[Event] ♥ Wind of Change - Valentine's day 2023 Challenge Event ♥

Well, the Ground weakness is solved, but not only will I not be catching this thing anytime soon, the only way in White 2 to catch my new team member is via Surf since the Super Rod is locked behind postgame. Also 5% encounter rate. Should be fun bashing my head against the wall trying to get this one. Either way, at the very least, it's a Pokemon I haven't used before, so it should be interesting.

Current Restictions: Steel - No items in battle from the bag. Clay took full advantage of this, and at the rate things are going, the Elite Four will too. If this isn't removed, I will sell my X items that I've been picking up.
Electric - When switching out in battle, I must choose the next Pokemon in the list in order. Starting to become a bit more intimidating now that the team is growing.
Fire - No non-Fire status moves. Basically no setup moves, but Water pretty much has the exact same restriction, except it's party wide.
Ground - This Pokemon's moveset behaves similar to a wild Pokemon, with it's oldest move being replaced by it's newest one. One TM/HM, tutor move, or Move Relearner move must be on at a time and isn't affected by this rule. Currently, Dig is that move, but it will be changed out with Earthquake when Shades eventually learns it.
Water - No moves allowed that guarantee boost your stats, like Work Up or Flame Charge. Because I can't catch the Pokemon tied to this restriction until Undella Town, I'm safe...for now.

Welcome back to the tale of "local idiot who got swept by a Sandslash three times." Today, we are still insanely weak to Ground and have to do one of my favorite side activities in the entire series, the PWT. Back in the day, this thing was a huge deal, especially in postgame. Being able to fight gym leaders and even champions from past games was an amazing concept. It's a shame they never did something like this again, but the less I say about modern Game Freak and go off on a tangent, the better. This is also the first time we're fighting Hugh since all the way back at the ranch, which is pretty wild to think about.

As a game plan, I opted to bring in Amphy, Shades, and Anubis in that order. Amphy is slow, but Static can paralyze things and give me free turns to click Electro Ball. Shades in the middle is primarily for Colress since both him and Anubis can blast through his team, plus Intimidate is always useful. Anubis is last because...I don't know, but it'll hopefully work. There aren't any Ground types here as far as I'm aware. Amphy swept Hugh, and it was at this moment I remembered you don't get any experience from these fights. I had also forgotten these mons are...lower leveled than even the gym trainers I just got smacked around by...whenever my last update was. Anyway, this tournament is fixed so Cheren is always the second opponent. Once again, the strategy of Confuse Ray + Thunder Wave gave Amphy another sweep. Of course, I can't do that to Colress, so that one will require a bit more actual thought than my current strategy.

...Never mind, because I swept Colress too. Not with Amphy, but I got the Quick Claw to work and confused Magneton before sending in Shades to blow up everything. This is Gen 5, so Steel still resists Ghost and Dark, but that doesn't matter here because Dig exists. With that done, it's time for a wild plot to appear! Our first visit to the Plasma Frigate is met with battles against grunts, a nice chat with Zinzolin, and "escorted" off the boat by the Shadow Triad. Shofu got some levels, so it was worth the trip. Route 6 was also sort of worth it to grab the Surf HM, but I did have to backtrack to grab the Ducklett I caught before, considering this is the only way I can use Surf right now. As for Chargestone Cave, aside from being blindsided by that Ace Trainer with the triple battle, not much to talk about aside from another N cameo. Onward to Route 7 and the Lucky Egg. On the way, Shofu finally evolved, so we no longer need to deal with the Hustle problem, and with the Lucky Egg, leveling up will be much easier. As for the gym, it was the Amphy show. He also got Discharge right before the battle with Skyla. I missed Rock Tomb twice in a row on Skyla's Swoobat with Anubis, but otherwise the battle was hardly eventful since Amphy blew up everything else.

A nice plane ride later and we're off to Lentimas Town, but considering the events between here and the next town aren't very relevant, let's skip over to the elephant in the room, and that's catching the next member of the squad, which is a Remoraid...who can only be caught in two routes in the entire game. Even worse, it only has a 5% encounter rate through Surfing, and since the rod is locked behind postgame, this is the only way to get Remoraid or Octillery in the main story barring trade, which isn't possible anyway. Anyway, I had expected this to take me an hour or so because of said low encounter rate, but it only took me five encounters to find one. I got Hustle, which feels like a curse at this point since that becomes the worthless Suction Cups on evolution, but at least Remoraid learns Ice Beam at only Level 34. Lucky for me, my Remoraid was Level 33, so welcome Ursula to the team. She will need a lot of catching up to get caught up, especially since she'll be doing the bulk of the heavy lifting against Drayden's gym.

After going and blowing up any trainers I could to get Ursula some levels, a wild Hugh appears as I try to leave town to the north. I had thought he had more Pokemon, but to my surprise, he still only has 3. Ursula, at Level 38, instakilled his lead with Ice Beam. It also instakilled Emboar, but it used Take Down on the first turn. Surprisingly, the Simipour was the greatest threat. It did a ton to Anubis when I switched her in, also got burned, and nearly one shot Shofu. It's still a Simipour, though, therefore it is easy to beat. This is the fourth rival battle, and this is all he has? Keep in mind we don't fight this guy again until the final time at Victory Road, and this is the best he can do at this point? By now, Cheren has a solid team, but we've also fought him a good four times or so by the 6th gym. Anyway, it's onward to the next town, blasting aside trainers in the way to score more experience, because I'm sure going to need it. This team is...pretty lacking in defenses, so the strategy is slowly evolving into "blow up everything with my glass cannons featuring an octopus."

