Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Hey everyone! Man I'm stoked I found this thread, so sick seeing so many insane streaks and a community for the frontier!!
Just lost at a streak of 119 in the battle tower (open lv. 100) on retail
The team I used was Latios/Suicune/Metagross, initially the plan was to get the gold symbol & move on to the rest of the frontier as I didn't expect to make it much further than 70 wins. I'm really happy with this streak though and after reading through some reports here it looks like there's some optimizing I can do w/ my EV spreads specifically on Suicune and Latios for future runs. Also thinking I'll have to do another run through of Colosseum for a Bold Suicune set which I'm not looking forward to lol
"The Boss" Latios Lv. 100 (Southern Island retail RNG manip)
Lost to Gardevoir w/ Salac Berry & Destiny Bond. Suicune got it down to a sliver before going down, switched in Latios & reveals Salac Berry. I could have scouted for Destiny Bond and potentially stalled it out w/ Calm Mind but me being lazy and not looking up the set I just clicked Dragon Claw and lost LOL. Oh well
Motivation for doing another streak was to: 1) create a better team for the Battle Palace without Hasty Latios, which is very rare and probably not feasible for most people to RNG. I've conceded before that my previous high streak with such Latios should probably be disqualified since I did not RNG it myself; and 2) record my own streak for validation purposes.
The previous team of Hasty Latios - Swampert - Metagross really was fantastic. Restricting Latios from teambuilding leaves an obvious replacement in Gengar. I played with Gengar - Swampert - Metagross for a few runs but it has more problems with Water types because Gengar does not resist them. After several losses I decided I needed a Normal special wall. My first choice was the following Snorlax:
According to the Battle Palace article on Bulbapedia, an Impish Nature Pokemon will Attack 69% of the time, or use a Support move 25% of the time if above 50% health, and after dropping below half health will use a Defense move. This is ideal for Toxic + heal, with some attacking moves to chip the opponent. The issue with Snorlax is that Rest is not really that great of a recovery move. Additionally, Normal + Ghost is not really that good of a coverage combo. After a few runs, I just scrapped Snorlax entirely and went with BoltBeam Blissey, but still keeping the Impish Nature to maintain the behavior. EVs are to outspeed Walrein, rest in Defense and HP to hit a Leftovers number.
I would say this is my favorite team I've made for the Battle Palace so far. I couldn't equal my last record, or even pass my streak with Starmie-Flygon-Scizor (which was probably a very lucky case to reach 178 with that team), but I think the baseline of wins for this team is probably the highest out of the 3 teams I've made. Gengar + Blissey can switch between each other and completely nullify Ursaring/Machamp/Granbull/Tauros/Absol/Miltank. In general, Blissey should switch into most special attacks in order to soak up damage/preserve the other two's health and chip the opponent, making it easier for the other two to clean up. This team is weaker to Metagross and Rock/Ground types than my previous two teams but considerably better against Legendary Pokemon Trainers (Blissey walls all Latis, the puppies and the birds), so I think it's worth the trade off. In general, unless the opponent leads with a Metagross or Snorlax or has incredible luck (as you'll probably see in the video streak ending), this team will likely win.
If you're very bored, you can watch my whole streak here.
Someone with better programming knowledge may be able to verify this, but it seems like moves that do not have a fixed damage output are not correctly understood by the AI (both yours and the opponents) in the Battle Palace. This includes Seismic Toss, Return, Frustration, and Hidden Power. In general, the AI will properly choose a move that does the most damage, given the power of the move/type effectiveness. However, if your Pokemon has more than one move in the Attack category and one of those moves is one of the above, it may cause issues. I previously used Return on Snorlax and against a neutral matchup (ex. Vaporeon), it would often use Shadow Ball over Return, which was not my intention. This was the main reason I did not have Seismic Toss on Blissey.
- Although I played on emulator, this is the exact same save file I have always had on cartridge, exported onto my computer using a GBxCart.
- Battle streaks are recorded in cuts of 21 battles each, ending each streak with a battle against Spenser is a natural place to cut + I don't have that much free time to do an uncut stream right now.
Can I also just take the time here to say that Snorlax 4, 5, and 7 are absolutely broken in the Frontier? I've lost to some variation of it literally every time. The only true counter/check I can think of is Skarmory. Quick Claw Mega Kick/Double Edge deals at least 80% to any unresisted, and in Palace the AI will sometimes even correctly randomly Shadow Ball a Ghost switch in. Machamp with Cross Chop is the only Fighting type that does any real damage to it, but its very difficult to fit into a competitive team. If only there was a Superpower move tutor in Gen III...
Modified blue offense for the Battle Palace. EV spread for Swampert is to survive 3 Extremespeed from Spenser's Arcanine. This team is a bit slower than Starmie-Flygon-Scizor, but the power output and increased bulk are definitely noticeable, and it matches up better against the more common threats, especially Swampert, Lati@s, Machamp, and Gengar, which the previous team was having some issues with. I would say my average streak with this team is around 150-160 while the other one would usually end at around 90-100.
I also have an ongoing 105 streak for level 100 with my previous Tyranitar-Latios-Scizor team, but with the adjustment being Latios is now in slot 1 with a Lum Berry, and Tyranitar is in slot 2 with a Salac Berry. Latios just has better initial matchup generally. Honestly the level 50 team would probably work great here too but I wanted to play with the Sandstorm to cancel Leftovers recovery. I'm probably going to stop both runs for a while now because I have a Battle Tower team that I'd like to experiment with.
Lastly, I really love Actaeon's Frontier Assistant program and it's been immensely helpful through this run. I did notice though when I was playing that there are actually two trainers named Gillian, one of which only uses NFEs, but since it's higher on the csv it looks to that row instead of the CoolTrainer which actually is the threat. So I just deleted that first row. I also was having issues with inputting Mr. Mime as a Pokemon into the program, so I went into both csvs and changed it to Mrmime and it worked better.
Thanks for reading!
EDIT:
Never really thought too much about legality on my first run for Starmie-Flygon-Scizor since I bred all 3 of them using almost perfect IV Dittos I got using saved battle video RNG. The issue arises with the Latios. I only legally own a Timid 29/2/29/29/31/31 Latios from Southern Island ACE/RNG. To get this Hasty Latios, I just made a copy and modified its PID in PkHex. Hypothetically, there is a legal way to get a Latios that's very close in IVs and attainable with RNG (frame 475971, 27/12/26/31/27/31), but I caught that Latios before I had a GBXcart to back up my cartridge saves.
So I understand if my 2 streaks with Latios are ineligible for the leaderboard and I apologize if ever lead anyone on. My goal in general was to test the Hasty-Sub strategy at the Palace, and see which Pokemon had the best synergy. I've never cheated with regards to backing up streaks or anything and I want to be transparent about everything that I do, especially with high streaks like this.
Congratulations on your streak! It's very nice to see someone (other than the amazing dgice ofc) put so much effort and time into the Palace. It seems like I definitely underestimated how effective Substitute can be in that facility (although tbh it didn't even enter my mind to use it when I did my streak all those years ago). I'm very curious to know how your team would compare to the most current and optimised Palace teams that Actaeon and dgice have come up with, so I wanted to ask if you could provide a very rough (since I assume you don't keep track) estimate on the streak length distribution of all your runs with the team, e.g., something like "xx% end before Gold, xx% end between Gold and 100, xx% between 100 and 150, xx% between 150 and 200 etc.". Thanks in advance and good luck in your quest to keep pushing those Palace boundaries even further :)
EDIT: Just saw in your last post that you're also having the suspicion that the Palace AI doesn't recognise set damage moves properly. While I'm not able to 100% confirm this, I had the exact same suspicion during my Palace runs, hence why I swapped Return for Double-Edge on my Slaking.
I'm very curious to know how your team would compare to the most current and optimised Palace teams that Actaeon and dgice have come up with, so I wanted to ask if you could provide a very rough (since I assume you don't keep track) estimate on the streak length distribution of all your runs with the team, e.g., something like "xx% end before Gold, xx% end between Gold and 100, xx% between 100 and 150, xx% between 150 and 200 etc.".
I'm not too familiar with those teams, but just off the top of my head I would say that all 3 of my teams have never lost before Gold (or even battle 49). Between battles 50-100, I've lost probably ~8 times with the Starmie team, ~4 times with the Gengar team and 1 time with Latios team before their respective streaks. Between 100-end, I've lost 6 times with the Starmie team, ~4 times with the Gengar team and 2 times with the Latios team before their streaks. I've said before I've gotten very lucky with the Starmie team when I reached 178, mainly with Scizor Silver Wind boosts. The other two teams are the ones I'd truly recommend.
From my observation, if a Pokemon changes its behavior after dropping below 50%, it will not change its behavior back after regaining health above 50%. I noticed this when my Blissey kept using Softboiled even at full health after healing from below 50%. This can only be undone by switching out. This makes sense from a coding perspective, since that little message that triggers when a Pokemon's behavior changes is signaling that some binary variable is flipped. On a switch back in, the game probably re-checks the health and the behavior field again.
This was never an issue with my all Substitute teams, but it's something to keep in mind if using Pokemon that can heal/holding Leftovers.
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice on my Battle Frontier Team if possible. This team just got me the Gold Symbol from the Battle Pike, but it's struggling a bit in the Tower.
I'm happy to RNG manipulate/breed some new pokemon, but this save file has a few limitations. First, I've already used the Explosion tutor on a Metagross with iffy IV's. Secondly, my Latios (Hardy nature) also has subpar IV's. Third, I don't have access to FRLG or a trade cable. I'd also like to avoid ACE if possible too!
EDIT: Lastly, and maybe most tragically, my chosen starter on this save file was Blaziken.
Also, thank you to everyone who's posted in this thread and the mods for maintaining it! I've gotten a lot of great advice from just lurking.
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice on my Battle Frontier Team if possible. This team just got me the Gold Symbol from the Battle Pike, but it's struggling a bit in the Tower.
I'm happy to RNG manipulate/breed some new pokemon, but this save file has a few limitations. First, I've already used the Explosion tutor on a Metagross with iffy IV's. Secondly, my Latios (Hardy nature) also has subpar IV's. Third, I don't have access to FRLG or a trade cable. I'd also like to avoid ACE if possible too!
EDIT: Lastly, and maybe most tragically, my chosen starter on this save file was Blaziken.
Also, thank you to everyone who's posted in this thread and the mods for maintaining it! I've gotten a lot of great advice from just lurking.
I understand wanting to avoid ACE, but it would really solve all of your problems from re-enabling move tutors and respawning starters to changing your PRNG state and giving you access to perfect IVs. It's a bit of a pain to setup, but once you do it really opens up the game and the most recent advancements w/ the stable glitch mon makes the process of executing codes extremely quick
I understand wanting to avoid ACE, but it would really solve all of your problems from re-enabling move tutors and respawning starters to changing your PRNG state and giving you access to perfect IVs. It's a bit of a pain to setup, but once you do it really opens up the game and the most recent advancements w/ the stable glitch mon makes the process of executing codes extremely quick
Welcome back, and thank you for updating the leaderboards! I have been wondering where you have been, but I understand that work and other things in real life take up your time (that's something I can relate to). Congrats on your promotion!
I think you missed my Battle Factory streak (detailed here) as I don't see it on the leaderboards.
Thank you very much for the leaderboard update.
It feels very rewarding to finally see your own efforts reflected here.
Regarding the streak lenght, I never intended to submit that 1446 number, I only talked about it just to give some context for the run in my original post, because at the end of the day I could only provide definitive proof of the 1442 floors that the game ended up registering.
That being said, although I very much appreciate your level of trust in me, and I understand that my circumstance might be a rare one, I wouldn't mind if at some point the lower number is selected in order to prevent any confusion that may arise from similarly ended runs.
Appreciate your honesty on this and thank you for the heads up. In this case, I'll be updating your record to 1442 wins since that was the number that the game recorded. This should be updated on the leaderboard as well.
REPORTING A 104 Streak on Battle Factory Doubles (Open Level)
Hello again to you all,
Nnico Iosi My most sincere thanks for the reply, as you can see this is a big thing for me and it is really much appreciated. (And props to the Persian profile photo, absolutely love it!).
So this situation of mine is pretty particular. Never in my life have I thought about chasing a Pokémon World Record, or any WR for that matter, so never thought about documenting a run with photos, videos, or with writing down my different teams for each round. I didn’t find it useful at the time and boy was I wrong; (discovered “Smogon” for the first time in my life the other day when I first posted my streak, that alone should give you an idea..); and this despite having hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay in Emerald Frontier, especially the Battle Factory. As I already said for me it was just a fun way to decompress and have fun outside of the work hours.
For me Emerald’s Factory is where the Pokémon Franchise peaked, I am just nuts about everything in that game, from the sprites, the soundtracks, the story line, to that memorable Hoenn journey, everything just screams GOAT status. I remember that getting those 7 absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous Gold Symbols in the Frontier was one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever had to overcome, gaming-wise, and it left such a mark on me back in the days that I’d always come back and have a go at it, if only to listen to its memorable soundtrack.
I am actually more than delighted to have finally had the occasion to write thoroughly about one of the few things that I’ve truly loved and cherished in life, Emerald’s Battle Factory. (also relating to that heartfelt, awe-inspiring post by Tinto last week, reaching such an amazing streak on real Hardware is nothing short of legendary).
For me the Battle Factory was all about unpredictability, that is its essence and its whole purpose, and that’s what makes it still truly exciting for me after all these years. The never-ending, always renovated scenarios and surprises, the combination of strategies, movesets, mons that you’d never think you’d actually use.
And since I’ve never had such high aims for it except my personal enjoyment and excitement, involving calcs and spreadsheets would quite ruin that sense of unpredictability and randomness. From my perspective, nothing beats inserting my Emerald cartridge, turning on my beloved GBA SP 101 and having random Pokémon matchs with random drafts facing random scenarios, counting only on my knowledge of the game and my instincts (it is after all called the Knowledge symbol).
In singles, my best streak was at 63 (always in Open Level), and last April I thought it would be fun to try for the first time the Doubles Challenge, just to experience what it’s like and boy was I amazed at just how fun that place is.
Before getting into the run, it goes without saying that the biggest part of the Credits goes naturally to LRXC and his inspirational runs. He inspired so many of us to get back there and experience that truly unique Emerald Factory Feeling with that charisma and that renowned meticulous cooking of his that are truly out of this world. Emerald Factory is truly the best stage that he could have chosen for his big break as a streamer and I’ve been there patiently watching him cook since the very beginning, and now it’s just a matter of time before he ends up breaking all Factory records (including my -yet to be recognized- record).
There’s unfortunately not much to be said about my streak, after all it’s been almost 8 months since that streak came to an end. And all that Pokémon-related part of my memory has been savagely ambushed and occupied by two of the craziest with the most stupidly-horrifying RNG games that have ever existed (talking about both Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 with Rental Mons only, with the second one totally completed and the first one nearing its completion and what a memorable journey that one has been).
Now all I have left is some photos that I’ve shared with a dear friend of mine, also a fellow Factory enthusiast, of some of the stupidly good Mons that I had during that run. I’ll share them with you guys just so you can have an idea of how insanely lucky I got, especially with drafts, during the last rounds.
1st one: Salamence and Gengar easily sweeping the entire round with the infamous combination: Earthquake-Levitate, a classic that proved to be absolutely fundamental in more than one occasion during this run.
2nd and 3rd : Latias & Latios with Suicune in the back: I don’t think there’s really much to say about such a team, except from “on to the next round”
4th and 5th: Getting so high up that an actual Pokémon match would end up looking like this (with Raikou in the back)
6th and 7th: I remember this team being the one leading me to victory during one of the last rounds
8th: Getting both Latis in the draft was so crazy that I had to take a picture here
I actually am aware that this isn’t helping at all. Giving absolutely no accurate information whatsoever about the drafts, the movesets, the different scenarios. However, luckily I found that I did record and save my last battle, the 7th and last one in Round 15.
As you can see, also not much to say about this battle, only managing to hit one Hyper Beam during the entire match, due to a stupid Fire Blast Crit on Blaze. Also surviving my Dragonite 3’s Hyper Beam there was probably a range there by Zard. And it all went downhill from there.Not sure if I could’ve played this better since I have no idea of what there other movesets were (8 months Is a long time)
Lastly you can all see how much this actually means to me. It would literally be a dream come true seeing my 104 Wins on the Top Left Corner of LRXC 's streams and being the WR Holder that he will aspire to beat in his eventual next attempts on Open Level Doubles, and watching him doing so as I’ve always did during these months.
I am actually closing in on a chapter in my life, and opening a new one in a new continent and a new country, where the absolute priority would be my work and my career, one that wouldn’t include Pokémon anymore, after being the absolute protagonist in almost all of my previous chapters, and that is why I left my beloved Emerald back home, harshly imprisoned in a firmly and tightly closed box, along with all of my other cartridges and consoles, since I’ve always only played on real Hardware.
An unthought of, unintended WR, having only some photos and a video taken from my Emerald French Cartridge as evidence. Who knows, perhaps if I had intended it, studied it and worked on it, maybe I would never have reached such a feat if it were all calculated and premeditated. So all and all, I’d say that this is much more poetic and singular; no one has ever broken a WR just having fun, without even aiming for it, thinking about it and only knowing about it 8 months after.
Hello, I'll have to let you know that I decided not to add this streak to the leaderboard. The explanations are pretty barren and as pointed out by Nnico Iosi I will need more than a couple of screenshots or barren lines of what happened on each round to actually validate this streak. Considering that it probably has been for a while since this run happened, there is no way to recall every exact detail. Please be mindful that I will expect better explanations than just "I remember this team being the one leading me to victory during one of the last rounds." since Factory streaks are very extensive and require a lot of preparation in order to make a successful attempt.
Hi everyone! I’m here to report my new personal record of 134 championships in Dome (doubles) on cartridge, Lv. 100, using a hyper-offensive team as usual.
Battle Dome Doubles. Clear streak: 134. Open Level. Retail.
Description:
The team is basically the same I used in my previous record, but now Slaking has HP Steel to OHKO Armaldo and Aerodactyl (DE kills the flying fossil too, but Hidden Power doesn’t waste the precious health points). Also, steel helps to deal with Shuckle and Cradily, so it’s a better option than the previous set with Hyper Beam (almost never used it, only for fancy wins).
The EVs are simple: max attack (or special attack), nearly max speed (only the necessary to out-speed the 291 and 311 niches) and the rest in HP. The variety of attacking moves this team has allows me to hit super-effectively the entire Pokedex, except for Kingdra, Swampert/Quagsire/Whiscash, Sableye and Girafarig, so most battles were quick as a flash.
Loss:
Swimmer Pedro sent Granbull and Blissey. I sent Slaking and Latios, both attacked the pink blob and killed her. Then Granbull mega-kicked my Latios (OHKO) and then repeated the punishment on my Slaking (who was notably weakened by the recoil damage) during the Truant turn. I really should have gone for the dog first instead of Blissey, but I think I wasn’t paying enough attention to the battle and underestimated the canine’s rage.
Vappy is very effective as discount Suicune, Zapdos hits hard af, Gengar glues against normals, weak to Raikou (gengar boom)/Latios (vap)/Jynx (vap-ish)/multi elecs/psys
Hello my friend, it's been a long time and nice to see you playing again. Your streak was added! (Sorry I missed out on your post while I was going through everything)
Hello my friend, it's been a long time and nice to see you playing again. Your streak was added! (Sorry I missed out on your post while I was going through everything)
Hey, my streak with my brother was post 1664. Not seeing that on after the update. Was there a reason or did you just miss it? I know there was a ton to catch up on so I completely understand if it was just missed
Registeel @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Clear Body
Level: 50
EVs: 172 HP / 172 SpD / 164 Spe
Careful Nature
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Substitute
- Rest
- Latios needs 161 HP for 5 Substitutes, 173 Speed, rest in SpAtk.
- Moltres needs 193 HP for 5 Substitutes, 154 Speed, rest in Def.
- Registeel needs 177 HP for 5 Substitutes, 91 Speed (90 speed is a very large speed tier, mainly useful against SubRest stalling Lanturn and Exploud), rest in SpDef.
I'm surprised these 3 Pokemon haven't been combined in this way before. I've seen Latios - Registeel, Moltres - Steel Wall, and Latios - Moltres, but not all 3 together. Inspiration for this team comes from the PP stall + DD Salamence team I used for the Battle Subway. No Gliscor, but Moltres is the best PP staller in Gen III. I've rarely had any scares using this team, and I think I could definitely continue the streak for another 100 battles but it's quite time consuming to battle with PP stall. Often times Latios has such a good defensive matchup that it can just Substitute and set up pretty comfortably. Only threat I've really faced is Gyarados 4 with Return/Earthquake/Dragon Dance/Rest, which Moltres and Registeel are useless against. With lead Gyarados, it's best to just set up Calm Mind as they set up Dragon Dance. Take the 2HKO at +2 and hope the AI gets greedy and goes for +3/+3 or uses Earthquake (which it does occasionally).
I'm very happy I've broken the 200 Battle threshold, I really never thought I'd be able to do it, especially in Gen III.
Yo I got VERY lazy and did not submit a post for my run, but yeah I got the Battle Factory Level 50 Singles World Record of 155 wins
The entire run is comprised in this playlist and here is an unlisted stream where I simply got to my draft, and decided I was too tired to continue LOL \
Oh I also got a streak of 101 wins in Open Level Singles!
Here is the final stream of that run, you can simply go to the streams before it to see the whole run on stream!
Finally, I also got a streak of 101 wins in Level 50 Doubles! Here is the final stream of that run! Again simply go to the ones before it to see the whole run!
I also got a streak of 113 on lvl 50 singles but I have to upload a 9 hour long video from my old computer to prove it LOL
Hi everyone! New to smogon but after being inspired by LRXCs streams I've been hard at work at the factory for the past 3-4 months! This'll be a bit of a long one but I wanted to do 3 things:
Advertise the Battle Factory Buddy that I've created and am hosting. It's an online tool for helping calculate which mons you're likely to face in factory, both before battles start (using scientist info, your team etc.) and for deducing sets in the later rounds based on moves, items etc. You can find it here: https://battlefactorybuddy.azurewebsites.net/ let me know if you give it a go!
Submit a run of 95 for L50 Doubles Factory on emulator.
Submit a run of 85 for OL Doubles Factory on emulator. I'm currently running this category to try and beat Aziz's 104!
I started taking notes at round 8 as that's when it feels like a real run to me! My notes are a bit sparse and a bit play-by-play at first but get a bit more in-depth as they go.
B1 Flying / No phrase: Sceptile / Aerodactyl / Fearow
Double ice into sceptile, hit the range with starmie and then OHKO the fearow in the back. Aero Aps starmie for 40ish% and dies T2.
Mr. Mime -> Sceptile 2 - not convinced on this but wanted something faster next to starmie and coverage was redundant.
B2 No type / HRHR: Rhydon / Garde / Breloom
T1: Rhydon QC horn drills Starmie!!! LB kills Rhydon. Hypnosis sceptile cured by lum.
T2: Breloom focuses and dies to double-up.
T3-T4: Take down garde after magical leaf and missed hypnosis.
B3 No type / HRHR: Forre / Weezing / Blastoise.
T1: Psychic weezing and chip forre with tpunch. Counter fails.
T2: Double into and kill stoise. Forre protects.
T3: Forre protects.
T4: Double into forre kills.
B4 Poison / HRHR: Nidoking / Ninetales / Vileplume
T1: OHKO Nido and get FF switching in doom.
T2: OHKO vileplume and sludge ninetales which DEs doom.
T3: Cleanup.
B5 no type / HRHR: Gardevoir / Golem / Dewgong.
