Challenge 4th Generation Battle Facilities Discussion and Records

Ok I lied, I'm not done with the Battle Frontier in Gen 4 just yet. I have one more post and streak that I want to share with all of you in this forum/thread. Would like to share a streak of 234 wins in the Battle Hall in Pokémon HeartGold SoulSilver on a DS cartridge with Garchomp. I know, I know. Garchomp has been used so many times in the Battle Hall that it's not even worth making a post and submitting a streak for it since it's so trite and cliche. But I still wanted to try it out just to see how OP Garchomp is and how far in the Hall I can go with it before inevitably running into Weavile or getting screwed over by hax (i.e. getting frozen by an Ice type attack or missing with Outrage against a BrightPowder or Lax Incense mon).

My Garchomp set:

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang

This is by far the most common Garchomp set in the Battle Hall and for a good reason. Outrage is the main sweeping move here and can pretty much OHKO or at the very least 2HKO every mon in the game besides Steel types, which get annihilated by Earthquake instead. Speaking of Earthquake, Earthquake is used to hit Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, and Steel types for super effective damage. Sword Dance is used to play around Salac Berry, Sitrus Berry, BrightPowder, or Lax Incense Pokémon that normally get 2HKO'd by Outrage, reducing the chance of losing due to a miss (though will go into detail later in this post about how I lost in the Hall due to this) or the AI outspeeding you the next turn after Salac Berry activates or the AI avoiding the 2HKO from Outrage due to Sitrus Berry activating. Fire Fang is used (and needed) against Abomasnow or else you will auto-lose to it due to the recoil damage you take from Hail. Focus Sash is used to ensure that Garchomp will always survive at least one hit against Ice type moves or critical hits, allowing it to pretty much beat every mon in the Hall besides Weavile (since it also has Sash and has priority moves in Ice Shard and Quick Attack).

Like almost everyone else in this forum who used Garchomp during their Battle Hall streaks, before battle 170, I went with this order in order to get the Gold Print, doing one type per set from hardest to the easiest, in order to get the toughest mons out of the way first/early in the streak (namely Weavile) as opposed to later in the streak.

ICE, DARK, WATER, GHOST, GROUND, GRASS, FIGHTING, NORMAL, PSYCHIC, FLYING, BUG, DRAGON, STEEL, ROCK, POISON, FIRE, ELECTRIC

After Battle 170, I did the types in this order:

ELECTRIC, FIRE, POISON, DRAGON, STEEL, ROCK, PSYCHIC, FLYING, BUG, GHOST, FIGHTING, NORMAL, GRASS, GROUND, DARK, WATER, ICE

(yes, it's literally the same order as how Nickm65 reached 283 wins)

Here's the Silver Print battle win vs Hall Matron Argenta on Battle 49:

Here's the Gold Print battle win vs Hall Matron Argenta on Battle 170:

And here's the loss on Battle 235 to Whiscash:

I didn't record any of my battles during my Gold Print run from Battle 1-170 back when I first started playing the Hall, but I did record all of the battles from Battle 171 to Battle 235 when I lost. I put them all in a playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx6a8ZnZU6GAFnfs2fjWtoPigvGmyEN-j

I first started playing the Battle Hall back in August 2023 and got the Gold Print (with Garchomp) almost immediately (within the first two attempts of playing it). Back then, my only goal was to get the Gold Print and I wanted to get it as quickly as possible, so after beating Argenta on Battle 170, I stopped playing the Hall in order to focus on other facilities in the Battle Frontier (namely the Factory and the Tower). I initially didn't want to resume my streak in the Battle Hall due to the fact that so many people on this forum have already used Garchomp for their streaks in the Hall and I would just be coming across as a copy cat at that. But then I realized that I can record my own battles (post 170) which can differentiate me from other users who used Garchomp in the Hall so I decided it was worth it to resume my streak with Garchomp and see how far I can go with it before I inevitably lose.

Since I used a Level 100 Garchomp for my Gold Print run in the Battle Hall, I decided to stick with it rather than use my newly bred Level 50 Garchomp that I used during my DP Battle Tower streak (plus my Level 100 Garchomp has max IVs in every stat while my Level 50 Garchomp only has 25 IVs in defense and 30 in special defense).

I also learned recently that it’s better to bring in a Level 100 Pokemon during your streak in the Hall when battling post 170, than it is to bring in a Level 50 (or any other level) mon. The reason why is because if you bring in a Level 100 Pokemon during your post 170 streak, the AI will always use Level 96 Pokemon (which is 4 levels lower than you) whereas if you bring in a Level 50 Pokemon during your post 170 streak, the AI will always use a Level 50 Pokemon too (so the same level as you). So it’s definitely a lot easier to achieve a higher streak in the Hall with a Level 100 mon than it is to with a Level 50 (or any other level) mon in the Hall. So even more ammunition for sticking with my Level 100 Garchomp over my Level 50 Garchomp even though it was caught in the wild (a long time ago) and not bred like my Level 50 Garchomp was.

Anyway, I got up to 234 wins in the Battle Hall. I lost on Battle 235 to Whiscash. I read piplupness’s post about his Battle Hall streak with Garchomp and all the threats to Garchomp in the Hall that he faced during his streak and what to do when you face them (i.e. whether you should use Swords Dance on Turn 1 or go straight to Outrage on Turn 1) and for Whiscash, he said to use Swords Dance on Turn 1 since it has Lax Incense, in order to reduce the chances of losing by hitting it in one turn instead of two, which is what I did (Apparently Outrage doesn’t OHKO Whiscash at +0 even with the 4 level difference so the only way to OHKO it on Turn 1 is to get a crit on it and hit through Lax Incense). Well, what ended up happening was that I used Swords Dance on Turn 1, it used Blizzard on me and hit (70% accuracy) and took me all the way down to my Sash. I was fortunate enough to not get frozen from Blizzard (10% chance). I was however unfortunate on the next turn when I used Outrage on it, it MISSED and Whiscash used Water Pulse on me which obviously knocked me out and ended my streak in the Hall. Had Outrage hit on Turn 2, I would've easily been able to knock out the Whiscash. I lost because of a 10% chance. That’s all there is to it. Oh well… It happens.

I don’t remember the win probabilities off the top of my head for using Swords Dance on Turn 1 vs using Outrage on Turn 1, but I’m fairly certain that using Swords Dance on Turn 1 was the correct move to make rather than using Outrage on Turn 1 and praying that it hits twice (or gets a crit on one of the two turns) through Lax Incense. Either way, I'm done with the Hall and the Battle Frontier in general in Gen 4. I have zero ambition or intention of playing the Hall again in order to achieve a higher steak than what I just got. If anything, I’d probably end up getting a lower streak than the one I just got and get screwed over by hax even earlier than I did before. And I have even less ambition and intention of playing the Arcade or the Castle. So yeah. I'll probably be taking a break from this thread and Pokemon in general for some time but I will be back some day. Thank you all so much for your support and best of luck to all of you in your Gen 4 Frontier endeavors!
 

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Scottobozo said:
I'm currently challenging myself to get a 130+ streak with one pokemon for every letter of the alphabet in Battle Hall Singles (to fill out the records menu in Soul Silver). I got a few 170+ records to share. All of them are done on retail with RNG manipped mons.

Bronzong 185, using one with levitate & one with heatproof. Video of battle 169 & 170. The levitate one has more SpD EVs, and the heatproof one has more Def EVs, both also have max HP EVs, though I didn't save the exact spreads anywhere.

Bronzong @ Variable item (usually lum berry or or choice band/specs depending on which type I'm facing)
Ability: Heatproof
Sassy nature
0 Speed IV
-Gyro Ball
-Grass Knot
-Psychic
-Earthquake

Bronzong @ Variable item (usually lum berry or power herb)
Ability: Levitate
Quiet nature
-HP Fire
-Earthquake
-Solar Beam
-Payback

Dragonite 171, lucky enough to get this on my first try. Ended up losing to Yanmega since I didn't realize it had defense EVs.

Dragonite @ Choice Band or Focus Sash
Adamant nature
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Fire Punch
-Brick Break (I don't think I ever used this lol)

Espeon 183, surprised how far this one went.

Espeon @ Choice Specs or Focus Sash
Modest nature
-Psychic
-Shadow Ball
-HP Fire
-Grass Knot

Garchomp 184, just another in the sea of garchomp records.

Garchomp @ Choice Band or Focus Sash
Adamant nature
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Swords Dance (only used it for wobbuffet)
-Flamethrower

I also have a 36 streak in Factory Singles Lv50. Before I started going for this Hall challenge I was inspired by werster to grind the factory, which is how I got enough BP for all the moves and items I needed. Unfortunately it was too long ago for me to recall any details, but I'll get around to beating it eventually.

Hopefully I'll have more to share soon, just finished a 156 streak with Octillery and am starting Porygon-Z. Once I'm done with my alphabet challenge I'll try to get some weaker mons to 170 on emulator.
Edit: made links work
Click to expand...
I updated the links here so they actually go to relevant images. I also have a new streak to share. This one is brand new so I actually remember details this time.
Togekiss reached 178 in Hall Singles with this set (it's not that good lol):
Lv 30 Togekiss @ Choice Specs (or scarf, or focus sash)
Hasty nature
Max SpA / Spd EVs (the last extra ev can't even do anything at lv30)
-ExtremeSpeed
-Air Slash
-Aura Sphere
-Roost
Type order: Electric (sash), Psychic, Ice (sash), Ghost, Rock, Water, Dragon (sash), Ground, Poison, Normal, Flying (sash), Dark, Bug (sash), Fighting (scarf), Fire (scarf), Steel, Grass
There's no good reason for it to be level 30, aside from the fact that I'm going for 130+ with a Pokemon from every letter of the alphabet, and my workflow was to do all the RNG manip at once, then all the training at once, then all the battles. Since I didn't want to spend months training, I took the lowest level I possibly could on most of them. This has the added benefit of battles actually going fast since the health bar doesn't take forever.

ExtremeSpeed was used to beat Weavile, and as a backup if I got paralyzed by one of the electric types. Air Slash and Aura Sphere cover just about everything. The only hopeless matchup this Togekiss has is against Aerodactyl, which I avoided completely by doing Rock type to rank 8, then skipping 9 and 10 with the Argenta fights. This is why I do rock 5th, because the first 8 ranks are quite safe, but I need to skip rank 9 with battle 50. Luckily Aero is quite rare when going through flying types.