After getting critted and instakilled in two different instances, I arrive at Lacunosa Town, where it's plot dump time about Kyurem. After that, near the exit, we get Zinzolin's monologue about why he's still with Team Plasma and battle him. After smashing their faces in with Shofu, it's off to Opelucid City, cutting out the part where I scour routes for items and trainers. After taking out any trainers I could find, it's time for the Ursula Show, also known as Opelucid City gym. While Ursula couldn't even one shot a Fraxure at first, after a level, she could handle them. Druddigon, however, she still couldn't one shot. Anyway, onto Drayden. Expecting something Ursula can't deal with in one hit as a lead, I chose to lead with Shades for Intimidate on whatever Drayden's lead is, which turned out to be Druddigion, which was what I was predicting. I just spammed Crunch and managed to get a Defense drop. Drayden wasted his Hyper Potion, and more Crunches took Druddigon out. As for Flygon, this is the Ursula show now. It is a Flygon in the face of an Ice move, so we all know where this was going. Haxorus, however, had the potential to be scary. On it's first turn, it went for Dragon Dance, but my Ice Beam froze it on the first shot. 10%, by the way. With that, it was a free victory for the squad.

So, next time is the finale. Team Plasma, Marlon, more Team Plasma, the Ghetsis Episode, and Elite Four await. I don't know how this ragtag group will handle it, but we'll have to wait and see.


Current thoughts: Well, the Ground weakness issue is...less of an issue, but now we have a new one: glass cannons. Sure, a lot of my team blows up stuff, but they can't take hits well. Combine that with the inability to heal in battle, and now the Electric restriction's true power is starting to show itself. If I didn't have to take a sixth team member, I'd say I could probably beat Kyurem White and Ghetsis with just this team, but as per the rules, I must have a full party. So, shuffler of mystery, if you're planning on swapping someone out, now's the time. Let's hope I don't slack off and finish the run before the deadline.

Pokémon Platinum QoL 1.6.3
Winds of Change - Young Couple Valery & Devalue
Update 5 (Team Galactic HQ - > Hall of Fame)



With the Champion defeated, my challenge is complete! Thank you so much, scrambler, for giving me this party. This not only includes a very fun set of restrictions, but you unknowingly gave me some of my favorite Pokemon that I haven't had a chance to train yet, along some new ones that I greatly enjoyed using in my party.

Moveset changes: First off, I spent time grinding wild Sneasels with Thief to get a full set of Quick Claws, replacing all of my other held items. Next, I gave Noctowl a better Psychic-type move in Psychic, and taught Gyarados Dragon Dance and Waterfall, alternating between the two (replacing Bite) up until the League, when I no longer needed Surf. Finally, Drifblim learned Explosion very late, which helped me out a couple times in the League, and forgot Air Cutter because I don't really like any of the Flying-type moves it can learn in this gen.

Boss Battles:

Cyrus (Mt. Coronet): Houndoom managed to KO Tangrowth, Drifblim, and Noctowl, and was KOed by my Gyarados. I had to switch to Rotom, which KOed Cyrus's Gyarados before being beaten by Weavile. Gallade Brick Break'd Weavile and fainted to Honchkrow. I healed Gyarados, then it got a lucky crit against Honchkrow and a lucky freeze against Crobat. I came very close to losing this fight.

Giratina: Gyarados fainted it with three Ice Fangs, one of which criticaled and another of which was boosted by a Dragon Dance.

Volkner: Tangrowth took down Jolteon and fainted to Raichu. Rotom confused, then fainted Raichu. Gyarados, Drifblim, and Noctowl were all sacrificed to wear down Luxray for Gallade, which beat it, and brought Electrivire to half health before fainting. Finally, I switched back to Rotom, which was at that point healed up again, and confused and fainted Electrivire.

Rival: Rotom 1HKOed Staraptor and Floatzel. Gyarados KOed Roserade with Ice Fang, Tangrowth put Heracross to sleep, Drifblim Air Cutter'd it, Noctowl got a critical Hyper Beam on Infernape, and Gallade KOed Snorlax on its second attempt.

Aaron: Aaron actually beat me the first time because I had the stupid idea yesterday to rush in with a team in the high 40s. When I came back, he was still somewhat difficult. Noctowl fainted Yanmega before being switched out, and Drifblim used Explosion to get rid of Drapion. Rotom Overheated Scizor, then Gyarados KOed Heracross and Vespiquen.

Bertha: Gallade took down Whiscash and Gliscor, and Tangrowth took down the rest. She was the easiest of the E4.

Flint: His Magmortar single-handedly soloed almost my whole team, but fainted to a Hyper Beam from Noctowl. Everything else was 1HKOed by Gyarados.

Lucian: This was a pretty close battle, and I ended up with every party member except Gyarados fainting or having to be switched out. Rotom Shadow Ball'd Mr. Mime, Drifblim, then Noctowl beat Espeon after it fainted Rotom, Tangrowth KOed Lucian's Gallade, my Gallade 2HKOed Alakazam, and Gyarados beat Bronzong.

Cynthia: Gyarados set up one Dragon Dance against Spiritomb and then swept her whole team. Kind of underwhelming after fighting the much harder Elite Four.

Without further ado, here are the ratings:

Noctowl: 6/10. Noctowl was really, really helpful in the early game, but ended up being less useful as time went on. Its initial niche as a Hypnosis + Reflect setup Pokemon was harder to use once I got Rotom's Electric restriction. I retooled it as a special attacker later, and, though it wasn't that strong, STAB Hyper Beam was very useful in certain situations, especially given the Flying restriction. Still, it was my weakest team member.

