarmory? isn't that illegal?

That is in fact illegal, not sure how that didn't get caught

 

[meleeisbetter]

Oh yeah 5 is such a small sample size, probably just need to use the assistant and practice.

You worry about getting haxed if they wake up while you calm mind, but I don't see how dragon claw is helping you at all in that scenario. In a facility that directly rewards you for type effectiveness, running a move only effective against one type seems sub optimal. You want to be able to take advantage of the sleep turn so you can reverse sweep multiple pokemon.

Cheri berry and persim berry will probably help more than the amount of time twisted spoon would save a damage roll ( https://eisencalc.com/honkalculate.html?mode=one-vs-all looks like it matters against hitmonchan hitmontop, poliwrath, sudowoodo, lickitung, nidoqueen, miltank, greta silver heracross, machamp, raikou -special attack boosting nature would eliminate this list though). Though I wouldn't mind substitute leftovers as a worst case (though petya berry sounds better since at most you'll be on the field 9 turns, but the free health is better than nothing). If you predict status move you can out skill them with substitute.

To get into the realm of bad advice, I'd rather run dive leftovers than dragon claw because it would be a fun puzzle doing calculations about whether i win skill/mind/body by using dive twice even if it wouldn't be as good as something else.

this is helpful, thanks. I did find success as is with a few more attempts. I ended with tspoon but brightpowder was something else I considered.

Also curious maybe you or someone else could help me with this, but what's the IV glitch again? Something about failing in the battle tower makes the battle dome IVs 0? or is it the factory? does it work with 50/Open level, and does my last streak need to be 0 in the corresponding one?

 

[Joplin]

UPDATE #1

Hey everyone, I’m happy to report that my Battle Tower team, Bait & Switch, has successfully reached an ongoing retail streak of 154W!

In addition to the team’s playstyle from my first post, I’ve written some helpful tips when it comes to deciding what to do on the next turn, and expanded on the threatlist below.

It should be noted that this team relies heavily on taking time with choosing moves, especially when it comes to threats. As such, I’ve written a bit of a checklist of things to go over, before clicking anything. The idea is to mitigate crits and item activation among other things, and so far this system has been working out for me:

Before Clicking A Move:

• How many sets of a Pokemon are there?
• How many use Earthquake (free Gengar switch)?
• How many have Counter (may switch Gengar/Blissey if unable to OHKO)?
• How many have Fire Punch (switch to Blissey)?
• Does Metagross outspeed (112 Spe threshold)?
• How many have Quick Claw (20%), Scope Lens (1/16—>1/8) or BrightPowder (10%)?
• Viability of switch stalling Low PP moves (most notably Cross Chop and Fire Blast)?
• Viability of switching on turn 5 of Toxic (if the opponent might be using a Fighting/Normal/status move, free Gengar switch)

This checklist is a handy reference I’ve made, and it serves the purpose of helping the team to stay reliable and consistent. However, the team does have a couple weaknesses, especially when it comes to the faster, harder hitting Pokemon.

EXPANDED THREATS

Zapdos3
This Pokemon is at the top of my threatlist. I made a couple Reddit posts in the r/PokemonEmerald subreddit of my climb, and explained about my interaction with Zapdos3 there as well. Essentially, this Pokemon is CRACKED. 141 Spe with Leftovers, Substitute, Thunder Wave AND Pressure; making Blissey either get para’d, Counter the Sub, or Counter when it’s using Thunder Wave after I Aromatherapy. Even when Blissey does get the Counter off it’s on the Sub, and Zapdos just heals with Leftovers. With Zapdos, especially the one with Substitute, I try to stall out and Softboiled until Zapdos doesn’t have Thunderbolt/Drill Peck PP. The biggest issue is if Zapdos gets 2 crits, Softboiled PP runs out, or I misplayed by not using Softboiled early enough. After the PP stall however, it’s a simple switch. Luckily the one time I faced this Pokemon, it was Skarmory and Moltres in the back, both of which Gengar could reliably handle.

Starmie1
I also posted in the subreddit about this, but this is a Pokemon with a high amount of HAX things taking place. When I faced against it, Blissey got hax’ed into being inactive for 5+ turns, and Starmie crit Psychic 3 times including on turn 1, so it’s definitely something to watch out for. It could get the drop on the team with some lucky crits at the wrong time, paired with status effects.

Gengar
There are 8 opposing Gengar, which always outspeed my own, and have a lot of coverage moves. Fire Punch in particular means I cannot switch into Metagross from Blissey, if Blissey is paralyzed etc. My answer to Gengar is usually to stall it out of attacking moves; similar to Zapdos, but this is less of a threat.

Dugtrio3,4
I mentioned this in my original post, but I thought it’d be worth putting here again. I consider Dugtrio to be a valuable Pokemon to assume is in the back for worst case scenarios. Dugtrio outspeeds, hits extremely hard with EQ, and has access to Fissure. The reason this comes in useful is when I’m thinking of Destiny Bonding with Gengar on their 1st or 2nd Pokemon; sometimes I find it’s better to have Blissey go down rather than Gengar.

Machamp4
I had an interesting interaction with this Pokemon I think is worthy of highlighting. I switched into Gengar from Blissey, and was planning on switch stalling the Cross Chop PP out. However, when I used Substitute, instead of Flamethrower, Machamp used Rock Slide. This made me question if I could reliably send in Blissey; Machamp4 has Scope Lens, and a Rock Slide crit would chunk 50% of Blissey’s health. However, after switching out a bit and coming back in with Gengar, I realized Machamp always uses the 100% accurate move if it sees a kill, and Gengar was at 50% HP from Substitute. Therefore, I forced Machamp to use Flamethrower instead of Rock Slide on Gengar, which meant Blissey could reliably be switched in. This is a great example of how far Substitute goes on a high speed Pokemon like Gengar!

