Challenge Pokemon SoulSilver challenge run: Fighting Fire With Fire

[Magnus0]

Introduction
As you can see from the title, I’m doing a challenge run of SoulSilver. I made it up myself, though I’m sure someone somewhere on the internet has done something similar at some point. The idea is that I can only use pokemon of the same type as the gym leaders and e4 members specialise in against them. For example, I can only use flying type pokemon against Falkner, only bug type pokemon against Bugsy, and so on. I chose to do this challenge in SoulSilver because it might be my favourite pokemon game, and because exp is very limited in SS.


Rules:

• Against gym leaders and e4 members, I can only use pokemon of the type that they specialize in. I can use whatever I want outside of gym fights.
• As the meme goes, you don’t become the champion without knowing how to spam full restores. I can use two in-battle items, just like the gym leaders I’m fighting. To make things a bit easier for myself, I will allow healing items of any kind, not just the ones that a particular gym leader I’m fighting uses. That’s mainly because I don’t know what items they carry exactly, tbh.
• As I´m playing on an emulator, I use the ´change impossible evolutions` option of the pokemon randomizer. This enables me to use trade-only pokemon.
• I’m playing on set mode.

Starter choice
None of the starters can be used in any of the gym fights, so battle prowess isn’t something I have to be concerned about. I chose Totodile, because then Silver chooses Chikorita. I figured that this would make the Azalea rival fight the easiest, because I must have a bug type to fight Bugsy with at that point anyway. Croconaw can also function as a great HM slave, and he helps me get trough union cave in the early game.


The road to Violet City
After running to Mister Pokemon and back, I get pokeballs from Lyra. Time to catch something for my first major battle against Falkner. My genius plan to beat both Falkner and Bugsy was to catch a Caterpie. Butterfree can be used against both of them after all. Except, Caterpie can only be caught in the bug-contest in SoulSilver. The only other available bug/flying type that comes early enough is Ledyba, and no way I’m using that. I have to find two individual pokemon to beat the first two leaders instead.

My options for Falkner were Spearow, Pidgey, Hoothoot, Zubat and… Hoppip. Spearow seemed like the obvious choice since it has the best offensive stats, so I catch one on route 46. Planning ahead a bit, I also catch a weedle on route 30 to use against Bugsy. Since headbutt doesn’t becomes available until after you beat Bugsy, the bug type options are actually very limited. I have a choice between Beedrill, Paras and the aforementioned Ledyba, so you might understand why I put up with a Weedle of all things.

I train my Spearow a bit in the wild so it can stand up to the trainers on route 30 without help from Totodile. The Weedle and Kakuna here are easy pickings for it. Weedle can beat some of the lv2 Caterpies that the bug catchers use on his own. Both of my pokemon level nicely.


In preparation for Falkner
I arrive in Violet City without any trouble. Next up is the sprout tower, which is a great place to train Spearow. I lead with Weedle against every monk though, to share the exp just a little bit. The only somewhat difficult fight is against the elder. Spearow fell asleep because of hypnosis, so Totodile had to help out there. I also catch a Gastly here, since Gastly is the only available ghost type for Morty later on.

I head to route 32 to do some more training with Spearow and to catch two Hoppips. I train one of them to level 7 for tail whip, and the other is going to be used as death fodder against Falkner. I also catch a bellsprout to trade for an Onix. Onix can use rock smash (Toto can’t for some reason) and it carries a persim berry, which might come in handy later. After I finish training on route 32, I fight the two bird catchers in Falkners gym. Spearow is now at level 12. Despite Spearow not being very high-level, I decided to just go up against Falkner right away, if only to test the waters a bit. The main thing I want to know is if Hoppip can get one tail whip off before fainting.


Falkner
Pidgey is cleanly 2HKO’d. The real problem is Pidgeotto of course. I switch into my fodder Hoppip, who actually lives because Pidgeotto uses tackle instead of gust. When I bring in my tail whip Hoppip, Pidgeotto does use gust. Hoppip survives with 1HP left and uses tail whip. It dies on the following turn.