Gyarados: 8/10. An excellent physical attacker that gets Dragon Dance. The only thing holding it back was that I still wanted a Pokemon with Surf, and, while Gyarados did learn it, it isn't actually that good at using it. Once I didn't need Surf anymore, it was an absolute powerhouse. During the League, it managed to sweep Cynthia entirely on its own after only a single Dragon Dance. The Flying restriction made setting up Dragon Dance significantly harder, though, and I often didn't have the opportunity to use it.

Rotom: 10/10. Rotom is actually one of my favorite Pokemon, and its Electric restriction was the most fun restriction I had this game! Excellent stats, good typing, and a great moveset made it very useful. It was fragile because of its low HP, but it wasn't as fragile as my flyers because of the Flying restriction effectively halving their HP.

Drifblim: 8/10. Drifblim was basically a discount Rotom. That being said, having another Pokemon with the same niche as Rotom was very helpful, especially with how fragile my team was. Lots of HP helped with its Flying restriction, and its extremely lucky Hidden Power type helped it get coverage against Steel-types that it desperately needed.

Gallade: 10/10. Another one of my favorites that I didn't get to use until now, Gallade was a very fun glass cannon, though, since it was fragile, I didn't get many chances to set up Swords Dance. When I fought things slower than it, though, it was basically unstoppable, and it usually did a fair amount of damage to anything faster before going down. The Fighting restriction was very fun to combine with the Electric restriction.

Tangrowth: 9/10. Tangrowth brought some much-needed bulk to my team, which mostly consisted of glass cannons or Pokemon turned into glass cannons by the Flying restriction. Sleep Powder was one of the best possible moves I could be locked into whenever I was below half health. It knew Grass Knot instead of Power Whip before the E4, but its moveset was otherwise mostly unchanged throughout this run. I was initially a little confused about why I had it, but once I got to use it, it was seriously one of the best Pokemon I could have in this situation.

My final guess for a scrambler is Confused Piplup. If it's not her, then probably Devalue.

Team

Spoiler:

Noctowl (♀) | FLYING | Level 54
Moves: Air Slash, Psychic*, Shadow Ball, Hyper Beam
180 HP / 77 Atk / 69 Def / 93 SpA / 115 SpD / 103 Spe
Ability: Insomnia | Nature: Jolly | Item: Quick Claw

Gyarados (♂) | FLYING | Level 56
Moves: Waterfall*, Earthquake, Ice Fang, Dragon Dance*
189 HP / 182 Atk / 97 Def / 91 SpA / 129 SpD / 124 Spe
Ability: Intimidate | Nature: Mild | Item: Quick Claw*

Rotom (Heat) | ELECTRIC | Level 54
Moves: Thunderbolt, Shadow Ball, Overheat, Confuse Ray
133 HP / 99 Atk / 138 Def / 126 SpA / 130 SpD / 111 Spe
Ability: Levitate | Nature: Quirky | Item: Quick Claw*

Drifblim (♀) | FLYING | Level 54
Moves: Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power (Fire, Power 64), Explosion*
243 HP / 117 Atk / 67 Def / 111 SpA / 81 SpD / 105 Spe
Ability: Aftermath | Nature: Gentle | Item: Quick Claw*

Gallade (♂) | FIGHTING | Level 54
Moves: Brick Break, Psycho Cut, Leaf Blade, Swords Dance
158 HP / 162 Atk / 107 Def / 89 SpA / 151 SpD / 99 Spe
Ability: Steadfast | Nature: Sassy | Item: Quick Claw*

Tangrowth* (♂) | GRASS | Level 55
Moves: Power Whip, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Sleep Powder
177 HP / 126 Atk / 162 Def / 150 SpA / 61 SpD / 71 Spe
Ability: Chlorophyll | Nature: Modest | Item: Quick Claw

*denotes new Pokemon/Moves/Items

You know, I know before I said I could probably beat Kyurem White and Ghetsis with five mons, but I didn't mean it literally. So, to kill any suspense, the last mon I got was Scrafty...with the Dark restriction. Why is this a problem? Well, because of Scrafty's learnable moves and the Dark restriction's effect, it is unable to fight, ever. It is literally a dead team slot. To make matters worse, Scrafty itself can only be caught in postgame, so I have to go out to Route 4, catch a Scraggy, and level it up before I shove it into the back of the party forever. I also can't heal in battle so I can't just use it as cannon fodder and Intimidate is a Dream World ability too. I will probably complain about this more as we go, because it would've been nice to have a more defensive mon on the team.