Registeel3 & Regirock2
Both have Counter; things could go badly if Gengar is unable to revenge kill on turn 2 after Metagross’ EQ. (Side note, it’s funny how the only 2 sets that run Counter also have Quick Claw…makes me question if that was intentional lol)

Calm Mind + Double Team Pokemon
Blissey can only be a wall for so long. If the opponent has Pressure especially, playing safe with Blissey is the play; if things start going bad, I’m forced to sacrifice Gengar. On the turns they rest, I can try to switch out and hit them once, but if it’s not connecting, it could be a potentially big risk. I’ve had to sacrifice Gengar to Entei1, who was the lead Pokemon, for this reason.

Golem
3 out of 4 Golems are carrying Quick Claw. However, something interesting to note is that with this team, if Golem gets OHKO’ed by EQ, it guarantees that the Pokemon in the back don’t have Quick Claw.

I’m extremely excited to have reached a streak of 150+W! Please let me know any ways this team could be improved upon, I'm open to feedback and might change the moves around after a loss!

 

[potatobagel]

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

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

Below is a breakdown of each streak with details.

Level 50 - 224 Streak:

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

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

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

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

Set Details

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

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

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

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

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

Set Details

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

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

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

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

Spenser Battles with Salamence-Snorlax-Suicune

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

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

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

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

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

General Playstyle:

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

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

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

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

More complex cases –

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Threatlist:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loss at Battle 225

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

Recording:

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

Open Level (Level 100) - 146 Streak:

Metagross - Latios - Swampert (Level 100)

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



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

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

Set Details

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

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

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

Spenser Battles with Metagross - Latios - Swampert

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

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

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

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

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

General Playstyle, Threatlist

General Playstyle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Threatlist:

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

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

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

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

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

Loss at Battle 147

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

Recording:

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

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

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

Thank you all for reading!

Addendum - Palace Programs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Theorymon]

Since this year is the 20th anniversary of Pokemon Emerald's US launch (and I'm also running out of useful things to RNG for use in Scarlet / Violet lol), I decided it's about time I actually try to get all the gold on Battle Frontier! But I want to go a bit beyond that...

My goal is to get a streak of at least 100 in every single battle facility!

I realize this is gonna take a while (especially Battle Factory good lord), but it sounds like a fun thing to strive towards regardless! I'll be doing Doubles Formats before I do Singles as well, and won't go for the gold symbols until I've done everything else!

So as of this post, I haven't actually gotten a streak of 100 in anything yet, in fact I actually failed 1 before the half way point even... but since its for Battle Palace Doubles Level 50, I got enough of a streak to get on the leaderboard regardless with 49 wins on a retail copy of Emerald!

(As for the name... I was a corny teenager and got this game a few months after DP came out in 2007, so for some reason I named my character after IVs / EVs / Natures together lol....)

My Battle Palace Doubles Level 50 Team


Marowak

Marowak (M) @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Atk / 240 SpD / 4 Spe
Sassy Nature
IVs: 31 HP / 31 Atk / 30 Def / 15 SpA / 30 SpD / 31 Spe
- Earthquake
- Ancient Power
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

Description

My first thought when I think about doubles in gen 3 is "holy crap Earthquake is busted", so that's what I wanted to focus on first with Marowak! Rock Slide was so pathetically weak in damage calcs that I decided to actually breed Ancient Power on my Marowak, especially since I feel like I shouldn't trust Marowak unleashing Perish Song at the correct time, probably better to make a team fully around Perish Song if I'm gonna use it!

The Attack EVs let Hidden Power Ghost OHKO Gengar, a mon I was rather worried about. It also happened to own a Latias so that's a plus! Otherwise since I chose Sassy so Marowak would attack as much as possible early in the match, I figured I might as well fully invest in special bulk. I think this was the correct choice, Marowak was actually quite bulky even while the barely invested in Earthquake was still doing BONKERS damage. The Speed EVs I think don't actually do anything, but due to the IVs I needed to get Hidden Power Ghost... I can't get an extra point anywhere else at Level 50 besides the useless Special Attack!

The big problem here is that once Marowak's HP was halved, it become pretty inconsistent... though Lighting Rod still ensured it wasn't useless either. Unlike Goomer22 's record breaking team, since Marowak can't explode, it did stick around for a while for better or worse. I have considered getting rid of Hidden Power Ghost and just having Earthquake and Hidden Power Rock after I make some changes to this team as well. I figure having a 60ish% shot to attack is probably more useful considering the offensive nature of this team, but hey maybe there's a better way!

The other reason why I used Marowak beyond "UNGA BUNGA EARTHQUAKE" is Lighting Rod, which we'll examine with the next Pokemon!

Gyarados (F) @ Lum Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 84 Def / 172 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 23 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 6 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge

Description

No that 23 HP is not some "eh its good enough" thing, I actually intentionally RNGed this baby to have that HP IV! The reason is simple: this makes Marowak have 1 more HP than Gyarados. If you have read Goomer22 's streak, nature targeting overrides all other targeting decisions. A lot of natures Special Attackers use like Bold, Timid, and Modest will target the Pokemon with lower HP, which meant a LOT of Ice and Grass type attacks that were aimed at Marowak hit Gyarados instead! The beauty here is that, normally this would mean Gyarados would be attracting a lot of Electric-type moves too, but with Marowak's Lighting Rod, I get that very important exception to the rule!

I went with Hasty mostly to have a decent chance to either Attack or set up Dragon Dance, which can prime Gyarados for late-game clean-up. Earthquake can be a bit irritating since Marowak gets hit by it, but otherwise I liked it. The big issue I felt is that since Hasty targets lower HP Pokemon, Gyarados would often miss some pretty obvious and juicy targets like say, a late-game Sceptile, and instead spam Hidden Power Flying on a Rock-type or something like that.

