(edited to just address my thoughts on the asterisk issue. Validity was never a concern.)
While it's not the best to leave an asterisk up indefinitely by not posting after a loss, since other players should know if they're chasing a moving target or not, it's rather moot now that you've surpassed that win total. Plus, we all deserve some time to digest things before writing up a summary of a loss, so in all situations, some delay (even with an asterisk) is completely understandable.
It's kind of moot, sure...what I'm saying is that it's entirely possible for me to have been nowhere near 1250 for a good seven weeks, and that's kind of a dick thing to do to anyone who would think of chasing you. I guess in a roundabout way, if I'm going to even tell you all that I lost, I'm not enough of a dick to have not said anything. If I had posted nothing whatsoever (easy to do), then yes, for all intents and purposes, it WOULD be moot, cause no one but me would have known that I lost and it would still be a fact that I'm at over 1,250 with an active streak two months after I last updated you all with 1,250, so there's that. By this token I had no problem being upfront with what really happened, which is still kind of moot like I said.
Digesting before writing up a loss always results in some binge stuffing first on some revenge grinding for me. My thought process is always "fuck this game I'm going to spam as many battles up as I can in rebuilding my streak before even thinking of stopping". And with how that last battle played out, you can see that the writeup was non-trivial, unlike losing with Team Suizorus to lead Hurrrrrrnadus or something, so yeah, I'm not gonna make that post yet when I'd rather spend my effort getting at least back to like 200. At that point, it's like, "okay if I can get back to 500 or maybe 600 without close calls, then maybe I can get to like 700 or 800 and not really have to post just yet..." And that's exactly what happened, thankfully, to the point where I was genuinely not even worried about losing and wanted to try Triples.
On the loss itself, Anastasia is a real pain in multiple formats, not just singles. My horrid play and her Mr. Mime3 ruined my second triples run at 962, and that close to 1000, I was pretty irritated, and took a fairly long hiatus before returning to triples again. The combination of both set 3 and 4 pokes and the fact that she's a "mixed" Trick Roomer with both slow and fast Pokemon makes her my least liked opponent for my Tailwind triples team.
Yeah, I'm really surprised she never distinguished herself from the others all the time I played, but it's because, like I mentioned, Haxorus and Kanga don't really change their actions. Gardevoir4 always warranted a switch to Scizor using Team Suizorus and Kanga outspeed Gardy4 pre-ME and kills. I *think* I took a Focus Blast once from Gardy3 and realized I was facing Anastasia but I didn't care cause she brought out like Starmie and Zam to end it. I always switched out Haxorus on any Hex Maniac's Gardy too, and Haxorus *may have* taken an Ice Punch from Cham3, but that only has a 1/32 chance of killing (1/16 then 1/2 of it being Pure Power), and Haxorus always had to Outrage any Cham anyway (and always OHKOed). I guess I'm glad that this situation of "random Hex Maniac actually posing a threat" presented itself after 1,174 and not before, lol. Even then, the only thing I lose to if I'd've assumed a set 4 only trainer is probably Pure Power Medicham3 if it hits with HJK (22.5% chance), and as we can see, it IS possible to win despite that.
On a lighter note, your picture shows 1269 active wins, not 1268. Unless you really prefer the humor of your asterisked active streak appearing as just one win longer than your completed one, I'm entering it at its full documented value of 1269 current wins.
Yeah it's more accurate the way you have it, I wasn't sure which battle I ended on so I recorded both.
Jumpman16, I thought you'd been taking a break from Singles and focusing on Triples for the moment. I'm a little disappointed that you lost in "just" the 1200s, since I was expecting something in the range of 2000+ wins from you. But I'm glad to see you're already back on track to legendary streak numbers with a second attempt.
I'm a little surprised you haven't tussled with Hex Maniac Anastasia yet since she tends to be a consistent fun-generator from my experience. Then again, Suicune does smash most of what Hex Maniacs have to offer all by itself, so being able to ignore it makes sense.
Yeah, Scizor never gave any shits and Kanga generally can still PuP or just Sucker Punch everything that's Set 3 or 4 so I never really had to care that much. Not that I didn't make note of names when I saw them, but it would be like "Hex Maniac Anastasia sent out Starmie/Gengar/Slowbro/Alakazam!" and I'd mentally yawn and Sucker Punch or PuP regardless of Set 3 or 4.
