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- Seen May 17, 2021
Overview
After completing my playtest of the Lottery Challenge, I decided to try something else I'd been having in mind for some time. I wanted to try beating Emerald with only the worst few Pokemon available. Of course, it's not easy to determine what a bad Pokemon exactly is, but Smogon has tier lists, not just for competitive battling but also for normal ('efficient') playthroughs. Now the RSE tier list on their website is not up to date, but the one on the forums is. It divides all Pokemon into tiers S, A, B, C, D, E and F. I decided that I could only use Pokemon from tier F, which includes the following evolutionary lines:
Anorith
Bagon
Chimecho
Clamperl
Corsola
Feebas
Goldeen
Horsea
Illumise
Jigglypuff
Luvdisc
Mawile (E)
Nosepass
Regirock
Registeel
Relicanth
Rhyhorn
Skitty
Slugma
Spinda
Surskit
Volbeat
Wynaut
(source: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...emerald-in-game-tier-list-discussion.3609130/ )
Of course, Surskit had to be dropped because it's not in Emerald, and Regirock and Registeel had to be dropped because Wailmer is not on the list and you need it for the Regi sidequest (and I dislike using legendaries in challenges anyway). That leaves a total of 20 legal Pokemon.
Playthrough
My first legal Pokemon would be Skitty, available before the first Gym, so I could use my starter until I found a Skitty. I decided on Treecko as a starter, since it's the weakest, and it turned out to be a pretty awesome HM slave (it learns Cut, Flash, Rock Smash and Strength). I avoided as many battles as possible and started searching for Skitty on Route 116. It took a lot of time; on average, with a 2% encounter rate, you'd expect to find one within 50 encounters. I lost count at about 35, but I'm pretty sure it was well over 50 and maybe even over 100 when Skitty finally popped up. I caught it, and from that point onward I was no longer allowed to use Treecko in battle.
After defeating all remaining trainers in my reach, Skitty had reached level 15, and I decided to try my luck against Roxanne. This resulted in the first of many defeats. With only Doubleslap as an attacking move, you're not going to get a bunch of Rock Pokemon down so easily. In the end, I managed to think of a winning strategy, though. It helped a lot that my Skitty was male and Roxanne's Pokemon were all female; Attract was key in securing my victory. The idea was to set up 6 X Attacks on the first Geodude and then sweep, with Sing to be able to use the X Attacks more freely. This would have worked without Attract, were it not for the fact that even at +6 Attack, Nosepass takes almost no damage from Doubleslap. I need a bunch of Tail Whips on top of the X Attacks, and I can't get them up in time before getting killed by Nosepass. Attract immobilizes Nosepass often enough that I can get away with healing less often even if Sing misses (and it does, a lot), so I can finally secure the Skitty sweep on Roxanne. I needed a bit of luck, but I think I got it third or fourth try. One major roadblock out of the way.
After returning the Devon Goods and making my way to Dewford, I acquired the Old Rod, which netted me a second team member (although annoyingly, I had to backtrack to Petalburg since it's not found in Dewford itself). Goldeen joined my team with Peck as its attacking move. I thought that would make the next Gym a lot easier, since it's super effective on Fighting types. No dice, since Goldeen sucks. I decided to skip the second Gym for now (yes, you can do that as long as you can navigate caves in the dark) and move on to the next.
I tracked down Steven, landed in Slateport, struggled through the Team Aqua battles, got destroyed by May, grinded Goldeen a bit more, won the rematch against May, and reached Mauville. Route 117, west from Mauville, could have gotten me two new team members, Volbeat and Illumise. Illumise showed up first encounter, and I caught it (although I caught another one with better IVs later on that replaced the first). Volbeat was a different matter. It's twice as rare as Skitty, and I couldn't find one if my life depended on it. After what felt like several hours, I just gave up and continued with the, sadly, much weaker Illumise.
Now Illumise has stats that remotely resemble acceptable, at least for this point in the game. However, I don't think I have ever seen a Pokemon with a worse level-up movepool. The only attacking move it has is a non-STAB Quick Attack from a terrible physical Attack stat. In order to be even remotely useful, it had to level up in the daycare first, and I had to teach it Thief (which runs off SpAtk in Gen 3) with a TM. Illumise does have one advantage: it levels obscenely quickly, so you don't have to go out of your way to grind it.