T1: Starmie kills golem with surf and sceptile takes 70% off dewgong coming in. Garde takes about 70% off Starmie.
T2: Kill dewgong and swap to doom.
T3: Win.
B6 no type / no phrase: Altaria / Salamence / Cradily
T1: Kill salamence and attract altaria. Kinda interesting decision here, more altarias have kill shots on sceptile even though sala is way more scary. Came down to which I could attract in the end and altaria just Eqd for no damage.
T2: Take out altaria and confuse ray trigger lum on starmie.
T3: win.
B7 no type / battle's flow: Blastoise / Raikou / Blissey
Not swapping sceptile for sala, don't know which set and regice chances are kinda spooky.
T1: Kill blastoise with a crit. Swap to doom and eat a thunder and get para'd.
T2: blade the raikou for chip. Thunder kills doom and blissey counters.
T3: blade and psychic double up outspeeds and kills raikou. Fat finger surf, feel despair, get bailed out by leaf blade crit. Counter again.
T4 -> end: Attract blissey and nuke it down. Maybe got a bit lucky here but with attract and spdef drops I think I was 90+% to win.
B1: no type / hrhr: Victreebel / Metagross / Arcanine
T1: Double EQ, double kill. Meta took ~85% from Flygon EQ.
T2: Double EQ, single kill.
Golduck -> Metagross-8 (any meta is better though need to be careful not to EQ myself)
B2: No type / battle's flow: Raichu / Shiftry / Shuckle
T1: Double kill with EQ Ice Beam
T2: Shuckle uses flash and is nearly dead.
T3: Shuckle is dead.
B3: Flying / HRHR: Crobat / Fearow / Garde
T1: Swap into meta blocking screech. Tbolt kills fearow before it moves (Fearow-4).
T2: Double QC, missing mash on garde but killing crobat. Garde reflects.
T3-T4: Kill it.
B4: No type / Slow and Steady: Slaking / Umbreon / Alakazam
T1: Psychic the slaking, swap to meta taking nothing from an ice beam. Umb DTs.
T2: Mash and miss Umbreon. It DTs again.
T3: Take an ice beam on lati. Hit tbolt, miss mash. Confuse meta.
T4: Miss tbolt, hit EQ on both. Umb faint attack.
T5: Psych Slaking down. Hit EQ on umb (killing it!) and taking zam low.
T6: Tbolt Zam down.
Phew.
B5: No type / HRHR:
T1: Flygon double crits to kill champ and golem . Ursaring takes 40% from other EQ.
T2: Get quick claw facaded but it doesn't matter.
B6: Electric / No Phrase: Electabuzz / Raikou / Hariyama
T1: Psychic electabuzz (no Raikous do anything to flygon) and swap to meta. Meta eats an ice punch and a quick attack, making me feel very smug.
T2: EQ and switch back to flygon. Immuning twave, taking 30% from ice punch to lati. Kills electabuzz and raikou down to a pixel.
T3: Quick claw psychic takes out Raikou (had doubled into it in case of fakeout). Quick claw ice punch freezes flygon.
T4: Psychic kills Hariyama.
B1: No type / No Phrase: Sceptile / Lanturn / Ursaring
Kinda scary lead. Team doesn't do great against Grass or Water.
T1: Leaf blade lapras down to half, overheat connects and kills. Ursaring takes 60% from Ice beam (OH miss insurance). Arcanine down to hydro.
T2: Ice beam down ursa, Thunder misses (irrelevant) and EQ kills Lanturn.
Sceptile is either Sceptile-1 or Sceptile-2 - probably take it over lapras? Decide no.
B2: No type / No phrase: Gardevoir / Magmar / Electabuzz
T1: Crunch and Beam take down garde. Magmar misses F blast.
T2: Swap into swampert which gets confused and overheat kills electabuzz.
T3: QC confuse on Arcanine which hits itself but swampert surf kills.
B3: Fire / HRHR: Blaziken / Latias / Entei
T1: Espeed and Surf to kill Blaziken (it was very likely to EQ!). Lapras gets twaved.
T2: Crunch Lati to below half. Entei DTs lapras eats a Dclaw and Lapras doesn't get full para'd ice beaming the lati down.
T3->End: Entei sets up 3 DTs and lapras gets para'd a bunch. On the last turn Entei flamethrowers arcanine - doesn't it know it must have flash fire cos of no intim? OH, Surf and crunch get it done.
Blaz-3, Latias-6, Entei-1/4
Lapras -> Latias-6
New PB!
B4: No type / No phrase: Breloom / Jolteon / Nidoqueen
T1: Breloom winds up focus punch. Overheat jolt which just survives (but underspeeds arc). Tbolt into lati for nothing. Mist ball kills breloom.
T2: Espeed jolt. Mist ball gets Nido into red. Ice beam lati for 40%ish.
T3: Kill.
B5: No type / No phrase: Aggron / Machamp / Latios
T1: Overheat OHKOs aggron. Latias OHKOs machamp.
T2: Crunch and Twave
T3->End Get it low and scout it to be Latios-8.
Kinda tempted to go double Lati but don't think it makes sense.
B6: No type / No phrase: Jynx / Blastoise / Misdreavus
T1: Jynx protects on OH. Latias attracts stoise which does nothing.
T2: OH misses, Jynx mean looks. Para stoise.
T3: Perish song, hydro pump kills arcanine. Dclaw chunks stoise.
T4: EQ kills stoise. Jynx protects Dclaw.
T5: Double on misdreavus kills. Jynx perish songs again.
T6: Double on jynx as it mean looks swampert.
That all got a bit spooky.
B7: No type / HRHR: Machamp / Slowking / Charizard
T1: Espeed and mist ball takes out champ. QC slowking does just under half to Lati.
T2: DE and Claw take down zard which does about 20% more to Lati. EQ gets Arcanine to around 30%.
T3: Crunch + Claw gets it done.
R10 victory!
B1: No type / HRHR: Machamp / Umbreon / Golem
T1: Psychic kills champ. AA into umbreon for tiny damage. Umbreon toxics… golem! Guts activation ftw.
T2: Surf kills golem + chips umbreon. AA chips umbreon. Toxic on mence.
T3: Kill with surf and AA.
B2: No type / HRHR: Metagross / Weezing / Regice - close call
T1: QC EQ gets starmie below half (damage means meta-4). Weezing dies and regice takes a bit of chip from AA. Likely regice-5 from eyeballing chip amounts? (banking on this being the case)
Meta wants to Shadow Ball Starmie
Regice wants to Ice Beam Salamence
Options:
Starmie Bolts meta and Mence stays in and rock slides. Dead to QC killing Starmie unless a mash on regirock misses. Otherwise Regirock EQ will kill meta (but underspeeds).
T3 would be mash + Ice beam (counter?!) regirock, then kill meta with EQ get low from Ice Beam or die to counter. Win if it Ice beams?
Swap out Starmie and rock slide. Mence likely dies. Regirock takes a shadow ball for ~13%.
T3 would be EQ and Tbolt Meta to kill it, (unless QC). Regice v likely to counter.
Tbolt meta and swap out Salamence. Starmie likely dies. Regirock takes a beam for ~35%, intim goes off on Regice.
T3 (apparently I really did just trail off on my notes here)
I thought about this for like 3 hours and didn't write most of it down here. Came down to surf + AA on Regice doing just enough to get in range for Regirock EQ to double kill. Almost auto-loses to QC shadow ball T2 (some flinch / crit outs) but didn't get QCd and got my own QC on T3 for good measure (had a roll to lose to a crit but pretty safe even without QC) Regirock -> Meta-4
B3: Ground / No Phrase: Rhydon / claydol / Arcanine
T1: Surf kills Rhydon and gets claydol below half. Swap out sala (potential ice beam) and take a rock slide.
T2: Surf again kills claydol and gets arcanine low. Switch back in sala who eats a flamethrower.
T3: Kill
B4: No type / No phrase: Aggron / Dusclops / Charizard
T1: Surf + Dclaw kills Aggron. Clops DTs and lefties.
T2: Tbolt + AA kills zard. Mence gets toxiced.
T3: Surf + AA kills clops.
B5: Grass / No phrase: Ludicolo / Cradily / Claydol
T1: AA just misses the kill on ludi. Cradily below half from beam. Sala takes 40% from AP. Ludi rain dances (was expecting Ice beam set)
T2: Double kill
T3: OHKO claydol with ST rain surf.
B6: No type / total prep: Latias / Scizor / Vaporeon
T1: Double into Lati to kill. Scizor Agis.
T2: Tbolt vape (to below half) and switch to meta. Scizor Agis again. Vape bites meta.
T3: Kill vape with tbolt and miss mash. Scizor SDs.
T4: Swap mie to mence which takes nothing from silver wind (2x intims helps!).
T5->End: AA and EQ it down.
B7: Fire / No phrase: Charizard / Shuckle / Arcanine
T1: Tbolt kills zard. Arc comes in with intim. AA takes a bit out of arc. Shuckle DTs.
T2: Surf fineshes arc (missed shuckle) and aa chips shuckle.
T3: Surf misses. AA crits shuckle down low. Starmie gets wrapped.
T4: Kill.
Round clear!
Draft: Aggron-4, Machamp-6, Zapdos-1, Steelix-2, Marowak-4, Crobat-4
Not a great draft. Any zapdos is good and I like crobat as a fast lead. Wak in the back brings some punch. But all weak to ice.
Take Zapdos / Crobat / Marowak
B1: No type / HRHR: Granbull / Shiftry / Electrode
T1: Sludge and Tbolt picks off Granbull. Shiftry explodes! Crobat does an unnecessary BP dodge. GG T1 win.
B2: No type / No phrase: Xatu / Glalie / Suicune
T1: Shadow ball kills Xatu. Tbolt gets Glalie low. Glalie Icy winds and Suicune comes in. Kinda scary!
T2: Glalie endures! Crobat knocks it down to 1 but doesn't get poison. Suicune rain dances and zapdos picks up kill with tbolt.
T3: Take a body slam but kill.
B3: No type / Slow and steady: Weezing / Registeel / Lapras
T1: Double into and kill Weezing. Take an AA on Zapdos.
T2: Double into and kill Lapras. Take an AA on Crobat.
T3->End: Confuse and hit it a bunch. It only ever AA'd, not sure why it never swaggered?
B4: No type / HRHR: Houndoom / Aerodactly / Latios
T1: OHKO Houndoom with Sludge bomb (IV privilege). Aero then fire blasts the incoming latios lol. Tbolt kills aero.
T2: Sludge and light screen to scout. Zap takes Ice beam for 90 damage. Given lots of sets have guaranteed psychic kills on crobat.
T3: Confuse ray reveals Lum Berry meaning Latios-4
Really tricky swap decision here. I legit think swapping any of my mons for Latios-4 has an argument.
Drop zapdos - Both chunky special attackers around 120 speed. Lati has much better coverage but slightly weaker stab and a bit weaker on phys.
Drop Crobat - Lose speed to KO the fast-and-frail mons (see Doom in this round). Ghost / Flying / Poison quite nicely covers the weaknesses zapdos doesn't.
Drop Marowak - It's slow and frail. Basically a huge BST boost but skewing my team quite special. Give crobat a nice psych switch-in. Crobat -> Latios-4 (It's fast but having extra bolt beam coverage is so nice, as is lum and intim immunity on lead)
B5: Ground / HRHR: Quagsire / Rhydon / Miltank
Phew, glad I took Lati. Was specifically scared of Rhydon OHKO moves for crobat.
T1: Peck quag to just over half. OHKO rhydon with Ice beam. Quag counters Zap to very low. Should've factored that in.
T2: Tbolt + Claw takes out Miltank. Counter does nothing.
T3: Drill peck + Dclaw takes out Quag.
V happy with swap. (Maybe it was more obvious than thought)
B6: No type / Slow and Steady: Ninetales / P2 / Glalie
T1: Ninetales blasts zapdos below half, double on P2 kills. Shell bell pulls Zapdos out of Fblast kill range.
T2: Iron tail misses. Double into Glalie kills.
T3: Blast takes zapdos to the red. Double up kills.
B7: No type / HRHR: Armaldo / Kingdra / Meganium
T1: Double into Kingdra and kill. DE crit on zapdos takes it out. First showing of Wak!
T2: Ice beam gets Meg low. EQ double kill thanks to DE recoil.
Round won!
Draft: Gardevoir-2, Raichu-4, Shuckle-3, Feraligatr-1, Starmie-1, Blissey-3.
I thought this was an absolute dumpster draft. 8 attacking moves, only 2 physical and both on mixed attackers. Starmie and Blissey are standouts here. Garde is OK but too much overlap with Starmie and noticeably worse. Gamble on the coverage and almighty power of protect on Raichu.
Take Starmie / Raichu / Blissey
B1: No type / HRHR: Latios / Muk / Fearow
T1: Psychic muk down to a pixel. Twave Latios which DDs. Muk misses sludge bomb.
T2: Confuse ray lati and finish off muk with tbolt. Lati self-hits.
T3: Psychic lati. Raichu outspeeds and OHKOs Fearow. Lati full Para.
T4: Psychic and mega-kick gets it into the red. Eqs to take out Raichu.
T5: Psychic BP misses but Blizz wins the day. Copying this over I have no idea why I didn't seem to even consider taking the lati here!
B2: No type / HRHR: Dugtrio / Latias / Ninetales
T1: Raichu protect. Dugtrio EQs. Starmie kills Dug. Latias tries to Twave Raichu.
T2: Ninetales misses fireblast. Double into it kills. Latias Twaves Starmie.
T3: Para lati. Lati is full Para'd. Confuse ray.
T4: Starmie recover to full (scouting). Tbolt lati. Lati dclaws revealing Latias-6.
T5->End: Psychics and Mega kicks with paras, misses, confus all thrown in. Raichu->Latias-6
B3: No type / No phrase: Jynx / Moltres / Clefable
T1: Double into moltres kills, jynx fake tears starmie (might be the first time I've ever seen that move in factory).
T2: Double into jynx gets it low. Ice beam + Mega kick take out starmie.
T3: Claw kills jynx. Fire blast burns clefable (serence grace!). Mega kick chips lati.
T4: Claw kills Clef.
B4: Ground / No phrase: Dugtrio / Ursaring / Nidoqueen
T1: Dug AAs Lati for basically nothing. Starmie crit kills Ursa. Nido takes half from a claw and poisons lati.
T2: Psychic kills dug. Claw doesn't kill Nidoqueen (sloppy, should've mist balled but low roll and didn't matter). Starmie takes a shadow ball.
T3: Kill.
B5: Psychic / HRHR: Alakazam / Exeggutor / Regirock
T1: Psychic + Claw kills zam, but it twaves starmie before going down. Exeggutor curses.
T2: Double into Regi gets it into red and it DTs. Exeggutor curses again.
T3: QC Rock slide. Confuse ray exeggutor which hits itself.
T4: Double gets exeggutor low. Curse number 3.
T5: Dclaw kills.
B6: Normal / HRHR: Snorlax / Nidoqueen / Granbull
T1: Psychic kills Nidoqueen. Attract Snorlax which loses its turn.
T2: Double into Granbull kills it dead. Snorlax loses turn again.
T3: Confuse Snorlax. Mist ball it (thought it dropped SpDef, whoops!). Snorlax loses turn again.
T4: Psychic + Claw. Loses its turn again.
T5: Kill.
No Lefties and no QC (could have missed it T4 tbh) activations. Not sure what lax it was.
B7: No type / HRHR: Arcanine / Dusclops / Metagross
T1: Psychic Arcanine (setup kill next turn). Starmie takes Crunch. Dclaw clops which DTs and lefties.
T2: Clops protects. Psychic kills Arcanine. Dclaw into the Arc slot hits metagross.
T3: Recover Starmie. Twave Meta. Mash gets Lati low. Toxic miss from Clops. (No lum or shell bell). Quirk of damage rolls means Meta-4 and Meta-6 can't hit the exact roll. So it's 8 or 3.
T4: Confuse meta. Switch in Blissey which takes a mash (Meta atk increase) and a toxic.
T5: Psychic + Blast kills Meta (think this was a slight high roll). Clops DTs.
T6 -> End. Para and confuse, lots more DTs and dodges before landing a Psychic, getting a Spdef drop and finishing off with dclaw. I guess I could've lost here due to pressure but getting 2 shots a round I think the odds were squarely in my favour.
Round victory! Can't believe I made it out of this one and getting kinda close to triple digits!
Draft: Dusclops-3, Typhlosion-2, Breloom-1, Donphan-1, Nidoqueen-3, Metagross-4
I really don't like this draft. Meta is clearly the best mon, typhlo a distant but solid second. Clops is weird because it doesn't really do anything in doubles. Breloom is paper, not quite fast enough and inaccurate stab is sad. Nido is trash. Donphan I've never got on with and don't have an EQ partner. I really like fast leads but that'd be typhlo / breloom which just doesn't pave the way for meta well enough.
Take Typhlo / Meta / Donphan
B1 No type / HRHR: Arcanine / Shiftry / Salamence
Oooof, really didn't want to see any fire types.
T1: Meta -> Donphan. FO on Donphan. Flames kills shiftry. OH misses Donphan.
T2: A double doesn't kill typhlo and -1 EQ kills Arc. So slide with typh for chip (no flinches). Arcanine DE on typh and mence Crunch on Donphan. Eq kills Arcanine.
T3: Take another Crunch. Psychic (QC) and AP take out mence.
Alright, I did a bad job of scouting here. For Mence I don't think it had lefties and I think at some point I saw donphan go 171->113, and several valid sets have higher damage options. That'd make it Mence 3. I don't know if arcanine had intim but I don't think so. I think I clearly want a mence here. Flying to avoid my terrible ground weakness and a decent fire resist too. Question is whether to drop typhlo or donphan. I like mence on lead but typhlo a lot better than phan imo and switching in intim can do some fun stuff messing with AI calcs.
Donphan -> Mence-3 (glad my scouting wasn't bad, not the best sala set but not awful)
B2 No type / HRHR: Glalie / Blaziken / Fearow
T1: Glalie protects flames. Switch in to Sala which uses herb and takes ~50% from overheat.
T2: Flames glalie, crunch blaz and take a slide.
T3: Endure and tpunch kills fearow. Blaziken Eqs to kill typhlo (missed this and shouldn't have).
T4: Endure (irrelevant) and kill with psychic.
B3: Ground / No phrase: Dugtrio / Donphan / Rapidash.
T1: Swap in mence for intim. Donphan QC EQ kills dugtrio! Rapidash takes about half from flamethrower.
T2: Flames kills rapidash. Crunch donphan. Slide takes out typhlosion and chips mence.
T3: No QC and Crunch / Psychic takes it.
Phew. This one was close. I thought I got super lucky T1 but actually. No QC means that Donphan kills rapidash after typhlo dispatches dugtrio. Probably would have made life easier as it'd have been a clean 2v1 with AI not wanting to EQ (I think, don't think anyone's smoothed that out yet).
B4: Normal / HRHR: Claydol / Tauros / Miltank
T1: Kinda trickier opener. Tauros quite likely to EQ which doesn't kill either mon but claydol has a range to kill typhlo with EQ so AI might select it. Decide that meta is important vs the other normal in the back and so… Switch meta for mence and get intim off. Flames Tauros (not Tauros-1), it DTs and claydol rock slides.
T2: Flames Tauros which hits, crunch claydol for about 50% and another rock slide. I think claydol now sees the kill with EQ maybe?
T3: Flames miltank, revealing thick fat. Crunch kills claydol. Typhlo gets twaved and miltank lefties.
T4: Twaves mence. Thunder punch and DE gets it low.
T5: Focus punch wind-up but tpunch kills.
B5: No type / No phrase: Vaporeon / Latias / Fearow
Oh boy, that's a lead.
T1: Flames and shadow ball kills frailer latis and doubles surf isn't that scary. Variance on latis means its hard to plan and decide to hit it. QC Shadow ball gets it low. Flames just misses the kill but gets a burn. Mist ball hits typhlo and then surf gets it into the red but stays up.
T2: Forgot that mist ball had dropped spa and miss kill on fearow (gets parad tho). Fearow kills typhlo, salamence takes the ice beam coming in and dies!!!!!!
T3: Kill fearow but surf does too much now its singles (missed that too in my flusteredness)
T4: EQ doesn't crit and run over. In retrospect - I think this could have been recoverable if I'd have taken a beat, reset the calc on surf damage and ignored Fearow at the end. That's factory for you though!
So, I actually started this run around new year. I'd got a L50 doubles run to 63 wins and wanted some more experience with mixed-sets before I pushed further. I decided to hit up OL and it all just went very very smoothly. This was before I was taking any notes so I don't have any details and I then went back to try and push L50 (you can see the ongoing OL run in my 95 wins card above). I've therefore only got notes from R10+, but at least I'm now into the swing of keeping decentish notes!
B1 No type / No phrase: Medicham / Electabuzz / Gyarados
T1: CM with espeon. Shadowball kills cham before it moves. Must be cham-4. Buzz t-waves flareon.
T2: Flareon tries to endure but is full para'd. Get buzz low with psychic but it twaves espeon which syncs back. Gyara DDs.
T3: Full para on espeon. Flareon takes a tbolt (wrote this up after - not sure this makes sense given speeds). Flareon kills with shadow ball. Gyara DDs.
T4: Espeon dies to frustration. Flareon balls gyara.
T5: Frustration takes P2 to around half. Tbolt kills it.
Kinda interested in taking gyara here. Intim is so nice and that set has some staying power. That's not how I normally like to play but I think we roll with it. Flareon -> Gyarados-4
B2: No type / HRHR: Typhlosion / Clefable / Salamence
T0: Intim reveals white herb.
T1: Espeon CMs. Swap gyara to P2 which takes a tpunch and tbolt (crit).
T2: Switch gyara back in (typhlo sees kill with OH) but hit the range to take it out with +1 espeon. Clefable Ice beams espeon.
T3: Psychic gets clef low. DE takes out Espeon. Frustration kills clef.
T4: Sala sees kill on P2, which it goes for. Scared of salac so DD on gyara.
T5: DD on gyara, DD on mence.
T6: Frustration doesn't kill mence. But it DEs and recoil kills it leaving gyara at around 1/3rd HP.
I don't really like rest in doubles - having 2 resters on lead feels wild. So Gyarados -> Salamence-4.
B3: No type / HRHR: Jolteon / Venusaur / Dugtrio
T1: Tbolt on Sala to just below half. Psychic venu. EQ which crits on espeon to clear the board other than sala.
T2: Fissure misses. AA kills.
B4: No type / No phrase: Victreebel / Articuno / Crobat
T1: Psychic kills victreebel. Swap to P2 and articuno… DTs?
T2: Screech on P2. Psychic kills crobat. Blizz chips espeon but misses P2. Tbolt + lefties leaves articuno a bit over half.
T3->End: throw out some moves - lots of misses!
B5: Psychic / One of Endurance (this must be a pretty rare type right?): Starmie / Gardevoir / Electrode
Starmie + Gardevoir - Buddy on point!
T1: Shadow ball Garde. Starmie Ice beams Sala to death, Garde shadow balls espeon. Trace illuminate.
T2: Ball kills garde. Starmie cosmic powers. P2 chunks starmie down to red! (My mental calcs are well off, didn't think this'd do anywhere near this much!)
T3: Clear up Starmie while electrode protects.
T4-> End: Protect and light screen but no jeopardy.
B6: No type / HRHR:
T1: Espeon CMs. Sala goes below half from raichu tbolt. Medicham finishes it off with ice punch. Speed ordering there reveals Raichu-1.
T2: Psychic takes out cham. Raichu DTs. P2 Ice beams the incoming flareon. Decided I wasn't really scared of Raichu so doubled into cham. I think that was right but Ice beam was the wrong play. Was worried about a fast EQ but still don't think Ice beam was the play.
