Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

I loved pokemon emerald battle frontier, I think I got silver badges in 2 areas. Not very good. I believe I spent 700+ hours on the game. I also did a lot of 2 player battling with a friend from school. Our teams were pretty good but I don't think we ever realized how good skarmory and swampert is. Playing on pokemon showdown has obviously made me better.

Sometimes I wish pokemon showdown could unban double team/fissure for just a few days so I could see how good those are in more competitive environments. I also miss double battles.
 

Vinc2612

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Sometimes I wish pokemon showdown could unban double team/fissure for just a few days so I could see how good those are in more competitive environments. I also miss double battles.
Those moves are allowed in VGC (and generally in Battle Spot). They are pretty bad overall, the only use would be on stuff like Assault Vest Excadrill having Horn Drill: it prevents the opponent from just burning you then ignoring the Pokémon to make it 2v1.
 
Sometimes I wish pokemon showdown could unban double team/fissure for just a few days so I could see how good those are in more competitive environments. I also miss double battles.
The TLDR is that they aren't exactly overpowered: in fact, they're pretty awful. Just they turn the match into a "30% chance to oneshot the enemy or do absolutely nothing and lose a turn"

Also, I believe AG format doesn't ban them so you're free to see that yourself on showdown as well :P
 
Don't know anyone who plays catridge anymore. I've never heard of Battlespot before, bulbapedia tells me it's used on the nintendo 3ds. I don't think Pokemon showdown has an "anything goes" format for gen 3. They even got rid of double battles ladder play for gen 3.

I'm an old cat, don't really want to play anything past gen 4.
 
Next time I visit my parents I'll take a look at my emerald catridge. Battle factory was my bread and butter I might have a good win streak on there. I got very frustrated with battle frontier in general as I believe I lost to all of the factory heads, sometimes even twice to the same guy with nothing to show for it. Something crazy dumb happened on battle pyramid. I made it to either the last trainer or second to last trainer on the top floor and I think I remember a ninetales getting repeated critical hits plus burn against my pokemon.
 
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Hey guys, does anybody have detailed information about the RNG in the Emerald Battle Pike? There is some information on Serebii (https://www.serebii.net/emerald/tube.shtml) which may or may not be correct. In particular I'd like to know what the room probabilities are if you "decline" the attendant's offer (i.e. if you choose a room which the attendant did *not* speak about). In principle I can estimate these things myself by going through the pike repeatedly and writing down what happens, but if this stuff is already known then it would save me work!
Here are some (unverified) theories

1. "non-events" cannot happen - e.g. if your team is in perfect health you will never get one of the "healing" rooms. (I believe, however, that if your team is perfectly healthy except for PP then you can still get heal events)

2. If you only have one pokemon remaining you can never be challenged to a doubles fight

3. If you decline the attendant's offer then the room you get will never be related to what the attendant hinted at (e.g. if they say nostalgia and you choose a different room then you will never get the status ailment or partial heal rooms).
 
Hey guys, does anybody have detailed information about the RNG in the Emerald Battle Pike? There is some information on Serebii (https://www.serebii.net/emerald/tube.shtml) which may or may not be correct. In particular I'd like to know what the room probabilities are if you "decline" the attendant's offer (i.e. if you choose a room which the attendant did *not* speak about). In principle I can estimate these things myself by going through the pike repeatedly and writing down what happens, but if this stuff is already known then it would save me work!
Here are some (unverified) theories

1. "non-events" cannot happen - e.g. if your team is in perfect health you will never get one of the "healing" rooms. (I believe, however, that if your team is perfectly healthy except for PP then you can still get heal events)

2. If you only have one pokemon remaining you can never be challenged to a doubles fight

3. If you decline the attendant's offer then the room you get will never be related to what the attendant hinted at (e.g. if they say nostalgia and you choose a different room then you will never get the status ailment or partial heal rooms).
I'm pretty sure (but this is based on nothing but my own experience so disregard as you will) that you can get a partial healing room after being fully healed. I've played dozens of times and I'm certain I've been fully healed and then had a room where a Gentleman restores one or two Pokemon to full health.
 
I'm starting an attempt at the symbols, and figured I'd try to work with the speedrun team since I don't have access to trading on cartrige. Problem is, I missed my chance to reset for Latios, and I have a Quirky nature with terrible IVs (only SpDef is above 10). What are my options (other teams, replacements for latios, use it as-is) besides restarting the save?
Starmie with natural cure is a good replacement for latios. All roaming latios are glitched anyways so the only that could help you is a better nature. A latios with 0 special attack iv neutral nature actually has the same power as a 31 iv modest starmie! Your hypothetical starmie might have slighty better defense and significantly better speed though. With starmie you might want to change the third team mate to something like slaking or salamence. Honestly I say just try the latios as is. The experience playing the tower is worth something even if you determine it can't be done with that nature. And if you do determine it can or can't be done I'd love to hear about it because people ask similar questions to that a lot.
 
This is going to be a lengthy post about my recently updated Trick strategy for the Singles Battle tower.

The old team
After 'joining the Moltres bandwagon' and being impressed by the use of Shedinja, I tried some variants of that team myself (Hidden Power Steel on Steelix and Thief/Dig Shedinja). I'm not a very patient player, but it looked so nice on paper I had to try it. I even experimented with using Rapid Spin somehow, be it with Blastoise/Starmie over Moltres or Donphan over Steelix. I lost a couple of times to a seemingly random Aerial Ace from Feraligatr before its other moves were out of PP, though, and I can imagine other opponents becoming a problem if the AI throws out random moves from time to time.

I didn't forget about optimizing the Trick team using Alakazam, Zapdos and Tyranitar yet and decided to give that kind of team one more serious attempt, trying to blend in the now-popular Torment + Protect strategy and get the best of both.
The scariest Pokémon for the ZamDosTar team were Rhydon (a Quick Claw Megahorn on Alakazam put me in serious trouble), Ursaring (Double-Edge is too strong and it's going to kill itself too soon) and Muk (Sticky Hold, Brick Break, Explosion). In fact, these Pokémon were so scary it was only a matter of time before one of them gets too lucky.

So the original way I tried to solve these three problems was to sweep with a Curse/Agility Air Cutter Skarmory instead of the monster Tyranitar, receiving a Lansat Berry boost from Zapdos in order to get a 1/3 crit rate (instead of Ganlon on the Tyranitar team), but its sweeping prowess was underwhelming in too many scenarios and it needed to have Evasion boosts against bulkier Electric-types. Air Cutter was necessary to break through Curse Regis and bulky stuff like opposing Skarmory in time, for example.

The new team: Trick revamped
Torment + Protect made me realize Pressure and Grudge (tried Memento too) were not the only ways of succesfully capitalizing on a Pokémon having forcefully obtained a Choice Band.
I decided to use Skarmory instead of Zapdos (ironically it moved from being the sweeper to being the wall, which is what it prefers anyway), which immediately added some benefits: Rhydon, Muk and OHKO-abusers are no longer threats, it resists Dark, Ghost and Bug-types moves thrown at Alakazam, and its high Defense generally lets users of Double-Edge survive recoil damage long enough for me to setup. Type-wise, the setup sweeper that covers Skarmory's weaknesses (Fire and Electric) best is Latios so I naturally went for that to round out the team. It also gets Recover, which enables me to run Leftovers on Skarmory instead of the final sweeper, making the setup much more reliable and flexible.

General strategy
Against most opponents, Alakazam swaps its Choice Band which locks the opponent into using one move and, against some important Pokémon, steals away their Quick Claw. Then it either switches out or cripples the opponent before Skarmory is sent in. Skarmory either uses Sand-Attack directly or it utilizes Torment + Protect, making good use of its Leftovers. The goal here is to force the opponent into using Struggle at -6 Accuracy, which Latios can easily set up on with Recover, Substitute and Calm Mind. The rest of their team then faces a fully setup Latios behind a Substitute that outspeeds the vast majority of the Tower. Before talking about specific situations, here is the team and an explanation of the sets:

Lv. 50 Alakazam (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 152 HP / 244 Def / 12 SpD / 100 Spe
Stats: 149 HP / 49 Atk / 96 Def / 155 SpA / 107 SpD / 168 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Thunder Wave
- Kinesis
- Skill Swap


Alakazam is the mascotte of the team, just as before. Its EVs and set changed a little, however; it no longer outspeeds Sceptile and Dugtrio in favor of being just a little bulkier. Defensively, it now survives Snorlax' Quick Claw non-crit Double-Edge so it can't Curse up afterwards due to CB. It also lives through most Special attacks, and the ones that might KO it, like Houndoom's Crunch/Overheat, aren't threatening to the team. This team is played on Level 50 for two reasons: the absence of Sand Stream and not needing to EV Alakazam to survive the Quick Claw Crunch from Tyranitar. The reason Alakazam has 149 HP is because it's the lowest HP that allows it to survive Snorlax' Double Edge while also being a multiple of 3 minus one, which minimizes recoil damage for the opponent. Wasting 4 EVs cannot be prevented, which is disappointing.

The only relevant non-CB Quick Claw assaults Alakazam usually doesn't survive are Ursaring's Double-Edge and Scizor's Silver Wind. These will be covered later on.

Thunder Wave is very useful as it further reduces the chances of -6 Accuracy Pokémon landing a move and paralyzes some threats that otherwise outspeed Latios. Kinesis is nice and spammable even when Alakazam still has the Choice Band (usually only when Skarmory has to be sent in turn 1), and Skill Swap is for escaping Wobbuffet, stealing Keen Eye from Fearow, reducing Medicham's Attack, nullifying Clear Body and finally removing abilities that could leave Latios with a status effect, most importantly Static Pokémon, Breloom (Effect Spore) and to a lesser extent Flame Body and Poison Point.

Lv. 50 Skarmory (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 12 Def / 244 SpD
Stats: 172 HP / 76 Atk / 162 Def / 60 SpA / 133 SpD / 90 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Torment
- Sand-Attack
- Whirlwind


While Skarmory is naturally bulky on the physical side, it sadly needs all the HP it can get in order to be strong enough on the special side (otherwise I could further minimize recoil damage from Double-Edge). It is guaranteed to survive non-crit Thunderbolt from Modest Jolteon, which outspeeds Alakazam. The rest is put into Defense in order to minimize damage it takes from Choice Banded hits. Torment + Protect saves a load of HP in tandem with Leftovers (pity it has such an unlucky HP stat to optimize Leftovers) and misses due to Sand-Attack.

The last move was originally a filler slot I first tried to use Spikes in so Latios could be made bulkier, but ultimately I chose for Whirlwind. The latter option provided to be invaluable in order to remove Metagross and Regirock from the field. Original idea: Alakazam used Skill Swap on them so Skarmory could lower their Accuracy, but since they can raise Attack with Meteor Mash and Curse, respectively, and would still hold their Quick Claw, this proved to be too dangerous. So the new strategy became to switch in Skarmory immediately, Whirlwind them out (with a Protect in between against Metagross, not Regirock because of Curse) and hopefully being able to cripple the next opponent with a fully healthy Alakazam waiting. Whirlwind is also a general panic button, but it's not used frequently outside of the above scenario.

