When the battle started against BNSPokeMstr, I wasn't exactly sure what a lead Espeon would do, but when I saw Trick Room, I started to worry, since my slowest Pokemon at the time was Scizor, and it was still of average speed. Then I realized that priority moves will always be priority moves regardless of whether Trick Room was active, so that kind of eased the concern a bit. Still, I didn't want to have a Curselax on the opposing side make things difficult for my mostly physical offense team, so I decided to take it out with an Explosion as soon as I could.
I'm not sure why for the blind switch I went for Gyarados instead of something that had a priority move. I had no idea what speed of a Pokemon I should try to underspeed as the case may be. Scizor could have handled the issue best with the aforementioned average speed and priority attack. I didn't have my Gyarados use Dragon Dance because I was thinking that Heracross was running minimum speed, which would allow it to go first in Trick Room, and likely use Stone Edge, so I wanted to get in some damage before Heracross could 2 hit KO Gyarados (ignoring the critical hit factor). I turns out that I did go first, though. Either way, it was a good decision because if I did use Dragon Dance, I would have been hit, probably, by two Stone Edges before I could have my Gyarados attack. As it turns out, though, this Heracross did not carry Stone Edge (or at least thought that I might switch) but still manages to get a critical hit. I return the favour by giving my opponent flinch hax. And then, Trick Room ends, meaning that I wouldn't be knocking out Heracross before taking another hit.
Seeing Ampharos enter meant that I should switch out to something with better special defense, so I chose Latias to take the attack, seeing as how it has a resistance to Thunderbolt. I didn't expect Thunder, though, and that still managed to take off a little less than a third of Latias' maximum HP. I also forgot that Ampharos had pretty decent special defense as well, but luckily Latias dealt a critical hit with its STAB move.
Once Ampharos fainted, BNSPokeMstr summoned Espeon again. I was hoping that Dragon Pulse would KO Espeon before it could use Trick Room again, but to no avail. Since Latias' speed was way too high to be useful in Trick Room, I switched to my Scizor. However, Espeon used Trick Room again to restore the dimensions. I had never seen that tactic used before, but then again, I rarely faced Trick Room teams up to this point.
I commanded Scizor to Pursuit, hoping that Espeon would retreat, but it didn't. Luckily, Choice Band Scizor was still able to deal enough damage to KO Espeon anyway. When Lapras was called in, I immediately thought it would use a Water move, so I decided to switch back to Gyarados.
However, BNSPokeMstr used Thunderbolt instead, figuring I would probably switch into Gyarados or another Water-type. Should I have switched back into Latias? Maybe not. The Lapras could have had Ice Beam, and Lapras had a higher HP and Special Defense stat than Ampharos, meaning that I could have lost Latias... and if Lapras had Shell Armor, I wouldn't have been able to rely on a critical hit.
With Gyarados gone, I could now have a free switch in, so I chose Lucario and hoped that its STAB Close Combat would be enough to defeat a Lapras at about 80% remaining HP. I'm not sure why BNSPokeMstr didn't switch out, though. Maybe a Swords Dance was predicted. Even if Lapras didn't fall to Close Combat, Scizor could have come in for the revenge kill with its Bullet Punch.
BNSPokeMstr had one Pokemon left, which was Altaria. Knowing that I have Latias and Salamence still in tow, I knew I had this battle won. I just made sure that Lucario did as much damage as it could with Extremespeed before going down. After Lucario fell to Flamethrower, I sent out my Latias, since I didn't really feel like showcasing Salamence when I didn't need to.
This was a pretty fun battle. It was nice to see people trying out other types of teams to see the viability of its use in the competitive environment.
Until next time, protect the world from devastation!
I'm not sure why my opponent trogdor0 wanted a four versus four battle, but I'm willing to guess that he didn't have enough competitively trained Pokemon at the time, and wanted to make the battle a bit more fair. I decided to remove my Scizor and Latias from my team for no reason other than they weren't blue.
I guess I wasn't too concerned about how the camera was positioned, given that we can get the jist of what is happening.
I don't see many lead Espeon, but that was what trogdor0 had, so I just decided to go with the typical "Set up Stealth Rock on the first turn and see what the opponent's move is" approach. When the Espeon used a Life Orb Shadow Ball, I figured that the lead didn't do anything lead-specific, so I kept Metagross in to use Earthquake on the next turn.
