Paldea Badges

[indigo_league]

While visiting the beautiful region of Paldea, your characters will be able to challenge the local gyms and earn badges. A few things should be noted however! Any badges you earn in the Paldea region will not count towards allowing you to challenge the Elite Four in Kanto. Additionally, even if you obtain all eight Paldean badges, it will not be possible to challenge the Paldean Elite Four.

Beyond that, however, the badges in Paldea work much the same as back home! Each gym leader has a Regular Team of pokemon and an Elite Team of pokemon you can challenge. It's up to a trainer to decide which team to challenge, but if you take on the Elite Team of six level 100 Pokemon, you'll receive double the prize money. The items, however, are not doubled. Excellent for trainers looking for the extra challenge or those looking to make money fast.

!!! Badges must be mod approved. To earn a badge, please comment on this post. Please don't ask for more than two badges to be approved at once!

Paldea
Cortondo Badge: Bug Leader: Katy Team: Nymble - LVL 30 Tarountula - LVL 30 Teddiursa - LVL 31 Rewards: [P10,000] TM Pounce Elite Team: Spidops, Heracross, Forretress, Lokix, Araquanid, Ursaring	Artazon Badge: Grass Leader: Brassius Team: Petilil - LVL 38 Smoliv - LVL 38 Sudowoodo - LVL 40 Rewards: [P12,000] TM Trailblaze Elite Team: Breloom, Arboliva, Vileplume, Tsareena, Lilligant, Sudowoodo	Levincia Badge: Electric Leader: Iono Team: Wattrel - LVL 44 Belibolt - LVL 44 Luxio - LVL 44 Mismagius - LVL 45 Rewards: [P14,000] TM Volt Switch Elite Team: Kilowattrel, Electrode, Belibolt, Luxray, Electivire, Mismagius	Cascarrafa Badge: Water Leader: Kofu Team: Veluza - LVL 47 Wugtrio - LVL 47 Crabominable - LVL 50 Rewards: [P16,000] TM Chilling Water Can use Surf outside of battle Elite Team: Pelipper, Veluza, Feraligatr, Wugtrio, Clawitzer, Crabominable
Medali Badge: Normal Leader: Larry Team: Komala - LVL 53 Dudunsparce - LVL 53 Staraptor - LVL 55 Rewards: [P18,000] TM Facade Can use Fly outside of battle Elite Team: Oinkologne, Tauros, Dudunsprace, Biberal, Stantler, Staraptor	Montenevera Badge: Ghost Leader: Ryme Team: Banette - LVL 55 Mimikyu - LVL 57 Hounstone - LVL 57 Toxtricity - LVL 60 Rewards: [P20,000] TM Shadow Ball Elite Team: Banette, Mimikyu, Golurk, Spiritomb, Houndstone, Toxtricity	Alfornada Badge: Psychic Leader: Tulip Team: Farigiraf - Lvl 64 Gardevoir - LVL 64 Espathra - LVL 64 Florges - LVL 65 Rewards: [P22,000] TM Psychic Elite Team: Farigiraf, Gardevoir, Espathra, Gallade, Delphox, Florges	Glaseado Mountain Badge: Ice Leader: Grusha Team: Frosmoth - LVL 65 Beartic - LVL 65 Cetitan - LVL 68 Altaria - LVL 70 Rewards: [P24,000] TM Ice Spinner Elite Team: Alolan Ninetales, Beartic, Frosmoth, Cetitan, Weavile, Altaria

!!! In order to give players enough time to submit badges, you'll be able to have your Paldean badges approved throughout April, May, and June.

Paldea badges will be handled here. Please put your badge challenges below.


<b>Character:</b> CHARACTER NAME | <user name="JOURNAL"> <b>Badge/Gym Leader:</b> NAME OF THE BADGE OR GYM LEADER YOU'RE CHALLENGING <b>Elite/Regular:</b> ELITE TEAM OR REGULAR TEAM <b>Team:</b> LINK TO POKEMON ROSTER <b>Battle Details:</b> MISCELLANEOUS DETAILS ABOUT YOUR TEAM/CHARACTER THAT'LL HELP YOU IN THIS BATTLE (recommended!)




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breaks this post in like `its gimmick battle time`

[seacub]

With only two months to do it, and so many pokemon on hand, Emporio in theory will be tackling the Paldean Challenge the way most *normal* people do, right?

...Right?

Character: Emporio Alniño | seacub

Badge/Gym Leader: Iono's Electric Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Here- Slides: 22 (Hallogen the Bellibolt, Maiko the Sensu Oricorio), 21 (Twinkle the Wishiwashi), 19 (Rust the Dusclops), 17 (Northrop the Dragapult), 4 (Wes the Gengar)
Battle Details: Oh. Oh God.

The Paldean Gym Challenges are quite the experience as anyone will say, and with any luck they're expecting some creativity from these strange otherworlders because boy they're getting it. Of course the start of the challenge involves some kind of streamer deal, which in itself could turn heads. Does Emporio have a rep back in Johto Kanto..? If he does it's either being that weirdo with lots of pokemon themed outfits, or being suspiciously Morty-Like, the latter to Morty's own chagrin as well.

Whatever the case after a successful livestream that probably ends in showing off Hallogen the shiny bellibolt, it's time to BATTLE! (And yes he's dressed in his summer gear to match that Dragapult of his, because of course he is.)

Electric types typically only have one weakness, and often that weakness gets supplemented by way of sneaky sneaky tricks- like Wattrel's Flying Type. Emporio's team with that in mind...well. Involves that exact Bellibolt, first of all, but also a few other tricks.

For dear clout chasing Iono, Emporio has brought an entire team of Shiny Pokemon to the table. Two of course are backup- Wes is level 70, Northrop is level 100, both are supremely overlevelled for this and mostly just chill at the sides.

Instead, the first one out is Hallogen the Bellibolt- Hallogen being a Bellibolt is equipped first of all with the ability 'Electromorphosis'- once hit by a move, she's charged with an electric boost, and while Electric might resist electric, Flying sure doesn't. Tanky girl she is, she easily shrugs off whatever initial move comes her way; either to slap Wattrel with an overcharged Discharge, or a combination of some well placed Sucker Punches to put the bird in their place.

It's only going to get worse with Iono's next two pokemon however; both are pure Electric Type, and Hallogen is tragically equipped with the perfect thing for dealing with that- namely, Mud Shot and Mud Slap. The two moves combined are not only super effective, but also lower speed and accuracy, and in theory, it should mean that Hallogen steamrolls both her emerald counterpart and the luxio that follows.

In theory of course. The opposing Bellibolt ALSO has mudslap and mudshot, so it could get close- at which point the perhaps astonishing choice of Twinkle the Wishiwashi comes out. Twinkle of course has even les of an advantage; sure they're Schooling, but what's Emporio's game here? Well first of all, Soak. It'll be used to remove any STAB bonuses the electric types can bring out, which in a battle like this is absolutely vital. From there, Twinkle opens with moves like Tearful Look and Dive to better pick at the opponent's power, dodging whatever they can. But the minute it starts looking rough, there's a last back-up plan; Endeavor to turn the tides, and then Brine.

As a move that doubles in power once the health is under 'half', it's going to pack a heck of a punch- Endeavor splits health evenly after all, and chances are, it's lowered the enemy under half. And maybe it won't hit as much as it would if the enemy wasn't Water type, but with any luck it's earned the time needed to get to Iono's last pokemon. A...

Mismagius?

Emporio sends out Maiko against the Mismagius, and Terastalizes to Ghost Type while he's at it. Turns out, Oricorio can just. Have their first type as a tera type! Handy, because it means when Mismagius turns out to have Charge Beam, it won't be super effective. Less handy is that Mismagius still has Hex though, so Maiko isn't necessarily doing fantastic here. She pulls out all the stops- Teeter Dance, Feather Dance, Revelation Dance- but if that's not enough to take out the oversized weather ghost, it's time for the last resort; Baton Pass.

Emporio brought a full team to face Iono, and as much as two members are just here for kicks, this one isn't; Rust the Dusclops comes out with a slamming Gravity right out the gates, and he doesn't hold back from there! Bind, Disable, and Will-o-Wisp are just the start of a field being set for the potentially over-levelled pokemon, but with Hex still in Mismagius' moveset it's worth the risk. Emporio has the decency to not use any actual ghost type moves, for all that it doesn't matter; right now, Mismagius is Electric type!

But he does have Rust hit hard and flashy with a three-hit combo of Fire Punch, Ice Punch, Thunder Punch. OOF!

If somehow it all goes to crap, Wes is of course here to run in with Hypnosis and Shadow Punch; and likewise, Northrop is ready in the wings with a hot and simple Dragon Rush. But look, it'd be way cooler for the stream if this all ended with Maiko, right?

Badge/Gym Leader: Brassius' Grass Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular Team
Team: Here- Slides: 22 (Lemongrass the Floragato), 24 (Hat Trick the Raboot)
Battle Details: Whether or not Brassius appreciates the art of whatever the Heck Emporio has going on, the city of Artazon being as close as it is to Levincia means that he's next.

Someone call Geeta. Or maybe Nemona.

For the slightly lower levelled Grass Gym though, Emporio is coming in with his usual antics- and fortunately, is Not in fact bringing a Fire Type. Credit where it's due he's also not bringing a rock type. Or a water type. Or a grou-

Oh? Raboot is Fire Type? Not for long. It's going to become quickly apparent when Emporio sends out Hat Trick that the two pokemon he's used to build his team against Brassius are both very, very special; Hat Trick has the ability 'Libero', which changes their type according to the move they use last. And Emporio notably avoids all the Fire Moves, creating an actual challenge.

Lemongrass meanwhile has Protean- which sure as shooting does the same thing Libero does. And know what else they have in common?

Emporio taught them both U-Turn with his reusable TM. Like a jerk.

What follows is going to be a battle of trickery, go figure. Hat Trick of course is first, and with a swift Bounce has gone from one super effective typing to another in the form of Flying. If Petilil still stands after that, they're following with U-Turn; super effective, and bringing out Lemongrass to face off (hopefully) with Smoliv.

Lemongrass from there opens with Hone Claws to get the attack up, and then follows through with Bite. Ouch! Dark isn't anything special against Grass Typing, but the hope is that with enough bites, Quick Attacks, and Play Roughs, Lemongrass will get through. And then of course, either finish with U-Turn...

Or start with U-Turn against that Sudowoodo. Hat Trick comes raring back out and they're ready to go, and this is where a Fire Type IS happening. Terastalizing to Fire Type, there won't be any more Libero tricks here; but while Sudowoodo is being Terastalized into Grass Type, it still has a solid advantage over Hat Trick; Rock Throw is, in fact, super effective against a fire pokemon! It's a battle of brute force, maybe. Emporio still prioritizes non-fire moves like Bounce, and as soon as Hat Trick is in a pinch makes use of U-Turn as well. Lemongrass might not be Terastalized, but he does still have a resistance to most of what Sudowoodo's carrying, so it shouldn't take much more than a Bite and a Play Rough from there!

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

[phdepression]

Character: Jotaro Kujo | phdepression
Badge/Gym Leader: Iono’s Electric Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Star Platinum the Palafin
Chariot the Bisharp
Kosugi the Aurorus
Natsumi the Pawmo
Luna the Ursaring 

Fortress the Sandygast
Battle Details: Jotaro needs both money and more TMs for breeding endeavours so it’s time to get serious and do a gym battle. Jotaro likes swapping his Pokemon around so most of his Pokemon are about Luna/Fortress’ level, but he does have some strong swingers and his starter, which is grossly over levelled.

He’ll open with SP the Palafin but use Aqua Flip immediately to take advantage of SP’s superior speed and ability. It’s not a super effective move but it’ll allow SP switch out to Fortress the Sandygast, who will soak in what’s likely going to be an incoming electric-type move.

Unless it’s Iono’s Wattrel or Mismagius, Jotaro will be relying on his slightly under levelled Sandygast for good reason: Fortress is a bastard of a tank with an infuriating strategy. He will be using a mix of Sand Tomb to trap the Pokemon, Sand Attack to make his opponent miss, and Giga Drain to leech HP back from any nasty bites Luxio gets off. If at any point the Sandygast goes down, Jotaro’s going to throw SP back out to brute force past Belibolt and Luxio, using Double Hit to take advantage of raw power and Astonish to not give either a chance to electrocute him.

When it gets to Wattrel and Mismagius, Jotaro will switch to his Aurorus. It’s Kosugi’s job to throw as many Ancient Powers at Wattrel to get as many scummy boosts up. When Mismagius appears, Kosugi will set up Light Screen AND Hail too. After that, it’s a game of ancient Power and Ice Beam until Iono’s team goes down.

All the other Pokemon are here for backup, in case the first three don’t finish the job. Chariot the Bisharp will Night Slash if Iono doesn’t Terrastilise and if she does, he’ll Slash. Natsumi the Pawmo is here to Volt Absorb and provide clean switches. Luna the Ursaring is to check for paralysis and take Thunder Waves, in which Guts will activate and pair with Payback to deliver Iono’s Pokemon a beating.

P.S. If somehow Luna does go in and deliver the final blow, she’ll evolve into an Ursaluna thanks to her held peat block (the moon was just right somehow)

-------

Badge/Gym Leader: Ryme’s Ghost Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Star Platinum the Palafin
Chariot the Bisharp
Kosugi the Aurorus
Natsumi the Pawmo
Luna the Ursaring 

Tom the Persian
Battle Details: Yeah, this is a wild second gym battle but Jotaro’s in the area. He might have a chance here, hopefully, though he’s aware sheer levels won’t make this as easy as Iono’s battle.

Like last time, he’ll open with SP the Palafin and use Aqua Flip so SP can go to Hero Mode. It’ll do a lot of damage, or at very least break Mimikyu’s Disguise. He’ll then switch to Chariot, who is the star of the show. Except for Toxtricity, Ryme’s ghosts are physical attackers so Chariot will buff himself with Iron Defence and use Night Slash to try and bring down the Banette and Houndstone. If Mimikyu is out, Jotaro will instead have Chariot use Metal Claw or even Metal Burst if Chariot is slower.

Tom the Persian is around mainly for clean switches, given he’s a normal type. He’ll also Taunt any status moves or ghost moves he switches into to stop Ryme from attacking. As a support Pokemon, Tom will be using Screech so SP can kick ass when he goes down, but he can use Assurance too. Similarly, Luna the Ursaring is there for switches, being also a normal type. She’s going to use Baby-Doll Eyes if she’s slower or Charm if she’s faster to make it easier for the others to attack. Similarly, she has Payback to take advantage of type matchups.

Natsumi the Pawmo is there for support. She will Thunder Wave whenever she’s sent out, and generally be a real pain to take down with Dig. Jotaro will be switching as much as he can between Chariot and SP to take Ryme down with the others for support. Even with SP being such a high level, everyone else is not as strong as Ryme’s Pokemon so I imagine it really can go either way.