T3: QC shadow ball almost ends the run but espeon holds on. Psychic kills in return. Raichu DTs again. Tbolt misses.
T4: Quick Attack kills espeon! I fully didn't even read the move on the page - wouldn't have changed anything this turn. Ice beam gets Raichu low.
T5: Tbolt -> Para -> Full para.
T Lots: Spam recover until tbolt runs out of PP. ~50% chance to 3HKO but get <some amount> of lucky and make it to quick attack.
Eventually land ice beam 2.
B7: No type / No Phrase: Sceptile / Latios / Scizor
Well… this is spooky.
T1: Decide mence is a huge liability so shadow ball lati and switch into p2. Sceptile DTs and Latios Dclaws porygon for about a third and gets some shell bell recovery.
T2: Shadow ball kills. Sceptile DTs again but P2 picks up the kill with ice beam through the evasion.
T3: Swap to mence. Hit tbolt and silver wind on mence picks up an omniboost!
T4: Crit AA finishes him off, don't think I was in much danger anyway!
Well, I played that round absolutely shockingly and got majorly bailed out by P2 and a bit of luck on multiple occasions. Last battle is the only one I was happy with and that turned out very uneventful in the end. Probably shouldn't play when tilted from losing a l50 run!
Zam is best, Dodrio is second. I don't want Hypno. I do like fakeout and dewgong is bulky… Decide to lead Mime + Zam with Dodrio in the back. Expecting that a lot of the time I can maneouvre the first couple of turns into a big advantage despite lack of type diversity. Strong consideration for Dodrio / Zam / Dewgong but Electrics just become so scary.
Take Mr.Mime, Alakazam, Dodrio
B1: No type / HRHR: Exeggutor / Gyarados / Exploud
T1: Gyara lives a tpunch and exeggutor gets faked out. Mime takes a twave.
T2: Tpunch gyara. Toxic misses and exploud gets hit by psychic and spdef drop reveals white herb.
T3: Psychic drops Exploud. Mime gets seeded.
T4+T5: Switch, ice punch and peck for the win.
B2: No type / HRHR: Garde / Whiscash / Victreebel
T1: Garde is a bit spooky, neither of my leads hit it at all well. Likely a tanky whiscash but decide to just double whiscash to fish for some info on garde and steal a turn. Whiscash dies with zam taking an ice punch, not a scary set to face really.
T2: Crit Garde with Ice punch. Get taken low in return. Mime kills victreebel.
T3: Win.
I kinda want to take Garde-3 but it's a bit of silly idea really.
B3: Rock / No phrase: Weezing / Shuckle / Aerodactyl
Eeeek. That phrase has me reconsidering whether I want to take garde. In practice though Mr Mimes magical leaf is actually alright.
T1: Psychic and Leaf into weezing slot. Idea being to soften up any ttar in the back. Weezing does die and Aero comes in and takes some chip (probably 1 or 2 from rolls). Shuckle DTs.
T2: Ah, Band aero kills with hyper beam but it's much more likely to be aero-1 which still outspeeds. Double psychics into aero slot anyway, if zam dies to beam mime can pick it off next turn. Zam takes an AA and kills in return. Mime hits shuckle which sets up another DT.
T3->End: Some hits, some misses, zam gets to synchro toxic but enough damage gets through to take down the bug.
B4: No type / Impossible to predict: Muk / Raichu / Clefable
But… I've got Zam!
T1: 87% chance it's curse Muk and even spread across Raichus. Muk-1 has tiny chance to live psychic, but Raichus are frail enough to just die too. Decide to fake-out muk and go for kill on Raichu to avoid static, taking risk with BP. Clean kill and flinch! Clef comes in.
T2: Very unscary. Kill Muk with Zam and dent clef which DTs and lefties.
T3: Kill
B5: No type / No phrase: Meganium / Aggron / Kangaskhan
Nothing very lethal on either side here.
T1: Decide most Meganiums aren't threatening but that only zam can really deal with aggron so fake-out + punch it down to about 40%. Meg DTs.
T2: Still not that scared of Meganium got plenty of offense to bust through it 3v1 so fire punch and psychic into aggron slot. Kill Aggron and Kang at 60%. Meg subs.
T3->End Zam kills Kang with a psychic then just thrown moves at meg until it dies.
B6: No type / No phrase: Medicham / Fearow / Shiftry
That's a low BST lead from my opponent!
T1: Zam outspeeds and OHKOs all Fearows and all Medichams. FO on zam could be annoying so decide to Psychic cham and FO fearow. A chance mime gets FOd and fearow does something but that's not too scary. Cham goes down, fearow flinches.
T2: More potential fake-outs. Double into Fearow (wastes redirect on Shiftry but its not scary) and shiftry sets up sun.
T3: Mime eats a solarbeam. Fire punch kills.
B7: No type / No phrase: Hariyama / Flygon / Gyarados
T1: Zam is eating good here with OHKOs on both. Fake out Hariyama Ice punch flygon is very low risk, with BP being the main issue but even then it'd need a crit to get a kill. All smooth, a flinch and a kill.
T2: Tpunch OHKOs Gyara. Psychic gets Hariyama low. EQ crits on Mime but no fatalities.
T3: QC is kinda spooky here. I should have switched zam out to Dodrio as slide would've needed a crit next turn. What I actually did was press psychic twice without thinking, and got away with it.
What a weird round. No pseudos or legendaries in sight. Pretty happy with how I played, generally finding quite safe paths through things. Not sure that team really stands up against some of the bulkier mons in factory as it relied on snowballing an advantage. This reminded me how crazy good Fake Out is next to something that hits hard and fast - even if there isn't a kill on the cards T1 you can usually set up a kill T2 that loses the AI a turn and potentially hits something in the back.
Draft: Arcanine-3 (Intim), Glalie-2, Nidoking-2, Dewgong-1, Steelix-3 (Rock head), Starmie-7 (Illuminate)
Well, Psychic / No Phrase is high chance of Latis, Meta, Garde. Luckily this draft has reasonable checks for those in starmie and arcanine. I have nothing that pressures waters here, though Starmie can probably 1v1 a lot of them if I can get to that endgame. I could go steelix / glalie for boom strats but that's not consistent for this stage of the run. Arc / Starmie lead is staring me right in the face and I can't really see a reason to go for anything else. Question is what backmon do we want? Glalie does nothing in the back, ditto dewgong really. Nidoking is alright but battle 1 is psychic and the back mon is the switch I want to make (a meta would be so nice!). That leaves steelix? I guess that works but I'm going to need to be very careful about what I put it in front of.
Take Arcanine, Starmie, Steelix
B1: Psychic / No Phrase: Latios / Mr Mime / Tauros
T1: There's the Lati I was expecting! Always terrifying as several Latis can OHKO Starmie if we get fake-out'd. I don't think I can play around that though, switching Mie to steelix leaves Arcanine open to getting doubled. Send the double into Latios and…
Fake-out on Arcanine, Ice Beam gets Latios low, freezes but Lati Lums! Tbolt comes out and Starmie lives on 4HP!
T2: Both are going to go for kill on Starmie. We clearly crunch Lati with Arcanine but can choose to recover or switch on Starmie. Steelix doesn't really do anything but also takes nothing from Mime. Switch seems safer to crit even if it leaves Steelix in awkwardly.
Go for Switch + Crunch. Lati dies, Steelix takes nothing from Psychic. Tauros comes in and intim burns white herb.
T3: Tauros-1 outspeeds and can swagger, all Tauros die to Overheat. Seems like we just want to Double into Tauros as Starmie has a good shot to be able to recover up and beat Mime if it comes to it.
Overheat connects and picks up a kill at which point it's basically GG. Psychic on Arcanine does a bit. Body Slam paras.
T4: Crunch and Body slam crit kills.
Gimme that Lati! Steelix -> Latios-4. Would be lovely if it could lead with Starmie in the back but such is life.
B2: No type / No phrase: Magmar / Milotic / Hariyama
T1: What a weird lead. I kinda just want to ignore milo as it's pretty likely to Mirror Coat but it could hydro pump Arcanine to death. This is why we don't go 3 special attackers I guess!
Decide to just double Magmar, Psychic gets it v low so must be 2 or 3. Hariyama comes in and Milo Surfs, does 130 on arcanine revealing Milo-3 (no mirror coat!).
T2: Seems clear to double Hariyama. Fake out on Arc + Surf could kill it but we'll just clean house next turn. As it happens, Psychic just kills it, AA chips Milo and surf gets Arcanine low.
T3: Swap or just punch? Honestly, either looks fine - decide to tack on the damage while I can rather than try and get fancy. Arcanine dies as expected but easily in range of the double so…
T4: Psychic + tbolt kills.
I was very happy with this team but staring down potential mirror coat humbled me a bit here, good to keep things interesting!
B3: No type / Battle's flow: Venusaur / Vaporeon / Shuckle
T1: Vaporeon back to end another run?! If an overheat hits this is all pretty fine. If overheat misses and psychic doesn't kill though a giga drain + surf kills Starmie and gets arcanine super low.
That could lose me the game. That's like 1% to happen though with miss, missed roll, being Venu-1, clicking drain on starmie. Think I need to send it or else I'm being too passive.
Oh, shit - forgot Starmie outsped Arc. Luckily psychic gets the kill and shuckle takes an Overheat and recovers with lefties. Vape surfs and damage roll reveals vape 2 or 3.
T2: Definitely in a good spot here. Vape can't really beat Starmie after a cosmic power or 2 (and Lati 2-shots) so just need to avoid any shuckle BS. Double into it with psychich and crunch. Psychic gets the kill (must've double high-rolled!), shadow ball on Starmie.
T3->End: Vape sends a few shadow balls at Starmie (2 spdef drops) while it cosmics up and recovers. Arcanine chips with Crunch until Starmie finishes with psychic.
B4: No type / HRHR: Electabuzz / Espeon / Regirock
T1: Kinda a scary lead. Espeon isn't super threatening T1 but CMs are spooky. Electabuzz very likely sees a kill on Starmie and Espeons will probably want to CM. A few options here; doubling on buzz; OH buzz / espeon and cosmic power; OH Espeon (which outspeeds) and cosmic power; OH and Swap; double into either slot. Decide that Espeon is most likely to end the run so go for Beam / Crunch which kills even through a CM and roll the dice for Starmie. Espeon wishes and Thunder hits killing starmie. Regirock comes in.
T2: I can't remember the logic on Explosion in doubles with nothing in the back. Still it seems clear that Regirock is the scary one here. So Lustre purge to debuff and overheat for damage (before rain dance) seems good.
Buzz tightens focus. OH connects as does lustre purge getting rock low. Rock slide misses Arcanine and then wish comes through (forgot about this)
T3: I think an OH and Dclaw kills rock here so surely have to go for that. Latios ruins electabuzz so not too scared about it being left. Get the kill on rock and Buzz sets up the rain - perfect.
T4: Electabuzz focuses and dies.
Phew.
B5: No type / Slow and Steady: Tyranitar / Misdreavus / Slowbro – close call
T1: Well, was bound to run into a Ttar at some point - my team is definitely a bit weak into it - especially next to a levitator! At least we got intim off. Bah, so many things can happen on this T1! Twave from misdreavus is nasty for example.
I really want Ttar gone, but actually killing misdreavus and baiting the EQ on whatever is in the back is also very appealing. Some special Ttars have kill rolls on Starmie but think I need to roll the dice on that.
Double into Misdreavus picks up the kill neatly. Slowbro comes in and Ttar Eqs, missing starmie due to bright powder.
T2: Looks like crunch + psychic might kill slowbro, I think I need to get this to a 2v1 so go for it. QC surf! Kills arcanine, psychic chips slowbro more, crunch gets latios down to about a quarter. And I realise I've been looking at HRHR in the buddy.
T3: This is really bad, Ttar sees a kill on Starmie and Latios. Slowbro sees a kill on Lati. I'm absolutely dead to QC I think. If Ttar kills lati then I want to cosmic power twice on Starmie and try and recover / chip. If Ttar is going to go Starmie then I need to Ice beam to fish for a freeze.
Situation is as follows:
Ttar-2 – 100% HP
Slowbro-3/4 -~40% HP
Vs
Starmie-7 – 189/261 HP
Latios-4 – 93/336 HP
So, after thinking about this a bunch it's not too complex. HPs are above. It's Ttar-2 and Slowbro-3/4 but 3 is much more likely given the surf roll. Can't try and double into Ttar as slowbro kills starmie in 2 turns with 2 sands and that's how long it would take to kill. Lati has a good chance to 2-shot ttar but starmie needs 3 hits. Starmie almost always lives a crunch + sand at +1, if it does that then there's a good chance that ttar picks a non-crunch move and recover leaves me in a good spot. So I think the tree is a bit complicated, as each turn ttar can hit either mon:
Prospective T4 - Tbolt bro and CP. If QC then lose. Ttar will Crunch something, killing lati and getting mie low.
Prospective T5 (Lati alive) - Dclaw and recover.
Prospective T5 (Lati died T4) - CP again before the hit.
Prospective T6 (Lati alive) - Dclaw and if starmie is alive then beam to confirm.
Prospective T6 (Lati died T4) - Start recovering, hope for low rolls, selecting tbolt or even EQ / RS when low, BP misses etc.
Prospective T6 (Lati died T5) - Start recovering, hope for low rolls BP misses etc.
Or to sum it up better - focus on keeping starmie alive by setting up CPs and / or recovering and hitting things with lati while it's alive.
Send it.
T3: No QC, Tbolt kills and crunch on starmie isn't a high roll - sand gets starmie super low! Step one of the plan complete.
T4: Dclaw gets ttar below half, recover and ttar goes for tbolt on starmie! Starmie lives with sand on a pixel!
T5: Choose to recover rather than beam for confirmation as BP miss on ttar seems more likely than missing the range. Recover, Dclaw gets it done! I can't believe I got out of that - holy shit. Think I definitely found the best line to maximise my chances, although maybe I made it more complicated than it needed to be?
Considering a swap here but I don't think it makes my team better, just means I won't face ttar again, but going into battle 6 that seems low value.
B6: No type / HRHR: Ampharos / Machamp / Lapras
T1: Kinda an awkward lead. Machamp isn't that scary but ampharos requires an OH to connect to get rid of. Decide that I can pretty much ignore Machamp and double into Amphy. Psychic hits, OH misses and Amphy hits a twave on Arc. Think that must be ampharos-2 that didn't see a tpunch kill. Nice. Machamp counters uselessly.
T2: Same again? Good chance to chunk something in the back with OH is nice. Psychic connects and kills. Machamp Facades Starmie for not very much and overheat absolutely chunks a lapras (down to 20%ish?), think it must be 0 bulk so 2 or 5.
T3: Can't see much going wrong doubling into Lapras. It might have QC but QC body slam para is about the worst on the table and even then Arc can likely pick up the kill with crunch and even without that I'm still winning. Lapras goes down to psychic, crunch does v little and revenge chips Starmie.
T4: Psychic kills.
B7: No type / HRHR: Skarmory / Regice / Raikou
T1: Well, my team doesn't really care about skarmory at all so that's nice. Regice is kinda spooky as an all special team. Overheat is definitely a good button to press but starmie doesn't really want to take a tbolt but it looks like all tbolt regices would probably rather twave or DT. Thunder is a clean kill but unlikely to be that set. Cosmic power plus OH seems like it keeps options most open. Regice down to about 20% and twaves Starmie, skarm counters.
T2: No lefties means it's boom Regice. Killing it with Arc would take my last full power OH which I'd kinda rather send at skarm at some point. Still more likely to twave than boom and that'd be annoying. Decide to OH regice again and psychic into whatever comes in. OH connects for the kill, Raikou comes in and takes ~60%. Skarm counters again. Can't be Raikou-6 from damage roll.
T3: Raikous are fast! Latios kinda dunks on both these mons. The question really is whether I switch it in and risk it. Raikou-1 will likely CM. Raikou-2 will Thunder. Raikou-3 will tbolt something (2 rolls kill Starmie) and Raikou-5 probably Tbolts or reflects. I likely want to switch Arc to clear drops so better to pull in lati which basically never dies here. So OH and swap.
Correct choice! QC peck on Arcanine, Thunder connects on Lati and para's (gets lumd), OH connects and kills.
T4: Tbolt and swap but tbolt kills so unnecessary!
What a team
What a round. Really happy with how I played almost everything here - had a good team but still some reasonably challenging spots. I think it probably helps that this round was spread over like 3 days with a battle here and a battle there which kept me sharp. I rate cosmic power starmie a chunk higher now. Being able to consistently live things (especially when baiting kills) gives a lot of flexibility.
This is the weirdest draft I've ever had.
Draft: Registeel-5, Metagross-7, Metagross-8, Lapras-7 (Water absorb), Machamp-7, Hypno-2. Realised in typing this up I must have mixed up the order here as I had swaps for 3 elevations but I've got my metas down as 2nd and 3rd - not like it matters but a bit weird!
Yuk yuk yuk. Obviously meta-8 is cracked but the other 4 mons give me very little to work with. Normally I'd pretty much instantly dismiss all the other sets as being durdley do-nothing singles stall sets. Guess I need to work out something to do with them. So, that Registeel is tanky as anything and doesn't even really mind Meta going boom in its face, if Meta does that T2 with Regi behind a sub then that's a big bonus. Having just lost a l50 run to missing 4 mega kicks in a row I'm pretty sanguine on low acc moves. Machamp is just a worse registeel, although it doesn't share ground / fire weaknesses at least. Why does nightmare exist as a move? I suppose a tanky hypnosis mon has some value… Very few mons see an EQ kill on meta so unless they're next to a flier they're unlikely to go for it at least. It's actually kinda tempting to not take a meta and go full bullshit stall - but I don't think that can win me 7 battles and won't support swaps. Waaaay more mons have sturdy than I thought, including lots of grounds that I'd want Lapras to be able to cover. I think my best bet here is just to go for the BST rule and take registeel + lapras. It's got weaknesses but I don't think there's a "solid" team here - just one that absolutely wrecks a bunch of teams and folds to others. Looking on swaps to dig me out of that situation.
Take: Registeel, Meta-8, Lapras
B1 No type / HRHR: Exeggutor / Donphan / Charizard
T1: Well Donphan was one of the mons I was worried about nice to see a sturdy mon that also poops on registeel Seems like there's a good sub setup here for registeel. Mash doesn't get donphan into endure range. Lots of donphans are quite likely to go for fissure as EQ will be deprioritised. Lapras is awful here. Two options are try and get donphan down in 2 turns or boom and setup sub. Going for 2 turns of mash is weak to fissure spam or sleep powder bs, boom is asking to get BP dodged by exeggutor-4. If I lose meta, I don't see how lapras and registeel can do anything to donphan.
Boom kills 2 opps and doesn't crit regi. Charizard comes in. Zard-4 or Zard-3 would be great leads with meta here.
T2: Overheat into Regi sub and white herb. Miss horn drill. Sub back up.
T3: Overheat into Regi sub. Hit horn drill.
This feels like a clear registeel -> Zard swap. But being able to boom and then soak turns with registeel was so nice… Nah, too weak to EQ and fire mons as it was and this unleashes meta to EQ itself. Registeel-5 -> Zard-4
B2: No type / Impossible to predict: Quagsire / Tyranitar / Regice
We had a sturdy mon B1 and now a damp mon - hooray!
T1: Brick break kills a lot of ttars but is an unfavourable range on ttar-6 which I'm staring at. Could double it, although a QC rock slide from ttar-7 is devastating and it'd have to be OH. Also kinda worried about quag getting up lots of curses although if it's quag-2 it needs a lot before it threatens lapras. Quag 3 with a flier coming in could get a bit awkward. I think brick break + swap is relatively safe though doesn't have huge upside.
BB gets the kill! Regice comes in! Quag gets up a curse. This is looking pretty comfy but has the opportunity to go wrong still.
T2: Mash kills all regice so no need to worry about counter. Quag doesn't quite see a kill on meta with EQ for this one turn. I think it's just mash and attempt an OHKO move this turn - potentially attempt a boom next turn if Quag is the only one left. Regice goes down neatly with an attack boost, Quag curses again.
T3: Ahhhh, this is kinda spooky. If it is quag 3 then it now has an EQ kill on meta, a DE kill on Zard and an EQ 2-shot on lapras. Meta can't really do anything but boom which kills quag-3 and gets quag-2 down to a pixel. I don't think there's value in both taking damage from an EQ. The OHKO on ttar means it's unlikely to be one with bulk and no QC so far means it's looking like Quag-2. Think the play is to attempt a boom and switch to zard. Lapras can almost always beat quag-2 and this buys more turns if it’s a damp quag-3. It is damp but quag-2 as it went for curse-3.
T4: OH and mash. OH misses, mash does some damage. Zard dies to a sludge bomb?! Why didn't it go for EQ kill?! Well, nothing to do now but full send on this turn I think.
T5: Send. Hit mash, miss OHKO. Meta gets EQ'd down, lapras lives on a pixel.
T6: Rest, crit sludge bomb and sand finished me off.
Boooooooooooooooooooo.
Three things occur to me on reflection:
- Quag AI at the end makes sense as Curse still gets + priority and EQ gets minus from the ghost of Regice.
- I should maybe have left regice alone and swapped onto Quag T2, hard to see that play at the time.
- In the same position I think I'd take hypno over Lapras. It got down to a 3v1 but Lapras was playing its own game, if it'd have been able to contribute some chip this would have been unlosable.
Still definitely some sour luck on the draft and the battle. Back to R1!
Hi everyone! New to smogon but after being inspired by LRXCs streams I've been hard at work at the factory for the past 3-4 months! This'll be a bit of a long one but I wanted to do 3 things:
Advertise the Battle Factory Buddy that I've created and am hosting. It's an online tool for helping calculate which mons you're likely to face in factory, both before battles start (using scientist info, your team etc.) and for deducing sets in the later rounds based on moves, items etc. You can find it here: https://battlefactorybuddy.azurewebsites.net/ let me know if you give it a go!
Submit a run of 95 for L50 Doubles Factory on emulator.
Submit a run of 85 for OL Doubles Factory on emulator. I'm currently running this category to try and beat Aziz's 104!
I started taking notes at round 8 as that's when it feels like a real run to me! My notes are a bit sparse and a bit play-by-play at first but get a bit more in-depth as they go.
B1 Flying / No phrase: Sceptile / Aerodactyl / Fearow
Double ice into sceptile, hit the range with starmie and then OHKO the fearow in the back. Aero Aps starmie for 40ish% and dies T2.
Mr. Mime -> Sceptile 2 - not convinced on this but wanted something faster next to starmie and coverage was redundant.
B2 No type / HRHR: Rhydon / Garde / Breloom
T1: Rhydon QC horn drills Starmie!!! LB kills Rhydon. Hypnosis sceptile cured by lum.
T2: Breloom focuses and dies to double-up.
T3-T4: Take down garde after magical leaf and missed hypnosis.
B3 No type / HRHR: Forre / Weezing / Blastoise.
T1: Psychic weezing and chip forre with tpunch. Counter fails.
T2: Double into and kill stoise. Forre protects.
T3: Forre protects.
T4: Double into forre kills.
B4 Poison / HRHR: Nidoking / Ninetales / Vileplume
T1: OHKO Nido and get FF switching in doom.
T2: OHKO vileplume and sludge ninetales which DEs doom.
T3: Cleanup.
B5 no type / HRHR: Gardevoir / Golem / Dewgong.
T1: Starmie kills golem with surf and sceptile takes 70% off dewgong coming in. Garde takes about 70% off Starmie.
T2: Kill dewgong and swap to doom.
T3: Win.