Once Espeon fainted, trogdor0 brought out Honchkrow. I don't know why I keep thinking Honchkrow are frail. Anyway, Bullet Punch does about 30% damage, and Honchkrow uses Heat Wave to rid my Metagross of its remaining HP. I wasn't sure of the item Honchkrow held, so I brought in Gyarados in case it was a choice item.
I'm not sure why I decided to only use Dragon Dance once, when I probably could have done a second one to ensure that any Intimidators wouldn't bring the attack back down. Maybe I was concerned about Whirlwind. In any case, Honchkrow are probably not the best of swimmers, so Gyarados' Waterfall fells it.
Tyranitar brings a sandstorm with it. I was thinking it might be a Choice Scarfed variant, which meant that my Lucario and Salamence would have trouble handling the Earthquake and Stone Edge I thought it carried. I hoped to do as much damage as possible with Waterfall so that at least Lucario's Extremespeed would be able to finish off Tyranitar if need be, although the resistance to Normal is going to make that a tough feat as well.
After trogdor0 lost a turn by attempting to have Tyranitar use Substitute, I spent some time thinking if I should use Return in case he decided to switch out, or to use Waterfall, hoping that he wouldn't bring out a Vaporeon or Suicune. In the end, I chose to use Waterfall, just in case a resisted Return wouldn't KO the Tyranitar. Too many times in the past I have used some weak move in an attempt to save PP, only to find out that it was a crucial mistake.
One Pokemon left, and it was Salamence. Being brought down to normal attack levels meant that Return wouldn't do enough to KO Salamence, even with its HP depleted by 25% through Stealth Rock, but I figured since I still had Lucario in the wings, I could win the match, which is exactly what I did.
That's all I can really say about this battle for now. So until next time, protect the world from devastation.
Blazeinferno is my opponent this time. He begins the match with his Gallade and launches a Will-O-Wisp in order to reduce the Attacking stat of my Metagross. Luckily, I was using a Lum Berry Metagross instead of an Occa or Shuca variant, and the Lum Berry eliminates the burn. I chose to use Stealth Rock on my first turn, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Gallade used Will-O-Wisp again. Maybe Blazeinferno knew that was a predictable move, so he switched his Gallade out and brought out something that would be defensive against the standard Metagross lead. Skarmory loses next to nothing from Bullet Punch, absolutely nothing from Earthquake (unless it has used Roost), and not more than 2/3 of its HP from Explosion.
My switch-in was Salamence. I had the intention of using Flamethrower to defeat Skarmory. However, after Skarmory laid down the Stealth Rock, it switched out. I guess it was kind of obvious what I was planning to do, as a mixed attacking Salamence was extremely popular at the time. I wouldn't be using Dragon Claw or Earthquake to deal damage to Skarmory, so Blazeinferno brings out Gallade again.
The Gallade took less than half from the Flamethrower, and then began the next turn with a Psycho Cut, leaving me to believe that it was Choice Scarfed. Luckily, I used the turn to use Dragon Dance, meaning that I would outspeed Gallade. Wanting to keep his Gallade for a later time, Blazeinferno brings out Togekiss to take the expected Dragon Claw. I guess it was a physically defensive Togekiss, but a critical hit makes it so I won't know for sure.
After Togekiss fainted, Swellow is brought out, only to take Stealth Rock damage and a Dragon Claw before fainting. I was starting to see my Life Orb recoil bring my Salamence down to low yellow, and I thought to myself that I should be able to take out three of the remaining four Pokemon at most before Salamence fainted, and I could bring out Latias to go against the last Pokemon, to either attack with a powerful move, or Trick it with a Choice Scarf, locking that Pokemon to one move and easing prediction.
Blazeinferno brings out Alakazam. I was thinking about using Dragon Claw, but luckily I slipped and chose Earthquake instead. He switched out the Alakazam to bring out Skarmory. I guess he was trying to deplete Salamence's HP through Life Orb, but since Earthquake did not hit at all, Salamence's HP remained intact for that turn.
I used Flamethrower, and Blazeinferno predicted that move would be coming, so he brings out his Gallade again, which took less than 50% the last time I was hit with it. He left his Gallade in to take the next attack. I guess he figured that Salamence is pretty close to fainting from Life Orb. I really got the feeling that Blazeinferno was protecting his Skarmory more than any other Pokemon in this battle. After Gallade fainted, Blazeinferno sent his Electivire out.