I was indeed focusing on Triples, until my DS fell out of my pocket in the bathroom at 287, lol. That kind of deflated me a little but it was just two weeks ago so whatever. Not counting that "loss" and the misclick/trainer oversight, I can say I've won close to 3,000 battles in a row in the Maison in any format, which is cool (especially considering Singles is objectively much harder than Triples).
Edit: to actually comment on the loss - using Protect on Gliscor to stall Ice Punch PP alongside Suicune switches costs a lot of PP and Suicune got frozen anyway, so in hindsight valuable Protect PP could've maybe been preserved by skipping the Protect and going straight to Suicune. Except HJK deals tons of damage even when resisted, so that's not a good idea. For random AI moves, I'd be more afraid of the AI randomly using Ice Punch on Suicune than a random HJK on Gliscor - I lost a battle with Empoleon/Gliscor when Regice used Ice Beam on Empoleon to nail the Gliscor switch-in instead of going for Thunderbolt. That's the problem with switch stalling Ice moves - with the freeze risk and the random Ice OHKO risk when switching in Gliscor, I think that going for the switch stall play over risking an Icy Wind miss was a mistake in this case. With Leftovers recovery (your calc has Sandstorm factored in and no Leftovers for some reason?), HJK has a 2.3% chance to 2HKO, so even with a miss you would get two shots at Icy Wind, barring a crit.
Yeah, Medicham does 31-36% with HJK to Gliscor, and not using Protect means Suicune has to take eight Ice Punches instead of Five when accounting for Pressure. The AI has yet to randomly use "Ice move" on me though when switchstalling, not one that was too boggling anyway. Regice did use Icy Wind on Gliscor once, but it only does 60-73% and I'm pretty sure I'd Toxiced it before starting my Switchstall, plus you can understand why it aimed Icy Wind at Suicune instead of using TB.
Switchstall vs Icy Wind on Medicham came down to "ok, what do I do even if Suicune hits with Icy Wind? Stall Medicham out of literally everything?" It has 15 IP PP to stall, plus 15 ZH PP (and ZH does 38-45%), then HJK is no slouch as mentioned (breaks Sub every time) even though half the time Cham does 50% to itself when I Protect. Am I switching to Gliscor after IW hits or staying in with Cune? I "have to" switch since Cune can't 2HKO with Scald and HJK does too much to Rest Pressure Stall, right. And when I'm stalling it out completely with Gliscor, with just 32 stalling PP between Sub and Toxic, that's a losing proposition.
If I stay in, Suicune is 2HKOed by anything Cham3 uses after hitting with HJK (it's not using Bullet Punch), so I'd essentially be sacrificing Cune early with 15 IP PP left to stall out with Gliscor. And after that's done, I *still* have to kill it down 1-2—I'd want to use Toxic of course, to ensure I have a Sub against mystery third poke, and go from there, but I can't keep a Sub up against a Medicham I'm now faster than. I supposed I could have used Icy Wind then gone straight to Gliscor, stall out the 15 IP PP, then 2HKO with EQ having a 55% HP Cune waiting in the wings, but if I were smart enough to EQing after it's out of IP PP then I would have won anyway lol (using EQ after it missed that HJK would have won me the battle etc).
Icy Wind then Scalding twice is probably the best play, especially with Burn and CH chances. I do 129 HP min with those three attacks to Cham's 135HP...but as I said, I was certain HJK 2HKOed often enough to make this a questionable strategy.
I don't care much about "covered up losses", though, if you lose to dumb misplays then you lose and try again, that's how battle facilities go and all streaks and teams are going to face that loss sooner or later, and if you try multiple times then you will lose multiple times. Absolutely ridiculous hax and losses revealing actual flaws in the team are very interesting, but the average "click wrong move, file in your battle video at the left terminal" loss doesn't tend to be that interesting aside from the final streak number that it yields. Don't get me wrong, insight into the plays that went on in the loss and "what-ifs" are always good stuff, but the loss by itself always tends to be a bit inglorious in most cases.
Edit: to repeat myself and summarize this: Battle facilities are about racking up wins, not measuring the number of losses on the way there, so their exact amount (or lack thereof) is not very important in the long streak. That's not to say losses should be ignored outright - losing can expose flaws in a team nicely, which can help develop it further. But the act of losing and how many times it happens is not particularly relevant to the end result.
In this case, the only issue was the lack of forthrightness behind the currency of my ongoing streak. Before Kangliscune I lost a bunch of times with Suizorus while learning how to use it best (read: don't face lead Hurrrrrnadus, what a "strategy" huh)