If SP goes down at any stage, it’s up to Kosugi the Aurorus again. Jotaro will save him for the Toxtricity so he can use Light Screen but Hail, and Ancient Power is also on the table.

Jotaro is really the worst kind of Pokemon player and a menace to fight.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

[nightyorb]

Character: Riz Gukgak | nightyorb
Badge/Gym Leader: Medali / Larry
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team:
Asfel the Shedinja holding Focus Sash (allows pokemon to survive one one-hit knockout move) (lvl 100)
Crab King the Klawf holding a Persim Berry (cures confusion once) (lvl 100)
Chit the Sableye holding Scope Lens (boosts critical hit ratio) (lvl 100)
Tumble Dry the Flapple holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp; effect doubled by Flapple's ability) (lvl 100)
Zrak the Murkrow holdingClear Amulet (Negates stat changes) (lvl 100)
Grum the Honedge holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp) (lvl 100)


Battle Details:

Two extremely tired men in suits enter, only one will leave.


vs Oinkologne

For this first match, Riz will bring out Asfel the Shedinja, and immediately everybody will know what time it is.

Yes, it's time to just sit there and watch as Larry's pokemon can do nothing against one (1) extremely dead bug.

To recap -- Shedinja's ability wonderguard protects it from all damage except that of the types Flying, Rock, Ghost, Fire and Dark. Oinkologne's entire move-set consists only of normal, fairy, ground and poison moves. This means Oinkologne cannot inflict any damage on Shedinja.

On Riz's end, Shedinja doesn't have any attacks that can inflict super-effective damage to Oinkologne, and a lot of Shedinja's moves are useless (as Oinkologne is immune to ghost type damage) but between Fury Swipes, Silver Wind, and Aerial Ace, Riz is more than happy to slowly chip away at Oinkologne's HP.


vs Tauros

Riz would absolutely love to leave Shedinja out there to deal with Tauros, but unfortunately, Taurus does have a few moves that could deal damage to Shedinja so for this match, Riz'll withdraw Shedinja and instead bring out his royal highness himself, Crab King the Klawf!

Klawf is a rock type, which means it has a resistance to normal type damage. Most of Tauros' move set consists of normal type moves, so this will be a huge advantage. Additionally, the only damage type that Tauros is vulnerable to is fighting. And it just so happens that Klawf has a fighting type move in its arsenal.

Riz'll be sending Klawf into battle holding a Persim Berry. This can cure confusion one time, in case Larry decides to use Swagger on him.

To start off, Riz'll instruct Klawf to us Swords Dance to sharply boost its attack stat. With that done, he'll have him use Rock Smash (fighting type; to target Tauros' weakness) and Rock Slide (Rock type; can cause Tauros to flinch). He might even toss in a High Horsepower (Ground type; no addition effect)

Unfortunately, Klawf doesn't have any moves that can restore HP, so Riz is mainly hoping that Klawf won't get hit by Swagger (and therefore confusion and potential self-inflicted damage) too much. Because that is pretty much the only thing that could keep Klawf from being victor over Tauros.


vs Dudunsparce


For his next battle, Riz'll bring out Chit his Sableye.

As a combined Dark/Ghost type, Sableye is immune to normal type moves, meaning most of Dudunsparce's moves cannot hit him. While Dudunsparce is left with a few moves that can hit Sableye, none of those can target his weakness to Fairy Type moves.

Much like Tauros (and, you know, all of Larry's pokemon), Dudunsparce is weak to fighting type moves. Luckily for Riz, Chit was originally bred by Cecil and has a truly stunning amount of moves. Like seriously. There should be laws against this!

Also, one important thing to note is that Sableye is a very slow pokemon (20 base speed to Dudunsparce's 55). But that is actually all part of the plan here.

First, Riz is going to have Sableye use Taunt. Taunt forces the opponent to only use damaging moves. You'd think he want to avoid taking damage, right?

Wrong.

Next up, Riz'll have Sableye use Counter. This is a Fighting type move (Dudunsparce's weakness) that inflicts back the damage taken times twice, if the pokemon was just his by a physical attack. While not all of Dudunsparce's remaining attacks are physical ones, most of its strongest ones are, so Riz is hoping that Larry will be tempted to go for those and land into his trap.

Should Larry grow wise and switch to any non-physical attacks he has left, Riz'll have Sableye use either Rock Smash (Fighting; chance of lowering opponent's defence) or Low Kick (Fighting).

And, of course, Riz'll reup the Taunt if it wears off. Unless Dudunsparce is stuck in the loop of using Roll-out. In which case he'll just keep countering, and hopefully knock out Dudunsparce before Dudunsparce can take down Sableye.


vs Bibarel

Anyway, what dry cleaner does Larry use for his suits, cause Riz knows a guy who-- oh right. We are still battling.

Up next is Bibarel, and on Riz's side, he'll bring out Tumble Dry the Flapple.

Bibarel is a part water type, which leaves it with a weakness to grass type moves. Flapple meanwhile is a combination Grass/Dragon pokemon, which means he not only has several grass type moves to use, but he also has a double resistance to water type moves.

To start off, Riz'll have Flapple use Leech Seed. This grass type move will drain a bit of HP from Bibarel on each turn and using it to restore Flapple. It's not much, but it's honest battling.

Next, Riz'll have Flapple use Grav Apple. This grass type move (which involves conking Bibarel in the head with an apple from high up) also lowered Bibarel's defence by one stage upon each hit. Riz'll repeat using this move, but he might also toss in a Giga Drain (Grass; restores 50% of the damage done as HP) if Bibarel takes away a huge chunk of Flapple's HP.

Between the constant grass damage, the slow leeching of HP through Leech seed, and being able to restore Flapple's HP with Giga Drain, Riz is pretty secure in this fight.


vs Stantler

Against Stantler, Riz will bring out his Murkrow Zrak. Murkrow is a Dark/Flying type, which gives it immunity to Psychic and Ground moves as well as protection against Ghost moves. Of Stantler's move set, five of it are Psychich, one is ground, two are ghost, and only the remaining five are normal.

To start, Riz will have Murkrow use Torment. This move makes it so Stantler cannot use the same move twice in a row. And with its normal move set already severely compromised, Riz hopes this will mean Larry won't just be able to get by by using one strong move. Torment is active until the pokemon is switched out, so Riz won't need to re-up it either!

From here, Riz'll use moves like Fly, Gust and Wing Attack to slowly chip away at Stantler's HP. None of these attacks can target Stantler's weakness, but with Stantler's compromised move set forcing Larry to use some less than ideal moves, Riz hopes Murkrow will be able to take out Stantler, before it can knock out Zrak.


vs Staraptor

This is the first time Riz is actually getting to see a Terastilised pokemon. He's gonna have to study up on that!

Anyway, for this final battle, Riz will bring out his Honedge Grum. As a dual Steel/Ghost type, Grum is immune to Normal and fighting damage. He also resists Flying damage. This means Honedge is immune to nine of Staraptor's moves, and resists the other three.

Oh, and to top it all off, Honedge knows a fighting type move, the only thing this tera type Normal Staraptor is weak to.

First, Riz'll have Honedge set up a Swords dance to boost its own attack, before he'll have Grum use Sacred Sword (Fighting; ignores any changes to the target's defence or evasion) until Staraptor goes down.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[nightyorb]

Character: Riz Gukgak | nightyorb
Badge/Gym Leader: Katy / Cortondo
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team:
Zrak the Murkrow (lvl 100) holding Scope Lens (boosts the holder's critical-hit ratio.)
Tufsa the Ninjask (lvl 100) holding holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Puk the Kecleon (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Chit the Sableye (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Nasha the Galvantula (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Loggy the Hisuian Voltorb (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)


Battle Details:

Riz learned about Terastalising. Now he wants to put a fancy hat on his pokemon too.


vs Spidops

Starting off against Katy's Spidops is Zrak the Murkrow. The math here is fairly simple. Bugs are famously bad against birds and Zrak is a bird. Or, to be more precise, Spidops is weak to flying/rock/fire. Zrak is a flying type whose dual dark typing also means it doesn't have the normal Flying type weakness against fighting types (something which Spidops does have a move or two of)

One thing to note is that Murkrow's ability boosts its chances of landing critical hits. Additionally, Riz has equipped Murkrow with a Scope Lens, which further boosts the Critical hit rate. He's hoping that this combo will means Murkrow can get a few critical hits in and take Spidops down quick, leaving Murkrow himself still pretty fresh to be used as a back-up pokemon for the other battles.

This battle is going to be rather straight forward. Starting off, Riz is going to have Murkrow use Wing Attack. If he feels Murkrow's HP is getting too low, he'll switch to using Fly. It's not as quick, but Spidops won't be able to deal any damage to Murkrow while he's up high.



vs Heracross

Against Heracross, Riz will bring out his own Ninjask for some good ol' fashioned bug on bug violence.

Because it is a combined Fighting/Bug type, Heracross has a 4x weakness to Flying type moves. Ninjask is a Bug/flying type. Additionally, because of this type combo, it also has a double resistance to both bug and fighting type moves, which just so happens to be the typings of Heracross' strongest attacks.

Starting off, Riz'll have Ninjask use Swords Dance to boost her stats. With that in place, he'll have her use Aerial Ace, which will always hit unless the opponent is in the invulnerable phase of moves like Fly and Dig. He'll repeat this until Heracross goes down.



vs Forretress

Up against Forretress comes and old favourite: Riz's Kecleon Puk.

Forretress is a dual Steel/Bug pokemon, which means it has a 4x weakness to Fire. Riz doesn't have a fire type pokemon (the last time he tried to catch one, he came home with a crab instead), but he does have Kecleon.

To recap, Kecleon's ability is Protean, which means its type will match the type of the move it is using, which ensures that he will always inflict STAB damage. And it just so happens that Riz has been digging deep into his wallet to teach Kecleon as many different moves as possible to take advantage of that.

Which includes some fire type moves.

Starting off, Riz'll have Kecleon use Fire Blast, which has a 30% chance of inflicting a burn on the other pokemon. This is also the strongest fire type move in Kecleon's arsenal.

Next, he'll have Kecleon use Disable. You see, while Katy cannot predict Kecleon turning into a fire type on the first turn, once it has happened, there is a good chance she'll have Forretress use Roll-out. This is a rock type move which will target Fire-type!Kecleon's weakness. Disable will prevent Forretress from using it.

After this, it depends. If Riz managed to guess right, and Kecleon disabled Forretress' Roll-out on the last turn, he'll switch to using Fire Punch. It's slightly less powerful than Fire Blast, but it is more accurate.

If Kecleon disabled any other move than roll-out, he'll have Kecleon use Fire Blast. It might be less accurate, but it is the more powerful of the Kecleon's two fire type moves. Essentially, Riz is pretty terrified of Roll-out's damage, which ramps up on each new turn, so he hopes that Fire Blast can take down Forretress before it can become too damaging.



vs Lokix

Up against Lokix, Riz'll bring out his Sableye Chit.

Due to its Dark/Ghost typing, Sableye is immune to Fighting, Normal and Psychic moves. It just so happens that Lokix has several Fighting and Normal type moves, which will make these useless. Additionally, it has nothing to target Sableye's weakness to Fairy Types.

And another reason for Riz to use Sableye here is that Chit, specifically, was bred by Cecil who made sure that this pokemon has just. So Many Moves. Too many, frankly. Which also includes a few moves which can target Lokix's Rock, Fire and Bug weaknesses.

Riz'll start off this battle using Fury Cutter. This bug type move not only targets Lokix's weakness, but its most important feature becomes clear when Riz uses it again on the next round. You see, Fury Cutter doubles in power each time it is used in succession. And Riz intends to keep repeating this move until it tops out in power.

As far as Riz knows, Lokix doesn't have a way to disable a move, but just in case he has missed something, he has both Fire Punch and Power Gem waiting in the wings. These are respectively a fire and rock type moves. Both target Lokix's weaknesses, but don't come with that neat power doubling. But they'll serve well as back-ups.



vs Araquanid

For this match, we'll go back to more bug on bug violence as Riz brings out his Galvantula Nasha! Heck, this ain't just bug on bug action, this is a spider death match.

(even though none of them have eight legs, srsly pokemon)

As expected from its name, Araquanid is a part water type, meaning it is weak to Electric types. Galvantula is an Electric/Bug type.

Riz is going to strike hard and fast (Galvantula is the quicker spider) and have Nasha use Thunder Wave on the first round. This electric attack doesn't deal any damage, but it does inflict paralysis, which means there is a high chance Araquanid will be unable to move on its turn.

On the next turn, Riz'll have Galvantula us Electro Web. This electric attack does do damage and additionally, it will lower Araquanid's already lowered (due to paralysis) speed.

This is very important because after this Riz'll have Galvantula use Electro Ball. This electric attack inflicts damage based on the speed difference between the two pokemon in battle. Now normally, Galvantula is already the quicker pokemon (108 base speed vs 42). Additionally, Paralysis lowers a Pokemon's speed by 50%, and Electroweb will also have lowered Araquanid's speed one stage. This means Galvantula should be doing the max damage with Electro Ball. Though Riz doesn't think it will be necessary, he will of course keep using Electro Ball until Araquanid goes down.



vs Ursaring

And it is down to the final match. Much like with Larry, Riz is expecting Katy to terastalise her Ursaring (and who wants to bet it'll be a bug?)

And you know what, this time Riz wants in.

First of, he'll be sending out Loggy, his Hisuian Voltorb. He'll then Teratalise Loggy, which will turn it into a pure Grass type. This means Loggy is now weak to Flying, Poison, Bug, Fire and Ice type moves, but guess what!! Ursaring doesn't have any of those. Meanwhile Loggy also has a new resistance to Ground moves, Which Ursaring does have one of.

Honestly, this isn't really the most, uh, overwhelmingly powerful match-up. In fact, it is pretty equal. Riz mostly wanted to test out how this whole Terastalising thing would work, and he figured this was as good a chance as any!

Starting off, Riz'll have Voltorb use Thunderwave. As seen in the previous match-up, this doesn't do any damage, but does leave Ursaring paralysed and hopefully unable to attack.

Next, Riz'll have Voltorb use Roll-out. This rock type move gets repeated over five turns, and grows in power on each turn. Additionally, because it is a rock type, it means that the terastalised bug type Ursaring is weak to it.

Hopefully one Roll-out will be enough to finish Ursaring off, but if not, Riz will repeat it until Ursaring goes down. Additionally, this is the match-up Riz is least sure about (it doesn't really have the overwhelming strategic edge of the other matches) so he's willing to have Loggy use Self-destruct if it comes to a point where both pokemon are on very low health (and Loggy is not locked into using Roll-out anymore). Riz'll take a draw in this match if it means winning the overall battle!

