Battle Tree Discussion and Records

Stopped breeding for a little bit to actually put some flunkies to use in supers, and I have to ask- is the Tree seeded to pit you against megas automatically past a certain point?

I played up until Red in singles and he was the only trainer not to have one in the past ten aside from a veteran who used nothing but legends. Otherwise it was something like ten consecutive megas in a row. I won of course, but it's a little nervewracking to face a lead capable of getting one (one battle was non-mega Alakazam, the one immediately after it was mega Alakazam) because they take a bit more planning and risk management to kill without needlessly sacking an important unit.
 
...I swear to god, Super Multis is the single hardest option in the Battle Tree, and for all of the wrong reasons.

So I go up against Cynthia in Super Singles, and I take her down. She's got a Weakness Policy Lucario and Scarf Chomp, which is fine I guess. So long as the AI pulls its weight, I'll be fine.

The partner AI cannot pull its weight for shit.

I mean, the AI in the Battle Tree is... schizophrenic in general and just throws out random moves unless it knows something will kill... but I swear the partner AI is no smarter than a wild Pokemon at times, ESPECIALLY when it gets choice locked. Because nothing says fun like Garchomp locking itself into Fire Fang when not only are both enemy mons weak to EQ (Ninetails and Steelix in this case), but one of them is Flash Fire... It was a frustratingly long gong show to watch, really.

And to think, she's the BEST multi partner I got. Everyone else either has shit mons with great sets or great mons with shit sets. How anyone is supposed to beat Super Multi's reliably, I have no clue.
 
And to think, she's the BEST multi partner I got. Everyone else either has shit mons with great sets or great mons with shit sets. How anyone is supposed to beat Super Multi's reliably, I have no clue.
Basically after struggling to find a partner that could assist me in X (Slaking3 and Chandelure3) and OR (Wally of all things) I've told a friend who's got a properly trained Koko and Lele that I'm trading him a Kangaskhan and we're going to tackle that hellhole together and get it out of the way. I'll come up with something to work around the little he's got. But the main thing is having two humans calling the shots.
 
So, I had some success with a Fake out Weavile+M-Gardevoir core in the Battle Maison, and while Gardevoirite isn't available at the moment in SuMo, I thought I'd try recreating the team in spirit, at least. However, I'm not sure about the two switch-ins.

What I have so far


Weavile @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Fake Out
-Protect
-Knock Off
-Ice Punch

This is the Weavile set TheDutchPlumberjack reccomended in his article, and it's pretty straightforward. Fake out gives Weavile's Partner a free turn (if properly aimed), and protect allows it to act as bait after the focus sash breaks. Ice Punch is used over Icicle Crash because Hax are the bane of long streaks, and Knock off is a fast ghost killer.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate (Aerilate)
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Timid Nature
31/x/31/31/31/31
-Hyper Voice
-Flamethrower
-Dragon Pulse
-Protect

Again, this is straight out of the Mastering the Maison article. Hyper Voice is a powerful spread attack, Dragon Pulse provides coverage against Rock and Electric pokemon, with flamethrower hitting Steel types.

What I'm less certain about is the switch-ins. One thing I've heard mentioned a bit is a steel-dragon-fairy core, and it seems like a steel and fairy type would cover my leads' weaknesses fairly well. I have the following Scizor and Azumarill* ready to go. How would they work as back-ups?

Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite
-Superpower
-Protect

Azumarill @ Wide Lens
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD
Adamant Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Aqua Jet
-Water Fall
-Superpower
-Play Rough
 
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Lurker here, first gen trying the battle facilities for real instead of just getting BP for items. Posting for a completed Super Doubles streak of 335. I saw turskain's Pheromosa/Tapu Lele team and chucked on a Kartana and a Dragonite that I'd already bred for Singles which got me to 161 my first doubles attempt. After failing to hit 100 again (and losing to Trick Room every time), I decided to switch out Kartana for Aegislash. This got me up to 188, at which point I swapped out Dragonite for Garchomp, and then later Mega Salamence after seeing the success of Level 51's team.