I bring Spearow back in. Pidgeotto has better stats and roost, but he is also at -1 defence. I use leer while tackle depletes about 1/3 of Spearow’s health bar. I then use peck, which is just short of 2HKO’ing, even after two defence drops, and Pidgeotto tackles again. I’m forced to use a potion, and Pidgeotto uses tackle a third time, but he misses. Even still, the scenario looks pretty bleak for Spearow since he can only take one more tackle and peck won’t kill. I select fury attack, hoping for a miracle. Surprise! The miracle comes true, as I hit five times which is just enough to KO Pidgeotto.

I had absolutely no business winning this fight with a level 12 Spearow and a Hoppip, but I managed it anyway thanks to some amazing luck. I put Spearow and the Hoppips in the box.


Road to Azalea town
After beating Falkner, I head towards the Ruins of Alph. There are breakable rocks here that can spawn high level Geodudes, so it’s a great way to train early on. I also want a yellow shard to trade for berries. The yellow shard can be traded for a sitrus berry, which seems like it could be useful. After training against the Geodudes, my Kakuna evolves into Beedrill.

Route 32 has a lot of trainers, so it’s a good place to level up Beedrill and Gastly. I pick up the shell bell before going into Union Cave. I did some switch training here, because I had to use Totodile to beat many of the trainers in Union cave, but I didn’t want to waste all my exp on Totodile either.

After getting through the cave, I immediately went into another cave, the Slowpoke Well. The team rocket grunts are laughably easy, even for my kind of shoddy team of Beedrill and Gastly. Gastly could even beat some of the Zubats solo despite having lick as her only attacking move. After beating the joke of a boss that is Proton, I beat the trainers in Bugsy’s gym as well. Beedrill was now at level 16.


Bugsy and Silver
My strategy against Bugsy was toxic stalling with harden. I use harden a couple of times to lower quick attack’s damage. Then I use twineedle to hopefully poison Scyther. The problem with this strategy is that Scyther uses focus energy, so he can crit right through my harden boosts.

I must have tried the stalling strategy over ten times, but Scyther kept on critting me. Beedrill does survive a crit from full health, but not when it has taken some prior damage from non-crit quick attacks. I then had the genius idea of catching a Paras to trick the AI into using u-turn. Then I would be able to set up on Kakuna or Metapod instead, so that Beedrill would survive even if Scyther got a crit.

First, I must beat Silver to get into Ilex Forest. Gastly uses curse on turn 1, and falls to a twineedle. I boldly stay in against Bayleef, despite the curse, because he can’t touch Beedrill anyway. Bayleef falls to two twineedles (so like, four I guess). I switched to Totodile when Silver brought Zubat out, because the curse damage was too much. Totodile cleans up neatly.

Beedrill levels up to level 17 during this fight. I catch a Paras and try fighting Bugsy again. The Paras strategy doesn’t work at all, since he just dies to one quick attack. So, I am in the exact same situation as last time, just one level higher. I decide to just try the old strategy again. I use harden twice, but Scyther uses quick attack twice without setting up focus energy first. I use twineedle and poison Scyther on the second hit, as Scyther finally sets up focus energy. On the next turn, Scyther goes for quick attack again and he gets the crit, of course, but Beedrill barely survives and hardens. I use a super potion to heal and Scyther just keeps on spamming quick attack. Luckily, he doesn’t get another crit and he falls to poison damage after a while. Metapod and Kakuna are complete pushovers. Now that Beedrill has done his job, I’m putting him back in the box.


In preparation for Withney
The first thing I do after obtaining the hive badge is to get headbutt on my Totodile. I’m adding a new pokemon to my team: Heracross. Heracross is the perfect answer to Chuck and Bruno. It’s also a very powerful pokemon in general, so I can use it as my main pokemon for route sweeping and non-gym leader boss fights and such. Gastly also has night shade now by the way, so it can finally start beating trainers on its own.

Heracross does well against the trainers on route 34, despite being massively underleveled. After a chat with Lyra at the day care, I go to the Goldenrod Gamecorner to cheat my way through with save states. The run will probably be grindy enough as is, so I don’t feel bad about doing this at all. I get two swords dance tm’s, an ice beam tm and a wide lens.

I get Kenya on my way to National Park. She’s going to be my main answer to Whitney. I beat most of the trainers on route 35 and the National Park with Gastly, who levels up quickly because of that. I train Heracross in the wild on route 36 while searching for a Stantler. He gets intimidate, which is very useful against Miltank. I also level Kenya up to 21, which makes her evolve into Fearow.