Lv. 50 Latios (M) @ Dragon Fang
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 12 HP / 76 Def / 236 SpA / 4 SpD / 180 Spe
Stats: 157 HP / 85 Atk / 110 Def / 198 SpA / 131 SpD / 153 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
- Recover
- Dragon Claw


The sweeper of the team, with an item that looks like a joke. Of course, I wanted to use Lum Berry first, and run a way more bulky (and speedy) set, but concluded that Metagross is not OHKOed in general, even with +6 252+ SpA. The Quick Claw variants can then break the Substitute and Quick Claw critical hit me to death every time they show up. With Dragon Fang and 198 SpA, I OHKO all Metagross that run Quick Claw. Dragon Fang generally boosts the power of Dragon Claw when I can't fully setup for some reason, so I guess that helps as a 'really poor man's Soul Dew'. Fun: +6 Dragon Claw at worst 2HKOs all Pokémon not named Shedinja and the Pokémon it can't OHKO without a crit usually can't even break Latios' Substitute (Blissey, sometimes Regice survives too).

Not having Lum requires me to be very cautious against moves that have a secondary effect or Pokémon with an ability that can cause status afflictions, such as Breloom. Having 157 HP is optimal with both Substitute and Recover, 153 Speed outspeeds the neutral 100 BS group and the rest is put into Defense to minimize Struggle (recoil) damage. Anything with an Attack lower than 190 deals less than 75% damage to Latios with a critical hit CB Struggle, which allows me to NOT die to two consecutive crits using Recover while setting up. Since they only have 1/3 chance of hitting, the probability of them 3HKOing me would be 1/48^3 = 1/110592 and that's if they have extremely high rolls as well. So even the Pokémon with more than 190 Attack, such as Machamp and Breloom, won't easily break through with -6 Accuracy. And against those I would be more careful with Substitutes as long as I have enough PP left on it. Generally, if Latios outspeeds, it always Recovers to full health and waits until opponents miss before continuing to use Calm Mind, except if they have very low Attack.

Sadly, Latios gets only 300 Speed this way so attention has to be given against second or third Pokémon like Gengar. Most Special Attacks don't even break its Substitute, however. Play carefully against possible Destiny Bonds (check the set by using Substitute for example) if Latios is the only remaining Pokémon, even though the AI seldomly uses the move at full HP. Against second Pokémon Starmie, for example, use Substitute if Latios' Substitute is not 'full' in order to make a full Substitute when it Ice Beams; the second Ice Beam won't break the Substitute without a critical hit.

Things to watch out for

=== TURN 1 EXPLOSION ===
Previously, turn 1 Explosions were more difficult to handle without the aid of Skarmory. Now, nearly all Explosion users can be switched into on turn 1, get Sand-Attacked by Skarmory and when they (eventually) explode, they don't kill Skarmory by far even when they manage to hit. The following opponents can be switched into safely:

Claydol, Exeggutor, Forretress (Zap Cannon deals maximum of 44%, so use Torment), Glalie (stall out its Ice-type move with Torment), Golem (Whirlwind the Focus Punch evasion spammer, Flamethrower does abysmal damage, use Torment), Muk, Shiftry and Steelix.
The others have a more specific strategy:

Electrode: I've never seen it use Explosion on turn 1, so using Trick has been safe until now as it usually Mirror Coats or something equally unthreatening (doesn't even use an Electric-type move most of the time). Use Skill Swap on Electrode before setting up when possible to steal its Static ability.

Metagross and Regirock: The main reason to use Whirlwind; switch to Skarmory and use Whirlwind instead of Sand-Attack.

Regice: I've never seen it use Explosion on turn 1, so using Trick seems safe. If Alakazam lives, use Skill Swap to remove Clear Body. Latios can easily setup against Regice's Struggle, even if its Accuracy is not lowered.

Registeel: Switch to Skarmory on turn 1 to scout its set. If it's the Explosion one, stall it until it uses the move, which won't take long because it will run out of Ancientpower pretty quickly. In fact, it really seems to like using Explosion on turn 1. If it's not the Choice Band set, then it has no Quick Claw either. Be sure to steal the Evasion spammer's Leftovers with Trick before Skill Swapping it. The Amnesia user is difficult to take down even with Latios, so stall out its Rests before using Dragon Claw in order to save PP.

=== OPPONENTS OUTSPEEDING ALAKAZAM ===
Crobat:
Switch to Skarmory
Stall it out of dangerous moves (such as Aerial Ace), then see if Alakazam can get the Thunder Wave off, which makes it easier for Latios to setup. Faster critical hit Struggles can be dangerous.

Jolteon: Alakazam uses Trick
Alakazam and Skarmory both survive non-crit Thunderbolt, even from the Modest one, so Skarmory should be able to use Torment. Use Sand-Attack while Skarmory hopefully survives the Struggle after Leftovers (not possible only if Thunderbolt has near max roll), then Protect again, et cetera. If Skarmory would die to a Struggle, switch into Latios to take the Struggle, then bring in Skarmory to take the Thunderbolt. Latios can then use Substitute without fear of getting paralyzed. At +1, Latios' Substitute doesn't break from Thunderbolt.

Dugtrio: Switch to Skarmory and stall it out as much as possible. Don't use Trick even afterwards, because faster CB crit Struggle can be threatening. Thunder Wave is not possible.

Sceptile: Switch to Skarmory, discover its set and if it's a Thunderpunch variant, Tormentstall it. Using Trick afterwards is safe because it has low enough Attack. This is better than risking a critical hit Leaf Blade on turn 1.

Aerodactyl: The ones that are faster than Alakazam do not have a Fire-type move (one of them already has a Choice Band), so try to use Thunder Wave, and then stall it out with Skarmory. Be sure to postpone sending out Latios if it still has Aerial Ace PP. If somehow it gets too many boosts with Ancientpower, Whirlwind it out. Fun bonus: the only way for Aerodactyl to OHKO Alakazam without a critical hit is CB Hyper Beam, which is very easy to setup on.

=== STRONG DOUBLE-EDGES ===
The Double-Edge users not covered here can be Tricked in relative safety.

Ursaring: Use Kinesis with Alakazam, then switch to Skarmory if Alakazam survives the turn in order to steal its Quick Claw later when it's at -6 Accuracy. Don't give it Choice Band, as Double-Edge + Struggle will then deal too much damage to Skarmory and recoil damage to Ursaring.

Machamp: Use Kinesis with Alakazam until it is clear that it's not the Double-Edge set. If it's not that set, it's safe but not really necessary to use Trick after switching to Skarmory. The Bulk Up variant easily runs out of Cross Chop PP, after which Latios can safely set up.

Aggron: Use Trick with Alakazam, as it has 50% chance of having Rock Head and its Choice Banded Double-Edge doesn't kill Alakazam, so Thunder Wave can be used as well.

Armaldo: Use Kinesis with Alakazam. The Choice Band set deals good damage to Skarmory with Rock Slide, so it needs all the Accuracy reduction it can get. If it turns out to be the Swords Dance variant against Skarmory, Whirlwind it out as it could activate Quick Claw with boosted Attack. Alakazam will still live in that case, unless it was crit on turn 1.

Granbull: Same as with Armaldo; Kinesis first. Thunder Wave is a good alternative with 100% accuracy. The Cheri Berry variant will often use Thunder Wave against Alakazam.

Snorlax: Has enough HP to live long enough, even if it uses Double-Edge. Alakazam is EVed specifically to survive a Quick Claw Double-Edge from it before using Trick. This prevents it from setting up Curses while holding Quick Claw as well.

Dodrio: Use Thunder Wave with Alakazam. It lives through non-CB Double-Edge, so switch to Skarmory after and stall it out. It won't have much HP left if many Double-Edges hit, although it will usually choose Double-Edge against Skarmory so Torment + Protect greatly helps here. If it turns out to be not the Double-Edger, it's safe to use Trick after.

Salamence: Use Trick with Alakazam. There is a high probability it won't use Double-Edge, in which case I autowin. If it does D-E, however, Alakazam will usually faint and Skarmory will get it to -6 Accuracy, but sadly it might not have enough HP left for Latios to get to +6 if it hits too many Struggles in succession. The priority is to have a Substitute up, so kill it with Dragon Claw when you feel it's the right time.

Fearow: Use Skill Swap with Alakazam to remove Keen Eye and switch to Skarmory, stalling it out of all its PP. Tri Attack could be a nuisance, but Latios outspeeds as well so it could stall many moves even when Fearow doesn't Struggle yet. Latios and Skarmory have a different gender to disrupt Attract when necessary.

Tauros: Use Thunder Wave and then switch to Skarmory. The Swagger + Thrash version put me in a very difficult spot before when I switched to Skarmory directly, and I had to rely on luck because it was faster than Latios, wasn't at -6 Accuracy and had Thrash PP left after critting Skarmory a few times. Special attacking variants have only one super effective move, making Torment really useful as well. Tauros is one of the few Pokémon that outspeeds Latios and breaks its Sub when fully setup, further emphasizing the utility of Thunder Wave.

=== STATUS EFFECTS AND SYNCHRONIZE ===
First I had Inner Focus on Alakazam in order to prevent the opponent from poisoning or burning itself, and being able to hit a Trick through (Quick Claw) Rock Slide / Fake Out flinches. But then I got into a weird scenario where I had to Whirlwind out Metagross and a Zapdos came out. It used Thunder on the Alakazam switch in and paralyzed Alakazam after which Skarmory couldn't Sand-Attack it, putting me in a weird spot where Latios barely came out on top (but with a Substitute up) and was left paralyzed before 'sweeping' away the Metagross and the remaining Registeel (a pretty dangerous team to face indeed). When Alakazam has to switch in, it's actually really important that random paralyzes also paralzye the foe. It also helps when I get Thunder Waved on turn 1, in which case Alakazam sometimes heals itself with a stolen Lum Berry, so Skarmory can come in and use Torment, setting up an opportunity for Latios to come in and prevent paralysis with Substitute every other turn while setting up.
Using Synchronize has downsides too. If they burn Alakazam using Will-O-Wisp, which never happened to be honest, I would switch in Latios directly and setup a burned Latios in the time the opponent still lives. Bad poison is worse, because Latios can't handle the increasing damage reliably before sweeping. Luckily, if they use Toxic on Alakazam Synchronize inflicts regular poison to them, so Skarmory can come in, use Torment and Latios will be able to setup to something like +4, depending on the power of their Struggle. Most of the Toxic users are Poison-types themselves though, but for example Shuckle isn't.

=== MISCELLANEOUS ===
Scizor:
Alakazam uses Trick
If Quick Claw doesn't activate against Alakazam, Torment prevents Scizor from using Silver Wind more than two times in total. If two Silver Winds get the boost, however, Scizor will outspeed Latios and Skarmory has to use Whirlwind.
If Quick Claw does activate, Alakazam faints guaranteed before using Trick and Skarmory has to try and stall it out of attacking PP before Latios tries to set up while Scizor wastes all its Light Screen and Swords Dance PP; setting up against +6 Struggle is too risky because of the Quick Claw. Note that Skarmory is 2HKOed by +6 Steel Wing, but Leftovers, the AI attacking before getting to +6, and -6 usually prevent this from happening until it runs out of Steel Wing PP. This is the only dangerous set, but if things really get out of hand, use Whirlwind.