I never ended up using Roost, but I actually should have. On flying rank 10 I encountered Noctowl. I missed one of my air slashes, and it crit one of its air slashes. I could have, and should have used roost here, but my speedrunner instinct told me to send it with air slash, and I won anyway. This is a very niche scenario though, and I should have brought a different move. Something like HP Ice would've been very helpful, but I manipped max IVs which is HP Dark, so I would've had to breed another, get another shiny stone, and train it, which I didn't feel like doing.

Argenta 1 brought Rapidash, which is a very likely victory with specs. It died to its Flare Blitz recoil on turn 1 after tanking Specs Air Slash. Argenta 2 brought Houndoom, which is a safe 1 shot with Aura Sphere, though it had a small chance to win with a high roll Flamethrower crit.

Dragon ended up being very funny. I tried to use the rest trick to only get Altaria, since Dragonite can be a little sketchy. I ended up getting Altaria on rank 6, 7, and 8. Then on rank 9 I got Latias, and on rank 10 I got Flygon. Not what I expected, but at least Togekiss's SpDef gets to shine.

It might look weird to bring sash to Flying, but there are 2 reasons for this. One, it's possible for me to die to Staraptor if it has Reckless and is a high enough level. Two, if I bring specs I will hit Salamence into its Liechi berry, which is not good.

Doing Dark so late might also look weird to some, but Weavile is practically nonexistent in Dark, so the biggest threat I'm likely to encounter is Honchkrow, which didn't show up. Sharpedo is very often going to come out after Shiftry, and my hasty nature perfectly lets me outspeed it which makes me heavily favored to win.

I brought Scarf to fire/fighting because I calculated that bringing specs doesn't help that much, and I need scarf to outspeed Infernape when it's level 28 or above, since it's able to kill with fake out + close combat.

After battle 170 I brought specs, and went through most of the types I beat with specs the first time (grass, steel, dark, normal, poison, ground, water, and psychic). Then I picked Dragon, and it turns out Dragonite was Outraged that I was able to skip it in the first 170, since it got the max roll from Outrage needed to OHKO my Togekiss.

I still have a few heavy hitters left in my alphabet challenge, but it'll probably be a while until I get to them, because in the interest of theming, I'm going for a streak of 130 with unown.
 
Okay, this is going to be a bit of a different post because I'm not posting my own results, but the results of a bot I made. To be clear, I am not submitting them as "official" runs to be considered in the leaderboard (and none of these are recorded, so it's "trust me bro"). This is just a fun side project I've been working on and wanted to share the results. These are all done on a Pokémon Platinum emulator in the Singles Battle Tower.

First up, I noticed that with Garchomp's Outrage, especially at lower levels, you can click the whole time 'A' and just win (sometimes in a single 'A' press), and even going in between battles, you can just spam 'A' to accept all of the text and whatnot. This led me to the "Only A Team", where I got a 115 battle winstreak.

garchomp.gif

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage

suicune.gif

Suicune @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
- Surf

scizor.gif

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch

I chose Garchomp for... obvious reasons. Suicune because Garchomp can't handle bulky steel types (e.g. Aggron, Metagross, Steelix) but a water type with a strong surf would wipe the floor with them, and Suicune just seemed like the best choice. I went with Scizor last because I saw a Choice Band Scizor somewhere, tried it out for myself, and I was surprised by how effective it was. The way this works is that it basically always leads Garchomp, then when it faints, go to Suicune, then Scizor. I did this programmatically on an emulator, so I'm able to grind games at 8x realtime speed, which was helpful because we lost. A lot. But we were able to go surprisingly far. About 2/3 runs beat Palmer 1 (actually, Palmer 1 is a major run killer because if he sends out Rhyperior first, it's just an instant loss, but Milotic and Dragonite are instant wins). About 10% of runs get to Palmer 2, and it's always a free win because Suicune is a beast and can almost singlehandedly wipe his team.

It worked surprisingly well and got pretty close to my own 136 winstreak, but this was after thousands of runs and 10s of thousands of games.
 
After that, I wanted a strategy that is better than "A button go brrr" and I settled on a simple method that just searches over all possible attacks, plays out the game until a stopping criteria, and then chooses the best attack. After some optimizations with a better search criteria and more efficient code, I created my V2 Search Agent, which achieved a 1227 winstreak. If this was a legit run (which, to be clear, it isn't), it would place 3rd on the Battle Tower leaderboard. Here's the team I used:

garchomp.gif

Garchomp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang
- Swords Dance

suicune.gif

Suicune @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind
- Toxic

scizor.gif

Scizor @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Aerial Ace
- Superpower

This is also the team I use when I'm doing the Battle Tower myself, but my own best winstreak is only 136 battles so... my bot has gone about 10x farther. It genuinely works great. The search is pretty efficient: I just boot up 4 copies of the emulator, select a different move in each copy, do that move on turn 1, and then for the rest of the game (or until my current Pokémon faints), I just choose the "main" move (which is generally the most powerful, e.g. Outrage or Surf). There are still ways I can improve it (like a better team, or choosing a different move during search, or even searching with a depth of 2, or also searching to see if swapping to a different Pokémon is better), and I'm currently implementing stuff like that.

In the meantime, I'll be occasionally streaming runs to my Twitch Channel for the 'Only A' agent or Search V2.
 
Arcade Doubles - 469 on emulator
Proof: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdjZlt0mcSrMqwaVDsRRVPnJGxvMq6Ore
(streamed live on my twitch channel, uploaded to youtube for posterity)

I used a few different teams throughout this streak:
Battles 1-49
Azelf
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 30 SpD
- Explosion
- Protect
- Grass Knot
- Shadow Ball

Garchomp
Ability: Sand Veil
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 252 Atk / 244 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Swords Dance
- Protect

Zapdos
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 3 Atk / 30 Def
- Discharge
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Protect

Super basic explosion+disquake team. I only used this for the first 49 battles since the early opponents won’t always fall for the bait on the following teams.

Battles 50-133
Metagross
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 236 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Punch
- Iron Head
- Explosion
- Earthquake

Ninjask (F)
Ability: Speed Boost
Level: 31
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 1 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD
- Protect
- Substitute
- Dig
- Toxic

Gyarados (F)
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 236 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Waterfall

This team is based on a similar idea that Magpie had briefly tried in Tower Doubles. The general idea is that most opposing pokemon won’t see a KO on metagross, but will see a KO on ninjask, and thus will always target ninjask. This gives metagross a couple “free” turns to attack. Ninjask will almost always use protect on turn 1. After one speed boost, ninjask outspeeds every opponent with the exception of speed boost yanmega. Then, turn 2 ninjask will (almost always) either use substitute or dig. Gyarados exists as a switch-in for fire types that see a KO on metagross. Metagross is EVed to not get OHKO’d by any of the infernape sets, and Gyara is EVed to safely be able to switch into all fire types that also run Thunderpunch/Thunder Fang.

Some major weaknesses of the team (in no particular order):
-getting frozen by blizzard
-gyarados getting burned on switch-in
-trick room
-getting flinched by fast rock slide users
-some mons (ex: mr. mime2, exeggutor2, gliscor3, lapras2, tentacruel2, dewgong3, etc.) won’t see the kill on ninjask and can attack or status metagross
-it’s possible to get “checkmated” by trainers who lead with a fire type+electric type/tbolt user. This is most common with vs ace trainers/rangers/veterans/socialites/gentlemen that use legendaries. Certain combinations will see a kill on both metagross AND gyarados (for example entei4+zapdos2). In situations like this, you either have to get a good pull from the roulette (skip, rain, opponent paralysis, swap teams) or just hope to get lucky that the fire type doesn’t target metagross.

Battles 134-231
Metagross
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 236 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Punch
- Iron Head
- Explosion
- Earthquake

Ninjask (M)
Ability: Speed Boost
Level: 31
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 1 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD
- Protect
- Substitute
- Dig
- Toxic

Gyarados (F)
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 236 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Waterfall

After battle 133, I swapped out the female ninjask for a male one. This ensures that rivalry nidoking2 will see a kill on ninjask with dragon pulse (and thus won’t use horn drill). Relatively minor optimization.

Battles 232-470
Metagross
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 236 Atk / 4 Def / 156 SpD / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Punch
- Iron Head
- Explosion
- Earthquake

Ninjask (M)
Ability: Speed Boost
Level: 31
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 1 HP / 29 Atk / 0 Def / 0 SpA / 1 SpD / 28 Spe
- Protect
- Substitute
- Dig
- Hidden Power [Fire]

Gyarados (F)
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 20 HP / 236 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Earthquake
- Double-Edge
- Waterfall

After battle 231, I swapped out ninjask again, this time using HP fire 30 over toxic. I did this to have more insurance against blizzard-users freezing metagross. Both HP fire and toxic have very niche use cases, and the team honestly functions about the same regardless of what the fourth move on ninjask is. There is also probably merit to defog or spite as a fourth move, though I haven’t tried either of these.

I didn’t end up using HP fire a single time for its intended purpose of thawing metagross this streak.
How I lost:
I ran into a nasty ice trainer (happened to roll sandstorm on the roulette). They lead lapras+regice with dewgong in the back.
Turn 1, I explode with metagross to avoid disaster scenarios with lapras2. Regice gets OHKO'd and lapras survives, but faints to sandstorm damage; dewgong comes in.
Turn 2, I EQ with gyara and sub with ninjask. Dewgong reveals itself to be dewgong3 by missing sheer cold.
Turn 3, I Double-Edge+Dig. Dewgong survives and hits gyara with sheer cold. The situation is now dire. I need to either crit dig or have dewgong not use rest.
Turn 4, Dig hits, no crit, dewgong uses rest. The battle is basically over at this point. Ninjask can't survive long enough with sandstorm up to have any reasonable chance of winning.
I use dig for the next several turns until dewgong eventually lands a sheer cold on ninjask.

In hindsight:
-using EQ on turn 2 was a blunder. Dedge or protect were both probably better plays.
-I also should have used protect on turn 3 to get an additional turn of sandstorm chip on dewgong.
-if sandstorm wasn't up, ninjask has a much better chance of winning the 1v1 vs dewgong3 (although sandstorm did ensure the kill on lapras, I think it did me more harm than good overall this battle). However, The sandstorm cluster was by far the safest cluster on the roulette, and it would have been hard for me to foresee a situation like this (let alone plan around it) so far in advance.

I’m bad at writeups. Feel free to ask questions for clarification
 
Reporting a recent 51 multi battle streak on HG/SS that I did with my brother that ended to a double team Milotic.


^^^^^ Video proof of the streak number as well as the unfortunate loss.