Before the fight with Witney, I get the Spearow I used against Falkner out of the pc.


Whitney
Clefairy is cleanly 2HKO’d by aerial ace. I switch to Stantler to trigger intimidate against Miltank. Stantler can’t get another move out before falling though. After the intimidate, my level 13 Spearow can survive one stomp and use leer once. I switch Kenya back in. Aerial ace depletes almost halve of Miltanks health bar, which locks Miltank in a milk drink loop. I repeatedly use aerial ace and Miltank repeatedly uses milk drink for like five turns until I finally get a crit to finish the fight. This was pretty easy.


In preparation for Morty
I already defeated all of the trainers in the National park and the ones on routes 35 and 36, so the road to Ecruteak is a cakewalk. I fight Silver again in the burned tower. I lead with Gastly because she needs to hit level 29 before I face Morty, since she gets shadow ball at that level. She defeats the opposing Gastly with lick, without taking damage in return. Magnemite is 2HKO’d by night shade, and it luckily doesn’t use thunder wave. Zubat is also 2HKO’d by night shade, but Gastly takes heavy damage in return from bite. I switch to Heracross to save Gastly while Bayleef sets up a reflect. Heracross chops right through the screen with brick break though.

The ghastly’s and Haunters that the trainers in Morty’s gym use are worth a lot of exp. Ghastly reaches level 28 after defeating them all. I go to Route 38 to fight some trainers, in order to get to level 29. I can finally let her evolve into haunter now.

Morty
My haunter outspeeds and OHKO’s all of Morty’s pokemon with shadow ball, so this was actually very easy. Even though I can still use haunter against Koga, I decide to put her into the pc anyway. Find out why next time


I would do a team status, but there's not much point in doing that. The only pokemon in my team currently, that I plan on using for the entire run, is Heracross. In my next update, I'll cover the rest of the gym leaders.

 

[Magnus0]

Planning ahead
I planned out my entire team before I started with the run. The elite four was my biggest concern, since they have teams of 5 that can’t be cheesed easily. I also can’t access the pc in between battles, and there is not a single pokemon with a dual tying that allows me to use it twice, which means that I have to solo at least four of the fights. Bruno is already covered by Heracross, and I can use Lugia against Will. I’ll get back to Karen and Lance.

For Koga, I considered three options: Gengar, Weezing and Nidoking. Gengar is an easy option, because I can just continue using the Haunter I used on Morty. She doesn’t have super effective coverage on Koga’s team though, and I was really afraid of Muk’s special bulk and minimize. Crobat will be problematic if he outspeeds as well. The only thing Weezing fears on Koga’s entire team is Venomoths phychic. It tanks everything else though, and it can torch the bugs with fire blast. It doesn’t have anything to touch Muk though. In the end, I decided on using Nidoking. He has super effective coverage on all of Koga’s pokemon, so it seemed like the best choice to me.

I wanted to catch a NidoranM with rivalry, since all of Koga’s pokemon are male. After a while though, I found a NidoranM with near perfect IV’s across the board. It does have poison point, but I don’t think it will matter too much considering its great stats.

Since Gastly took most of the exp up until this point, both Heracross and Nidoran are quite underlevelled. I trained against the trainers on route 42 first. I use the pokemon centre in Mahogany town, and go back to Ecruteak. This might seem weird, but I do it so I can fly back on Kenya next time I need to go to Mahogany Town.


Road to Cianwood City
I mostly use Heracross against the trainers on route 38 and 39, to get him in shape for Fighting Chuck. Route 40 is slightly annoying, but nothing a max repel can’t fix. I actually lose the fight against Eusine in Cianwood. His Electrode outspeeds my entire team, and it does heavy damage with thunder. The Croconaw and Fearow I still have on me didn’t help. It’s no big deal though. Heracross perferms very nicely against the trainers in Chucks gym, which bodes well for the fight Against Chuck himself.


Chuck
Primeape uses double team, which is completely ignored by Heracross’ aerial ace. Primeape then tries rock slide, but ironically misses as he falls to a second aerial ace. Factoring in the sitrus berry, it takes four aerial aces to bring down Poliwrath. Poliwrath also needs four surfs to bring Heracross down, so the outcome is down to which pokemon is faster. Luckily, Heracross wins that speed battle. There are no critical hits or misses or anything to screw with Heracross’ victory. I didn´t even have to use a potion.


