[Challenge] The Randomized Nuzlocke Challenge

I got lucky, as it appears choosing Charmander made my opponent choose... Bellsprout. :P He's a smart one, he is.

I pick up two Rattatas from Route 2 and Route 22, and then... HOLY CRUD, a Magikarp in Viridian Forest.
I cart it along happily.
Gym Leader "Sonya" turns out to have an Oddish and a Koffing. He goes down easily.
Blaze the Charmander evolves on the road to Mt. Moon.
I choose to buy my catch rather than throwing balls for it, and get Overpowerd the Electrode. It has Sonicboom.
My Mt. Moon catch is Wrap Spam the Ekans.
Mt. Moon itself is filled with dogs, snakes, and tadpoles. And rats. Can't forget the rats. Later floors add rabbits.
The Rockets have renamed themselves the Leaders, but haven't gotten any better.

Rival has Oddish, Koffing, Jigglypuff, and Weepinbell. I marvel at his inability to figure out what a Water-type is.
From the routes above Cerulean (the patch of grass west of the bridge is a separate Route), I get another Magikarp and fail to get a Beedrill. The existence of Beedrills, however, lets me rapidly grind EXP. I do that, and, after saving Bill from himself, evolve The Dos into Gyarados.

I also stupidly forget to buy PokeBalls and end up missing out on the Routes between Cerulean and Vermillion. Oops. I compensate by getting Cutman the Paras from Diglett's Cave and Redundant the Voltorb east of Vermillion.

Rival has upgraded his roster to Nidorino, Drowzee, Dodrio, and Weepinbell. I am momentarily taken aback by Dodrio, but eh, I have a Gyarados. It's fair.

Sonya has now paid for her gender affirmation surgery and returns in Cerulean with a Porygon and a Seadra. She goes down quickly.
Jonathan, over in Vermillion, has a Bellsprout, Mankey, and Seadra. What is it with Seadras?

Outside of Rock Tunnel, I collect Sworduck the Farfetch'd. Inside of it, I instantly add Nidomperor the Nidoran Male to my team. With a level-up and Moon Stone, he becomes the almighty Nidoking. To help him carry his weight, he gets Bubblebeam (since The Dos got Water Gun).

In Lavender Town, my Rival has a level 25 Abra (why), a level 23 Arcanine (!), a level 22 Koffing (I guess he likes it?), a level 20 Poliwrath (!), and the classic level 25 Weepinbell.
How did he figure out how to use Arcanine and Poliwrath when he still has an Abra at level 25?

West of Lavender, I get Digger the Diglett. East of Celadon, I get another Ekans.
Celadon prizes are Weedle | Venomoth | Electabuzz | Machop | Raticate | Mr. Mime. Machop would actually be decent because Trade Evolutions are allowed, but I decide to head on up and get my free not-Eevee.
FREE VILEPLUME!
Petals the Vileplume joins the party.

What good fortune!
Unfortunately, Overpowerd dies to a Ditto transforming into it and then exploding. Confound it.
"Kristine", the leader of Team Leader, is holding a Nidorino, an Onix, and an Electabuzz. Like the rest of the "Leaders", she goes down fairly easily. ...I guess she's just very butch?

I find that Celadon Gym is now occupied by Ghostwriters, Poets, and Artists. They have mainly Poison-types, though one broke out a Marowak (!) and another a Dragonair (!). One claimed to be a Cooltrainer Male, so I suppose he's just... feminine.
The head of the local humanities department, Chloe, carries a Scyther, a Pinsir, and a Fearow. I guess she got lost on the way to a Bug-type Gym? The Dos takes her down.

In fact, nothing really threatens me until Fighting Dojo, where a Pinsir has Seismic Toss. And is level 33. Fortunately, The Dos takes it down with the aid of Super Potions.
The Karate Master has inexplicably traded Hitmonlee for a Raticate, yet kept Hitmonchan.
Hitmonlee has been replaced by a Gyarados and Hitmonchan by a Weezing. Since I already have the former, I take James the Weezing.

Pokemon Tower yields GrandMast the Drowzee. Channelers are now Gentlemen, so I've evidently stumbled into some decadent gentlemans' club. The majority are jokes, but one has a Charizard and another a Slowbro.
To my great horror and frustration, the ghost was an ARTICUNO, and I barely survive the ensuing onslaught. The Dos did get frozen. James ended up being my savior by valiantly surviving two Ice Beams and Sludging it to its final rest.
The Leaders have gotten slightly more serious, with one having a Marowak and another a Machamp. They're still better than a matchup with a level-appropriate Articuno.