The obvious move would be to use Earthquake, but I played out a scenario in my mind: Blazeinferno switches out to Skarmory, Earthquake would miss, I would use another attack, but he switches out to another Pokemon, Salamence faints through Life Orb, and his Skarmory is still able to battle.
I decided to just go for Flamethrower again to avoid the latter parts of that scenario. Hitting Skarmory with Flamethrower at the cost of Salamence's remaining HP would mean that the remainder of my mostly physical team wouldn't have as much trouble for the rest of the battle.
Knowing that he had Alakazam and Electivire remaining, I figured that for the unknown switch in, I should choose Metagross to hit Alakazam with Bullet Punch or Electivire with Earthquake. Once the Alakazam was brought in, it was brought out again to be switched with Electivire to take the predicted Bullet Punch. A good move on Blazeinferno's part, as Electivire is faster than Metagross and is able to use Earthquake first, something I forgot to consider when I decided who to switch in. Metagross is bulky enough to survive the attack and retaliates with an Earthquake of its own.
Blazeinferno was down to his Alakazam. Since Metagross was at low health, it didn't make sense to use Earthquake, so I just used Bullet Punch to outspeed Alakazam. I kept on thinking to myself that Alakazam is frail, but apparently it is still able to survive a Bullet Punch. I guess that makes sense, given that Bullet Punch is not a powerful move like Earthquake or Meteor Mash. Anyway, Life Orb Alakazam faints by its own accord, leaving me the victor.
So, after three battles with T-Flare members, I have had one battle where the opponent ran, one battle where I fainted all of the opponent's Pokemon, and one battle where the opponent's recoil cost him the game. I was glad that I was getting such varied victories in such a small group of battles.
Until next time, extend our reach to the stars above!
This is one of my favourite battles, if not THE favourite battle of all since the 4th generation of Pokemon. It contains one of my favourite remixes, and I also got to battle with Aroma_Of_Cat, who a lot of us on T-Flare refer to as Dale. After accomplishing many feats and gaining accolades on T-Flare, Aroma_Of_Cat has left to pursue other interests. At the time of this battle, though, he was considered one of the better battlers around, so I was pleased to battle him.
If you're wondering why this battle has the online icon in the upper right corner, it's because I uploaded this video to the GTS so that I could battle my next opponent right away without having to wait about ten or more minutes setting up the camera and playing back the battle, although I wonder why I didn't bother to just save the video again from GTS afterward so that I could view it offline.
When we began the battle with the same lead, I wasn't sure which of us had a faster Metagross, so I opted to use Stealth Rock instead of Earthquake, in case I wouldn't be able to survive two attacks. It was important for me to think for the long term of the battle, and besides, if it was a lead Metagross, the moveset would likely be the same as mine, which meant that my Gyarados or Salamence should be able to handle the Metagross should my Metagross fall to a critical hit. Dale's Metagross used Earthquake as its opening move to deal some damage. I can only guess that Dale wanted to inflict some damage and make me think about switching out so that he could set up Stealth Rock next turn without having to worry about getting damaged.
Since my Metagross had taken slightly more than 50% damage, I was actually contemplating switching out, but I stayed in, as switching out would have been a more predictable move. I was thinking that Dale's Metagross would be using Stealth Rock or Bullet Punch on the predicted switch in, so I stayed in and used Earthquake with the assumption that I was generally faster, and not because of a speed tie. Come to think of it, I actually gave my lead Metagross eight extra speed EVs, and took them out of Attack for the purpose of outspeeding other lead Metagross, especially those whose trainers think to put in four extra speed EVs.
So on turn one, I used Stealth Rock and he used Earthquake, and on turn two, I used Earthquake and he used Stealth Rock. It's almost like we're testing out the waters or something here. My Earthquake appeared to inflict more damage to his Metagross, and I had a feeling Dale would be switching out, given the speed difference and the likelihood that the next Earthquake would cause the lead to faint. I took a gamble and went for Bullet Punch, thinking he would switch in a Pokemon immune to Earthquake. I was hoping it wouldn't be Gyarados.
When the Gengar appeared, I knew I made the right decision. However, after Gengar would survive the Bullet Punch, I would wonder what my next move would be. I mean, it would be obvious that I would Bullet Punch again, meaning he'd probably switch into something else. However, this was not the case, as I got the critical hit, easing my worry a little.