Set:

Garchomp - Yache Berry
Jolly - 252atk 252spd 4hp
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide
-Hidden Power Grass (Had Flamethrower 2 sets prior)

Zapdos - Leftovers
Bold - 248hp 228def 32spd
-Discharge
-Thunderbolt
-Heat Wave
-Roost

Lucario - Life Orb
Adamant - 252atk 252spd 4hp
-Close Combat
-Earthquake
-Ice Punch
-Extreme Speed

Gengar - Focus Sash
Timid - 252spatk 252 spd 4hp
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Energy Ball
-Psychic

Leading with Discharge + EQ is pretty standard, very nice synergy and let us just mash A 95% of the time while watching videos on YouTube until streak 6.

For Garchomp we originally had flamethrower for scizor (even though Scizor wasn't a big threat compared to some of the other weaknesses that plague this team) But then opted for hidden power grass to cover the water ground mon that can be quite annoying in all honesty. We didn't run calcs (never do) so it was quite funny to see Gastrodon tank a 4x effective hidden power grass and not even drop below 50%, nonetheless surprisingly not the reason why we ended up losing.

For Zapdos we had thunderbolt so that we could target specific mons like Gyarados and Skarmory (as well as Milotic, had Zapdos lived that long...) that wouldn't fall to a Discharge immediately, and that couldn't be taken out easily by Garchomp either. Heat Wave was just a solid move to have for coverage, surprisingly not missed once during that run. Roost I only used 2 times and that was in the set prior to the loss, this Zapdos set was a full copy paste from Smogon DP and am not sure if it's ideal for this setting.

Lucario serves the purpose of being a revenge killer (again, didn't run any calcs but it kills, if not heavily dents most pokemon from full hp in my experience). I didn't have much opportunity to make great use of Extreme Speed but its a great move to have. Ice punch is good coverage. EQ a good move to have in case Garchomp is no longer alive.

Gengar was piloted by my brother, and i think we gave it a solid moveset though the only one in question is psychic as I feel we could opt to have destiny bond on it though i'm not sure if it would be better overall, maybe someone can suggest a better setup.

Overall there's not much to really evaluate in terms of the loss, we weren't as concentrated as we should've been and rushed the gameplay. I feel as though Close Combat over the EQ would've been the game winner, though it was fairly easy and quick to get to 51 wins so I'm sure we'll get there again, and beyond. Like mentioned before, I don't run calcs, nor do I bother to pull up a list of all the opponent pokemon sets, we simply just go off memory as we have a decent rough understanding of the opponents potential movesets, from having spent 300+ hours each in the Battle Factory. I did however use the speed tiers posted here to decide how many EVs to dedicate to speed on some mons as we also don't have the best IVs on our mons either, because IV breeding for near perfect IVs is too time consuming, and there's more to life than spending weeks for a singular pokemon with perfect or near perfect IVs (not as bad in gen 5 onwards from changes to breeding if i recall correct).

If anyone has tips for improving the team, changing certain pokemon completely with other alternatives, or even just gameplay and decision making advice, all of that input would be greatly appreciated and very welcome. Getting super high streaks in this gamemode isn't do or die for me as I know the AI is very unforgiving and will likely try to put an end to those ambitions immediately, though it would be cool to experiment with some niche strats in the future.
 
Hello everyone, hope you're all doing great! Recently, I live-streamed a full PtHGSS Battle Tower Doubles run for a different community, featuring "Team #7" from this post from last year. I thought it was worth sharing here as a complement to that post.

I also streamed a DP Battle Tower Doubles run for fun, using a modified version of "Team #5 - 2.0".

I had a lot of fun playing facilities, but this is where it ends. I'm moving on from this hobby and gaming in general. Thanks for the memories!
 
Hey all! I have decided to challenge the Diamond & Pearl battle tower, and it has been my life for like the past week, and I wanted to post about my team, its strategy, and my experience playing it lol​

My team is as follows:

Starmie@Expert Belt
Ability: Natural Cure
Nature: Modest
EVs: 6HP/252SpA/252Spd
-Surf
-Psychic
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Beam

Gengar@Focus Sash
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Timid
EVs: 6HP/252SpA/252Spd
-Shadow Ball
-Thunderbolt
-Destiny Bond
-Energy Ball

Garchomp@Razor Claw/Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Veil
Nature: Adamant
EVs: 96HP/252Atk/160Spd
-Earthquake
-Outrage
-Fire Fang
-Aerial Ace


So, the main strategy with this team is as follows:
I lead with Starmie and have it sweep as many of the opponents Pokemon as I can.
Once it faints, I switch into Gengar. Assuming Starmie didn't KO anything before it fainted, Gengars main role is to finish off what KO'd Starmie, and then Destiny Bond the opponents next Mon, resulting in a 1v1 with Garchomp (and if Starmie KO'd their first Mon and got KO'd by their second, then Gengar just finishes the match)
Garchomp only has two jobs on this team. To finish off the opponent in a 1v1 scenario as mentioned above, or to swap in from Starmie if the opponent has an electric type, or starts evasion spamming.
If Garchomp gets swapped in from an electric type/evasion spammer, then I stay with Garchomp until it faints, and pretty much do the same strategy with Gengar, except having Starmie finish off the 1v1.

The team does noticeably struggle with fast dark types, like Weavile, or anything that outspeeds with a dark move (Lass Mckenna had a Medicham that outsped both Starmie AND Gengar! It took both of them out with Thunderpunch, and then Psycho Cut! It was truely scary). I've had fights where Starmie gets OHKO'd from, typically, an outspeeding Weavile (which was the opponents first Pokemon) and then Gengar has to Destiny Bond it before it can even take out the opponents second Pokemon, leaving Garchomp to deal with 2 Pokemon rather than just 1

I am conflicted on what item to give Garchomp. I think the Choice Scarf is the best bet, but I really hate being locked into 1 move, especially in a worse case scenario. So I have opted to use the Razor Claw for a higher crit chance, but I feel like it could have a better item.


What do you think? Does this team stand a chance, or should I take it back to the drawing board? I have yet to reach Palmers 2nd match, although I have gotten close a few times.​
 
Scottobozo said:
I updated the links here so they actually go to relevant images. I also have a new streak to share. This one is brand new so I actually remember details this time.
Togekiss reached 178 in Hall Singles with this set (it's not that good lol):
Lv 30 Togekiss @ Choice Specs (or scarf, or focus sash)
Hasty nature
Max SpA / Spd EVs (the last extra ev can't even do anything at lv30)
-ExtremeSpeed
-Air Slash
-Aura Sphere
-Roost
Type order: Electric (sash), Psychic, Ice (sash), Ghost, Rock, Water, Dragon (sash), Ground, Poison, Normal, Flying (sash), Dark, Bug (sash), Fighting (scarf), Fire (scarf), Steel, Grass
There's no good reason for it to be level 30, aside from the fact that I'm going for 130+ with a Pokemon from every letter of the alphabet, and my workflow was to do all the RNG manip at once, then all the training at once, then all the battles. Since I didn't want to spend months training, I took the lowest level I possibly could on most of them. This has the added benefit of battles actually going fast since the health bar doesn't take forever.

ExtremeSpeed was used to beat Weavile, and as a backup if I got paralyzed by one of the electric types. Air Slash and Aura Sphere cover just about everything. The only hopeless matchup this Togekiss has is against Aerodactyl, which I avoided completely by doing Rock type to rank 8, then skipping 9 and 10 with the Argenta fights. This is why I do rock 5th, because the first 8 ranks are quite safe, but I need to skip rank 9 with battle 50. Luckily Aero is quite rare when going through flying types.

I never ended up using Roost, but I actually should have. On flying rank 10 I encountered Noctowl. I missed one of my air slashes, and it crit one of its air slashes. I could have, and should have used roost here, but my speedrunner instinct told me to send it with air slash, and I won anyway. This is a very niche scenario though, and I should have brought a different move. Something like HP Ice would've been very helpful, but I manipped max IVs which is HP Dark, so I would've had to breed another, get another shiny stone, and train it, which I didn't feel like doing.

Argenta 1 brought Rapidash, which is a very likely victory with specs. It died to its Flare Blitz recoil on turn 1 after tanking Specs Air Slash. Argenta 2 brought Houndoom, which is a safe 1 shot with Aura Sphere, though it had a small chance to win with a high roll Flamethrower crit.

Dragon ended up being very funny. I tried to use the rest trick to only get Altaria, since Dragonite can be a little sketchy. I ended up getting Altaria on rank 6, 7, and 8. Then on rank 9 I got Latias, and on rank 10 I got Flygon. Not what I expected, but at least Togekiss's SpDef gets to shine.

It might look weird to bring sash to Flying, but there are 2 reasons for this. One, it's possible for me to die to Staraptor if it has Reckless and is a high enough level. Two, if I bring specs I will hit Salamence into its Liechi berry, which is not good.

Doing Dark so late might also look weird to some, but Weavile is practically nonexistent in Dark, so the biggest threat I'm likely to encounter is Honchkrow, which didn't show up. Sharpedo is very often going to come out after Shiftry, and my hasty nature perfectly lets me outspeed it which makes me heavily favored to win.

I brought Scarf to fire/fighting because I calculated that bringing specs doesn't help that much, and I need scarf to outspeed Infernape when it's level 28 or above, since it's able to kill with fake out + close combat.

After battle 170 I brought specs, and went through most of the types I beat with specs the first time (grass, steel, dark, normal, poison, ground, water, and psychic). Then I picked Dragon, and it turns out Dragonite was Outraged that I was able to skip it in the first 170, since it got the max roll from Outrage needed to OHKO my Togekiss.

I still have a few heavy hitters left in my alphabet challenge, but it'll probably be a while until I get to them, because in the interest of theming, I'm going for a streak of 130 with unown.
Click to expand...
I ended up cutting my unown grind short with a record of 124, which I sincerely hope nobody tries to beat, it was an awful experience (lost to rank 5 Pachirisu picking thunder and paralyzing). After that, I was immediately rewarded when I planned out my Vaporeon streak, and on my first attempt, made it all the way to 182 with this set:
Vaporeon (lv. 30) @ Choice Specs or Choice Scarf
Modest Nature
Ability: Water Absorb
IVs: 30 SpA, 30 SpD (for hidden power)
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
  • Surf
  • Ice Beam
  • Hidden Power Ground
  • Shadow Ball
I used Scarf to outspeed important opponents like Jolteon and other fast electrics, Gengar, Scyther and other fast flying types, and Infernape in Fire. I played it a bit risky sticking to Specs when I did Fighting, iirc a rank 10 Infernape was favored to kill me if I got it when I did fighting, but luckily I got Gallade, which I was able to 1 shot thanks to bringing Specs.
My type order was Electric -> Grass -> Psychic -> Ice -> Dark -> Dragon -> Bug (scarf) -> Poison (scarf) -> Ghost (scarf) -> Fighting -> Water -> Steel -> Normal -> Ground -> Flying (scarf) -> Fire (scarf) -> Rock
Psychic early is to avoid shenanigans with Wobbuffet making me redo everything. Poison is just early enough to avoid issues with all the grass/poison dual types. Normal is done late because I'm still able to 2 hit Snorlax with specs, and Blissey almost never shows up, so it's not worth considering.
After reaching the gold print, I went through most of the types I did with specs again with specs, doing the safest types first. After 180, I swapped back to Scarf in hopes of clearing all 17 types again, but it was cut short by an untimely appearance of Gengar, who survived shadow ball, put me to sleep, and I didn't wake up before it killed me.
 