After a bit of Silph Co., I head down to Fuchsia. Snorlax turns out to be a Clefable. Cleffy joins the team on account of Clefable's Special stat, which will make it better as an TM junkie than Nidoking.
Mark the Ninja hands over Toxic after a short battle with his Graveler, Poliwrath, Koffing, and Magmar.

I immediately Surf down from Pallet, get a L5 Gloom, and discover that Dome Fossil is a Pidgeotto skull and Old Amber is actually solidified Muk. Since I already have Weezing and I really don't need Pidgeot (using Sworduck for flight), I run into the abandoned mansion and get Cursed the Slowpoke. At least it's POTENTIALLY...
Wait. Slowpoke?
I mean of course, that I immediately bench GrandMast in favor of Slowpoke... which faints against a Drowzee while grinding. Damnit. I guess GrandMast wanted to be on the team so badly that it called out a hit on Cursed. That name is bitterly appropriate right now.
The Mansion is somewhat stressful, not least because of the L40 Aerodactyls. Nevertheless, there are no more deaths.

Silph Rival has a L37 Sandslash, and -- ARTICUNO? OH, EFF YOU. Fortunately Dragon Rage takes it down. He then inexplicably has a L35 Krabby. His L35 Arcanine returns, and a rather hectic battle with his L40 Victreebel ensued. No one died. I bought up Hyper Potions afterwards to salvage my dignity.
The butch boss of Team Leader sent out a L37 Kabuto, a L35 Pidgeot, a L37 Voltorb, and a L41 Snorlax, which was actually somewhat frightening. It went down without any deaths, though I had to switch out The Dos after Body Slam inexplicably took out over half its HP. Perhaps it was a crit and I wasn't paying attention? Terrifying, anyway...

The Saffron Gym is occupied by decadent Gentlemen and Jugglers. Apparently Sonya isn't the only unusually-named Gym Leader, because I discover that the leader is named Malcolm. They have a L38 Snorlax, L37 Mr. Mime, L38 Fearow, and L43 Chansey. There's a brief moment of horror when a critical Drill Peck eats more than half The Dos's HP, but we pull through nonetheless.

Looking at my team, I'm planning to drop down to Hypno, Charizard, and Gyarados. Gyarados alone would be enough if I didn't fear, say, an Elite Four Zapdos. For that reason alone, I'm thinking of including Nidoking or Clefable. Despite my earlier words, I've decided to favor Nidoking because of the Electric immunity.

Dudley the Gym Leader has L42 Machop, L40 Persian, L42 Arcanine, and L47 Arcanine. I have a moment of stark terror when I accidentally lock Blaze into Rage, but it somehow survives with 12/130 HP. Oh gosh. One of the best Charizards I've ever had. (I had an even better one once, but this one is a very good on.) I reward it with Fire Blast.

Kristine is toting Kabuto L45, Persian L42, Kingler L44, Golbat L45, and Vileplume L50. All easily handld.
My Rival, meanwhile, has Dodrio L43, Rhyhorn L45, Ninetales L45, Dratini L47, Cloyster L50, and Victreebel L53. It's a testimony to how overpowered Alakazam is that I found this battle LESS difficult than the ordinary Rival. I took Cloyster on with L38 GrandMast, for heaven's sake.

Before Victory Road, I grab a Golbat.
In it... I forget to grab anything. My first encounter was a Zubat, anyway.
Team fails the Zapdos Stress Test, as a CoolTrainer has one and runs me out of healing items. Then, upon switching Blaze into battle in a desperate attempt to prevent a death, I find out it wasn't even high enough level to learn Thunder, anyway. Ugh.

And now I have to go grind for a while, because I checked the rosters and Lance has an L62 Alakazam. There is no way in heck any of my Pokemon can deal with that. No, not even Hypno.

Never mind, I beat the E4. I ground both The Dos and Blaze to L50, since I knew from other Nuzlockes that it was an acceptable level. Then I went for it.
Lorelei's block is CHARIZARD Lv54, EXEGGUTOR Lv53, PERSIAN Lv54, SANDSLASH Lv56, BLASTOISE Lv56. Surf, Flamethrower, Slash, Surf, and Bite dispatched all of them with sufficient repetition. (I just got off a challenge where you couldn't use moves more than twice in a row, so I went hog-wild here.)
Bruno's block is TENTACOOL Lv53, IVYSAUR Lv55, POLIWHIRL Lv55, RATICATE Lv56, NINETALES Lv58. Bite, Flamethrower, more Bite, Surf, and Surf dispatched them.
Agatha's block is EXEGGUTOR Lv56, SNORLAX Lv56, SNORLAX Lv55, TENTACOOL Lv58, VAPOREON Lv60. I love Snorlax, but now I resent it, because those dual Snorlaxes were hell. I got past the second without deaths solely because I outsped it with Flamethrower. As you can probably tell, Exeggutor went down to Flamethrower and Tentacool and Vaporeon went down to Bites and Surfs. Around now The Dos learned Hyper Beam.
Lance's block is STARMIE Lv58, SANDSLASH Lv56, POLIWHIRL Lv56, CHANSEY Lv60, ALAKAZAM Lv62. Starmie got Beamed to death, while Sandslash got Surfed, Poliwhirl got Beamed, and Chansey got Bit. Alakazam took one Bite for half its HP and retaliated with a Special-lowering Psychic, so I switched to Blaze and Slashed it out. It was as tense as you might imagine. Freaking Gen 1 Alakazam... (And yes, it's silly to raise Hypno if you're not going to use it as an Alakazam-killer, but I didn't want to risk it. Besides, two-monning the E4 is cooler.)