Wattson was a disaster with these three musketeers of sh*t. I got beating after beating after beating, and I had no way of sequence breaking against this guy. Magneton was a big problem – I had no move that could hit it even neutrally. My strategy was to set up X Attacks on Skitty again and then use Rollout (the MT is right outside the Gym) for big damage, even if resisted. One problem was that Skitty was too slow, so I had to add X Speed. Another was that Rollout is not fully accurate, so I had to add X Accuracy. The biggest problem was that Voltorb has Soundproof as an ability, and since Wattson leads with Voltorb, I had no good way of setting up with Sing. Goldeen was useless, it's slower and dies in one hit. That meant I had to rely on Mrs. Worst Movepool Ever, Illumise, to defeat Voltorb somehow, get Skitty in safely against Electrike, avoid paralysis somehow (no sweeping if you're constantly unable to move), Sing, set up a million X Items, and finally sweep. After two days of resetting, I finally acquired my most difficult Gym Badge of all time and could move on.
With Wattson out of the way, things were looking up, since I could finally obtain Nosepass, the MVP for the middle game. I had to backtrack all the way to Dewford (and defeated the now underleveled Brawly for my third badge), but it was worth it. Nosepass has STAB Rock moves, very solid Defenses, and learns a very nifty Thunder Wave by level-up. Once it learns Rock Slide, you can go for cheap, but effective paraflinching strategies. It's SE on Gyms 4 and 6, and Nosepass resists any STAB Normal moves from Gym 5. Sadly its usefulness does wear off near the end game.
I was also looking forward to adding Slugma, but I was mistaken about him. You'd think it would be somewhat okay – not as good as Torchic or Numel or even Torkoal, but it's still a Fire type, right? Well, I cannot overstate how abysmal Slugma truly is. It dies to everything, it gets outsped by random wild Pokemon that are almost ten levels lower, it takes absolutely forever to evolve – the only salvageable stat it has is Special Attack, but the only STAB move it gets until the late game is Ember. It can't even reliably beat moderately strong Grass types such as Roselia with it, since even resisted moves take Slugma out quickly. Remind me to never, ever try training Slugma in a Nuzlocke. Even Goldeen has been more useful.
Anyway, I was able to catch a sixth team member, Spinda, but yeah, screw Spinda. I was frustrated enough by Slugma and the others at this point, I wasn't going to waste my time with effing Spinda. Moving on.
I followed Team Magma to the volcano and defeated them. Maxie is actually not that difficult – his Pokemon are okay, but his movesets all suck. Even with an underpowered team like mine I was able to beat him first try. Interestingly, I also fared quite well against Flannery. With Nosepass as my team captain, I actually beat her first try, which made her the only Gym Leader so far to go down without too much of a fight. Only against Camerupt I had to switch out Nosepass as to not die to its STAB Ground moves.
After beating Flannery, I went to the desert for a Fossil and revived it in Rustboro to get another somewhat decent Pokemon: Anorith, who took the place of Spinda. Its level-up movepool is almost as barren as Illumise's, but I could teach it two STAB moves with Fury Cutter (Move Tutor) and Rock Tomb (TM). Its stats are passable even while unevolved, and its type combination is good and unique. I grinded it a bit until the late twenties, which was about the level of the rest of my team.
Norman went down quickly since my two strongest Pokemon resisted its STAB moves, which makes for two badges in a row that I had gotten first try. Afterwards, I could have gone for a detour near Meteor Falls to get Jigglypuff, but I used my only Moon Stone on Skitty like an idiot, and there is no way to obtain a second one in Emerald since wild Lunatone don't exist. Wigglytuff would have been a better late-game option than Delcatty, but there was no way of getting one anymore, sadly.
I did the New Mauville sidequest for the TM Thunderbolt, since I knew both Delcatty and Nosepass could learn it and it would come in handy against Winona. However, upon obtaining the TM, I found out that Illumise can learn it as well. Since its Special Attack is higher than Delcatty's or Nosepass's, and Illumise is starved for decent moves, I gave Thunderbolt to Illumise.