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[paladinlost]

Character: Cecil Harvey | paladinlost

Badge/Gym Leader: Katy's Bug Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Ignis the Garganacl, Leon the Ceruledge (+3 levels for each of them, gained over the last two weeks)
Battle Details: Look. Look. Is sending two level 90-ish Pokémon with a type advantage to fight a bunch of level 30 bugs unfair? Yes. Is Cecil going along with it because the kids complained about not getting to finally work at the Gym for two more months? Also yes. Thus, he makes sure to use each of them against at least one opponent.

Ignis starts all of his matchups with Salt Cure, because free damage is free damage. He then switches to using Rock Slide, because at this point the extra accuracy over Stone Edge is worth more than any extra power.

Leon really wants to show off his beautiful, exclusive Bitter Blade. Therefore, Leon exclusively uses his beautiful Bitter Blade. He's a very simple Pokémon, really.


Badge/Gym Leader: Tulip's Psychic Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Ignis the Garganacl, Leon the Ceruledge (+3 levels for each of them, gained over the last two weeks)
Battle Details: Cecil really is spoiling the kids this week, isn't he.

Against Farigiraf and Espathra, he uses Ignis. This time, he starts off by setting up Stealth Rock. After that, he returns to his beloved Salt Cure and associated extra damage. His main attacking moves are Stone Edge (for power + STAB) and Earthquake (if Stone Edge misses too often). Due to his slow speed, Cecil keeps a close eye on his health; if he estimates that Ignis could take another attack but not two, he'll order a Recover. If an attack drops him below that threshold before he can heal... guess it'll be Leon's turn early.

Against Gardevoir and Florges, Leon attempts Will-O-Wisp once for each. The lowered attack won't be useful today, but the damage over time is always appreciated. If he hasn't taken too much damage, he then follows up with Swords Dance. Once that initial setup is completed, his main attacks are Shadow Claw and Night Slash, favoring Shadow Claw for that lovely STAB boost. Should one of his opponents be close to fainting, he'll switch to Night Shade for the sheer novelty of using it. If he drops below about 40% of his HP, he'll switch to Bitter Blade once or twice for healing.

Please note that if both Ignis and Leon faint, Cecil will not send out a third Pokémon and will instead accept the loss.

[indigo_league]

Badge Approved x2

[outofsynth]

Character: Min-Gi Park | outofsynth
Badge/Gym Leader: Ghost [Ryme]
Elite/Regular: Regular!
Team:
- The Jean Genie [Zangoose - lvl 57]
- Ice Age [Alolan Sandslash - lvl 96 - Never-Melt Ice]
- Stray Cat Strut [Skitty - lvl 97 - Leftovers]

Battle Details:

Zangoose vs. Banette

Jean is a bit of a gamble here. He doesn't have much of a level advantage, and while he's immune to most of Banette's moves that doesn't make him safe, so Min's taking precautions where he can. Since Banette has access to moves like Trick and Knock Off, Jean won't have any held item for this fight.

He will be starting out with Swords Dance. Honestly? They could almost do with Curse coming out here to inflict damage on Banette and buy them a little time. However, even if it doesn't that should still give Power Trip enough of a boost combined with Banette's dark type weakness that they do okay here. Because of Curse, Min's not wanting to hang around too much. If Banette doesn't use that too quickly then he might have Jean use an extra Swords Dance, but otherwise he's primarily going to keep him on the offence.

Should he faint then Stray Cat Strut will be coming out to finish the job with Shadow Ball.

Alolan Sandslash vs. Mimikyu

Snowscape will be Ice Age's starting move, followed by Swords Dance giving her a nice little boost to her stats. After that she'll be taking care of Mimikyu's Disguise with Icicle Spear. Maybe not the strongest move in the world, but since it strikes multiple times it at least inflicts some damage. Hopefully Ice Age's Never-Melt Ice will help a little here too.

Because of the level difference they aren't anticipating too much of a fight, but once Mimikyu's disguise is successfully dropped they'll be using Metal Claw to land some super effective damage and be in with a small chance of raising Ice Age's attack again. If any moves don't land or don't inflict as much damage as expected they can always try them again.

Pain Split is possibly the most dangerous thing here, so hopefully Ice Age can knock it out before she takes too much damage from this.

Skitty vs. Houndstone

Kitty vs. Puppy. Which I somehow did not actually notice until after I decided that was going to be the matchup. If he's male then Skitty's Cute Charm could help them out here, though that's not something they're counting on.

Roar is the biggest potential issue that Min has noticed, so Strut's going to see if she can make it sleep with Sing before using Shadow Ball to try and knock it out before it wakes up.

If Roar does force a swap, Min's going to try and work with it. Jean is tough since he's probably taken on a decent chunk of damage even if he made it through his match. However, they will try a repeat performance and attempt to use Swords Dance followed by Power Trip.

If Ice Age is forced out then she will use Iron Head.

Skitty vs. Toxtricity

Strut will be staying (or coming) out when Toxtricity is sent out. First she'll be using Foresight to allow normal and fighting type moves to hit once Ryme has used her Tera Ball. Once she has and Toxtricity is pure ghost then Min will get Strut to use Sing. If this works then she will use Wake-Up Slap.

Once it's awake again she will use Toxic since she should be able to inflict poison with its ghost tera type. If Toxtricity inflicts a status condition on her then Min-Gi will order Strut to use Facade. If not she'll be using Shadow Ball.

Should Strut faint before she can defeat Toxtricity then Min will bring out Ice Age. As her health might not be great by now she will go straight to using Iron Head, making the most of her higher level and type advantage against Toxtricity's tera type.

[indigo_league]

Badge Approved

we have the show followed by the dinner- wait,

[seacub]

Character: Emporio Alniño | seacub

Badge/Gym Leader: Kofu's Water Badge
Elite/Regular: REGULAR TEAM
Team: Here- Lindwyrm the Runerigus (Slide 13), Robo the Golurk (Slide 3), Carol the Bronzong (Slide 23)
Battle Details: VAULTING VELUZA! It's Kofu's turn for a battle, and no one can blame him if he hasn't heard about the Paldean Visitors on the gym challenge. With the growing sense of interest the Paldean gyms seem to have in shaking things up though, he might appreciate what Emporio brings to the table. For the city of museums and art, it's only fitting that rather than strike the man down with thunder from above, it's time to go in with...

ROCKS.

(Or at least what look an awful lot Like rocks.)

Emporio is going into things with one pokemon that's rather under-levelled, and another that's rather over-levelled, and between the two of them hopefully that'll make everyone forget the part where you don't bring Ground Pokemon to a Water Gym.

And hopefully people will also realize that there's actually a theme here- one made a little clearer by the inclusion of Carol the Bronzong- who is hopefully providing BGM and Only BGM throughout the fight.

The first one on the field in any case, is somewhat underlevelled. This despite being ground type means it might get a bit rough, especially as this is a battle against type weaknesses. Still- Emporio does have a strategy of some kind for Lindwyrm the Runerigus.

Thanks to his...Experience with Veluza, he knows that other than water pulse, everything that fish could possibly know is physical. Contact making, you might say.

The minute contact is made, Wandering Spirit takes effect to remove Veluza's irritating Mold Breaker- both before and after that point though it's a battle of caution. Scary Face (to find a way to outpace the thing despite a horrible speed disadvantage), Protect, and Astonish are used intermittenly, as is Disable- with the hope being that Veluza is more or less locked into just not doing anything watery. Or dark, for that matter. Once assured of some level of safety though, she's going after the fish with Shadow Claw- it's gonna hurt!

Of course, it's going to be rather miraculous if Lindwyrm does make it through even the Veluza, what with Veluza having the objective advantage in Most Things while Lindwyrm has maybe...one ace or so. Ultimately the rocks are being traded out-

For BIGGER rocks.

Robo the Golurk, unlike Lindwyrm, is over levelled...which, again, might not have been a bad call. Equipped with Iron Fist and a good few punches, the great giant intends to make use of Phantom Force to finish off the Veluza from a place of relative safety- all the better to conserve energy for what's coming next. Thanks to a lot of time staring at the things on Armin's island, Wugtrio isn't an unfamiliar quarry at least, even if it's an annoying one; it's got a pretty solid attack stat, and just like Veluza, a plethora of physical moves. This time there's no Wandering Spirit to get in the way though.

...Or is there? Wandering Spirit activates from both sides. Even if Lindwyrm never made it beyond the first hit, the ability would've activated; which means that Wandering Spirit would have been passed BACK to Robo!

(Hold on....Emporio was THIS your gimmick for the fight!?)

In any case the minute Kofu's Wugtrio makes contact with Robo, the same thing is likely to happen again- with Robo stealing Wugtrio's own Gooey or Rattled while charging in with moves like Hammer Arm and Mega Punch, happily confident that Wugtrio doesn't have a thing that can make use of the occasionally pilfered Iron Fist.

With luck, it'll mean that the stone giant makes it to the Crabominable...preferrably while Wandering Spirit is on. Because handily enough?

Crabominable probably has Iron Fist.

What follows is hopefully a bizarre back and forth of Wandering Spirit and Iron Fist, a trade of blows that keeps oscilating between incredibly painful and otherwise. Terastalization means that the two are evenly played- with Robo now entirely Ghost Type, while the Crabominable of course has Water. Thanks to the fight beforehand (or fights), Robo should also be a lot less 'clearly stronger' too- overlevelled they may be, but fighting fit, they are not. Still using punch moves through the battle, with any luck, Robo will come out winning- but.

What about Carol?

Carol of course has been providing bell sounds the whole time, often to the tune of a wrestling call- which was probably supposed to be the first clue of what Emporio was doing here. If Robo goes down though, Carol the Bronzong will be stepping up in a 'surprise' twist participation from the boxing bell itself! She'll open with Sunny Day to weaken the water moves coming in, and start slamming down with things like Extrasensory, Hypnosis, Confuse Ray...and while the opponent is still dazed, a nice Heavy Slam. Carol being the level she is, she's hopefully more than an even enough match to finish things off nice and tidy. (And as a bonus, if Wandering Spirit is still in play, the oddity of the bell gets emphasized via her not making any contact typically.)

'Isn't Brongzong genderless?' Let her have this.

Badge/Gym Leader: Larry's Normal Badge
Elite/Regular: REGULAR TEAM
Team: Here- Softball the Dubwool (Slide 7), Hat Trick the Cinderace (Slide 24), Hallogen the Bellibolt (Slide 22)
Battle Details: Normally (heh), Emporio's go-to for the Normal Gyms was twofold; use ghosts, since Whitney and others had fairy pokemon mixed in with their roster, and use his Delcatty, who has Normalize. A nice fun challenge!

Unfortunately, Reedy-Weedy is level 100, and kinda retired in that regard. At least when it comes to being the star of Gym fights like this. Normal Types only have an immunity and a weakness, with no inbetween, so it's tricky coming up with something that can be appropriately...well. WEIRD, for Larry!

(Maybe it'll get a smile outta the guy. He nearly stumped him. He's so normal he's nearly stumped Emporio, Geeta truly doesn't appreciate Larry enough.)

Eventually, his solution is..........................This.

As the city of Food, what better way to show appreciation to Larry than a FOOD THEMED BATTLE! Shame he doesn't have a Tatsugiri for this.

First up- the Riceball, complete with Soysauce- Softball the Dubwool comes rolling out. Somewhat underlevelled, she's bolstered a little by the ability Fluffy, which halves any moves that make contact. Even so, she opens up with Cotton Guard to further bolster that defense, before employing the exception to the Type Advantage Rule- with a level gap like this, Emporio has no qualms in showing that this 'riceball' has 'kick'! Double Kick is made use of repeatedly, with the occasional Growl to lower the opponent's attack. When things get difficult, Softball swaps over to Reversal as long as possible...at which point, it's time for the Fire Blast grilling.

To that end, Emporio's made use of TM learning. Perhaps Larry can guess why? Dubwool aren't small, but they aren't large either. Handily, Hat Trick, now a Cinderace isn't too big or small either. You might even say they're...Medium.

He's also exclusively using Fire Blast. Like. Only Fire Blast. As soon as he's out, Emporio's even swapping him, that's how exclusive it gets.

Riceballs, medium, Fire Blast grilled...all that's missing now is-

The Lemon....

Well, she's no grass type, but Hallogen the Bellibolt is a 'medium sized' (when looking strictly at height anyway), brilliantly yellow creature indeed. And hey, eating a lemon gives a shock too, right? ...Right???

Hallogen comes out to play, and there's a decent chance that she'll be coming out before the Staraptor does as well. Fire Blast can be tricky for aiming after all. Whatever the case, she opens up with Electric Terrain to season the field as it were, before moving on with moves like Sucker Punch against those faster than her, and Mud Slap to lower her opponent's accuracy. While she'll be using Charge and Discharge intermittently in order to beef up a good electric blow, once she's Terastalized to face Staraptor- which, to be fair, may well be the minute she reaches the field- she'll toss in a chance at a Zap Cannon too. Bit of a coin toss, she'll probably stick to the Discharge.

As it is, with any luck- Larry's had the battle meal of a lifetime!

[indigo_league]

Badge Approved x2

[rolltoavoidpossession]

Character: Ryou Bakura | rolltoavoidpossession
Badge/Gym Leader: Ryme | Ghost Badge
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team: Banshee, Roc, Will-o-Wisp, Reaper, Doppelganger, Haunt
Battle Details: Ryou, being Ryou, has beelined for Montenevera just to challenge Ryme! And of course, he's bringing a few Ghost types of his own for this challenge!

VS Banette

Ryou will open with Haunt the Yamask, who will lead with Taunt to disable Banette's Will-O-Wisp before using Hone Claws and Phantom Force for damage.

Weirdly, 'Haunt' will seem to be immune to Ghost type moves despite being a Ghost type! That's because Ryou actually sent out Banshee the Hisuian Zoroark under the effect of her Illusion ability! If the Banette manages to nail Banshee with a Dark type move and break the disguise, then she'll have a Sitrus Berry for health recovery and will switch to Shadow Claw to finish the Banette.

VS Mimikyu

What Banshee does here depends on a lot of factors. If she is still in good health and didn't have moves disabled by Banette's potential Cursed Body, then she'll lead with Confuse Ray to confuse the Mimikyu (and hey, maybe it'll break its own disguise in the confusion!), then lead into Shadow Claw to break the disguise if confusion didn't break it first and start doing damage.

If Banshee is too hurt to continue or had moves disabled by Cursed Body earlier, then she'll instead use U-Turn to escape battle (breaking the Mimikyu's disguise in the process) and allow Roc the Staraptor to switch in. Roc will then lead with Double Team followed by Fly (or Aerial Ace if Mimikyu managed to use Double Team via Copycat.)

VS Golurk

Roc will tag out to Will-o-Wisp the Gourgeist, who will lead with Worry Seed to change the Golurk's ability to Insomnia (Ryou is a bit worried about Iron Fist), then lead into Leech Seed for health recovery and Seed Bomb for damage.

If Will-o-Wisp starts getting really low health, then he's holding a Sitrus Berry and can use Pain Split in an effort to recover some health off of the Golurk. If Pain Split is not a viable option, then Will-o-Wisp will let Roc tag back in and finish up with Fly.