B6 no type / no phrase: Altaria / Salamence / Cradily
T1: Kill salamence and attract altaria. Kinda interesting decision here, more altarias have kill shots on sceptile even though sala is way more scary. Came down to which I could attract in the end and altaria just Eqd for no damage.
T2: Take out altaria and confuse ray trigger lum on starmie.
T3: win.
B7 no type / battle's flow: Blastoise / Raikou / Blissey
Not swapping sceptile for sala, don't know which set and regice chances are kinda spooky.
T1: Kill blastoise with a crit. Swap to doom and eat a thunder and get para'd.
T2: blade the raikou for chip. Thunder kills doom and blissey counters.
T3: blade and psychic double up outspeeds and kills raikou. Fat finger surf, feel despair, get bailed out by leaf blade crit. Counter again.
T4 -> end: Attract blissey and nuke it down. Maybe got a bit lucky here but with attract and spdef drops I think I was 90+% to win.
B1: no type / hrhr: Victreebel / Metagross / Arcanine
T1: Double EQ, double kill. Meta took ~85% from Flygon EQ.
T2: Double EQ, single kill.
Golduck -> Metagross-8 (any meta is better though need to be careful not to EQ myself)
B2: No type / battle's flow: Raichu / Shiftry / Shuckle
T1: Double kill with EQ Ice Beam
T2: Shuckle uses flash and is nearly dead.
T3: Shuckle is dead.
B3: Flying / HRHR: Crobat / Fearow / Garde
T1: Swap into meta blocking screech. Tbolt kills fearow before it moves (Fearow-4).
T2: Double QC, missing mash on garde but killing crobat. Garde reflects.
T3-T4: Kill it.
B4: No type / Slow and Steady: Slaking / Umbreon / Alakazam
T1: Psychic the slaking, swap to meta taking nothing from an ice beam. Umb DTs.
T2: Mash and miss Umbreon. It DTs again.
T3: Take an ice beam on lati. Hit tbolt, miss mash. Confuse meta.
T4: Miss tbolt, hit EQ on both. Umb faint attack.
T5: Psych Slaking down. Hit EQ on umb (killing it!) and taking zam low.
T6: Tbolt Zam down.
Phew.
B5: No type / HRHR:
T1: Flygon double crits to kill champ and golem . Ursaring takes 40% from other EQ.
T2: Get quick claw facaded but it doesn't matter.
B6: Electric / No Phrase: Electabuzz / Raikou / Hariyama
T1: Psychic electabuzz (no Raikous do anything to flygon) and swap to meta. Meta eats an ice punch and a quick attack, making me feel very smug.
T2: EQ and switch back to flygon. Immuning twave, taking 30% from ice punch to lati. Kills electabuzz and raikou down to a pixel.
T3: Quick claw psychic takes out Raikou (had doubled into it in case of fakeout). Quick claw ice punch freezes flygon.
T4: Psychic kills Hariyama.
B1: No type / No Phrase: Sceptile / Lanturn / Ursaring
Kinda scary lead. Team doesn't do great against Grass or Water.
T1: Leaf blade lapras down to half, overheat connects and kills. Ursaring takes 60% from Ice beam (OH miss insurance). Arcanine down to hydro.
T2: Ice beam down ursa, Thunder misses (irrelevant) and EQ kills Lanturn.
Sceptile is either Sceptile-1 or Sceptile-2 - probably take it over lapras? Decide no.
B2: No type / No phrase: Gardevoir / Magmar / Electabuzz
T1: Crunch and Beam take down garde. Magmar misses F blast.
T2: Swap into swampert which gets confused and overheat kills electabuzz.
T3: QC confuse on Arcanine which hits itself but swampert surf kills.
B3: Fire / HRHR: Blaziken / Latias / Entei
T1: Espeed and Surf to kill Blaziken (it was very likely to EQ!). Lapras gets twaved.
T2: Crunch Lati to below half. Entei DTs lapras eats a Dclaw and Lapras doesn't get full para'd ice beaming the lati down.
T3->End: Entei sets up 3 DTs and lapras gets para'd a bunch. On the last turn Entei flamethrowers arcanine - doesn't it know it must have flash fire cos of no intim? OH, Surf and crunch get it done.
Blaz-3, Latias-6, Entei-1/4
Lapras -> Latias-6
New PB!
B4: No type / No phrase: Breloom / Jolteon / Nidoqueen
T1: Breloom winds up focus punch. Overheat jolt which just survives (but underspeeds arc). Tbolt into lati for nothing. Mist ball kills breloom.
T2: Espeed jolt. Mist ball gets Nido into red. Ice beam lati for 40%ish.
T3: Kill.
B5: No type / No phrase: Aggron / Machamp / Latios
T1: Overheat OHKOs aggron. Latias OHKOs machamp.
T2: Crunch and Twave
T3->End Get it low and scout it to be Latios-8.
Kinda tempted to go double Lati but don't think it makes sense.
B6: No type / No phrase: Jynx / Blastoise / Misdreavus
T1: Jynx protects on OH. Latias attracts stoise which does nothing.
T2: OH misses, Jynx mean looks. Para stoise.
T3: Perish song, hydro pump kills arcanine. Dclaw chunks stoise.
T4: EQ kills stoise. Jynx protects Dclaw.
T5: Double on misdreavus kills. Jynx perish songs again.
T6: Double on jynx as it mean looks swampert.
That all got a bit spooky.
B7: No type / HRHR: Machamp / Slowking / Charizard
T1: Espeed and mist ball takes out champ. QC slowking does just under half to Lati.
T2: DE and Claw take down zard which does about 20% more to Lati. EQ gets Arcanine to around 30%.
T3: Crunch + Claw gets it done.
R10 victory!
B1: No type / HRHR: Machamp / Umbreon / Golem
T1: Psychic kills champ. AA into umbreon for tiny damage. Umbreon toxics… golem! Guts activation ftw.
T2: Surf kills golem + chips umbreon. AA chips umbreon. Toxic on mence.
T3: Kill with surf and AA.
B2: No type / HRHR: Metagross / Weezing / Regice - close call
T1: QC EQ gets starmie below half (damage means meta-4). Weezing dies and regice takes a bit of chip from AA. Likely regice-5 from eyeballing chip amounts? (banking on this being the case)
Meta wants to Shadow Ball Starmie
Regice wants to Ice Beam Salamence
Options:
Starmie Bolts meta and Mence stays in and rock slides. Dead to QC killing Starmie unless a mash on regirock misses. Otherwise Regirock EQ will kill meta (but underspeeds).
T3 would be mash + Ice beam (counter?!) regirock, then kill meta with EQ get low from Ice Beam or die to counter. Win if it Ice beams?
Swap out Starmie and rock slide. Mence likely dies. Regirock takes a shadow ball for ~13%.
T3 would be EQ and Tbolt Meta to kill it, (unless QC). Regice v likely to counter.
Tbolt meta and swap out Salamence. Starmie likely dies. Regirock takes a beam for ~35%, intim goes off on Regice.
T3 (apparently I really did just trail off on my notes here)
I thought about this for like 3 hours and didn't write most of it down here. Came down to surf + AA on Regice doing just enough to get in range for Regirock EQ to double kill. Almost auto-loses to QC shadow ball T2 (some flinch / crit outs) but didn't get QCd and got my own QC on T3 for good measure (had a roll to lose to a crit but pretty safe even without QC) Regirock -> Meta-4
B3: Ground / No Phrase: Rhydon / claydol / Arcanine
T1: Surf kills Rhydon and gets claydol below half. Swap out sala (potential ice beam) and take a rock slide.
T2: Surf again kills claydol and gets arcanine low. Switch back in sala who eats a flamethrower.
T3: Kill
B4: No type / No phrase: Aggron / Dusclops / Charizard
T1: Surf + Dclaw kills Aggron. Clops DTs and lefties.
T2: Tbolt + AA kills zard. Mence gets toxiced.
T3: Surf + AA kills clops.
B5: Grass / No phrase: Ludicolo / Cradily / Claydol
T1: AA just misses the kill on ludi. Cradily below half from beam. Sala takes 40% from AP. Ludi rain dances (was expecting Ice beam set)
T2: Double kill
T3: OHKO claydol with ST rain surf.
B6: No type / total prep: Latias / Scizor / Vaporeon
T1: Double into Lati to kill. Scizor Agis.
T2: Tbolt vape (to below half) and switch to meta. Scizor Agis again. Vape bites meta.
T3: Kill vape with tbolt and miss mash. Scizor SDs.
T4: Swap mie to mence which takes nothing from silver wind (2x intims helps!).
T5->End: AA and EQ it down.
B7: Fire / No phrase: Charizard / Shuckle / Arcanine
T1: Tbolt kills zard. Arc comes in with intim. AA takes a bit out of arc. Shuckle DTs.
T2: Surf fineshes arc (missed shuckle) and aa chips shuckle.
T3: Surf misses. AA crits shuckle down low. Starmie gets wrapped.
T4: Kill.
Round clear!
Draft: Aggron-4, Machamp-6, Zapdos-1, Steelix-2, Marowak-4, Crobat-4
Not a great draft. Any zapdos is good and I like crobat as a fast lead. Wak in the back brings some punch. But all weak to ice.
Take Zapdos / Crobat / Marowak
B1: No type / HRHR: Granbull / Shiftry / Electrode
T1: Sludge and Tbolt picks off Granbull. Shiftry explodes! Crobat does an unnecessary BP dodge. GG T1 win.
B2: No type / No phrase: Xatu / Glalie / Suicune
T1: Shadow ball kills Xatu. Tbolt gets Glalie low. Glalie Icy winds and Suicune comes in. Kinda scary!
T2: Glalie endures! Crobat knocks it down to 1 but doesn't get poison. Suicune rain dances and zapdos picks up kill with tbolt.
T3: Take a body slam but kill.
B3: No type / Slow and steady: Weezing / Registeel / Lapras
T1: Double into and kill Weezing. Take an AA on Zapdos.
T2: Double into and kill Lapras. Take an AA on Crobat.
T3->End: Confuse and hit it a bunch. It only ever AA'd, not sure why it never swaggered?
B4: No type / HRHR: Houndoom / Aerodactly / Latios
T1: OHKO Houndoom with Sludge bomb (IV privilege). Aero then fire blasts the incoming latios lol. Tbolt kills aero.
T2: Sludge and light screen to scout. Zap takes Ice beam for 90 damage. Given lots of sets have guaranteed psychic kills on crobat.
T3: Confuse ray reveals Lum Berry meaning Latios-4
Really tricky swap decision here. I legit think swapping any of my mons for Latios-4 has an argument.
Drop zapdos - Both chunky special attackers around 120 speed. Lati has much better coverage but slightly weaker stab and a bit weaker on phys.
Drop Crobat - Lose speed to KO the fast-and-frail mons (see Doom in this round). Ghost / Flying / Poison quite nicely covers the weaknesses zapdos doesn't.
Drop Marowak - It's slow and frail. Basically a huge BST boost but skewing my team quite special. Give crobat a nice psych switch-in. Crobat -> Latios-4 (It's fast but having extra bolt beam coverage is so nice, as is lum and intim immunity on lead)
B5: Ground / HRHR: Quagsire / Rhydon / Miltank
Phew, glad I took Lati. Was specifically scared of Rhydon OHKO moves for crobat.
T1: Peck quag to just over half. OHKO rhydon with Ice beam. Quag counters Zap to very low. Should've factored that in.
T2: Tbolt + Claw takes out Miltank. Counter does nothing.
T3: Drill peck + Dclaw takes out Quag.
V happy with swap. (Maybe it was more obvious than thought)
B6: No type / Slow and Steady: Ninetales / P2 / Glalie
T1: Ninetales blasts zapdos below half, double on P2 kills. Shell bell pulls Zapdos out of Fblast kill range.
T2: Iron tail misses. Double into Glalie kills.
T3: Blast takes zapdos to the red. Double up kills.
B7: No type / HRHR: Armaldo / Kingdra / Meganium
T1: Double into Kingdra and kill. DE crit on zapdos takes it out. First showing of Wak!
T2: Ice beam gets Meg low. EQ double kill thanks to DE recoil.
Round won!
Draft: Gardevoir-2, Raichu-4, Shuckle-3, Feraligatr-1, Starmie-1, Blissey-3.
I thought this was an absolute dumpster draft. 8 attacking moves, only 2 physical and both on mixed attackers. Starmie and Blissey are standouts here. Garde is OK but too much overlap with Starmie and noticeably worse. Gamble on the coverage and almighty power of protect on Raichu.
Take Starmie / Raichu / Blissey
B1: No type / HRHR: Latios / Muk / Fearow
T1: Psychic muk down to a pixel. Twave Latios which DDs. Muk misses sludge bomb.
T2: Confuse ray lati and finish off muk with tbolt. Lati self-hits.
T3: Psychic lati. Raichu outspeeds and OHKOs Fearow. Lati full Para.
T4: Psychic and mega-kick gets it into the red. Eqs to take out Raichu.
T5: Psychic BP misses but Blizz wins the day. Copying this over I have no idea why I didn't seem to even consider taking the lati here!
B2: No type / HRHR: Dugtrio / Latias / Ninetales
T1: Raichu protect. Dugtrio EQs. Starmie kills Dug. Latias tries to Twave Raichu.
T2: Ninetales misses fireblast. Double into it kills. Latias Twaves Starmie.
T3: Para lati. Lati is full Para'd. Confuse ray.
T4: Starmie recover to full (scouting). Tbolt lati. Lati dclaws revealing Latias-6.
T5->End: Psychics and Mega kicks with paras, misses, confus all thrown in. Raichu->Latias-6
B3: No type / No phrase: Jynx / Moltres / Clefable
T1: Double into moltres kills, jynx fake tears starmie (might be the first time I've ever seen that move in factory).
T2: Double into jynx gets it low. Ice beam + Mega kick take out starmie.
T3: Claw kills jynx. Fire blast burns clefable (serence grace!). Mega kick chips lati.
T4: Claw kills Clef.
B4: Ground / No phrase: Dugtrio / Ursaring / Nidoqueen
T1: Dug AAs Lati for basically nothing. Starmie crit kills Ursa. Nido takes half from a claw and poisons lati.
T2: Psychic kills dug. Claw doesn't kill Nidoqueen (sloppy, should've mist balled but low roll and didn't matter). Starmie takes a shadow ball.
T3: Kill.
B5: Psychic / HRHR: Alakazam / Exeggutor / Regirock
T1: Psychic + Claw kills zam, but it twaves starmie before going down. Exeggutor curses.
T2: Double into Regi gets it into red and it DTs. Exeggutor curses again.
T3: QC Rock slide. Confuse ray exeggutor which hits itself.
T4: Double gets exeggutor low. Curse number 3.
T5: Dclaw kills.
B6: Normal / HRHR: Snorlax / Nidoqueen / Granbull
T1: Psychic kills Nidoqueen. Attract Snorlax which loses its turn.
T2: Double into Granbull kills it dead. Snorlax loses turn again.
T3: Confuse Snorlax. Mist ball it (thought it dropped SpDef, whoops!). Snorlax loses turn again.
T4: Psychic + Claw. Loses its turn again.
T5: Kill.
No Lefties and no QC (could have missed it T4 tbh) activations. Not sure what lax it was.
B7: No type / HRHR: Arcanine / Dusclops / Metagross
T1: Psychic Arcanine (setup kill next turn). Starmie takes Crunch. Dclaw clops which DTs and lefties.
T2: Clops protects. Psychic kills Arcanine. Dclaw into the Arc slot hits metagross.
T3: Recover Starmie. Twave Meta. Mash gets Lati low. Toxic miss from Clops. (No lum or shell bell). Quirk of damage rolls means Meta-4 and Meta-6 can't hit the exact roll. So it's 8 or 3.
T4: Confuse meta. Switch in Blissey which takes a mash (Meta atk increase) and a toxic.
T5: Psychic + Blast kills Meta (think this was a slight high roll). Clops DTs.
T6 -> End. Para and confuse, lots more DTs and dodges before landing a Psychic, getting a Spdef drop and finishing off with dclaw. I guess I could've lost here due to pressure but getting 2 shots a round I think the odds were squarely in my favour.
Round victory! Can't believe I made it out of this one and getting kinda close to triple digits!
Draft: Dusclops-3, Typhlosion-2, Breloom-1, Donphan-1, Nidoqueen-3, Metagross-4
I really don't like this draft. Meta is clearly the best mon, typhlo a distant but solid second. Clops is weird because it doesn't really do anything in doubles. Breloom is paper, not quite fast enough and inaccurate stab is sad. Nido is trash. Donphan I've never got on with and don't have an EQ partner. I really like fast leads but that'd be typhlo / breloom which just doesn't pave the way for meta well enough.
Take Typhlo / Meta / Donphan
B1 No type / HRHR: Arcanine / Shiftry / Salamence
Oooof, really didn't want to see any fire types.
T1: Meta -> Donphan. FO on Donphan. Flames kills shiftry. OH misses Donphan.
T2: A double doesn't kill typhlo and -1 EQ kills Arc. So slide with typh for chip (no flinches). Arcanine DE on typh and mence Crunch on Donphan. Eq kills Arcanine.
T3: Take another Crunch. Psychic (QC) and AP take out mence.
Alright, I did a bad job of scouting here. For Mence I don't think it had lefties and I think at some point I saw donphan go 171->113, and several valid sets have higher damage options. That'd make it Mence 3. I don't know if arcanine had intim but I don't think so. I think I clearly want a mence here. Flying to avoid my terrible ground weakness and a decent fire resist too. Question is whether to drop typhlo or donphan. I like mence on lead but typhlo a lot better than phan imo and switching in intim can do some fun stuff messing with AI calcs.
Donphan -> Mence-3 (glad my scouting wasn't bad, not the best sala set but not awful)
B2 No type / HRHR: Glalie / Blaziken / Fearow
T1: Glalie protects flames. Switch in to Sala which uses herb and takes ~50% from overheat.
T2: Flames glalie, crunch blaz and take a slide.
T3: Endure and tpunch kills fearow. Blaziken Eqs to kill typhlo (missed this and shouldn't have).
T4: Endure (irrelevant) and kill with psychic.
B3: Ground / No phrase: Dugtrio / Donphan / Rapidash.
T1: Swap in mence for intim. Donphan QC EQ kills dugtrio! Rapidash takes about half from flamethrower.
T2: Flames kills rapidash. Crunch donphan. Slide takes out typhlosion and chips mence.
T3: No QC and Crunch / Psychic takes it.
Phew. This one was close. I thought I got super lucky T1 but actually. No QC means that Donphan kills rapidash after typhlo dispatches dugtrio. Probably would have made life easier as it'd have been a clean 2v1 with AI not wanting to EQ (I think, don't think anyone's smoothed that out yet).
B4: Normal / HRHR: Claydol / Tauros / Miltank
T1: Kinda trickier opener. Tauros quite likely to EQ which doesn't kill either mon but claydol has a range to kill typhlo with EQ so AI might select it. Decide that meta is important vs the other normal in the back and so… Switch meta for mence and get intim off. Flames Tauros (not Tauros-1), it DTs and claydol rock slides.
T2: Flames Tauros which hits, crunch claydol for about 50% and another rock slide. I think claydol now sees the kill with EQ maybe?
T3: Flames miltank, revealing thick fat. Crunch kills claydol. Typhlo gets twaved and miltank lefties.
T4: Twaves mence. Thunder punch and DE gets it low.
T5: Focus punch wind-up but tpunch kills.
B5: No type / No phrase: Vaporeon / Latias / Fearow
Oh boy, that's a lead.
T1: Flames and shadow ball kills frailer latis and doubles surf isn't that scary. Variance on latis means its hard to plan and decide to hit it. QC Shadow ball gets it low. Flames just misses the kill but gets a burn. Mist ball hits typhlo and then surf gets it into the red but stays up.
T2: Forgot that mist ball had dropped spa and miss kill on fearow (gets parad tho). Fearow kills typhlo, salamence takes the ice beam coming in and dies!!!!!!
T3: Kill fearow but surf does too much now its singles (missed that too in my flusteredness)
T4: EQ doesn't crit and run over. In retrospect - I think this could have been recoverable if I'd have taken a beat, reset the calc on surf damage and ignored Fearow at the end. That's factory for you though! View attachment 601417
So, I actually started this run around new year. I'd got a L50 doubles run to 63 wins and wanted some more experience with mixed-sets before I pushed further. I decided to hit up OL and it all just went very very smoothly. This was before I was taking any notes so I don't have any details and I then went back to try and push L50 (you can see the ongoing OL run in my 95 wins card above). I've therefore only got notes from R10+, but at least I'm now into the swing of keeping decentish notes!
B1 No type / No phrase: Medicham / Electabuzz / Gyarados
T1: CM with espeon. Shadowball kills cham before it moves. Must be cham-4. Buzz t-waves flareon.
T2: Flareon tries to endure but is full para'd. Get buzz low with psychic but it twaves espeon which syncs back. Gyara DDs.
T3: Full para on espeon. Flareon takes a tbolt (wrote this up after - not sure this makes sense given speeds). Flareon kills with shadow ball. Gyara DDs.
T4: Espeon dies to frustration. Flareon balls gyara.
T5: Frustration takes P2 to around half. Tbolt kills it.
Kinda interested in taking gyara here. Intim is so nice and that set has some staying power. That's not how I normally like to play but I think we roll with it. Flareon -> Gyarados-4
B2: No type / HRHR: Typhlosion / Clefable / Salamence
T0: Intim reveals white herb.
T1: Espeon CMs. Swap gyara to P2 which takes a tpunch and tbolt (crit).
T2: Switch gyara back in (typhlo sees kill with OH) but hit the range to take it out with +1 espeon. Clefable Ice beams espeon.
T3: Psychic gets clef low. DE takes out Espeon. Frustration kills clef.
T4: Sala sees kill on P2, which it goes for. Scared of salac so DD on gyara.
T5: DD on gyara, DD on mence.
T6: Frustration doesn't kill mence. But it DEs and recoil kills it leaving gyara at around 1/3rd HP.
I don't really like rest in doubles - having 2 resters on lead feels wild. So Gyarados -> Salamence-4.
B3: No type / HRHR: Jolteon / Venusaur / Dugtrio
T1: Tbolt on Sala to just below half. Psychic venu. EQ which crits on espeon to clear the board other than sala.
T2: Fissure misses. AA kills.
B4: No type / No phrase: Victreebel / Articuno / Crobat
T1: Psychic kills victreebel. Swap to P2 and articuno… DTs?
T2: Screech on P2. Psychic kills crobat. Blizz chips espeon but misses P2. Tbolt + lefties leaves articuno a bit over half.
T3->End: throw out some moves - lots of misses!
B5: Psychic / One of Endurance (this must be a pretty rare type right?): Starmie / Gardevoir / Electrode
Starmie + Gardevoir - Buddy on point!
T1: Shadow ball Garde. Starmie Ice beams Sala to death, Garde shadow balls espeon. Trace illuminate.
T2: Ball kills garde. Starmie cosmic powers. P2 chunks starmie down to red! (My mental calcs are well off, didn't think this'd do anywhere near this much!)
T3: Clear up Starmie while electrode protects.
T4-> End: Protect and light screen but no jeopardy.
B6: No type / HRHR:
T1: Espeon CMs. Sala goes below half from raichu tbolt. Medicham finishes it off with ice punch. Speed ordering there reveals Raichu-1.
T2: Psychic takes out cham. Raichu DTs. P2 Ice beams the incoming flareon. Decided I wasn't really scared of Raichu so doubled into cham. I think that was right but Ice beam was the wrong play. Was worried about a fast EQ but still don't think Ice beam was the play.