Pheromosa @ Focus Sash
Ability: Beast Boost
Level: 50
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
IVs: x/31/x/31/x/31
- Low Kick
- Lunge
- Poison Jab
- Protect

Straight from turskain's team, but I didn't have a Lonely synchronizer. Didn't really matter since I was lucky enough to roll equal Def and Sp. Def stats, so Download still raises attack. I'll pretty much always Protect first turn unless I know I can double kill without anyone dying (activating sash is usually fine), or if I want to kill a Trick Room setter and the other mon doesn't seem too scary. Despite being frail as hell, the AI will still sometimes target Tapu Lele even if they can't kill her which can get pretty annoying. Crobat 3 and 4 is particularly annoying since Cross Poison can kill my Tapu Lele since I'm not bottle capped.

Tapu Lele @ Twisted Spoon
Ability: Psychic Surge
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 23/31/31/31/22/31
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Thunderbolt
- Protect

I used to run Shadow Ball but I can only remember clicking it maybe twice ever. Protect can be useful for scouting sets, stalling out Trick Room, or for when Salamence EQs. Thunderbolt is also rarely used, except to hit 4x weak mons or Metagross/Bronzong (which Shadow Ball would do better, but neither mon has really bothered me since Aegislash was added so I've never bothered).

Aegislash @ Ghostium Z
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/26
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- King's Shield

Quiet/0 IV Speed is probably better here, but hatching eggs is tiresome ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. HP Ice was sort of an accident, I forgot that Wide Guard was an egg move, and by then I had three 5IV Honedges and since two already had HP Ice I just decided to roll with it. It's somewhat useful, though against Landorus and Garchomp-3 Wide Guard is probably better anyways since they usually EQ when Aegislash is on the field, so I think I'd definitely swap it out if I could. Had a hard time deciding if Tapu Lele or Aegislash should get the Z-Move, but ultimately settled with Aegislash since I couldn't think of a better item and didn't want to use Leftovers without Wide Guard.

Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
- Double-Edge
- Earthquake
- Crunch
- Brick Break

This was originally my Return/Sub/Roost/DD Mence that I'd used in Singles, but it took all of two battles to figure out that DD sucked in doubles and I should just go for max power and coverage. It's harder to do analysis of threats/speed tiers for doubles than singles since there are so many more possible combinations of things to consider, but this has missed enough KOs that I feel like Adamant might be better. Could be totally wrong though.

ERYG-WWWW-WWW4-V4ZQ is the loss video on battle 336. The loss was honestly just me getting lazy and not checking the sets after the bank update, since this team got kinda boring to use (spending 95% of your battle time with the lame pink background of Psychic Surge gets pretty old) and I wanted to try out some newly available stuff. Still, the loss was easily avoidable just by checking the sets and seeing Custap Berry and Focus Sash on Vespiquen and Froslass. Additionally I should've just initially doubled up with Low Kick and Psychic on Gyarados which catches both Gyarados 3 and 4, and gets me the boost if it's Gyarados4. I kind of just brainfarted and forgot about Mega Gyarados. Live and learn, I guess.

All in all, totally happy with this streak, especially since I have yet to break 80 wins in Super Singles (or 35 in Multis lol), despite trying out way more teams.
 

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So, I had some success with a Fake out Weavile+M-Gardevoir core in the Battle Maison, and while Gardevoirite isn't available at the moment in SuMo, I thought I'd try recreating the team in spirit, at least. However, I'm not sure about the two switch-ins.

What I have so far


Weavile @ Focus Sash
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Fake Out
-Protect
-Knock Off
-Ice Punch

This is the Weavile set TheDutchPlumberjack reccomended in his article, and it's pretty straightforward. Fake out gives Weavile's Partner a free turn (if properly aimed), and protect allows it to act as bait after the focus sash breaks. Ice Punch is used over Icicle Crash because Hax are the bane of long streaks, and Knock off is a fast ghost killer.

Salamence @ Salamencite
Ability: Intimidate (Aerilate)
EVs: 4 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 244 Spe
Timid Nature
31/x/31/31/31/31
-Hyper Voice
-Flamethrower
-Dragon Pulse
-Protect

Again, this is straight out of the Mastering the Maison article. Hyper Voice is a powerful spread attack, Dragon Pulse provides coverage against Rock and Electric pokemon, with flamethrower hitting Steel types.

What I'm less certain about is the switch-ins. One thing I've heard mentioned a bit is a steel-dragon-fairy core, and it seems like a steel and fairy type would cover my leads' weaknesses fairly well. I have the following Scizor and Azumarill* ready to go. How would they work as back-ups?