VS Spiritomb

Ryou is going to have Will-o-Wisp use Pain Split again if he's low enough health for that to work, then Leech Seed again and immediately switch out to Haunt the Yamask (for real this time). Haunt is holding a Chesto Berry in case of Hypnosis, and if the Spiritomb does use Hypnosis then Ryou will try to have Haunt Disable it to stop any further sleep shenanigans. Beyond that, Haunt will also use Will-O-Wisp for burn damage, followed by Curse if Haunt's health is high enough to support it, then a mix of Crafty Shield and Protect in an attempt to stall the Spiritomb out from all the Curse+burn+Leech Seed damage.

If it looks like Haunt is going to go down (or it turns out the Spiritomb has the Infiltrator ability), then Ryou has one last ditch effort up his sleeve: Destiny Bond, to make sure that Spiritomb goes down too. If this last ditch plan fails for whatever reason, then Ryou will have Roc once again come in to clean up with Fly. Roc is holding a Sitrus Berry and knows Roost to help offset any damage accumulated from all this cleaning up.

VS Houndstone

Roc is definitely coming out for this, since Last Respects is frightening and Ryou wants no part of that. Roc will lead with Double Team for the sake of being harder to hit, Roost if needed to restore health, then lead into Fly and Aerial Ace for damage. Roc's Intimidate ability also helps soften up any hits that do make it through.

If the Houndstone gets off a Roar, then Ryou will try to get either Roc or, if she still has a bit of health left, Banshee back on the field in place of whoever was dragged out to quickly clean up with either Fly (Roc) or Shadow Claw (Banshee).

VS Toxtricity

Ryou will switch out into Reaper the Dragapult at this point, banking on his resistance to Electric and Poison attacks for this. Reaper will lead with Dragon Dance for the stat boost, then go into Dragon Darts and Sucker Punch for damage. Reaper is also holding a Lum Berry in case of poisoning or paralysis.

If needed, Ryou has one more surprise: Doppelganger the Mimikyu, who will lead with Taunt to prevent Toxic use, followed by Double Team and Shadow Claw for damage. Doppelganger's Disguise ability will help absorb the first hit, and his Ghost typing helps cancel out Fairy's weakness to Poison.

After this, win or lose, Ryou will just be happy he got to fight another Ghost type user.

[indigo_league]

Badge Approved

[nightyorb]

Character: Riz Gukgak | nightyorb
Badge/Gym Leader: Brassius / Artazon
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team:
Tufsa the Ninjask (lvl 100) holding Scope Lens (boosts the holder's critical-hit ratio.)
Isosceles the Cryogonal (lvl 100) holding holding Pecha Berry (cures Poison)
Puk the Kecleon (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Grum the Honedge (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Gozgoz the Trubbish (lvl 100) holding Chesto Berry (cures Sleep)
Chit the Sableye (lvl 100) holding Sablenite (Allows Mega-evolution)


Battle Details:


VS Breloom

To start off this battle, Riz will bring out his Ninjask Tufsa.

As a bug/Flying type, Tufsa takes 1/4th damage from both Fighting and Grass moves. Most of the moves in Breloom's roster are either grass or fighting moves. Tufsa will also be holding a Scope Lens, which will boost her critical attack rate.

As a grass/fighting type, Breloom takes 4x damage from Flying moves. And based on the research Riz did, he knows Breloom can either have the ability Effect Spore (chance of inflicting a status effect when an opponent makes contact) or Poison Heal (which, well, heals the pokemon when poisoned).

So with this knowledge in his well-dressed back-pocket, Riz has devised a plan. The plan is, don't make contact and dear god, don't poison it. He isn't sure which ability Brassius' pokemon has but he ain't playing.


Starting off this battle, Riz will have Ninjask use Sword's Dance to sharply boost her attack. With her attack boosted, he will then have her use Gust. This is a flying type move (so it will deal 4x the damage to Breloom + STAB damage on top of that) and importantly, it does not make contact with the other pokemon so there is no chance of effect spore being activated.

Riz will continue using Gust until Breloom goes down. Considering its moves mostly do reduced damage to Ninjask, and Ninjask is going 4x the damage, he is pretty sure he can swing this battle.



VS Arboliva

Which is great because he's leaving Tufsa on the field for the next round as well.

Her Opponent this round is Arboliva which is a Normal/Grass pokemon. It has a 2x weakness to Flying type moves, Poison type moves and Bug type moves, while Ninjask still 1/4ths the damage from any grass moves.

Important to note is that Arboliva's ability is Seed Sower. This ability means that the moment Arboliva is hit by a damaging attack, it will activate grassy terrain. This boosts grass type moves by 50%, but also heals all pokemon on the field by 1/16th health at the end of each turn.

(It also does some other stuff but that is Not Important For Riz)


First things first, depending on how Tufsa looks after the last round, Riz will use his first round to heal her. If she is particularly lacking in HP as well as suffering from some status condition, Riz'll use a Full Restore or her; If she is not suffering from a status condition, he'll use a Hyper Potion.

With Tufsa healed up now, Riz will first have Ninjask use Toxic to badly poison Arboliva. It's always nice to have some guaranteed damage each round, especially with the grassy terrain healing everybody on each turn.

After this, Riz'll have Ninjask use Silver Wind. This bug type move not only does damage (which Arboliva is weak to) but also has a random chance of boosting one of Ninjask's stats. And this is on top of the boost to her stats she always has from the Sword's Dance she used before.

One thing to be on the look-out for is the fact that Arboliva has Mirror Coat which reflects the damage from special attacks like Silver Wind. So what Riz'll do is follow up the use of Silver Wind by Aerial Ace. Seeing as this attack deals direct damage it cannot be reflected by Silver Wind. From here on, Riz will continue to use Aerial Ace, while tossing in a very random Silver Wind.

Even though she was healed at the start of this, Tufsa is fighting two opponents in a row, so Riz is ready to have her use Rest if her HP dips really low. Unfortunately for Arboliva, all its methods of HP regain are Grass type moves, which don't do much to Ninjask.



VS Vileplume

It's onto Vileplume, and this marks the gym debut of Riz's Cryogonal Isosceles!

(Or, I think so, at least. If you have seen him before, no you didn't)

Quick facts: Vileplume is a poison/grass pokemon with a weakness to Ice. Cryogonal is an Ice pokemon, who does have a few weaknesses, but none that Vileplume can target.

Put on your hats, because it's gonna get cold.

Puts on Dark Glasses.

Ice Cold.

(yeaaaah)


Anyway.

To start off this battle, Riz will have Cryogonal use Confuse Ray. This will leave Vileplume confused, and Cryogonal should be moving first due to Vileplume's lower speed. This will hopefully cause Vileplume to waste some of its turn and do damage to itself.

Onwards, Riz will have Cryogonal use Ice Beam to Target Vileplume's Ice weakness, as well as potentially freezing it. He'll continue to use this, and switch to Freeze-Dry if he becomes unable to use Ice Beam.

Whenever the confusion wears off, Cryogonal will use Confuse Ray to reapply it.

Riz will also have Recover on stand-by if Vileplume manages to lower Cryogonal's HP a lot. This move allows him to recover 50% of his HP.

To chances of Cryogonal getting poisoned during this battle as pretty damn high, so Riz has send him into battle carrying a Pecha Berry.



VS Tsareena


To battle Brassius' Tsareena, Riz'll bring out an old favourite - Puk the Kecleon.

Back to ye olde explanation - Puk is a HA Kecleon and its HA is Protean. This means his typing will change on each turn to match that of the move he is using. He will always have STAB damage due to this.

Tsareena has weaknesses to Flying, Poison, Bug, Fire and Ice due to its grass typing.


To start off this battle, Riz'll have Kecleon use Trick Room. This means for the next five turns, the slowest pokemon (Kecleon) will act first.

Now, full disclosure -- Kecleon will have started out the fight as a normal type, and he won't have changed to a Psychic type until after Tsareena's turn. This has a lot of potential for danger as Tsareena does have one very powerful Fighting type move (High Jump Kick). There is a chance Brassius used this on the first turn and did a lot of damage to Kecleon (and may have knocked him out entirely), however this move also has a higher chance of missing and inflicting damage on the user.

So lemme first give you a strategy assuming Kecleon stayed up, and then I'll have a back-up strategy in case he goes down there and then (or relatively quickly after)

Now that Kecleon is moving first, Riz'll have him use Shadow Sneak. This doesn't target one of Tsareena's weaknesses, but it will leave Kecleon with a Ghost typing. Which means if Brassius tries using another High Jump Kick it will do no damage.

Next, Riz'll have Kecleon use Fire Blast. This Fire type move (duh) will deal a lot of damage to Tsareena, but also halve the damage of the grass type move that is most likely incoming.

Next, Riz'll have Kecleon use Astonish. This ghost type move doesn't do a lot of damage, but it might make Tsareena flinch. Also if Tsareena was readying either a normal or a fighting type move, these will not land.

On the next turn Riz'll once again have Kecleon use Fire Blast to target Tsareena's weakness.

On the next turn, Riz'll have Kecleon use Ice Punch, because at this point Brassius is probably expecting a return to Ghost.

At this point, Trick Room will wear off, and Tsareena is hopefully own or else Riz is pretty sure Kecleon is going to get its butt kicked on the next move.


Anyway, again, this first strategy has a big risk of Brassius using High Jump Kick and landing it on the first round. So just in case that happens and Puk goes down in one hit or he goes down quickly after, Riz has a back-up strategy.


Enter Grum the Honedge.

As a dual Steel/Ghost type, Grum is immune to any normal and fighting type moves. He also has a resistance to grass type. Why didn't Riz bring him in sooner? Well... honestly, he was already planning things for his Kecleon before he realised Grum would be better, but at that point Puk was already all jazzed about being in the fight and Riz didn't want to disappoint him.

Anyway.

With Grum immune to most of Tsareena's moves (and hopefully Tsareena already somewhat damaged by Kecleon), Riz'll just settle for whittling down Tsareena's remaining hp by first having Honedge use Sword's Dance and then using Aerial Ace, a flying type move that simply cannot miss until Tsareena goes down.



VS Lilligant

While Brassius sends out the elegant Lilligant, for his next pokemon Riz sends out some fucking trash.

By which we mean his Trubbish Gozgoz.

Important things to note, Lilligant is grass type pokemon which leaves her with a weakness to poison. Trubbish is a poison type pokemon with a resistance to grass (which makes up most of Lilligant's move pool)

Starting off this battle, Riz'll have Trubbish use Toxic to badly poison Lilligant.

From here on, Riz'll have Trubbish use Sludge Bomb to deal the most consistent poison damage he can.

There is one exception -- Lilligant has the ability to put Trubbish to sleep with her sleep spore. That would kinda suck, so Riz has equipped Trubbish with a Chesto Berry to immediately wake up. Riz will then have Trubbish use Recycle to recover the berry (and therefore the Sleep defence), and after that, Riz'll have Trubbish use Belch for the rest of the battle. This move can be used after a pokemon has eaten a berry and can be used until the pokemon switches out.

And finally, should Gozgoz's HP start dropping steeply, Riz'll have him use Drain Punch to inflict some damage on Lilligant and recover HP.


(Oh, and as always, if things look really dicey, Riz has no problem taking Lilligant down with Trubbish by using Explosion. Trubbish will be rewarded for this with some of the really bad bricks Elven Waybread Adaine baked while getting ready for the cook-out)



VS Sudowoodo

Onto the final battle. And while Brassius Terastalises his pokemon, Riz will show him how they do it back in Kanto and have Sableye Mega-evolve.

(He's just curious how it'll stack up, okay!)

Anyway, after Mega-evolving, Sableye will now be Mega-Sableye, complete with a new ability which reflects this long list of moves

(Which really just applies to Sudowoodo's Fake Tears, Block and Tearful Look)


Anyway, Sudowoodo is now a grass type, and weak to Flying, Poison, Bug, Fire and Ice. Sableye is still a Dark/Ghost, making him immune to Normal, Fighting and Psychic


First Riz is going to use Poison Jab to deal some damage to Sudowoodo and hopefully poison it. He'll repeat this until Sudowoodo is poisoned.

Next, Riz'll have Sableye use Ice Punch and Fire Punch in rapid succession until Sudowoodo is either burned or frozen.

And if Sudowoodo is still up at this point, Riz'll switch to using Fury Cutter to deal some bug damage. As Fury Cutter gets more damaging each time it's used, Riz'll keep using it until Sudowoodo goes down.



VS everybody kinda

So, Riz is bringing Honedge along with him as his back-up pokemon for his Kecleon, but this battle, Honedge will also be his general all round back-up in case any of the others get knocked out early. (especially Tufsa who is fighting two pokemon back to back)

Again, Honedge is immune to Fighting, Normal and Poison. He also resists grass.


As a general strategy, Honedge will use Sword's Dance and then Aerial Ace to take advantage of the flying weakness most of Brassius' pokemon have. If he runs out, he'll switch to using Nightslash/Slash/Fury Cutter.

On the first round he is brought in after a downed pokemon, he'll use Retaliate

Finally, he will use Rest when needed to recover HP.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[paladinlost]

Character: Cecil Harvey | paladinlost


Badge/Gym Leader: Kofu's Water Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Ignis the Garganacl, Leon the Ceruledge (+4 levels each)
Battle Details: Levels vs type advantage, what will prevail?

Since Ignis is both slow and at a defensive disadvantage, his main duty is setting up Salt Cure and then switching out. He'll also try to use Recover once if he gets too damaged before Kofu's final Pokémon, but if it comes down to it he's willing to get knocked out if Leon can switch in safely.

Leon will be Cecil's main attacker this time. Against Veluza, he favors Shadow Claw for that sweet, STAB-y supereffective damage. Against both Wugtrio and Crabominable, he prefers Solar Blade while healthy (no Sunny Day to set it up properly, sadly), or Bitter Blade if he absolutely needs to heal. Shadow Claw also serves as a neutral option if healing is unnecessary, but charging up is too risky.


Badge/Gym Leader: Larry's Normal Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Ignis the Garganacl, Leon the Ceruledge (+4 levels each)
Battle Details: Let it be known, for the record, that Dudunsparce is the best thing Cecil has seen in years.

As always, Ignis starts out with Salt Cure for extra damage, followed by Stealth Rock during his first matchup. His main attack after that is Hammer Arm, though he might switch to Heavy Slam if Hammer Arm starts missing. He can be sent out against Komala and Dudunsparce, even if Cecil is aware that Drill Run can cause problems. (Komala's Wood Hammer is going to be a delightful surprise, though.)

Leon starts off with a single Swords Dance. Once that's done, he alternates between Bitter Blade, Night Slash and Psycho Cut, with a preference for Bitter Blade if he's injured. He can be sent out against any of Larry's Pokémon, even if Dudunsparce's Ground attacks are a concern once more. If either of his Pokémon is hit by Yawn, Cecil will switch them out.