Current Restictions: Steel - No items in battle from the bag. This is now a permanent fixture, so I will sell my X items.
Electric - When switching out in battle, I must choose the next Pokemon in the list in order. Still about as bad as usual.
Fire - No non-Fire status moves. Basically no setup moves, but Water pretty much has the exact same restriction, except it's party wide.
Ground - This Pokemon's moveset behaves similar to a wild Pokemon, with it's oldest move being replaced by it's newest one. One TM/HM, tutor move, or Move Relearner move must be on at a time and isn't affected by this rule. Currently, Dig is that move, but it will be changed out with Earthquake when Shades eventually learns it.
Water - No moves allowed that guarantee boost your stats, like Work Up or Flame Charge. This does not affect moves that lower stats, though, like Close Combat or Hammer Arm.
Dark - No non-priority damaging moves unless the Pokemon hits the opponent with a priority damaging move first. Scrafty only learns Fake Out as a priority move...by egg move only, which I can't get. Barring non attacking moves, of which Scrafty gets very few of I can use, this mon effectively can't do anything in battle. It's worse than the Dunsparce situation.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, today's the day we close this chapter. Before Team Plasma shows up and gives Opelucid City the Snowhead experience barring the Gorons potentially freezing to death if the moon had no plans on crashing into Termina, I have to go all the way back to Route 4, catch a Scraggy, level it up, and then shove it in the end of my party. I'll probably use it for Strength if I need it in Victory Road since that's all it's good for. After a solid hour of switch training while holding the Lucky Egg against Audinos, I have the Scrafty. May she sit in the back of the party and collect dust because she will not ever be seeing battle. Now, onto the plot. Per Professor Juniper's request, we get some more backstory on Kyurem, but everything changed when the Team Plasma nation attacked. Opelucid City is now as much an icy hellscape as Snowhead in Majora's Mask, and now it's time to clear out Team Plasma from the city.

Of course, beating up Plasma grunts and Zinzolin ends up meaning nothing at the end because the Shadow Triad appears with their teleportation skills and snag the DNA Splicers anyway. With all that out of the way, it's time to take on the final gym, which will be the Amphy show. Because I'd rather not walk, I whipped Ducklett out of the PC and flew back to Undella Town, and through the Marine Tube, we are off to Humilau City, the last actual town in the game. While I planned to take on the gym right away, Marlon's not there, so now I gotta waste time looking for him. Luckily, that didn't take too long, so now it's time for the gym. For a last gym, I like the interior, at least. The trainers being full of Pokemon weak to Electric isn't the greatest design choice in the world, though. Marlon, however, is lackluster. Only three mons with no way to shut down Electric types at all, even on Challenge Mode. Amphy blew through two of his mons, but since I can't heal, I tried leaving the Jellicent to Anubis, but two Shadow Claws wasn't enough because no crit. Shades had to come and finish the job after Anubis went down. A real shame I don't have Crunch anymore, though. With that, however, we now have all eight gym badges and can now focus on the Team Plasma plot.

On the way to the Plasma Frigate, we have another nice chat with the best character, Colress, who gives over his machine that is actually required. He also gives a hint on what to use it on. Isn't Colress quite the guy? I doubt we'll ever see him again, sadly. It'd be a real shame if he appeared as a member of Team Plasma later in the game, but there's no way that'd happen. Nope, not at all. Absolutely not. Anyway, using the machine, I beat up a Crustle that was just minding it's own business and blocking my way. Beyond the Crustle, however, lies the Plasma Frigate, which Marlon lowers the bridge of. It took me two hints and getting the info about Reshiram and Zekrom to figure out the password was Zekrom, but you also need the card anyway, so I went ahead and blew up all the trainers for experience, considering Kyurem White is coming up soon and it's Level 55.

With that password business out of the way, we get introduced to Kyurem, who turned Opelucid City into Snowhead 2.0. That's not important right now, because we gotta fight Zinzolin for the final time. I actually never knew Hugh does use heals on his Emboar until today, so that was pretty interesting, but the battle was otherwise uneventful since Anubis just blasted everything with Aura Sphere. Like our last Frigate visit, we are kindly escorted out by the Shadow Triad and the Plasma Frigate goes off because it's planet needs it. Cheren points us in the right direction and now it's time to run all the way back to Giant Chasm to close the curtain on Team Plasma once and for all.

When talking fails, use violence. That's the approach we're going with since Rood couldn't convince Team Plasma to back down. On the way to turning off the barriers, Shades got access to Earthquake. Because Earthquake is a TM, I replaced Dig with it. Nothing in the rules said I needed to have the Earthquake TM on hand, just that it was a TM, which it is. Anyway, barriers and grunts, slowly closing the level gap to our incoming legendary encounter. What I didn't know was that after putting down the barriers, Zinzolin shows up and battles you when you walk towards Kyurem, so that put me off guard a bit. Lucky for me the doctor is a thing in this game.

Shock of all shocks, beyond the right warp panel was the fabulous gentleman, Colress. Compared to every other battle in the Frigate, Colress took advantage of my two big weaknesses: bad special defense and my abysmal luck. I knew the Magneton he led with had Sturdy, so I tried to take it out with Bone Rush. Not only did I not kill because I got three hits with one crit, the Magneton paralyzed Anubis with Thunder Wave. I got full para'd for two turns in a row, giving Colress a chance to heal and Volt Switch out to Magnezone. Since Anubis was basically screwed, I went into Shades, who proceeded to take care of half his team until the Air Balloon Klinklang came out, so I brought in Shofu, who tanked a Giga Impact and later another Volt Switch from the Magneton to get us the win.

Also obligatory "I really like the music" line.

Anyway, with Colress defeated, it's time to meet the man behind the operation, Ghetsis, and he's...about the same as he was two years ago, except more openly evil. After his evil speech, we have to deal with the Shadow Triad while Hugh has a crisis. A real shame he's going to miss out on the grand defeat of Team Plasma's boss. Speaking of which, the time has come for the showdown. Ignoring all the plot, it's time to fight Kyurem White, the first time in the entire main series you're forced to fight a legendary you cannot catch no matter what. After it's down, it's time to handle Ghetsis. N gives me a free heal, and after that, it's showtime. My plan was simple. I know his Cofagrigus has Toxic, so I chose to lead with Anubis to get around that. However, with no crits, Anubis couldn't take it down, so I had to bring in Shades, who with a crit Earthquake brought it down. Seismitoad was second, and while I considered switching Amphy in, I stood in with Shades, which worked out because it missed Muddy Water and died to two Earthquakes. Like an idiot, Ghetsis brought in Drapion next, and that went about as well as you'd expect against Earthquake Krookodile. Toxicroak is usually pretty fast, so I sent in Amphy in hopes of getting Static to paralyze it. Discharge helped, and Toxicroak went down. Next is the Life Orb Hydregion that also has max power Frustration. It took down Amphy, but our sheepy friend left a Static gift behind for the three headed monster, giving Shofu his time in the sun. Being all Attack, all it took was one Superpower. All that remained was Eelektross, who has no weakness and therefore I just had to throw stuff at until it eventually goes down.