Scizor @ Life Orb
Ability: Technician
EVs: 204 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 4 SpD / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Bullet Punch
-Bug Bite
-Superpower
-Protect

Azumarill @ Wide Lens
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 12 SpD
Adamant Nature
31/31/31/x/31/31
-Aqua Jet
-Water Fall
-Superpower
-Protect
I would put AV in Scizor and ran u-turn and aerial ace over bug bite and protect. Reason is, I would use it as a pívot, so that I could safely bring again weavile/mence with a slow u-turn, while taking care of ice, rocks and fairy mons. (Edit) adding on to why the changes, you'll be switching in scizor a lot into blizzards, scarf rock moves and dazzle gleams; so you might not want to have it take extra damage from LO while potentially take a coverage fire move. Aerial ace because why not? Hits figth mons, never misses, technician boost, etc.

About Azu, why wide lens? Either run muscle band or aqua tail+play
rough over waterfall and protect.(Edit) Wide lens does little for your current set unless you're thinking of hiting minimize mons with it.
 
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I would put AV in Scizor and ran u-turn and aerial ace over bug bite and protect. Reason is, I would use it as a pívot, so that I could safely bring again weavile/mence with a slow u-turn, while taking care of ice, rocks and fairy mons. (Edit) adding on to why the changes, you'll be switching in scizor a lot into blizzards, scarf rock moves and dazzle gleams; so you might not want to have it take extra damage from LO while potentially take a coverage fire move. Aerial ace because why not? Hits figth mons, never misses, technician boost, etc.

About Azu, why wide lens? Either run muscle band or aqua tail+play
rough over waterfall and protect.(Edit) Wide lens does little for your current set unless you're thinking of hiting minimize mons with it.
Whoops. That should have been play rough, not protect (which is of course why Wide Lens is there. because a 10% miss chance is unnacceptable if a single loss will set you back to square one).

Using Scizor as a Pivot could work, but that would probably mean scrapping Weavile, since without a spread attacker to take advantage of Fake out, weavile is a lot less useful.
 
Whelp, just lost my Super Doubles run with a streak of 151.
Battle Vid: 428W-WWWW-WWW4-NMXC
http://imgur.com/a/up4Zn

The loss at battle 152 was almost entirely a result of encountering unexpected movesets (I generally do not check all the trainer and moveset data) - In this case it was a Uxie under trick room using Dazzling Gleam against my MegaGross and Tapu Lele at the start of the battle. I figured it would be a safe switch to Hydreigon from Lele (because why would the AI use that move in that situation :/ the other opponent was Cresselia) and it was an uphill struggle from there. Later I was pressured to bring in my Assault Vest Araquanid against Zapdos, which I figured would at least tank a hit thanks to its gigantic special bulk and get Zapdos into KO range but NO... it uses Wild Charge and proceeds to kill me off (turns out this is Zapdos4, which is Adamant... wtf gamefreak). By this point I was feeling "well, fuck it I'm out" and made the final error of taking revenge on Zapdos asap with my final mon, <50% HP Hydreigon, completely forgetting that Uxie was still sitting there and would definitely KO me that turn with Dazzling Gleam again. I am an idiot haha.

The team however, I am extremely happy with. Especially because I caught, bred and trained them all from the ground up; all have 31 IVS in all relevant stats or have been Hyper Trained. I have no doubt that it can go much further:


Metagross-Mega @ Metagrossite
Jolly | Tough Claws
252 Atk, 252 Spe, 4 Def
- Protect
- Meteor Mash
- Zen Headbutt
- Earthquake

This thing wrecks. Fantastic synergy with Lele and generally the two of them can destroy teams without any backup. I am eagerly awaiting my Iron Head Metagross from bank but the Meteor Mash attack boost was actually pretty nice. Amazingly, misses were not the cause of much worry throughout the streak.


Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Timid | Psychic Surge
252 SpA, 252 Spe, 4 SpD
- Psychic
- Dazzling Gleam
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Fire

The keystone of the team. This thing speaks for itself. There were a couple of battles when I questioned whether Shadow Ball would have been more useful than HP Fire but then a Scizor would show up and get wrecked. Escavalier survives the KO however (as I learnt very painfully).


Hydreigon
@ Dragonium Z
Modest | Levitate
252 HP, 252 SpA, 4 Spe
- Protect
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Flash Cannon

I had originally been running this one with an Assault Vest due to the resistances it brings to the table but being able to use Protect along with MegaGross was more valuable. Not to mention having a gigantic nuke up my sleeve for quickly removing bigger threats. I am still unsure about swapping to the generic spread (possibly even Timid) once bank comes around but I did like the fact that this had some more bulk and wasn't as useless under Trick Room.