Like for previous badges, Cecil will accept a loss if both Ignis and Leon faint, no matter which other Pokémon he has at hand.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

[behindblueskin]

Character: Keldor | behindblueskin
Badge/Gym Leader: Katy
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
► Takami
► Asama
► Sunatchi
► Shidosanda
► Naganegi
► Kazaru
Battle Details: At some point, Keldor was going to have to start thinking of building up a team or two to do more than just challenge the regional gym leaders with, and since all but the Rowlet twins have achieved level 100, he can no longer in good conscience send in over-levelled pokemon to battle with. It's time to start thinking strategically; not just assume that you'll go in, wipe the floor for a few minutes with the leader's pokemon and add yet another badge to your collection.

He just didn't think that he'd start this leg of the journey in Paldea, but a trip like this was too good to pass up, especially when it's being paid for by someone else.

So while he flies in, he does some research to pass the time with.

It's all standard. Like every other gym, the Paldean leaders have their specialty type, but to maximise time spent making the most of his trip to the home of Smoliv Garden, he needs to make sure that he won't need to do too much team adjusting over the course of the next two months. By the time the plane touches down, he's got some idea of what he's going to be up against once he starts his challenge, and so after buying a few maps to help him find his way about the sprawlling region of Paldea, he hops aboard Takami his Roaring Moon and makes his way over to Cortondo.

Katy's gym specialty is the Bug type, and unfortunately for her and two other leaders, heat in the form of pokemon who know Fire attacks is something Keldor made sure he had enough of when he got here.

Spidops

Spidops is pure bug, so Asama with the type advantage will be going in first. Since this is Keldor's first Elite battle for any gym, he's expecting Katy to realise that he's not some novice trainer who's still learning how things work when it comes to battling, and will know that her opponent has done as much homework as possible, which means protecting her pokemon from taking too much damage too soon, and if there's one thing Spidops has to defend itself, it's moves like Silk Trap to ensure that it won't be the recipient of any effects that it might've suffered from, and String Shot and Sticky Web to lower Asama's Speed. Things certainly are off to a sticky start LOL. Spiders. Sticky. LOL, but Asama doesn't need speed to deal with the wanna-be spider spy. Laying down webbing might seem like a good idea, but all it does is give the Hisuian Arcanine something to set fire to with Ember, and if Spidops doesn't want to go up in smoke it'll need to get itself out of there fast. Sadly, though, she's bigger than the Spidops is, and any Blocks will just be used to Bite into to hold onto her opponent to deal out a Flare Blitz or two and take it down.

Heracross

Y'know, for a Bug type, Bug moves aren't something Heracross has much of, but that's okay. It has Fighting moves up its sleeves, and between its Bug/Fighting typing and Asama's Fire/Rock combo, any advantage Asama might have has been evened out. What she can use to bring on the hurt can be a reason to get even with something that will make her howl in pain. And since she's been forced to mostly observe the speed limit, she'll have to hit as hard as she can with another Flare Blitz before being recalled so that Kazaru can step forth.

Ah, Kazaru. Keldor wasn't sure if the Flamigo he didn't exactly want to catch was ever going to amount to anything beyond becoming a living lawn ornament, but being a Flying type as well as a Fighting type means that the big blue beetle no longer has an equaliser when it comes to advantages and disadvantages. If anything, it now has even more disadvantages than it did before, and even if it could hurt Asama with Fighting moves, that's not going to work so well on a bird. All it can do, maybe, is try to use something like Endure to its limit while the party favour pelts it with Pecks, Wing Attacks and an Air Slash to seal the deal.

Forretress

Now that Heracross has been defeated, it's time for Forretress to run, Forretress, run spin out onto the field. With its Bug/Steel type combo giving it a x4 Fire weakness, it's not surprising that Keldor will eventually send Asama back out, because, let's face it, Kazaru can only do so much Pecking before her beak starts to smart from hammering away at Forretress Gump's metallic shell [even if it does keep it from doing things like setting up an entry hazard in the form of Toxic Spikes]. Her Speed is still affected, but it doesn't matter. A Fire Fang to help you grab onto it to keep it from trying to spin away, and then we char-broil things with another Flare Blitz to make sure its goose is more than just a little cooked.

Lokix

We're now in the second half of the battle, and it's time for Lokix to enter the fray. Remembering what he's learned about this particular Paldean native, Keldor isn't about to switch Asama out just yet. Yes, being Fire/Rock gives her an advantage over Bug/Dark, but none of his pokemon are used to the extended fighting battling at the Elite level involves, and she hasn't yet built up her endurance. Also, Keldor doesn't want to use up all of her most powerful Fire moves, so before she gets to rest, she'll throw a Rock Slide at it, then takes five while Kazaru is sent back out.

Fighting moves won't really be any more of use here than they would've been going up against Heracross, but because Bugs just don't like birds all that much, Kazaru can use her kicking legs to help Focus her Energy enough so that if Lokix tries to hop away, she can Fly at it to deadly effect, then Brave Bird it into a body cast.

Araquanid

The Water Bubble pokemon known as Araquanid is perhaps the first pokemon Katy is using where the Fire hazard won't be a hazard at all. Its Water typing halves the damage it could've taken as a Bug type and brings it down to normal levels. It does, however, mean that sending someone like Asama back out to try and fight it to be sheer foolishness. Araquanid will have the x4 advantage against a Fire/Rock, so she'll be sitting this one out for just a little bit longer, and though Naganegi the Flamigo might've been a better choice, Keldor chooses this moment to bring out one of his hardest hitters in the form of Takami the Roaring Moon.

Katy takes this moment to appreciate the fact that her opponent just so happens to have a Paradox pokemon on his team, but she's not going to appreciate Takami so much that she'll forget she's in what amounts to the seventh inning stretch of Elite battling.

Water/Bug versus Dragon/Dark means that nobody has a type advantage or a type weakness. It's all balanced out, or so you'd think. Aqua Ring on Araquanid's part might help it stay in the game longer whilst trying to cause a rain delay in the form of a Soak, but Takami is just fast enough to Fly in with a Headbutt that by the time Katy's other spider has gotten it wet, it'll be too late. And that's when Keldor gives Katy a real surprise. See, it's not just Fly that it knows that can do damage. Takami also knows Thunder Fang, and is judiciously using them to shock the spider until it faints.

Ursaring

What? Katy isn't using only Bugs for this battle? Keldor isn't the only one who has a surprise for their opponent? Katy has an Ursaring?

Well. This is where we find out if Keldor made the right choices when building up a team to take Paldea on.

Ursaring is a Normal type, and much of what it knows are Normal moves. But its strongest move isn't a Normal move—it's Fighting, and guess what a Roaring Moon is weak to, and you know Katy will be using Arm and Hammer—I mean Hammer Arm—as soon as possible before Takami is withdrawn from the field of combat, to be replaced by Keldor's Sirfetch'd, Naganegi. Pure Normal goes up against pure Fighting, and Katy now fully understands that Keldor is actually up to scratch when it comes to battling. Soldiers know how to make use of strengths and weaknesses, and Keldor himself has put that to use in the past when he was gathering up followers to support his cause. A band of misfits and outcasts might not seem like very much to anyone else, but Keldor has thus far managed to turn weakness into strength, and is bringing out their best and giving Randor a real cause for concern.

But that's Eternia, not the pokemon world. He has a new set of troops to work with and mentor.

Naganegi is ready to be mentored.

The last matchup begins with the Sirfetch'd using a Leer-Sand Attack combo to reduce defence and accuracy at the same time, whilst boosting her own defence with Iron Defence, and her evasiveness with Detect. For all that the duck has the type advantage in this fight, that's one of the few things she has. Elite level battling is where the highest-levelled pokemon come to play, and Ursaring is as maxed as Naganegi is. Now that she's tilted the battle more in her favour, Naganegi can cut loose with a nasty pair of Brick Breaks. To no one's surprise, the Ursaring is a serious opponent, and one Katy has done much work with when it comes to realising her strongest pokemon's potential, and you can be sure that it's going to hit as hard as it can, and just look at it. That big bruiser looks like it can hit you pretty hard, especially if it used Play Rough. Naganegi's giving it her all: Rock Smashes and Brick Breaks aplenty, and then, just when the going starts to really get tough, she'll pull out one last-ditch effort in the form of Final Gambit. Yes, that means sacrificing herself in this battle, as Final Gambit will cause her to faint, but she'll go down knowing that she was fully able to punch above her weight in this their first-ever Elite battle.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[behindblueskin]

[Never mind. Making this its own comment.]

Character: Keldor | behindblueskin
Badge/Gym Leader: Brassius
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
► Takami
► Asama
► Sunatchi
► Shidosanda
► Naganegi
► Kazaru
Battle Details: You know, Cortondo's a nice place to be, especially after a very tough battle in its gym. Rest and relaxation is the name of the game, and there's even a trip to Every Wich Way afterwards to chow down like the champs you're being trained to become. Time, though, is limited, and they can't stay here forever. There are gyms to be challenged and badges to be earned. So after yet one more stop by the sandwich shop to get plenty of food for this leg of the journey, it's all aboard the Takami Express, where we fly off to Artazon and a battle with Brassius.

Breloom

Artazon's gym is one of the three gyms with a Fire weakness, so of course when Brassius sends out his Breloom, Keldor quickly changes his initial strategy of going with Asama. While Breloom hates it hot, it's got the typing to spoil Asama's efforts. Grass might make Fire grin, but it's Fighting that turns Rock's smile upside down, and both trainers know it. Asama will just have to wait her turn while Kazaru goes first, which earns Keldor a compliment for preparing well. Kazaru's typing ensures that Breloom can't do much to hurt her, since Flying/Fighting neutralises Grass/Fighting, and as that's pretty much most of what it knows, fighting dirty is its only option. Fast and fancy footwork should be enough to try and avoid all the Powder and Spore attacks Breloom has to inflict any kind of status it can, and poor Kazaru is reduced to trying to Peck as hard as it can, since she can no longer use Wing Attack or Air Slash to hit with. Breloom's on the ropes itself by this point, hopefully, so Asama is sent out to eliminate it with some Embers after Kazaru's given some much-needed berries to treat her ailments to ensure she can still go.

Arboliva

Asama doesn't get to stay out very long, however, as who knows just what Brassius brought with him for Keldor to play with, and he has no intentions of going through all of his berries before this contest is over. That means Naganegi is the evolved form of the Smoliv Garden's mascot's playmate. Wasting no time at all, Arboliva is Sweet Scenting as much as it can and Leech Seeding the ground to make sure that the opponent its x2 weak to is given problems of her own to deal with, and to get out of harm's way, Naganegi takes to the sky with Fly, using it and gravity to put a punch into her Peck. That's got Arboliva trying to shield itself with its arms—arms Naganegi is Brick Breaking with perhaps too much enthusiasm. She only gets in a few before being called off as Arboliva topples over.

And to think, she's supposed to be Timid.

Vileplume

Yes, Grass is weak to Fire. You planned for that. But Vileplume is strong against Rock, and if Asama's not being sent in for this clash, that'd be why. Keldor really needs to use his head for this match-up, so once again he sends out his compliments-catcher, Takami. No real strengths. No real weaknesses. Keldor's trusting in Takami's moveset to pull it through this one, as well as its speed and agility to evade the Vileplume's Spores and Powders, whilst using Sunny Day to brighten things up and power up moves its typing won't boost the strength of; namely Incinerate and Flamethrower. If that doesn't finish off the Vileplume, a Fly will.

Tsareena

Tsareena is Grass, Grass and more Grass. It looks like once again Asama's not getting any outside time, as there's no way the Arcanine be able to survive the Tsareena and all of her Grass attacks; not even with being a Fire Type. So instead, Kazaru gets another opportunity to prove herself worthy of something other than a means to celebrate someone's fortieth birthday. Fighting won't do very much damage, and since Tsareena has nothing that can inflict a Status effect, Keldor can use the early stages of the battle to toss more berries Kazaru's way, bring her up back to full Status health, and send her Flying at the rather graceful-but-dangerous Fruit Pokemon; Pecking as hard as a Pikipek the whole way. Once Tsareena's about to teeter over, Keldor has Kazaru finish things off with a Wing Attack.

Lilligant

Four down. Two to go, and like Tsareena, Lilligant is Grass for days. Unlike Tsareena, Lilligant does have Powder and Spore attacks, meaning that Takami gets to go back in and fight. Poor Asama just isn't getting in much fight time, it looks like. No point risking her and her Rock typing. Sunny Day should still be in effect, but if it's gotten somewhat overcast, another Sunny Day should chase the clouds away. Brassius, having seen what Takami can do, is filling the air with all the Stun Spores and Sleep Powders Lilligant can call up, even if it means risking using up all her move energy in doing so. Keldor might not have been expecting Brassius to go all-out in trying to cause a status effect, but Keldor is quick on his feet, and orders Takami to Fly just before a Spore or a Powder can land, meaning that even if it's asleep, the Fly will still land regardless. Once that's done, Kazaru is given the green light to get back out there and, with the Status danger now passed, can get in a Fly of her own, using her Wings to Attack the Lilligant and give Brassius a reason to not go so overboard next time.

Sudowoodo

This is it. This is Brassius' last pokemon, and like Katy he's using a pokemon of a type he doesn't normally specialise in. Sudowoodo might look like a Grass type, but all that greenery is about as real as Astroturf. Sending out Kazaru or Naganegi might be sound strategy—both have the type advantage what with being Fighting—but Keldor is resourceful, and has what he hopes to be someone who might just be able to take the water-shy phony on. With a grin on his face and a flick of his hand, Sunatchi's ball is tossed out, and the Krookodile doesn't even wait for his trainer to give instructions before it sends out a Sand Tomb to keep the Sudowoodo mostly in place while he goes Digging around, peeking up to Torment his opponent, then diving back in to send out shockwaves in the form of Earthquake. Sure, Sunatchi might have only two moves he can use to hurt the Sudowoodo with, but he's using them to full effect, and Keldor can't help but be impressed at the clever croc's initiative when it comes to securing their second Paldean badge.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[outofsynth]

Character: Min-Gi Park | outofsynth
Badge/Gym Leader: Psychic [Tulip]
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team:
- Purple Haze [Frosmoth - lvl 100 - Leftovers]
- Ice Age [Alolan Sandslash - lvl 100 - Loaded Dice]
- Red Eye [Corviknight - lvl 100 - Zoom Lens]

Battle Details:

This is definitely a case of doing the homework you don't want to do first. Or close to it. He needed to warm himself up before he braved this one. Arguably Min should have more trauma around bug type Pokémon than psychic types, but no. He does not feel comfortable. This entire town honestly has the opposite effect on him than it's supposed to. He has a strategy in place in advance, but honestly he's going to be a lot more prone to panicking and letting that go out of the window if things start going wrong for him than he'd normally be. If one of the strategies he tries wouldn't work feel free to throw out some of the ones that might work too.

As an additional note, this one is backdated to last week.