The next stop would be Fortree, and I managed to reach it without getting in too much trouble. I tried fishing for Feebas, but I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't get a Feebas at all costs. After about an hour of fishing, I gave up and decided to continue without it. I got the Devon Scope, beat Kecleon and entered Fortree Gym feeling fairly confident after the previous two Gym battles.
In fact, my confidence set me up for a loss at the first attempt. I had overestimated Nosepass's Defense; it's good, but it can't take an Earthquake from Altaria after a Dragon Dance. Neither could the rest of my team, by the way (Illumise resists it, but it's weak to Aerial Ace). The key move in the second battle, which I did win, was Illumise's Encore. I had to have Illumise on the field when Altaria switched in, since it couldn't take a boosted Aerial Ace, but it could barely survive an unboosted one. Illumise was indeed on the field to kill off Skarmory with Thunderbolt, and Altaria entered the battle. It used Aerial Ace on me, I encored it and sacrificed Illumise, so Nosepass could come in safely and kill it with Thunder Wave and 3 Rock Slides. The Encore ended, but the paraflinching finished the job. That's badge number six. Next stop, Lilycove!
After I reached Lilycove (wiping against a random rain-boosted Thunder Manectric in the process), I was so sick of Slugma fainting at every breeze that I decided to ditch it instead of Illumise (my original plan). The next stop would be Mt. Pyre, where I could get Slugma's replacement: Chimecho. Like Skitty and Volbeat, Chimecho is pretty rare. Unlike Skitty or especially Volbeat, it showed up at the very first opportunity once I had reached the top of Mt. Pyre. Yay! I could have gone for Rhyhorn here as well, in the Safari Zone, but I figured it wouldn't add much Nosepass or Anorith couldn't provide. There's also Wobbuffet, but screw Wobbuffet.
Now the late game was a bit easier after I obtained Chimecho, who seems kinda out of place in the bottom tier. I grinded up Chimecho until the mid-to-late thirties, got through the Magma and Aqua hideouts without too much trouble, and went to Mossdeep for the seventh Gym battle. Anorith evolved around this time, and the evolved Armaldo made for an amazing team with Chimecho. Chimecho Yawned everyone to sleep, and Armaldo kept spamming Fury Cutter, eventually becoming strong enough to one-shot everything. Chimecho eventually fainted, but Armaldo needed only two more hits to finish the battle at that point, so I won.
Since I had access to the open sea, I could now go all the way to Pacifidlog and add Horsea to my team and grind it up to replace Seaking. With my core of Seadra, Armaldo and Chimecho, I decided I would no longer need the weak Illumise, Nosepass, and Delcatty, who were pretty much unfit for the late game, so I stopped training them. I finished the Team Aqua storyline in the Seafloor Cavern, awakened Rayquaza and hit the final Gym. Chimecho had Calm Mind and Shock Wave at this point, which made it simple enough. It eventually fell to Whiscash, but Seadra and Armaldo finished the job.
Now that I had access to Waterfall, the end of the game would be trivial, although it required a ton of grinding. Bagon is rare and it is found at a rather low level at this point in the game – no higher than 30 when my main team was around 45 – and to make matters even worse it is in the Slow Experience group. Thankfully it's somewhat strong already after evolving once into Shelgon, which made the grinding doable. After grinding I went to Victory Road, where Shelgon finally evolved into Salamence.
With may four main team members at level 50 (or 51 in the case of Armaldo, since it levels pretty quickly) I started the League, which wasn't much of a challenge. Oftentimes Salamence couldn't finish the job on its own, but Armaldo, Seadra and Chimecho weren't half bad either. Champion time!
Challenge evaluation
+ Very difficult at first, required meticulous planning against the first three Gyms
+ Used several Pokemon I would normally never use
- Most of the challenge wore off in the endgame. I should probably use the normal competitive tier lists instead of the ingame tier lists next time to maintain the challenge.
- No real replay value if you use the same tier lists. The only way I could have done this differently is by using Wigglytuff, Volbeat or Rhydon at some point, the other options aren't really options.
After completing my playtest of the Lottery Challenge, I decided to try something else I'd been having in mind for some time. I wanted to try beating Emerald with only the worst few Pokemon available. Of course, it's not easy to determine what a bad Pokemon exactly is, but Smogon has tier lists, not just for competitive battling but also for normal ('efficient') playthroughs. Now the RSE tier list on their website is not up to date, but the one on the forums is. It divides all Pokemon into tiers S, A, B, C, D, E and F. I decided that I could only use Pokemon from tier F, which includes the following evolutionary lines:
Anorith
Bagon
Chimecho
Clamperl
Corsola
Feebas
Goldeen
Horsea
Illumise
Jigglypuff
Luvdisc
Mawile (E)
Nosepass
Regirock
Registeel
Relicanth
Rhyhorn
Skitty
Slugma
Spinda
Surskit
Volbeat
Wynaut
(source: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...emerald-in-game-tier-list-discussion.3609130/ )
Of course, Surskit had to be dropped because it's not in Emerald, and Regirock and Registeel had to be dropped because Wailmer is not on the list and you need it for the Regi sidequest (and I dislike using legendaries in challenges anyway). That leaves a total of 20 legal Pokemon.
Playthrough
My first legal Pokemon would be Skitty, available before the first Gym, so I could use my starter until I found a Skitty. I decided on Treecko as a starter, since it's the weakest, and it turned out to be a pretty awesome HM slave (it learns Cut, Flash, Rock Smash and Strength). I avoided as many battles as possible and started searching for Skitty on Route 116. It took a lot of time; on average, with a 2% encounter rate, you'd expect to find one within 50 encounters. I lost count at about 35, but I'm pretty sure it was well over 50 and maybe even over 100 when Skitty finally popped up. I caught it, and from that point onward I was no longer allowed to use Treecko in battle.
After defeating all remaining trainers in my reach, Skitty had reached level 15, and I decided to try my luck against Roxanne. This resulted in the first of many defeats. With only Doubleslap as an attacking move, you're not going to get a bunch of Rock Pokemon down so easily. In the end, I managed to think of a winning strategy, though. It helped a lot that my Skitty was male and Roxanne's Pokemon were all female; Attract was key in securing my victory. The idea was to set up 6 X Attacks on the first Geodude and then sweep, with Sing to be able to use the X Attacks more freely. This would have worked without Attract, were it not for the fact that even at +6 Attack, Nosepass takes almost no damage from Doubleslap. I need a bunch of Tail Whips on top of the X Attacks, and I can't get them up in time before getting killed by Nosepass. Attract immobilizes Nosepass often enough that I can get away with healing less often even if Sing misses (and it does, a lot), so I can finally secure the Skitty sweep on Roxanne. I needed a bit of luck, but I think I got it third or fourth try. One major roadblock out of the way.
After returning the Devon Goods and making my way to Dewford, I acquired the Old Rod, which netted me a second team member (although annoyingly, I had to backtrack to Petalburg since it's not found in Dewford itself). Goldeen joined my team with Peck as its attacking move. I thought that would make the next Gym a lot easier, since it's super effective on Fighting types. No dice, since Goldeen sucks. I decided to skip the second Gym for now (yes, you can do that as long as you can navigate caves in the dark) and move on to the next.
I tracked down Steven, landed in Slateport, struggled through the Team Aqua battles, got destroyed by May, grinded Goldeen a bit more, won the rematch against May, and reached Mauville. Route 117, west from Mauville, could have gotten me two new team members, Volbeat and Illumise. Illumise showed up first encounter, and I caught it (although I caught another one with better IVs later on that replaced the first). Volbeat was a different matter. It's twice as rare as Skitty, and I couldn't find one if my life depended on it. After what felt like several hours, I just gave up and continued with the, sadly, much weaker Illumise.
Now Illumise has stats that remotely resemble acceptable, at least for this point in the game. However, I don't think I have ever seen a Pokemon with a worse level-up movepool. The only attacking move it has is a non-STAB Quick Attack from a terrible physical Attack stat. In order to be even remotely useful, it had to level up in the daycare first, and I had to teach it Thief (which runs off SpAtk in Gen 3) with a TM. Illumise does have one advantage: it levels obscenely quickly, so you don't have to go out of your way to grind it.