Because of this, I'm actually considering breeding an Adamant Gyarados with a much bigger focus on bulk, so I target the higher HP Pokemon instead. Due to the lower chance of attacking, I think I'd replace Double-Edge in this case with something so the support move isn't a bad lottery for me. I'm considering Taunt, Torment... and Leer of all things (mainly to let Marowak hit even harder!)

The EVs outspeed Timid Jolteon after Dragon Dance... well actually I only need 168 Speed EVs for that, but since the 4 extra EVs are useless at level 50 with these IVs, I just put them in Speed so it'll outspeed Jolteon at level 100 too! The Defense I just... put there because I was worried about Gyarados's bulk, I didn't really do any specific calcs. Gyarados honestly didn't feel that frail, but it's yet another reason I'm considering a bulkier take on it, because Marowak lets Gyarados stick around so much better!

Overall, Gyarados felt like a key part of this team, especailly with that lower HP IV, so I think even if I change up this concept, Gyarados is likely going to be staying in some form!

Gengar (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 31 HP / 0 Atk / 31 Def / 31 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Punch
- Fire Punch
- Substitute

Description

So I actually wanted Latios initially despite the Ice weakness, since I figure Calm Mind could help patch that up + it's just crazy good in general. Unfortunately I don't have a Latios that's any good in Emerald, let alone a Hasty one that fits Battle Palace... so for now I used this Gengar. Gengar's vast array of immunities did sometimes let me wall stuff using Normal-type attacks due to how nature impact targeting and it often coming out late at full health, so Gengar got through some matches without even a scratch! I seriously considered Psychic over Fire Punch for Gengar mirror matches, but Fire Punch roasting Steel-types has felt nice so far.

An important note: unlike later gens, Lighting Rod does NOT redirect your own Electric-type attacks, so Gengar was free to use Thunderbolt as she pleased!

Honestly despite the important back-up Earthquake immune being important and the usefulness of being immune to Explosion and all non-Sheer Cold OHKO moves, Gengar felt like the weakest link on this team, so next run I'm considering some replacements (beyond Latios unless I get ahold of a good Hasty one soon lol)



Besides the glorious Latios or Latias, Salamence feels like a good runner up. Salamence would let me do some nice Intimidate cycling which could help against boosted Rock Slides (looking at you opposing Marowak!), and prevent Curse from getting out of control. In this case, I'm leaning towards a Special Attacker, but I still want to consider a physical variant for more Earthquake spam. Only thing is then Ice Beam and Blizzard have particularly devastating potential late game, even if Marowak has been surviving none STABed ones.



Zapdos doesn't have as much defensive synergy as I want but, the Electric STAB could potentially help snuff out Walrein before I get Sheer Colded. Plus I JUST RNGed a Shiny Mewtwo today in FRLG, so RNGing a Zapdos for Battle Palace might actually be feasible for me lol. Also, I realize mixed attacking Zapdos seems a bit silly, but Drill Peck sounds nice against Grass-types if Marowak has taken enough of a beating to get targeted. I also appreciate that Zapdos is another Flying-type that isn't too worried about Electric-type attacks.



Yeah I actually considered Skarmory really early on before I was like "oh duh GYARADOS", specfically a Curse Skarmory with a Relaxed nature (so Curse will get chosen a lot early on). Idea was, a SpD Skarmory probably isn't too worried about most of the OHKO abusers, so while Marowak blasts stuff with Earthquake, Skarmory sets up. Once I realized I should try Gyarados, I put Skarmory aside because I'm concerned about having 2 Pokemon so vulnerable to Electric-type attacks once Marowak is down. Still, it is on my mind at least!

I'm probably missing out on a bunch of other potential Earthquake partners that fit in with Gyarados + Marowak, so let me know if you got some ideas anyone!



Dodrio is a really different pick then these other floaty mons: it's completely focused on offense at the expense of bulk. With Dodrio, I'm thinking I'd actually use Sassy Choice Band despite the Speed, or the less reliable Impish nature for targeting higher HP foes. Regardless, Dodrio isn't exactly bulky, so I might prefer to lead with it and keep Gyarados in the back instead maybe? Its sorta like a Flying Tauros (except no Intimidate unfortunately), so idk maybe its worth a shot!

My Streak Enders

So I had 2 streaks in Battle Palace Level 50 ended today. Let's take a look at them! And sorry for the jank videos, I need to either find where the hell I put my Game Boy Player disc, or invest in a DS AV out mod once I recover from buying the Switch 2 lol.

40 Streak Loss

This one is a funny example of how much of a big impact nature targeting has in Battle Palace! So this person leads with something terrifying for this team: Marowak + Shuckle! Now Shuckle may seem like a joke... but because its HP is so low, it might as well have an auto Follow Me! I swapped out Gyarados because at best it was going to uselessly Double-Edge into Shuckle, but in the end Marowak getting both flinches and the crit on Gyarados with Rock Slide did me in. Still, seeing Shuckle redirect everything to it like that has me wondering how handy a strat like that would be against a lot of Special Attackers / Hasty Pokemon...

This is also exhibit A on why I'm looking at some alternative natures, having EVERYTHING target the Low HP Pokemon can get me in some hot water as you can see!

49 Streak Loss

This one was a really funny freak loss. So you'd think Blissey wouldn't be a problem for this team right??? Turns out, no it took out both Marowak and Gyarados with Counter LOL, leaving Gengar helpless. Honestly outside of Dodrio or maybe Zapdos replacing Gengar, I don't think there was much I could do about this loss. Still pretty funny though!