Medicham: Use Skill Swap on it and switch to Skarmory while Alakazam only dies to critical hit Shadow Ball (still only 87.5% chance of OHKOing). The only dangerous scenario (to which I accidentally lost while testing) is Medicham passing Calm Mind boosts to something like (in my case) Blaziken. This can now be prevented by using Whirlwind when you see it uses Calm Mind. Skill Swap is necessary to guarantee the full setup with Latios, because CB Pure Power Struggle nearly 2HKOes Latios and gives too much recoil damage as well. Giving it Choice Band after using Skill Swap by switching around is the best case scenario, in which I get guaranteed setup.

Shedinja: Simply stall it out of attacking moves and setup BEFORE it has to use Struggle. Same if it's the second Pokémon (switch back to Skarmory if necessary, even when fully setup already). It doesn't even have Attack EV's.

Turn 1 Perish Song: Use Trick on turn 2 to retreive the Choice Band, then switch out to Skarmory, and switch back to Alakazam when they switch as well. The worst that can happen is Skarmory getting Mean Looked (but it won't die to Perish Song) or Lovely Kissed in the process. Altaria could Pursuit Alakazam, which it royally survives.

Curse: If it's a Ghost-type (usually Dusclops), simply use Kinesis or Thunder Wave until Alakazam faints, then send out Latios and use Substitute, setting up without -6 Accuracy. Non-Ghost types can be fully set up on before they run out of Curse PP.

Team Building process, alternatives and thoughts on further improvement
In the first version of these three Pokémon, I used Spikes Skarmory to be able to run a faster, bulkier Latios set that would OHKO everything (most importantly Metagross) at +6 after switching into 25% Spikes damage. While I was proud of this idea, lead Metagross and Regirock could make me lose too easily even with Skill Swap and an Alakazam that survives non-crit Quick Claw stuff; if Alakazam would still faint somehow (I got crit by QC Rock Slide Regirock earlier), Skarmory had no way of reducing their Accuracy and/or crippling them in any other way.
I also experimented with the following bulky Salamence as a sweeper:

Salamence (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 52 HP / 164 Atk / 180 Def / 112 Spe
Stats: 177 HP / 193 Atk / 123 Def / 117 SpA / 100 SpD / 134 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Dragon Dance
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Earthquake


Having Intimidate is a great benefit, reducing damage from Double-Edge users (after Alakazam faints, before switching in Skarmory) so more opponents can be Tricked safely. Because Salamence doesn't resist Electric, I decided to use specially defensive Steelix over Skarmory. Steelix has way more physical bulk than Skarmory even without investment, further reducing the risk against Double-Edge and Regirock/Metagross. Salamence's Substitute survives all Struggles after Intimidate. Sadly, Steelix has to make do with (STAB) Mud-Slap instead of Sand-Attack (0 Atk IV and Calm Nature) so it can't cripple Pokémon immune to the Ground-type. It does get Torment + Protect and Roar, although Rest could also be nice to have in certain situations. It still dies against some critical hit Surfs, however, which reduces its usefulness as a OHKO stopper (think of Wailord / Walrein / Whiscash). Not being able to cripple Pokémon like Salamence and Dodrio really hurts though, even with Intimidate help from Salamence, as Salamence would have to be lucky enough to avoid critical hits while switching in repeatedly, and has no way of recovering outside of Leftovers or Rest. Therefore, Steelix itself can't utilize Leftovers so it settles for Sitrus Berry / Chesto Berry. Here is the set I used:

Steelix (F) @ Sitrus Berry / Chesto Berry
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Stats: 182 HP / 81 Atk / 221 Def / 75 SpA / 128 SpD / 50 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Torment
- Mud-Slap
- Roar / Rest


On that team, I also tested the following Grumpig for Trick because it stops Water(/Ice)-types(/moves) that could steamroll the team with a necessary crit against Steelix:

Grumpig (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 108 SpD / 92 Spe
Stats: 187 HP / 50 Atk / 92 Def / 85 SpA / 158 SpD / 112 Spe
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 SpA
- Trick
- Skill Swap
- Flash
- Icy Wind / Torment


While it can run the 100%-accurate Mud-Slap as well, I used Flash to have a chance at crippling opponents Steelix couldn't. Icy Wind was situational and works as a poor man's Thunder Wave, being good against Pokémon that used Dragon Dance before getting Tricked, for example. Icy Wind is the reason Special Attack is minimized. Grumpig has the advantages of surviving all important physical attacks (including Ursaring and Scizor), laughing at Surfs and Ice-type moves and not even being 2HKOed by Modest Raikou's Thunder, but its low Speed opens up new problems, such as random physical critical hits, Heracross (who might Swords Dance first, ouch) and Pokémon that use Dragon Dance before Double-Edging with a +1 CB, although my own Salamence's typing and Intimidate semi make up for it. Because Grumpig is so good against Special attackers, I eventually replaced Steelix by Skarmory again and ran Thief + Sitrus Berry (EV'ed more physically bulky) in the Whirlwind slot, but ultimately decided that the team presented first is way more dependable, less difficult to use and less prone to hax, which is what the Tower is about. Most importantly, not having Rest reduces Steelix longevity too much and not having Roar invites Metagross and Regirock to become a problem. Using Latios + Steelix is another option, but makes Heracross and some Ground-immune Pokémon too much of a problem I think.
Finally, I'm planning to give Linoone a chance over Alakazam and Grumpig as a Trickster, trading some of Grumpig's bulk and Alakazam's Speed in order to get somewhere in between (closer to Alakazam). It outruns Heracross, gets very useful moves, most importantly Charm, but also Sand-Attack and Thunder Wave (although Skill Swap will be missed) and can avoid being KO'ed by Snorlax' non-crit Double-Edge and Scizor's Silver Wind. Also it attracts Fighting-type moves, which turns my attention to Salamence once again. If it only runs 153 Speed, which it needs to do in order to be meaningfully bulkier than Alakazam, stuff like Gengar, Raikou and Starmie outspeed it and will eventually crit through Linoone on the Special side before obtaining a Choice Band, putting the rest of the team in an awkward spot. I still have quite some testing to do, but for now I'm pretty sure Alakazam remains the best Trick user available even though it's frail. In the current team, I simply can't lose without quite extreme bad luck (think of double misses against Brightpowder or Focus Bands that keep activating while the opponent critically hits me) or repeatedly getting bad matchups / critical hits when Whirlwinding out Metagross/Regirock.

Sample battles
Finally, a sample streak to give an idea:
https://youtu.be/28RF_5iy82U


As always, thank you for reading; I am looking forward to a discussion!
 
Actaeon First of all, it's always a pleasure to read your posts, and I think I sum up everybody's thought by saying that .



About your new Trick team, it looks very solid on paper, definitely better than your (still very good) previous ones and I'm glad to see you using Torment, it was a total revelation for me.
You've already described accurately threats you may find.

Basing on my experience using PP stall teams (IRIDESCENCE will come back for another dance soon), I've found extremely frustrating how ineffective Skarmory is as a special sponge (and mine also has Rest).
Your team has the big potential to win matches after a single move, but instead of mine (sorry if I keep comparing, but I think they're pretty similar on capitalizing on right foes, despite all of the clear differences) Trick teams are more likely to be exposed by hax on turn 1: if Trick doesn't land (worst if Zam dies in the process, and it can happen in a lot of situations vs. CH/QC/BP/OHKO moves), Skarmory is your only answer to a lot of Special attackers (thinking of Ice STAB in particular, but the list goes on), and despite its bulk on paper, it's very prone to be worn down or to be haxed in the needed PP stall process, especially lacking recovery move.
I know that a 2v3 match after losing Zam on turn 1 without CB tricked away is the worst scenario, but it can happen and then almost every Special hitter may be a problem (Latios can lose in a lot of ways if not set-up before, and if the foe has two special damaging move, also recovery-less Skarm is not a safe answer).


This is where I want to go: to prevent the most the risk from these situations, I suggest you to run Rest over Sand-Attack on Skarm. This is not only part of my personal fight against accuracy/evasion moves (I find them simply TOO unreliable), but I strongly think that with a solid PP stalling strategy (like Trick+Torment+Protect definitely is), it's way better to have a recovery move that lets you stall effectively wider range of enemies (while also letting you save PPs in the process). Moreover, Rest lets you handle way safer CH or random moves selection from A.I. in crucial turns (Leftovers alone can't), and I honestly think that for a long run this is its main strenght.

I don't really see situations in which you absolutely need an accuracy lowering move: for example, you mentioned D-E Ursaring as a Sand-attack target, but with Rest you can simply hard switch on Skarm (if it's mixed, it will eat a Crunch), Torment it and stall it out of D-E PPs on Protect (and this prevents it from dying by struggling), Resting away damages and also saving Alakazam from useless damages.
At the end of the day there are no physical foes able to overcome Rest Skarmory with Torment+Tect, even after a CB tricked (and you can also consider running Chesto over Leftovers, but it needs calcs to be decided).
Rest's longevity is really god-sent in PP stalling matches.



(P.S.: I'm reading again your post, I really wish I had your methodical approach)
 
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Thanks for the kind feedback, Adedede.

I agree with you that Rest Skarmory is essential for teams that lean more towards PP stall than mine. The goal isn't really to PP stall opponents, only enough for them to force them into (unboosted) use of Struggle in order to set up safely. Without Sand-Attack, many opponents won't let Latios use enough Calm Minds and end up with a Substitute up to become dangerous enough without killing themselves through recoil damage. Of course there is Kinesis, but Alakazam can't be depended on during many of the more dangerous situations.