Araquanid @ Assault Vest
Adamant | Water Bubble
252 HP, 252 Atk, 4 Def
- Liquidation
- Leech Life
- Lunge
- Crunch

The newer addition to the lineup and one which I couldn't be happier with. Initially I couldn't find a final glue-mon which didn't require Bank but it eventually occurred to me that this guy had all the resistances the team needed (thanks to that handy Fire resist which I didn't realise at first). Not only that but it is the perfect Assault Vest mon with that massive SpD and the gigantic power of Liquidation... and it can even heal itself while attacking against the psychic and dark types which my leads can struggle against with Leech Life! Knowing that it can tank STAB electric hits on the special side was ironically my downfall in the end but I have no regrets regarding my choice. I chose to run both Leech Life and Lunge because the secondary effects are both useful in different situations, giving it even more utility for an Assault Vest abuser.


Cheers for reading, hope you enjoy! Now... to try and fix the issues with my 3DS not charging occasionally...
I really like your team and decided to take a shot at Super Doubles last night. I wasn't confident in myself with using Choice Scarf yet, so instead I used a timid nature Tapu Lele with Twisted Spoon. I misplayed on streak battle 68, but had a very enjoyable run. I comment to commend and thank you for your write-up and spread.
 

Jumpman16

np: Michael Jackson - "Mon in the Mirror" (DW mix)
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I think you might be giving this guy a little too much credit is what I think...So I'mma have to go with GG Unit here and just say it's fake and, further, that there isn't any "conflicting message" of foreknowledge versus not foreknowledge that you seem to indicate; it's just somebody playing based on experience with no prior planning whatsoever and only picking up some details from personal experience but not all of them, or not the relevant ones.
I guess it's much ado about nothing, in one respect...the other respect, of course, is that if it's so easy to cheat, "why aren't we more worried about it"? Especially with the post about actually just being able to manipulate the streak number itself? The only reason "we" are able to call that dude out is because he's clearly a noob...what about an Alex Rodriguez–type where you have a clearly talented and gifted individual who decides "let's also cheat"?
 
I guess it's much ado about nothing, in one respect...the other respect, of course, is that if it's so easy to cheat, "why aren't we more worried about it"? Especially with the post about actually just being able to manipulate the streak number itself? The only reason "we" are able to call that dude out is because he's clearly a noob...what about an Alex Rodriguez–type where you have a clearly talented and gifted individual who decides "let's also cheat"?
Well, if nothing else cheaters tend to give themselves away one way or another. There's already a relatively low number of players who take this seriously enough to strive and settle for nothing less than spectacular. Cheaters typically also go for spectacular and that's their first mistake, because traditionally they then say things that raise a flag; when you know you've got your save backup, you can be that much more careless in your play. Your memory can be diminished, if you even pay attention to minute details like a specific moveset used by a specific trainer, which leads you to leaving suspect anecdotes.

GG Unit has caught at least a few people like this because his preferred Maison team taught him things that someone without a need for such care wouldn't notice. It's safe to say your risk assessment becomes poor when you're constantly aware of your safety net, and in their mind "I just won't show that battle."

You're able to catch cheaters in that fashion as well, Jump, given how long you've been doing this, even without the person saying really stupid shit like the burn being a result of hacking.

As for the A-Rod analogy, we can only trust each other and give everyone their due credit and/or scrutiny as the need arises; we've got a good track record for that and in the couple years I've been here there've been extremely few sour grapes. I think we're fine as far as preventing illegitimate streaks from taking up a spot on the leaderboard.
 
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the other point is, it doesn't really matter as much (relatively; of course it still matters) if people are cheating if they're not going for the highest of numbers. if the top 10 streaks are all over 2,000, who cares if your little 100 streak was actually the result of cheating? it's the high streaks we look at with the most scrutiny and therefore can tear apart the easiest - see: this 1,001 streak from the Frontier days which aroused suspicion because it was a 1000+ streak (possibly the first?) in the Frontier days with a very unconventional lead and some telling statements about the loss and teambuilding, and was summarily called out; and this streak which claimed an impossibly high Factory score and was viewed with suspicion and then called out; and this guy who claimed to have a streak of over 2000 in the Hall with Smeargle and was probably using some form of cheating because lbr that wasnt plausible; and this amazing post; and then in the Maison we all know the tale of JohnJohn and Fluke; and then in the Tree this post which was one of the earliest 200 streaks but also the person who did it deigned to give no strategy whatsoever and just posted to "stop people from bitching" (and then as we all know got extremely butthurt when I tried to call them out lmao).

