Starting out with my favourite pika clone, minun! Usually in playthrough teams I don't rly go for support oriented sets on my mons. I normally end up going either for all out attackers, setup sweepers or tanks, with the only real team support being (occasionally) hazards. However, since this dlc is doubles oriented and thus could use support moves more freely without losing offensive pressure, I figured "Heh, wynaut". And minun, having been created the same gen were doubles were invented and probably designed as the poster child of them, has plenty of options. I ofc had thunder in there in order to have an electric stab (probably should've changed it to thunderbolt tbh, but eh, if I was commit to minun I might as well have as much firepower as possible, even if it's sorta unreliable...). I then used helping hand for a damage boost with my other mon, encore for locking an opposing mon into an exploitable move (which actually came in rly useful to prevent Lacey's whimsicott from setting up tailwind), and nuzzle to spread paralysis (and to waste Kieran's politoed's wakan berry in the process hehehehe). And whilst Menos the minun didn't have much staying power, being 3HKOd by most attacks at best, she genuinely felt pretty useful for the rest of the team, and somehow even managed to break one of terapagos' shields in the finale!
Getting this guy was probably the biggest grind I ever had to make for a team member in any playthrough ever. I spent a good part of a day making BBQs, defeated idk how much wild mons, had to make a sandwich, gave my team a bath and even presented lacewing the flygon to chespirito the lokix from my base game playthrough (I think they got a little excited and had cuadruplets...). Arguably, I probably could've just not bothered with the grind and spent the rest of the playthrough with Coco the exeggutor as my grass mon. But no.
I had a statement to make. I'm an ultra rare meganium line appreciator, and who knows when the next time they appear in a mainline game is gonna be and get another chance of using em in a playthrough.
I couldn't let this chance pass. I'm one of the few people that gives em a chance and appreciates them for what they are. I- *huff huff*
Phew, I think I got a little winded up there. Well, anyway, meganium! Much like minun, they are mostly focused on team support, principally through dual screens. I also went with synthesis for healing without items and giga drain for a grass stab that also healed. The screens were RLY useful, especially for surviving hits that would've otherwise obliterated my mons. Surprisingly enough Clorofila the meganium was also the MVP in the final terapagos battle, taking surprisingly little from all his attacks and staying alive forever! So yeah, meganium wasn't useless! I proved all the haters wrong ahahahahahaha!
Oh huh, didn't realise that half my team starts with an m. Wow! Anyway, I originally planned on looking at different miniors until I got a green core one. However, the first one I encountered happened to be a yellow core one, so I figured "Eh, this is good enough. Yellow is also neat!" Cometa the minior was the biggest beneficiary of Clorofila's screens, allowing them to setup shell smash easier (surprisingly enough they never got double targeted that often, so with white herb, shields down and the aforementioned screens getting boosts wasn't that dangerous). After that I could then proceed to spam boosted acrobatics and power gems til oblivion, hopefully getting the core form boost in the process to become unstoppable! They weren't invincible ofc, since they did die to priority and double targeting rather easily, but for what it's worth they did a good job at their role.
Ironically, getting this girl was much easier than I thought, being one of my first encounters upon entering the area as a trapinch. That honestly was a relief, since flygon is one of my favourite pokemon ever but didn't have any chance to use one in an in game playthrough up until now. Well, now I have, and they didn't disappoint! Lacewing the flygon had a pretty good all around kit, having a solid bulk behind screens and a pretty good offensive profile (earthquake in particular being surprisingly spammable with 3/5 of the other mons either being immune to it or just not minding it that much, tho I did slot in earth power at times to have a single target ground stab). Idk what else to say tbh, she hits hard and tanks neutral attacks, there's not much more to it.
Gota the araquanid was pretty similar in this regard, but to a more minor degree. Liquidation from this guy in particular rly felt useful, hitting like an absolute truck. And whilst leech life wasn't as sheerly brutal, it at least dealt decent damage and also provided him with passive healing. Mirror coat was also a funny button in a few occasions, dealing hefty damage to special attackers that would've otherwise dominated him. Crunch didn't end up as useful of a move and only rly was filler, but it did come in handy against a handful of ghost mons I encountered, so that's something ig.
Alolan sandslash was only the second hardest mon to obtain for my team! This guy is, alongside alolan exeggutor, my favourite regional form in pokemon. Therefore, the moment alolan sandshrew popped up in one of the indigo disk ads, I decided that I HAD to use em in my playthrough team. So when I finally got access to the terarium, whilst exploring the polar area, I dedicated myself to finding one. However, I never found one, even after finding a BELDUM. So I decided to investigate a little on it, and to my surprise and dismay, they were a Violet exclusive. And I play scarlet. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. However, I didn't give up on using them, so I went on pokemon home, and searched the GTS. After digging through a ton of people that offered their sandshrews in exchange for gholdengos and blood moon ursalunas and pharaoh furfrous
(what's up with the economy in there fr, ik those are rare but still...), I finally got a person who offered one for the accessible price of an alolan vulpix!
(Señor Dani (O señora no se), donde sea que este, muchas gracias por el sandshrew, y espero que este disfrutando de su vulpix!)
As for sandslash himself, he definitely was pretty solid! While he did have a problem with speed (which at least was counteracted by screens), he did hit pretty hard with stab iron head and loaded dice enhanced icicle spear. Sadly he didn't dominate Lacey as hard as I expected due to the sheer amount of anti steel tech she employs, but otherwise he did his job pretty well!