T3: QC shadow ball almost ends the run but espeon holds on. Psychic kills in return. Raichu DTs again. Tbolt misses.
T4: Quick Attack kills espeon! I fully didn't even read the move on the page - wouldn't have changed anything this turn. Ice beam gets Raichu low.
T5: Tbolt -> Para -> Full para.
T Lots: Spam recover until tbolt runs out of PP. ~50% chance to 3HKO but get <some amount> of lucky and make it to quick attack.
Eventually land ice beam 2.
B7: No type / No Phrase: Sceptile / Latios / Scizor
Well… this is spooky.
T1: Decide mence is a huge liability so shadow ball lati and switch into p2. Sceptile DTs and Latios Dclaws porygon for about a third and gets some shell bell recovery.
T2: Shadow ball kills. Sceptile DTs again but P2 picks up the kill with ice beam through the evasion.
T3: Swap to mence. Hit tbolt and silver wind on mence picks up an omniboost!
T4: Crit AA finishes him off, don't think I was in much danger anyway!
Well, I played that round absolutely shockingly and got majorly bailed out by P2 and a bit of luck on multiple occasions. Last battle is the only one I was happy with and that turned out very uneventful in the end. Probably shouldn't play when tilted from losing a l50 run!
Zam is best, Dodrio is second. I don't want Hypno. I do like fakeout and dewgong is bulky… Decide to lead Mime + Zam with Dodrio in the back. Expecting that a lot of the time I can maneouvre the first couple of turns into a big advantage despite lack of type diversity. Strong consideration for Dodrio / Zam / Dewgong but Electrics just become so scary.
Take Mr.Mime, Alakazam, Dodrio
B1: No type / HRHR: Exeggutor / Gyarados / Exploud
T1: Gyara lives a tpunch and exeggutor gets faked out. Mime takes a twave.
T2: Tpunch gyara. Toxic misses and exploud gets hit by psychic and spdef drop reveals white herb.
T3: Psychic drops Exploud. Mime gets seeded.
T4+T5: Switch, ice punch and peck for the win.
B2: No type / HRHR: Garde / Whiscash / Victreebel
T1: Garde is a bit spooky, neither of my leads hit it at all well. Likely a tanky whiscash but decide to just double whiscash to fish for some info on garde and steal a turn. Whiscash dies with zam taking an ice punch, not a scary set to face really.
T2: Crit Garde with Ice punch. Get taken low in return. Mime kills victreebel.
T3: Win.
I kinda want to take Garde-3 but it's a bit of silly idea really.
B3: Rock / No phrase: Weezing / Shuckle / Aerodactyl
Eeeek. That phrase has me reconsidering whether I want to take garde. In practice though Mr Mimes magical leaf is actually alright.
T1: Psychic and Leaf into weezing slot. Idea being to soften up any ttar in the back. Weezing does die and Aero comes in and takes some chip (probably 1 or 2 from rolls). Shuckle DTs.
T2: Ah, Band aero kills with hyper beam but it's much more likely to be aero-1 which still outspeeds. Double psychics into aero slot anyway, if zam dies to beam mime can pick it off next turn. Zam takes an AA and kills in return. Mime hits shuckle which sets up another DT.
T3->End: Some hits, some misses, zam gets to synchro toxic but enough damage gets through to take down the bug.
B4: No type / Impossible to predict: Muk / Raichu / Clefable
But… I've got Zam!
T1: 87% chance it's curse Muk and even spread across Raichus. Muk-1 has tiny chance to live psychic, but Raichus are frail enough to just die too. Decide to fake-out muk and go for kill on Raichu to avoid static, taking risk with BP. Clean kill and flinch! Clef comes in.
T2: Very unscary. Kill Muk with Zam and dent clef which DTs and lefties.
T3: Kill
B5: No type / No phrase: Meganium / Aggron / Kangaskhan
Nothing very lethal on either side here.
T1: Decide most Meganiums aren't threatening but that only zam can really deal with aggron so fake-out + punch it down to about 40%. Meg DTs.
T2: Still not that scared of Meganium got plenty of offense to bust through it 3v1 so fire punch and psychic into aggron slot. Kill Aggron and Kang at 60%. Meg subs.
T3->End Zam kills Kang with a psychic then just thrown moves at meg until it dies.
B6: No type / No phrase: Medicham / Fearow / Shiftry
That's a low BST lead from my opponent!
T1: Zam outspeeds and OHKOs all Fearows and all Medichams. FO on zam could be annoying so decide to Psychic cham and FO fearow. A chance mime gets FOd and fearow does something but that's not too scary. Cham goes down, fearow flinches.
T2: More potential fake-outs. Double into Fearow (wastes redirect on Shiftry but its not scary) and shiftry sets up sun.
T3: Mime eats a solarbeam. Fire punch kills.
B7: No type / No phrase: Hariyama / Flygon / Gyarados
T1: Zam is eating good here with OHKOs on both. Fake out Hariyama Ice punch flygon is very low risk, with BP being the main issue but even then it'd need a crit to get a kill. All smooth, a flinch and a kill.
T2: Tpunch OHKOs Gyara. Psychic gets Hariyama low. EQ crits on Mime but no fatalities.
T3: QC is kinda spooky here. I should have switched zam out to Dodrio as slide would've needed a crit next turn. What I actually did was press psychic twice without thinking, and got away with it.
What a weird round. No pseudos or legendaries in sight. Pretty happy with how I played, generally finding quite safe paths through things. Not sure that team really stands up against some of the bulkier mons in factory as it relied on snowballing an advantage. This reminded me how crazy good Fake Out is next to something that hits hard and fast - even if there isn't a kill on the cards T1 you can usually set up a kill T2 that loses the AI a turn and potentially hits something in the back.
Draft: Arcanine-3 (Intim), Glalie-2, Nidoking-2, Dewgong-1, Steelix-3 (Rock head), Starmie-7 (Illuminate)
Well, Psychic / No Phrase is high chance of Latis, Meta, Garde. Luckily this draft has reasonable checks for those in starmie and arcanine. I have nothing that pressures waters here, though Starmie can probably 1v1 a lot of them if I can get to that endgame. I could go steelix / glalie for boom strats but that's not consistent for this stage of the run. Arc / Starmie lead is staring me right in the face and I can't really see a reason to go for anything else. Question is what backmon do we want? Glalie does nothing in the back, ditto dewgong really. Nidoking is alright but battle 1 is psychic and the back mon is the switch I want to make (a meta would be so nice!). That leaves steelix? I guess that works but I'm going to need to be very careful about what I put it in front of.
Take Arcanine, Starmie, Steelix
B1: Psychic / No Phrase: Latios / Mr Mime / Tauros
T1: There's the Lati I was expecting! Always terrifying as several Latis can OHKO Starmie if we get fake-out'd. I don't think I can play around that though, switching Mie to steelix leaves Arcanine open to getting doubled. Send the double into Latios and…
Fake-out on Arcanine, Ice Beam gets Latios low, freezes but Lati Lums! Tbolt comes out and Starmie lives on 4HP!
T2: Both are going to go for kill on Starmie. We clearly crunch Lati with Arcanine but can choose to recover or switch on Starmie. Steelix doesn't really do anything but also takes nothing from Mime. Switch seems safer to crit even if it leaves Steelix in awkwardly.
Go for Switch + Crunch. Lati dies, Steelix takes nothing from Psychic. Tauros comes in and intim burns white herb.
T3: Tauros-1 outspeeds and can swagger, all Tauros die to Overheat. Seems like we just want to Double into Tauros as Starmie has a good shot to be able to recover up and beat Mime if it comes to it.
Overheat connects and picks up a kill at which point it's basically GG. Psychic on Arcanine does a bit. Body Slam paras.
T4: Crunch and Body slam crit kills.
Gimme that Lati! Steelix -> Latios-4. Would be lovely if it could lead with Starmie in the back but such is life.
B2: No type / No phrase: Magmar / Milotic / Hariyama
T1: What a weird lead. I kinda just want to ignore milo as it's pretty likely to Mirror Coat but it could hydro pump Arcanine to death. This is why we don't go 3 special attackers I guess!
Decide to just double Magmar, Psychic gets it v low so must be 2 or 3. Hariyama comes in and Milo Surfs, does 130 on arcanine revealing Milo-3 (no mirror coat!).
T2: Seems clear to double Hariyama. Fake out on Arc + Surf could kill it but we'll just clean house next turn. As it happens, Psychic just kills it, AA chips Milo and surf gets Arcanine low.
T3: Swap or just punch? Honestly, either looks fine - decide to tack on the damage while I can rather than try and get fancy. Arcanine dies as expected but easily in range of the double so…
T4: Psychic + tbolt kills.
I was very happy with this team but staring down potential mirror coat humbled me a bit here, good to keep things interesting!
B3: No type / Battle's flow: Venusaur / Vaporeon / Shuckle
T1: Vaporeon back to end another run?! If an overheat hits this is all pretty fine. If overheat misses and psychic doesn't kill though a giga drain + surf kills Starmie and gets arcanine super low.
That could lose me the game. That's like 1% to happen though with miss, missed roll, being Venu-1, clicking drain on starmie. Think I need to send it or else I'm being too passive.
Oh, shit - forgot Starmie outsped Arc. Luckily psychic gets the kill and shuckle takes an Overheat and recovers with lefties. Vape surfs and damage roll reveals vape 2 or 3.
T2: Definitely in a good spot here. Vape can't really beat Starmie after a cosmic power or 2 (and Lati 2-shots) so just need to avoid any shuckle BS. Double into it with psychich and crunch. Psychic gets the kill (must've double high-rolled!), shadow ball on Starmie.
T3->End: Vape sends a few shadow balls at Starmie (2 spdef drops) while it cosmics up and recovers. Arcanine chips with Crunch until Starmie finishes with psychic.
B4: No type / HRHR: Electabuzz / Espeon / Regirock
T1: Kinda a scary lead. Espeon isn't super threatening T1 but CMs are spooky. Electabuzz very likely sees a kill on Starmie and Espeons will probably want to CM. A few options here; doubling on buzz; OH buzz / espeon and cosmic power; OH Espeon (which outspeeds) and cosmic power; OH and Swap; double into either slot. Decide that Espeon is most likely to end the run so go for Beam / Crunch which kills even through a CM and roll the dice for Starmie. Espeon wishes and Thunder hits killing starmie. Regirock comes in.
T2: I can't remember the logic on Explosion in doubles with nothing in the back. Still it seems clear that Regirock is the scary one here. So Lustre purge to debuff and overheat for damage (before rain dance) seems good.
Buzz tightens focus. OH connects as does lustre purge getting rock low. Rock slide misses Arcanine and then wish comes through (forgot about this)
T3: I think an OH and Dclaw kills rock here so surely have to go for that. Latios ruins electabuzz so not too scared about it being left. Get the kill on rock and Buzz sets up the rain - perfect.
T4: Electabuzz focuses and dies.
Phew.
B5: No type / Slow and Steady: Tyranitar / Misdreavus / Slowbro – close call
T1: Well, was bound to run into a Ttar at some point - my team is definitely a bit weak into it - especially next to a levitator! At least we got intim off. Bah, so many things can happen on this T1! Twave from misdreavus is nasty for example.
I really want Ttar gone, but actually killing misdreavus and baiting the EQ on whatever is in the back is also very appealing. Some special Ttars have kill rolls on Starmie but think I need to roll the dice on that.
Double into Misdreavus picks up the kill neatly. Slowbro comes in and Ttar Eqs, missing starmie due to bright powder.
T2: Looks like crunch + psychic might kill slowbro, I think I need to get this to a 2v1 so go for it. QC surf! Kills arcanine, psychic chips slowbro more, crunch gets latios down to about a quarter. And I realise I've been looking at HRHR in the buddy.
T3: This is really bad, Ttar sees a kill on Starmie and Latios. Slowbro sees a kill on Lati. I'm absolutely dead to QC I think. If Ttar kills lati then I want to cosmic power twice on Starmie and try and recover / chip. If Ttar is going to go Starmie then I need to Ice beam to fish for a freeze.
Situation is as follows:
Ttar-2 – 100% HP
Slowbro-3/4 -~40% HP
Vs
Starmie-7 – 189/261 HP
Latios-4 – 93/336 HP
So, after thinking about this a bunch it's not too complex. HPs are above. It's Ttar-2 and Slowbro-3/4 but 3 is much more likely given the surf roll. Can't try and double into Ttar as slowbro kills starmie in 2 turns with 2 sands and that's how long it would take to kill. Lati has a good chance to 2-shot ttar but starmie needs 3 hits. Starmie almost always lives a crunch + sand at +1, if it does that then there's a good chance that ttar picks a non-crunch move and recover leaves me in a good spot. So I think the tree is a bit complicated, as each turn ttar can hit either mon:
Prospective T4 - Tbolt bro and CP. If QC then lose. Ttar will Crunch something, killing lati and getting mie low.
Prospective T5 (Lati alive) - Dclaw and recover.
Prospective T5 (Lati died T4) - CP again before the hit.
Prospective T6 (Lati alive) - Dclaw and if starmie is alive then beam to confirm.
Prospective T6 (Lati died T4) - Start recovering, hope for low rolls, selecting tbolt or even EQ / RS when low, BP misses etc.
Prospective T6 (Lati died T5) - Start recovering, hope for low rolls BP misses etc.
Or to sum it up better - focus on keeping starmie alive by setting up CPs and / or recovering and hitting things with lati while it's alive.
Send it.
T3: No QC, Tbolt kills and crunch on starmie isn't a high roll - sand gets starmie super low! Step one of the plan complete.
T4: Dclaw gets ttar below half, recover and ttar goes for tbolt on starmie! Starmie lives with sand on a pixel!
T5: Choose to recover rather than beam for confirmation as BP miss on ttar seems more likely than missing the range. Recover, Dclaw gets it done! I can't believe I got out of that - holy shit. Think I definitely found the best line to maximise my chances, although maybe I made it more complicated than it needed to be?
Considering a swap here but I don't think it makes my team better, just means I won't face ttar again, but going into battle 6 that seems low value.
B6: No type / HRHR: Ampharos / Machamp / Lapras
T1: Kinda an awkward lead. Machamp isn't that scary but ampharos requires an OH to connect to get rid of. Decide that I can pretty much ignore Machamp and double into Amphy. Psychic hits, OH misses and Amphy hits a twave on Arc. Think that must be ampharos-2 that didn't see a tpunch kill. Nice. Machamp counters uselessly.
T2: Same again? Good chance to chunk something in the back with OH is nice. Psychic connects and kills. Machamp Facades Starmie for not very much and overheat absolutely chunks a lapras (down to 20%ish?), think it must be 0 bulk so 2 or 5.
T3: Can't see much going wrong doubling into Lapras. It might have QC but QC body slam para is about the worst on the table and even then Arc can likely pick up the kill with crunch and even without that I'm still winning. Lapras goes down to psychic, crunch does v little and revenge chips Starmie.
T4: Psychic kills.
B7: No type / HRHR: Skarmory / Regice / Raikou
T1: Well, my team doesn't really care about skarmory at all so that's nice. Regice is kinda spooky as an all special team. Overheat is definitely a good button to press but starmie doesn't really want to take a tbolt but it looks like all tbolt regices would probably rather twave or DT. Thunder is a clean kill but unlikely to be that set. Cosmic power plus OH seems like it keeps options most open. Regice down to about 20% and twaves Starmie, skarm counters.
T2: No lefties means it's boom Regice. Killing it with Arc would take my last full power OH which I'd kinda rather send at skarm at some point. Still more likely to twave than boom and that'd be annoying. Decide to OH regice again and psychic into whatever comes in. OH connects for the kill, Raikou comes in and takes ~60%. Skarm counters again. Can't be Raikou-6 from damage roll.
T3: Raikous are fast! Latios kinda dunks on both these mons. The question really is whether I switch it in and risk it. Raikou-1 will likely CM. Raikou-2 will Thunder. Raikou-3 will tbolt something (2 rolls kill Starmie) and Raikou-5 probably Tbolts or reflects. I likely want to switch Arc to clear drops so better to pull in lati which basically never dies here. So OH and swap.
Correct choice! QC peck on Arcanine, Thunder connects on Lati and para's (gets lumd), OH connects and kills.
T4: Tbolt and swap but tbolt kills so unnecessary!
What a team
What a round. Really happy with how I played almost everything here - had a good team but still some reasonably challenging spots. I think it probably helps that this round was spread over like 3 days with a battle here and a battle there which kept me sharp. I rate cosmic power starmie a chunk higher now. Being able to consistently live things (especially when baiting kills) gives a lot of flexibility.
This is the weirdest draft I've ever had.
Draft: Registeel-5, Metagross-7, Metagross-8, Lapras-7 (Water absorb), Machamp-7, Hypno-2. Realised in typing this up I must have mixed up the order here as I had swaps for 3 elevations but I've got my metas down as 2nd and 3rd - not like it matters but a bit weird!
Yuk yuk yuk. Obviously meta-8 is cracked but the other 4 mons give me very little to work with. Normally I'd pretty much instantly dismiss all the other sets as being durdley do-nothing singles stall sets. Guess I need to work out something to do with them. So, that Registeel is tanky as anything and doesn't even really mind Meta going boom in its face, if Meta does that T2 with Regi behind a sub then that's a big bonus. Having just lost a l50 run to missing 4 mega kicks in a row I'm pretty sanguine on low acc moves. Machamp is just a worse registeel, although it doesn't share ground / fire weaknesses at least. Why does nightmare exist as a move? I suppose a tanky hypnosis mon has some value… Very few mons see an EQ kill on meta so unless they're next to a flier they're unlikely to go for it at least. It's actually kinda tempting to not take a meta and go full bullshit stall - but I don't think that can win me 7 battles and won't support swaps. Waaaay more mons have sturdy than I thought, including lots of grounds that I'd want Lapras to be able to cover. I think my best bet here is just to go for the BST rule and take registeel + lapras. It's got weaknesses but I don't think there's a "solid" team here - just one that absolutely wrecks a bunch of teams and folds to others. Looking on swaps to dig me out of that situation.
Take: Registeel, Meta-8, Lapras
B1 No type / HRHR: Exeggutor / Donphan / Charizard
T1: Well Donphan was one of the mons I was worried about nice to see a sturdy mon that also poops on registeel Seems like there's a good sub setup here for registeel. Mash doesn't get donphan into endure range. Lots of donphans are quite likely to go for fissure as EQ will be deprioritised. Lapras is awful here. Two options are try and get donphan down in 2 turns or boom and setup sub. Going for 2 turns of mash is weak to fissure spam or sleep powder bs, boom is asking to get BP dodged by exeggutor-4. If I lose meta, I don't see how lapras and registeel can do anything to donphan.
Boom kills 2 opps and doesn't crit regi. Charizard comes in. Zard-4 or Zard-3 would be great leads with meta here.
T2: Overheat into Regi sub and white herb. Miss horn drill. Sub back up.
T3: Overheat into Regi sub. Hit horn drill.
This feels like a clear registeel -> Zard swap. But being able to boom and then soak turns with registeel was so nice… Nah, too weak to EQ and fire mons as it was and this unleashes meta to EQ itself. Registeel-5 -> Zard-4
B2: No type / Impossible to predict: Quagsire / Tyranitar / Regice
We had a sturdy mon B1 and now a damp mon - hooray!
T1: Brick break kills a lot of ttars but is an unfavourable range on ttar-6 which I'm staring at. Could double it, although a QC rock slide from ttar-7 is devastating and it'd have to be OH. Also kinda worried about quag getting up lots of curses although if it's quag-2 it needs a lot before it threatens lapras. Quag 3 with a flier coming in could get a bit awkward. I think brick break + swap is relatively safe though doesn't have huge upside.
BB gets the kill! Regice comes in! Quag gets up a curse. This is looking pretty comfy but has the opportunity to go wrong still.
T2: Mash kills all regice so no need to worry about counter. Quag doesn't quite see a kill on meta with EQ for this one turn. I think it's just mash and attempt an OHKO move this turn - potentially attempt a boom next turn if Quag is the only one left. Regice goes down neatly with an attack boost, Quag curses again.
T3: Ahhhh, this is kinda spooky. If it is quag 3 then it now has an EQ kill on meta, a DE kill on Zard and an EQ 2-shot on lapras. Meta can't really do anything but boom which kills quag-3 and gets quag-2 down to a pixel. I don't think there's value in both taking damage from an EQ. The OHKO on ttar means it's unlikely to be one with bulk and no QC so far means it's looking like Quag-2. Think the play is to attempt a boom and switch to zard. Lapras can almost always beat quag-2 and this buys more turns if it’s a damp quag-3. It is damp but quag-2 as it went for curse-3.
T4: OH and mash. OH misses, mash does some damage. Zard dies to a sludge bomb?! Why didn't it go for EQ kill?! Well, nothing to do now but full send on this turn I think.
T5: Send. Hit mash, miss OHKO. Meta gets EQ'd down, lapras lives on a pixel.
T6: Rest, crit sludge bomb and sand finished me off.
Boooooooooooooooooooo.
Three things occur to me on reflection:
- Quag AI at the end makes sense as Curse still gets + priority and EQ gets minus from the ghost of Regice.
- I should maybe have left regice alone and swapped onto Quag T2, hard to see that play at the time.
- In the same position I think I'd take hypno over Lapras. It got down to a 3v1 but Lapras was playing its own game, if it'd have been able to contribute some chip this would have been unlosable.
Still definitely some sour luck on the draft and the battle. Back to R1!
Hi all, also new to Smogon but in the wave of people becoming interested in factory by way of LRXC posting here I'd like to submit my own Battle Factory run of 83 in Level 50 Doubles. This run was done on emulator. I have video evidence of the first ten rounds, and then streamed rounds 11 and 12 yesterday where the run came to a close (with no past broadcast, but witnesses). I've done short writeups of the rounds past round 3 that I had videos to look back on for. Rounds 11 and 12 are written from memory, and pieced together using auto-recovery information from an Excel spreadsheet I use to keep track of things. Pokemon I didn't care to find the set for post-battle have a '?' next to them.
Draft: Glalie-2, Charizard-1, Swampert-1 Battle 1 (#22) Opponents: Aggron-1, Crobat-1, Espeon-1 Battle 2 (#23) Opponents: Fearow-1 (Swap for Swampert-1), Heracross-1, Granbull-1 Battle 3 (#24) Opponents: Vileplume-1, Alakazam-1 (Swap for Fearow-1), Slaking-1 Battle 4 (#25) Opponents: Slowbro-1, Crobat-1, Granbull-1 Battle 5 (#26) Opponents: Jynx-1, Medicham-1, Metagross-1 (Swap for Alakazam-1) Battle 6 (#27) Opponents: Breloom-1 (Swap for Charizard-1), Rhydon-1, Dugtrio-1 Battle 7 (#28) Opponents: Slowking-1, Golduck-1, Kangaskhan-1 Main Strategy: Boil gamestate down to 3v2, boom with Glalie
Draft: Machamp-4, Weezing-3, Houndoom-3 Battle 1 (#36) Opponents: Metagross-3 (Swap for Machamp-4), Magmar-3, Typhlosion-3 Battle 2 (#37) Opponents: Breloom-3, Slowking-3, Exploud-3 Battle 3 (#38) Opponents: Snorlax-3, Alakazam-3, Arcanine-3 (Swap for Houndoom-3) Battle 4 (#39) Opponents: Vileplume-3, Umbreon-3, Claydol-3 (Swap for Weezing-3) Battle 5 (#40) Opponents: Tauros-3 (Swap for Claydol-3), Golem-3, Lanturn-3 Battle 6 (#41) Opponents: Salamence-3 (Swap for Tauros-3), Ludicolo-3, Nidoqueen-3 Battle 7 (#42) Opponents: Mr.Mime-3, Blissey-3, Vileplume-3 Main Strategy: Earthquake with Metagross next to immune Pokemon, potentially booming with Weezing. Once swapped for Tauros, use Intimidate and use Meteor Mash with Metagross.