My point is that all of these streaks were noteworthy because they aroused suspicion due to their high numbers and comparatively little information given about the team - which then led people to investigate and say "These are probably false". So I don't think this leaderboard is really at risk, because most of the people who manage to get high scores in the first place, the regulars, provide more than enough data that we can analyze whether or not we think their team has the power to go that far. As for the other communities... well, when have we ever cared about some fuckos on Youtube?

(Also I just wanted to showcase some of my favorite fakes from gen 4 sue me)
 
Whoops. That should have been play rough, not protect (which is of course why Wide Lens is there. because a 10% miss chance is unnacceptable if a single loss will set you back to square one).

Using Scizor as a Pivot could work, but that would probably mean scrapping Weavile, since without a spread attacker to take advantage of Fake out, weavile is a lot less useful.
I don't think Weavile would be less useful, you should test it before scrapping the idea.

Turno 1: Mence mega-evo+hyper voice / Weavile fakes out attack to mence and gets to sash.
Turn 2: Mence protects / hard switch into Scizor.
Turn 3: Mence hyper voice / Scizor BP to revenge kill.
Turn 4: Mence protects / Scizor slow u turns into Weavile safely.
Rinse and repeat.
 

turskain

activated its Quick Claw!
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Hard proof of legitimacy is not feasible - individual replays, streak lengths, and save back-ups allow cheating without any detectable difference in provided proof from a real streak. Undisputable evidence in the form livestreaming an entire streak (up to hundreds of hours of play) is not only unreasonable to provide for 3DS game, but would also be hellish to verify in its entirety for NoCheese or anyone else.

Analyzing flaws in teambuilding and apparent poor understanding of the game can catch very blatant cheating, but it's still hard to make decisive claims one way or the other - additionally I think the suspect players should always get an opportunity to explain themselves, rather than be judged in absence. The Maison cheaters who seemed too stupid to breathe (JohnJohn and Fluke) specifically incriminated themselves not only with questionable streaks, but also by posting in a frenzied manner focusing on personal attacks and omitting any details of their play. However, take The Flaming Spade's 1000-win Rotations streak for example - it seems suspicious with a questionable team and inaccurate moves on Mega Metagross, but there is no posting to discuss aside from the single post, and the was streak rejected for using Wish Chansey rather than suspected foul play. I think such scrutiny should be reserved only for the stupidest posters - circlejerking suspicious players that are not posting in the thread seems like a pointless exercise (though analyzing their teams would still be interesting).

Personally I've come to view competition, and the leaderboard as secondary to playing to improve your strategy/execution and having fun in the process. I don't feel the possibility of a cheated streak or two on the leaderboards is a huge issue in the long run, as long as it doesn't run rampant and overrun the whole thread.



Regarding this particular player, the team that really stood out to me was:
Desiigner (Ninetales-Alola) @ Icy Rock
Ability: Snow Warning
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Dark Pulse
- Moonblast
- Nasty Plot/Aurora Veil
Alolan Ninetails is what I lead off with, you could run aurora veil instead of nasty plot but it's up to you. Moonblast takes care of most of the fighting types except Cobalion. Alolan Nintails is just mainly to get the Hail up for Alolan Sandslash.

Drake (Sandslash-Alola) @ Life Orb
Ability: Slush Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Icicle Crash
- Leech Life/Rock slide/ night slash/swords dance
Alolan Sandslash Is the power house of this hail team, It just needs the speed boost and hits everything really hard. Stab iron head and Icicle crash hit everything hard. the last move is really up to you, swords dance sweep can kill pretty much everything if you just get one swords dance in.

Drampa @ Assault Vest
Ability: Cloud Nine
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Blizzard
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower

Last pokemon is Drampa because of it's cloud nine ability. I've run into many Pokemon that try to take the weather away with rain or sandstorm, so this Pokemon can just ignore their boosts. I just wanted to use Assault vest Drampa because I think this pokemon is very versatile but so slow.