Frosmoth vs. Farigiraf

His first tactic is going to be to have Purple Haze use Snowscape. Because he has a couple of ice types today she will be refreshing Snowscape if it if it fades. However, he's hoping he won't need to now Haze ignores the accuracy of Blizzard. If Blizzard isn't as quick to knock Farigiraf as he hopes (Min will only order her to use this once) then Haze also has super effective bug moves in her arsenal such as Struggle Bug, though she will be putting up a protective Aurora Veil first.

He's expecting her to make it through this battle. Haze can't resist any of the moves Farigiraf has, but she also isn't weak to any of them and she has super effective moves in addition to a major level discrepancy.

Alolan Sandslash vs. Gardevoir

If Snowscape has faded by now then Min-Gi will get Ice Age to refresh it again. This will be something he does throughout the battle if it lasts long enough to need it. This will keep her evasion slightly raised and boost her defence. She will also be putting up Aurora Veil even though she does already resist any attacks Gardevoir has.

Before she starts in on the offence she will be using Swords Dance.

Once everything is set up she will use Icicle Spear. Combined with the Loaded Dice she's holding this should take care of Gardevoir fairly quickly, but there are a few things that could scupper their plans. If it has Trace as its ability then it could gain the same evasion boost that Ice Age herself has by taking on Snow Cloak. Unless it uses Misty Terrain first it could also put Ice Age to sleep with Hypnosis. Honestly, there isn't much he can do to prevent this besides hope her increased evasiveness combined with the low accuracy of Hypnosis means he will be able to keep her awake long enough for his strategy to work. He doesn't love this, especially combined with Dream Eater and other healing type moves Gardevoir has access to. He just has to hope the defensive measures he's put in place earlier are high enough that she doesn't take too much damage before she can wake up and use Icicle Spear again.

Alolan Sandslash vs. Espathra

This is why Min-Gi was concerned about Ice Age losing too much health in the previous match up. It's also why he tried to use Swords Dance previously since Opportunist could be a real pain here if Espathra has that. If Snowscape is still in play then she will use Aurora Veil again to decrease the amount of damage she takes.

Whether she does this or not her goal is to use Icicle Spear next. If that isn't enough after one attack then Min will have her switch to using Fury Cutter until it faints.

Should she go down before he can beat Espathra then Min will switch over to his Corvknight. She should resist any attack that Espathra can throw at her, and thanks to Mirror Armor she is also capable of bouncing back any stat lowering moves. She will use Steel Wing to finish Espathra off. Her Zoom Lens should help with the lower accuracy of the move.

Corviknight vs. Florges

He thinks he'll be okay here. None of Florges' attacks seem to be able to cause too much damage to Corviknight even if Grassy Terrain comes into play. That doesn't mean he isn't worried.

His initial plan is for Red Eye to use Hone Claws twice over. Then he'll switch to Taunt to stop it using healing moves while he attacks. From there he's hoping Power Trip will be enough to take care of it, but if not his back up move is once again Steel Wing. This time she will terastalize first. You might guess from this decision that her tera type is steel. Honestly, he'd rather not do that when he has such a significant level advantage and so many defences, but he wants this fight over with. If this is what he thinks he needs to do to win then he'll do it.

Min doesn't think he'll need to send out any of his other Pokémon, but if he does need to he will prioritize Ice Age. She will use Hail followed by Blizzard. If she fainted earlier then it will be Purple Haze using the same strategy.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[outofsynth]

Character: Min-Gi Park | outofsynth
Badge/Gym Leader: Bug [Katy]
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
- Echoes [Noivern - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Killer Queen [Azumarill - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Rodeo [Alolan Marowak - lvl 100 - Focus Sash]
- Glimmin [Glimmora - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Red Eye [Corviknight - lvl 100 - Leftovers]
- Ry [Plusle - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]

Battle Details:

Noivern vs. Spidops

First up will be Echoes. He will be starting out with Supersonic, then depending on whether or not that succeeded will be using Double Team once or twice. After that he will start using Air Slash to wear down its health. Once confusion wears off (or, if it didn't land, once Echoes has got a couple of hits in) he will once again use Supersonic to keep it unreliable.

He'd rather keep Echoes in for the duration of this match, so if his health is starting to look shaky Min will accept losing that sweet STAB for flying moves and have him use Roost. There's no real counter to Circle Throw, except for the fact all but one of his Pokemon have moves that are super effective. He does want to keep Echoes in so if it's early enough in the fight (or it's been switched to Ry) then Min will switch back to his Noivern. If it's pretty late in the game then he'll just suck it up and use super effective moves to finish it.

In an absolute disaster Min will switch to Corviknight and have her use Drill Peck, but hopefully that won't be happening this early on.

Azumarill vs. Heracross

Once Katy sends out her Heracross, Min-Gi will be turning to Killer Queen the Azumarill. Although she does resist a lot of its attacks, Min won't be taking chances with her. He will try to get her to Sing it to sleep. If that doesn't work or it gets in a Throat Chop first...

That's okay. He has other ideas.

First she'll use Aqua Ring to help heal her up a bit, then she'll use Charm (if she couldn't make it fall asleep) and Play Rough. If she did successfully get it to fall asleep she will use Charm once it wakes up instead.

If it survives an attack by using Endure then Killer Queen will use Tackle to take out the last of its HP.

If her health gets too low he will switch her out. Echoes will be his first bet if he has enough health left. If not, his Corviknight will take the field. In either case, they'll be taking advantage of that 4x weakness against flying moves.

Alolan Marowak vs. Forretress

This is a tricky one. Although Rodeo does have very strong moves to use in this situation, he's also weak to some of Forretress's moves and can't stop it using Spikes for whoever follows him to deal with. He'll equip him with a Focus Sash to help if it uses Explosion or Self Destruct right away, but there's not much else he can do against it.

For that reason he'll be going straight to offence. Thanks to Rock Head there's no downside to using Flare Blitz. It's a very basic strategy, but Forretress is extremely weak to fire. They're crossing their fingers here and hoping for the best.

Since Forretress does have some very nasty tricks up its non-existent sleeves this is one battle Min can't afford to be losing. If Rodeo's health starts looking low and Forretress hasn't eliminated itself in doing so then he will be using a Max Potion on him rather than switching to another Pokemon.

If it has... welp. That's fine. He doesn't want to be reckless unnecessarily, but he'll just be glad to get through this part of the battle.

Glimmora vs. Lokix

Presumably Glimmin will be coming out onto Spikes. This is unideal, but he'll be taking care of that for whoever comes next using Mortal Spin. To give himself a bit of protection he'll also be using Acid Armor.

Since Mortal Spin should poison Lokix, Min will be getting Glimmin to use Venoshock as well as Power Gem. He will also throw in the occasional Spiky Shield to try and keep Lokix on its toes. If Glimmin's defence is dropped then Min-Gi will get Glimmin to use Acid Armor again.

When things start getting close to the end he will use Stealth Rock, and ideally Toxic Spikes.

If things start looking bad then he might use Self Destruct, but only if it seems likely to finish Lokix. If not then he will switch back to his Azumarill and save Glimmin's last bit of health. If it still has a decent chunk of health then she will try to use Sing first, ideally she will be able to finish things off quick with Play Rough will do the job.

Corviknight vs. Araquanid

With any luck she won't have been out already, but if she has then Red Eye has a decent heft to her and should have a decent chunk of health left. She has also been equipped with Leftovers to make extra sure she will last this long.

She will be starting out by using Taunt to prevent the use of Soak, then Iron Defense. He will get Red to use this at least once, but twice if he thinks he can get away with it.

From there it will mostly be Drill Peck and throwing in Taunt when the effect of that would fade.

That will be the main strategy from there, assuming no spanners are thrown in the works. Once he's got a few hits in with Drill Peck he will get her to use Brave Bird once before he switches back to Drill Peck to hopefully finish things off a little quicker.

If Red Eye faints before she can defeat Araquanid then his back up option will be his Noivern. To prevent being hit with Mirror Coat he will be using physical moves like Wing Attack. If his health gets too low then Min-Gi will get him to use Roost.

Azumarill vs. Ursaring

This isn't the real play. Honestly, it's kind of a cheap trick. Killer Queen gets to come out here to show why she got her name.

She will immediately use Perish Song...

Then she's switching out.

Plusle vs. Ursaring

Is Plusle strong enough against Ursaring? Maybe not. Maybe not even with terastallization. Especially considering his tera type is fire... and Ursaring has High Horsepower. However, Ry is his precious son and deserves his chance to shine. With that in mind, he's going for it. They're using the orb. He'd be weak against a ground type move either way. Thankfully Plusle outspeeds Ursaring so if he can survive the turn used to switch him in he will get at least one shot and look very pretty while he does it. Ry will be happy even if he does faint.

If Ursaring used a status move last turn Min will have Ry use Encore, then Charm to lower its attack. If not he will have him use Protect^* for as long as he can get away with.

Of course, there's a strong chance Ry will go down before that count ends. In that case it's down to whoever's left. Red Eye will be the priority with Iron Defense, then Drill Peck if Ry went down early enough she needs it. If Red Eye's too weak at this point in the fight it's Killer Queen again with Protect.<sup>*

*</sup>Due to not seeing Protect as an option for these Pokémon on some sites but seeing it on others I checked my copy of Scarlet and they are both capable of learning it through TMs there.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[chickenchoicejudy]

Character: Ryan Akagi | chickenchoicejudy
Badge/Gym Leader: Tulip’s Psychic Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team:
Dennis the Impidimp
Dune the Orthworm
Spicy Curry the Scorbunny
Vogue the Purugly

Battle Details:
All of his pokemon are relatively high level, but this is due more to him being in the game a long time rather than having a ton of battle experience. This is the first gym battle Ryan is taking seriously after handwaving getting his ass handed to him by Ryme around when Min battled her! He’s not as studious as Min-Gi about these things though, and tends to make a lot of decisions based on what feels right in the moment and ✨vibes✨.

VS. FARIGIRAF
Ryan will send out Dennis, who should actually be a pretty decent match-up - dark typing will make him immune to psychic attacks and crunch won’t do as much damage, but it’s evened out by the fact that Armor Tail will prevent Dennis from using anything affected by his Prankster ability or that has priority. Armor Tail affects Confide, Fake Tears, Flatter, Nasty Plot, Swagger, Torment, Flatter, Fake Out, and Sucker Punch.

This leaves him with just Bite, Assurance, Dark Pulse, Play Rough, and Foul Play. Uh-oh! No status moves at all! With this in mind, and considering Farigiraf has Reflect, it will probably be an endurance contest.

After being totally tripped up by the fact that Dennis can’t use literally the majority of his moves, he’ll cycle through the ones he has before figuring out that Dark Pulse is going to be his best bet. There will be a lot of Dennis trying fruitlessly to chew on Farigiraf’s ankles before this happens.

VS GARDEVOIR
If Dennis outlasted Farigiraf, he won’t last long against Gardevoir - one Dazzling Gleam will probably take him out. Dune will come out to avenge him though. It’s a pretty good pick since he’s a steel type and is resistant to psychic, fairy, and grass moves, but if asked about his choice later, Ryan will shrug and say Gardevoir looked like she wouldn’t like worms.

He’ll use Mud Slap first to lower her accuracy, and then alternate between Iron Head and Iron Tail until the match is over.

VS ESPATHRA
Bizarrely, this match will start out with Ryan yelling “YOU’VE GOT THIS DUNE, YOU’VE SEEN ALL DRESSED BATTLE BEFORE!” - referring of course to his own Espathra who isn’t in this battle.

Because of that though, Ryan is well equipped for this battle! He actually knows about Opportunist in advance, and he knows he needs to prioritize slowing Espathra down. He’ll start with Mud Slap again because speed won’t matter if its accuracy is bad, and then go in with Bulldoze, which lowers speed by one. Form there he’ll prioritize anything that will make being fast difficult for Espathra - from moves like Earthquake to Wrap, which Ryan calls out as an instruction to give it a big hug.

All of its moves do normal damage, so this match is about making Espathra slow down and take damage.

VS FLORGES
Ryan is still not used to tera types and frankly? That looks like a grass pokemon. Yes, it’s a psychic gym but, whatever! It could be psychic/grass! That is literally a big flower lady!

This is going to lead to bringing out Spicy Curry, who is going to get his butt handed to him. It’s not that fire is weak necessarily, but he has a number of fighting moves that are going to be effectively useless. He’ll do his best, but he probably won’t last long.

After that, Ryan will send out Vogue to strike a pose! His strategy is pretty solid here, if a little basic - kitty’s going to Hone Claws (to up attack and accuracy) and then go in with Sucker Punch.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

But boy, that was a close match!

its may first so i can pretend -only- half the badges were april, shhh

[seacub]

Character: Emporio Alniño | seacub

Badge/Gym Leader: Ryme's Ghost Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular
Team: Here; Hula the Oricorio (slide 5), Maiko the Oricorio (slide 22), Jingle the Chimecho (slide 2), Carol the Bronzong (slide 23), Pequin the Skeledirge (slide 21)
Battle Details: It's time for Emporio to take on the next two of the eight gyms in Paldea, and perhaps most excitingly the first of those is the MC of RIP herself! Emporio tends to attract ghosts like some kind of death omen of course, but like always, he won't be taking the easy or obvious way out- sure, Ghost is super effective against Ghost, but where's the fun in that kind of fight? It needs more flavor than that! More flair! More-

Soul-

(It's a good thing he's not stating this aloud or he'd be boo'd off the stage.)

While the fight isn't a double battle (which is a shame, because aesthetically that would look pretty dang cool with this particular line up), Emporio seems to have built most of this team in pairs. Most, that is. There's a surprise tool to be used later.

Initially however, what comes out flying are Emporio's Oricorio- Maiko the Sensu style Oricorio, followed by the slightly more heavily levelled Hula, the Pa'u style Oricorio. Both take on Ryme's pokemon with rather similar styles; while Maiko's typing means Revelation Dance will be super effective, both birds stick to initially powering the opponent down via Feather Dance, Teeter Dance, and Captivate, with Agility to cap it all off. Notably, Hula only uses those first three if Maiko never got the chance however.

Once the opponent pokemon is sufficiently depowered, it's time for them to strike however- Maiko, rather than attacking, will use Baton Pass to make sure Hula is the one on the field. Hula in turn, given how ineffective Psychic type is against the ghosts, will charge in with Hurricane and even Mirror Move as the bird appears to mimic the opponent's style.

When things get too tough for Hula however, it's time for the dance to end- and to bring in the music. One more Baton Pass, and in comes Jingle the Chimecho! They finally evolved!

As an even more grossly overlevelled pokemon, Emporio doesn't mind letting Jingle fight to the last here; while they're every bit a psychic focused psychic pokemon, there's just enough edge to keep her battling a little longer. First of course, Yawn, to get the enemy asleep. Wrap helps to make sure the ghosts stay put for their lullaby, while Entrainment can help get rid of any particularly dangerous abilities in their hands. With Healing Wish, Heal Bell and Heal Pulse on hand, Jingle can keep themself topped up relatively well too- making it that much easier to pick away using Astonish and Extra Sensory.