His next Pokemon was Heatran. It seemed a little too obvious that he would be using Flamethrower or Fire Blast, and although this thought has cost me Scizor in too many battles in the future, I thought to stay in and at least see if it was a Leftovers, Life Orb, or a Choice Scarfed variant (at the time, Passho and Shuca Heatran were not popular). I was also hoping that if it was a Choice Scarfed Heatran, it would have Fire Blast, and it would miss. A poor way of thinking, but it made sense at the time. I figured if it missed, I could nail it with Earthquake and take down another threat.
Once my Metagross fainted, I brought in my Choice Scarf Latias. Knowing that Latias has Surf, it made sense that Dale would switch out. I knew that Dale knew that Latias had Surf, so I was predicting he would bring in a Water-type, which lead to my decision to use Thunderbolt. However, Dale brought in his own Latias, proving that Latias may not be one of a kind. It would be expected that I would switch out, but I wanted to get the 10% chance of paralysis on Latias.
I actually lucked out when he decided to use Trick to trick away his Choice Scarf for my Choice Scarf. It basically meant that he would have to switch out on the next turn, unless he anticipated that I would switch as well, giving him another chance to Trick the Choice Scarf onto someone else. And yes, somehow I got the paralysis to set in on Latias.
He switched into Blissey to take the Thunderbolt. I wasn't too concerned, because I could have switched to any of the other four Pokemon on my team, as they were all capable of dealing heavy physical damage. I chose to go with Lucario because of its Fighting-type. Of course, Dale did see this coming and decided to lower Lucario's attack upon the switch in. After that, he brought in his Scizor, probably expecting me to switch out as well, or to avoid getting hit with a -2 STAB Close Combat which would have still dealt more than 50% when factoring in Leftovers recovery.
Instead of Attacking, though, I decided to use Swords Dance. I guess I figured that if I was going to lose a turn to return the attacking stat to normal, I might as well keep the Pokemon I've already got out to avoid inflicting more Stealth Rock damage than necessary. I used Closed Combat on Scizor, not expecting to KO it, but apparently Dale's Scizor was not fully trained in HP or Defense.
When he brought out his Heatran, I was wondering what he had planned. It was not faster than Lucario, and would stand no chance against Close Combat. I already knew it had Substitute from its earlier encounter with my Metagross, so it was definitely not Scarfed. I spent a while thinking that the Heatran was a lure. He probably would be switching out again to something that resists Fighting attacks to lower my defenses through the side effect of Close Combat, and reduce my HP slightly through the effect of Life Orb. I decided to Close Combat anyway, and the Heatran fainted.
He brought out his paralyzed Latias again. I decided to use Extremespeed because I was unsure if I could outspeed it, given that it was equipped with a Choice Scarf. I later found out I did outspeed it, and I could have used Crunch (this version of the Lucario did not have Bullet Punch) for super effective damage, meaning that the Latias would have fainted. Instead, I lost Lucario.
I brought out my Latias again, thinking that Dale wouldn't switch out knowing that Stealth Rock was in play and Latias would faint at the next entry, but I forgot to take into account that if he never brings out his Latias again, he could still win the match if somehow the last clash would somehow end in both Pokemon fainting at the same time, such as through Life Orb damage or Explosion, leaving him with a Latias in the wings which never has to be sent out once the victory has been declared.
He switches out into Blissey again, and my Latias' STAB Dragon Pulse doesn't leave much of mark, especially after the Leftovers recovery. It was the most powerful move I had on Latias, and I didn't want to bring out another Pokemon to get Charmed, so I just stuck with Dragon Pulse. I also wanted to see what attacking options the Blissey had, so that I could bring in the correct Pokemon. If it was Flamethrower, I'd bring in Gyarados. If Ice Beam was used, Scizor would be my selection. If it was Thunderbolt or Charge Beam, it wouldn't matter if Salamence or Scizor was switched in as they both took neutral damage.
Seismic Toss was used, which made it very easy for me to calculate how many hits my Pokemon could take before it fainted. At the time, my Gyarados had the most HP, so it was my choice. Sure, my Scizor had 343 HP, and wouldn't have had to lose 25% of its HP for Stealth Rock, but it was equipped with a Life Orb, not Leftovers.
After a few Seismic Tosses, Dale decided to switch out. I guess he wanted the Blissey to have access to Softboiled again after being Taunted, so he switched into his Latias. I guess he was expecting that I would use Waterfall to damage Blissey, but in any case, Latias fainted from Stealth Rock damage and I was able to pull off a Dragon Dance, which meant that my turn was not wasted on attacking a non-existent target and I was able to gain momentum.