This team isn't really the best because of slow Drampa but I really wanted to use Drampa. I think this team is a fun hail team if you like hail teams, but definitly modifications to your liking could be made.Alolan Ninetails and sandslash are really underated and Drampa as well, it's just weak to so many pokemon and Alolan Sandslash and Drampa are so slow and Alolan Ninetails is pretty frail. So I hope you enjoyed this pokemon sun and moon battle tree super singles video, I'm making my way to 1,000 straight wins in Pokemon sun and moons battle tree. I surpassed Pokemon sun and moons super single battle trees battles 100, 200, 300 400, 500,600 and now on to 700! Going for the highest wins in Pokemon sun and moons battle tree super singles! You can use my sets to learn on how to beat the battle tree. Maybe not this Hail team though.
Emphasis mine. Not even the player is feeling too good about recommending this team to others, which seems like a pretty honest assessment.
 

NoCheese

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"
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Alright folks, finally got the singles and doubles streaks up to date! Pretty cool how fast streak lengths are expanding, and I've loved the discussion. I really need to start getting multis together too, but that will take longer, since I'll need to go back through earlier posts.

Remember that you should include some proof if you'd like your completed streak to be added to the leaderboard. A couple of otherwise eligible streaks are not yet listed due to lack of proof. So if your streak is missing, please get a photo or preferably video added (and let me know) and I'll get your team on the list!

And naturally, it's likely I've made mistakes during the update process. So please, as always, give me a shout if you catch any errors or omissions.

As for my own Tree exploits, thanks to Bank, I've been playing around with one of my Maison teams, namely Dragonite / (Sub) Suicune / Mega Metagross. I've had reasonable sucess, but the team feels less solid, on the whole, this time around. First, it's little easier for the AI to break through with Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves, especially with the Speed of Mega Evolutions now impacting turn order immediately. And Suicune is a bit more stressful to play with the AI tending to switch when out of damaging moves (with some exceptions for things like Mirror Coat), because it forces one to count enemy PP much more carefully to be sure not to end up Resting the turn the foe switches out.

I expect I'll switch things up and try my old (Timid) Chansey / Mega Slowbro core soon, and see how it plays now that we have access to Seismic Toss. Becuase Toxic only deals damage at the end of the turn, it's a much clunkier move for fast Chansey than Seismic Toss, and that's without even considering that two-types are immune to it rather than just one. So I'm eager to see if Chansey can again be dominant now that it can use a proper moveset.

There was also some discussion of Double Team as opposed to Minimize on Chansey as a means of getting around moves like Dragon Rush. While the pluses and minus of this were pretty well evaluated earlier, one thing that was missed was the PP issue. Non-growl Chansey has pretty limited PP, and sometimes is stuck having to PP stall stuff out. The extra 8 PP on fully boosted Double Team (24 vs 16) may not be a major deal, but they do have some potential relevance. I still suspect Minimize is better, as there are plenty of situations where the faster boost of Minimize is helpful, but it's one more issue worth considering.
 
Double Team vs. Minimize is pretty clear cut in favor of Minimize. Chansey must counter so many special attackers (and more importantly, the secondary effects they bring) that boosting evasion twice as quickly is a necessity in the long run.

This kind of ties in with how 'legitimate' a team is; the variety of streak-ending threats is sufficiently vast to ensure you're not going to get far if you have a deadweight move choice or two when there are clearly better options, and when you combine that with not having a clear idea of which attack the opponent is going to be using 99% of the time, the red flags really pile up. My personal favorite from that video was that the move animations were still on, because it's not like that would get annoying to watch over the course of hundreds of battles!

Even when I used a Durant-Cloyster-Drapion team (which was to provide a more direct refutation of the viability of Durant lead teams rather than because I thought it was a particularly good team), I would not have been able to crack 500 if I had (for lack of a better term) basic moveset choices like Rock Blast over Surf or Entrainment + 3 attacks on max Speed/max HP Scarf Durant.

I frankly wonder at times how a Chansey set missing both Sub and Minimize is able to consistently able to come out on top against something like Magnezone; it wouldn't take that many full paralyses and Special Defense drops to overwhelme it (or at least open up the possibility for it to be too weakened to wall subsequent threats).