Jingle isn't the only bell chiming on the field necessarly though- Carol is back too if Jingle has to be recalled from the field, and while they're a little more focused on outright attacks, that's probably for the best; she doesn't quite have that outright level advantage Jingle did. Hypnosis can still put the enemy to sleep of course, but after that Carol is sticking with moves like Payback and Gyro Ball to do any real damage.

And if all that isn't enough...then it's time for the Solo Act. (Well. The last solo, anyway.)

Out comes Pequin the Skeledirge, armed with a mic and ready to sing- Torch Song is his specialty, and he'll be terastalizing to the Fire type to make full use of it- especially against that Toxitricity when it appears. It's a proper musical contest, and the best part is that Pequin can slip in a Yawn to try getting the opponent sleeping instead of playing! With all that, hopefully Emporio can successfully earn himself a Ghost badge.

...And maybe a CD? Do you have CDs, Ryme??

Badge/Gym Leader: Grusha's Ice Badge
Elite/Regular: Regular Team
Team: Here; Metzli the Roaring Moon (slide 24), Heavy Weather the Sliggoo (slide 25), Ice Fingers the Beartic (slide 26)
Battle Details: Well, if there's anyone here who either Really Will or Really Won't enjoy how Emporio takes these challenges, it's probably going to be Grusha. After a nice long skii run (during which Emporio is taking note of some distant ruins oooo-), Emporio opens his battle with what looks to be an intended solo run....and the reason couldn't be more immediately clear.

Because when Metzli is sent out, he's immediately Terastalized- To DARK Type!

But it's not all darkness here, as Metzli's first move is to use Sunny Day- thereby activating Protosynthesis and really getting things going. Metzli makes use of moves like Focus Energy to raise their critical rate, and Jaw Lock to keep the opponent from trying to escape. Scary Face helps to ensure Metzli will be hitting first, and Dragon Dance a few times just means that when this dragon moves it's going to hurt.

Refreshing the Sun as needed, Metzli's attack is through the roof...and he's about to come crashing into everyone with a near guaranteed critical Night Slash, with a good Throat Chop to hammer things home. The sun is high, and Metzli is here to fight! It's the culmination of training with Emporio- Who's sure dressed to match- and pretty much the great big dragon's chance to really show they can be more than a big scary bad guy. ....Kinda.

Probably still acting the part here.

But if the Sun somehow goes down on things, Emporio's ready to cover for it. ....With a meme, unfortunately, but he's covering; for out comes a very Dragony Dragon...His Sliggoo, Heavy Weather. The goopy little guy isn't here for no reason though- they open with Rain Dance, and immediately swap back out to let Ice Fingers the Beartic take the field, and no surprise why.

While it might be raining on Metzli's parade, that doesn't mean the fight's over- equipped with the hidden ability Swift Swim, and more importantly a move that's now super effective against the terastalized Altaria Grusha has, Ice Fingers comes tearing through with Super Power at his disposal!

...And well hopefully that Does work, because that's about the only move Ice Fingers' has to use here. Well, that and Brine once he's in a pinch, but hey. Whatever the case- even if it rains, they can all pull themselves back up, can't they Grusha?

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

BACKDATED to sometime in April!

[foolishwren]

Character: Heather Mason | foolishwren


Badge/Gym Leader: Katy's Bug Badge
Elite/Regular: ELITE
Team: Claudy | Noctowl (lv. 100), Carousel | Rapidash (lv. 100), Kite | Talonflame (lv. 100), Razz | Infernape (lv. 100), Rodan | Charizard (lv. 100), and Hurricane | Pidgeot (lv. 100)
Battle Details:

Heather over here rolling up to Katy's gym with the FIRE/FLYING SQUAD-- which would feel more unfair if she wasn't taking on the Elite Team, but she's sure that it will be a little more complicated than a straightforward type-advantage bloodbath, especially with Terastalizing in the mix. That said, the team she's bringing incorporates pure Fire (Rapidash), pure-ish Flying (Noctowl and Pidgeot), and Fire PLUS Flying (Talonflame, Charizard)-- so where either one fails, the other can probably succeed.

Spidops and Lokix will face either Kite the Talonflame or Rodan the Charizard, depending on how the order of the battle shakes out and who's got more health as it progresses.
Taking full advantage of double-weaknesses, she plans on dispatching the Bug/Steel Forretress with Carousel the Rapidash and the Bug/Fighting Heracross with Claudy the Noctowl or Hurricane the Pidgeot. She's got speed on her side with all three, so she's not too worried about the possibility of either Forretress or Heracross countering her with a Rock-type move or something, and as long as she still has at least one of her birds still kicking for Araquanid, that one should be pretty easy to handle too.

Ursaring is the one that could prove to be tricky! Since Heather... let's be real, is probably going to stick with what she knows rather than mess around TOO much with Terastalizing, won't know for sure exactly when in the battle Katy will switch its type, she's saving Razz the Infernape specifically for this matchup if possible, hoping to get at least once quick Mach Punch in on Normal-Type Ursaring before it bugs out. Assuming Katy is smart and Terastalizes right off the bat, welp, Fighting-type moves are out. Fortunately, Razz doesn't share the rest of the team's weakness to Rock-type moves, which is Heather's main concern, so Plan B is to just switch tactics and go for fire.

On the off-chance that Ursaring knows Earthquake or something and Razz gets hit too hard, the rest of the team (if still standing) can tap in and divebomb it to death (figuratively) with Flying-type moves.


Badge/Gym Leader: Brassius's Grass Badge
Elite/Regular: ELITE
Team: Claudy | Noctowl (lv. 100), Val Jr. | Hitmonchan (lv. 100), Honey | Butterfree (lv. 100), Kite | Talonflame (lv. 100), Razz | Infernape (lv. 100), Rodan | Charizard (lv. 100)
Battle Details:

HEATHER OVER HERE ROLLING UP TO BRASSIUS'S GYM WITH THE FIRE/FLYING SQUAD TOO SMH. But wait-- this time there will FOR SURE be some Rock-type moves involved from that Sudowoodo, so she's made a couple of adjustments.

Breloom's dual-typing means she still has at least one fun x2 advantage to use, so she plans to start strong with Kite the Talonflame setting up Tailwind, hitting hard with Acrobatics, and then U-Turning out to wait in the wings (eyyyyy) for later.

Claudy the Noctowl and Honey the Butterfree, in addition to both resisting Grass, both have Psychic-type moves to take advantage of Vileplume's Poison-typing, and Razz the Infernape should be able to handle Arbolivia on her own.

Other than that, the battle is fairly straightforward, with Heather employing much of the same strategy she used against Katy with Fire and Flying having the upper hand against Brassius's plants.

But of course there's Sudowoodo, and rather than rely solely on Razz, Heather will be bringing out Val Jr. the Hitmonchan. Even if the Terastalizing happens early, Val's (Iron Fist Ability-boosted) Fire Punch and resistance to Rock-type moves should give him a big leg up in the battle, and Razz can always jump in second if he can't hack it on his own. Worst-case scenario, Heather will have used Kite as little as possible outside of the first round and she can nip in to finish the fight.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

[nightyorb]

Character: Riz Gukgak | nightyorb
Badge/Gym Leader: Cascarrafa / Kofu
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team:
Nasha the Galvantula (lvl 100) holding Scope Lens (boosts the holder's critical-hit ratio.)
Tufsa the Ninjask (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Tumble Dry the Flapple (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Loggy the Hisuian Voltorb (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)
Grum the Honedge (lvl 100) holding Aspear Berry (Heals Freeze)
Puk the Kecleon (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (restores 30hp)

Battle Details:


vs Pelipper

Starting off, Riz is going to bring out Nasha his Galvantula.

Pelipper, as a combined Water/Flying type, has a 4x weakness to Electric attacks. Galvantula as a bug/electric type cannot only do electric attacks, but her dual electric type also means she doesn't have the regular weakness to flying type attacks.

First move, Riz will have Galvantula use Thunder Wave. This electric type move doesn't do any damage, but has a 100% chance of paralysing Pelipper. Now paralysed, Pelipper will not only have to deal with not being able to attack at times, but its speed will also be cut by 50%.

Next, Riz will have Galvantula use Electroweb. This move not only deals electric damage to Pelipper, but it will also further reduce its speed. Also, if Kofu's Pelipper has the ability Drizzle, it will be raining at this point, which means every electric attack will land.

After this, with Pelipper's speed reduced through both the paralysis and Electroweb, Riz'll have Galvantula use Electroball. This attack does more damage, the faster the user is compared to the target. Pelipper's base speed is 65 compared to Galvantula's base speed of 108. Add to the paralysis halving Pelipper's speed, and the one stage speed drop from Electroweb, and Galvantula should comfortably be doing 120 points of damage with one Electroball, and that is not including the added damage from Pelipper's weakness to Electric moves, and STAB damage.

Pelipper is probably down after this set of attacks, but if not, Riz'll use another Electroweb until it goes down.

(Obviously, if Pelipper cures its paralysis at any point, Riz'll reapply it)



vs Veluza

Riz is going to leave Galvantula on the field. Between Pelipper's weakness to electric moves and its paralysis, hopefully Galvantula hasn't taken any big hits yet, but if she has, Riz will use his first round to fully replenish her HP via a hyper potion.


Anyway, Back to Veluza. Veluza is a combined Psychic/water type. This means it has a 2x weakness to Electric attacks as well as bug attacks. Galvantula is still the same spider.


To start, Riz will have Galvantula use Thunder Wave again to paralyse Veluza.

Next, he'll have Galvantula use Signal Beam. This is a bug type move, so it does extra damage to Veluza, but it also has a chance of confusing it.

Next up, he'll have Galvantula use Agility to sharply raise her own speed stat. and then, like before, it's time for another course of Electro web to deal damage and lower Veluza's speed, and then a Electroball to hopefully finish Veluza off.

If Veluza heals its paralysis, he'll reapply it via Thunderwave. And if Galvantula's health dips too low, he'll have her heal herself via Absorb.


Because this is her second battle in a row, Riz knows there is a chance Galvantula might not make it through both battles. If she does go down, he has Tufsa the Ninjask as her back-up.

Ninjask is a combined Bug/Flying type. Veluza does have one flying move that could take advantage of Ninjask' weakness to flying type, but its just the one move, and hopefully, by the time Ninjask comes into play, Veluza will already be pretty low on HP.


On her first turn, Riz will have Ninjask use Sunny Day. This makes bright sunshine shine during the battle. It cuts down the power of water type moves by 50%. But more importantly for Riz, it means certain grass type moves don't require a turn to charge.

Because what Riz has planned for the next turn is for Ninjask to use Solar Beam. Ninjask won't add any STAB damage to this move, but nevertheless, this powerful Grass type move should do plenty of damage to Veluza, and hopefully even take it out completely.

If Veluza is still not out, Riz'll follow it up with a Giga Drain, which not only does grass damage to Veluza, but it also allows Ninjask to recover some damage herself.



vs Feraligatr


Riz's strategy against Feraligatr depends a little on whether Galvantula was able to completely the fight against Veluza. If she was, Riz'll withdraw her, to send out Ninjask instead. If Ninjask was already brought into play during the previous round, he'll leave her out on the field.


Feraligatr is a pretty standard water type pokemon with weaknesses to Electric and Grass moves.


On her first turn, Ninjask will use Sunny Day. If Ninjask was already on the field from the previous fight and the sun is still out and shining, Riz will skip this move.

On her next turn, Ninjask will use Solar Beam, which due to the presence of the sunny day won't need a turn to charge.

Riz's strategy, if you can call it that, is to spam Solar Beam as often as he can, and hopefully take Feraligatr down that way. It's not elegant but Feraligatr is a fucking tank, so he just wants to try and overwhelm it as much as he can.

Riz will obviously reapply Sunny Day if/when it runs out, and he will turn to Giga Drain to have Ninjask recover HP while still dealing grass type damage.



vs Wugtrio

It's time to deal with Wugtrio. Three heads, cause I just can't stand only one head.


Wugtrio is a simple water type pokemon, which means it is weak to Electric and Grass attacks. One thing to look out for is the fact that its ability could be Gooey, which will lower the speed of any pokemon that makes direct contact with it. Not the end of the world, but certainly obnoxious.


Up against Wugtrio, Riz'll bring out the man, the myth, the very hyperactive legend -- Tumble Dry the Flapple. Flapple is a combination dragon/grass type, which means it has resistances to both water and ground type moves, both of which Wugtrio has some.

First off, Riz is going to start this battle with Leech Seed. This grass move drains a bit of Wugtrio's HP every turn and restores it to Flapple. It's not much, but it is honest battling.

Next, Riz'll start using Grav Apple. This grass type move deals damage, may lower Wugtrio's defence, and importantly, doesn't make contact, so Flapple's speed cannot be lowered through it.

Riz's strategy for this battle is to continue using Grav Apple to damage Wugtrio and to use Giga Drain (another grass attack) to restore Flapple's HP if it starts getting low.



vs Clawitzer


Onto Clawitzer, and we are dealing with a Shrimp with A Gun. Honestly, Riz will probably have to temporarily halt the battle to ask where the heck Kofu got that thing, cause he wants one right now!!


Anyway, onto the battle. Clawitzer is a standard water type. Again, this means it is weak to Electric and Grass moves. And to deal with Clawitzer, Riz'll bring out Loggy his Hisuian Voltorb who is a grass/electric type.


To start off the battle, Riz'll have Voltorb use Grassy Terrain. This move turns the terrain of the battle to grass for five turns. While this is in effect, every pokemon heals a bit of HP at the end of each round and grass type moves are boosted by 30%.

Riz'll then take advantage of the grassy terrain to have Voltorb use Energy Ball until the grassy terrain disappears. This grass type move is boosted by the terrain, does damage, and has a small change of lowering Clawitzer's special defence.

Next Riz's plan depends a bit on how Loggy's HP is doing. If it is low and Clawitzer also seems to be towards the end of its HP bar, Riz'll have Voltorb use Self Destruct to take them both out. If Loggy's HP is still pretty solid, he'll have him use Thunder to deal massive amounts of electric damage to Clawitzer and possibly paralyse him too and hopefully be able to take him out that way.

Self Destruct is still on the table though. Self Destruct is always on the table.



vs Crabominable

Onto the final match and it is Crabominable vs Grum the Honedge.

At the start of the battle, Kofu is going to terastalise Crabominable, leaving it as a water type now. Riz will use this turn to have Honedge use Sword Dance to sharply boost its attack.


Now, the important bit. Crabominable might be a water type now, however its moves do not change. And the moves it has are split broadly between Normal type moves, fighting type moves and ice type moves.

As a Ghost/Steel type, Honedge is completely immune to Fighting and normal type moves, and it has a resistance to ice type moves.

So, essentially, Riz's strategy this round is mostly putting Crabominable up against a pokemon it can't really hit with all of its most damaging moves.