I wouldn't even dare to describe Skarmory as a special sponge, indeed. All it needs to do is survive Modest Jolteon's Thunderbolt and not getting 2HKOed by non-crit Ice Beams, really. If there's no STAB (take IB Starmie for example when it freezes Alakazam or something), Skarmory's bulk is definitely sufficient unless the bad luck takes unrealistic proportions). That leaves situations where Alakazam is KOed by either Quick Claw Critical Hit STAB Special Attacks or gets frozen (paralysis is usually handeld by Synchronize). Let's see what has Quick Claw:
  • Aggron: Both QC sets will get to -6 Accuracy
  • Armaldo: Needs a CH to OHKO Alakazam or could be hard switched into with Skarmory as an alternative
  • Blaziken: The QC set is handled by Latios alone (has to QC Flamethrower crit Alakazam)
  • Breloom: Could use QC Spore, but is handled by Latios (although Effect Spore could be problematic if it sleeps / paras Latios)
  • Crawdaunt: Is laughed at by Skarmory even without Rest
  • Donphan: Needs a crit against Alakazam and is handled fine by Rest-less Skarmory
  • Exeggutor: Hard switch into Skarmory, no Rest needed again
  • Feraligatr: Needs a crit against Alakazam and doesn't even kill for sure in that case; can't really touch Skarmory after Torment. A CH doesn't kill Skarmory by far and bandless Brick Break barely overcomes Leftovers damage
  • Flareon: Shadow Ball and Overheat need a CH, and if it uses Overheat, it has no Special Attack left to hurt Skarmory. If Shadow Ball CHs Alakazam, I can switch between Skarmory and Latios, throwing Protects in between to stall out Overheat.
  • Forretress: Already handled by switching into Skarmory in fear or Explosion.
  • Gardevoir: Can't KO Alakazam
  • Gengar: Can't KO Alakazam
  • Golem: Handled by Rest-less Skarmory; hard switch
  • Granbull: Already covered above
  • Gyarados: Can't touch Latios
  • Hariyama: Has to crit Alakazam and its strongest move will run out of PP too quickly against Skarmory, even when it crits. Then it only has a 50% accurate Facade or a 45% accurate Rock Slide to hit Latios with in the very worst case scenario
  • Jynx: Has no Ice STAB
  • Lapras: This is a typical case of what you mentioned; it has Surf and Ice Beam. Needs a good portion of hax to overcome Alakazam without getting Tricked, then it needs to freeze Skarmory. Even then I have good chance to stall out nearly all Ice Beams with clever switching, and Ice Beam barely 2HKOs after a Calm Mind. From all the Lapras I've encountered, only one was lucky enough to kill Alakazam, but it failed to freeze Skarmory. I'm not too afraid of this scenario, tbh. The OHKOer is handled by Skarmory, of course.
  • Latias: Can't really kill Alakazam and Thunderbolt does 60% max damage to Skarmory without a crit, almost guaranteeing 2 Sand-Attacks.
  • Latios: Same story, but it does more damage to Skarmory.
  • Machamp: Crit Cross Chop doesn't kill Alakazam
  • Magmar: A joke.
  • Metagross: Already discussed
  • Muk: Already discussed.
  • Nidoking: Can't touch Skarmory
  • Quagsire: Can be hard switched into by Skarmory. Whirlwind if it Curses.
  • Regirock: Already discussed
  • Registeel: Already discussed
  • Rhydon: Use Trick with Alakazam to try and remove Quick Claw, if it fails Skarmory still has it unless it gets multiple QC Rock Slide FLINCHES. It's safer to hard switch into Skarmory, but I've been too impatient tbh.
  • Scizor: Already discussed
  • Skarmory: :)
  • Slowbro: Has to crit Alakazam first and a CH doesn't kill Skarmory, so Torment is guaranteed as it won't use Ice Beam.
  • Slowking: Almost the same as Slowbro, although it does have Flamethrower. Its Ice Beam is pretty weak after a Calm Mind, but you never know with crits and/or freezes.
  • Snorlax: already discussed
  • Steelix: already discussed (switch to Skarmory)
  • Swampert: The QC set can't touch Latios
  • Ursaring: I agree with you Adedede, maybe it's better to hard switch into Skarmory (even without Rest). The Swords Dance variant has no Quick Claw.
  • Vaporeon: Pretty weak and has to crit Zam, although Baton Pass could be dangerous even after Torment. It would still be BP'ing Accuracy loss, though.
  • Vileplume: no threat at all
  • Wailord: Its Surf and Ice Beam are really weak, so it would need to Fissure Alakazam and then get a really long QC freeze against Skarmory in order to even have a chance at haxing Latios.
  • Walrein: The QC version doesn't have Ice STAB, although the Brightpowder one does. But in that case, after it had major hax against Alakazam and Skarmory, it has no Quick Claw, so it will be Tormented and Latios can stall out the Ice Beam before setting up.
  • Whiscash: Kind of the same as Walrein, although it does have a QC Ice Beam set (luckily without STAB).
I really don't think there is a single Quick Claw user that puts me in trouble without extreme luck, which I've seen during play as well. Sand-Attack Skarmory really gets away with a lot of stuff, even against Ice STAB. While -6 Accuracy is best, I would gladly sacrifice Skarmory in order to get one or two more in a situations where Skarmory is going to die too fast. And when I decide to do that, the opponent might miss in the process.

I understand your negative feel about using Evasion as it's infamous for its independability, but I think when it's combined with Substitutes, Recovers (and smart EV'ing to handle Critical Hits) that outspeed the attacker it's a viable strategy to greatly reduce the chance of NOT setting up. It's an essential element of this particular strategy and works against both physical and special opponents and in emergency situations it contributes something (like Rest would also do, but in a different way). I like to think in an 'expected number of battles' until something really bad would happen (a geometric random variable if you wish) and if that number, which is kind of a measure how good a team is, would be greater than say 3000, then we've got a better team. It's very hard to actually estimate that constant, but it exists if you know your strategy in all situations.

Edit: Will think about the Brightpowder opponents as well, to see what the risks are. During team construction, I kind of neglected that in spite of Quick Claw to be honest.
 
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This is going to be a lengthy post about my recently updated Trick strategy for the Singles Battle tower.
...
As always, thank you for reading; I am looking forward to a discussion!
This is impressive and a great read! (Minor nitpick: you can't always switch to Skarmory against Dugtrio because he might have Arena Trap, but I guess you were assuming that your readers are knowledgeable enough that this point was understood.) Incidentally, I had been thinking about what the best trick team that is reasonably easy to obtain if all you have is an emerald cartridge, and glitches/RNG abuse is not allowed. My guess, independently, was very similar to yours (though unlike you I haven't been super-optimal with EV spreads etc.). Here was my effort (all lv.50):

Linoone @ Choice Band
Jolly, 252HP/252Speed
Trick
Sand-Attack
Thunder Wave
Charm

[Procedure to obtain trick+charm in-game: Train up a kadabra until it knows trick and get a wild smeargle to sketch it. Catch the smeargle and level up until it knows sketch again, and then fight Pokefan Isabel's minun to get charm (a few rematches required).]

Since Alakazam is not obtainable without trading, this is probably the best one can do. I agree with all the remarks about Linoone that you made in your post. I tend not to use sand-attack very much (maybe worth replacing it with return so that if it's your last pokemon you aren't completely screwed but I doubt it). Charm is very useful against lead machamp/ursaring/aggron/hariyama/medicham etc.

Skarmory @ Lum Berry
Bold, 252HP/252Sp.Def
Roar (whirlwind is technically better but roar can be taught via TM)
Toxic
Rest
Counter


Toxic is for Shedinja/Calm Mind Blissey, although usually Latias can win anyhow by PP Stalling so it isn't essential; counter can beat certain annoying things like Aggron/Metagross, though usually it's better to roar them away. I suspect this moveset is non-optimal though; I shall experiment with things like torment/sand-attack. (Sadly I don't think it's possible to get curse on Skarmory, although perhaps there is a method I don't know about.)

Latias @ Leftovers
Hardy (say), 100HP/100Def/60Sp.Atk/250Speed
Dragon Claw
Calm Mind
Recover
Substitute


Not much to say here; Latias is better than Latios because of higher defense to survive struggles. If modest, then Latios gets a big boost due to having base 130 Sp.Atk so probably works out as better than Latias overall, but you can't rely on getting a modest latios in-game (recall RNG abuse not allowed). EVs are to give some bulk for setting up and also attack power, but are somewhat arbitrary. I went for 153 speed to beat the neutral base 100s.

On tests I ran Linoone with 25/20/20/20/20/25 IVs, Skarmory 20/20/20/20/20/20 and Latias (Hardy) 15/15/15/15/15/15, as I thought these would be fairly easy to get in practice. It gets to 100+ wins reasonably often but I'd definitely say it fails to get there more often than it manages it. Black Belt Raul was responsible for quite a few defeats.

I mostly had the same issues (double-edge, explosion) as you. Starmie was a scary lead because Linoone (even with a 31 speed IV) only speed ties with it. If it gets locked into ice beam it is usually possible to stall with rest on skarmory + substitute on Latias, though you are in trouble if they get a freeze/crit. In tests, I never lost because of ice beam, nor to similar things like ice punch machamp, though I had a few close shaves. Usually I lost because of a lead metagross and something else dangerous in second place.

The idea of using dragon fang on the sweeper was really nice! (Sadly it's no use in this scenario though as you never even get close to OHKOing Metagross. In one test I actually lost to Amnesia Regice in 2nd place, even once I had got to +6. You also can't beat roar Steelix who is a problem if he shows up in 2nd place. ) Leftovers was chosen because it allows Latias to be able to set up more often.

Even without skill-swap, you can safely beat pokemon with static etc. by switching repeatedly until they are almost KOed, and then set up, so they KO themselves with struggle. Barring an unlucky crit, you will even have a substitute up at the end if you are careful enough.

Teambuilding: I originally tried Dusclops/Registeel in place of Skarmory. Dusclops is immune to double-edge (great!) and gets memento but you are mostly screwed if Metagross shows up at the start. Registeel resists ice beam and would probably be better than skarmory, were it not for the fact that Skarmory gets roar - this is too good to pass up IMO. I intend to test Linoone+Registeel+DD Salamence at some point because, unlike Latias, I can arrange for Salamence to get good IVs, so he might work out better.
 
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Der Deutsche Wissenschaft
ist die beste auf der Welt





Ever since Sword/Shield's release, I had not been able to update any relevant update on my WIP on Gen III since I have been busy playing the new games. For those who know, you know how massively disappointed I am with the elimination of streak numbers in Gen 8. Regardless, this is a new team I have been playing as of lately whenever I had the time to do so and so far, I can say that this is one of the best teams I ever used on Gen III. Before I get into details, I would like to thank Coeur7 for helping me build this team. As a matter of fact, the Latias set I am using, is basically almost the same one Coeur used on his own team, which was inspired by Peterko's Trick set. This team was basically born from the lengthy discussions me and Couer had on the Battle Tower Discord, so goes without saying that if you really want to get excellent input and feedback, join us there because you never know how much this can benefit you in your teambuilding. Posting an on-going 1400 wins on Emerald's Battle Tower Lv.50 Singles with this team.

