012 Bringing some balance to a tricky situation

This is another battle with Aroma_Of_Cat, and seeing as how he had recently battled my offense team, I decided to go back to using my balance team which I had created before I had started my YouTube account.  It should be interesting what Dale will be bringing this time.

The opening move the same for Swampert and Bronzong, so there was no real advantage gained there.  My Swampert could not do any significant damage to Bronzong with the moves in its arsenal, so I opted to phaze the Bronzong away and hope that I could save my Heatran or Zapdos to deal with it.  I chose Roar instead of switching out, because I was thinking that Swampert would be able to handle an Earthquake from Bronzong.  Bronzong used Reflect, though.

Swampert's Roar allowed me to see another Pokemon on the team.  This time, it was a Machamp, and it was quickly revealed that it was holding Leftovers, leaving me to think this was a bulky variant.  On the next turn, when it used Substitute, it made me think that even more.  It's odd that after seeing that my Swampert had Roar, Machamp would decide to use a setup move instead of attacking.  I guess Dale knew my thought process there, as I had indeed decided to use an attack.

On the next turn, DynamicPunch gives Swampert a confused state of mind.  Maybe Swampert is wondering how a 50% accurate move could hit him, and he let out a Roar, not realizing that the Machamp has the No Guard ability.  Machamp, despite its muscular appearance, decides to not anger the fully evolved Mudkip, and does a different kind of substitute by letting some random Pokemon come in... in this case, Exeggutor.

Anyway, thinking that Exeggutor would be using a Grass move, I decided to switch Swampert out for Celebi.  However, Dale had the Exeggutor use Trick Room, which I had not really suspected after only seeing Bronzong and Machamp.

On the next turn, Celebi gets hit with a super effective Hidden Power.  I'm guessing it was Fire, so when Celebi used U-Turn, I had thought about bringing in Heatran.  However, I needed to take Trick Room into account, so I figured I would bring in my priority attack user.

The Reflect wore off right after Scizor came in, and Scizor wasted no time showing how well it could punch two-legged trees.  As the tree was falling, my Pokemon yelled "SCIZOR!!" because it wasn't a Timburr.

Machamp makes a return to the battlefield and uses the Trick Room to its advantage.  DynamicPunch makes it mark, and Scizor, though confused, manages to use Brick Break to bring Machamp's HP to yellow.  Meanwhile, Life Orb damage brings Scizor to black, and is automatically recalled and never to be used for the remainder of the battle.  Without a priority user, it would be tricky to work around Trick Room.

Swampert was still my slowest Pokemon, but its Base 60 speed still outspeeds, in non-Trick Room situations, Machamp's Base 55, and both would probably not have speed EVs invested.  And yet, Dale still wanted to recall Machamp.  It was a good prediction, seeing as how Swampert used Earthquake against the levitating Bronzong.

The Trick Room wore off, but Bronzong still moved first since Swampert would be using a lower priority move.  Another Reflect appears while Swampert uses Avalanche... and effectively does nothing to Bronzong by the time the turn is over.

Thinking that Bronzong would be using Earthquake or Gyro Ball next, I swapped Swampert for Zapdos.  Bronzong, though, took the opportunity to set up Trick Room.  I was thinking that Bronzong would probably switch out into something that could take a predicted Heat Wave, so I opted to use Thunderbolt.  However, Bronzong, feeling its job was done, used Explosion in an attempt to take down Zapdos.  That didn't quite work, though, with Zapdos still hanging on in the red.

I obviously wished I had commanded Zapdos to use Roost that turn, but hey, Zapdos attempting to hit microscopic Pokemon could be feasible.  I guess Zapdos has really awesome eyesight, although the game decides to tell me that there was no target.

A Gastrodon from the west is sent out next.  It was a good move for Dale, since most Zapdos attack with Electric, Fire, and Ice.  Gastrodon begins buffing with its Stockpile, while Zapdos uses its Hidden Power Grass.  Despite being doubly super effective, Gastrodon survives, possibly due to the Stockpile. Gastrodon uses Ice Beam to defeat the legendary Zapdos on the next turn.

My next Pokemon to enter the fray is Gengar.  Gastrodon, with Trick Room obviously to its advantage, uses Stockpile again, making it tough for my special sweeper Gengar to deal significant damage.  This Gengar has gone through many move changes since I have had it on my team, and at this point, it was knowledgeable in the art of Energy Ball.  It did a decent amount of damage, and another Energy Ball would have been enough.

The Trick Room wore off, so I wouldn't have to worry about having another Stockpile come up if I could KO the Gastrodon.  I was predicting that Dale would switch Gastrodon out for something else, so I decided to use Shadow Ball instead.  I do recall lamenting to Dale after that match that I shouldn't have done that, but he said that it would have been a good move if he decided to switch to another of his Pokemon.

Gastodon survives the Shadow Ball, and is able to use Recover.  This could be an issue, so Gengar uses Taunt to prevent any more Stockpiles and Recovers for a few turns.  Unfortunately for me, Gastrodon wasn't given the message that it couldn't use its move this turn, since it used Ice Beam.

Energy Ball, Ice Beam, and Energy Ball are the next moves, and Gengar is in the red by the time Gastrodon fainted.  Dusknoir comes in, which is an odd choice considering that Gengar is faster and can use a super effective Shadow Ball.  This must be some sort of trick, I thought.  I realized that Dusknoir could be carrying Shadow Sneak, which would have defeated my weakened Gengar, so I switched out.  I figure that Gengar has enough HP to survive another Stealth Rock, anyway.  Heatran would be able to handle a Shadow Sneak, so it was my choice.

I was tricked, all right.  Trick Room, to be exact.  Heatran, despite weighing about four times the amount of Dusknoir, was still able to be Seismic Tossed.  I guess Dusknoir has a really good grip.  Anyway, Heatran used its Substitute this turn, in order to bring itself down to the berry... the Salac berry, which increases speed.  Why would I be doing this, anyway?  I knew there was Trick Room which was used on the turn before.  Could I really survive the remainder of the turns of the twisted dimensions?

After Dusknoir broke the Substitute, Heatran used Flamethrower and didn't really do as much as I had hoped.  Still, it was something.  Looking at the amount of HP my Heatran had, I didn't feel a need to use Substitute again, so I chose to attack.  Dusknoir indeed used Seismic Toss, and effectively activated Heatran's Salac Berry.  Flamethrower hits Dusknoir and brings it down to the high yellow.

The next move seemed odd to me, but I'm sure Dale had a reason for doing it.  He switched out Dusknoir, even though another Seismic Toss would have defeated Heatran.  Machamp comes in, just in time to take some Stealth Rock damage and a Flamethrower.  The twisted dimensions returned to normal right after that, and my super speedy Heatran could now go first.

Dusknoir returns, and gets hit by Flamethrower.  Dale mentioned that if Flamethrower did not do maximum damage, Dusknoir would have survived.

Rampardos, known as a glass cannon, is Dale's last Pokemon in this battle.  I am told that it has Mold Breaker, and then I commanded my Heatran to harness the ability of a Planeteer to finish the battle.

This was a pretty nice battle.  I had to use every Pokemon on my team to achieve victory, so I really felt like I had used my balanced team well.  I felt a bit more confident, though, and the gyms were about to reopen.  My next battle will be the first gym battle I would be recording for YouTube, so until next time, protect the world from devastation.