008 Frozen Fishsticks

Ah, my first repeat appearance of a T-Flare battler.  This time, trogdor0 has a full team to battle with.

The lead for the opposing team this time is a Weavile.  An easy target to hit with Bullet Punch, yet I still decided to select Stealth Rock as my opening move.  Perhaps I thought the Weavile would switch out, but instead it decided to use Brick Break.  Maybe trogdor0 thought I would switch into another Steel type to take a predicted Night Slash.  In any case, after the first turn, my Bullet Punch lands on Breloom instead.

I thought it would be 2HKO, so I opted to Bullet Punch again, but perhaps the Stealth Rock damage created some sort of an optical illusion, or I got near max damage on the first hit.  Breloom remains conscious in the red, and executes its Sky Uppercut, which I always envision as a Shoryuken.  Breloom falls to the third Bullet Punch.  I suppose if it switched out, it couldn't switch back in without taking the Stealth Rock damage again, so trogdor0 opted to get a fresh opponent in.

Typhlosion was sent out, and predicting an Eruption from the usually Scarfed Pokemon, I switched to my Latias.  Latias then avoided the Earthquake, which worked out better for me.  I'm not sure why I decided to use Surf to attack the Typhlosion if I made the assumption it was holding a Choice item.  The Typhlosion wouldn't have been able to hurt Latias at all in this case.  I could have used Dragon Pulse instead.  It would have done enough to KO Typhlosion after the Stealth Rock damage, and it would have done decent damage to the Feraligatr that jumped in.

Knowing that Feraligatr can use Ice Punch, I switched into my Gyarados which would be able to intimidate its opponent and take neutral damage.  However, Gyarados was unlucky to obtain the 10% chance of being frozen.  I stayed in to hope for a thaw.  Perhaps trogdor0 thought I would switch out, so the Feraligatr used Superpower.  This brought its Attack down another stage, so it would make sense for trogdor0 to switch out at this point.  I decided to stay in, hoping that Gyarados would thaw on trogdor0's switching turn and attack whatever check or counter he had.

Jolteon appeared, and I was thinking that my Gyarados needed to thaw now and get a critical hit with the move I selected.  However, neither happened.  Next, Jolteon used its Charge Beam and gets the Special Attack boost, while Gyarados is still incapable of attacking for yet another turn.

The substitute appeared on the next turn, giving Jolteon a nice shield to take the attack of whatever Pokemon I choose to replace Gyarados with.  Gyarados would be able to break the Substitute if it could attack, though.  However, Gyarados is still frozen (in mid air, mind you) for the fifth turn since the Ice Punch.

I considered switching Gyarados out to my Latias to take a resisted predicted Thunderbolt, but then remembered that most Jolteon have Shadow Ball as one of its coverage moves, so that wouldn't have been good news for Latias.  I also figured that Gyarados needed at least 93 HP to be able to switch into Stealth Rock again, which it didn't have.  Anyway, Gyarados faints to Shadow Ball, so it's a good thing I didn't decide to bring Latias in.  Since Gyarados didn't accomplish much in this battle, I was actually contemplating getting a Lum Berry for it.  After some deliberation, though, I stuck with Leftovers for the time being.

While Scizor and Lucario would take neutral damage from Charge Beam/Thunderbolt and half damage from Shadow Ball, they could have been good candidates, but they tended to be weaker on the special defense side, so I brought in Metagross instead, despite that it takes neutral damage from Shadow Ball.  I needed to break the substitute, so I was happy that Metagross was able to execute its Earthquake.  I obviously wouldn't outspeed Jolteon, and switching to my Latias to take a hit wasn't a good idea, so I was kind of stuck with using Bullet Punch to inflict a little damage to make it easier for my faster Pokemon or priority attackers.

My Metagross falls, and I bring out my Choice Scarf Latias.  I keep thinking that Jolteon is frailer than it actually is, so I was a little shocked to see that it could survive Latias' Dragon Pulse and retaliate with Shadow Ball.  The critical hit was necessary to KO Latias in one attack, so that was really fortunate for trogdor0.

I brought out my Lucario to revenge kill the Jolteon which has had such a successful run of knocking out Gyarados, Metagross, and Latias.

Gallade comes in to stop my Lucario, and does so handily thanks to its Close Combat and ability to outspeed Adamant Lucario.  Come to think of it, what move did I ask my Lucario to do?  Crunch would have done the same amount of damage as Extremespeed, and Close Combat wouldn't be effective on Gallade.  I obviously didn't choose Extremespeed.  Was it Swords Dance?  I really can't remember, but in any case, I wish I had spent a little more time weighing in my options.

Scizor is sent out and OHKOs the Gallade with its Bullet Punch.  That may have been what trogdor0 wanted, though, since my Scizor was Choice Banded, and two of the remaining Pokemon on the team hold resistances to Steel moves.  Typhlosion takes a Bullet Punch well, and even though it has low HP, Eruption is still enough to capitalize on Scizor's only weakness and KO it in one attack.  I was a little surprised.

I was left with one Pokemon left, and I hope Salamence could hold its own against three other Pokemon.  Knowing that Weavile is fast, I decided to take a turn to boost my speed, knowing that I wouldn't be losing too much HP this turn from Eruption.  I took another turn to Dragon Dance, just in case the Feraligatr was really bulky.  I don't know why I didn't Dragon Dance again for insurance.  Perhaps I was thinking a maximum damage critical hit from Typhlosion would have limited the ability for Salamence to sweep, given that Salamence is going to take Life Orb recoil.  Now, looking back at the amount of HP it had, it would still have been able to survive.

Anyway, Typhlosion falls to a +2 Dragon Claw.  Weavile is sent out and takes Stealth Rock damage, which is probably good thing since it was probably wearing a Focus Sash.  I then realized that Weavile could have carried Ice Shard, but I was lucky that it wasn't used.  Weavile could not handle the Dragon Claw and faints, leaving only one more Pokemon in the way of victory.

Feraligatr takes some Stealth Rock damage before being torn by a +2 Dragon Claw, boosted by Life Orb.  Apparently, my earlier decisions for my Latias to not use Dragon Pulse on Typhlosion or its switch-in, or exercising another Dragon Dance with Salamence cost me the match, as Feraligatr survived with a single hit point.

And thus, my winning streak on YouTube has ended, which I guess in a way is a good thing.  I didn't want to be thought as someone who only uploads videos of them winning.  However, this was a close match and would have been upload-worthy anyway, so I don't think I shook off that impression just yet.

So, until next time, protect the world from devastation.