And the rest is history.
I was glad I could edit the music so that it would end at the right time without a fade out, making this one of the few videos that I have that could support that claim. True, there was a little click somewhere in there, but I didn't hear it when I was editing.
After the battle, Dale jokingly said that he didn't want to catch me inside his head again. I probably wouldn't be doing this well all the time, so like I said, this is one of my favourite battles.
The score on this battle was 4-0, and I didn't even bring out Salamence or Scizor, which was a lot better than I expected and helped boost my confidence in my battling prowess.
Would my ego be crushed in the next battle? If you've seen the next battle, you already know the answer, but I guess I can write about that for next time. Extend our reach to the stars above!
Now begins my first true T-Flare member match recorded for YouTube.
The team I had for this battle will pretty much remain fundamentally unchanged until after Battle 061, I believe. Minor changes have happened along the way, but for now, let's take a look at my battle against pimpkirby.
I was a little concerned when I saw a lead Lopunny. Lopunny usually use the Klutz ability, meaning that it most likely had a detrimental item ready to be switched with its opponent. I was kind of hoping it would be a Toxic Orb, as my lead Metagross would not be affected by it, but it turns out it was a Flame Orb. Once I saw those Agilities, I suspected that a Baton Pass was going to occur, so I was hoping to stop it by switching into my Gyarados and using Taunt, but unfortunately, pimpkirby saw that coming and decided to Baton Pass right away. I began to think the opposing team was entirely based off getting a lot of passes to the final receiver for a sweep, but that turned out not to be the case once the Tyranitar was sent out. I was pretty sure Tyranitar did not possess Baton Pass, but a Tyranitar with a lot of extra speed is pretty scary.
I didn't realize that Tyranitar would be using Thunder, especially since it has reduced accuracy in a sandstorm, but it would still be devastating against Gyarados. I think I kept Gyarados in because I was gambling on the fact that Thunder would miss again, and I could get in another Dragon Dance and then begin using Waterfall or Return on the rest of the Pokemon, but obviously that didn't work. Losing Gyarados early might have given pimpkirby a great advantage as now the speedy Tyranitar could probably use Ice Beam/Blizzard on my Salamence, Dark Pulse on my Latias, and Flamethrower/Fire Blast on my three Steel Pokemon. This is, of course, an assumption on what moves the Tyranitar has, but given that it had Thunder, it might stand that the Tyranitar was a special sweeper.
My best option was to use a priority move to overcome the speed difference. Metagross, Scizor, and Lucario all had Bullet Punch at the time, so the decision came down to Scizor, given its Technician ability and its Choice Band, as opposed to Metagross' burn and Lucario's lower Attack stat. I lucked out with the critical hit, as damage calculations show the minimum damage being slightly less than 100%.
Once the opponent's Metagross switched in, I anticipated an Earthquake, so I switched into Salamence to avoid it, although in retrospect it may have been better to switch into Latias, as it would resist a Thunderpunch which could also have been aimed at Scizor. Salamence also could not Intimidate Metagross, so that ability did not come in handy. Sadly, Salamence was unable to knock out one Pokemon this battle, but it did help weaken one.
Latias was able to finish off the Metagross, but had to switch out when the Toxicroak appeared. The Dry Skin ability would have made the Surf heal the Stealth Rock damage, and Latias was Choice Scarfed, leaving me no choice but to switch out and allow him to set up. My opponent probably knew Latias had a Scarf, given the popularity of it at the time, and set up the Swords Dance with little worry of another attack like Psychic to ruin the Toxicroak's fun.
I switched to Lucario in order to lure out a Fighting attack. I switched back to Latias with the intention of taking a resisted attack, but I had not taken into account the boost from the Swords Dance which was a pretty poor decision. As a result, Choice Scarf Latias was unable to take out Toxicroak due to the super effective priority move. Essentially, both of my Dragon Pokemon were only able to defeat one Pokemon between them, which was not a good sign. With Gyarados gone as well, I had no more Ground immunities or Fire resistances, which meant that the rest of the team was going to be in trouble if those moves were still available to my opponent. My best bet would be reliance on priority moves on faster opponents and hoping that the opposing Pokemon do not resist them.