current streak.png

This is pretty much Coeur7's team featuring the Latias set I took from him with Scizor and Blissey. The strategy focused on using Latias to cripple the opponent's lead and let Scizor or Blissey to set up with Substitute, boost up and sweep the opponent. For those who know me, I never considered myself a big fan of Latias specially considering that her approach as a bulkier CM sweeper is something I have constantly disapproved. Even with a Modest nature and +6 Latias is unable to OHKO or 2HKO stuff that you don't want them to live longer which is where her lower base SpA really stings because without a considerable amount of SpA investment, Latias is unable to 2HKO Blissey and then there is stuff like Registeel 4/5 who are only 3/4HKO'd with Dragon Claw and they can raise their evasion. It's hard for me to say that this is a valid niche since bulky Latios can achieve similarly many good defensive calcs (Adedede used Latios on IRISDESCENCE) and thanks to the extra base SpA, it can actually OHKO or 2HKO more stuff than Latias at +6. On this generation, Latias also doesn't has access to Trick which is a huge bummer. Where does that leaves Latias? It leaves her on a limbo where Latias is only considered because you chose "Red" on the TV screen and you can't no longer use Latios. However, this beautiful man Coeur7 figured out a way to actually pull out a fantastic niche on Latias as a crippler lead. While there is no Trick on this generation, Latias provides a valuable role as a Thunder Wave crippler allowing Substitute sweepers to fully take advantage of a crippled AI and sweep with very little drawbacks.
My first draft was pretty fast and I started with Careful Registeel and HP Flying Salamence. Basically a carbon copy of Bozo's team with Trick not being available on Latias and HP Flying being Salamence's main STAB for sweeping. I don't consider myself a big fan of Curse sweepers on Gen 3 for plenty of reasons: You're slower, you are vulnerable to crits and you can get OHKO'd hax to death. However, when deciding the moveset, Substitute and mono-attacking Steel were pretty much the obvious options. The main advantage Registeel has over Snorlax is that its STAB has no immunities which is pretty big for a mono-attacking sweeper. Despite its significantly lower Attack stat (lol even Skamrory has higher BST Attack) at +6 it was able to get respectable KOs. The first draft worked great and it was able to get 117 wins. However, I didn't felt this team could actually aim higher. Stacking Ice weaknesses didn't do any favors due to the prevalence of Trainer types (Sailors, Fishermen and Thriathletes) whose pool focused on bulky Water types and if Registeel couldn't set up, I was screwed. As a matter of fact, my loss was against one of these where Haxrein does what it knows best and landed Sheer Colds on Regi/Latias and didn't even bothered to land another 100% accuracy OHKO move on Salamence.
Salamence didn't worked out but I wanted a secondary sweeper that could somehow act as a defensive glue for Latias & Registeel to fall back while it could still pose a threat at the same time. I decided to use Suicune on the next runs since it provided many useful traits to this team. Suicune is faster than Registeel which means that it could outspeed more threats and most notably OHKO users, it provided the team with a resistance to Ice and Fire which were greatly appreciated by Registeel & Latias, it was specially based which provided this team with the option of sweeping from either the physical side (Registeel) or special (Suicune). The team had some really good runs, however, the biggest roadblock was versus Water types. It doesn't helps at all that STAB Surf and HP Steel are resisted by plenty of Water types. Mind you, I had Rest/CM/Ice Beam/Surf on Suicune but I felt that the team needed something else. I love Suicune, but I felt that Suicune feels more at home with more offensive partners.
The final rooster of the team ended up like this. I didn't wanted to stack Ice weaknesses but the team needed a secondary sweeper that could still bring some defensive momentum. Gyarados came up as the final and permanent addition of this team for various reasons: For starters, it provides a resistance to Bug which is hugely appreciated by Latias on Heracross match-ups and it is also able to resists all of Registeel's weaknesses. It has Intimidate which is a huge trait on this team as swap stalling threats with Registeel made it work very nicely. It also has Dragon Dance and unlike Salamence, Gyarados can actually set up against bulky Water types as long as they don't have Electric coverage which is huge on situations where you want to end up games more quickly. Gyarados is also able to set up on threats that Registeel has issues setting up reliably like Arcanine and Charizard, which is huge considering that if the opponent is crippled with paralysis and accuracy drops, Gyarados can easily get into +6. The initial prototype featured a Careful Registeel set, however, I ended up noticing that Registeel was missing on a lot of OHKOs and 2HKOs at +6. Most notably, Registeel could only 3HKO the cursed Ludicolo 4 and it missed the KO on Pokemon like Machamp who would otherwise break the sub before dying if their Cross Chops landed. The extra bulk was really nice though since Registeel could even tank STAB Overheats at full health in a pinch. When I swapped into an Adamant nature, the difference was pretty massive overall to the amount of OHKOs I was getting and I never looked back.

My most recent updates made two big changes: Replacing Mud Slap with Flash and shifting Registeel EVs. On the former, while I was skeptical of the use of Flash in the same way Coeur originally was, the fact that Latias has great bulk and a reliable way to recover its lost health with Recover, actually made the move viable despite its horrible 70% accuracy. The ability to drop Pokemon's accuracy like Gengar, Flygon and Charizard who can't come close to beat Latias unless they get critical hits, makes it invaluable for Registeel or Gyarados to set up reliably on them.

Erina (Latias) (F) @ Lum Berry
IVs: 6 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
EVs: 236 HP / 44 Def / 6 SpD / 224 Spe
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Timid Nature
- Flash
- Charm
- Recover
- Thunder Wave

This Latias is pretty much based on the set that launched Peterko's team for success in Gen 4's DP records. While I have never been in favor of the SubCM sets that have been popularized, I do feel this is the best set Latias can perform on Gen 3 without being outclassed by her brother. Latias sits on an incredibly blessed speed tier where you can pretty much outspeed anything else other than Crobat/Jolteon and cripple the AI's lead with Thunder Wave. Charm is what makes Latias such a fantastic crippler lead as it weakens the opponent's physical moves greatly allowing it either for Registeel or Gyarados to set up more easily on the opponent while weakening Pokemon like Machamp, Rhydon or Donphan. Flash is what makes this set really shine. While it has a terrible 70% accuracy, thanks to Latias' great bulk and access to Recover, Latias can consistently use the move until it starts hitting and make the opponent miss the attacks while recovering its lost health in case it misses. Flash coupled with Recover is a pretty awesome move because she is able to stall weak coverage moves from the likes of Gengar if needed and cripple something else in case Latias' health is conserved. Finally, Thunder Wave allows Latias to paralyze an opponent and it complements Flash so well as the AI is slowly getting crippled with accuracy drops, attack reductions and paralysis transforming the AI's Pokemon slowly into complete set-up fodder for Registeel and Gyarados.

The EVs are pretty simple: 224 Spe allows Latias to outspeed neutral base 120s like Sceptile, Dugtrio and anything slower than that. 236 HP EVs provides Latias with the extra bulk she needs and 44 Def EVs are needed to avoid Rhydon's Megahorn from OHKOing Latias while the leftovers EVs are dropped in SpD. The IVs are for HP Fire, but not needed (I didn't had the time to RNG for another Latias) but since I am a bigger fan of Shiny Latias, I don't feel like discarding her. Lum Berry was chosen as the held item since it always comes in handy against random burns and freezes when switching into or stalling moves like Fire Blast, Ice Punch, etc.

  • -2 255+ Atk Rhydon Megahorn vs. 236 HP / 44 Def Latias: 79-94 (42.7 - 50.8%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO
  • 255+ SpA Gengar Ice Punch vs. 236 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 76-90 (41 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
  • 255+ SpA Alakazam Ice Punch vs. 236 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 78-92 (42.1 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
  • 255+ SpA Starmie Ice Beam vs. 236 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 81-96 (43.7 - 51.8%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO
  • 255+ SpA Lapras Blizzard vs. 236 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 137-162 (74 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • 255+ SpA Latios Dragon Claw vs. 236 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 122-144 (65.9 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


Ströheim (Registeel) @ Leftovers
IVs: 11 SpA / 30 SpD
EVs: 240 HP / 188 Atk / 6 Def / 64 SpD / 12 Spe
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
- Curse
- Amnesia
- Substitute
- Hidden Power [Steel]

This wonderful machinery, the peak of German science, was RNG abused on a German Ruby to show everyone how foolish it is not to believe that German science stands on the pinnacle of the world. It's moveset is pretty much the same used by geniuses like Peterko and Bozo, with the difference that Registeel is forced to rely on a weaker STAB like Hidden Power. Substitute allows Registeel to set up into something that was crippled by Latias while granting immunity against status ailments, which is pretty awesome specially if Latias crippled a Thunder Wave user since all they are going to do is trying to spam the move against your Sub. It's also incredibly useful to stall OHKO moves from the likes of Dewgong and Walrein if you're behind a Sub. Curse increases both Registeel's Attack and Defense stat transforming it into a ferocious behemoth capable of even tanking even super-effective physical STABs when fully set up. Amnesia is possibly Registeel's 2nd best move IMO behind Substitute. Amnesia grants a +2 SpD boost which is incredibly useful when setting up against special attackers or CM attackers. It makes Pokemon like Starmie, Gengar or Lapras unable to break its Sub on one hit and render them into set-up fodder. With +6 on both defenses and attack, Registeel can pretty much sweep most teams by itself while the opponent is unable to break its Sub on one or two hits. Finally, HP Steel is an accurate STAB with acceptable power and with a good amount of PP to carry out a sweep.

240 HP EVs are used to overall increase Registeel's bulk and the 188 Atk EVs is what pushes the amount of OHKOs Registeel is able to get at +6. It allows Registeel to OHKO all Regirock sets at +6, Salamence 4, Machamp 1, Hariyama 3/4, Muk 1 and plenty of other annoying mons you don't want to give second chances to live. 64 SpD EVs are used for a little bit of improved special tanking since Registeel most of the time will be doing hard switches on resisted moves like Psychic and stuff. Also, let's you survive stuff like +252 Fire Blast from Moltres (Overheat from set 4 will OHKO though) while the last 4 (due to the imperfect SpD IV) is dropped into Defense so that no EV increases are wasted. 12 Speed EVs are dumped to win Curse "speed ties" vs Regirock 3 and Registeel 1. Registeel was granted the Leftovers since it is the only Substitute user on this team and it needs all the passive recovery it can get to make more Substitutes, stall the opponent and set up.

  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Regirock: 188-222 (100.5 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Hariyama: 257-303 (102.3 - 120.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Muk: 216-255 (101.8 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lapras: 206-243 (100.4 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Salamence: 206-243 (101.9 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Machamp: 206-243 (104.5 - 123.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Latios: 206-243 (110.1 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 255 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 103-122 (50.9 - 60.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 170 HP / 170+ Def Umbreon: 124-147 (64.9 - 76.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • +6 188+ Atk Registeel Hidden Power Steel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Walrein: 187-220 (101 - 118.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

  • 255+ SpA Gengar Fire Punch vs. +2 252 HP / 64 SpD Registeel: 34-40 (18.1 - 21.3%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 255+ SpA Lapras Hydro Pump vs. +2 252 HP / 64 SpD Registeel: 30-36 (16 - 19.2%) -- possible 8HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 255+ SpA Alakazam Fire Punch vs. +2 252 HP / 64 SpD Registeel: 35-42 (18.7 - 22.4%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 255 SpA Latios Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Registeel: 37-44 (19.7 - 23.5%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • -2 255 Atk Latios Earthquake vs. +1 252 HP / 4 Def Registeel: 23-28 (12.2 - 14.9%) -- nice chip damage
  • 255 Atk Walrein Earthquake vs. +1 252 HP / 4 Def Registeel: 40-48 (21.3 - 25.6%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 255 SpA Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. +2 252 HP / 64 SpD Registeel: 26-31 (13.9 - 16.5%) -- possible 9HKO after Leftovers recovery


Orochi (Gyarados) (M) @ Chesto Berry
IVs: 6 SpA / 30 SpD / 30 Spe
EVs: 180 HP / 150 Atk / 4 Def / 8 SpD / 168 Spe
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 50
Shiny: Yes
Adamant Nature
- Rest
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Flying]
- Dragon Dance

I've always wanted to do a big streak with Gyarados and my previous attempt with GUCCI GANG was initially the one I was excited about. However, it clearly had a lot of limitations and while I've been trying to find balance with Steelix on plenty of teams I theorymonned, no 3rd member satisfied my needs. Gyarados has plenty of things that Salamence wishes it could do, most notably, its ability to set up on Water types and not being weak to Ice. Gyarados slotted nicely into this team thanks to its resistance to Fight and Bug which means that Gyarados pretty much laughes on Reversal sweepers like Heracross and Medicham. It also resisted Fire which was huge against opponents that Registeel can't really set up. Intimidate rounded up things since it weakens the opponent's Attack and this allows Gyarados to cripple the lead in case Latias can't afford to use Charm more than once. Thanks to its access to Dragon Dance, this made Gyarados act as a backup secondary sweeper while offering the option of finishing opponents more easily. At +6 nothing is going to outspeed you and you're pretty much wrecking anything not named Skarmory in the Tower. HP Flying is Gyarados' only STAB on this gen and has the advantage of hitting neutrally plenty of targets that HP Steel can't like Water and opposing Steel types. Earthquake is a necessary coverage move on this set and its main reason is precisely for Metagross 3 and Registeel 1/5, which are two mons Registeel can't beat reliably even at +6. Finally, due to Registeel taking over the Leftovers, Rest was used as the last move. While it may be an odd decision, it works pretty well on Gyarados since it allows him to restore its HP back to full health once if your opponent was able to land hits consistently while setting up and it also comes in handy against random burns from moves like Fire Blast & Flamethrower.