Ghetsis throws his temper tantrum and is taken away, and with that, once and for all, Team Plasma is finished. The run, however, is not. We still have one last hurdle before the finale, and that's Victory Road. Plenty of trainers on the way to destroy for experience as well, so let's get to it. Let me just say, Victory Road itself took an eternity and an unhealthy number of visits to the doctor because I didn't want to waste items between battles. At the end, we have Hugh for one last battle. Before I begin, let me give my genuine reaction here. Ahem... "He has four mons?!" I literally thought this dude would be rolling on in with a team of six, but FOUR mons at this point of the game?! Cheren had, I think, five mons in your last battle with him in Black and White. Anyway, let's just get this over with. Unfezant is back and pathetic as ever. Unlike before, it U-turn'd out into Hugh's new aftotastic addition to his team, a Bouffalant. I, of course, didn't get the paralysis first shot, so I chose to get out of there into Ursula, who tanked a Head Charge so I could get Anubis in, only to then get crit by Wild Charge. Anubis lived, and took out the afro with two Aura Spheres since Hugh healed. Must be nice, being able to heal.

Emboar came in next while I brought in Shades and Shades did what he does best, obliterating the Emboar. Simipour barely lived the next Earthquake and one shot Shades with Surf, so Shofu had to come and clean up the rest of the battle. As a reward, we finally get the Thunderbolt TM. That's going right on Amphy right away. Speaking of which, it's time to plan out our final strategy. Shades reached Level 60 during Victory Road and learned Outrage, his final move, so goodbye Scary Face. Amphy will get Thunderbolt, and I won't need the Lucky Egg anymore, so we can use some real held items. So here's the layout of my items. Amphy has the Magnet to boost Thunderbolt's power. Why not the Quick Claw, you ask? Because Ursula has it. Believe it or not, she's actually slower than Amphy, so she needs the extra speed. Anubis is one of our big damage dealers, and to help her out, I gave her the Scope Lens. Using my 8 Rare Candies I picked up throughout the game, I also got Dragon Pulse and replaced Bone Rush with it. Shades has the Leftovers, partly because it worked so well on Clay and Intimidate lowering Attack is very helpful for me. Shofu is all damage, so I put the Shell Bell on him in case I use Flare Blitz or not land a kill to get some extra HP back since I can't use items in battle. I also bought a number of healing items for between battles.

With two Pokemon weak to Fighting, I opted to fight Marshall first. Amphy was the lead of choice here, since he's not weak to Fighting. Throh was his lead, and one Thunderbolt wasn't enough to bring it down. Not only that, it got a crit Bulldoze on the first hit and nearly killed with Storm Throw, but Amphy got through just fine. Being at low HP, I switched into Shofu on the Mienshao. Lately, Shofu has been a crit machine and today was no different as he one shot the Mienshao with Fire Punch. Conkeldurr came in and took the Fire Punch at half HP and missed it's Stone Edge, so I went for the Flare Blitz and took it down. Sawk was last, and the realization that Sheer Force means my Shell Bell is pointless came to me, but Shofu survived the Rock Slide and won the battle. Crit King Shofu carried pretty hard this battle.

Grimsley of the Elite Four is next up, with Anubis in the lead. Liepard can't flinch Anubis because of Inner Focus, paving the way for his entire team to be erased by Aura Sphere. Scrafty lived the first shot because of a damage roll, however, but aside from that, nothing lived one hit. Shauntal is third, featuring the revenge of Cofagrigus. I led with Shades this time, mostly because of how Anubis performed last time against this thing. Two Earthquakes was all it took. Next up is Chandelure, or Chandy for short. I was expecting it to outspeed, but I guess Shades doesn't want to be shown up by Anubis and managed to outspeed and one shot the ghostly chandelier. Third is Golurk, who didn't appreciate Foul Play. Even after living one and getting healed, Shades got a crit and took it out. I thought her last mon was Jellicent, but nope, it was Drifblim. Hoping to give Ursula some action, I brought her in, but not only could she not one shot it, the Quick Claw didn't activate and she got brought down by Thunderbolt, leaving Anubis to finish the job.

Caitlin, of the Battle Castle, is our final Elite Four opponent. With Shades leading the pack again, she leads off with Musharna. Shades couldn't take it out in one Earthquake and took a Yawn, but in a twist, she switched the Musharna out for Reuniclus to take the second Earthquake before Shades takes a trip to dreamland. Not sure what to expect, I switched to Anubis only for Reuniclus to Recover. Too bad the next turn I got a crit Shadow Claw, making that a wasted turn. Musharna came back in only to be put to bed by Shadow Claw while her ace comes in, Frisks my Scope Lens, and then gets a taste of Scope Lens Shadow Claw. Sigilyph comes last only to also get the Shadow Claw experience, netting us victory against the Elite Four. However, there's still one battle left, and that's Iris. Because Shades has Outrage and other options for taking things down easily, I chose to lead with him.