Now, my Rival turns out to be a brony. He had THREE Rapidashes. THREE. They were of levels 61, 59, and 63, respectively. Obviously they fell to Surf, but what in the world happened there? His other Champion blocks didn't stammer like that! (Though the Haunter/Haunter/Dewgong/Cloyster/Articuno/Blastoise block, which I would have gotten if I had picked Bellsprout, deserves special mention. It's as though he was trying out to replace Lorelei and rounded out the roster with two Ghosts.) His other Pokemon were Tangela, Lapras, and Victreebel. I struggled a bit on Lapras, since Blizzard hit as hard as ever, but I survived. The Grass-types obviously had close encounters of the Flamethrower kind. But really... THREE ponies? Dude, you're overdoing it...

As a side note, The Dos had 1/15 Surf PP, 1/25 Bite PP, 2/5 Hyper Beam PP, and 0/10 Dragon Rage PP. (I was using Dragon Rage to clean up the last bit of damage on some Pokemon. Plus, that L60 Vaporeon of Agatha's was no laughing matter.) I always hate the process of training Magikarps, but they're inevitably worth it. Look at that. It carried the run!

Before taking on Morty, I had some things to do.
First, the gate keeper on Route 35 (iirc) gave me an HP Up for having delivered his mail to his friend.


I had met Bill at the Pokémon Center here in the last update, so I went to visit him, because I knew he would give me some Pokémon, instead of Eevee, being the encounter for Goldenrod City. It was a Shroomish and I named him Mike.


The Gym Leader was not at the Gym, so another excuse for doing other things before that.


Then, a random stranger just gave me a Dowsing Machine! I was looking forward to this, because it will help us get more randomized items.


We had some packages from Mom waiting for us at the Poké Mart.


I also found a new Berry at the National Park.


So, now I was ready to get the encounter for Ecruteak City. I throwed my Old Rod on the small pond and a Plusle came out. Too bad that I KO'd him...


A Rocket Grunt was making trouble at the Dance Theater. After defeating him, I received HM03: Surf! A great move for Ariel!


After picking up some hidden items...


...we headed to the Burned Tower, where the Gym Leader was. There I got myself a Starmie, who I named Stella (the name fits her so much!) It's just odd that she happened to have those Grass-type moves...


Hilbert was there too, admiring the legendary Pokémon, so I had to fight him. The first three Pokémon were Chingling, Spoink and Wynaut. They were so easy that I underestimated his starter Beautifly, who ended killing Wanda!! RIP Wanda Lv. 6-19 ;-;;-;
I just had a strong connection to her... But eventually I won the battle.


To replace our lost team member, I chose Rodrick, the Drapion we caught at National Park. He looks like he may become strong, but for now he needs grinding. I could take Stella, but I already have Ariel for Water-type.


Back in Burned Tower, the Dowsing Machine was useful to find these items: X Sp. Def., Sacred Ash and even a Grass Mail (I'm surprised I hadn't got mail yet in the random items....)


The legendary beasts were downstairs and fled when I came near to them. They are also randomized, I wonder what kind of Pokémon they are.


Updates on training: Ariel learned Seed Bomb and Rodrick learned Mud Bomb! (Sorry, I forgot to screenshot)

Finally, I was ready for the Gym. This time, some of the Gym Trainers didn't follow the Gym type; I ran across a Voltorb first, but the next Trainer had Togetic, and there were Weepinbell and Swablu too...

Morty was an easy battle overall. Basically Susan wrecked up the not-so-easy ones with Blizzard, because as we're upon to see, Morty is a Flying-type Trainer.
He leads up with Staravia, eventually switching to Chatot, which was easily defeated. After another Chatot and a Tropius, Staravia returned, and I got myself the Fog Badge!!


With this, Ariel can use Surf outside of battle. We also got the TM for Follow Me, a very useful move.