The Atk EVs guarantee a 2HKO on Skarm at +6. Annoying Pokemon to face if it is Set 3, but you're always winning against it regardless once it is PP stalled via Intimiswap. The Speed EVs allows Gyarados to outspeed everything up to neutral 252 Jolteon/Crobat. The EVs were originally for an extra leftovers number and recover a Sub's lost health in 4 turns, but haven't really felt a difference on using the same benchmarks. Gyarados is pretty bulky with the defensive investment and it lets it tank weak coverage moves like Ice Beam from the likes of Vaporeon and Milotic (barring freezes ofc). It's worth mentioning that the IV spread chosen for HP Flying is 31/31/31/x/30/30 because the other spread (30/30/30/o/30/31) forces you to waste EVs on Attack and HP only for a minimal Speed increase which yields inferior stats compared to the former's. Also worth mentioning that this Gyarados was RNG'd Male for Attract shenanigans.

From start, you want to cripple your opponent depending on the lead and how much damage it is able to deal to Latias. Against physical attackers with Guts like Ursaring, Machamp, etc, you'll want to weaken them first with Charm on the first two turns, Recover if needed and then start throwing Flash. At -4 it's also pretty safe to Thunder Wave since they will technically be at -3 which it isn't bad.

The most dangerous Lum holder is Lapras 4 to which in case it is identified, I let Latias die to Ice Beam after setting a Paralysis regardless since Registeel can safely use an Amnesia next turn and set up a Substitute that will not be broken by a Single Substitute. Synchronize users that are able to hit Registeel super-effectively like Gardevoir and Alakazam are still worth crippling despite their ability. Paralysis makes it easier to handle these Pokemon and let Registeel set-up. Then there's hot garbage like Espeon where you simply hard switch into Registeel and set-up for the win.

Against special attackers, paralysis and Flash is always the good way to go.

Pokemon immune to paralysis like Rhydon, Claydol or Flygon will require you to adjust accordingly.

Double Team users are something you don't want to cripple for too long because Registeel and Gyarados can't afford to waste their PPs which will sting them later against matchups like Skarm. Usually, there are scenarios where you don't want to set up fully (Articuno 2) and outspeed them before they accumulate evasion boosts.

Pokemon like Metagross and Registeel are worthy of a hard Gyarados switch due to some dangerous sets they have. Usually, I go for a quicky Earthquake 2HKO since there's always the risk of facing Thunder Punch Metagross, but on Registeel I do set up a +1 to ensure the 2HKO (except on the weird mixed set with Thunderbolt and Aerial Ace which Registeel beats 1-v-1).


  • : Set 3 is the biggest threat to this team. Due to its Attack and HP investment, it becomes capable of being a massive threat towards Registeel due to Earthquake outdamaging HP Steel in case Registeel has not been able to set-up previously. The only thing Latias achieves is a paralysis which will pretty much make you beg it won't match your Curse boosts while setting up. Goes without saying that if it gets a crit against Registeel, the match is pretty much over.
  • : These leads are troublesome due to their ability which limits Latias to only being able to achieve a paralysis. You'll usually want to send Gyarados into Metagross ASAP and 2HKO it with Earthquake due to the threat of Meteor Mash raising its Attack. Also worth mentioning that Gyarados will always survive Thunderpunch coming from the mixed set. On the other hand, Registeel has two sets that deserve special attention: Set 1 and Set 5. Registeel can stall out Set 1 since at 0 (assume both will get to +6) Metal Claw needs 5 PPs to break a sub. However, you need to kill Set 5 ASAP as otherwise due to Leftovers and Substitute, it can't be killed by Struggle recoil.
  • : What team without Skarm despises to see this piece of shit on the lead?The best thing you can do against Rhydon is Charm twice in order to get its Attack reduced to -4 which is where Registeel's Substitute survives Earthquake. Feel free to fish for Flash drops if Horn Drill allows it.
  • : Now that Latias is not running Mud Slap, this Pokemon becomes more relevant. All 4 sets run Roar which means that even if you cripple it, Registeel won't be able to set up fully as otherwhise Roar will throw all of your boosts away. What I usually do is get to +6 SpD and start attacking after two Curses since Manectric will eventually Roar.
  • : We all hate this thing. The good news is that Set 3 can't break your Sub but the more offensive Set 4 requires you to grab both a SpD / Def boost so that it becomes unable to break them. Of course, you'll never know when it can land its Sheer Cold when it decides to use it.
  • : The worst lead Latias will ever face. While Latias will always outlive and beat this shit, it come at the price of Latias' PPs and unable to do anything against the next mon the AI will send.
  • : Set 6 is extremely cursed if you're not careful. At least Hyper Beam can buy you a turn, to which landing a paralysis is not bad if you're able to identify it since once it gets evasion boosts, Charm won't be of much help.
  • : Set 1 and Set 2 are extremely dangerous if you allow them to grab too many accuracy drops. While paralysis or Flash can help, most of the time I hard switch into Gyarados and set up before it's too late. You want to pressure them where they are forced to Rest and grab more Dragon Dances before they hit you hard. Gyarados has Rest to deal with Set 2 which doesn't makes him really dangerous but just annoying. However, Set 1 is a whole different story. Try to pressure it before it has chances of using boosted Surfs. Latias can stall it at some point and throwing Flash drops can save you if you're able to land them.

 

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I've posted this in the discord, but I am currently at a streak of 50 championship wins for the Battle Dome Level 50 Singles Tournament. It is still on-going right now, and every battle has been done on retail cartridge. Here is the team!


Gengar @ Lum Berry
Timid
135/70/80/182/95/178
Fire Punch / Destiny Bond / Thunderbolt / Ice Punch

Gengar is probably one of my favorite Pokemon to use in any given frontier facility. His overall type coverage and immunities make him a great asset for any team, being further amplified since you can scout out your opponent's Pokemon before fighting them in the Battle Dome. If Gengar is out first and can KO the opponent's first Pokemon, a win is essentially guaranteed, since Destiny Bond will knockout the remaining Pokemon. I've opted for Lum instead of Salac because I think it's better to remove hax as much as possible rather than a speed boost, especially considering how fast Gengar is anyway. The overall coverage & immunity is nice to have, especially against Salamence, Scizor / Fortress, Fighting Type Pokemon, and baiting out a Choice Banded move that Gengar is immune to. Thunderbolt also does nice damage against Pokemon that don't have any weaknesses to Gengar's moveset. Worst comes to worst, Gengar can always almost force a trade with Destiny Bond for the opponent, then Slaking or Suicune can get rid of the remaining Pokemon.

One interesting thing to note about the Battle Dome is that when a match ends in a draw, does not always mean that you lose. Instead, if the match ends in a double KO, "judging" is done to determine who advances in bracket. The player that has the highest ranked determined by the game, will advance in the round. This means that if you are in the tournament, and the title under your "trainer profile" is "The best candidate to become a champ!", you have the highest possible rank, and are *guaranteed* to win in double knockout scenarios. Considering that Gengar is rather frail, but can force knockouts with Destiny Bond, it is another way of ending the match in your favour. Keep in mind though, this does not work against Tucker, you will always lose in the event of a double knock out against him.



Suicune @ Leftovers
Bold
207/82/183/110/135/105
Surf / Substitute / Calm Mind / Rest

Suicune is not meant to get quick KOs like Gengar or Slaking; she is meant to slow down the game as much as possible, eventually overwhelming the opponent with +6 Surfs behind a Substitute. Against other Water-type pokemon, along with essentially any Pokemon that cannot deal a significant amount of damage, Suicune can guarantee games purely from outresourcing the opponent. In other facilities, one key issue is that you can run into pokemon with water absorb (such as Vaporeon, Quagsire and Lapras). However, you can avoid this issue in the Battle Dome due to the trainer preview. If it is not plausible for Suicune to KO a Pokemon, but it's dangerous to switch into Slaking / Gengar, you can PP stall out their moves with Rest / Substitute until you deem it safe to switch in. Substitute also helps protect against OHKO moves (although this is not always a flawless strategy). For the held item, I find that Leftovers was great to have instead of Chesto Berry, it aids significantly in longevity and replacing Substitutes. To me, this was much more helpful than a single burst heal. Overall, Suicune's utility as a wall with sweeper potential is incredible.


Slaking @ Choice Band
Jolly
225/212/120/99/85/167
Return / Earthquake / Shadow Ball / Double-Edge

Slaking has one job, obliterate whatever is in front of it. Earthquake and Shadow Ball are used for coverage, while Return and Double-Edge offer sheer power (with DE helping out ever so slightly more against some bulky waters like Lapras / Vaporeon to guarantee an OHKO). I chose to have Return for occasions where it might be beneficial to have the extra HP (such if Slaking switches out and Suicune / Gengar get KOed, but Slaking can get the KO on the rebound even with a crit at full HP). While it may seem like a niche scenario, you're eventually bound to run into it after a certain period of time. In addition, I don't really find myself missing options such as Brick Break or Hyper Beam. The former is generally invalidated by Earthquake or Return, while Hyper Beam always has a risk of missing due to its 90% base accuracy. There's not a lot of depth to how Slaking operates, but the Battle Dome is one of his best facilities, in my opinion. Jolly > Adamant in my opinion, since I think it's better to get the jump on potential threats.

The strategy is simple; scout out the opponents Pokemon and prepare an appropriate counterpick team. Type effectiveness and longevity are both important, but having Slaking or Gengar instakill the first Pokemon generally leaves us at a huge advantage. If we have to force a trade, generally the remaining Pokemon is capable of dealing with the opponent. It's crucial to have Slaking or Gengar kill the bulky water types if Suicune is paired with them, especially if they have water absorb. Otherwise, you're going to be locked in a struggle war, which is no fun at all (luckily I've avoided such non-sense). If you feel uncomfortable dealing with some other water types (or Pokemon that might not be able to get reliably OHKOed by Gengar / Slaking), Suicune can probably stall / CM boost / sweep out those Pokemon (assuming they don't have water absorb). Even Pokemon that resist water will eventually get worn down by repeated +6 Surfs.

THREATS

-Snorlax in general is quite intimidating to deal with; none of the team has a guaranteed OHKO against it (Slaking can if he gets double-edge off, but I do not think it's guaranteed all the time). If Snorlax begins to set up Curse, it can be incredibly troublesome. I haven't run into Snorlax a lot, but it's always a nail-biter when I do. What I try to do is force a trade with Gengar via Destiny Bond, or have Slaking try to KO it immediately. This does not always work though, but so far, I haven't paid the price.

-Heracross is somewhat troublesome, since it can hit Suicune and Slaking for massive damage. However, it cannot do much to Gengar. Bait out Endure with weaker moves, such as Ice Punch, then when you get into low success rate, hit him with Fire Punch or Thunderbolt. Alternatively, DBond him and be done with it.

-Any Pokemon with Water Absorb completely invalidates Suicune, but Gengar and Slaking can usually deal with them. Again, since you can scout out the opponents team and plan accordingly, this is usually not much of an issue. Just be careful using Suicune against Pokemon that have the possibility of Water Absorb.