Draft: Latias-8, Salamence-4, Regice-3 Battle 1 (#43) Opponents: Ampharos-4, Metagross-4, Quagsire-4 Battle 2 (#44) Opponents: Donphan-4, Blastoise-4, Espeon-4 Battle 3 (#45) Opponents: Scizor-4, Electrode-4, Gyarados-4 Battle 4 (#46) Opponents: Golem-4, Milotic-4, Clefable-4 Battle 5 (#47) Opponents: Altaria-4, Blaziken-4, Meganium-4 Battle 6 (#48) Opponents: Exeggutor-4, Tentacruel-4, Dodrio-4 Battle 7 (#49) Opponents: Gengar-4, Slowking-4, Umbreon-4 Main Strategy: Mow opponents down with strong attacks from Latias and Salamence, switching in Regice where needed against strong Ice-type moves. No swaps needed.
Draft: Dugtrio-1, Blaziken-2, Zapdos-2
Draft Strategy: I knew the upcoming trainer was an Ice specialist, so I drafted as "anti-Regice" of a composition as I could think of with what I had, passing up Starmie-2 and a Quagsire/Zapdos lead in the process. Unsurprisingly, I ran into Regice.
Battle Strategy: Since all Marowak sets saw a ground move or Swords Dance, swapped Metagross to Zapdos. Marowak wound up using Swords Dance, but died to Regice Ice Beam in one hit. Milotic uses Safeguard and Slaking is brought in. Decided to double team with Zapdos, and prioritized killing Slaking. Afterwards, easy win with Regice using Thunderbolt against Milotic.
Battle Strategy: This one took a full thirty minutes. Every Arcanine besides set 1 killed Metagross, so swapped to Zapdos turn one where it was double-targeted, revealing Registeel-2 and Arcanine-3 or Arcanine-4. Was able to paralyze with Thunderbolt on Regice. With speed cut, was an easy kill on Arcanine and chip damage on Ursaring, who I was able to Meteor Mash to kill the next turn. Regice and Metagross won the ensuing 2v1.
Battle 7 (#56) Opponents: Miltank-2, Dewgong-3, Scizor-3 Main Strategy: Initially, be good against the initial Ice-type trainer and swap between Pokemon where needed to cover weaknesses while using fast moves from Dugtrio and strong moves from Regice. Once Metagross was obtained, had great coverage alongside Regice on lead, swapping in Zapdos where needed.
Draft: Gardevoir-4, Fearow-3, Regice-3 Battle 1 (#57) Opponents: Xatu-2, Claydol-3, Magmar-3 Battle 2 (#58) Opponents: Machamp-?, Aggron-1, Zapdos-1 (Swap for Fearow-3) Battle 3 (#59) Opponents: Walrein-1, Lanturn-1, Moltres-? Battle 4 (#60) Opponents: Crobat-1, Miltank-2, Manectric-? Battle 5 (#61) Opponents: Vaporeon-3, Xatu-?, Latios-6 (Swap for Gardevoir-4) Battle 6 (#62) Opponents: Porygon2-3, Tentacruel-?, Dusclops-? Battle 7 (#63) Opponents: Clefable-4, Weezing-1, Moltres-? Main Strategy: Use fast Pokemon with either strong attacks or coverage in Gardevoir and Fearow to boil game states down to 3v2 or 2v1, with Regice in the back. Zapdos filled the same role that Fearow did with fast Thunder Wave usage as well. Once Latios-6 came along, swapped for Gardevoir for Earthquake.
Draft: Sceptile-2, Alakazam-3, Nidoking-1 Battle 1 (#64) Opponents: Wailord-1, Shuckle-?, Rhydon-? Battle 2 (#65) Opponents: Starmie-2, Machamp-?, Granbull-? Battle 3 (#66) Opponents: Manectric-?, Typhlosion-3, Feraligatr-? Battle 4 (#67) Opponents: Armaldo-1, Magmar-2, Vaporeon-4 Battle 5 (#68) Opponents: Kangaskhan-3, Moltres-3, Shiftry-3 Battle 6 (#69) Opponents: Miltank-1, Ninetales-?, Cradily-3 Battle 7 (#70) Opponents: Hypno-2, Starmie-6, Dewgong-? Main Strategy: Use fast and strong Pokemon with Sceptile and Alakazam, with a complementary Pokemon that can switch into weaknesses in Nidoking, with a strong attack of its own in Earthquake. Switched Choice Band onto certain Pokemon (like the Shuckle in #64) with Alakazam to lock them into status moves.
Battle Strategy: Lost here due to being unable to burst through Cradily or Granbull thanks to physical reliance facing an intimidate Pokemon. Granbull used Thunder Wave to cripple Latias. Metagross used Quick Claw to kill Starmie, and then I lost the 2v1 from there.
I can say with near-certainty Registeel is going to be a lot better off going to 204 EVs to hit 181 HP, with 140 spdef for a stat value of 206.
Quick list of reasons why this is better:
1. You move to mod8 = 5, which reduces burn damage while keeping mod4=1 for substitute
2. You increase the bulk of regi and regi's sub against all physical attacks
3. You reduce some chip damage from things such as hail and confusion self-hit. This may sound like a small point but I'm sure you appreciate that actually exactly how much damage you deal from self hit can be very important against an opponent such as Crobat-4 (a pokemon that latios and moltres really do not want to face).
4. 211 spdef compared to 206 is very rarely going to creep any damage floor by 2 raw damage. In every other "close" case (moves that cannot be countered by spamming rest), this means that +4hp is worth -5 spdef. Example; 181hp/206 spdef just takes strictly less % damage from all of alakazam-4's moves. You'll find a similar result for the majority of cases.
Cases where the damage floor is crept by 2 are pretty much all coincidences on ATK/DEF or POWER/DEF having a near-integer approximation (of note perhaps that both Overheat and flamethrower hit 140x2/210~~ 4/3 and 95x2 / 210 ~~9/11 on this threshold). These approximations are more common with defensive stats below ~150 but get increasingly rare above them. An example could be Rapidash-4 overheat which will deal about 3 raw damage more with STAB. But this has no impact on the chance of regi surviving a crit or surviving a non-crit 2hko into this rapidash set. And this approximation is still going to over-capture cases (for example, charizard-3 flamethrower still does strictly less % damage to 181hp registeel).
If registeel was meant to sweep I'd give more weight to this as an argument for higher Spdef, but I would assume you almost always switch to moltres or latios against these mons.
The remaining cases will all be changes of 1 at most which are going to be offset by +4hp. For example, suicune-1's surf does identical % damage in terms of breaking sub or in terms of getting an OHKO roll at +6 on Registeel.
Suicune-1 is a slightly more relevant opponent for registeel since Latios isn't safely 1v1ing it and Moltres cant come in at all on a potential Surf
With regards to the team comp/ strategy and why this probably hasnt been posted before with a "large" winstreak;
I think the team is ok on paper at a first glance and consideration of basic 1v1 coverage, but has deeper flaws. This isn't a knock on your team specifically, its a knock on all teams which don't run some pretty specific pokemon.
I must say I find this incredibly surprising to say after 200 games. I would expect at least 20-30 to have either caused a direct "I lose if they sent out X next" or at least "I won 3-0 but if they crit X on that one turn i could have easily lost". Let me go into some concerns:
There is a weakness to "fast electrics" - particularly ones that can either break the latios sub or can CM boost alongside it (even if they are slower). Latios "should" win most of these 1v1s but the weakness comes from the fact that the second it doesnt win one, the game could just end. The most obvious one is Jolteon-4, which you'd probably need the AI to make a mistake and twave to reliably beat. While regi can restloop tbolt, it cant after a single crit.
There is a more concerning weakness to just Quick Claw in general though. Again this isn't a knock at your team but a comment on how QC is generally a huge problem in gen 3 teambuilding. About 80 sets after battle 49 run it, and I feel like its almost a majority that cause problems
rhydon seems awful. It does not really need much luck to start destroying this team. Either an OHKO hit or a turn 2 QC activation beats both latios and registeel (if latios faints after doing 50%). A single QC activation on moltres' sub turn also kills it (even a burned rock slide will prevent sub and outdamage morning sun). Latios wont even reliably 2hko Rhydon, and you can't sub expecting horn drill because its regular moves can break sub and just put latios in an even worse position
The rest of the high-base-attack-rock-type-with-STAB crew seem just as bad, perhaps worse. Armaldo, Golem, etc. Even switching between moltres and registeel, registeel will be taking too much damage on the reverse-swings. And that's not going into potential disaster territory with Swords Dance or an unexpected explosion
Ursaring would present a very similar threat with a single QC proc on the "wrong" turn. Ursaring gets a double underline for Guts stopping WOW being a smart idea.
Flareon is a problem also. On paper moltres can stall it out, but Double-Edge has a lot of PP and shadow ball also breaks the moltres sub. You'll be using morning sun in situations where a crit or a QC will be death for moltres. You could cycle between registeel and moltres but overheat actually does too much damage to safely swap into, and flareon-2 would curse on this turn instead. You can then go back to regi, but trying to restloop a QC mon which is naturally slower than you is very scary for obvious reasons.
Feraligatr looks dangerous to stay in against.
Lapras-2 straight up beats Latios and there's no way moltres can safely come in. Registeel can 1v1 it but you're switching into a 10% frz
Hariyama isnt irrelevant due to a potential guts boost and the fact that Latios can easily lose this 1v1 to either QC or other bad luck
Slowbro/Slowking can both easily claim 1 KO. Latios isn't winning the 1v1 (can lose even vs non-ice beam sets). Moltres isn't safely stalling and Registeel is straight up in 3hko range of flamethrower/EQ from some of them
The ice QC OHKO gang (Lapras, Walrein, ) are obviously a big problem. Walrein-4 does way too much damage to moltres even with ice beam and clearly beats latios 1v1. Registeel can sub on Sheer cold as its faster but this isn't a solution as Surf/EQ can both break the sub anyway, and you can't sub when asleep
Breloom is not simple, QC spore and effect spore are both quite serious problems for latios. moltres cannot safely stall all of the focus punch/ sludge bomb PP without risking itself to status or a crit or a QC activation.
Whiscash is another "pray it doesnt QC turn 2 because if it does then the team is in serious trouble".
Wailord is also.
Snorlax/Metagross probably deserve the prize for instantly putting you on the backfoot on turn 1. Latios isn't staying in vs either, you cant just toxic with regi because immunity/ steel typing. There are some sets that regi beats with SToss, but risking EQ is risking a loss. Moltres could come in but its potentially eating either a big attack or an attack raise. it's also potentially coming into a strong QC move that does way too much damage. WOW is an option, but 25% miss could just be gg there.
Opposing Lati@s are another headache. A QC activation wins the 1v1. You could say "but i CM vs latios to be safe against turn 2 QC", but CM can lose against Latios-5 if it decides to just dragon claw twice, and you can also just lose to focus band from latios-3 or brightpowder from latios-5. Latias presents the same problems with its various set spreads. If your Latios loses this 1v1 then it can be trouble because moltres straight-up cannot stall a lot of these 4-attack sets and Registeel can easily lose to those with EQ or to a single FRZ/PRZ from some others
Even some of the lesser QC mons like the Steelix, Regis, Muk or Forretress are actually a problem because they threaten to QC explode and take out latios turn 1. It's not like registeel can come in vs these either since if they do not explode, then they can just beat registeel with EQ (or beat Moltres with rock slide in e.g. regirock's case).
But the biggest problem is the lack of knowledge. It's easy to say "well latios easily beats Feraligatr-2 with CM" for instance (and this is true!). But a lead feraligatr could also be the Scope Lens mixed set, which puts you in a nasty situation on turn 2 if you just used CM. Your sub wont be out of crunch range yet. You can't really go moltres because Gatr is fairly likely to use rock slide next. Registeel could be a pivot into moltres, but in this scenario Feraligatr is going to bruise latios, chip regi and force a lot of PP out of moltres (crunch + hydro + rock slide is 8+3+5 PP) and threaten a potential spdef drop on the morning sun turn
Outside of QC there are some other pokemon I'd be concerned about:
First is probably just about every single Guts pokemon with decent stats and "a movepool". For arguments sake; heracross. There is no way you stay in with latios against a potential megahorn. the clear move is to go to Regi and then moltres, or directly to moltres. Moltres can stall a move such as rock slide without too much issue. It becomes a bit more of an issue to consider what happens after this with a lower HP moltres. You either decide to burn it immediately, giving it guts and accepting that its neutral resisted attacks can probably break subs now and will threaten to outdamage morning sun with crits. You could also just stall even longer while moves such as brick break run out of PP. This is "ok" but you begin to cripple moltres' ability to be useful. A moltres with less than 5-6 protect/ substitute PP and/or a moltres with less than ~60% HP rapidly stops being a counter on switch-in to many things it needs to for the sake of the team.
Second is just about every pokemon that after a single setup turn can outspeed Latios. For arguments sake: salamence-5. Not only does this outspeed after 1 DD, but it runs brightpowder and is going to start spamming rock slide. Salamence is a particular problem because I know that 252 dclaw does not guaranteed OHKO 0/0 Salamence - and there is another set with a salac berry that will outspeed latios "for free" if it is just attacked. At the same time, another salamence learns attract which could be a disaster against a turn 1 CM. Both Moltres and Registeel definitely cant come in for free vs Salamence.
Third is just about every pokemon with baton pass (in fairness there are not that many). Lets take Scizor-4 for an example. Latios has no way of blocking a +2/+2 atk/spe baton pass from this set. Latios could Sub + CM preparing for the incoming 1v1, but this would be a disaster against e.g. scizor-2. Moltres cannot stop this pass either, and while regi can come in, its counter pressure is also way too slow. Umbreon-1 is perhaps worse since evasion passing could ruin a lot of previously simple 1v1 wins for latios or registeel. The play against these mons, once revealed, is probably to go straight to moltres so moltres can at least attempt a slow-sub stall on whatever is in next, but slow subbing adds a lot more risk and will burn more PP. I guess a special mention goes to the ninjask with petaya (yes, latios' DC almost perfectly hits petaya range) with SD-endure-baton and its twin which actually runs sball with focus band and can threaten latios
But despite the above text, I wouldn't really be concerned about any specific enemy set when playing this team. It's true that at 100% HP on everything, these 3 can probably cover things ok without bad luck.
What I'd be a lot more concerned about in a real environment is something like this:
Enemy Starmie lead.
On paper this is fine. Latios will beat Starmie in a 1v1. It may take damage from ice beam against certain sets, but that's "ok". There's a reason why Latios is not OU in gen3.
Lets say Starmie doesn't get lucky or anything. No crit ice beam. No brightpowder activation from starmie-7. 2 DClaw will KO it. There's no chance to CM in this 1v1 since that can lose without any bad luck.
We now have a ~40% Latios and moltres + registeel at 100%
Next up: Quagsire
it is not immediately obvious what the play should be here. Quag-1 and 2 are bait for latios to full heal and CM against. Quag-3 would usually have to be handled by Latios, but a 40% latios cannot safely stay in against it. It can't even safely scout the Quagsire set in this case. Even if it does not proc QC, it can curse and start spamming attacks again to win this 1v1. Moltres/Registeel can't really handled Quag-3, but the attempt would be to go into Registeel first, then Moltres on the EQ/Curse, and then go for 75% WOW + no sludge bomb psn. Quag-4 can be safely stalled out by moltres sub/tect, but registeel has to enter on a potential freeze and moltres will have to waste additional Sub/tect PP on amnesia turns before surf is out, and then also on ice beam after surf is out of pp - since even with burn, EQ does too much to registeel.
After mapping out these scenarios, you'll probably come to the conclusion that the play is to recover on latios since the largest danger is definitely Quag-3, and a registeel switch on that is unacceptable to give a potential free curse.
I'd say if it is Quag-3; then a QC activation here to kill latios probably puts this battle in the hands of a registeel 1v1 - since Moltres is unlikely to miss so many WOW and while Curse + QC + 2 high damage moves vs moltres is dangerous, its not like Quag is guaranteed to win this. If Quag-3 doesn't QC latios immediately, its still kind of bad news as you will spend the next few turns either using recover on more double edge spam, or recovering out of range and having quag potentially curse (tbh this scenario with curse a late QC is potentially worse because it is very realistic that moltres loses the 1v1 then).
If it's quag-4 and it doesnt crit latios the first turn its in, then there should be an easy path to victory after pivoting to regi -> moltres -> stall ice beam and surf -> pivot back to latios for heal and +6/+6
All of this assumes you are properly thinking/ analysing each turn though. A good player could easily make one of the following mistakes if not doing proper checks:
1. Switch to moltres on an ice beam frz
2. Switch to Registeel on Curse (either immediately on the switch or otherwise)
3. CM on Latios after correctly noting that 40% latios survives ice beam (but forgetting that D-Edge can kill)
4. Sub on Latios, forgetting that Quag can run QC.
Most people play with a threatlist (physical or mental) but quagsire isnt the kind of pokemon to typically be included on that, and tbh it shouldnt be because the default answer of "latios wins" is correct. Still, this is an averagely lucky scenario that makes it into a game-ending threat.
I.e. what i mean is that in general play, i think most players would be unlikely to ring alarm bells after seeing something like Starmie -> Quagsire. If you are going to ring alarm bells on that, you're probably looking at a lot of matches being slow and a lot of constant fresh analysis on every situation of "what if latios is 10-30%, what if moltres is under 62.5%, what if regi is already asleep, etc" for every possible set.
You could avoid a chunk of these losses with truly perfect play and set lookups. For example, knowing in exactly what situations X can or cant be sacked (e.g. Latios likely shouldnt be sacked if gengar-3 is a possible unrevealed set from the trainer, moltres cannot be sacked if metagross is still possible). In practice you're unlikely to do this unless you actually want >10 minute battles to be common.
I purposefully avoided bringing in any enemy set that actually threatens all 3 pokemon in a 1v1 in that "mock battle". But I think you can appreciate how easily and quickly 2 kind of "normal" opponents can raise some serious issues for the team.
A team like this is pretty likely to encounter an opposing team such as the one i described (or perhaps a bit better, perhaps a bit worse) fairly often. I'd spitball this is a 10-20% occurrence (I'm not talking about a specific counter-team such as Slowking4-Metagross6-Latios3 (which would be genuinely unlucky to stack onto 1 team) but a more generic one such as Starmie-Quagsire-Ursaring). You "should" win assuming optimal play, on average, but I'm sure you can appreciate how a single misplay, a single crit on Latios, or a single QC proc at the wrong time will shift your win chance in the battle from the default ~99% to ~70% (something fainted) and then you can be looking at a near certain loss if their 3rd isnt something one of your mons can 1v1.
In terms of backfoot-blind-counter mons on turn 1, as i said the award is probably snorlax/metagross. I don't know what you've decided the blind best idea is turn 1, but I can guarantee whatever it is will be a compromise and at least 1 of their sets will take advantage of it. Them blowing up on regi and bringing it down to ~30% and possibly useless might be one of the better outcomes, who knows.
I don't know how far you'll get but I would note that you're probably a bit more likely to lose to a kind of uninspiring/ normal but slightly lucky opponent with this team, rather than get run over by Walrein-4 or Rhydon-2 getting QC + OHKO once or twice.
The problem is (and the reason why I wouldn't really advise you to change the team) that addressing all these pokemon rapidly becomes an optimisation towards certain familiar faces. For example, the answer to a massive chunk of the pokemon listed above is "skarmory" or "blissey" or "steelix" - as counters that can ignore regularly bad luck. If you follow that optimisation path you're very likely to end up with a known team or a very close relative of one.
I can say with near-certainty Registeel is going to be a lot better off going to 204 EVs to hit 181 HP, with 140 spdef for a stat value of 206.
Quick list of reasons why this is better:
1. You move to mod8 = 5, which reduces burn damage while keeping mod4=1 for substitute
2. You increase the bulk of regi and regi's sub against all physical attacks
3. You reduce some chip damage from things such as hail and confusion self-hit. This may sound like a small point but I'm sure you appreciate that actually exactly how much damage you deal from self hit can be very important against an opponent such as Crobat-4 (a pokemon that latios and moltres really do not want to face).
4. 211 spdef compared to 206 is very rarely going to creep any damage floor by 2 raw damage. In every other "close" case (moves that cannot be countered by spamming rest), this means that +4hp is worth -5 spdef. Example; 181hp/206 spdef just takes strictly less % damage from all of alakazam-4's moves. You'll find a similar result for the majority of cases.
Cases where the damage floor is crept by 2 are pretty much all coincidences on ATK/DEF or POWER/DEF having a near-integer approximation (of note perhaps that both Overheat and flamethrower hit 140x2/210~~ 4/3 and 95x2 / 210 ~~9/11 on this threshold). These approximations are more common with defensive stats below ~150 but get increasingly rare above them. An example could be Rapidash-4 overheat which will deal about 3 raw damage more with STAB. But this has no impact on the chance of regi surviving a crit or surviving a non-crit 2hko into this rapidash set. And this approximation is still going to over-capture cases (for example, charizard-3 flamethrower still does strictly less % damage to 181hp registeel).
If registeel was meant to sweep I'd give more weight to this as an argument for higher Spdef, but I would assume you almost always switch to moltres or latios against these mons.
The remaining cases will all be changes of 1 at most which are going to be offset by +4hp. For example, suicune-1's surf does identical % damage in terms of breaking sub or in terms of getting an OHKO roll at +6 on Registeel.
Suicune-1 is a slightly more relevant opponent for registeel since Latios isn't safely 1v1ing it and Moltres cant come in at all on a potential Surf
With regards to the team comp/ strategy and why this probably hasnt been posted before with a "large" winstreak;
I think the team is ok on paper at a first glance and consideration of basic 1v1 coverage, but has deeper flaws. This isn't a knock on your team specifically, its a knock on all teams which don't run some pretty specific pokemon.
I must say I find this incredibly surprising to say after 200 games. I would expect at least 20-30 to have either caused a direct "I lose if they sent out X next" or at least "I won 3-0 but if they crit X on that one turn i could have easily lost". Let me go into some concerns:
There is a weakness to "fast electrics" - particularly ones that can either break the latios sub or can CM boost alongside it (even if they are slower). Latios "should" win most of these 1v1s but the weakness comes from the fact that the second it doesnt win one, the game could just end. The most obvious one is Jolteon-4, which you'd probably need the AI to make a mistake and twave to reliably beat. While regi can restloop tbolt, it cant after a single crit.
There is a more concerning weakness to just Quick Claw in general though. Again this isn't a knock at your team but a comment on how QC is generally a huge problem in gen 3 teambuilding. About 80 sets after battle 49 run it, and I feel like its almost a majority that cause problems
rhydon seems awful. It does not really need much luck to start destroying this team. Either an OHKO hit or a turn 2 QC activation beats both latios and registeel (if latios faints after doing 50%). A single QC activation on moltres' sub turn also kills it (even a burned rock slide will prevent sub and outdamage morning sun). Latios wont even reliably 2hko Rhydon, and you can't sub expecting horn drill because its regular moves can break sub and just put latios in an even worse position
The rest of the high-base-attack-rock-type-with-STAB crew seem just as bad, perhaps worse. Armaldo, Golem, etc. Even switching between moltres and registeel, registeel will be taking too much damage on the reverse-swings. And that's not going into potential disaster territory with Swords Dance or an unexpected explosion
Ursaring would present a very similar threat with a single QC proc on the "wrong" turn. Ursaring gets a double underline for Guts stopping WOW being a smart idea.