This is it, the final battle! Shades vs. Hydregion. Starting with Outage, the Hydregion lived and retaliated with Surf, which Shades somehow lived when before, he'd fold to most super effective moves. I got two turns of Outrage and managed to break through confusion to finish off the Hydregion. Druddigon came out next and Shades got the one turn confusion break and one shot it with his second Outrage turn. Lapras was next, and with that Shades has done his job, passing the torch to Shofu. I had realistically expected Lapras to blast me with some Water move, but it went for Sing and missed, allowing Shofu to punch it with Fire Punch twice for an easy victory. Aggron has Sturdy, last I checked, so it'll be another two Fire Punches unless he one shots Shofu. However, one Fire Punch only did about 1/4th of it's HP, giving it time to boost up it's Speed and follow up with Rock Slide. Shofu lived and finished the job with Superpower. The ace, Haxorus, was next, and with that, comes Amphy. I was hoping for Archeops, but instead it's this thing. The plan was simple, Confuse Ray and swap to Anubis. Amphy lived the Earthquake and managed to get Anubis in, but as my cursed luck exists, no confusion hits and two Earthquakes took out Anubis. Guess it's up to Ursula now. In a stroke of luck, Haxorus hits itself in confusion and Ursula takes it out with Ice Beam, leaving only Archeops remaining. All Ursula has to do is live one hit and Ice Beam should do the rest. Instead, in a massive moment of magic, the Quick Claw comes through, giving this slow octopus the speed she needs to blast an extinct bird with her signature beam of ice.

And with that, we have won. The Elite Four and Champion have been defeated. Every relevant member of the squad did something in this Elite Four run, so that's good.



Final Analysis and Scoring

Starting with the obvious one.


Could not battle at all due to Dark restriction, and therefore was completely worthless. Even worse, I had to waste time raising it up. Instant 1/10.


REAL Final Analysis and Scoring


Anubis has been with the squad since the beginning and therefore had the most time to give a good impression. Sure, being unable to heal in battle got a bit tricky, especially in dangerous battles like Clay and during Triple Battles, but compared to other restrictions, it was fairly innocent in comparison. As for Anubis herself, there were times where she was a bit meh, mostly because her Special Defense wasn't the greatest in the world and my only Fighting move for a long time was Force Palm, which was starting to overstay it's welcome during the midgame. Still a fairly reliable Pokemon overall, however, so she gets a solid 7/10.



While my primarily complaint about Amphy was his lack of speed, access to Confuse Ray did surprisingly come in handy sometimes and helped out a lot. He also played a big part in overcoming the great wall that was Clay. Static as an ability was good when it worked, but it usually didn't work. Thunder Wave was also nice when I had it. Since Thunderbolt comes so late in the game and you're forced to rely on Discharge as an Electric move, it's not the worst thing in the world. The Electric restriction, however, did get a bit problematic as we gathered up more team members. I'd give Amphy a 6/10.



Starting out, Shofu was awful. Hustle hinders far more than it helps, he dies super easily because of a lack of defenses, and because of the Fire restriction, setup moves were out by default. However, after evolving, Shofu's true colors began to shine. Sure, he still had no defenses, but the sheer ability to just punch holes in things thanks to Sheer Force was fantastic. I just wish I had more type variety, but maybe I could've taught Bulldoze over Facade. Still, though, once Shofu became a crit machine, that started to really push him up in the rankings. He even started surviving moves that would've instakilled him before. Because of this, Shofu joins the 7/10 club. I want to give him a 6, but the sheer level of glowup he experienced later down the road means a 6 wouldn't do him justice.



Another Pokemon who started off bad, but then grew into a beast. This is for an entirely different reason than Shofu, though. It was primarily that large level gap between Krokorok and Krookodile, which is a curse that affects almost every Gen 5 Pokemon. Luckily, because the Krookodile line learns some decent to good moves, the Ground restriction wasn't too awful overall, but it was sad to lose Crunch for Sandstorm. Intimidate was universally useful, especially on Great Wall Clay and once he evolved into Krookodile, he only got better even though it took until Plasma Frigate 3 to finally learn Earthquake. The problem with him is almost the exact same as Shofu, which was lack of defenses. Because of this, the two will share the same score. 7/10 gang grows larger.



I feel bad for a lot of Gen 2 mons. A lot of them, Meganium especially, just aren't very good. Ursula, sadly, was one of them. Sure, Octillery learns an oddly high number of beam moves. It learns Flamethrower by TM for some reason, which is weird. However, not only is it slower than Ampharos, it's defenses also weren't very good. It's Special Defense is close to where Anubis is, and I complained about Anubis having low Special Defense earlier. Sure, Scald is nice if you can get the totally not 30% burn chance often. Sure, she carried during Drayden's gym. However, I found the situations where Ursula was useful to be fairly limited. Surf is mandatory, so I had to have her or the Ducklett I used for Fly, and having Ice Beam by level up was a nice addition, but I can't in good faith give Ursula any higher than a 5/10. It's not...reliable enough, you know.