-Quick Claw & OHKO non-sense is always possible, but that goes with any facility. So far, I haven't had to deal with it in my run yet.

-Watch out for mirror coat, especially for Gengar since he 2HKO's a lot of the water type Pokemon. Suicune doesn't care though due to Substitute, and Slaking obviously doesn't care either.

-Any Pokemon that is faster than Gengar will likely cause trouble, although the most threatening of the bunch (I believe) is Jolteon. It cannot kill Slaking however, but it can cripple it with T-Wave. I have only seen Jolteon maybe once or twice in my run, and I tried to immediately KO it with Slaking to success.

EDIT: Dealing with Tucker since I forgot to mention this

Fighting against Tucker is actually pretty much a free win. From what I noticed, every single time I fought against him, he would pick the same team; his Swampert & Metagross vs my Suicune & Slaking. It would always be in the same order, which leads me to believe that if you come across repeat trainers in later runs who have the same team, you might be able to predict their choices. However, I do not have any proof of this besides with Tucker, since he's the only consistent repeat challenger you will face.

Regardless, since he always sends out Swampert to start against my Suicune, all I had to do was CM / Sub / Rest to stall out his PP for Earthquake, then eventually set up a sub and KO him with +6 Surf. Since Suicune always outspeeds Swampert, you can always heal off any damage / pull up the sub in time so that Swampert cannot kill you. Even a crit Earthquake does around ~50%, meaning you'll always have enough time to set up a substitute / heal off the damage. Make sure you have a sub up after to avoid any potential Mirror Coat or critical hit shenanigans. After that, Metagross folds like a lawn chair from the boosts. Then you get 25BP!

Overall, I think the run has gone quite smoothly, and I hope to get further along! I hope this write up was sufficient for record purposes, but if there is any other additional information needed, please let me know! Below is a picture of the record on my Nintendo DS.

 
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I've posted this in the discord, but I am currently at a streak of 50 championship wins for the Battle Dome Level 50 Singles Tournament. It is still on-going right now, and every battle has been done on retail cartridge. Here is the team!
Love this! This is quite similar to my Latios/Slaking/Metagross team except for the fact that I didn't stall. Thought I was done with the Dome after beating 26 straight tournaments but maybe I should take another run...

Currently working on a Pyramid streak, using Phanpy and Linoone in the first two rounds to gather as many items as possible before the later rounds (Flygon rounds out the squad in round 1, while Metagross is used in round 2). It's been fairly effective, but I'm still theorising what's best to use in the later rounds - round 4 (Pressure) is annoying as hell, while round 8 (Explosion) and 9 (Psychic types) have often been problematic in the past. Any suggestions? I'm playing at level 50.
 
Here to share my results in the Battle Frontier. Originally I just planned to go for all 7 Gold Symbols, but the interesting discussions in this thread really got me hooked to try further.
The first facility I tried was the Battle Factory where I finally got to a streak of 47 wins after about 900BP wort of tries. Some thoughts:
  • imo Level 50 is considerably easier than Open Level, mainly because the movepools in the beginning are a lot worse, which really helps with the semi-random fashion the AI chooses its moves when it can't kill your mon (and the probability of the AI even having a move that could kill in one hit is much lower too). This really helps, because it gives you many free turns that make you not lose battles that seem already lost on paper.
  • Toxic and Leech Seed are really good in the early round on Level 50, there's almost no way you lose to a mon that isn't immune to them if you have them.
  • Having a Ground-Type in your team is always a good idea because there are many mono-attacking Electric-Types running around.
Next I went for the Battle Tower, where I wanted to try my own approach to a Trick-based team. It is definitely not as consistent as some of the teams posted in this thread, but it requires less turns to set up, so you can get in more battles in a shorter amount of time. The idea is to trick the opponent a Macho Brace and then set up a BellyPass with Smeargle:


Grumpig @ Macho Brace
Bold
Own Tempo
252HP/236Def/16SpD
- Trick
- Skill Swap
- Taunt
- Odor Sleuth

Because Macho Brache makes you be slower on the first turn in most cases anyway, I just went with the bulkiest Trick-user available in this game. Tricking the opponent a Macho Brace lets Smeargle (and Grumpig too for that matter) outspeed and Spore everything in the game. It also removes items that could hinder the setup like Lum Berry, Chesto Berry, Bright Powder, Quick Claw etc. Skill Swap is for stopping Abilities like Insomnia, Early Bird, Shed Skin that would otherwise make setting up impossible for Smeargle. Taunt stops the opponent from boosting his Speed or Defense (the other stats don't really matter) and accelerates the process of Grumpig dying so Smeargle can come in. Odor Sleuth stops Evasion Spammers, you only need to hit it once to ignore all Evasion Boosts. 236Def EVs let Grumpig live every hit outside of Explosions and Max Atk Adamant Heracross Megahorn. Luckily, Smeargle outspeeds Adamant Heracross and the Jolly ones can't one-hit Grumpig. Own Temp is preferred over Thick Fat, since Grumpig lives everything coming from the Special side anyway and Own Tempo can come in handy when preventing confusion.


Smeargle @ Salac Berry
Timid
Own Tempo
88HP/120Def/48 SpD/252Spe
- Spore
- Substitute
- Belly Drum
- Baton Pass

This is almost the standard OU BellyPass set except that it is EVd so that it can get off two Substitutes and a Belly Drum, which makes the Salac Berry activate latter but really helps with early wake-ups, which is a bigger threat since the Salac Berry activating barely matters since the opponent won't switch out anyway and thus can't take advantage of your non speed boosted Smeargle with a fast mon. Most Pokemon you face are so nonthreatening with a Macho Brace equipped that you can put them to sleep, set up Substitute and Belly Drum, wait until they wake up and break your sub and then put them to sleep again and set up another sub.


Medicham @ Lum Berry
Jolly
Pure Power
80HP/252Atk/172Spe
- Brick Break
- Shadow Ball
- Swift
- Double Team

This thing is so strong that it OHKOs the whole Facility with its first two moves even at +5 (after an Intimidate). The Speed EVs are so that it outspeeds everything at +1 and Lum Berry helps with stuff like Static and Effect Spore. Swift is there to minimize Hax against frail Bright Powder users that might come in later although it is really weak and misses the KO on many things. Double Team in the last slot further improves your chances if you have some free turns to set up, but I never really used it (could probably be replaces by something more useful, I just haven't found out what yet).

I achieved 73 wins with this team on my fifth try. I don't think it is fit for really long streaks because of some of the inherent problems with hax starting with a slow mon gives you.

Threats:
  • Grumpig getting haxed to death before it can do anything (Sleep, Para, Flinches, Crits): This is probably the biggest flaw of this team and I think it is an inherent one. Altough it doesn't happen often, and there are many cases where Smeargle can still set up afterwards because it still outspeeds most things, there will sooner or later come a point where this breaks the streak.
  • Multi-Hit moves can threaten Smeargle's setup by breaking its sub and damaging afterwards. I try to get the boosts to Medicham as fast as possible against them, which normally works.
  • Priority moves, especially Mach Punch, require a different set-up sequence for Smeargle which most of the time lead to either no sub (not too bad), no speed boost (not too bad) or no Belly Drum (kinda bad, but still winnable) being passed to Medicham.
  • If the opponent gets four early wake-ups in a row (very unlikely), Medicham has to come in on the opponent's move unprotected. This happened a few times but as long as the move cannot one-hit Medicham this is not really problem (since status moves get handled by Lum Berry). Whirlwind and Roar could be threatening too in this scenario, but never happened yet.
  • The first Pokemon using Explosion on Grumpig is also bad, since I have to hope that the next thing that gets sent out does not outspeed Smeargle (but the odds are in my favor). This happens relatively rarely too, but is another thing I don't really have counterplay against in the worst-case scenario.
 
Love this! This is quite similar to my Latios/Slaking/Metagross team except for the fact that I didn't stall. Thought I was done with the Dome after beating 26 straight tournaments but maybe I should take another run...

Currently working on a Pyramid streak, using Phanpy and Linoone in the first two rounds to gather as many items as possible before the later rounds (Flygon rounds out the squad in round 1, while Metagross is used in round 2). It's been fairly effective, but I'm still theorising what's best to use in the later rounds - round 4 (Pressure) is annoying as hell, while round 8 (Explosion) and 9 (Psychic types) have often been problematic in the past. Any suggestions? I'm playing at level 50.
It's mostly not necessary to "fit" your team in each round to the wild pokemon (although of course it could be fun). All you need, really, is the following:

Slaking @ Choice Band (find this in rounds 2,6 or 9)
Adamant Nature
252 Atk / 252 Speed
Return
Hyper Beam
Earthquake / Brick Break
Shadow Ball

This OHKOs the majority of wild pokemon easily (including those in round 9); although there are issues in rounds 7 and 8. For the explosion round, you could pair him with (e.g) Gengar, who is immune to explosion. Metagross also does well in this round as it resists explosion. Protect also seems like a useful move here, though I haven't tried it myself.

I have played the pyramid many times with a team of Slaking/Metagross/Swampert - this is non-optimal due to Slaking+Metagross not pairing particularly well for doubles (see comments below), but consistently gets upto 20 rounds and I suspect much further. You may or may not find the following general comments useful:

1. Most trainer fights are avoidable. It may be better to deliberately fight some wild pokemon at the start of each round to increase the probability that you spot opposing trainers.

2. You can often dodge trainers by walking (NOT running) past them

3. Your team needs to do well in doubles fights. These are the most dangerous single event in the pyramid, because it's harder to just spam revives etc. if you're in trouble. Often you can choose to fight 2 singles instead of a doubles fight BUT there are rare occasions where the player is forced to do a doubles match. They look like this, together with an extra trainer looking down from the top

trainer ----->
=========== your starting position =======
..........trainer -->................................ <--- trainer



4. The scariest thing in Singles fights is a pokemon who can stat up (e.g. CM Suicune or Curse+DT+Double Edge Miltank; I once had an embarrassing loss to the latter when I wasn't paying attention...). But I imagine that something like Perish Song can be used to "guarantee" winning singles fights.

5. Blissey is supposed to be very good here. I have never used her, but somebody on youtube got over 1000 floors using Slaking+Salamence+Blissey (notice that Salamence is immune to EQ and has intimidate, so Slaking+Sala make a great doubles pair)

6. Sacred ash is much less useful than it looks because you can't use it in trainer fights.

7. Although I did not find it necessary, you could use PP Up / PPMax on your pokemon to make them less likely to run out of PP.

8. IMO, Shell bell is better than leftovers in the pyramid because it restores your HP when you knock out a wild pokemon, which leftovers doesn't if the battle lasts only one turn.

9. Floor 1 of 7 in each round tends to contain lots of items and not many trainers. For floor 7, it's the opposite.
 
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It's mostly not necessary to "fit" your team in each round to the wild pokemon (although of course it could be fun). All you need, really, is the following:

Slaking @ Choice Band (find this in rounds 2,6 or 9)
Adamant Nature
252 Atk / 252 Speed
Return
Hyper Beam
Earthquake / Brick Break
Shadow Ball

This OHKOs the majority of wild pokemon easily (including those in round 9); although there are issues in rounds 7 and 8. For the explosion round, you could pair him with (e.g) Gengar, who is immune to explosion. Metagross also does well in this round as it resists explosion. Protect also seems like a useful move here, though I haven't tried it myself.