As for PP, that's an overblown concern compared to how much more likely it is for some special attacker to break through with enough luck. It's not going to be until the 3rd Pokémon that Chansey would come close to running out of PP if all 4 moves are maxed, barring some major strategic errors against Rest users or something like that. Even then, consider the scenario where Chansey sets up on the first opponent, gets forced out by the 2nd, and has to come back in for the 3rd. Getting fully set up twice leaves you with 12 Double Team and 10 Minimize PP, and obviously those whopping 2 PP you saved are going to be more than offset by having to use Sub and Soft-boiled more often due to evading fewer attacks.
 
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Posting what I said in the Simple Questions Wifi thread. I'm not sure if this is thread-appropriate, but I would like some help.

Okay, so I just beat battle 49 of Super Singles in the Battle Tree. I'm about to go up against Red.

The 50-streak Battle Tree ribbon is the last ribbon my 3 trophy Pokemon need. I really, really want my Garchomp, Metagross, and Latios to be able to go through this last battle together, but I don't want to lose, either.

So my questions are:

1) Is the team of Super Singles Red set in stone? The Excel document suggests that he has five different Pokemon, each with two sets (i.e. Lapras-3 and Lapras-4), and that three of those Pokemon are chosen for battle 50.

2) Is it likely that I will win with these three Pokemon? Their natures and current moves (which can absolutely be changed if necessary) are:

Garchomp
JOLLY
6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
-Outrage
-Rock Slide
-Earthquake
-Swords Dance

Metagross
ADAMANT
252 HP / 252 Atk / ?
-ThunderPunch
-Meteor Mash
-Bullet Punch
-Brick Break

Latios
TIMID
252 SpA / 252 Spe / ?
-Psychic
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Draco Meteor

... So what are your thoughts? I was thinking of replacing Ice Beam with Grass Knot for the battle.

3) If I do go through with this, which Pokemon should lead?
 
Red's biggest threat in Super Singles is easily Charizard-Mega-X (Charizard-4). Lead Garchomp fortunately dispatches both Megazards quite easily - one recommendation is to use iVolke's lead Dragonium Z Garchomp, which outspeeds and OHKOs both ZardX and ZardY with Devastating Drake.

Other big threats include Mega Venusaur (Venusaur-4), which can be obnoxious but is comfortably 2HKOd by any Timid Latios variant you decide to run (or is OHKOd 100% of the time by Choice Specs Psychic). Ice moves may also give you trouble considering that you're either going to need to sac one of your dragons, or risk Megagross getting frozen. For instance, Thunder Punch 2HKOs both Lapras3 and Lapras4, but you risk getting frozen by Ice Beam and Blizzard respectively. One option you have is to run Lum Berry Metagross, but you no longer 2HKO Lapras with the drop in power, so I wouldn't recommend this.
 
Posting what I said in the Simple Questions Wifi thread. I'm not sure if this is thread-appropriate, but I would like some help.
Lead with Latios and give it a Focus Sash and Thunder Wave, Memento, Dragon Pulse (for Charizard) and Psyshock (for Snorlax) That should create plenty set-up opportunities for Garchomp. Switch in Metagross first against something with Ice moves and see how much damage you can do with it.

Garchomp (Dragonium Z)
Swords Dance
Substitute
Outrage
Earthquake

Metagross (Metagrossite)
Thunder Punch
Explosion
Zen Headbutt
Brick Break
 
Red's biggest threat in Super Singles is easily Charizard-Mega-X (Charizard-4). Lead Garchomp fortunately dispatches both Megazards quite easily - one recommendation is to use iVolke's lead Dragonium Z Garchomp, which outspeeds and OHKOs both ZardX and ZardY with Devastating Drake.

Other big threats include Mega Venusaur (Venusaur-4), which can be obnoxious but is comfortably 2HKOd by any Timid Latios variant you decide to run (or is OHKOd 100% of the time by Choice Specs Psychic). Ice moves may also give you trouble considering that you're either going to need to sac one of your dragons, or risk Megagross getting frozen. For instance, Thunder Punch 2HKOs both Lapras3 and Lapras4, but you risk getting frozen by Ice Beam and Blizzard respectively. One option you have is to run Lum Berry Metagross, but you no longer 2HKO Lapras with the drop in power, so I wouldn't recommend this.
Lead with Latios and give it a Focus Sash and Thunder Wave, Memento, Dragon Pulse (for Charizard) and Psyshock (for Snorlax) That should create plenty set-up opportunities for Garchomp. Switch in Metagross first against something with Ice moves and see how much damage you can do with it.