In preparation for Jasmine
There are only a few options I can use against Jasmine: Magneton, Forretress, Steelix and Scizor. Since Scizor and Forretress seemed like too much effort to me, I decided to use a Steelix and a magneton. I first need to clear the lighthouse before I can get to the safari zone though. The lighthouse is a great place to train my Nidorino.

I first go to the safari zone to catch a magneton. Literally the first one I catch comes with a metal coat, which is great. I don’t have to go look for a 2% chance for a Steelix in the Cliff Cave. I can just catch an Onix (much more bearable 10% encounter rate) and evolve it manually. I’m sure this will save a lot of time.

Anyway, my third encounter in the Cliff Cave is a Steelix. I catch it and teach it dig and rock smash. I teach the Magneton flash. I don’t level them up at all, since they both resist all of Jasmine’s attacks.


Jasmine
I lead with Steelix, since it’s immune to thunderbolt. Magnemite misses a supersonic as I use dig. Dig OHKO’s on the following turn, and Jasmine brings out her own Steelix. I use rock smash to lower the opposing Steelix’ defence, but Jasmine uses Screech. I switch out to Magneton in fear of an iron tail. Magneton takes this very well, as expected. I now just spam flash with magneton. I can get about four flashes off before Magneton faints, because Steelix surprisingly kept on hitting iron tail despite the accuracy drops. With Jasmine’s Steelix crippled, I can freely spam rock smash to lower defence. Jasmine´s Steelix doesn´t land another attack on my own Steelix. One dig finishes the job after a couple of defence drops. One more dig finishes the second Magnemite as well. I put both of steel types into the pc.


In preparation for Pryce
I need an ice type to fight Pryce with. There are only three choices available: Dewgong, Cloyster and Lapras. The latter is easily the best and it takes the least amount of effort too. So, I fly back to Azalea Town and go to Union cave. The trainers down here are pretty vicious, but they’re worth good exp too.

After that little detour, I go back to Mahogany Town. I level Lapras up just a little bit by fighting the trainers on the route to the Lake of Rage. I don’t want to give it more exp than it needs, since I will ditch the Lapras after he beast Pryce. I pick up the choice specs at the lake, though I’m not sure how useful they will be.

Nidorino tears through all of the underlevelled team Rocket grunts in the hideout. Petrel is especially pathetic. Lance gives me the whirlpool tm, which allows me access to my next pokemon. The trainers in Pryce’s gym don’t stand much of a chance against Heracross and Nidorino either.


Pryce
Lapras is massively underlevelled at level 22, but it does have a double resistance against ice. I use rock smash to lower Seels defence. Lapras can’t power through rest otherwise. Body slam takes Seel down after a while, but Lapras did take some damage from snore. Next up is piloswine, who is weak to surf. Surf and mud bomb are both 3HKO’s (even after sitrus berry), but Piloswine is faster. It misses a mud bomb though, which gives me the edge. I have to use a super potion, but Lapras prevails in the end. I spam rock smash against Dewgong to lower his defence. I have very bad luck though, and even after using all of the pp of rock smash, Dewgongs defence still isn’t as low as possible. I have to use my second potion to survive. After that, my only option is body slam. It does deal decent damage, but not enough to break through rest spam. Luckily, I get a crit after a while to take Dewgong down. That took long enough.

Now that I have the Glacier badge, I can use whirlpool. I fly back to Cianwood City and surf to the whirl islands. Here I try to catch a Horsea. Kingdra and Dragonair are my only options against Clair and Lance, so I’m basically forced to use a Kingdra. I want one with swift swim, because I think that it will be more useful than sniper. It takes me about 40 minutes to get a decent Horsea with swift swim and a not terrible nature. This at least allowed me the time to thief a dragon scale from the low-level Horsea’s I didn’t intend on catching.


Business in Goldenrod
Horsea levels very quickly against the dozens of team Rocket grunts in the radio tower. She can beat most grunts on her own thanks to her great STAB surf. Specs surf notably OHKO’s all of Petrels Koffings.

Silver is a bit too much for Horsea to handle though. I switch her in and out of combat so she can leech as much exp as possible. This makes her evolve into Seadra. There is no reason to keep Seadra unevolved, so I upgrade to Kingdra right away. This isn’t actually an upgrade in terms of speed or power, but it does alleviate Seadra’s terrible special defence.