I have played the pyramid many times with a team of Slaking/Metagross/Swampert - this is non-optimal due to Slaking+Metagross not pairing particularly well for doubles (see comments below), but consistently gets upto 20 rounds and I suspect much further. You may or may not find the following general comments useful:
Fab, thanks - this was really useful.

1. Most trainer fights are avoidable. It may be better to deliberately fight some wild pokemon at the start of each round to increase the probability that you spot opposing trainers.

2. You can often dodge trainers by walking (NOT running) past them

3. Your team needs to do well in doubles fights. These are the most dangerous single event in the pyramid, because it's harder to just spam revives etc. if you're in trouble. Often you can choose to fight 2 singles instead of a doubles fight BUT there are rare occasions where the player is forced to do a doubles match. They look like this, together with an extra trainer looking down from the top
Do you not think it's better to fight the trainers at least some of the time? Slaking and Latios can each beat about 80% of the game one on one, and against literally any special attacker I just switched to Blissey. The hints aren't especially helpful (I particularly hate when a trainer who happens to be right next to the right-hand-side wall says "the exit is <<< that way!" - yeah, no shit), but I didn't have much trouble with most of the trainers I fought. Then again, I might have just gotten lucky.

I completely agree that doubles are to be avoided at all costs, though. Especially since the visibility circle treats it as one fight - the enlargement happens at the same ratio no matter how you fight.

After consideration I went with Slaking/Latios/Blissey as my core team. However, I did make a couple of substitutions on certain floors where I felt necessary:

-During the Ice round, I swapped out Latios for Blaziken

-During the Explosion round, I used Gengar instead of Latios

-During the Rock round I led with Metagross instead of Slaking

I'm currently at 83 floors and counting, will update in more depth once my streak ends (or I reach a preposterously high number).
 
Fab, thanks - this was really useful.
...
Do you not think it's better to fight the trainers at least some of the time?
...
I particularly hate when a trainer who happens to be right next to the right-hand-side wall says "the exit is <<< that way!" - yeah, no shit
No problem! (And lol @ the final comment quoted above :-) )

In most rounds, wild pokemon are inherently less risky than trainers because (i) they have no EVs (as far as I know), (ii) with high probability have a suboptimal nature, (again, as far as I know) (iii) they don't hold things like brightpowder or quick claw (ditto) (iv) you know exactly what set they have so can plan accordingly (this one is certainly true!).

Both wild pokemon and trainers increase the sight radius, which is the "main" reward. With trainers, being told the number of items/trainers remaining is mostly useless, although it can help in that it lets you know whether to "carry on searching" if you see the exit before exploring fully - but if you have a large sight radius due to fighting wild pokemon a lot you can see most of the map anyway.

So my guess is that it is never optimal to fight a trainer when you don't have to, unless it is to turn a doubles fight into 2 singles fights. [Edit: If surrounded by a lot of 'spinning' trainers it may be best to deliberately fight one just to exclude the possibility that you walk past them just as they both turn and then have to fight a doubles match.] (Possible exception: If, in round 3/4 you hadn't found a choice band, you can get permanently tricked one in a trainer fight if you are lucky. But if aiming for a long streak I would simply search very thoroughly in round 2 and then reset if I didn't find one.)

But taking huge pains to avoid trainer fights gets pretty tedious. So when running the pyramid myself I am often not as careful as perhaps I should be and did indeed fight the trainers, against my own advice :-). If you are sufficiently careful you should be getting a huge stockpile of items so you should be ok no matter what - as we both seem to agree by far the most dangerous event is a haxxy doubles fight.

How are you for PP? (My instinct says that you should collect all the PP restoring items you can, and so your bag should consist of something like (hyper potion / ether / revive / lum berry / leppa berry / full restore / max revive / max elixir / choice band / brightpowder x 2). It *may* be possible to argue that fighting a few trainers instead of lots of wild pokemon saves PP, although I'm skeptical about this.

Final thought: I'm not sure how useful the x-items are; my instinct says that they are mostly useless, but I'd be very interested to hear the thoughts of others on this. In my own Slaking/Metagross/Swampert runs I did try to hold onto x-specials where possible, in case I ran into fly/curse/rest/toxic Skarmory, who otherwise I would have had to ppstall (unless I got lucky with a crit from Swampert). You could also use x-attack/x-speed/x-accuracy on Slaking during its truant turn if your first attack wasn't enough, but then again hyper potion might be equally useful in that case.
 
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But taking huge pains to avoid trainer fights gets pretty tedious. So when running the pyramid myself I am often not as careful as perhaps I should be and did indeed fight the trainers, against my own advice :-). If you are sufficiently careful you should be getting a huge stockpile of items so you should be ok no matter what - as we both seem to agree by far the most dangerous event is a haxxy doubles fight.

How are you for PP? (My instinct says that you should collect all the PP restoring items you can, and so your bag should consist of something like (hyper potion / ether / revive / lum berry / leppa berry / full restore / max revive / max elixir / choice band / brightpowder x 2). It *may* be possible to argue that fighting a few trainers instead of lots of wild pokemon saves PP, although I'm skeptical about this.

Final thought: I'm not sure how useful the x-items are; my instinct says that they are mostly useless, but I'd be very interested to hear the thoughts of others on this. In my own Slaking/Metagross/Swampert runs I did try to hold onto x-specials where possible, in case I ran into fly/curse/rest/toxic Skarmory, who otherwise I would have had to ppstall (unless I got lucky with a crit from Swampert). You could also use x-attack/x-speed/x-accuracy on Slaking during its truant turn if your first attack wasn't enough, but then again hyper potion might be equally useful in that case.
Agree entirely re deliberately fighting one trainer when you spawn in the middle of four - though even that can be helpful because I tend to find that (most of the time) if all the trainers on one floor are bunched together the exit will usually be quite near them, so being told the general direction can be useful.

I'm doing well for PP: managed to collect about 8 Leppa Berries and the same amount of Ethers. There's only been a couple of instances where I needed to restore moves. I have nearly 30 Hyper Potions and 7 or so Revives, and around 20 Lum Berries: having Blissey on hand means I rarely have to use any of the Hyper Potions, but they can occasionally come in handy. I've not had to use my Revives too much, either. Annoyingly I forgot that Brandon rechallenges you with his Gold team instead of his Silver one, so pointlessly revived Slaking for the fight against him - Blissey can handle all 3 birds easily on her own. Currently on 105 floors, will tackle the rest shortly...

Hold items: I've currently got 4 Choice Bands, 3 Leftovers, and a Scope Lens - typically, my special attacker will hold the Lens, physical attacker will have the Band, and Blissey will have the Leftovers.

I've never bothered with X Items or Fluffy Tails. They take valuable bag space and are only really useful in the fights against Brandon - but honestly if I wanted to boost I'd just bring someone with a boosting move.
 
This has been a secondary priority, but I now have the knowledge symbol:
IMG_20200215_093056.jpg

Now that I actually need to have a team ready, I've run into another problem with the speedrun sets I've been using as a start point. Specifically, one of the held items is a Lum Berry. Which is randomly given 1/day by NPCs. I have a dead cartridge battery and didn't luck out on my single chance.

What single status is most important to block on a CM attacker? Or is a non-berry item more useful in this instance?
 
This has been a secondary priority, but I now have the knowledge symbol:

Now that I actually need to have a team ready, I've run into another problem with the speedrun sets I've been using as a start point. Specifically, one of the held items is a Lum Berry. Which is randomly given 1/day by NPCs. I have a dead cartridge battery and didn't luck out on my single chance.

What single status is most important to block on a CM attacker? Or is a non-berry item more useful in this instance?
Bulbapedia informs me that you can get it from FRLG and XD, if you have either of those. There are two chances to get it in Emerald - from the Berry Master's wife and the Gentleman in Lilycove. If not then yeah you're out of luck.

I'd say paralysis is definitely the status which would shut down a CM attacker most as the majority of them are pretty fast; burn doesn't hinder them too badly and freeze is too uncommon to worry about. Poison isn't great since in the BF it's almost always Toxic poison but paralysis is definitely more crippling.

Outside of that all the other items you're left with are luck-based ones: Scope Lens, Brightpowder, Focus Band. Leftovers of course is good if you're not using that on a tank; Sitrus Berry isn't great, but workable. A pinch berry could come in handy, but they're also fairly hard to get.
 
Just broke my Pyramid streak at 130 floors. Very annoyed I didn't make it to 140, but it was a good run nonetheless, with a lot of good moments. I'll try not to make this too long...

1581933754469.png


I finished with (roughly):

Hyper Potion x24
Revive x15
Lum Berry x30
Ether x15
Full Restore x2
Leppa Berry x10
Choice Band x4
Leftovers x3
Scope Lens x1
Fluffy Tail x2



I used a few different Pokemon for the early rounds, but kept my team more or less the same with a couple of substitutions for the later rounds.

In Round 1 my team was:

1581934698911.png

Flygon
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Double-Edge
Fly
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Phanpy
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Mud-Slap
Secret Power

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Linoone
Surf
Extremespeed
Dig
Covet

Phanpy and Linoone were Pickup slaves, but both were able to dispose of wild Pokemon. I generally switched in Phanpy to dispose of the weak electric-types like Plusle and Pikachu early on, while saving Flygon for trainers.

In round 2 I led with Metagross instead to deal with Poison types:

1581934510763.png

Metagross
Meteor Mash
Earthquake
Psychic
Aerial Ace

In round 3, I led with Hariyama, deliberately getting it burned to cheese through the Regis (by this point I also had a Choice Band)

1581935115850.png

Hariyama
Brick Break
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Facade

Starting in round 4, my team was:

1581934520249.png

Slaking
Double-edge
Earthquake
Shadow Ball
Aerial Ace

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Latios
Psychic
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Dragon Claw

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Blissey
Toxic
Icy Wind
Softboiled
Seismic Toss

Blissey kept the team healthy, Slaking one-shotted most of the wild Pokemon with a Choice Band attached. Blissey had the Leftovers, while Latios had the Scope Lens.

For the SelfDestruct round I led with

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Gengar
Giga Drain
Ice Punch
Thunderbolt
Psychic

and for the Ice round I led with

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Blaziken
Flamethrower
Sky Uppercut
Thunderpunch
Earthquake


I lost due to a misplay - stumbled into a Double Battle (Luke Warm your words were prophetic). I would have avoided it but the second trainer was out of my sight range. Latios got hit with Sheer Cold from a Lapras, and the other Trainer's Medicham got lucky and dropped both Slaking and Blissey with DynamicPunch (should have used a Revive!). So frustrating to not be able to do the 20th round, but I don't see myself having the motivation to go back and attempt it again. I feel this is as good as it will get.

Think I'll try the Arena next. It's the only facility I haven't ever worked up a really good streak on (barring the Palace and the Factory, which I dislike too much to seriously devote any time to).
 
This happened a little while ago, but my Battle Dome streak has ended at 76 wins. Unfortunately, I lost the streak simply because I made a poor decision rather than getting ruined by RNG. I lost to a Salac Reversal Medicham. What I should have done was setup a substitute to bait out Endure then stall until I was comfortable to KO it, but instead I just wanted to KO it immediately. Endure -> Salac -> Reversal sweep ensues

That being said, I was quite happy with how far I got, and I think the team could absolutely do it again (even with admittedly, a bit of luck). Here is the picture for proof.
 

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