Glad to see there's still a discussion going on here in 2025! I started ascending the battle tower on an emulator yesterday. I'm currently at a 28 streak in doubles, starting with a Garchomp Swords Dance and Tailwind lead. I realized there were too many openings in my strategy for the CPU to exploit, so I changed my team to something completely different and I'm really happy with what I have here.


Lapras (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 2 Atk
- Perish Song
- Ice Beam
- Substitute
- Protect


Kangaskhan (F) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
IVs: 17 SpA
- Fake Out
- Substitute
- Protect
- Sucker Punch


Wobbuffet (M) @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 228 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
- Counter
- Mirror Coat
- Safeguard
- Encore


Latios @ Soul Dew
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 7 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunderbolt
- Surf
- Protect

I start by leading with Perish Song on Lapras and Fake Out on Kangaskhan. After the Perish Counter falls to 2 I switch Kangaskhan for Wobuffet to trap the lead of the CPU. Latios may seem out of place, but I chose him because he is immune to fissure, and has amazing stats for dealing with any threats that escape the Perish Trap.

The biggest weakness of my team is the potential of Wobbuffet getting focused and KO'd during the first perish trap. I have two Psychic types on my team, so Ghost, Bug, and Dark type leads by the CPU can cause problems for me.I see a lot of star-studded records on this thread, but in my brief skimming I haven't found a perish trap team. Has anyone tried them? What do you all think of the perish trap strategy for the battle tower?
 
Altissimo said:
You can't enter Soul Dew in the Tower.

Edit: Apparently I heard wrong. It can be brought in but it won't do anything.
Click to expand...
Thanks for pointing this out. I thought I was crazy when Latios was underperforming according to my damage calculations! I've changed the team again to account for the lack of Soul Dew, and brought my streak up to 42. Perish Song feels amazing! After some more experience, I feel like I can share some useful information so others can have success with Perish Song in the Battle Tower.

Turn 1 always starts with Kangaskhan and Lapras. Most of the time Lapras will Preish Song while Kanga uses Fake Out on the highest threat. The biggest threats are OHKO moves and infatuation, confusion, paralysis, or flinch; Anything that can stop Perish Song from going off. The most annoying threat is a Fake Out user faster than Kanga that targets Lapras, but thankfully the AI doesn't always use Fake Out when available. Sometimes a situation occurs where there are multiple threats to cancel Lapras's turn, so Kanga uses Fake Out on the threat with the greatest odds to cancel Lapras. Inner Focus is another big counter here, Confuse Ray + Inner Focus can be particularly annoying if the CPU decides to confuse Lapras if it can't use Substitute in time, for instance versus a Crobat that knows Confuse Ray.

Turn 2: Most of the time this turn is for using Protect on Lapras and Kanga. This turn can also be a good time to discern whether a second Perish Song will be helpful in defeating the last two opponent's Pokemon.

Turn 3: Wobbuffet MUST switch in on this turn. After the "(Pokemon) Perish counter fell to 2!" message, the CPU will always have an opportunity to switch unless Wobbuffet is in play. Why this is the case instead of following "(Pokemon) Perish counter fell to 1!", I am uncertain. This strategy already feels powerful and cheesy enough, so this is not a complaint that Shadow Tag takes a turn to activate by any means. If a prediction tool is being used to foresee the opponent's remaining Pokemon, this is a good time to decide if Latias should setup for the final 2 Pokemon with Calm Mind and/or Substitute, or if Lapras and Kangaskhan need to come back in and setup another Perish Song/Fake Out/Protect combo.

Turn 4: Wobbuffet can safely switch out now, because at the start of the turn the opposing Pokemon must switch out or faint to Perish Song. However, because Shadow Tag was activated, the CPU could not switch and the opposing Pokemon's perish counters will fall to 0. This turn should be used to determine how you want to posture for your opponents remaining Pokemon. Ideally Lapras and Kanga are in position to setup the aforementioned combo, or Latias is setup with Calm Mind or a Substitute. If it is known that the opponent's remaining Pokemon will have annoying status moves, Wobbuffet can also use Safeguard to prevent them, if Latias can't hold onto her Substitute this turn.

Turn 5: By this point the opponent should only have two Pokemon remaining, and the player's side of the field is postured to be the most punishing to the CPU as possible. This means there is a guaranteed way for the player to win, or it is more likely than not that the player can win. Future guides will likely elaborate further on how to respond if multiple Pokemon are lost by this point, once more experience in the Tower is acquired. Thanks for reading!

Here's the team:


Lapras (F) @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shell Armor
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Perish Song
- Ice Beam
- Substitute
- Protect

Kangaskhan (F) @ Shed Shell
Ability: Scrappy
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
IVs: 17 SpA
- Fake Out
- Return
- Protect
- Sucker Punch

Wobbuffet (M) @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
EVs: 28 HP / 228 Def / 252 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Counter
- Mirror Coat
- Safeguard
- Encore

Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 116 HP / 140 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Thunderbolt
 
Well, I don't know who this person is but thank you very much for helping us all comprehend what happened behind the scenes of my longest streak here and the one that sparked the spiral of paranoid accusations and continuous dismissal of my explanations in the first place.



As you can see by the great explanation by Mow here, the AI becomes dumb AF when the "leader of the team -up" is the D/P copy and the second, or "guest" is one of the gen 4 games with a frontier (Pt/HgSS), which is exactly what we did using my only Pearl copy as the leader, and then my Heartgold (or 6arci's Platinum I can't remember which one exactly, since we didn’t think it would make any difference as long as the sets of the opponents were determined by the first game which was always Pearl).

And that was precisely the reason why I refered to it in the singular (Pearl Spanish retail copy) during my original post (because we didn’t use 2 cartridges of the same version).

Now it makes much more sense to me that we faced so much more seemingly close calls during the run (to the point where I kept calling it probably the luckiest one) where there were a lot of instances when a combination of mons which in other modes or games would have meant the end of it, here they seemingly decided to spare us (when I can see now they were just not using the best logic).

So I really hope this is taken as one more example of why doing proper and careful reasearch is very important and much more fruitful and conducive of the truth than shamelessly throwing shade while refusing to calmly discuss the situations and negating explanations when they don't support your vigilante fantasies.
 
Carloss97 said:
So I really hope this is taken as one more example of why doing proper and careful reasearch is very important and much more fruitful and conducive of the truth than shamelessly throwing shade while refusing to calmly discuss the situations and negating explanations when they don't support your vigilante fantasies.
Click to expand...
bro you lost the two attempts to livestream in like 20 battles each. whether or not your streaks are legitimate you didn't show it in the one time you agreed to stream so that we can be free of doubt. can you just take the L
 
Altissimo said:
bro you lost the two attempts to livestream in like 20 battles each. whether or not your streaks are legitimate you didn't show it in the one time you agreed to stream so that we can be free of doubt. can you just take the L
Click to expand...
And once again you just showed yourself as one of the assholes who is more preocuppied about having to admit they were wrong in the first place than trying to mantain a trustful and sincere community here.

You know perfectly I did those attempts under very much different conditions than the ones i played or agreed upon in the first place (I said I will try to replicate them in emu with speed ups, and since that wasn’t possible for me to stream I tried then playing retail so you could see how the team was played in the ways I told you if anyone was interesting in replicating them). Hoping also that I could get another streak of similar lenght to put things to rest which sadly I couldn’t.
I should have probably let that other streak for another time instead of continuing it right after the dissapointment of the first one and the stress of the whole situation of having to stream. But whatever.

Even then, I accepted that I couldn’t provide what at the time of my postings I thought I already did: unequivocal proof. When I posted I thought my explanations and screenshots were enough, then Jheisinho took the time to explain me how today a 3ds can be hacked and pkhex used to alter the streaks so I today concurr with those who see live video as the best proof right now.

And since then I just focused on trying to communicate with the mod so he can change the rules and state clearly in them what will be required of you in case you get a meaningful streak, so noone has to experience what I did (feeling that they have to go back and do it all over again) which was my main goal of the previous post.

So for the love of god, get down your autoperceived high horses and stop making a drama about this. Accept that some of you were wrong and kept smearing others just to fulfill your superiority complex.

Take your own L bro.
 
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I'm back with another Battle Hall streak for Infernape, bumping my previous singles streak to 185 (Overheat missed against BrightPowder Wailord), as well as a doubles streak, also at 185 wins, which I'll discuss below.

infernape.png

@ Focus Sash
IVs: 29/28/18/31/18/31
EVs: 0/252/0/0/12/244
Nature: Naive
Lv. 100
Moves:
  • Close Combat
  • Fake Out
  • Leer / Sunny Day
  • Shadow Claw / Rock Slide / Thunder Punch
infernape.png

@ Focus Sash
IVs: 29/31/27/31/16/31
EVs: 0/16/0/252/0/240
Nature: Naive
Lv. 100
Moves:
  • Overheat / Solar Beam
  • Fake Out
  • Nasty Plot
  • Shadow Claw / Rock Slide / Role Play
Doing doubles with Infernape lets it take even better advantage of its great mixed attacking stats and relatively wide movepool. The EVs max out damage while putting you ahead of anything in the Hall that Infernape can outspeed (Infernape maxes out at 346 speed, but the closest is 342, so these sets are at 344 and 343 respectively). The one point difference in speed removes any issues related to speed tying with yourself.

Anyone who's played VGC (or any other form of doubles) knows how good Fake Out is, and that applies here as well. Breaks sashes, gets chip damage, and allows a max of one opponent to attack on the first turn. This creates opportunities to set up or attack while minimizing damage done to your team, usually resulting in at least one team member having its Sash still intact. Fake Out also can't be remembered if forgotten since it's an egg move, so it's good that the move is so valuable.

Nasty Plot also can't be removed due to being a pre-evo move from Chimchar. Although it's not quite as essential as Fake Out, it does have several use cases to secure KO's. Having it on both Infernapes would restrict movesets too much, so only the specially invested Infernape keeps it.