So, in the end I finally did it. It was actually hard and it took me more time than expected. Unfortunately, I am not really satisfied with the way I won because despite the calculations and trying to find a strategy, without some luck I probably couldn't have made it. Then, on the other hand, I think how many times I Lance's Dragonite hit Blizzard three times in a row, how Charizard crit hit two times, how easier for him it was to full HP his pokemon and how many times he managed to freeze my pokemon with first try ice fang. Seriously, he has luck lol. Instead I had a very unlucky Steelix that missed three iron tails in a row and a Gyarados that mostly missed Thunder 4 times in a row, yes 4 times.
So, yeah, there would be a lot to discuss. It took me around 25 tries, I guess. The game became hard at the 8th gym, because my team kinda suffers from water type attacks and I had two pokemon that became useless when they were at half health. In addition to this, with Steelix, I couldn't use items, which has been another problem as well. Luckily, Crobat learned Roost which helped a lot.
Going back to the League, Will was kinda hard because my only counter was Gengar, which was pretty under-leveled and could attack only if the foe was under a status condition. Somehow I made it. I already knew it was hard, so I spend most of my money to guarantee me to go on to the next E4 with a fully healthy team. The rest of the E4 wasn't hard, it all went pretty smooth. Until I got to Lance. His team is indeed strong against mine and his Dragonite's moves could just defeat anyone. After around 10/15 tries I understood I had to better set up my team. So, I got myself two heart scales (I got one from rock smashing rocks, the other in route 32) and thought Steelix Curse and Ice fang. Then I bought Thunder and spent much time calculating things in Showdown lol. Anyway, that's kinda how I won. Moves were better and I changed strategy often. Steelix was important. Some brief description on my strategy to defeat Lance. Gyarados vs Gyarados, his had 8 levels more, but anyway I had thunder which dealt much damage, however I used to switch between Crobat, butterfree and Gyarados to cut it's attack with intimidate and get less damage. Butterfree was useful to get it paralyzed. It was the only way to use Butterfree almost everything one-shot it and all of Lance's Pokémon were faster.Golem had to be full HP against Charizard and rock throw was good enough to beat Charizard. Aerodactyl was easily beatable by Steelix. My idea was to set up curse in fron of it, but then Charizard would have been the next and everything would have been vane, so yeah the backup strategy was the one which worked. One of Lance's Dragonite has thunder wave, thunder, dragon rush and hyper beam. I cut it's attack as much as I could with Gyarados and I set up curse three times with Steelix to one shot it with ice fang. But this was the second Dragonite, the first one was defeated by Gengar's curse. The last Dragonite was the hardest one to deal with as it had fire blast which was too dangerous for my Steelix and since it's a special move, Gyarados' intimide was almost useless. Basically I had only Gyarados and Steelix there and their ice fangs finally did the work (after like 8-9 attacks because Dragonite kept getting full healed) after his Dragonite missed one of two fire blasts. However, it never got frozen somehow. That's how it went.
Now, while I am not too happy I won with some luck (I thunder critted Gyarados and Dragonite missed 1 or 2 fatal Fire Blasts on Steelix ), I am also aware that Lance was luckier than me in most tries and that his Dragonite never got frozen after 7-8 ice fang, while his Gyarados could get one of my pokemon frozen after just one. Also my Gyarados had a quick claw that activated 0 or once during the battle.
And btw, there were other strategies to win that I couldn't use because of time. One was for example to equip my pokemon with citrus berries. I only had one that I gave to Steelix. Another one was to level up my pokemon a little bit, I mean in general my team was around level 39 (two level 38 and two level 40), with Gengar being 36 and Steelix 44 thanks to exp share and three rare candies I gave her before the Lance battle. Anyway, somehow I won.



Now, let's get to the grades.

- Crobat
This one is a 9/10. It's always been useful and in general I love Crobat as it's pretty much useful in every game I play. I use it very often. Roost was a very good idea to counter the flying restriction. It became slightly less useful in the last parts of the game and against Lance it was probably the most useless as it was vulnerable to several moves. The speed was great tough and confuse ray saved me many times, because it still counts as a status and allowed Gengar to get in the field.

- Golem
I would say a nice 8/10. Its low speed allowed it to always attack as second, therefore there was really no restriction at all on this pokemon. It was pretty useful, resistant and strong but it became a little useless with the passing of time. However, if I hadn't Golem in my team I would haven't done much to Lance's Charizard. So, it was definitely a key pokemon.

- Gyarados
7/10. It was pretty useful and intimidate is a good ability. One of the pokemon that had the biggest consequences because of its restriction. I had no way to heal it, so basically it became almost useless after half HP. Luckily, with intimidate it could still do something. Dragon Rage has been useful almost till the end.

- Butterfree
Butterfree is a 6/10. Kinda opposite to Gengar. Very useful during the run in general, but completely useless in the last phases of the game. Against Lance I basically had an empty slot that was just useful for a free switch in. Still a 6 because a paralysis or a poisoned Pokémon is always a big advantage. Thought a lot about tailwind, but it probably wasn't worth it with the pokemon I had. The restriction wasn't a problem here as well, because Butterfree lasted less than 5 turns lol

- Gengar
6/10 Gengar was strong but it's restriction highly impacted on it. Now, I don't wanna say that the restrictions were unfair or something lol, but I am just comparing Pokémon in my team like Crobat and Golem that almost made me forget they had a restriction to the rest of my team. Sometimes I wasn't sure I had the best set on Gengar, but it makes sense. It had hypnosis to keep it possible for it to fight, shadow ball, confuse ray and curse which was the most useful. That's the thing. I barely used Gengar and in fact it was under leveled. And when I used it, it was only for curse, which btw was good. It was decisive against Lance and that's how it conquered the 6.