Garchomp (Dragonium Z)
Swords Dance
Substitute
Outrage
Earthquake

Metagross (Metagrossite)
Thunder Punch
Explosion
Zen Headbutt
Brick Break
Thanks for the advice, especially Jebus, whose advice I followed when I went into battle with them a few hours ago. I won, although I think I could have lost.

Battle went something like:

------

(Me) Garchomp vs Snorlax (Red)

Garchomp uses Devastating Drake (~75% damage)
Snorlax uses Body Slam (~35% damage)

Garchomp uses Earthquake (KO)

(Me) Garchomp vs Blastoise (Red)

Garchomp uses Outrage (~55%) [I didn't want to switch in Metagross and risk a freeze; I lost in the Maison TWICE due to freezehax.]
Blastoise uses Blizzard (KO)

(Me) Mega Metagross vs Blastoise (Red)

Metagross uses ThunderPunch (KO)

(Me) Mega Metagross vs Mega Charizard Y (Red)

Charizard uses Heat Wave (MISS)
Metagross uses ThunderPunch (KO)

------

...So I ended the battle with a full-health Latios in reserve. I personally think it could have either OHKO'd Mega Zard Y with Thunderbolt or hit it once, survived an Air Slash / Heat Wave, then hit it again for the win, but I'll never know.

At least I got the nasty part of the Battle Tree done. I doubt Super Doubles will be this rough. This is the first battle facility I absolutely HAD to look up trainers/Pokemon in order to beat. (And MAJOR thanks to whoever compiled that data. TRE I think?)
 
252 SpA Latios Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Charizard-Mega-Y: 92-110 (60.1 - 71.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You were fine even if ZardY took out Metagross (Heat Wave is an OHKO and then some), since ZardY can't even reliably 2HKO Latios and you're in no danger to dying to crits or whatnot. However, if you were up against ZardX and it opted to Dragon Dance before using Flare Blitz, you would have lost. Metagross can't OHKO ZardX and (unless you're running Scarf Latios), Latios gets outsped and OHKOd by +1 ZardX as well.

Fortunately, that didn't happen, and you got the ribbons you wanted :)
 
I just got my Sun version completed mainly for another Kartana, but since the story is complete I figured I might as well just use my other DS and do Multi Battle in the Battle Tree.

I just split the team I used for in double amongst the two games.
Of course, its successful, but it takes FOREVER.
 
Has anyone had success with Shell Smash Baton Pass Smeargle? I'm considering adding it to my Super Singles team. Spore seems like an obvious choice, and maybe Nuzzle for Taunters or anything immune to Spore.
 
I really like your team and decided to take a shot at Super Doubles last night. I wasn't confident in myself with using Choice Scarf yet, so instead I used a timid nature Tapu Lele with Twisted Spoon. I misplayed on streak battle 68, but had a very enjoyable run. I comment to commend and thank you for your write-up and spread.
Thank you, mate! Glad it could help you hit the 50 and beyond :)
 
Has anyone had success with Shell Smash Baton Pass Smeargle? I'm considering adding it to my Super Singles team. Spore seems like an obvious choice, and maybe Nuzzle for Taunters or anything immune to Spore.
No because something would have to take a hit on the switch just to be able to start attacking at +2, which isn't that much in the scheme of things. You'd be better off Shell Smashing with Cloyster or Minior and having two teammates that can cover their weaknesses.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battle-tree-discussion-and-records.3587215/page-33#post-7160319

^ there's a team I used to get 100 with a Smeargle, which kind of illustrates the futility of Baton Passing in Singles. If you can provide enough support for Smeargle to safely BP off a Shell Smash often enough to win even 50 battles, you'd be well on the way to boosting all of its stats to the point that Smeargle can cut out the middleman and sweep on its own. This team would be a lot better with Seismic Toss Chansey; I actually lost the very next battle because I got greedy and didn't switch Smeargle out on a Mega Venusaur lead when its Speed dropped to -2 (I also assumed that Mega Venusaur lost speed upon Mega Evolving because it looks fatter, something I now know to not be the case). Smeargle took a crit Sludge Bomb (that had a 60% chance of hitting in the first place) and then Chansey struggled to death because a Heatran came out after Venusaur. If I remember correctly, I looked at the trainer's roster after the battle and Venusaur and Heatran were the only two Toxic immunities that trainer had.
 
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