Close Combat is the third move that doesn't leave the sets at all, but that's because it's so incredibly good instead of a game mechanic. The safest way to get through the early portions of most rounds is to lead with Fake Out on the special biased Infernape and CC on the physical biased Infernape, followed by another CC. This avoids any accuracy issues from leading with both CC and Overheat. Rock, Normal, Ice, and Dark all become much easier with CC constantly on the team.

I've covered why Overheat is preferable in the very short games of the Battle Hall before in my previous Hall Infernape post (best mix of power and accuracy). The only additional caveat is that the activation of Blaze is much less reliable in the doubles format and thus can't be taken into account when calculating damage, but it certainly is a nice boost when it does come in.

Infernape mainly struggles against five types: Water, Ground, Flying, Psychic, and Dragon. Water and Ground will be covered in the next paragraph, but Flying and Psychic are weak to two of Infernape's TM moves: Rock Slide and Shadow Claw. Additionally, the Dragon types that aren't as easily dipatched with Close Combat are the part Flying Salamence, Dragonite, and Altaria. The lower power of these moves necessitates both Infernapes having the move at the same time. Leer also helps with the weakness of these moves since it lowers the defense of BOTH opponents, making it useful against things like Slowbro or the aforementioned Salamence (double Intimidate goes crazy). The spread damage of Rock Slide and increased crit rate of Shadow Claw also come in handy in certain situations.

If you look at the threat list in my previous Hall Infernape post, you'll notice that there are a LOT of dangerous Water types. Fortunately, the mechanics of weather means that Sun takes effect immediately after using the move. This includes the damage nerf to Water moves AND the charge turn removal of Solar Beam. At a consistent 120 BP over the more variable Grass Knot, this makes Solar Beam a lot more attractive to run in doubles. This is also why the physical biased Infernape is one point faster, as it will be the sun setter when applicable. Even with this, there are a few opponents that would be still able to win, if not for the rather obscure find in Infernape's movepool: Role Play. Role Play changes the user's ability to that of the opponent. The ability of the still dangerous opponents? WATER ABSORB. That's right, you can become largely immune to the opponent while being able to fire off Solar Beams. In the case of the Poli's, you still need to check which one has Water Absorb and which one has Damp, but that's easy enough by using Sunny Day and Fake Out on turn one. Role Play is really only useful in Water, but there would be multiple, relatively common opponents that are otherwise impossible to beat. Sunny Day + Solar Beam is also useful in Ground and Rock against stuff like Hippowdon, Tyranitar, and Swampert. Thunder Punch rounds out the movesets to clear anything that survives Solar Beam in Water, like Gyarados or Slowking.

Somewhat important side-note on Salac: While weather takes immediate effect during the turn, Salac Berry DOES NOT seem to do so. I noticed this against Feraligatr, where I had attacked with one Infernape, brought it to Salac range where it went through the animation (which would have made it faster), but then my other Infernape still attacked before it. This means that the speed calc for turn order is done at the start of the turn. This likely does NOT apply to Liechi/Petaya, where the damage calc is done at the time of the attack (otherwise stat boosts to attack or defense would not be taken into account on the turn they are applied, which is obviously not true). This interaction of Salac is obviously irrelevant in singles but seems quite important to take into consideration in doubles. This was some time ago so I can't recall the level, but as long as Feraligatr was LV 84 or higher (highly likely as it's fully evolved), this interaction holds true.

Pre-170, my order was PSYCHIC, GHOST, FIGHTING, WATER, GROUND, ROCK, DRAGON, POISON, FLYING, FIRE, ELECTRIC, BUG, DARK, ICE, STEEL, GRASS, NORMAL. Had some close calls against Gengar, Poliwrath, Salamence, Piloswine, and Arcanine.
Post-170, I ran into Ursaring (Normal), Torterra (Grass), Bastiodon (Steel), Cloyster (Ice), Armaldo (Bug), Umbreon (Dark), Rotom (Electric), Probopass (Rock), Flygon (Ground), Sharpedo (Water); then Ninetales (Fire), Noctowl (Flying), Venusaur (Poison), Gengar (Ghost), Hitmonlee (Fighting), and Dragonite (Dragon).
Due to the post-170 constraints on picking opponent types, I had Leer and Rock Slide on the physical Infernape and Overheat and Shadow Claw on the special Infernape. I would have been fine against any Dragon type not named Dragonite or Salamence, and still could've won due to a nice crit with Shadow Claw, but they both targeted the special Infernape and Rock Slide missed one (the weaker) on the next turn. If Rock Slide had hit both and then connected on the final turn, I would have been able to win, with only Psychic remaining before a type reset. That is the unfortunate downside of having to rely on two 90 accuracy moves due to Infernape having Fire Punch and Thunder Punch but not Ice Punch. Hidden Power Ice might be a possibility, but that takes a lot of time investment to get, even with RNG manipulation.

Below I've got a list of dangerous threats (much shorter than my post for singles) as well as the results of calculating the easiest way to take out each Rank 10 Pokemon. It's probably not entirely perfect but should work quite well. Obviously you'll have to adapt when accuracy and items like Quick Claw or Focus Band come into play, but it's a good guide to the best way of approaching each battle.

I'm not entirely sure why Infernape doesn't seem to be used quite as often, either in the Hall or the rest of the Frontier. Sure, it's frail with weaknesses to the rather common Water, Ground, and Psychic types, but it's fast, relatively powerful, and incredibly versatile, letting it be built for whatever your team might need. It's also got a great supporting movepool in addition to its varied offensive moves and has a good offensive typing to back it up (fast and reliable Fire or Fighting types are hard to come by: Heatran and Machamp are somewhat slow; Arcanine, Rapidash, and Hitmonlee are unreliable). I understand it's usually better to have something that fits specifically into a niche rather than a jack of all trades, but I still would have expected it to be a little more popular.

  • suicune.png
    Probably the worst thing to see, that Sitrus Berry really screws you over as it would likely be doable otherwise. The reliance on the 80 accuracy Hydro Pump can give you a glimmer of hope, and of course crit happens, but it's just soooo bulky.
  • crobat.png
    Faster, has Inner Focus, can KO by double attacking one ally with Brave Bird, and carries BrightPowder just to rub it in. Technically doable without a crit if they split attacks or take out the physical Infernape, but you still have to rely on 90 accuracy moves.
  • alakazam.png
    Also faster, one will have Inner Focus but you're unable to tell which, and special Infernape has a 50% chance to OHKO with Shadow Claw (that extra crit chance can help a bit here).
  • dragonite.png
    Inner Focus again, and special Infernape doesn't have a guaranteed KO if it survives and has to hit the final Rock Slide.
  • arcanine.png
    Intimidate and Flash Fire + Extremespeed to pick you off if it comes to that. I've actually seen the Intimidate one use Flare Blitz on the Flash Fire one before.
  • salamence.png
    Fighting at -2 when your best attack is physical is rough, hence the need to bring Leer. Needs one of your (multiple) Rock Slides to flinch if special Infernape goes down.
  • slowbro.png
    Also one of the worst to run into, pretty much impossible to beat without a crit/para in Water if special Infernape is attacked turn one. Slightly more doable in Psychic if only because of the high crit chance of Shadow Claw.
  • muk.png
    Resists Fighting with good special bulk, recovery with Black Sludge, runs Toxic. Gunk Shot hurts but doesn't have the best accuracy.
  • drifblim.png
    Tough if you miss because of Unburden + Petaya + spread move in Air Cutter.
  • nidoqueen.png
    Bulkier than Nidoking and one will have Poison Point, which can ruin your day.
  • poliwrath.png
    Totally doable in Water because of Role Play, much more difficult in Fighting. The AI seems to prioritize spread moves if they can KO both, which saved me once in Fighting as Poliwrath was a 2HKO but it could have taken out both with Vacuum Wave on two turns, resulting in only one attack for me. Instead, it chose Surf and I won.