And that's all for now! Next update I'll see if I can get to the next city.


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Current team:


Boxed:


Deaths:


Badges: 4/16

Starter choices were Azumarill, Stantler and Jynx. Chose Azumarill and saw his held item was a Max Revive... So usefull...
Went to Mr Pokemons house and back, beat Rival's Stantler in a boring Tackle vs Water Gun battle, and accidentallt killed all the encounters til Sprout Tower. I only get crits when i wanna catch. QAQ Caught a Snubull and beat Falkner with them. Hatched a Koffing from the Egg and caught a Donphan in Ruins of Alph. Forgot to catch the next two encounters due to training and forgetting i need more teammates. -_-;;;
Caught a Slowking outside of Azalea, and wasted the last pokeballs on a Jogglypuff in the well. Fought Bugsy after clearing Team Rocket away and lost Koffing to him...

Bianca had Swablu which got bopped by Ancientpower
Cheren had Dwebble which also got bopped by Ancientpower
Route 1 caught a lv3 Rotom called Casper
Route 2 came across a lv4 Ledian but killed it with a crit as I was weakening it
On Route 2, I faced Bianca with a lv6 Wingull and a lv7 Klink
Picked up a Vileplume called Petunia from the gift Pokemon in Dreamyard
Beat Cheren in the Trainer School with his lv8 Vulpix and lv8 Pidove

Gym #1 Striaton City - Cress - Lv12 Surskit beat by Casper's Thundershocks
Lv14 Gastly beat by Hellraiser's Ancientpowers
Got given TM83 which turned out to be Leaf Tornado

Dreamyard came across a lv10 Jolteon called Bolt
Beat Cheren on Route 3 with his lv14 Gastly and lv14 Tynamo
Route 3 came across a lv10 Lucario called Anubis
Wellspring Cave came across a lv10 Misdreavus called Peeves
Pinwheel Forest came across a lv15 Victini but accidentally killed it

Gym #2 Nacrene City - Lenora - Lv18 Spinda beat by Anubis's Force Palm
Lv20 Swadloon beat by Hellraiser's Fire Fang
Got given TM67 which turned out to be Weather Ball

• Starter choices were Scizor, Abomasnow and Dusknoir! My luck is on high, it seems. After some thinking I went with Dusknoir. His moves aren't the best, with Tail Slap, Howl, Stored Power and Chip Away. His ability is Keen Eye, not too bad.
• Bianca's Abomasnow has Frenzy Plant! If it wasn't the crap AI that just spammed Disables I would be done!
• Dusknoir wants to learn the move Taunt. Dusknoir did not learn Taunt.
• Cheren was easy. Lv. 8 already??!
• Oh, I almost forgot the nickname... My lack of creativity decided to give Dusknoir the nickname Gladion.
• Here we are, Route 1! Our first encounter is a Phanpy, holding a Light Clay. Named him Eddy, don't know why. His Ability is Normalize, what kinda sucks because that means he won't get STAB until he evolves... and can't hit Ghost types. Moves are Dark Pulse, Hidden Power, Flame Burst and U-turn.
• Gladion wants to learn the move Teleport. Gladion did not learn Teleport.
• And we reached Accumula Town. That's all for now.

Current team:

• After healing in the Pokémon Center in Accumula Town, we encounter Team Plasma for the first time and hear about their plans. Then N appears and wants to fight me. He has a freaking god BIDOOF!
• We reach Route 2 and Mom shows up to give me the Running Shoes. Also, someone lost a Life Orb on this grass!
• The encounter for this route was Scyther, named him Blade. Now we know where Juniper gets her starter mons... He has Immunity as an Ability and his moves are Hex, Block, X-Scissor and Wrap. I just need to get a Metal Coat...
• Looks like wild Druddigon can use Roar of Time!
• Eddy wants to learn the move Shift Gear. Eddy forgot how to use Hidden Power. And... Eddy learned Shift Gear!
• Blade wants to learn the move Wood Hammer. Blade forgot how to use Block. And... Blade learned Wood Hammer!
• So Bianca shows up too to battle. She leads with a Rampardos, that almost killed Eddy with his Leaf Storm! I managed to defeat it and her starter Abomasnow.
• In the Trainer's School we find Cheren. He got a Blissey (EXP giveaway!!), with Hydro Cannon...
• Eddy wants to learn the move Roar. Eddy did not learn Roar.
• After playing in the Dreamyard, I find that in this alternate reality Youngster Joey has a Metagross!
• A girl gifts us a (West Sea) Gastrodon, named him Gastrid. He has Intimidate!!! His moves are Skull Bash, Ice Fang, Heart Swap and Acrobatics.
• And this is where I stopped, I'll take on the gym next time.

Current team: