[Sword & Shield] Battle Stadium Season 35 / Ultimate Finale

Personally, I've done about 30 double battles and maybe 20 singles. I haven't really gotten the most out of mythical availabilty, so this last couple of days I'm going to just go wild and make a team of 6 mythicals. But I have been enjoying / becoming incredibly stressed using Original Colour Magearna in a Trick Room team in doubles - only to realise when registering for Ultimate Finale that I could have been doing so much better had I bothered to feed it any Dynamax candy!


Anyhow, I'm up to Poké Ball (5) in Singles, using a not-particularly-thought-out team of Incineroar, Rayquaza (my favourite), and one of the SwSh legends in the 3rd slot. After a G-Max Coalossal team got me up to 6 in doubles I finally decided on an OT for my Magearna and built a Trick Room team which just hasn't been able to get out of Great Ball (8).

In Ultimate Finale meanwhile, wary of locking any of my main team members out of contention for the normal ranked battles, I'm lining up with 2 Imposter Ditto leads, Zacian, Shiny Zacian, Palkia, and Calyrex-S! 2 battles in and...yeah, vastly differing levels of seriousness - I've faced a Fire monotype team (easy), one with no legendaries whatsoever (easy), and now I'm currently facing a Dual Screens Zamazenta / Incineroar lead pair, which I have of course copied! Lost the Fake Out battle though :(

Also, I have to say I loath the Battle Ready symbol. I had dreams of a Tailwind and Explosion Mew lead, but of course it had to forget any "special" moves (even though they're programmed into the game) and now it only knows Pound. I think it would have been really cool to have mythicals with really random movesets, like that Victini that knew Reshiram and Zekrom's signature moves, in this no-holds-barred tournament!

Amore said:

Has anyone been battling competitively in Sword and Shield lately?

For Season 35 (up until the end of the month) there are literally no rules on which species of Pokémon you can use, which means mythicals are eligible!

Meanwhile this weekend's Ultimate Finale goes further - you can have multiple of the same species and item, as well as being a full 6v6 double-battle, the only restriction being that Pokémon are available in Sword and Shield!
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Personally, I've done about 30 double battles and maybe 20 singles. I haven't really gotten the most out of mythical availabilty, so this last couple of days I'm going to just go wild and make a team of 6 mythicals. But I have been enjoying / becoming incredibly stressed using Original Colour Magearna in a Trick Room team in doubles - only to realise when registering for Ultimate Finale that I could have been doing so much better had I bothered to feed it any Dynamax candy!


Anyhow, I'm up to Poké Ball (5) in Singles, using a not-particularly-thought-out team of Incineroar, Rayquaza (my favourite), and one of the SwSh legends in the 3rd slot. After a G-Max Coalossal team got me up to 6 in doubles I finally decided on an OT for my Magearna and built a Trick Room team which just hasn't been able to get out of Great Ball (8).

In Ultimate Finale meanwhile, wary of locking any of my main team members out of contention for the normal ranked battles, I'm lining up with 2 Imposter Ditto leads, Zacian, Shiny Zacian, Palkia, and Calyrex-S! 2 battles in and...yeah, vastly differing levels of seriousness - I've faced a Fire monotype team (easy), one with no legendaries whatsoever (easy), and now I'm currently facing a Dual Screens Zamazenta / Incineroar lead pair, which I have of course copied! Lost the Fake Out battle though :(

Also, I have to say I loath the Battle Ready symbol. I had dreams of a Tailwind and Explosion Mew lead, but of course it had to forget any "special" moves (even though they're programmed into the game) and now it only knows Pound. I think it would have been really cool to have mythicals with really random movesets, like that Victini that knew Reshiram and Zekrom's signature moves, in this no-holds-barred tournament!

Click to expand...

It depends on what you mean by competitively. The most I've done recently was just test stuff on Y-Comm or casual battles in the Battle Stadium, but haven't really done too much ranked yet. Normally, I would have been all over Pokémon Sword and Shield's ranked battle scene and official competitions, but to be honest, I never felt like I was ready for the new rules that practically have no restrictions. Albeit I have been playing Pokémon competitively for some time, I was always used to playing with some sort of restrictions. For instance, I always played the game under rules that either disallow major legendaries and mythical Pokémon entirely or allow two major legendaries. By "major legendaries," I mean the legendaries with base stat totals well over 600 that often tend to be box legendaries like Kyogre, Kyurem, Zacian, etc. Before I started playing Pokémon competitively, I have always read about players mentioning that winning with your favorite Pokémon is nearly impossible. However, after I began playing competitive Pokémon for a while and learning every aspect of how the game operates, I learned how to win battles using teams comprising almost entirely of my favorite Pokémon. I never cared much for tier lists or the many ways that different players classify Pokémon. My approach was that if a Pokémon can do something well in battle, if you build around it and maximize it, you can always see results.

However, with these new rules, I honestly feel as though I'm a rookie again. I don't think I've officially learned how to play Pokémon competitively against teams consisting of 100% powerful major legendary Pokémon and mythical Pokémon. I have dabbled in some battles against them here and there and achieved a decent amount of wins, but the truth is that many of the powerful Pokémon just typically overpower my favorites, even when I used a strategy. This basically forces me to change my team and use more powerful Pokémon, but doing so usually requires a bunch of strategy testing, which makes me feel like a rookie again, learning the game all over again. Mind you, I have no problem doing that, as I really do enjoy learning new ways to play Pokémon competitively, but I just don't think I have enough time to master it so that I could reach Master Ball tier this time. In addition to that, based on the way that I play the game, IVs are very important. For instance, Trick Room is a very important aspect of my play-style in Doubles and to excel, I need Pokémon with the worst possible Speed IVs. This isn't a problem when breeding, but when dealing with legendary and mythical Pokémon, it's almost impossible to acquire without trading. Because of this, it often takes a lot of time to get my team prepared.