Flareon is a problem also. On paper moltres can stall it out, but Double-Edge has a lot of PP and shadow ball also breaks the moltres sub. You'll be using morning sun in situations where a crit or a QC will be death for moltres. You could cycle between registeel and moltres but overheat actually does too much damage to safely swap into, and flareon-2 would curse on this turn instead. You can then go back to regi, but trying to restloop a QC mon which is naturally slower than you is very scary for obvious reasons.
Feraligatr looks dangerous to stay in against.
Lapras-2 straight up beats Latios and there's no way moltres can safely come in. Registeel can 1v1 it but you're switching into a 10% frz
Hariyama isnt irrelevant due to a potential guts boost and the fact that Latios can easily lose this 1v1 to either QC or other bad luck
Slowbro/Slowking can both easily claim 1 KO. Latios isn't winning the 1v1 (can lose even vs non-ice beam sets). Moltres isn't safely stalling and Registeel is straight up in 3hko range of flamethrower/EQ from some of them
The ice QC OHKO gang (Lapras, Walrein, ) are obviously a big problem. Walrein-4 does way too much damage to moltres even with ice beam and clearly beats latios 1v1. Registeel can sub on Sheer cold as its faster but this isn't a solution as Surf/EQ can both break the sub anyway, and you can't sub when asleep
Breloom is not simple, QC spore and effect spore are both quite serious problems for latios. moltres cannot safely stall all of the focus punch/ sludge bomb PP without risking itself to status or a crit or a QC activation.
Whiscash is another "pray it doesnt QC turn 2 because if it does then the team is in serious trouble".
Wailord is also.
Snorlax/Metagross probably deserve the prize for instantly putting you on the backfoot on turn 1. Latios isn't staying in vs either, you cant just toxic with regi because immunity/ steel typing. There are some sets that regi beats with SToss, but risking EQ is risking a loss. Moltres could come in but its potentially eating either a big attack or an attack raise. it's also potentially coming into a strong QC move that does way too much damage. WOW is an option, but 25% miss could just be gg there.
Opposing Lati@s are another headache. A QC activation wins the 1v1. You could say "but i CM vs latios to be safe against turn 2 QC", but CM can lose against Latios-5 if it decides to just dragon claw twice, and you can also just lose to focus band from latios-3 or brightpowder from latios-5. Latias presents the same problems with its various set spreads. If your Latios loses this 1v1 then it can be trouble because moltres straight-up cannot stall a lot of these 4-attack sets and Registeel can easily lose to those with EQ or to a single FRZ/PRZ from some others
Even some of the lesser QC mons like the Steelix, Regis, Muk or Forretress are actually a problem because they threaten to QC explode and take out latios turn 1. It's not like registeel can come in vs these either since if they do not explode, then they can just beat registeel with EQ (or beat Moltres with rock slide in e.g. regirock's case).
But the biggest problem is the lack of knowledge. It's easy to say "well latios easily beats Feraligatr-2 with CM" for instance (and this is true!). But a lead feraligatr could also be the Scope Lens mixed set, which puts you in a nasty situation on turn 2 if you just used CM. Your sub wont be out of crunch range yet. You can't really go moltres because Gatr is fairly likely to use rock slide next. Registeel could be a pivot into moltres, but in this scenario Feraligatr is going to bruise latios, chip regi and force a lot of PP out of moltres (crunch + hydro + rock slide is 8+3+5 PP) and threaten a potential spdef drop on the morning sun turn
Outside of QC there are some other pokemon I'd be concerned about:
First is probably just about every single Guts pokemon with decent stats and "a movepool". For arguments sake; heracross. There is no way you stay in with latios against a potential megahorn. the clear move is to go to Regi and then moltres, or directly to moltres. Moltres can stall a move such as rock slide without too much issue. It becomes a bit more of an issue to consider what happens after this with a lower HP moltres. You either decide to burn it immediately, giving it guts and accepting that its neutral resisted attacks can probably break subs now and will threaten to outdamage morning sun with crits. You could also just stall even longer while moves such as brick break run out of PP. This is "ok" but you begin to cripple moltres' ability to be useful. A moltres with less than 5-6 protect/ substitute PP and/or a moltres with less than ~60% HP rapidly stops being a counter on switch-in to many things it needs to for the sake of the team.
Second is just about every pokemon that after a single setup turn can outspeed Latios. For arguments sake: salamence-5. Not only does this outspeed after 1 DD, but it runs brightpowder and is going to start spamming rock slide. Salamence is a particular problem because I know that 252 dclaw does not guaranteed OHKO 0/0 Salamence - and there is another set with a salac berry that will outspeed latios "for free" if it is just attacked. At the same time, another salamence learns attract which could be a disaster against a turn 1 CM. Both Moltres and Registeel definitely cant come in for free vs Salamence.
Third is just about every pokemon with baton pass (in fairness there are not that many). Lets take Scizor-4 for an example. Latios has no way of blocking a +2/+2 atk/spe baton pass from this set. Latios could Sub + CM preparing for the incoming 1v1, but this would be a disaster against e.g. scizor-2. Moltres cannot stop this pass either, and while regi can come in, its counter pressure is also way too slow. Umbreon-1 is perhaps worse since evasion passing could ruin a lot of previously simple 1v1 wins for latios or registeel. The play against these mons, once revealed, is probably to go straight to moltres so moltres can at least attempt a slow-sub stall on whatever is in next, but slow subbing adds a lot more risk and will burn more PP. I guess a special mention goes to the ninjask with petaya (yes, latios' DC almost perfectly hits petaya range) with SD-endure-baton and its twin which actually runs sball with focus band and can threaten latios
But despite the above text, I wouldn't really be concerned about any specific enemy set when playing this team. It's true that at 100% HP on everything, these 3 can probably cover things ok without bad luck.
What I'd be a lot more concerned about in a real environment is something like this:
Enemy Starmie lead.
On paper this is fine. Latios will beat Starmie in a 1v1. It may take damage from ice beam against certain sets, but that's "ok". There's a reason why Latios is not OU in gen3.
Lets say Starmie doesn't get lucky or anything. No crit ice beam. No brightpowder activation from starmie-7. 2 DClaw will KO it. There's no chance to CM in this 1v1 since that can lose without any bad luck.
We now have a ~40% Latios and moltres + registeel at 100%
Next up: Quagsire
it is not immediately obvious what the play should be here. Quag-1 and 2 are bait for latios to full heal and CM against. Quag-3 would usually have to be handled by Latios, but a 40% latios cannot safely stay in against it. It can't even safely scout the Quagsire set in this case. Even if it does not proc QC, it can curse and start spamming attacks again to win this 1v1. Moltres/Registeel can't really handled Quag-3, but the attempt would be to go into Registeel first, then Moltres on the EQ/Curse, and then go for 75% WOW + no sludge bomb psn. Quag-4 can be safely stalled out by moltres sub/tect, but registeel has to enter on a potential freeze and moltres will have to waste additional Sub/tect PP on amnesia turns before surf is out, and then also on ice beam after surf is out of pp - since even with burn, EQ does too much to registeel.
After mapping out these scenarios, you'll probably come to the conclusion that the play is to recover on latios since the largest danger is definitely Quag-3, and a registeel switch on that is unacceptable to give a potential free curse.
I'd say if it is Quag-3; then a QC activation here to kill latios probably puts this battle in the hands of a registeel 1v1 - since Moltres is unlikely to miss so many WOW and while Curse + QC + 2 high damage moves vs moltres is dangerous, its not like Quag is guaranteed to win this. If Quag-3 doesn't QC latios immediately, its still kind of bad news as you will spend the next few turns either using recover on more double edge spam, or recovering out of range and having quag potentially curse (tbh this scenario with curse a late QC is potentially worse because it is very realistic that moltres loses the 1v1 then).
If it's quag-4 and it doesnt crit latios the first turn its in, then there should be an easy path to victory after pivoting to regi -> moltres -> stall ice beam and surf -> pivot back to latios for heal and +6/+6
All of this assumes you are properly thinking/ analysing each turn though. A good player could easily make one of the following mistakes if not doing proper checks:
1. Switch to moltres on an ice beam frz
2. Switch to Registeel on Curse (either immediately on the switch or otherwise)
3. CM on Latios after correctly noting that 40% latios survives ice beam (but forgetting that D-Edge can kill)
4. Sub on Latios, forgetting that Quag can run QC.
Most people play with a threatlist (physical or mental) but quagsire isnt the kind of pokemon to typically be included on that, and tbh it shouldnt be because the default answer of "latios wins" is correct. Still, this is an averagely lucky scenario that makes it into a game-ending threat.
I.e. what i mean is that in general play, i think most players would be unlikely to ring alarm bells after seeing something like Starmie -> Quagsire. If you are going to ring alarm bells on that, you're probably looking at a lot of matches being slow and a lot of constant fresh analysis on every situation of "what if latios is 10-30%, what if moltres is under 62.5%, what if regi is already asleep, etc" for every possible set.
You could avoid a chunk of these losses with truly perfect play and set lookups. For example, knowing in exactly what situations X can or cant be sacked (e.g. Latios likely shouldnt be sacked if gengar-3 is a possible unrevealed set from the trainer, moltres cannot be sacked if metagross is still possible). In practice you're unlikely to do this unless you actually want >10 minute battles to be common.
I purposefully avoided bringing in any enemy set that actually threatens all 3 pokemon in a 1v1 in that "mock battle". But I think you can appreciate how easily and quickly 2 kind of "normal" opponents can raise some serious issues for the team.
A team like this is pretty likely to encounter an opposing team such as the one i described (or perhaps a bit better, perhaps a bit worse) fairly often. I'd spitball this is a 10-20% occurrence (I'm not talking about a specific counter-team such as Slowking4-Metagross6-Latios3 (which would be genuinely unlucky to stack onto 1 team) but a more generic one such as Starmie-Quagsire-Ursaring). You "should" win assuming optimal play, on average, but I'm sure you can appreciate how a single misplay, a single crit on Latios, or a single QC proc at the wrong time will shift your win chance in the battle from the default ~99% to ~70% (something fainted) and then you can be looking at a near certain loss if their 3rd isnt something one of your mons can 1v1.
In terms of backfoot-blind-counter mons on turn 1, as i said the award is probably snorlax/metagross. I don't know what you've decided the blind best idea is turn 1, but I can guarantee whatever it is will be a compromise and at least 1 of their sets will take advantage of it. Them blowing up on regi and bringing it down to ~30% and possibly useless might be one of the better outcomes, who knows.
I don't know how far you'll get but I would note that you're probably a bit more likely to lose to a kind of uninspiring/ normal but slightly lucky opponent with this team, rather than get run over by Walrein-4 or Rhydon-2 getting QC + OHKO once or twice.
The problem is (and the reason why I wouldn't really advise you to change the team) that addressing all these pokemon rapidly becomes an optimisation towards certain familiar faces. For example, the answer to a massive chunk of the pokemon listed above is "skarmory" or "blissey" or "steelix" - as counters that can ignore regularly bad luck. If you follow that optimisation path you're very likely to end up with a known team or a very close relative of one.
I think you're too concerned with some Pokemon that aren't a threat at all. The AI generally is very easy to predict.
Fast electric pokemon - Only Jolteon outspeeds Latios. Jolteon 4 is the only threat with Bite and Shadow Ball, and Registeel pretty comfortable stalls it with Sub Rest. Manectric 4 has Crunch but +1 Latios OHKO with Dragon Claw.
QC users:
Rhydon/Armaldo - Switch to Registeel to scout the set, then switch to Moltres on EQ. Protect to waste Rock-type move, switch out on second to Registeel, repeat until out of Rock type move PP.
Ursaring - Sub to scout the set. If Special Ursaring, Moltres can PP stall it out fairly comfortably. If physical, switch to Registeel, Toxic, let Registeel faint and let Moltres stall.
Flareon - Sub to scout set. Switch to Registeel on Double Edge/Shadow Ball (otherwise switch to Moltres on Flareon 1). Switch to Moltres on Overheat. From there stalling out Double Edge is fairly simple.
Hariyama - Hariyama 1 spams counter and Latios can set up on it or stall it out of Rock Slides. Hariyama 2, as with any Pokemon that has the 3 elemental punches, I use the sequence -> switch to Registeel on Ice Punch, switch to Moltres on Fire Punch - Stall out Thunder Punch -> Morning Sun -> Stall out rest of PP pretty comfortably. Hariyama 3 and 4 are not threats to Moltres after Rock Slide has been stalled.
Slowbro/Slowking - These two generally I Toxic stall with Registeel. Only threat is Slowking 4, but even that only does 33% to Registeel.
Walrein/Lapras - the whole point of the fast Registeel is to sub before they can use an OHKO move. If QC does activate, that's a 6% chance, I can live with that. Sub + Rest stalls out all of these sets.
Breloom - so what if it has QC Spore, that's what Latios's Lum Berry is for. In fact, the AI often continues to Spore into a sub. Latios sets up fairly comfortably.
Whiscash - Sub to scout set. Whicash 4 is the only threat. Switch to Registeel on Ice Beam, switch to Moltres on next EQ. Stall out Surf - then stall out Ice Beam, then Latios sets up very comfortably.
Wailord - same as Whiscash but with even less damage done.
Snorlax - This is actually a threat. I generally switch to Registeel turn one in case of a normal type move, then switch to Moltres and burn it. Then burn stall until it dies. But mainly Snorlax can be stalled out by Registeel once its done with its Normal/Fighting/Ground type moves.
Metagross - Moltres hard counters every Metagross set.
Opposing Lati@s - Registeel switch on Dragon type move. Toxic. If it's an EQ set then switch to Moltres. If its a Thunderbolt set then Sub-Stall. If it's a Dragon Dance set you can Toxic and switch between Moltres + Protect + Registeel because its coverage moves are between Earthquake and Shadow Ball.
Salamence - Generally I just attack with Latios. Salamence 5 does survive but if it won't kill even with a crit +1 Rock Slide.
Heracross - Switch to Registeel on Megahorn, switch to Moltres on whatever it has next, stall out Rock type move, stall out Megahorn, set up with Latios.
Feraligatr - Very few (I think only collectors) have more than 1 type of Feraligatr. With Frontier Assistant it can be easy to deduce the set. Generally you can switch to Registeel on Ice Beam/Dragon Claw, switch to Moltres on EQ, and stall it out.
BP - very uncommon. I've seen Scizor BP but it was on a Bug Maniac, it switched to another Bug (Venomoth) with Moltres out. Moltres counters. Only case where it would be an issue is the off chance it's a Scizor boosted BP into Armaldo with Moltres not behind a sub to burn it, but I'm very careful to always have a sub up.
Suicune - Sub to scout the set. Only one set with Ice Beam has Rest. Regardless, the switch is always Registeel. Toxic stall - if it has Rest, then switch to Moltres when it is resting and stall out its Surfs. If it doesn't have Rest then Registeel stalls.
In general I think you are misunderstanding how to play this team. In your scenario with a Starmie lead I would turn 1 scout with sub to see if it has Ice Beam. If so then switch to Registeel and stall out all its moves. Then switch back to Latios when it's struggling and get up to +6/+6 and sweep the team. Very rarely does Latios stay past the initial scout turn. I won't change the team to over-index on Brightpowder or Quick Claw hax, especially since the latter can generally be dealt with by switching, and the former isn't really that serious when you use Frontier Assistant and can tell if it is holding BP.
I would recommend that you try the team and see how it plays and it will quell a lot of your concerns. 200 isn't necessarily that high of a streak, all things considered.
Let's say that we ignore the ice beam frz chance vs registeel entirely.
You aren't stalling a 252+ spat starmie without risking registeel to a crit surf.
A restloop requires getting hit 3 times and Registeel doesnt have the bulk to sit on a crit surf + 2 additional surfs. You can sub on surf until chesto is used up and Regi is still outside crit range, that means you aren't risking 1/15 crits but more like 1/10 on the final 10 surf PP.
This is one of these "ok" matchups on paper. There's about a 50% chance you get crit during that.
If Starmie does crit Registeel, you are in serious trouble. 252spe Starmie outspeeds moltres, which means Latios is the switch-in. This would be the 75% HP Latios from the turn 1 scout.
A 75% HP Latios can't switch into a Surf and then take an Ice Beam. You could switch into Surf and then CM on ice beam, but at +1spdef you are healing for a net ~10% each turn, and a single crit on Latios is definitely gg. While lum prevents the first freeze, I would not be comfortable sitting on recover against 10% status for that many turns.
So if Registeel is crit early in the restloop you have to make the call on sacking it on purpose or risking Latios to the same crit problem. If Registeel is crit late into the restloop then the sack decision is made for you. 75% latios comes in, takes an ice beam, and you're in a 2v2 scenario with a super low HP Latios.
I would generously label this plan as ~50% to stall starmie's PP and win and ~50% to put yourself far enough behind that you immediately enter loss territory.
The reason why "fast electrics" are a problem isn't one that is solved by "Latios is faster" is because of static and twave spam. Again, you can sub and you will be punished if its not a twave set. Lum berry cures status once, not indefinitely.
Jolteon-4: Registeel restlooping this is also not safe. You are risking the same crit on the restloops, its very likely to 3hko with a crit.
Rhydon: First off, the Registeel switch can immediately lose the game to an OHKO hit
If Rhydon just Spams Rock slide and EQ consecutively, then Registeel is getting hit by rock slide from the latios switch once, and then 3 more times as pressure protect + switch wastes 3 pp. Rock Slide does ~30 damage and Registeel is going down to sub-50% easily here.
Running it out of Rock slide doesn't win, you're still going to have to risk Moltres on a QC Horn Drill.
If it's Rhydon-3 then Crush claw is still breaking the moltres sub. You cant pivot registeel in on these because a Horn Drill can kill it.
There is a bigger issue however, which is that Rhydon can easily just use Horn Drill on Registeel as it wont see a guaranteed kill with EQ earlier on. Switching Moltres into this can also just lose for free.
Armaldo: Moltres/Registeel switch is likely to just outright lose to Armaldo-3. SD has an increased chance at higher HP of being used than an attack. At +2, Registeel can no longer take the chip from Rock Slide and non-rock moves can break the moltres sub. At +4 this gets worse.
For this reason specifically, the best action to take against Armaldo is to just dragon claw it because this will prevent the AI from using Swords Dance.
Usaring: Your plan is just losing against Ursaring-7 a lot of the time. After Toxic a guts boosted facade can just outright OHKO moltres. This gets a lot worse if ursaring uses bulk up or activates QC on Registeel on the planned rest turn.
Flareon: Registeel is not the counter you think it is to curse Flareon, which can curse on Latios before the switch. After 2 curses Registeel already enters a damage range where a single crit or QC activation on a rest turn can kill it.
Hariyama: You can't just sit moltres on Hariyama-3. Facade can break the sub, it runs QC and Moltres is going to be forced to run lower on HP during the stalling process (moltres is not gliscor).
Unlike Rockslide/EQ spam, Moltres can't safely come in on cross chop and maintain the HP required to safely subtect later. There is no safe way to stall rock slide here. You can't subtect it because a single QC proc on the substitute turn is the end of moltres. Pivoting between moltres and Registeel means only 4 rock slides will be used total, but during those 4 rock slides Moltres is switching into a ~25% cross chop 3 times and Registeel takes at least ~35% from chip, more if you want to do the same for EQ.
You can't burn Hariyama-3 because the guts boost gives it too much extra damage.
Slowking/Slowbro: i agree you have to put pressure on these, but you are never safely beating them without risking at least one of: a toxic miss, a crit, a QC activation on the "wrong" turn.
walrein/lapras: I don't see why you think QC+OHKO is required for these to ruin your team. You can Sub on Walrein-4 yes, and if it uses EQ/Surf to break the sub then Registeel just gets into a worse and worse position.
The chance you are forced to either toxic naked, risking OHKO, or risk OHKO on the switch to regi, or just risk a miss/ QC proc are way too highfor this to be safe.
Breloom: I would think it obvious that the issue with electrics also applies here. You do not want a paralysed or asleep Latios, and dclaw is a contact move.
Whiscash-4: i think you are forgetting the fact that a single QC proc on surf will end the 1v1 against Moltres. Again, the whole point of "QC is an issue" is the fact that you're going up against a 20% proc chance 3-4 times in a single 1v1. The odds are almost against moltres safely avoiding QC here.
Wailord: see above.
metagross: exactly the same story. If QC had a 0% proc then moltres can counter it. But a single QC rock slide is gg.
Lati@s: this is the worst reply tbh, Moltres lacks the PP to safely stall the 4-attack sets. Every single special attack from Latios will break sub. The ones with QC (Latios-2 for example) not only threaten this but also are just 20% to KO moltres with a QC proc on a sub turn.
Salamence: so in summary, you're just ~40% to lose to salamence-5 here. Brightpowder and Rock Slide flinch. You can win a game without latios but it is a dreadful start.
The rest of the responses are either not QC or just wrong;
Suicune-1 is never a set you'd bring Registeel in on. It's going to CM and start firing off Surfs. you can toxic and hopefully it hits and it didnt use DT, but its first Rest is free with chesto berry.
Best case scenario is that the AI fumbles the setup and you dont get too unlucky on evasion or crit luck. Worst case scenario is that it uses CM twice and starts spamming surf, using rest once on the first toxic. In this scenario you are probably forced to sack registeel to get moltres in safely, and then proceed to hope it doesnt waste too much of your PP and that the next pokemon isn't something you needed registeel or a high-subtect PP moltres for
to be honest I find the response baffling.
Your post seems to assume that QC is a low% occurrence rather than one of the highest in gen 3. You cannot safely subtect spam on a move like Surf, thunderbolt, Rock Slide. Doing this 3-4 times actually puts the AI as the more likely winner of the 1v1. This isn't necessarily gg but if your "counter" is to recklessly risk moltres and then the backup plan is "i guess i hope latios is healthy and doesnt get QC also" then i can't understand 200 wins to be honest.
It also seems to assume that Moltres can just freely stall anything in a similar way to toxic heal gliscor.
Against a slower opponent, you can pretty safely Subtect a move like thunderbolt. It has 8 uses after pressure, so after protect-sub x4, you're looking at a 50% HP moltres. That's "ok", so long as the next most damaging move also isnt breaking sub. If it is (this would trivially be true for a pokemon as strong as Latios for example), then Moltres cannot continue to just blindly subtect and rely on leftovers. You can morning sun yes, but the second you do this you open yourself up to a crit (reminder that if the move breaks sub then the crit version of the move will outdamage morning sun) or secondary effect (or a random status move). Moltres is a good pokemon for a lot of 1v1s, but the way you talk about it feels like gliscor rather than moltres.
If moltres "just" had to stall a single move, this would be ok. The problem is, the moves that are most commonly targetting moltres (rock/electric/water/etc) aren't the moves you need to stall for Latios/Registeel to safely setup on. Your strategy and post seem to imply that you regularly rely on Moltres to not just stall out ~8 turns but ~20+ regularly against some fairly deadly opponents (with or without QC).
Let's say that we ignore the ice beam frz chance vs registeel entirely.
You aren't stalling a 252+ spat starmie without risking registeel to a crit surf.
A restloop requires getting hit 3 times and Registeel doesnt have the bulk to sit on a crit surf + 2 additional surfs. You can sub on surf until chesto is used up and Regi is still outside crit range, that means you aren't risking 1/15 crits but more like 1/10 on the final 10 surf PP.
This is one of these "ok" matchups on paper. There's about a 50% chance you get crit during that.
If Starmie does crit Registeel, you are in serious trouble. 252spe Starmie outspeeds moltres, which means Latios is the switch-in. This would be the 75% HP Latios from the turn 1 scout.