Abomasnow: CC/OH
Absol: FO/FO, CC/OH
Aerodactyl: FO/FO, RS/RS
Aggron: CC/FO, CC/OH
Alakazam: SC/OH
If double PApe, SC (50% ohko)
If double SApe, SC
If split, SC if OH miss
Altaria: Leer/FO, RS/RS
Ambipom: CC/FO, CC/OH
Ampharos: CC/FO, CC same/OH, CC/OH
Arcanine: FO/FO, CC/RS until win
Armaldo: CC/FO, CC same/OH, CC/OH
Articuno: FO/FO, RS/RS in flying
FO/OH, CC/OH in ice
Azelf: FO/FO, SC/OH other, SC/SC
Banette: SC/OH other, SC/SC
Bastiodon: CC/FO, CC/OH
Bellossom: FO/OH, CC/OH
Blastoise: FO/NP, Sun/SB chipped, TP/SB
Blaziken: FO/FO, CC strong/NP, CC/OH
Blissey: CC/FO, CC
Breloom: FO/OH, CC/OH
Bronzong: FO/NP, CC chipped/OH other, CC/OH
Cacturne: FO/FO, CC/OH
Camerupt: FO/FO, CC stronger/NP, CC/OH
Carnivine: FO/OH, CC/OH
Chansey: CC/FO, CC
Charizard: FO/FO, RS/RS
Cherrim: FO/OH, CC/OH
Claydol: SC/FO, SC same/OH, SC/OH
Clefable: CC/FO, CC
Cloyster: FO/OH, CC/OH
Cradily: FO/FO, CC stronger/OH, CC/OH
Crawdaunt: CC/FO, CC/SB
Cresselia: FO/NP
If PApe attacked, SC/OH chipped, SC/NP, SC/OH
If SApe attacked, SC chipped/OH, SC/OH, SC/OH
Crobat: RS/OH
If double PApe, OH must KO, OH again
If double SApe, dead if RS didn’t crit
If split, RS/OH again (RS KO not guaranteed)
Dewgong: CC/FO, CC
Dodrio: FO/FO, CC/OH
Donphan: FO/OH, CC/OH (watch for protect/sand)
Dragonite: Leer/RS, RS/RS (73.4% if SApe)
Drapion: FO/OH, CC/OH
Drifblim: RS/OH, RS/OH in flying
SC/OH, SC/OH in ghost
Dugtrio: CC/FO, CC/OH
Dusclops: SC/OH same, SC/OH, SC/SC
Dusknoir: SC/OH same, SC/OH, SC/SC
Electabuzz: CC/OH
Electivire: FO/FO, CC/OH
Electrode: FO/OH, CC/OH
Empoleon: CC/FO, CC/OH (SB in water)
Entei: FO/FO, CC/OH same, CC/RS, CC/RS
Espeon: FO/FO, SC/OH
Exeggutor: FO/OH, SC (or CC)/OH
Exploud: CC/FO, CC/OH
Fearow: FO/FO, CC/OH
Feraligatr: Sun/FO, CC/SB chipped, CC/SB (CC does not put in Salac range from full)
Flareon: CC/FO, CC/RS until win
Floatzel: FO/FO, CC/SB, CC/SB
Flygon: FO/FO, CC/OH same stronger, CC/OH
Forretress: FO/OH, CC/OH
Froslass: SC/OH other, SC/SC (or OH)
Gallade: SC/OH same, SC/SC, SC/SC
Garchomp: FO/FO, CC stronger/OH
If PApe attacked, CC/NP, CC/OH
If SApe attacked, CC/OH, CC/OH
If Dig, CC/NP, CC/OH
If sand, CC/NP, CC/OH
Gardevoir: FO/FO, SC/SC same, SC/SC
Gastrodon: FO/FO, Sun/SB, CC/SB
Gengar: SC/OH other, SC/SC in ghost
Leer/OH, RS/OH, RS/RS in poison
Girafarig: CC/OH other, CC/OH
Glaceon: CC/FO, CC/OH
Glalie: CC/OH, CC/OH
Gliscor: FO/FO, Sun/OH, CC/OH in ground
FO/OH other (81.3% KO), CC/OH until win in flying
Golbat: RS/RS
Golduck: FO/FO, Sun/SB, CC/SB
Golem: FO/FO, CC/SB, CC/SB
Gorebyss: FO/FO, Sun/SB, CC/SB
Granbull: FO/FO, CC/OH, CC/OH
Grumpig: FO/FO, SC/SC same, SC/SC
Gyarados: FO/Leer in flying
If either attacked, RS/RS, RS/RS
If Bounce PApe, RS/RS
-if other lives and ko’s PApe, RS, OH
-if other dies, RS/RS, RS/RS
If Bounce SApe, RS/RS
-if other lives and ko’s SApe, RS, RS
Sun/FO, TP chipped/SB same, TP/SB, TP/SB in water
Hariyama: FO/FO, CC/OH
If PApe attacked, CC/NP, CC/OH
If SApe attacked, CC/OH, CC/OH
Heatran: CC/FO, CC/RS
Heracross: FO/OH, CC/OH
Hippowdon: Sun/OH, CC/OH
Hitmonchan: CC/FO same, CC/OH
Hitmonlee: CC/FO, CC/OH
Hitmontop: FO/OH same, CC/OH
Honchkrow: FO/CC, CC/OH
Houndoom: CC/FO, CC/RS
Huntail: Sun/FO, CC/SB chipped, CC/SB
Hypno: FO/FO, SC/SC same, SC/SC
Jolteon: CC/FO, CC/OH
Jumpluff: FO/OH, CC/OH
Jynx: FO/FO, CC/SC (or SC/SC or SC/OH or CC/OH)
Kabutops: CC/FO, CC/SB
Kangaskhan: CC/FO, CC/OH
Kecleon: CC/FO, CC/OH
Kingdra: FO/NP, Sun/SB chipped, CC/SB, CC/SB in water
FO/Leer, CC stronger/NP in dragon
If PApe dies, NP, OH
If SApe dies, CC
Kingler: FO/FO, Sun/SB, CC/SB
Lanturn: FO/NP, Sun/SB, CC/SB, CC/SB
Lapras: FO/FO, CC/SB (OH in ice), CC
Latias: Leer/FO in dragon
If PApe attacked, CC/RS (need 3.9% above all min rolls), NP, OH
If SApe attacked, CC/OH, CC, CC
FO/FO, SC/SC same, SC/SC in psychic
Latios: Leer/FO, CC chipped/RS, then same as Latias in dragon and psychic
Leafeon: FO/OH, CC/OH
Lickilicky: FO/OH same, CC/OH
Lopunny: FO/FO, CC/OH
Lucario: CC/OH
Ludicolo: FO/FO, Sun/NP, TP stronger/SB same, TP/SB if still in sun, otherwise Sun/SB, TP/SB in water
FO/OH, CC/OH in grass
Lumineon: Sun/FO, CC chipped/SB other
Lunatone: FO/FO, CC/SB, CC/SB in rock
FO/FO, CC/SC, CC/SC in psychic
Luxray: FO/OH, CC/OH
Machamp: FO/OH, CC/OH
Magmar: CC/FO, CC/RS
Magmortar: CC/FO, CC/RS
Magneton: CC/OH
Magnezone: FO/OH, CC/OH
Mamoswine: CC/FO, CC/OH
Manectric: FO/FO, CC/OH
Mantine: FO/FO, RS/RS in flying
TP/FO, TP in water
Marowak: FO/FO, CC/OH other, CC/OH
Medicham: FO/OH, SC (or CC)/OH
Meganium: FO/FO, CC/OH, CC/OH
Metagross: FO/OH, CC/OH
Milotic: Sun/FO, TP/SB same, TP/SB until win
Miltank: FO/FO, CC/OH same, CC/OH
Mismagius: SC/SC same, SC/SC
Moltres: FO/FO, RS/RS
Mr. Mime: FO/FO, SC weaker/OH other
Muk: FO/NP
If PApe attacked, RS/OH stronger, NP, OH
If SApe attacked, RS/OH stronger, fish for flinch with RS and CC
Nidoking: FO/NP, CC/OH stronger, CC/OH
Nidoqueen: FO/NP, CC/OH stronger, CC/OH, CC/OH
Ninetales: FO/FO, CC/RS, CC/RS
Ninjask: RS/RS
Noctowl: FO/FO, CC/RS, CC/RS
Octillery: Sun/SB, TP/SB
Omastar: Sun/SB, CC/SB
Persian: CC/FO, CC/OH
Pidgeot: FO/FO, RS/RS
Piloswine: FO/FO, CC/OH
Pinsir: FO/OH, RS/OH
Politoed: Sun/FO, TP/RP, SB, SB, SB
Poliwrath: FO/FO, Sun/SB weaker, CC/SB
Porygon-Z: CC/FO, CC/OH
Porygon2: CC/FO, CC/OH
Primeape: CC/FO, CC/OH
Probopass: CC/FO, CC/OH
Purugly: CC/FO, CC/OH
Raichu: CC/OH
Raikou: FO/FO, CC stronger/OH same
If PApe attacked, NP, OH
If SApe attacked, CC, CC
Rampardos: CC/FO, CC/OH
Rapidash: CC/FO, CC/RS
Regice: CC/FO, CC/OH
Regigigas: FO/NP, CC/OH, CC/OH
Regirock: Sun/FO, CC/SB same, CC/SB
Registeel: FO/OH, CC/OH
Relicanth: Sun/FO, CC/SB other, CC/SB
Rhydon: Sun/FO, CC/SB other, CC/SB
Rhyperior: Sun/FO, CC chipped/SB other, CC/SB
Roserade: FO/OH, CC/OH
Rotom: SC/OH other, SC/SC in ghost
RS/OH, RS/OH in electric
Salamence: FO/NP
If PApe attacked, RS/OH stronger, NP, OH
If SApe attacked, Leer/OH stronger, RS until dead or win (need 1 of 2 possible flinches)
Sandslash: FO/OH, CC/OH (or sun and sb)
Sceptile: FO/OH, CC/OH
Scizor: FO/FO, CC/OH, CC/OH
Scyther: FO/FO, RS/OH
Seadra: Sun/SB, TP/SB
Seaking: Sun/FO, CC chipped/SB other
Seviper: FO/OH, CC/OH
Sharpedo: FO/FO, CC/OH
Shiftry: CC/FO, CC/OH
Shuckle: FO/NP, CC/OH, CC/OH, CC/OH
Skarmory: FO/OH, CC/OH
Skuntank: FO/OH, CC/OH
Slaking: FO/FO, CC/OH same, CC/OH
Slowbro: FO/NP, Sun/SB, TP/SB, dead if SApe attacked in water
Leer/FO in psychic
If PApe attacked, SC stronger/SC same, SC, OH
If SApe attacked, SC stronger/OH same, SC, SC
Slowking: FO/FO, SC stronger/SC same, SC/SC in psychic
Sun/FO, TP/SB same, TP/SB, TP/SB in water
Snorlax: FO/FO, CC/OH same, CC/OH
Solrock: FO/FO, Sun/SB, CC/SB in rock
FO/FO, CC/SC same, CC/SC in psychic
Spiritomb: SC/NP, SC/OH other, SC/OH
Stantler: FO/FO, CC/OH
Staraptor: FO/OH, CC/OH
Starmie: Sun/SB, TP/SB
Steelix: FO/OH, CC/OH
Suicune: FO/NP
If PApe attacked, Sun/SB, SB
If SApe attacked, Sun/SB, TP until win or (more likely) dead
Swalot: FO/FO, CC stronger/OH same, CC/NP, CC/OH
Swampert: Sun/SB, CC/SB
Swellow: CC/FO, CC/OH
Tangrowth: FO/OH, CC/OH
Tauros: FO/OH, CC/OH
Tentacruel: Leer/FO, CC/RS, CC other/RS in poison
FO/FO, TP weaker/SB same, TP/SB, TP/SB in water
If dive, Sun/SB, TP/SB
Togekiss: FO/FO, CC/RS, CC/OH
Torkoal: FO/NP, CC/OH other, CC/OH
Torterra: FO/OH, CC/OH
Toxicroak: FO/OH, CC/OH, CC/OH
Tropius: FO/OH, RS/OH
Typhlosion: FO/FO, CC/RS, CC/RS
Tyranitar: CC/FO, CC/SB
Umbreon: FO/FO, CC/OH, CC/OH
Ursaring: CC/FO, CC/OH
Uxie: FO/NP, SC/OH other, SC/OH
Vaporeon: FO/RP, Sun/NP, SB, SB
Venomoth: FO/OH, RS/OH
Venusaur: FO/FO, CC/OH, CC/OH
Vespiquen: FO/RS, RS/RS
Victreebel: FO/OH, CC/OH
Vigoroth: CC/FO, CC/OH
Vileplume: FO/OH, CC/OH
Wailord: FO/FO, Sun/SB weaker, TP/SB
Walrein: CC/FO same, CC/SB in water CC/OH in ice
Weavile: FO/FO, CC/OH
Weezing: FO/NP, CC/OH other, CC/OH
Whiscash: Sun/SB, CC/SB
Xatu: FO/OH, RS/OH in flying
FO/OH, SC/SC in psychic
Yanmega: RS/RS
Zangoose: CC/FO, CC/OH
Zapdos: FO/FO, RS/OH, RS/RS

Parentheses are types where that move can be brought but isn't necessary
Fake Out: all
Close Combat: all
Overheat: all but water
Nasty Plot: psychic, fire, poison, water, dragon, flying, electric, ground, normal
Shadow Claw: psychic, ghost, fighting (normal, dark, grass, bug, ice, steel)
Rock Slide: dragon, flying, fire, bug, poison, electric (normal, grass, dark, ghost, ice, steel)
Thunder Punch: water (ice, steel, normal, grass, bug, dark, fire, electric, rock)
Solar Beam: water, ground, rock (normal, steel, dark, grass, ice, electric, bug)
Sunny Day: water, ground, rock (normal, grass, bug, steel, fighting, ice, electric, fire, dark)
Leer: dragon, flying, poison, psychic (ice, steel, grass, fighting, ghost, dark, normal, fire, bug)
Role Play: water
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Hall Doubles - 985 on emulator
Proof: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdjZlt0mcSrOrOiDnqQEo6KKdn4wAu-84

See my previous posts for more info on teambuilding/strategy/type order/etc.