Even though Metagross was burned, it was the only one who could deal super effective damage to the Toxicroak who was standing there. Metagross had enough HP to take a +2 Sucker Punch, but I wasn't sure if it could take a +2 STAB Cross Chop. I guess pimpkirby thought I was going to use Bullet Punch instead of Earthquake, so the only way to beat my priority was to use priority as well, given that Toxicroak has a higher speed stat than Metagross. I was not confident in having a burned Metagross' Bullet Punch to deal all the necessary damage to Toxicroak.
Once that Lopunny appeared again, I knew I needed to stop another Agility pass, so I went for the Explosion to defeat Lopunny. Even in its burned state, Metagross still packed enough power to KO the Lopunny at full health, but the critical hit could have also meant a critical hit to pimpkirby's strategy. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the core strategy, but just go with it.
Without any Pokemon on the field, we both had to switch in without knowing what the other was going to do. While pimpkirby knew that I had Scizor and Lucario remaining, I had no idea what Pokemon remained on the other side. Steelix, a physical wall, was brought out on the opposing side, while I brought out Scizor. Steelix could have been a problem if it used Earthquake on Lucario so I'm glad that I decided on Scizor. I found it odd that Steelix used Stealth Rock, though, especially this close to the endgame, if we weren't already in it. Lucario has a double resistance to Stealth Rock. Maybe pimpkirby thought that Lucario was wearing a Focus Sash and wanted to break it.
Once Steelix fell to two Superpower attacks, pimpkirby was left with Armaldo, a Rock/Bug Pokemon which would have a weakness to Bullet Punch, so I decided to switch into Lucario given that Scizor has already had its attack lowered twice and was locked in a neutral Superpower. After Armaldo used Rock Polish during Lucario's switch-in, pimpkirby realized that Armaldo had a Choice Scarf on, making it impossible to choose an attacking move to defeat Lucario and Scizor, and with no switches possible given that Armaldo was the last Pokemon, there was nothing pimpkirby could do but run (or struggle once the Rock Polish PP runs out, but by then Lucario would have used Bullet Punch already).
My first victory against a T-Flare member ended as a 2-1, and despite some mistakes I may have made in this battle, I was feeling confident that I could defeat my next opponent. I still needed to create this video, but I really didn't feel like doing the double recording method that I did the last time. I was looking at my music folder and found that I had a remix of the battle music from original Pokemon Game Boy games, so I used that as the background music. I didn't really think I needed to edit the music to make it flow through the whole battle, which is why this is the only battle of mine where you will hear the "transition from field to battle view" ditty twice in the same video. The battle also took a little longer than my first one, making me exceed ten minutes, so I decided to try speeding the video up, and that seemed to do the trick, and allows the flow of the battle to be more intense. It typically doesn't take 6 seconds to read "The foe's Tyranitar fainted!" and at least this way I wouldn't have to repeat the music more times than necessary.
That's pretty much all I have to say about this battle, so until next time, extend our reach to the stars above!
So this is my first video on YouTube, and my entrance into the foray began as a battle against myself. While this does seem odd and rather one sided, I would try to defeat myself in the most realistic way possible given the movesets. At the time, I recorded the audio as a direct feed separately, and would try to match it up with the video I recorded. The reason why I recorded them at separate times is that the difficulty comes in trying to press the camera's button and the audio recorder's button at the same time, as I did not want to damage the camera by accidentally slamming it down onto the surface while I tried to press the button with one hand. In retrospect, though, I could have placed it on a soft surface like a pillow face down and then just crop off the extra video and audio at the beginning.
I did not speed up this video because of the direct audio, and I didn't think anyone wanted to hear the Pokemon Platinum battle music and sounds sped up. At the time, YouTube only allowed ten minutes maximum per video, so I had to overlay the simple outro a few seconds after the Kingdra fainted, instead of after the victory message.
I had seen a few Baton Pass teams attempt to use weaker Pokemon as the sweeper, such as Magikarp, Unown, and Happiny, so I decided to try one with Teddiursa. Teddiursa's move list allows for decent coverage which would make it a bit easier to sweep with.
The Baton Pass team had a pretty basic structure to it. Basically, lead off with someone defensive enough to take more than a few hits from most attacks, and Baton Pass any boosts to the next Pokemon who would have defensive capabilities to take the predicted attack, execute another boost, and so on. Obviously this team would have issues against Taunters, Exploders, Sleepers, and Phazers.