A 75% HP Latios can't switch into a Surf and then take an Ice Beam. You could switch into Surf and then CM on ice beam, but at +1spdef you are healing for a net ~10% each turn, and a single crit on Latios is definitely gg. While lum prevents the first freeze, I would not be comfortable sitting on recover against 10% status for that many turns.
So if Registeel is crit early in the restloop you have to make the call on sacking it on purpose or risking Latios to the same crit problem. If Registeel is crit late into the restloop then the sack decision is made for you. 75% latios comes in, takes an ice beam, and you're in a 2v2 scenario with a super low HP Latios.
I would generously label this plan as ~50% to stall starmie's PP and win and ~50% to put yourself far enough behind that you immediately enter loss territory.
The reason why "fast electrics" are a problem isn't one that is solved by "Latios is faster" is because of static and twave spam. Again, you can sub and you will be punished if its not a twave set. Lum berry cures status once, not indefinitely.
Jolteon-4: Registeel restlooping this is also not safe. You are risking the same crit on the restloops, its very likely to 3hko with a crit.
Rhydon: First off, the Registeel switch can immediately lose the game to an OHKO hit
If Rhydon just Spams Rock slide and EQ consecutively, then Registeel is getting hit by rock slide from the latios switch once, and then 3 more times as pressure protect + switch wastes 3 pp. Rock Slide does ~30 damage and Registeel is going down to sub-50% easily here.
Running it out of Rock slide doesn't win, you're still going to have to risk Moltres on a QC Horn Drill.
If it's Rhydon-3 then Crush claw is still breaking the moltres sub. You cant pivot registeel in on these because a Horn Drill can kill it.
There is a bigger issue however, which is that Rhydon can easily just use Horn Drill on Registeel as it wont see a guaranteed kill with EQ earlier on. Switching Moltres into this can also just lose for free.
Armaldo: Moltres/Registeel switch is likely to just outright lose to Armaldo-3. SD has an increased chance at higher HP of being used than an attack. At +2, Registeel can no longer take the chip from Rock Slide and non-rock moves can break the moltres sub. At +4 this gets worse.
For this reason specifically, the best action to take against Armaldo is to just dragon claw it because this will prevent the AI from using Swords Dance.
Usaring: Your plan is just losing against Ursaring-7 a lot of the time. After Toxic a guts boosted facade can just outright OHKO moltres. This gets a lot worse if ursaring uses bulk up or activates QC on Registeel on the planned rest turn.
Flareon: Registeel is not the counter you think it is to curse Flareon, which can curse on Latios before the switch. After 2 curses Registeel already enters a damage range where a single crit or QC activation on a rest turn can kill it.
Hariyama: You can't just sit moltres on Hariyama-3. Facade can break the sub, it runs QC and Moltres is going to be forced to run lower on HP during the stalling process (moltres is not gliscor).
Unlike Rockslide/EQ spam, Moltres can't safely come in on cross chop and maintain the HP required to safely subtect later. There is no safe way to stall rock slide here. You can't subtect it because a single QC proc on the substitute turn is the end of moltres. Pivoting between moltres and Registeel means only 4 rock slides will be used total, but during those 4 rock slides Moltres is switching into a ~25% cross chop 3 times and Registeel takes at least ~35% from chip, more if you want to do the same for EQ.
You can't burn Hariyama-3 because the guts boost gives it too much extra damage.
Slowking/Slowbro: i agree you have to put pressure on these, but you are never safely beating them without risking at least one of: a toxic miss, a crit, a QC activation on the "wrong" turn.
walrein/lapras: I don't see why you think QC+OHKO is required for these to ruin your team. You can Sub on Walrein-4 yes, and if it uses EQ/Surf to break the sub then Registeel just gets into a worse and worse position.
The chance you are forced to either toxic naked, risking OHKO, or risk OHKO on the switch to regi, or just risk a miss/ QC proc are way too highfor this to be safe.
Breloom: I would think it obvious that the issue with electrics also applies here. You do not want a paralysed or asleep Latios, and dclaw is a contact move.
Whiscash-4: i think you are forgetting the fact that a single QC proc on surf will end the 1v1 against Moltres. Again, the whole point of "QC is an issue" is the fact that you're going up against a 20% proc chance 3-4 times in a single 1v1. The odds are almost against moltres safely avoiding QC here.
Wailord: see above.
metagross: exactly the same story. If QC had a 0% proc then moltres can counter it. But a single QC rock slide is gg.
Lati@s: this is the worst reply tbh, Moltres lacks the PP to safely stall the 4-attack sets. Every single special attack from Latios will break sub. The ones with QC (Latios-2 for example) not only threaten this but also are just 20% to KO moltres with a QC proc on a sub turn.
Salamence: so in summary, you're just ~40% to lose to salamence-5 here. Brightpowder and Rock Slide flinch. You can win a game without latios but it is a dreadful start.
The rest of the responses are either not QC or just wrong;
Suicune-1 is never a set you'd bring Registeel in on. It's going to CM and start firing off Surfs. you can toxic and hopefully it hits and it didnt use DT, but its first Rest is free with chesto berry.
Best case scenario is that the AI fumbles the setup and you dont get too unlucky on evasion or crit luck. Worst case scenario is that it uses CM twice and starts spamming surf, using rest once on the first toxic. In this scenario you are probably forced to sack registeel to get moltres in safely, and then proceed to hope it doesnt waste too much of your PP and that the next pokemon isn't something you needed registeel or a high-subtect PP moltres for
to be honest I find the response baffling.
Your post seems to assume that QC is a low% occurrence rather than one of the highest in gen 3. You cannot safely subtect spam on a move like Surf, thunderbolt, Rock Slide. Doing this 3-4 times actually puts the AI as the more likely winner of the 1v1. This isn't necessarily gg but if your "counter" is to recklessly risk moltres and then the backup plan is "i guess i hope latios is healthy and doesnt get QC also" then i can't understand 200 wins to be honest.
It also seems to assume that Moltres can just freely stall anything in a similar way to toxic heal gliscor.
Against a slower opponent, you can pretty safely Subtect a move like thunderbolt. It has 8 uses after pressure, so after protect-sub x4, you're looking at a 50% HP moltres. That's "ok", so long as the next most damaging move also isnt breaking sub. If it is (this would trivially be true for a pokemon as strong as Latios for example), then Moltres cannot continue to just blindly subtect and rely on leftovers. You can morning sun yes, but the second you do this you open yourself up to a crit (reminder that if the move breaks sub then the crit version of the move will outdamage morning sun) or secondary effect (or a random status move). Moltres is a good pokemon for a lot of 1v1s, but the way you talk about it feels like gliscor rather than moltres.
If moltres "just" had to stall a single move, this would be ok. The problem is, the moves that are most commonly targetting moltres (rock/electric/water/etc) aren't the moves you need to stall for Latios/Registeel to safely setup on. Your strategy and post seem to imply that you regularly rely on Moltres to not just stall out ~8 turns but ~20+ regularly against some fairly deadly opponents (with or without QC).
Again, I'm posting a team with a 210 win streak, not 1000+. If you look at other sample teams in this range, many of them also have the same issues with OHKO moves and QC. Also consider that for OHKO moves against Moltres the QC has to activate on a Substitute turn, which halves the likelihood again. And also that Pressure's effect means that I would only need to risk this on 2 Substitute turns. In most of the situations you are concerned about, it seems you have forgotten Pressure's effect.
For example, against Lati@s 2, the most threatening one, the sequence goes as follows:
- Latios switches out to Registeel to scout set.
- Registeel Sub on Latios to Scout set. If EQ, switches out to Moltres next turn.
- Moltres switches in on EQ.
- SubTect 8 Turns of Thunderbolt + 5 Turns of Psychic leaves Moltres at around 25%. On turn 14 it can Morning Sun against Ice Beam fairly safely. If the set is Dragon Claw instead of Psychic, it does not do 50% so Moltres still stalls.
I've done this sequence around 3 times already and had no issues with it. Worst case scenario its just stalling out EQ with switches and then Registeel can PP stall it as well.
The beauty of the team is that if the AI lead is one with a favorable PP stall matchup then their last 2 Pokemon are nothing to be worried about.
I felt very comfortable playing with this team, it played almost exactly like my Battle Subway team, which was a modification of other's Gen V/VI PP stall teams which have all done very well. All of these teams have similar weaknesses, but I can live with that.
Anyone else who has used Moltres PP stall can attest that it works a lot better in practice than it seems on paper.
Let me be clear; I do think a team like this can get 200. 200 is a lot - for a large part of emerald's history that would have been a top streak - but with the correct play and scouting into every set its possible. Previous teams in that ballpark do directly discuss exactly these kinds of issues though.
I did not doubt it initially but if the plan is to throw moltres against these threats then i doubt it more to be completely honest. There are certain threats where the correct course of action is to just risk Latios in order to reduce the chance of the AI using a move like Swords Dance. This is why I question "I've rarely had any scares using this team" but not "i got 200".
The thing about OHKO (and I would emphasise that anyone who has played a stall set knows this) is that the AI is not 100% to spam these moves. A first glance would say "ok, OHKO move has 5pp and moltres has pressure. I can protect, sub, protect. That gives it only 1 chance to hit moltres (on the sub turn with QC). that's only 6%, i'm favored".
The problem is that in reality, OHKO moves just sit at a +0 score in the enemy AI. That's the same score (and probability weighting) as a regular status move or as a regular attack. So the move selection protect, sub, protect has a chance of wasting 0 OHKO PP, and instead just delaying OHKO into a future unknown turn. You can generalise this kind of decision mapping into a markov process, but you're going to end up with a baseline rate that using protect on an ohko turn is ~50%. That means sometimes you'll get 3/3 protect on the ohko attempt, and sometimes you'll get 0/3. Sometimes the sub may already be up also, great. but the fact is that you can't rely on the AI behaving this way. In a single, isolated 1v1 its acceptable. In a long streak where you will inevitably have these ohko sets appear multiple times, its not. It's ok to say "OHKO sets are a problem" but this is the opposite of what you're claiming.
The other problem is that dodging a QC OHKO isn't gg. Getting hit by a QC move like Rock Slide or Surf (these appear annoyingly often alongside OHKO) is almost as bad. A QC SE move is going to deal ~60% to moltres, that's instantly going to put you into a HP range where morning sun is forced or if it happens on turn ~7+ that moltres is in, it could outright just KO it. Again, subtect spam on moltres takes you from 16/16 -> 13/16 -> 14/16 -> 11/16 -> 12/16 -> etc... on conseuctive turns. You'll only have a 75%+ HP moltres for the first 6 or so turns. That's fine if the only move you are stalling is 10pp rock slide. It's not fine if the move is 15pp surf/ tbolt and its definitely not fine if the enemy set has 2 moves that deal "too much" damage to moltres. You can use Gliscor like this, but you can't do the same with aerodactyl, moltres or suicune reliably in gen3.
There's also the fact that even something kind of basic like Lapras-7 is going to absolutely demand an OHKO dodge on the regi/moltres switch before sub-stalling PP can happen. And no, you can't safely sub scout with Latios either because there is also a QC OHKO set and various 4-attack spam sets
There's no way to argue your way out of the fact that OHKO spam is a massive problem until a team runs at least Gengar and preferably a pokemon with Sturdy. This isn't an issue, but you claiming that you are safe from OHKO or that its only a 6% risk is wildly wrong. The actual risk is at least 5 times greater than that
Lets examine Latios-2 in detail against moltres so I can underline for other readers what actually happens here. This is centrally important so I'll leave out the spoiler tags.
We'll assume Latios-2 has 9/10 ice beam (-1 from regi switch), 7/10 EQ (1 used against registeel, 2 from switch into pressure), 15/15 tbolt and 10/10 psychic
turn 1: protect.... 16/16 HP moltres (I will express the HP in fractions of 16, aware that "0/16" is still 1hp as this is the remainder). Thats 13/15 tbolt PP at the end of the turn.
turn 2: sub... 13/16 HP moltres at the end of turn. Note: there is a 20% QC proc here. If QC activates, you have a sub-25% moltres at best and moltres will lose the 1v1. Otherwise, that's 11/15 tbolt pp.
3: protect ... 14/16 ... 9/15 tbolt
4: sub ............ 11/16 ...7/15 tbolt. Once again, a 20% QC activation is gg. (2 QC)
5: protect ... 12/16 ... 5/15 tbolt
6: sub .............. 9/16 ...3/15 tbolt. 20% QC activation is a dead moltres. (3 QC)
7: protect ... 10/16 ...1/15 tbolt.
8: sub ............ 7/16 ...0/15 tbolt. The final Tbolt gets 1 final chance to kill moltres with a QC (4 QC attempts total)
9: protect ... 8/16 ...8/10 psychic
10: sub ......... 5/16 ...6/10 psychic. If QC psychic procs here then it's a roll to kill. even if it doesnt kill, Moltres has no chance but to start spamming morning sun on crit and spdef drop psychic that deals around 50% at base anyway
11: protect ...6/16 ...4/10 psychic
12: sub........... 3/16 ...2/10 psychic. QC on this turn is GG once more.
13: protect ...4/16 ...0/10 psychic. Latios-2 is now out of tbolt and psychic PP but it's not over
14: morning sun to heal to 12/16 from 4/16. QC Ice beam here is GG. That's the 7th potential QC that can ruin moltres. even without QC, frz is gg
15: assume no QC at all. Moltres will be around 46% after non-crit ice beam on turn 14. Morning sun is forced again to avoid a loss to QC on turn 16. QC crit is gg, frz is gg.
16: if moltres reaches this point it should be at ~65% and "safe" to start subtecting
You need 0/7 Quick claw (that's a 20% chance. Not 20% for quick claw, but 20% for you to dodge QC on every sub turn). You can maybe cope that 0/5 is enough for a latios setup, but thats still favoring the opponent.
You also need no ice beam FRZ and no ice beam crit on the first few morning sun turns in order to avoid losing to QC on the next turn or avoid outright fainting to crit ice beam since it can deal ~75%
Moltres is ~15% to win this 1v1 and stall Latios-2 successfully. You say you've done this 3/3 times, but thats a ~0.5% occurence. Not impossible, but very lucky and a shocking amount of risk to take compared to just trying to win the 1v1 with latios or registeel directly and not risk stalling.
You might say "oh but that's fine I got lucky". But there's a second kicker: people who have done pressure-PP stalling in gen 3 know that there is a flaw with the enemy AI which means that after it runs out of its highest damaging move (here tbolt), it no longer functions to select psychic with perfect reliability. In reality, after turn 8 you're looking at 50% ice beam and 50% psychic as both moves get a -1 AI score. I cannot (honestly in all good faith at all) believe you haven't noticed this after 200 battles.
Regardless, this is a "problem" because ice beam also breaks the moltres sub and it means psychic PP is very likely still intact 13 turns in. You could try to morning sun on a guessed ice beam, but this is a potential disaster against psychic and its 10% spdef drop or 6% crit, and that's again ignoring 20% QC.
If you'd said that you need to alternate the morning sun in earlier because of this unreliability from the AI then I'd probably agree, but I'm not sure why you need me to tell you that this is necessary when i'm the one who has never played the matchup. For you to 3/3 into QC 3-spatk latios in this matchup is a massive claim. This is the kind of thing that happens once and you either lose or you realise the massive loss % and dont do it again and talk about it in the writeup as an obvious threat.
The one point in your favor with this strategy is you can argue that once "enough" PP is used up, latios-registeel could switch stall latios-2 which can lead to a fully setup Latios if successful. There is a very real danger of Registeel getting too low through this though (stalling 7 EQ pp to stall means registeel is eating at least 6 attacks, and even ice beam is going to deal ~13%), and setting up on ~20% dmg struggles from QC is uncomfortable at best. Generously, you could claim that effective PP stalling is just 0/5 QC on moltres sub, which is "only" a 32% chance of getting lucky enough to effectively stall. I'd still call that an insane risk to intentionally take - I would rather just take an 80% win from no QC on lati, or a 85% win from Registeel hitting toxic
Furthermore this "You can't just spam subtect because you have to consider your actual HP total" problem is universal to basically every pokemon with multiple damaging attacks and particularly bad on QC
Consider Metagross-4 ("moltres counters metagross easily"). Let's assume it just gets in for free on EQ, that seems fine.
What exactly is moltres supposed to do now to safely (lets say >90%) stall? You can just WOW immediately. Not a bad idea as the ~75% hit chance is probably the end of metagross being a real threat. a spdef drop on WOW would be pretty bad, but you could then pivot into regi to reset it.
subtect spam is an option but definitely uncomfortable. You do not want to get hit by a psychic crit or eat a spdef drop on a QC sub turn.
Once psychic PP is gone, do you continue to stay in? MM is a 20% atk boost chance. It's not always going to select MM as it can select Shadow Ball also (the AI will not be deterministic on this select just as its not deterministic with Latios). A single attack raise is a problem because this removes the safety net moltres has of semi-reliabily being able to just sit on morning sun.
At the same time, after a single attack raise, both latios and registeel want nothing to do with metagross either. Even if all its PP gets stripped, +1 struggle does too much damage to let latios safely setup.
Ok so metagross-4 is meh but not exactly GG. The concern goes up quite a lot more with Metagross-5 though, which is definitely going to take its luck on 2 QC rock slides. It's then quite likely to just explode. Even if all Rock slide and explode miss the QC/ sub 20% dance, you're left with a naked 10/16 moltres (its 9/16 but gets 1 free protect on the following turn) into the next mon. This is not a "good" outcome as a 10/16 hp moltres can only effectively subtect spam 6-7 turns.
This is just me voicing concerns out loud; I'm actually not sure what the optimal play against metagross because the set overlap is annoying.
Metagross-7 can look like metagross-4 because it will also either SBall or MM lati, and then attempt to EQ Registeel (damage rolls will be identical, there will be no item indication)
The problem is you don't really want to do moltres vs metagross-7 either, but for a different reason to metagross-4. SBall + tpunch requires 16 turns of stalling with subtect pressure. As it doesnt have QC, you can safely Subtect until turn 15 with a 12.5% HP moltres. Morning sun here is ok, but a SBall spdef drop would mean a regi switch, and moltres doesnt really want to sit on ice punch either, even if its "only" hit by 15/2/2 = 4 total after pressure and protect, that's 4 chances for moltres to get frozen. The reward for this is that Latios can attempt a setup, except metagross struggle can break latios' sub. Its possible to setup here but uncomfortable and as we know from other teams, a +6/+6 latios with only dclaw coverage isnt gg with 2 opponents left.
Again, I'm not sure why you need me to tell you this. Surely you have seen Metagross at least a few times, and most of its sets either overlap or should create some fear from MM atk boosts. You have no fast way to kill metagross, so I can't believe you just "haven't seen it atk boost".
All of this is "ok" if lati@s and metagross were isolated cases, but they're not. Let me just forget the massive QC + Guts list I've already provided (most of these outlast moltres with offensive pressure) and pick out a set like Dewgong-4, milotic-2 or nidoking-3
Dewgong-4 is only "safely" handled by regi but you are forced to risk sheer cold or ice beam frz on the switch before you go for sub. Moltres cant handle this since surf+ice beam + sheer cold is too much PP to safely stall. Latios can 1v1 it if you can dodge crits and sheer colds.
Milotic-2 has safeguard + surf/ice beam. Regi can 1v1 this with SToss, if surf does not crit. There's no safe way to get Moltres in against this without sacking something, but even after that happens a full 13-turn stall still ends with giving milotic a chance to frz moltres. The ultimate upshot (if moltres somehow gets in) is ok because the reward is ultimately +6/+6 latios, but again this is not GG.
Nidoking-3 is another pokemon where I'm not sure what you're supposed to do without thinking for a bit. No way for Latios to safely 1v1 this, particularly when set 2 and 4 need to be scouted and run from. Registeel cant sit on horn drill or fire blast, especially while its slower. Moltres could come in, but Surf's 15pp + Leppa berry giving an extra 10 means moltres needs 100% HP to get the full 13 turn subtect for 8+5 surf PP (note that getting hit by fblast or blizzard means you arent at 100% even after 2 leftover ticks). This sounds ok until you remember horn drill can slip into one of those turns and ruin the perfect count. At the same time, there is absolutely no way you can safely 1v1 without subtect while it still has horn drill PP remaining. The risk of horn drill also makes Moltres/ Registeel pivoting way too risky. Latios could stay in, but Poison Point can burn lum, +0 DClaw is a 2hko roll on nido-3 and unscouted nido-2 will just beat latios in this scenario.
These are not cherry-picked sets. The list of pokemon Latios can't trivially 1v1 but have multiple coverage moves is an extension of this. A single misplay or misread of a set on a single turn can be GG - it's not like Latios or Moltres are actually bulky enough to take a stray hit. Registeel has a longer list of things it "safely counters" but I would be very wary of things like 3/3 self hit from confusion, or 25% prz happening and preventing rest on a critical turn. Again, it's a near-certainty that this has either happened or almost happened to you once in 200 battles.
even outside the turn 1 threadlist pre-scout (this is easily 50+ sets), there are simple combos of enemy sets that can cause trouble.
Lead claydol for example. You can sub t1 to scout, but claydol-4 puts you in an awkward position where it beats latios 1v1, moltres cannot safely switch in (from either latios or Registeel) due to the explosion threat. At the same time, no way registeel safely stays in while it spams 252+ EQs (while being faster). You can go to moltres and hope for no explode on the switch, but if it explodes on moltres then you open yourself up to losing to every set not defeated by the Latios-Registeel combo (and this is likely a 75% Latios after the sub-scout). Claydol doesn't 1v3 you like some other sets can, but it does destroy the defensive core and create a 2v2. Again, this is "ok" but the threatlist expansion is going to put your win odds way lower.
Manectric is a similar issue. On paper latios can 1v1 all its sets. In reality, manectric-4 is decently likely to prz latios through the combination of 33% static + twave being fairly likely. You don't get a free sub on twave either since its still ~10% to just use crunch anyway. You don't immediately lose if latios gets paralysed, but you do expand the threatlist to include pokemon such as Starmie and Gengar. Registeel and Moltres aren't coming in and staying in on these STAB electric moves vs manectric safely either. Manectric doesn't deserve a mention as a "counter" but it definitely does deserve a mention as a pokemon that can directly cause a loss. Again I struggle to believe that even the more presumably harmless electric types like electrode havent randomly proc'd 1/3 static twice or at least once and then threatened to do so again.
That comment (avoiding static, maintaining lum) is the kind of advice i would expect from 200 battles of properly playing this team. PRZ almost completely cripples latios' ability to 1v1 a lot of opponents, let alone sweep. It's not the kind of thing you needlessly risk
To be blunt, there is a disconnect between your team + streak (which are believable as a combo) and the comments surrounding not only the risk of, but also how to deal with certain threats, as well as how the Gen 3 AI just behaves in general when it comes to PP-stalling and the priority given to OHKO moves or split-decisions on SE attacks.
If you had said how a reasonably long list of sets (even without naming them) actually give this team trouble, how important exact scouting with AI knowledge is, and how often you need to find some very unintuitive lines to safely avoid going down to a 1v2 I'd be more willing to believe it.
I'd also be more willing to believe "oh i just haven't faced latios-2/ metagross/ rhydon/ whiscash/ lapras/ nidoking yet and was not aware of the threat" but I feel like you've put yourself into a corner on this by claiming you've just brute-forced all of them every time they've appeared, never getting "unlucky".
The more confusing part is that in my responses I have given you a free ticket to either directly agree or properly discuss actual issues and make the streak seem more convincing. Trying to claim that the team rarely gets into trouble does not make me believe the streak is legit, it makes me think the opposite. These points I'm raising are not complex, they're obvious and come to mind immediately when considering how a single "10% bad luck" fight could end the streak.