I just simply don't have enough time at the moment to get prepared for this style of play. I wasn't expecting The Pokémon Company or whatever company is in charge of the competitive scene to announce this style of play. Yet, I am definitely interested in partaking in this style of play in the future. Thus, I'm using this time to prepare everything I could possibly need for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and be ready for whatever type of rules get announced and try to get as many Pokémon as possible to accommodate all my styles of play. In the meantime, I have been doing everything I could to prepare my future trade shop and have been doing a little of bit of Uber practicing on Pokémon Showdown to see what works before I start breeding and trading for certain legendaries in the games. I am definitely going to return to my full form when the new games drop though. Not only am I going to reach Master Ball tier again, but I am also going to try to go for the number one rank as well. Even if I don't, the journey would still be fun, as I just enjoy competitive Pokémon regardless. I just wish that more people on this forum valued it more because it's so underrated.

I hear you on the style of play with the new system. I got didn't go back to Ultimate Finale after last night, gimmicks tire quickly. Some of these battles are the Pokémon equivalent of the end of a superhero movie - just big dudes yeeting Death Star beams across the stadium. As a Gen III kid the absurd dominance of Groudon and Kyogre is fun, but one thing I appreciate about opening up the restrictions is they are slightly less dominant (still no Rayquaza though due to the risk of Zacian).
Back in my previous peak Poké-obssession in Gen IV I was a sucker for using my favourites too, only I'm basic so my favourites were Latias and Salamence before they were banned from OU haha. I'm still new enough to the changes to the game since then that other than Dragon = Win no longer being true, I can struggle to keep up and get caught out by random Pokémon - for example having no answer to Gastrodon stall, as Storm Drain didn't work like that back then, or getting completely obliterated by your favourite as I lacked weather control having wasted my Dynamax on Magearna. Making move power calculations in my head isn't coming back either, often choosing Play Rough instead of Behemoth Blade with Zacian when the latter would be more powerful.

That said, most of the teams I've faced have been like the ones I faced before they opened it up to mythicals, just with an extra legendary. I've actually reached Master Rank with my Trick Room team...only to instantly match with guys ranked in the top 250 when I'm down in the low 2000s! I don't really care about staying at the top, but getting that ribbon would be really cool before I switch to my all-mythical team for the last day of it (Keldeo, Zeraora, Genesect, Zarude, Mew, and Celebi haha).

EDIT: I just used Trick Room against a Belly Drum Greedent...so much for same few legendaries...couldn't recover that catastrophic mistake.
EDIT2: Finally got my ribbon 90 minutes later, nearly going down to a slow Anger Point Krookodile, set up by a Pidove! Loving the weirdness, loving Magearna getting a Soul-Heart boost from a fallen comrade to fire off the winning shot more!

Amore said:

I hear you on the style of play with the new system. I got didn't go back to Ultimate Finale after last night, gimmicks tire quickly. Some of these battles are the Pokémon equivalent of the end of a superhero movie - just big dudes yeeting Death Star beams across the stadium. As a Gen III kid the absurd dominance of Groudon and Kyogre is fun, but one thing I appreciate about opening up the restrictions is they are slightly less dominant (still no Rayquaza though due to the risk of Zacian).
Back in my previous peak Poké-obssession in Gen IV I was a sucker for using my favourites too, only I'm basic so my favourites were Latias and Salamence before they were banned from OU haha. I'm still new enough to the changes to the game since then that other than Dragon = Win no longer being true, I can struggle to keep up and get caught out by random Pokémon - for example having no answer to Gastrodon stall, as Storm Drain didn't work like that back then, or getting completely obliterated by your favourite as I lacked weather control having wasted my Dynamax on Magearna. Making move power calculations in my head isn't coming back either, often choosing Play Rough instead of Behemoth Blade with Zacian when the latter would be more powerful.

That said, most of the teams I've faced have been like the ones I faced before they opened it up to mythicals, just with an extra legendary. I've actually reached Master Rank with my Trick Room team...only to instantly match with guys ranked in the top 250 when I'm down in the low 2000s! I don't really care about staying at the top, but getting that ribbon would be really cool before I switch to my all-mythical team for the last day of it (Keldeo, Zeraora, Genesect, Zarude, Mew, and Celebi haha).

EDIT: I just used Trick Room against a Belly Drum Greedent...so much for same few legendaries...couldn't recover that catastrophic mistake.
EDIT2: Finally got my ribbon 90 minutes later, nearly going down to a slow Anger Point Krookodile, set up by a Pidove! Loving the weirdness, loving Magearna getting a Soul-Heart boost from a fallen comrade to fire off the winning shot more!

Click to expand...

Congratulations on achieving Master Rank and earning your ribbon. You're a really good player, sweety. 😊 Keep up the good work! It also sounds like you're really enjoying yourself playing this series. It's a great to end it, but unfortunately, I just don't have the resources to participate. Lol I 100% promise to be ready next gen though. Currently, I am making sure I have everything I need for it, you know.