- Steelix
Steelix. Also a 7/10. This Pokemon here was pretty useful only in some parts of the Legue. Very resistant, but not always a great damage. It's the last member of the team, but considering it couldn't do much against the 8th gym leader, it kinda looses points. Also, the restriction of not using items from the bag during battles. I have thought different times if I could avoid bringing Steelix in my team and just use 5 Pokemon without restriction, but I wanted to give it a try. It was decisive against Lance, but I was expecting a little better. I often thought that the price wasn't worth the gain. If it wasn't so useful in the League it would have a significantly lower score.


Overall, it was a nice team, despite some little flaws imo. But the Scrambler did a good job especially with the first choices!

Explorer of Time said:

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Wrote down thoughts while team planning. Helped to keep a roadmap. Thought you (or anyone else) might be interested to read it. Spoilered it for size.

_confused_piplup_ said:

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I can finally explain why I picked this team, now. I've been dying to tell someone for this whole challenge. First of all, every Pokemon on that team is one I've brought to a Hall of Fame in one of my own playthroughs, since I wanted to personalize the team to make it something more like one of mine, to fit the paired valentines day theme. As it happened, given a gen 4 game with restrictions on Pokemon availability, the team ended up being an all-star lineup of my best Pokemon from my Flying monotype of Red, my Ground monotype of Gold, and my Poison monotype of Crystal. I also wanted a gradually-increasing difficulty, with Pokemon selections picked to counter specific gyms and then hanging on in your party until you requested a switch, which ended up never happening.

Golem: An early counter to Falkner and Bugsy. I expected a switch-out request later in the game, especially if you didn't have access to trading, but I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to keep it on your team. The Rock restriction wouldn't matter much because it's slow, unless you overleveled.

Crobat: Another counter to Bugsy, and, with Confuse Ray, a very fast Pokemon that can quickly confuse anything with Confuse Ray. Its speed and ability to learn Roost would help with the Flying restriction.

Gengar: A status condition specialist with many options to fulfill the Poison restriction. It has plenty of ways to stop Whitney from building up Rollout, and can hit Morty's team super-effectively if leveled up enough to outspeed him. Also immune to Chuck's fighting moves.

Butterfree: Another status specialist, mainly to support Gengar but also to learn Psychic moves against Morty and Chuck. The Bug restriction wouldn't be as important because it'd ideally pop in for status and the occasional attack and then pop back out (or faint) anyway.

Gyarados: A strong attacker to balance out your team from the status specialists, with the Flying restriction since I didn't want to potentially screw up your movesets with the Water restriction. You could catch the Red Gyarados, which would start at a high level and, while it wouldn't be quite as useful for Jasmine and Pryce, neither of them are particularly hard and Ice Fang would be very useful for Clair. I probably should've put it after Steelix but I wanted to make sure that you didn't faint the Red Gyarados if you wanted it, so I put it fifth.

Steelix: A Pokemon with great defenses, and an excellent movepool, that'd be useful for the League. Immune to Poison, resistant to Psychic and Dark, and has Ice Fang to hit Lance's Dragonites for 4x damage. The Steel restriction was intentionally put there to make the last stretch of the game harder, which in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done because I didn't know you were that pressed for time.

I'm sorry I didn't finish. I'm the end, I couldn't find that much of a free time and had almost no motivation to play a Pokémon game.

As for my strategy in picking Kostucha's Pokémon, I wanted to pick unusual and underappreciated Pokémon. I'm not sure if it wad met with a positive reaction from Kostucha. About halfway through, I decided I want to make it a Bug-type monotype, but backtracked on this decision in the end, because I felt Kostucha wasn't enjoying the run as much as I would want to.

And I think similar philosophy was behind me not having motivation to finish my run. My Pokémon weren't bad at all, but they felt a little bit boring, because they were quite strong.

As one who never touched Sword and Shield for...reasons, I had no general clue what to give Duck aside from the " I like cute, small and fuzzy things" line. I didn't think Clefable would actually be that strong or Eldegoss would be that worthless, and since "cute, small and fuzzy" can be a bit subjective depending on the person, I simply used my best judgement to pick out mons.

Janp said:

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tbh I wasn't enjoying it as much in the end because of the restrictions making the run annoying rather than challenging (Mr. Mime having to waste a turn, Beedrill being nigh unusable for most of the run and Ledian being usable for like one turn per battle due to flying/steel restriction clash). I've never used Forretress and Maractus before and they were fun to use for the most part so I'm glad for that at least.

This post was long overdue but let me just apologize for making a couple of restrictions a bit too complicated... Dark especially.

The whole idea behind the restrictions was, obviously, to give the Scramblers a not-so-easy time choosing a team for their partners, and sort of avoid one thing that I felt was likely to happen in the last Valentine's day event... the one where Pokémon of different players were played together. We (almost) had two couples getting maximum points and that is something I hoped not to repeat this time.
For the restrictions I also tried to continue the theme of previous challenges and rulesets, and wanted to work specifically on the playstyle during battles. I also didn't want to rely too much on abilities or moves to create restrictions that are based on them... because of course that would make it harder to play through older games, where some of those mechanics weren't introduced.
Some of the type rules were obviously meant to favor certain Pokémon of one type over others (fast Rock-types, for example, are at a disadvantage here). Others were mostly there to encourage switching and trying out different Pokémon. Overall I'm still happy with at least a good half of the rules and it's been nice to see how you all played around them - both as players and scramblers! - but it's been even better to let you know about the pairs only at the end, I admit... sorry for the hassle of making you use Google Form and looking things up by using weird passwords and whatever, but hopefully you can agree with me and say it was worth it ♥♥♥

Thanks again for playing and see you in the next challenge!