Now fully evolved, Kingdra tears through the still laughable Proton with specs surf. Ariana poses a little bit more of threat though, since she actually uses a unique team. Arbok survives a surf and uses glare. She then uses wrap, which doesn’t do much damage, and falls to another surf. Vileplume’s strongest attack is mega drain, which also doesn’t do much damage. It takes two ice teams to bring Vileplume down. Murkrows night shade actually does some damage to Kingdra, but not nearly enough to bring her down. One ice beam freezes Murkrow over.

None of Archers pokemon resist water, so I’m free to spam specs surf. It OHKO’s all of his pokemon. Kingdra is at the same level as Nidoking and Heracross at this point. I don’t intend to level my pokemon evenly though, since Kingdra needs all the experience she can get before fighting Clair.

Clair
The journey through the ice path is very uneventful, so I’m skipping straight to Clair. Kingdra has levelled up to level 43 after beating all of the trainers in Clairs gym. Still, Clair is by far the biggest obstacle yet.

On my first attempt, I just wanted to test how well Kingdra did so far. Gyarados was definitely a problem thanks to his amazing special bulk, so I wanted to test a gimmicky strategy.

I used natural gift with a pecha berry, which turns it into an electric type attack. This actually did a lot of damage to Gyarados, even despite intimidate. One ice beam took him down after that. Clair brings out her dragonair. I use ice beam to see if it is enough to OHKO. It doesn’t even come close to OHKO’ing though, which tells me I have to grind a little. The opposing Kingdra is also still a problem. The only thing I can use to KO it is draco meteor, which requires maximum happiness.

I grind up to level 46 in the Ice Path. The Delibird here give a surprisingly good amount of experience, so this didn’t take all that long. The main way of boosting happiness is through levelling up or by using vitamins. Even after the grinding session, the tutor wouldn’t teach draco meteor to Kingdra. I fly to Goldenrod department store and stuff Kingdra´s face with vitamins. I also get a haircut for Kingdra and a Dratini for intimidate fodder. The tutor STILL wouldn’t tutor draco meteor. I’m kind of lost at this point. I absolutely need a good dragon move to beat Clair Kingdra, but there’s no good way of increasing happiness, as I didn’t really want to grind further or abuse the hairdressers. But then, I realise that I had some rare candies all along. I level up to level 48 to hopefully get enough happiness for draco meteor. Instead, Kingdra learns dragon dance, to my surprise. Maybe I don’t need draco meteor after all.

I teach Kingdra secret power and try fighting Clair again. I’m overlevelled now, so I might make something work. I lead with Dratini to soak up intimidate. Dratini actually survives a dragon pulse thanks to a haban berry and lands a thunder wave. Gyarados probably realised how overlevelled Kingdra is, since it uses dragon rage now instead of dragon pulse. I set up three dragon dances before I have to heal. I set up another dragon dance as Gyarados hits another dragon rage. I use a +4 secret power, which thankfully OHKO’s Gyarados. It also OHKO’s both of the Dragonairs and Kingdra.


At this point, my team consists of Nidoking, Heracross and Kingdra. Kingdra is well Equipped to fight Lance, but Nidoking and Heracross definitely need some extra training. Due to the nature of this challenge, the difficulty ramps up significantly towards te end. The e4 will be the hardest trial yet. Can I complete the challenge? find out next time

 

[CoolMan6001]

So... What are you gonna use for Karen? Evolve the Eevee into Umbreon? Get a Houndor from the Safari Zone?

 

[Magnus0]

So... What are you gonna use for Karen? Evolve the Eevee into Umbreon? Get a Houndor from the Safari Zone?

The most gimmicky shit you have ever seen.

Seriously though, Karen was by far the biggest obstacle to the challenge. Without spoiling too much, I did make something happen though, kind off. So stay tuned.

 

[Antihaxxer]

I really like reading your challenge ! Go GO GOOOO ! :)

 

[Magnus0]

In preparation for the E4
I pass the test at the Dragon’s Den and receive the dragon pulse tm. I then fly to Elm to receive the master ball. It’s time to beat the kimono girls. I use Heracross to easily beat Umbreon. Espeon is very threatening though, because it beats both Heracross and Nidoking hard. I have to switch to Kingdra, which I didn’t really want to do because Heracross and Nidoking both need the experience much more at this point. When Jolteon comes out, I switch to Nidoking. Luckily, he poisons Jolteon since Jolteon starts spamming double team. Flareon is OHKO’d by close combat. Vaporeon survives the first close combat, but it fails to OHKO with surf, so it might as well be a OHKO as well.