Wattson was a disaster with these three musketeers of sh*t. I got beating after beating after beating, and I had no way of sequence breaking against this guy. Magneton was a big problem – I had no move that could hit it even neutrally. My strategy was to set up X Attacks on Skitty again and then use Rollout (the MT is right outside the Gym) for big damage, even if resisted. One problem was that Skitty was too slow, so I had to add X Speed. Another was that Rollout is not fully accurate, so I had to add X Accuracy. The biggest problem was that Voltorb has Soundproof as an ability, and since Wattson leads with Voltorb, I had no good way of setting up with Sing. Goldeen was useless, it's slower and dies in one hit. That meant I had to rely on Mrs. Worst Movepool Ever, Illumise, to defeat Voltorb somehow, get Skitty in safely against Electrike, avoid paralysis somehow (no sweeping if you're constantly unable to move), Sing, set up a million X Items, and finally sweep. After two days of resetting, I finally acquired my most difficult Gym Badge of all time and could move on.
With Wattson out of the way, things were looking up, since I could finally obtain Nosepass, the MVP for the middle game. I had to backtrack all the way to Dewford (and defeated the now underleveled Brawly for my third badge), but it was worth it. Nosepass has STAB Rock moves, very solid Defenses, and learns a very nifty Thunder Wave by level-up. Once it learns Rock Slide, you can go for cheap, but effective paraflinching strategies. It's SE on Gyms 4 and 6, and Nosepass resists any STAB Normal moves from Gym 5. Sadly its usefulness does wear off near the end game.
I was also looking forward to adding Slugma, but I was mistaken about him. You'd think it would be somewhat okay – not as good as Torchic or Numel or even Torkoal, but it's still a Fire type, right? Well, I cannot overstate how abysmal Slugma truly is. It dies to everything, it gets outsped by random wild Pokemon that are almost ten levels lower, it takes absolutely forever to evolve – the only salvageable stat it has is Special Attack, but the only STAB move it gets until the late game is Ember. It can't even reliably beat moderately strong Grass types such as Roselia with it, since even resisted moves take Slugma out quickly. Remind me to never, ever try training Slugma in a Nuzlocke. Even Goldeen has been more useful.
Anyway, I was able to catch a sixth team member, Spinda, but yeah, screw Spinda. I was frustrated enough by Slugma and the others at this point, I wasn't going to waste my time with effing Spinda. Moving on.
I followed Team Magma to the volcano and defeated them. Maxie is actually not that difficult – his Pokemon are okay, but his movesets all suck. Even with an underpowered team like mine I was able to beat him first try. Interestingly, I also fared quite well against Flannery. With Nosepass as my team captain, I actually beat her first try, which made her the only Gym Leader so far to go down without too much of a fight. Only against Camerupt I had to switch out Nosepass as to not die to its STAB Ground moves.
After beating Flannery, I went to the desert for a Fossil and revived it in Rustboro to get another somewhat decent Pokemon: Anorith, who took the place of Spinda. Its level-up movepool is almost as barren as Illumise's, but I could teach it two STAB moves with Fury Cutter (Move Tutor) and Rock Tomb (TM). Its stats are passable even while unevolved, and its type combination is good and unique. I grinded it a bit until the late twenties, which was about the level of the rest of my team.
Norman went down quickly since my two strongest Pokemon resisted its STAB moves, which makes for two badges in a row that I had gotten first try. Afterwards, I could have gone for a detour near Meteor Falls to get Jigglypuff, but I used my only Moon Stone on Skitty like an idiot, and there is no way to obtain a second one in Emerald since wild Lunatone don't exist. Wigglytuff would have been a better late-game option than Delcatty, but there was no way of getting one anymore, sadly.
I did the New Mauville sidequest for the TM Thunderbolt, since I knew both Delcatty and Nosepass could learn it and it would come in handy against Winona. However, upon obtaining the TM, I found out that Illumise can learn it as well. Since its Special Attack is higher than Delcatty's or Nosepass's, and Illumise is starved for decent moves, I gave Thunderbolt to Illumise.