Big improvement over my previous pb. I’ve changed the EV spreads on team A slightly since my previous attempts; team B remains the same:
TEAM A
1 (Metagross) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 8 HP / 172 Atk / 116 SpD / 212 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpA
- Explosion
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunder Punch

2 (Metagross) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 128 HP / 24 Atk / 140 Def / 216 Spe
Impish Nature
- Gravity
- Rock Slide
- Protect
- Thunder Punch

TEAM B
3 (Metagross) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 48 HP / 252 Atk / 208 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Explosion
- Earthquake
- Thunder Punch
- Iron Head

4 (Metagross) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 216 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 36 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Grass Knot
- Psychic
- Protect
Meta 1 now runs more attack and less special defense, and Meta 2 runs more bulk and less attack. My main goal with this change was to increase the damage output of the team to improve a few matchups. For example, rotom was previously a range to OHKO with EQ, but is now guaranteed. The range to OHKO suicune with explosion also improves from 6/16 to 10/16.

The range to single-turn KO a poliwrath with Tpunch+Tpunch also slightly increases from 115/256 to 117/256. The issue with opponents that require both metas to attack is that by increasing the attack EVs on meta 1, you necessarily have to decrease the attack EVs on meta 2 since you now require more bulk to survive explosion. Thus, the combined attack stat of both metas stays roughly the same regardless of how you choose to invest. The spreads I’ve chosen maximize the total attack EVs across both metas (196 vs. 188 on the previous team), but it might be better to just max out the attack on meta 1.

These spreads also do slightly worse into entei; eruption is now a range to OHKO meta 1. However, entei is rare enough (and not even guaranteed to use eruption) that I felt like the tradeoff was worth it.

The streak ultimately died to a QC flamethrower burn from entei. Hard to be too upset about it, though. This was a very lucky streak, and I think it will be very difficult to improve upon without drastic changes to the sets I’m using. 1k is probably possible but I have no desire to grind for it anytime soon.
 
After numerous failed attempts, I finally got one where I got past Gold Print and achieved a 248 win streak with the following Dragonite set in the Battle Hall:

Goldspan (Dragonite) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Inner Focus
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Extreme Speed

With a Focus Sash to endure powerful super effective hits and Counter, amazing coverage in Earthquake and Fire Punch to mow down resists to its powerful Outrage, and most importantly, Extreme Speed in order to finish off Endure and opposing Focus Sash users, Dragonite has a niche, albeit a small one, over Garchomp and Salamence in the Battle Hall. The following order was chosen up until Gold Print, with the item and set remaining constant throughout.

ICE/DARK/GHOST/WATER/ROCK/PSYCHIC/GROUND/STEEL/NORMAL/FLYING/BUG/POISON/ELECTRIC/FIGHTING/FIRE/GRASS/DRAGON

Order was chosen this way to help minimize the level and amount of times I would have to fight the fairly common amount of potential run-enders and threats to Dragonite. Speaking of threats, let’s go over what posed a threat to my streak:

Freeze: Although a 10% to Freeze seems small at first, over time those odds can build up, and considering the amount of Pokémon that can take at least one Outrage or out-speed Dragonite and retaliate with an Ice Beam, Blizzard, Ice Punch, or Ice Fang, they tend to build up fairly quickly as your streak progresses.

Brightpowder: If you fight any Pokémon in the hall with this item, you have to be wary of it. The main ones in particular are Piloswine, Froslass, and Jynx, however anything with this item poses a threat

Tyranitar: Thanks to the sandstorm it creates upon entering battle, Dragonite’s Focus Sash is rendered completely useless, and during the post 170 win streak battles, is unable to be OHKOd by Earthquake. Basically if you see this thing past 170 wins, start saying your prayers.

Weavile: Because it’s also holding a Focus Sash and packs both Ice coverage and priorty, the only way for Dragonite to beat it is by dodging an Ice Punch Freeze and getting the Burn with Fire Punch, as in this generation, Extreme Speed is only +1 priorty and does not outspeed Weavile’s Quick Attack or Ice Shard.

As for how I ended up losing, I just finally ended up fighting Tyranitar again. Although I won the first time because of a lucky Stone Edge miss, the second time around Dragonite wasn’t so lucky and was struck down with ease. Nevertheless, I’m still extremely impressed that Dragonite managed to build up a win streak this high despite my pessimistic outlooks on it, and am glad I was fortunate enough to give it some time in the spotlight, since all the other Pseudo-Legendary Dragons are spammed like crazy in the Battle Hall.

Proof of Streak:
IMG_5344.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Hall Singles - 355 on emulator
Proof: https://youtu.be/3Av0YxR6sJI
(streamed live at https://www.twitch.tv/squilliams7008 )

I’ve been doing attempts with Raikou off and on for the past several months. Here’s a playlist of all my attempts as “proof of progress”:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdjZlt0mcSrO1c_eKD4X54zd1ZbXhK0vS

A (Raikou) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 32 HP / 252 SpA / 224 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Aura Sphere

B (Raikou) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 36 HP / 252 SpA / 220 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 3 Atk / 30 Def
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Thunderbolt
- Shadow Ball
- Extrasensory
Raikou A covers water, ground, steel, rock, electric, dark, and ice
Raikou B covers dragon, flying, grass, psychic, poison, bug, and ghost
Fire, fighting, and normal are shared between the two post-170.

Pre-170
This is the order I’ve been using for most of my recent attempts:
PSYCHIC (A), GROUND (A), WATER (A), ICE (A), DARK (A), FIRE (A), GRASS (B), FIGHTING (B), DRAGON (B), GHOST (B), ELECTRIC (A), STEEL (A), ROCK (A), NORMAL (A), POISON (B), FLYING (B), BUG (A)

I’ve been doing psychic first to get the wobbuffet coin flip out of the way as soon as possible.
Water early is a remnant of when I was running a single Raikou with HP ice. HP grass Raikou handles pretty much every water type well enough that you could probably move it later in the ordering.
Fire, grass, fighting, and rock could all probably go earlier. Overall, I don’t think the order matters too much.

Post-170
This is what I have listed in my spreadsheet:
171-180normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
181-190flyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonflyingbugpoisonB
191-200normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
201-210ghostgrasspsychicdragonflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicB
211-220normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
221-230dragonnormalfightingflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonB
231-240firedarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergrounddarkiceA
241-250normalfightingfireflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonB
251-260electricrocksteelwatergrounddarkiceelectricrocksteelA
261-270normalfightingfireflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonB
271-280watergroundfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
281-290normalfightingflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonflyingB
291-300normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
301-310bugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonflyingbugpoisonghostB
311-320normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
321-330grasspsychicdragonflyingbugpoisonghostgrasspsychicdragonB
331-340normalfightingfiredarkiceelectricrocksteelwatergroundA
Repeat at 341.

In recent attempts, I’ve been doing each set backwards from what is listed above, since doing the harder types first forces resets earlier and saves a little bit of time across the many attempts I did. I also sometimes do things out of order when I rest, but the types I do within each set remain the same as above.
Threats (not an exhaustive list, in no particular order):
Camerupt - Raikou A 2HKOs with aura sphere. Camerupt has a 1/16 range to OHKO with earth power. Raikou B has it worse, Extrasensory is a range to 2HKO.
Swampert/Gastrodon/Whiscash - These three are bad for the same reason: brightpowder/lax incense with a threat to 2HKO (or crit OHKO) with ground STAB. They are the reason I run HP grass on Raikou A. You cannot reliably beat them without it.
Garchomp/Gliscor - The downside of running HP grass is that it means you don’t get to also run HP ice on the same set. If you encounter either of these in ground with Raikou A it’s a near-guaranteed loss.
Abomasnow - Only bad for Raikou B in grass, since it doesn’t have aura sphere. None of Raikou B’s moves will even 2HKO without a crit.
Exeggutor - Shadow Ball is a range to OHKO. If you miss the range, you will activate liechi for Exeggutor and give it the opportunity to OHKO you back with wood hammer.
Bellossom - HP ice doesn't OHKO, stun spore
Weavile - Ice Punch is a range to 2HKO raikou, and it outspeeds
Jynx - Brightpowder+lovely kiss
Heatran - Focus Band :P
Crobat - Brightpowder+outspeeds+double team
Gengar - outspeeds Raikou A+Hypnosis
Heracross - this matchup isn’t too bad, but it’s worth mentioning since its one of the only matchups where you don’t just click the strongest move. Tbolt will put hera into salac range, so it’s better to shadow ball twice so you don’t get outsped on turn 2.
Gallade - Similar to heracross, gallade is also a salac user. It’s harder to play around though. With Raikou A, Shadow Ball is an 11/16 range to OHKO, and with Raikou B it’s only a 3/16 range. With Raikou B there’s also the option of Tbolt to go for paralysis. This will activate salac but you can still win even if you don’t para provided that Gallade goes for SD turn 1 into Psycho Cut turn 2 (which is a 1/16 range to OHKO after SD). I’ve been going for the Shadow Ball range with Raikou B in my attempts.
Hypno - Shadow Ball doesn’t OHKO, zoom lens hypnosis
Aerodactyl - outspeeds Raikou A and can OHKO with crit stone edge
Blissey - Rare encounter but this thing is borderline unkillable with Raikou

Lost to gallade in psychic with Raikou B. Missed the shadow ball range and it went for CC turn 1.
 
I've always been a lifelong cartridge player but nostalgia has given way to convenience recently and I've been playing about with emulators a lot. Having just broken my old record in Battle Tower doubles in Gen III's Frontier yesterday, I decided to my old Lightningrod squad a shot in Gen IV.

This team was hugely effective in Gen III and also V in various iterations but up until now I hadn't given it a go in Gen IV. I never really got into Gen IV's Battle Tower until quite recently as the torturous battle speed of those games put me off (though emulating removes that problem entirely).