With the kimono girls beaten, I can catch Lugia. The trip through Whirl Island is slightly annoying, but I catch Lugia without any problems. I go to route 27 near New Bark Town, where I plan on catching my final pokemon. However, here I realise I made a terrible mistake during my planning.

For some reason, I thought that I could catch a Sneasel on this route. Sneasel can only be caught on route 28 though, which is inaccessible. Now my whole plan for beating Karen is in shatters. The only dark type options besides Sneasel are Umbreon, Murkrow and Tyranitar. So, either I have to do an agenizing amount of grinding for TTar, or I have to somehow solo Karen with one of two terrible pokemon. Ughhh

I decide that Murkrow is my best bet. I get through Victory Road first and then fly all the way back to the safari zone to catch one. Murkrow is really damn annoying to catch too. I luck out eventually though, and catch one with decent IV’s. It’s MASSIVELY underlevelled, as is everything in HGSS. I go to the little patch of grass on route 47 near cliff cave, because that’s the best place to grind as far as I’m aware.

I find out that the ditto here actually give more exp if you let them transform first. I abuse this fact with Lugia, but fighting level 40 Lugia’s is actually quite challenging, so this training strategy isn’t very sustainable. After some grinding, I think I’m somewhat ready for the e4. At least, everyone except Karen.


Here is my team going into the e4:

Lugia (46)
No item (I wanted to flex a bit)

- Charge beam
- Shadow ball
- Hydro pump
- Aeroblast

Nidoking (41)
Wide lens

- Sludge bomb
- Earthquake
- Fire blast
- Avalanche

Heracross (41)
Shell bell

- Close combat
- Brick break
- Aerial ace
- Swords dance

Murkrow (31, Yeah... he’s level 36 right before Karen thanks to the Exp.Share though, go Murkrow)
Brightpowder

- Night shade
- Snatch
- Roost
- Swagger

Kingdra (49)
nevermeltice

- Dragon dance
- Ice beam
- Hydro pump
- Secret power

Intimidate fodder Dratini

Will
I use charge beam with Lugia to raise special attack, while Xatu does single digit damage with u-turn. Jynx switches in, the most threatening of Will’s pokemon. She uses ice punch instead of ice beam for some reason though, so it still doesn’t do much damage. Two shadow balls take Jynx down. Xatu comes back in, and falls to a second charge beam. Exeggutor is annihilated by a +2 aeroblast, and xatu and slowbro fall to shadow ball. Easy peasy, though that is to be expected of Lugia.

Koga
Fire blast is just enough to OHKO Ariados, though I’m pretty sure this is a range. Koga sends out Venomoth, who has psychic. Fire blast gets Venomoth in red, but Nidoking tanks psychic surprisingly well too. He lives with about 50% of his health bar remaining. I use earthquake as Koga uses a full restore for a 2HKO. I use a potion against Forretress predicting a protect, but Forretress uses toxic spikes instead. Fine. Forretress does use protect when I try to use fire blast. It gets absolutely torched on the next turn though. Incomes Crobat, another annoying double team spammer. Crobat uses double team, but I an avalanche regardless. This only does about 1/3 to Crobat, which is a bit disappointing to be honest. On the next turn, Crobat uses a very weak wing attack which doubles the power of avalanche., which is actually enough to take Crobat down. I then get an unnecessary crit earthquake against Muk to win the fight.

Bruno
Heracross is so perfect for this challenge. It resists both fighting and ground, so it can easily set up swords dance on Hitmontop. I even get a free turn to set up a second swords dance because Hitmontop uses dig on turn 1. I use aerial ace to take Hitmontop down, but I get hit by a quick attack first. Heracross gets some health back thanks to shell bell though, which turns out to be significant. That’s because Hitmonlee outspeeds and just barely fails to KO with blaze kick. With hitmonlee out of the way though, Bruno’s entire team is done for. Close combat OHKO’s all of his Pokemon.