Overall, This team idea still needs a LOT more optimization before I blast past 100 I think, but it's been pretty fun figuring this out so far! I really think the key to cracking this for really high streaks is going to be optimizing natures to target specific Pokemon, and optimizing your HP stats (even via lower IVs) to get the ideal targeting from your foes. At the very least, using the lower HP IV Gyarados generally felt like a boon rather than a hindrance most of the time!

 

[Croconaw Guy]

I have two streaks to share: 125 tournaments in the Dome and 525 floors in the Pyramid, both level 50.

I'll start with the Dome. First, the Dome Assistant link in the OP should be updated from the command line application to the far more usable web version I only found when Googling some of the intricacies of the selection AI, as I was making this app myself. It was nice to find that it had already been done, and this version of Dome Assistant was incredibly valuable in taking what is in my mind a pretty mediocre team to a steak of 125 tournament wins -- 500 battles. Major thanks to its creators.

As for the team, I used:

Salamence @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
IVs: 30 HP / 30 Atk / 30 Def / 26 SAtk / 30 SDef / 31 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Brick Break

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 136 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Surf
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Rest

Blissey @ Lum Berry
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 4 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
- Softboiled

The individual sets are obvious enough, so I'll talk a little bit about the combinations.

Salamence + Suicune was my go-to for the teams packing heavy physical hitters, and the dual utility of Intimidate and Pressure made those matchups far less tenuous than they normally are in other facilities. Whenever there would be a combination like Machamp + Ice Beam Water-type, I would always lead Suicune to avoid a freeze risk, and I found that when faced with Pokemon like that that were really more of Salamence's matchup, Suicune could usually hold up well thanks to Substitute and Pressure. I would also play this combination into certain combinations of OHKO hax Pokemon, but the unfortunate thing about Salamence is that it is just as vulnerable to a Quick Claw Ice Beam from Walrein or Whiscash as it is to a OHKO move, so I usually benched it for those while using it against things like Donphan, which I would switch stall.

Salamence + Blissey was probably my most seldom used combination, but Intimidate can really buy Blissey set-up turns against certain mixed attackers whose best move into Blissey would be something like no-STAB Earthquake. This team is really bad against Electric-types -- my first steak ended at 17 wins because Zapdos cheesed its way through Blissey -- so I would pretty much always choose this combo if I saw a Jolteon or, God forbid, a Raikou. This was a good combo for trying to rack up quick wins with Salamence (who is super fast and strong with a ton of guaranteed OHKOs against the low-IV Dome Pokemon) with Blissey as a security blanket who is more resilient against status (at least in the short term) than Suicune.

Suicune + Blissey lets you play the long game against many of the defensive cheese Pokemon of the Frontier and switch stall them without really fearing status. I should mention that Blissey's Lum Berry was much more useful than I anticipated given Natural Cure, and it let me lead Suicune or Salamence without fearing a Thunderbolt freeze or something. Calm Mind is excellent against Psychic SDef drops and making setup a little less painstaking than it is with Suicune. I generally chose these two together as a "safe" pick when it was a little unclear who to bring since Salamence has a little less margin of error without recovery or status clearing abilities. I also must have run into Whiscash 4 maybe 15 times and would pray that Suicune can dodge Fissure enough times to advance, which it miraculously did, but I played Blissey and Suicune into those types of OHKO spammers and it worked out for me.

I don't think this is an especially great team -- these Pokemon were RNGed and EVed to be optimized for Level 100 Battle Tower, and there are some awkward matchups, and I think I got pretty lucky with my OHKO RNG, but I'll take it. At 500 battles won, I've had enough of this facility, so while the streak is still ongoing, I will probably abandon it for a very long time.

As for the Pyramid, I used the same team for every round, regardless of the wild Pokemon. I found switching it around unnecessary once I found a Choice Band. Anyway, here's the team:

Slaking @ Choice Band
Ability: Truant
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Return
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Beam

It's obviously a total monster. Return is the STAB of choice because of its high PP and the nature of this facility making recoil tough, even with Softboiled. Adamant is much more useful than Jolly here as well -- I only really miss the Speed against Gengar and Espeon, and the extra power is useful in a ton of different situations.

Gengar @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SAtk / 176 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Ice Punch
- Perish Song

It's crazy how good Gengar is in this facility. Several wild Pokemon have no way to touch it, it's immune to Earthquake in double battles, it can hard switch into Fighting-types in trainer battles, and Perish Song is an escape hatch against all sorts of frightening Pokemon. For example, Blissey just needs to hold up against Calm Mind + Rest Pokemon long enough to force them into a non-Chesto Rest loop, and then Perish Song will do the rest. With a million Revives on the ground, you can also just sac Gengar against a difficult Pokemon and stall out the turns with Blissey or with items. I will say that this too being optimized for Level 100 is tough here -- instead of 300 Speed, these EVs do not creep the base 100 Pokemon, leading to awkward situations like tying with Salamence (made more awkward by needing to hard switch to Gengar from Slaking because Intimidate -- not to mention Brightpowder -- make for a rare losing matchup for Slaking). Not ideal, but this facility is also more tedious than it is difficult, so whatever.

Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 152 HP / 252 Def / 100 SDef / 4 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Aromatherapy
- Softboiled

This is just the standard failsafe Blissey, holding the team together with Aromatherapy and Softboiled, both of which it gets ample opportunity to use most rounds, as there is always some patsy wild Pokemon that Blissey can sit on.

Though there are a few troublesome Pokemon here and there (Scizor, both wild and trainer, kind of sucks to face) the reality of the Pyramid is that once you accumulate enough items, it becomes pretty damn tough to actually lose. Having passed 500 floors (plus a couple rounds to finish at a round number lol), I feel like this is pretty much a solved facility, and I have better things to do with my life than look for blue squares in the dark, so this streak too will probably be kept on ice unless I get really bored.

 

[Theorymon]

I've improved my Battle Palace Doubles Streak quite a bit! However...