I really didn't feel like using my usual team as the opponent, given that I didn't really want to reveal it to the next T-Flare battler, and also because they were also on the same Platinum cart. I didn't want to trade them over to my Pearl version because the Gyarados would lose its happiness upon trading, making Return weaker. I also didn't want to trade over my Baton Pass team to Pearl because it lacked a Battle Recorder, and I wanted to have the video from the Baton Pass team's point of view. Therefore, my most efficient option was to use a team I already had on my Pearl version, which was a team I made to have a slight advantage over the Fire Gym on T-Flare at the time.
When the battle started, I was about ready to give up when Kingdra froze Zapdos on the first turn, but then the Lum Berry kicked in, which was actually pretty lucky. I was thinking about using Leftovers.
My opposing Heatran did not have a Fire move because I had an inkling that the Fire gym leader would sport a Heatran of his own, and an accidental Flash Fire wouldn't have made things easier. Granted, the gym leader would have had some non-Fire type Pokemon on the team, but at the time I was concerned about getting at least three Pokemon down, not all six.
I'm not sure why I didn't get Smeargle to Spore again after the opposing Zapdos woke up. I guess I was just antsy about getting to Teddiursa before a critical hit ruined the plan. I was extremely lucky that the opposing Zapdos decided to use Sleep Talk on the turn that it randomly woke up, as that made the last possible substitute from Smeargle intact for passing. If I had passed to Vaporeon to make a substitute, it would not have been possible, even with a +1 special defense boost, given that the opposing Zapdos' Thunderbolt would have been super effective and would destroy the substitute before it could even be passed.
Teddiursa was only given +4 speed through the two Agilities from the team's Zapdos, and it wasn't enough to outspeed Jolteon, but it was enough to outspeed Dugtrio, so that gives a bit of an indication of where Teddiursa's speed lies. I was glad that the Calm Mind passed from Mr. Mime gave it enough special defense to survive Jolteon's Thunderbolt.
When Teddiursa faced off against Celebi, I had a choice of using Ice Punch and Fire Punch, as their damage output would have been the same either way. I wanted to use Fire Punch to show off the entire moveset, but I used Ice Punch instead. I guess I was thinking that if I somehow didn't KO Celebi, I would have liked to have had that slim chance of a freeze hax rather than burn hax.
So, Teddiursa's moveset was Return, Brick Break, Ice Punch, and Fire Punch. Why did I opt for Brick Break instead of Earthquake? Maybe I was concerned about what would happen if the opponent had Light Screen or Reflect up. Actually, does it still provide those defenses on the turn that the screens break, or does it get negated? If it was the former, then Brick Break probably wouldn't have been all that beneficial if Teddiursa faints, as Scizor was unable to pass any defense boosts.
In the end, though, I was pleased with the battle, and even though Teddiursa did not get +6 in everything, it was a more realistic representation of what COULD have happened in a battle.
I think I've written enough for now, so until next time, extend our reach to the stars above.
Hello, everyone. In this blog, I am going to provide commentary about the Pokemon battles I have had since I started my YouTube channel located at http://www.youtube.com/PokeJMTL. Why am I doing this? I guess after 100 YouTube battles from members of http://www.t-flare.com/ (well, some of them were battles against myself) I thought it might be nice to look back and see if I can remember why I did some of the things I did. Also, I don't really want to write everything down in the video description on YouTube, in case of spoilers. If you don't want spoilers here on blogspot, I suggest you click on the video and watch it before reading the rest of the entry.
I'll put up an entry MAYBE once a day, as it is possible that I will skip a few days here and there due to real life obligations.
I started my YouTube channel in September 2009, partially because a member on T-Flare who I battled around that time was slightly concerned about how little damage his Huntail's adamant max attack Choice Banded Waterfall in the rain did to my Zapdos, and I assume he would have liked to have seen the exact number of hit points lost, so that the damage calculation would show no foul play. Luckily, another T-Flare member mentioned that most competitively trained Zapdos are bold and maxed out on defense, and the minor dispute was dropped with no hard feelings. I'm not mentioning the members' names here unless these people ask me to.
Even though I did not upload that video, I have given some thought and decided that I should put up all future battles on YouTube as some sort of a record of my battles, and also to encourage me to keep on battling.
Tomorrow, I will leave some commentary for my first YouTube battle.
Until next time, extend our reach to the stars above!