Karen
I was never going to solo this fight fair and square, so I had to resort to a very gimmicky strategy: snatching double teams away from Umbreon.

This actually went better than expected, I could get to +6 evasion fairly consistently. Umbreon has faint attack though, so it can land some attacks anyway. Then again, faint attack doesn’t deal much damage and Murkrow can heal it off with roost. After snatching 6 double teams, I use night shade to deal damage. Factoring in Karen´s full restore, it takes 7 night shades to defeat Umbreon. I use swagger to confuse Gengar, while he misses a focus blast. Gengar hits himself on the following turn, and he takes a night shade as well, which takes him down to half HP. The next turn goes exactly the same, so Gengar is down and out. Incomes Houndoom, arguably the most dangerous pokemon in the entire e4. And here I am, muddling through with my underleveled Murkrow. I use swagger again, while Houndoom misses a flamethrower. Through some miracle, Houndoom hits himself as I use night shade, which knocks him into sitrus berry range. Murkrow dodges another flamethrower and a second night shade gets Houndoom into yellow again. On the next turn, Houndoom hits himself in confusion and he goes down to a final night shade.

Murkrow beat Umbreon, Gengar and Houndoom by itself, imagine that. Karen’s Vileplume and Murkrow shouldn’t be able to OHKO my Murkrow. I actually have a shot at this.

Karen sends out her own Murkrow.

And then….

Karen’s Murkrow

uses….

it's too cruel

WHIRLWIND

This was my best attempt after many unsuccessful ones. I didn’t try again.

I could cheese my way through this fight by letting Bruno defeat all of my pokemon except Murkrow, so that whirlwind would fail. This wouldn’t be entirely fair either though, since Murkrow would have to defeat Bruno’s last pokemon. I suppose that I proved that it’s theoretically possible to cheese this fight with an underlevelled Murkrow, at least, even if it breaks the rules of this particular challenge.

Hide

Lance
Just to see if Kingdra could pull off a sweep, I defeated the rest of Karen’s team with Nidoking.

I use dratini as intimidate sponge. Way before I realised that Kingdra got dragon dance, my plan was to use a set of rain dance, hydro pump, ice beam and natural gift. I want to test if this works first, just for the sake of it. I use ice beam to soften Gyarados up a bit. I then use rain dance to trigger swift swim. Natural gift takes Gyarados out, as expected. The two level 49 Dragonites go down to ice beam. Things seem to work out well, but the last Dragonite barely survives an ice beam and KO’s with outrage. I have to use the nevermeltice item.

I really wanted to make the natural gift strategy work, but alas. I set up 3 dragon dances, heal up with a hyper potion, set up another dragon dance, and 2HKO Gyarados with secret power. Everything else dies to either ice beam or hydro pump.


Conclusion
I think I did pretty well, considering how limited my options were. I almost beat the challenge, if it wasn’t for that pesky whirlwind. Does that move even ignore evasion, or did I just get really unlucky? Either way, I had lots of fun with this challenge. It requires a lot of long-term planning and strategy. Thanks for reading through

 

[Yung Dramps]

Do you plan to do the Kanto postgame at all or is this where it ends?

Good stuff my man, ofc the trainer named Karen had to be a bitch that ruined everything but other than that nice one

EDIT: Possible way to beat her without getting phased: Are there any obtainable Fighting types that learn Self-Destruct or Explosion? If so maybe you can try that "kill everything except for Murkrow" strat while finishing off Bruno with a Fighting type.

 

[Magnus0]

Do you plan to do the Kanto postgame at all or is this where it ends?

Good stuff my man, ofc the trainer named Karen had to be a bitch that ruined everything but other than that nice one

EDIT: Possible way to beat her without getting phased: Are there any obtainable Fighting types that learn Self-Destruct or Explosion? If so maybe you can try that "kill everything except for Murkrow" strat while finishing off Bruno with a Fighting type.

I won't do the postgame. The balance is all over the place there, so I don't think there would be much point to it. I've looked at platinum and b/w to guess if this same challenge is possible to complete in those games, but I can already see some really nasty roadblocks. Maybe I'll do another run in a different game if I can figure something out, but I consider this run to be completed.

I just checked, and there is litterally not a single fighting type that learns explosion or selfdestruct at all. Heracross gets takedown though, which can be used for the same purpose. I'm definitely not gonna try it though, lol.