The next stop would be Fortree, and I managed to reach it without getting in too much trouble. I tried fishing for Feebas, but I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't get a Feebas at all costs. After about an hour of fishing, I gave up and decided to continue without it. I got the Devon Scope, beat Kecleon and entered Fortree Gym feeling fairly confident after the previous two Gym battles.
In fact, my confidence set me up for a loss at the first attempt. I had overestimated Nosepass's Defense; it's good, but it can't take an Earthquake from Altaria after a Dragon Dance. Neither could the rest of my team, by the way (Illumise resists it, but it's weak to Aerial Ace). The key move in the second battle, which I did win, was Illumise's Encore. I had to have Illumise on the field when Altaria switched in, since it couldn't take a boosted Aerial Ace, but it could barely survive an unboosted one. Illumise was indeed on the field to kill off Skarmory with Thunderbolt, and Altaria entered the battle. It used Aerial Ace on me, I encored it and sacrificed Illumise, so Nosepass could come in safely and kill it with Thunder Wave and 3 Rock Slides. The Encore ended, but the paraflinching finished the job. That's badge number six. Next stop, Lilycove!
After I reached Lilycove (wiping against a random rain-boosted Thunder Manectric in the process), I was so sick of Slugma fainting at every breeze that I decided to ditch it instead of Illumise (my original plan). The next stop would be Mt. Pyre, where I could get Slugma's replacement: Chimecho. Like Skitty and Volbeat, Chimecho is pretty rare. Unlike Skitty or especially Volbeat, it showed up at the very first opportunity once I had reached the top of Mt. Pyre. Yay! I could have gone for Rhyhorn here as well, in the Safari Zone, but I figured it wouldn't add much Nosepass or Anorith couldn't provide. There's also Wobbuffet, but screw Wobbuffet.
Now the late game was a bit easier after I obtained Chimecho, who seems kinda out of place in the bottom tier. I grinded up Chimecho until the mid-to-late thirties, got through the Magma and Aqua hideouts without too much trouble, and went to Mossdeep for the seventh Gym battle. Anorith evolved around this time, and the evolved Armaldo made for an amazing team with Chimecho. Chimecho Yawned everyone to sleep, and Armaldo kept spamming Fury Cutter, eventually becoming strong enough to one-shot everything. Chimecho eventually fainted, but Armaldo needed only two more hits to finish the battle at that point, so I won.
Since I had access to the open sea, I could now go all the way to Pacifidlog and add Horsea to my team and grind it up to replace Seaking. With my core of Seadra, Armaldo and Chimecho, I decided I would no longer need the weak Illumise, Nosepass, and Delcatty, who were pretty much unfit for the late game, so I stopped training them. I finished the Team Aqua storyline in the Seafloor Cavern, awakened Rayquaza and hit the final Gym. Chimecho had Calm Mind and Shock Wave at this point, which made it simple enough. It eventually fell to Whiscash, but Seadra and Armaldo finished the job.
Now that I had access to Waterfall, the end of the game would be trivial, although it required a ton of grinding. Bagon is rare and it is found at a rather low level at this point in the game – no higher than 30 when my main team was around 45 – and to make matters even worse it is in the Slow Experience group. Thankfully it's somewhat strong already after evolving once into Shelgon, which made the grinding doable. After grinding I went to Victory Road, where Shelgon finally evolved into Salamence.
With may four main team members at level 50 (or 51 in the case of Armaldo, since it levels pretty quickly) I started the League, which wasn't much of a challenge. Oftentimes Salamence couldn't finish the job on its own, but Armaldo, Seadra and Chimecho weren't half bad either. Champion time!
Challenge evaluation
+ Very difficult at first, required meticulous planning against the first three Gyms
+ Used several Pokemon I would normally never use
- Most of the challenge wore off in the endgame. I should probably use the normal competitive tier lists instead of the ingame tier lists next time to maintain the challenge.
- No real replay value if you use the same tier lists. The only way I could have done this differently is by using Wigglytuff, Volbeat or Rhydon at some point, the other options aren't really options.
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