IT WAS 1 AWAY FROM 100! How infuriating, in fact I was so incensed I forgot to save the replay lol... but it was an unfortunately memorable battle so I'll get to it in the loss section!
Like before, I focused on the Lighting Rod Marowak + Gyarados concept, but it's a fairly different interpretation of it as you'll soon see!


Marowak

Marowak (M) @ Thick Club
Ability: Lightning Rod
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 6 Spe
Sassy Nature
IVs: 31 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 21 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

So I actually decided to not mess with Hidden Power in light of potatobagel informing me of the AI not really using Hidden Power well (not the only way they helped in this run btw!). Rock Slide might be pathetically weak, but since every single Pokemon on this team targets foes with lower HP, I figure Rock Slide would often be used in scenarios where I WANT to damage both foes... which ended up being correct! The 6 Speed EVs are for outspeeding Brave Granbull, not a common foe per se but one that I figured "eh why not". It did happen a few times in my runs!

Gyarados

Gyarados (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 6 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 23 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 6 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Hidden Power Flying

So first off: the Gyarados is now shiny! I had a convenient shiny frame for a Sassy nature on Emerald, so I figured "eh screw it, let's go for it!".

For those that are confused by the nature and HP IV: the nature is because Sassy has a strong 88% chance of attacking turn 1, and the HP IVs like last time, ensure that most Special Attackers aim for Gyarados rather than Marowak due to most of them having a nature that targets lower HP Pokemon.

The big massive difference though, is the concept: I got annoyed by Gyarados opting to Dragon Dance instead of Attack for several runs, so I decided "just make her crush skulls" was going to be my new approach. AKA: Sassy to attack ASAP, and using Choice Band with ONLY Hidden Power Flying. Remember how I said Hidden Power and the AI don't mix great? Yet, I needed Gyarados to blast Grass-types before they touched Marowak after Marowak had greater HP (and thus became a target for a lot of Grass-types), plus Flying has a lot of handy neutral coverage... so Hidden Power Flying became Gyarados's only attack!

This worked shockingly well, especially when paired with the 23 HP IV ensuring most Special attackers aimed at Gyarados rather than Marowak (except for Electric-type attackers crucially, thanks to Lighting Rod!). The EVs are really not optimized, I just wanted to hit as hard as possible, and invested in Defense cuz "Marowak already is specially defensive". I DID have a lot of runs ruined by Gyarados getting frozen though, so I wonder if there's a better spread...

Regardless, Marowak + CB HP Flying Gyarados has ultimately felt like a REALLY effective combo that I'll be exploring further in Battle Palace Doubles!


Latios

Latios (M) @ Petaya Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 34 HP / 252 SpA / 224 Spe
Hasty nature
IVs: 30 HP / 0 Atk / 29 Def / 31 SpA / 27 SpD / 30 Spe
- Substitute
- Dragon Claw
- Waterfall

Big thanks to potatobagel for giving me this Latios!

So now that I had the much wanted Latios.. it actually still ended up being sorta the weak link, though mostly better than Gengar! I used to have Ice Beam + Thunderbolt + Psychic over Dragon Claw + Waterfall +... nothing, but Latios targeting the lower HP foes ended up being a MASSIVE problem for this team. As in, losing battles because of Thunderbolting Quagsire, Psychicing Umbreon, etc. So I tried to make this set less vulenrable to resists, hence Dragon Claw hitting most stuff neutral, and Waterfall being something to... sorta hit Steel-types without getting clowned by say, an almost dead Golem (which is something that has happened before with Thunderbolt lmao).

It did alright, but... Latios like Gengar, felt too frail for its own good a lot of the time. It's making me think that perhaps I need a bulkier final Pokemon to fit in with Gyarados and Marowak.

My Loss
So like I said, I forgot to record the replay because I was so irritated at losing at battle 99. It wasn't just losing at 1 battle away from my goal, but also the way it happened...

I got dunked on by Quick Claw Explosion Registeel LOL

So my foe leads with Registeel + Regirock, so I figure Gyarados is gonna be useless and switch to Latios. So far so good...

Unfortuantely, Marowak refuses to Attack despite the high chance of doing so. Not great, but it's a pretty low impact turn so whatever.

Next turn, Registeel explodes before any of my Pokemon can move, KOing Marowak and Latios (which was possible thanks to Intimidate not working on the Regis!). The Regirock then paralyzes my Gyarados, and next turn the foe's other mon, Xatu, confuses my Gyarados. To make things even worse, Gyarados actually knocks itself out ultimately over several painful turns lol...

Whats my plan for the next run?
As awful as that felt, Battle Palace being so automated means doing runs isn't the worst time investment in the world. But I think Latios still might not be the anwser here even if Marowak and Gyarados feel a lot more effective now! Some ideas on my mind...

I NEED a nature that targets higher HP Pokemon. These include...

Hardy, Lonely, Adamant, Relaxed, Impish, Lax, Jolly, Mild, Rash, Calm, Gentle, and Quirky (thanks Bulbapedia lol)

If I use something akin to Latios and want to have impressive coverage, I think I NEED one of these natures to make it work. Sadly none of these have the same great attacking synergy as Hasty does, but Gentle is on my mind for the extremely high Attack chance after falling below 50% health! Also considering Adamant and Relaxed for more defensive stuff, and Hardy if I think rolling the dice for attacking works out...



Skarmory is on my mind again. Not only could it have maybe saved me against the Registeel loss, but I had some very close shaves with OHKO mons that Skarmory could have been more reliable against. Plus with Relaxed, it'll set up Curse, so I could do something like Curse + HP Flying (since Drill Peck is sadly illegal with it), and have a high chance of attacking once below 50% of health. However, it's not really an immedidate attacker which is an issue in my eyes.



Gengar again?! But here's a catch: I want to invest in a LOT of bulk here to take advantage of Gengar being immune to so many physical attackers. Issue is, neither Gentle or Relaxed sound like great natures for Gengar, but Hardy's dice rolling is worrisome to me too... regardless, if I revisit Gengar, I think I REALLY need one of those targeting higher HP natures to truly take advantage of its impressive coverage!



Dusclops not being immune to Earthquake could be a serious problem... but it's really easy to justify a higher HP targeting nature with it thanks to its defensive focus, so it's on my mind! Plus it won't get murdered by Explosion which is a big plus.

If anyone has any other ideas, let me know! I THINK Gyarados + Marowak can work really well in palace, its just a matter of finding that ideal 3rd teammate...

 

[Goomer22]

Reporting 3 new personal bests (1 record)
Lv50 Singles Factory - 105
OL Singles Factory - 122
Lv50 Doubles Factory - 185

Details and Links

Lv50 Singles Factory 105

I was practicing Lv50 and OL singles trying to see which one I could get a streak going for. I streamed starting at round 12. I usually record all of my footage from Round 5 on, but I must have accidentally deleted this one since it was almost a year ago. The highlights from Rounds 12-15 and the round 16 loss are on my twitch here:
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16 Loss

I wouldn't say there is anything particularly notable about this run. I just kept making attempts and eventually hit some decent drafts and avoided bad luck (until the end). However, the Round 16 loss was hilariously unlucky which I'll recap here. Phrase is no type high risk. Draft is Meta-6, Aggron-1, Ampharos-4, Typhlosion-2, Regice-4, Exploud-1 of which I opt to lead Regice-4, then Meta-6, and Typhlosion-2.

The first mon is Whiscash which is likely to EQ and I don't have switch ins for, but Regice outspeeds and can 2HKO. Right away, Whiscash gets a quick claw Fissure KO on Regice.

So I send out Metagross to 2HKO with Psychic since EQ doesn't KO. I get a Psychic off, but Whiscash crits an EQ to KO Metagross.

Now it's a 1v3 with Typhlosion-2. Psychic did get a spdef drop which allows Flamethrower to finish off Whiscash and thankfully quick claw doesn't activate. 2nd mon is Weezing. Flamethrower has a roll to OHKO Weezing-3 and Rock slide into Flamethrower doesn't KO Weezing-1,2,4 so I would need 2 Flamethrowers to KO. I hit for about 90% and it sludge bomb poisons me. I KO with a T-punch and the last mon is Medicham. Right now I'm in blaze with 48 hp which means Flamethrower will KO all Medichams. However, Medicham-2 has Fake out. Even with a min roll on fake out, I will die to poison this turn. Of course, it ends up being Medicham-2 which fakes out and I die to poison on battle 105. Sometimes there's just not much you can do, but hey that's factory. Gotta play to your best odds.

OL Singles Factory 122

So this run definitely had some good luck involved in it. Starting with this Round 5 battle - Registeel-5
I have rounds 5-8 recorded offline which I'll upload to Youtube.
Rounds 9+ are in my twitch collection here: OL Singles PB 122

What I'll say about this run is that I definitely like to play fast, which is helpful for getting more attempts in and learning the format, but can also burn me sometimes when I need to find a very obscure line of play. This may have been the case for my final battle in which I ran into a combination of bad rng and bad matchups while I was playing fast.

I had Electrode-3 (3iv) lead with Kingdra-2 and Metagross-6 (both 31iv) against a water trainer. Slowking is the first mon which I could have boomed on, but I decided it was worth it to try and tbolt twice and save the boom. It quick claws me on the 2nd tbolt so I go Metagross to revenge. Tentracruel comes out next which Kingdra should be able to handle which I swap into on a Mirror Coat meaning it's Tentacruel 3 or 4. It ends up being Tenta-3 which is tricky because it outspeeds and will Ice Beam me. I don't want to rest stall it out of beams because it could freeze me and then get the KO. I figured I should dragonbreath to try and get the para, then rest up if it mirror coats. The first sequence of this works fine. But then it Beams while I'm at full health and mirror coats on the next dragon breath, putting me at 120 hp. As I try to rest it crits an Ice beam on me. I think I should have been aware of how much health I'd be at after a Mirror Coat and instead of dragon breath I should have ice beamed, ensuring to rest before I get into crit ice beam range. Metagross revenges as Tenta-3 Mirror Coats so then it's just a matter of 1v1'ing whatever is in the back - which ends up being Scizor-4. Not a great mon for Meta-6. Meteor Mash is unlikely to KO in 3 shots. I can reliably KO with 2 Thunder punches and 2 Meteor Mashes. With brightpowder on Scizor that seems more reliable and Thunderpunching earlier for the paralysis chance has some upside. Scizor uses Agility as I hit a Meteor Mash. At this point, since Scizor is below 70% HP it is unlikely to Swords dance. Turn 2 I hit a T-punch as it Silver Winds....and crits. At roughly 50% HP I can KO with a Mash and Tpunch. Since I have to hit a mash anyways I just go for it right away and miss as another silver wind hits. I will die to 2 more silver winds, but since Scizor is faster I'll only get 1 more move off. I can go for Meteor Mash crit or Tpunch paralysis. I opt to go for Tpunch paralysis since it has higher odds...and it crits. If I had just gone mash I would have won. Scizor hits its last 2 silver winds and I lose. Brutal loss, but ultimately I have to criticize my own play against the Tentacruel. The line I took for Meta vs Scizor was hard to know what was correct, maybe I should have just gone mash the whole time idk.

This run was extremely fun and pushing up on the record (126) at the time...which has been smashed now, congrats to LRXC and Wildcat.

Lv50 Doubles Factory 185

I couldn't help but think that the old Lv50 Doubles record (128) could be pushed farther. I had been making attempts at this for a while the past year and gotten a few solid runs above 100, one even ending in the low 120's. It's easy to have some high factory games similar to my Lv50 Singles loss where you just feel out of control and it's discouraging. But I knew with enough attempts I'd hit some good variance above round 9. So many of my attempts ended in rounds 5-9 while playing fast and not taking my time to find the optimal line of play. Without Noland, doubles factory is objectively easier in rounds 10+ than in the earlier rounds. I went through phases of trying to do full swaps (28 for 28) in rounds 1-4 for better elevations and long term value as well as no swaps to ensure I didn't lose in rounds 1-4 on a forced swap and just get more round 5+ attempts in. Ultimately, I feel like just playing the mid ground for reasonable swaps worked the best for me. I didn't feel particularly better about my games with 28 swaps going into round 5, but at the same time, going into Round 9 with no elevations was rough and ideally having even just 1 or 2 by that time was totally fine.

Some notable moments from this run:
Battle 69 (Round 10 B6)
I get into a 1v2 situation with Salamence-2 vs Intimidated Fearow-2 and partially curse boosted Quagsire-3. I end up having to swagger Quagsire which hurts itself in confusion and doesn't get Quick claw as I pick up the KO. I'm able to dodge crits/hax from Fearow using Tri attack in the process until I can focus it and take it out.

Battle 70 (Round 10 B7)
I won't go into too much detail, but I got into a situation where I had to 3v1 a Meganium-2 with Jolteon-4, Milotic-4 and Salamence-2. The strategy here was to waste all of it's leech seeds and substitutes by swapping around, while trying to keep Jolteon as healthy as possible since my other 2 mons have healing (Lefties and Recover) at which point I just need to hit a few moves in a row to KO.

Battle 85 (Round 13 B1)
I have Meta-5, Lapras-5, and Blastoise-4 vs a Latios, Ursaring and Claydol. Because Claydol will continually spam EQ and I don't have a great way to take down the latios my best bet is to get an explosion off with meta. Turn 2 Claydol EQs and Latios twaves metagross, thankfully I'm able to get the boom off and hit both (since Latios could be brightpowder).

Battle 99 (Round 15 B1)
I have Gatr-4, Mence-2, and Lax-8 but I have to face 3 pokemon with Ice Beam - Articuno-1, Tenta-3, and Slowking-3. Articuno freezes Snorlax on turn 3 but I immediately defrost. Slowking gets a quick claw on turn 4 to help KO Lax, but Gatr crits an aerial ace to finish off Slowking so I guess everything evened out haha.

Battle 107 (Round 16 B2)
My only solid physical attacker in draft was Golem-4 so I took it to EQ under Latios-6 with a Blastoise-4 in the back. I never really draft Golem and I was very quickly reminded of this fact. The lead was Sceptile Slaking which can both OHKO one of my mons depending on the sets. So I basically have to hope it's not Slaking-3 and that Sceptile doesn't crit Blastoise once Golem dies. It doesn't and thank goodness it ended up being Slaking-1.

Battle 115 (Round 17 B4)
I have Kingdra-1, Registeel-2 lead with a swapped Aero-2 in the back. Opposing lead is Flareon Golem. Hydro pump misses Golem and it immediately booms as Flareon chips Registeel so Boom takes out all 4 mons. 3iv Aero-2 now has to 1v1 something in the back. It's Salamence. Should be ok for Aero most of the time. I Ancientpower which does about 70% as Salamence dragon dances. Based on damage it has to be Mence-4. Its double edge does minimum 55% and it outspeeds me. Meaning I'm dead to crit or brightpowder miss. Thankfully it doesn't crit and AP lands winning me another stressful match.

Battle 138 (Round 20 B5)
I accidentally swapped for a Latias thinking it was Latias-2, but was actually Latias-8

Battle 142 (Round 21 B2)
I accidentally autoclicked with Misdreavous-4 thinking it's first move was Psychic, but it was Destiny Bond

Battle 149 (Round 22 B2)
No type impossible to predict. Lead is Vaporeon/Regice which makes it unbelievably likely to be Regice-5. I have Charizard-4, Articuno-3 with a 3iv Latias-6 in the back. Turn 1 Regice hits a raw thunder on Articuno as Vaporeon surfs meaning it's Regice-2 and a double impossible to predict mon (Clef-1 or Zam-3) has to be in the back. Later in the match Vaporeon crits a Bite on Latias to put me in the red. Clefable-1 is still alive which I have to hope doesn't click follow me so that I can finish off the Vaporeon. Thankfully I'm able to, but now I just have to make sure I don't get Metronomed. Next turn Clefable uses it and calls...Karate Chop barely not killing me and I'm eventually able to take it down.

Battle 169 (Round 25 B1)
I have Crobat-1 and Latios-3 vs a Steelix Misdreavous lead. This is terrifying because if Steelix gets a Quick Claw boom it's basically an insta loss. Steelix does get the quick claw...but body slams Crobat thankfully.

Battle 171 (Round 25 B3)
Still Crobat-1 and Latios-3 with Rhydon-3 in the back vs a Snorlax/Aerodactyl lead. This lead is scary regardless, aside from the fact that on Turn 1 Aero-2 crits an ancientpower to KO my Latios as Snorlax curses. Thankfully I screeched the Lax so that Turn 2 I can double it with Sludge Bomb Brick Break, knowing that Crobat will die turn 3 and Rhydon will have to 1v2 Aero and something else. The back mon is Aggron which thankfully doesn't get a quick claw and I can KO with EQ. Rhydon hits the rock tomb roll allowing me to KO Aero the following turn, but with any AP boosts that game could have taken a turn or if I had missed my Turn 1 screech.