The differing mechanics between generations have meant that aspects of the team needed to be reworked, but the core strategy has remained broadly the same overall. It's gratifying to see how much this team continues to dominate: with the right conditions it can get 4 OHKOs in four turns, and it has incredible momentum even in longer battles. Usually it's a matter of getting Gyarados that crucial boost and letting rip, but sometimes you get a more protracted Perish-bait match.


:dp/staraptor:
Proudwing @ Choice Scarf (Intimidate)
Brave Bird
Close Combat
Double-Edge
U-Turn
68 HP, 252 Attack, 76 Def, 36 SDef, 76 Speed (Adamant)

In Gen III, Dodrio was the lead but in Gen V Staraptor rapidly showed itself to be a more effective choice. I went on to use it a fair amount in Gen IV's multi Tower mode where it pulled its weight and then some. Honestly one of my favourite Pokemon at this point, just so effortlessly good.

EVs are a bit all over the place but there's a method to the madness. In multi mode I couldn't rely on a Lightningrod partner to keep it safe so I went for a Speed stat of 142 (213 with Scarf) which outruns all but two opponents. But that's not necessary here: Aerodactyl 1 and 2, Crobat 1, Jolteon 1 and 3, and Electrode 2 and 3 aren't threatening enough to worry about. To be honest even Weavile 2 and 4 aren't that much of a threat to Staraptor after an Intimidate but Weavile 4 at least has the possibility to flinch and freeze so that's the one to beat - 130 (195 after Scarf) is sufficient to outrun everything you need to. That leaves some room to invest in bulk. There's not a whole lot of point putting much into Special Defence as Staraptor is never realistically going to survive most Ice Beams and Ancientpowers anyway but the given EVs do give it a slight chance to live through non-STABed Ice Beams from the likes of Suicune and Vaporeon as well as some weaker neutral STABed hits. Intimidate obviously gives it a bit of breathing room on the physical side.

It's crazy how much slower Gen IV's Frontier is in comparison to the Subway though. In Gen III literally only one foe has 200 Speed, in Gen IV three of them do and in Gen V there's a veritable slew of stuff above 200. Life really does come at you faster and faster.

:dp/marowak:
SongOfSusannah @ Thick Club (Lightningrod)
Earthquake
Icy Wind
Perish Song
Protect
236 HP, 6 Att, 12 Def, 252 SDef, 4 Speed (Careful)

The glue holding the team together. Despite the minimal investment, Earthquake is entirely capable of OHKOing a variety of foes and an effective way to mop up weakened foes if and when Staraptor has been taken out. The full SpDef investment means she survives a bunch of stuff she otherwise wouldn't - this makes for a fabulous Protect bait when on low health as it's often very easy to predict which attacks will come her way. In Gen III opponents would avoid Electric moves altogether but in Gen V they seem not to be aware of Lightningrod and typically unsuccessfully attempt to use one before going for something else; happy to say that the lower level of intelligence is also present in Gen IV as many opponents will opt for an Electric move on the first turn only to be thwarted.

In the Gen III Frontier I had her EVd to outrun all Regi variants but that seemed less important here so I went for just outspeeding everyone who sits at 65. It's not proved too problematic but it can be annoying when Regice outspeeds and hits you with an Ice Beam so I'm debating the merits of nudging her up to 71 Speed again. Perhaps I've just been lucky but I've found myself needing to Perish Song less here than elsewhere; it's most commonly been deployed as insurance in a battle I was already going to win rather than as the key to victory (though not always).

:dp/hitmontop:
Rusho @ Black Belt (Technician)
Fake Out
Protect
Bullet Punch
Mach Punch
252 HP/Att, 6 SDef (Adamant)

In Gen III I ran Manectric in the third slot, but that had to be replaced for the Subway as in later generations Lightningrod redirects allies' Electric attacks as well as those of foes. While not an overly common occurence, on occasion you end up with Marowak and Manectric fighting side-by-side and this restricts your options too much for my liking. I mulled over a lot of ideas for its replacement - this team lacks a special attacker, but is too Ice-weak for a dragon to be a good option. Another non-Electric Lightningrod user (meaning, essentially, Rhyperior) was a possibility, but Rhyperior shares weaknesses with Marowak as well as being too slow.

Hitmontop was a Pokemon lots of people seemed to be using in the Subway and it fit right in. With only priority moves I was free to invest in bulk; with Technician, even Fake Out puts a massive dent in some frailer foes, and Mach Punch boosted by Fighting Gem was an absolute one-time nuke. Given that Bullet Punch takes care of most of the Ice-types that threatened the rest of the squad, Steel Gem was a possibility but ultimately the benefits of Fighting Gem won out.

Obviously, there's no Fighting Gem in this era so I went for Black Belt as a stopgap - it's fine, but I need to think of something better. One of Hitmontop's most essential functions is to effectively waste turns for the opponent and run out the clock on Perish Song, but as mentioned I've found less need to go for PS kills here so it largely finds most use using Fake Out to buy Gyarados a turn to boost or attack. On the Subway I went for full SDef investment but on a whim here I chose to go with HP instead. It hasn't affected things too much - largely, it still survives the same hits it always did, but I might switch back as incredibly Hitmontop does have the potential to survive some Psychics.

I'm wondering if there's a more optimal replacement overall though. Lucario boasts STAB on both priority punches, but is significantly frailer and doesn't learn Fake Out. If Extremespeed had +2 priority in this gen, then maybe. Perhaps even Hitmonchan, though I don't know if there's that much in it.

:dp/gyarados:
Dr Jan Itor @ Lum Berry (Intimidate)
Dragon Dance
Earthquake
Waterfall
Bounce
60 HP, 252 Att, 4 Def, 32 SDef, 164 Speed (Adamant)

Needs very little introduction. An incredible sweeper, now and always. As with Staraptor, the Speed EVs have been tweaked a little to account for the lower benchmark needed after one DD - 122 is fast enough to outrun a decent amount of things, but Gyarados rarely wants to be attacking unboosted; with its Electric weakness nullified, there is often ample opportunity to grab a boost and start killing things.

I went with Bounce over Ice Fang since it's another effective way to waste turns for the opponent and potentially get you a lucky paralysis infliction. In Gen IV, Bounce does not let you avoid being subject to Perish Song - in Gen V it does, but since that's not possible here it's not quite the crutch move it became in the future. If nothing else it's pretty cool that all four members of this squad have their own way of avoiding being hit - Staraptor with U-Turn, Marowak and Hitmontop with Protect. Definitely an effective way to boost the team's longevity.

  • Trick Room teams can be difficult to deal with. It's not insurmountable but often the key is to try and stall them out until the effect ends or force them out with Perish Song - the squad is bulky enough to hold their own for a couple of turns.

  • Legendary teams, particularly when they're the bulkier ones. Stuff like Entei and Moltres are a breeze, stuff like Cresselia and Regirock aren't. Luckily I'm usually able to get at least one kill and set off a Perish Song, which guarantees at least one more death and puts an end to any boosting. Thankfully, legendaries trend toward Electric moves so I can often bank on a free turn.

  • Hail teams suck. Staraptor can OHKO a fair few Ice Pokemon but that often leaves you taking a Blizzard from the one that didn't die. Marowak can withstand some of these, but generally it's better off just shielding. The good news is that Abomasnow isn't guaranteed to come out first, so most dedicated Ice trainers generally have to spend a turn setting up Hail before they start throwing Blizzards around. The key is identifying which foe is the likely attacker.


Recordings of battles 49-56, 57-63, and 64-70 are below. Would love some feedback on this team! Hoping to crack 100 before too long. edit: battles 71-112 & 113-126 recorded too.










 
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Submitting a Battle Factory Singles LV50 streak of 62 on retail, streamed live on Twitch as part of a "speedrun"

VOD Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZgREKD8zwuyRimp0QxGyzLEHN4ynOe4a (Gold Print run starts on 2:00:54)

(I have to say that not having to type out a mountain of information to submit my streak feels refreshing, which is a nice perk of streaming, but it also feels like something is missing when I don't have to do a write up...)
 
Submitting a Battle Factory Singles LV100 streak of 68 on retail, streamed live on Twitch as part of a "speedrun"

VOD Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZgREKD8zwuxJSymf8O4EzbCK6ty250tv

(I have to say that not having to type out a mountain of information to submit my streak feels refreshing, which is a nice perk of streaming, but it also feels like something is missing when I don't have to do a write up...)

(Yes I did write this to be practically identical to my post above, I am so funny, everybody's fault for not posting anything for over a month and giving me the chance to showcase my humor)
 
hi tsitso :)

Tower Doubles - 1030 on emulator
Proof - playlist
(streamed live to my twitch channel, uploaded to youtube for posterity)

I finished this streak a few months ago, just never got around to posting about it.
Hitmonlee @ Focus Sash
Ability: Limber
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Mach Punch

Latios @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 3 Atk / 30 Def
- Dragon Pulse
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam


Zapdos @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Protect
- Heat Wave
- Hidden Power [Ice]


Metagross @ Metal Coat
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- Explosion
Bronzong @ Lum Berry
Ability: Heatproof
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 SpD
Brave Nature
- Trick Room
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Togetic (F) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Serene Grace
Level: 2
Lax Nature
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Atk / 0 SpD / 0 Spe
- Encore
- Protect
- Follow Me
- Endeavor


Machamp (F) @ Iron Ball
Ability: No Guard
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Dynamic Punch
- Fling
- Stone Edge
- Protect


Slowbro (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Own Tempo
Level: 50
EVs: 244 HP / 252 SpA / 12 SpD
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Psychic
- Grass Knot
- Flamethrower
- Trick Room
Hitmonlee @ Focus Sash
Ability: Limber
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Mach Punch

Latios @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 30 HP / 3 Atk / 30 Def
- Dragon Pulse
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam


Raikou @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rash Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Aura Sphere
- Protect


Metagross @ Metal Coat
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 84 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 164 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
- Explosion
The team I used for the majority of the streak is a modified version of Peterko's tower doubles team, with Raikou instead Zapdos. I've tried playing trick room teams a bit, but I don't really like them. I think they're too passive. Maybe I'm just bad at playing them well, idk.

I think the event Raikou is a strict upgrade over Zapdos. You trade a little defense for a higher special attack (all other stats are about the same between the two), you have fewer weaknesses, and you get to run Aura Sphere.

Metagross can probably run less speed. I think hitting the 111 speed benchmark is a little overkill, but I never bothered to change it. It's also worth considering lum berry on metagross instead of metal coat to allow it to more safely switch into ice types.
 
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