Battle 183 (Round 27 B2)
Water High risk trainer. I have Zapdos-3, Donphan-2 lead with Arcanine-2 in the back. Lead is Metagross/Swampert. The annoying thing about this lead is that EQ doesn't always KO Meta which means I'd have to double it with Zapdos. However, if I EQ, Swampert could counter and KO Donphan. I can double up and KO Swampert 3/4 with EQ Drill Peck, but Swampert 1/2 live and then Meta could potentially Quick Claw boom turn 2 especially if it's at low health. I end up doubling the Meta and Swampert-3 counters. Milotic is in the back. Crunch Tbolt doesn't always KO Milotic. Ice Beam freezes could have been a worry but thankfully it's Milotic-3. I double the Swampert and am able to clean up.

BATTLE 185 (Round 27 B4) THE LOSS
No type no phrase and the lead is Regice/Latias. This is one of the worst leads I could face. Some Latis KO Donphan with Ice Beam before I can even move. I can't double up Regice to KO. Regice sees a guaranteed KO on Donphan and a KO on Zapdos 43% of the time (assuming it's 252 SPA Ice Beam Regice). This means I can't reliably swap in Arcanine for Donphan to take the ice move as it could be targeting Zapdos. I thought about swapping for Donphan and Substitute Zap but there is also a decent chance Latias just targets the Zapdos with a move and breaks the sub. I can actually KO Regice with Flail + Drill Peck if Donphan is at 1hp, but Latias will be faster and KO since Donphan-2 doesn't have Salac Berry.
Turn 1 - I decide to thunder wave the Latias to let Donphan be faster as well as hope for some full paras while Donphan endure's hoping to take the Regice Beam. Regice does in fact Ice Beam Donphan, but Latias goes for thunder wave into Zapdos. This is devastating as Regice will now get another move off unless I crit a flail. With no type no phrase it was less likely to be a thunder wave Latias as well.
Turn 2 - At this point I'm really hoping for some full paras now. I decide to run with the flail and Drill peck into Regice. Flail gets it low, but this time Regice actually targets the Zapdos seeing a kill, but barely misses the roll. Zapdos gets fully paralyzed and Latias doesn't, KOing donphan with a dragon claw. Ok so now it's low health Regice, paralyzed Latias and something in the back vs my red hp paralyzed Zapdos and Arcanine-2. I figure if I can KO Regice with Fire Blast and Tbolt something in the back maybe that will pick up the KO or Arcanine can finish it off and 1v1 the paralyzed Latias.
Turn 3 - I do hit the Fire Blast to KO Regice, but Zapdos and Latias both get fully paralyzed. It's Machamp in the back. Machamp never sees an EQ KO on Arcanine so it will always go for Zapdos. My only play is to Fire Blast the Machamp. It lands, but so does Machamp's cross chop into Zapdos KOing it. Latias lands a big Dragon Claw into Arcanine. 2 more and I'm dead. Meaning I have to hit another Fire Blast into Machamp and hope for some full paras.
Turn 4 - I KO machamp with Fire Blast, but Latias ends all hope with a Dragon Claw crit through paralysis. Streak over.

There's a couple different lines I could have taken during that game, especially turn 1, but it's very hard to know which one was correct. I could have just EQ'd and twaved, sacking Donphan and letting Arcanine come in to clean up Regice. It's obviously easier to analyze with hindsight. Ultimately this game was lost before the battle even started. I needed to think about my Regice matchup more. My first big OL Doubles run ended when I had a Zapdos against a Regice as well. This streak I had the opportunity to swap Donphan for a Metagross a couple battles ago. I really don't like taking 3iv no bulk Metagross's and I prefer to stick with 31iv mons in general as well. Donphan felt ok as a pretty fast EQer and I needed an answer for Electrics/Rhydon/Golem. Metagross doesn't even do that much worse into them than Donphan even if it was a Meta without EQ. And Metagross helps my Regice/Lati matchup too. Zapdos is such a generally good pokemon I really should have thought about what's threatening for it rather than what's a generally good partner (i.e. fast EQ). Hopefully I'll take my own advice in the future, but sometimes you just run into the bad matchup too. My main goal was just to beat my old record, but then once I saw another 200 in view I was really hoping to just make it there again. Especially getting such a good mon like Zapdos-3 in draft you sometimes feel invincible and it felt within reach. Just 2 more decent drafts and dodging bad luck. It will have to wait for next time. I know it will happen and if more people ran doubles it could certainly happen for anyone who puts the attempts in. Some runs are doomed to fail, but the ones that aren't you need to capitalized one. Best of luck.

Rounds 5-9
Round 10
Rounds 11-12
Round 13
Rounds 14-15
Rounds 16-17pt1
Rounds 17pt2-18
Round 19
Round 20
Round 21
Round 22
Round 23 pt1
Rounds 23pt2-24
Rounds 25
Round 26
Round 27 and Loss

 

[Valentino23]

The leaderboard has been updated! Please reach out as usual if I have missed your streak or incorrectly added something.

A few things to note...

1) As brought up by ZliNK, Jeez Louise used an illegal Skarmory for one of their streaks. Consequently, all of their streaks have been removed for now. My apologies for not catching this earlier. Despite our best efforts, sometimes even relatively obvious things slip by. Legal egg moves combinations can be tricky and are certainly something I should brush up on. Thank you for bringing this up regardless.

2) As suggested by Croconaw Guy, I have added the web version of Dome Assistant, created by Actaeon and Mow. It should now be on the first post.

Have a great day.

 

[ARocketFactory]

Howdy everyone! I'd like to submit my battle factory streak to the leaderboard. The streak ended at 54 wins (so close to 55!)

I streamed the full streak in two parts. You can find the streams on my Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ARocketFactory

This is my first post, so if I am missing anything needed for submission, please let me know. Hopefully you will see more submissions from me in the near future :)