And I say mostly, because Riz does have one little trick up his sleeve.

Once upon a time, he tutored Honedge to know the move Shockwave, an electric type move that never misses.

So, that'll be the big strategy this round. While Crabominable is stuck using less than optimal moves, Riz will have Honedge use a boosted (by the Sword Dance on the first turn) Shockwave to target Crabominable's weaknesses.

Should Riz run out of Shockwaves to use, he'll switch to using Sacred Sword. This fighting type move won't target any of Crabominable's weaknesses, however what it does do is ignore any changes to the target's defence or evasion stats. Meaning that if Crabominable has been boosting its defence with Iron Defence, Sacred Sword will completely ignore that.



Vs everybody maybe

Like last time, Riz has his strategy set-up where one pokemon will take on multiple opponents if everything goes according to plan. Unfortunately, sometimes things do not go according to keikaku, so Riz has also brought a back-up pokemon with him to this fight.

Enter Puk the Kecleon.

Again, the spiel. Puk's ability is Protean, meaning it will change its type to match that of the move he is using. This means he will always do STAB damage.

Kecleon knows both the moves Grass Knot and Thunder, so essentially, Riz'll plan to have him use either of these moves to deal with Kofu's pokemon. He will also try and target any other weaknesses Kofu's pokemon might have (such as using Rock Slide or Ancient Power against Pelipper, and Shadow Sneak and Shadow Claw against Veluza)

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[outofsynth]

Character: Min-Gi Park | outofsynth
Badge/Gym Leader: Grass [Brassisus]
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
- Echoes [Noivern - lvl 100 - Pecha Berry]
- We Got the Beat [Baxcalibur - lvl 100 - Zoom Lens]
- Ice Age [Alolan Sandslash - lvl 100 - Loaded Dice]
- Rodeo [Alolan Marowak - lvl 100 - Persim Berry]
- Purple Haze [Frosmoth - lvl 100 - Never-Melt Ice]
- Red Eye [Corviknight - lvl 100 - Leftovers]

Battle Details:

Noivern vs. Breloom

Given Breloom's extremely weak to flying type moves already, Echoes will be jumping straight to Air Slash. He may use other flying type moves if it seems necessary, but will be avoiding physical moves due to the possibility of its ability being Effect Spore.

Min isn't anticipating much difficulty from its attacks, but if Echoes is hurt too much by poison or other status effects delay things enough that his health is impacted heavily then he will have him use Roost to fix himself back up. It's worth losing his flying type to keep him in the game. He has been given a Pecha Berry to try and mitigate the effects of poison, at least.

He is really, really not expecting Echoes to lose here. Between his flying type moves, STAB, and access to healing if things do go unexpectedly wrong he feels like a very safe bet. However, if he does then his Frosmoth will be sent out to finish off with an Aurora Beam.

Baxcalibur vs. Arboliva

With Arboliva having access to Mirror Coat they have the opposite goal this time... Beat will avoid using special attacks. First he'll use Swords Dance to boost his attack, then he'll move onto Ice Fang.

Once again, Min-Gi isn't anticipating too many problems here. The Grassy Terrain won't help it too much, so Min isn't too worried that Beat doesn't have ways to get rid of it. Especially with the potential to keep coming back. The main issue is that Beat is faster than Arboliva so his Zoom Lens isn't helping Ice Fang's accuracy. If this is proving to be a problem then he will use Dragon Claw instead.

As with Echoes before, he does expect Beat to manage this fight on his own, but if he can't then Min will send out his Alolan Sandslash a little earlier than intended. Since Hail is a weather condition rather than a terrain she will be using that first, followed by Icicle Spear. Given she has Loaded Dice and Beat will have already had plenty of opportunity to inflict damage they're hoping one of these will be enough.

Alolan Sandslash vs. Vileplume

First of all Ice Age will be using Snowscape (unless she was already out and used Hail in the previous battle) to make the most of her ability. It will also decrease the effectiveness of Moonlight, which is helpful, and lets her use Aurora Veil which will cut the damage she takes from both physical and special type moves drastically for a time. From there Min-Gi hopes her Loaded Dice will help Icicle Spear make pretty quick work against Vileplume.

While she is naturally immune to any poison affliction she doesn't have any way to prevent being paralyzed or put to sleep, so Min hopes to knock it out before Vileplume succeeds at either of those.. If either of these things do happen the she will be trying to wait out being put to sleep, or to get lucky with attacking while paralyzed. Snowscape and Aurora Veil will both be refreshed as needed to help protect her even if she is hit by status effects.

If Aurora Veil is up then they're fairly safe. However, if it loses its effect while she is asleep they could be in trouble. Petal Dance is a powerful move, resistance or not. If this costs them then he will send out his Frosmoth. Initially, if she needs to, she will use the same strategy of Snowscape and Aurora Veil. From there he hopes Aurora Beam will help them finish things off here.

Alolan Marowak vs. Tsareena

Tsareena's packing some powerful moves, but thankfully Rodeo's dual typing means he is immune to most of her attack types and resistant to what remains. Because of this he anticipates it using Teeter Dance (though he wouldn't complain about swagger) and he's equipped Rodeo with a Persim Berry. This will only help once, but still gives him a chance to order Rodeo to use Leer. After that he will get him to use Flare Blitz, taking advantage of his Rock Head ability to avoid recoil damage. If he has to attempt this a few times because of confusion Min still thinks they should be fine.

Echoes on standby should things not work out as well as Min thinks. Air Slash is his main tactic here, but if his health is looking precarious then Min-Gi will have him use Roost.

Frosmoth vs. Lilligant

By now Brassius may not be too surprised to see yet another ice type come out even if Min didn't have to use her against Vileplume. Purple Haze will be starting out with Hail, then use Aurora Veil to give herself even more protection from Lilligant's moves. If it tries using Sunny Day then Purple Haze will let it slide as long as she's used Aurora Veil.

From here she's going to use Bug Buzz. If confusion has been inflicted on her it might take a little longer, but she should hopefully be able to achieve this without too much trouble.

His main concern with this fight will be if Haze has been out already she might not have enough health to pull through, so he has considered the alternatives. If Echoes hasn't had to come out since his first fight and/or his health is still good enough he will be the backup plan here with Air Slash.

His second choice backup option depends here. If Sunny Day is active then Rodeo will be his pick. He'll be having him use Flame Wheel to avoid being caught out by Entrainment, especially with Brassius knowing by now his ability is Rock Head. If Sunny Day isn't currently active then Beat will be sent out instead. He'll be taking a chance on Icicle Crash since his Zoom Lens should be making a difference this time.

Corviknight vs. Sudowoodo

Since Sudowoodo could potentially use either Copycat or Mimic, Red Eye will be avoiding using moves that boost the user's stats. Instead she'll be using Leer as Mirror Armor means any negative stat changes will be reflected back at her opponent anyway. After that she'll use Drill Peck a few times. This has the advantage of both being super effective against a presumably by now grass type Sudowoodo and not being worth copying since Red will resist this.

This isn't necessarily a match she will be able to win on her own given both Counter and especially Head Smash could still cause a good amount of damage that Min-Gi isn't doing anything to defend against besides having her hold Leftovers to help keep her HP high.

Should she be defeated here he has a couple of options, depending on who's looking in better shape. Option number one is to bring out Rodeo, terastalizing him since his tera type is ghost and that will remove his weakness to rock type attacks while keeping his immunity to normal and ghost. It takes away his resistance to grass type moves, but it's worth the trade off. Since Sudowoodo should hopefully have lowered defence and already have taken some damage they'll be jumping straight to Flare Blitz as Rock Head means Rodeo won't take damage from this move.

If Beat is the one looking a bit more healthy then he will be coming out instead, terastalizing to pure dragon type to remove his weakness to fighting and rock type moves. He's a little less preferable since he's a physical attacker and he can't resist Counter, but Min will have him use Ice Beam here to avoid it being a problem. It's still super effective damage, and being a special attack it can't be turned back on him.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

Backdated to April if it's possible, otherwise May is fine

[islandshore]

Character: Riku | islandshore
Badge/Gym Leader: Bug
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team: Flare, Blade, Wildfire, Gear, Surge, Jagged

Battle Details:

Riku's opening 'mon in this battle will be Blade the Scizor, whose primary directive will be to open the battle with a Tailwind before U-turning to Flare the Charizard to deal with Spidops. Flare will Mega Evolve to Mega Charizard X in this battle, taking advantage of the boosted speed and Tough Claws to decimate with STAB boosted Fire Punches and utilizing Double Team to be a pain to hit. He has Roost to heal as well as Protect to scout enemy attacks, and a fairly versatile moveset overall. Riku will be trying to prioritize Flare against Spidops, Forretress, and Lokix, and the Ursaring as needed, but he won't be acting alone.

For Araquanid, his goal is to utilize Gear the Skarmory, taking advantage of his tanky defenses to lay down some Stealth Rocks and Spikes and keep up an offensive with Fly, Rock Slide, and perhaps even throw in a Toxic if the chance arises. Mostly, Gear is here to be super annoying and tanky, and even has Roost to heal with, much like Flare, in addition to Protect for scouting.

If all else fails, Flare has Thunder Punch, which when boosted with Tough Claws, should deal some gnarly damage. Surge the Rotom Wash will also be a backup option against Airaquanid, with electric attacks and the ability to burn making it a menace, not to mention the Chesto Rest strategy and dual screens and Confuse Ray to contend with.

For Lokix, Riku will be prioritizing Blade the Scizor as the primary attacker, due to great defenses and powerful bug attacks (both with and without Technichian boost) to contend with, plus Pursuit if Lokix tries to switch out. If Riku gets a chance, he'll also try to have Surge use Will-O-Wisp on Lokix before Volt Switching to Blade.

Riku's big goal for Forretress is to have Flare dive in and decimate with offensive fire moves. Though Tough Claws boost is tempting, Forretress is weaker in the special defenses, so that will be the primary objective. Being a dragon type means Flare can handle any surprise rock moves much better, and his better speed should ideally help. If all else fails, Riku did bring backup. Wildfire the Infernape is a secondary fire type, who can not only handle Lokix's fighting typing, but is also incredibly fast, which should in turn make it easier for him to handle whatever Forretress has to offer and account for any surprise rock type moves.

For Heracross, Flare and Gear are the primary offense options Riku has in mind. Gear can attack with STAB-boosted flying moves to hit that quad weakness, and while Flare's Mega Evolution removes his flying type, he still has powerful flying moves to work with, like Wing Attack, which benefits from the Tough Claws boost.

As for Ursaring, Riku will absolutely want to hit that guy with Will-O-Wisp using Surge (ideally), Flare, or Wildfire. With the new bug typing, Riku is going to prioritize targeting weaknesses above all else, preferably with Flare due to the cool factor of a Mega vs a Terra Pokemon, but if all else fails, enough of his team have moves tailored toward dealing with bugs.

Jagged is basically there as versatile backup. He has fire, rock, and electric moves to deal with the enemies on top of Roar to force switches to deal with the hazards, assuming Forretress isn't brought out to remove them.

In the event that Forretress does come out to Rapid Spin away entry hazards, Flare will be the priority for a quick defeat of Forretress so that Gear can come back out and lay the traps back down.

Riku does tend to like to Protect scout a lot, on top of having his team screw around with Double Team and Toxic on occasion, though here he'll prioritize efficiency over stall, since the team he's up against isn't as tailored to stall tactics as it is.

Character: Riku | islandshore
Badge/Gym Leader: Grass
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team: Flare, Blade, Wildfire, Axis, Coral, Glow
Battle Details:

Breloom is a Pokemon Riku wants to deal with as quickly and painlessly as possible. As a result, his goal is fairly simple. Have Flare Mega Evolve and try to attack with swift Air Slashes to hit that quad weakness due to Breloom's weaker special defenses. Spore is a problem, and Flare will try to Double Team to avoid direct hits. If all else fails, Riku does have other 'mons to contend with Breloom, such as Glow the Chandelure due to fighting immunity. Additionally, since most of Riku's 'mons know Rest and Sleep Talk, they have ways to contend with Spore, even if it's less reliable. In Glow's case with Breloom, the goal is to utterly incinerate with powerful fire moves like Overheat and weaken with Will-O-Wisp.

Arboliva is a Pokemon Flare is more than equipped to contend with, but in case Flare gets hit by Spore or Riku is otherwise pressured into switching, Wildfire is here with answers to both of Arboliva's weaknesses, with a lovely combination of fire and fighting for offense, including Mach Punch for quick priority and both Fire Punch and Flare Blitz for handy physical fire moves, with Flamethrower for more distance and to hit at that weaker special defense.

For Vileplume, Riku will be prioritizing Axis the Metagross due to poison immunity and an ability to hit that poison typing hard with Psychic attacks. Substitute will protect against powder attacks, and with careful Protect use, its leftovers can heal up the damage. Otherwise, Axis' goal is to eliminate. Fortunately, it's very good at doing just that, with moves like Zen Headbutt and Psychic to hit at that Psychic weakness.

With Tsareena, Riku will send out Blade the Scizor ideally to tank the offenses and fight back with hard-hitting bug type moves all while providing team support with moves like Tailwind and U-turn to switch into one of his fire types, assuming they're still in solid shape. Axis is there as backup, with Ice Punch to take advantage of that weakness. Riku will err on the side of caution and avoid too many priority moves until he's sure what Tsareena's ability is.

Lilligant, being pure grass, is another 'mon Riku has multiple answers to, and it really depends on the state of his team by the time they cross paths. Whether it's through Blade's bug attacks, Flare, Wildfire, and Glow's fire, Axis' Ice Punches, or some combination of various attacks and strategies to make Riku's 'mons as obnoxious as possible, there should hopefully be at least some progress made through the fight.

Coral the Dragalge is basically Riku's backup option for pure grass types, especially Sudowoodo. With Sudowoodo's weak special defenses, Sludge Bomb will be the primary offensive move used by Coral, but she also has Bounce as an alternative if she gets stuck in any situations where she's fighting grass types that take less damage from poison and, much like Riku's other 'mons, has Double Team and Protect to be especially annoying, along with Toxic.

For Sudowoodo on the whole, Riku's goal is to take out as swiftly as possible, weakening with Will-O-Wisp (or poisoning with Toxic), exploiting the new weaknesses brought on by the tera type, and just trying to make the most of the situation. The biggest worry for his fire types are rock and ground type moves, though Flare's Mega Evolution should at least ease some of that, should any rocks fly his way. Fortunately, with Protect and Double Team, they have ways to withstand it as best they can, even if it's not foolproof, and Axis and Blade have enough tankiness to take Sudowoodo on if all else fails.

Because Riku's team has so many nasty tricks like Double Team and Rest + Sleep Talk, they do at least have longevity on their side, but both matches are sure to be a pain nonetheless, especially with some new Pokemon thrown into the mix.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

And yes, backdating is 100% okay!

[foolishwren]

Character: Heather Mason | foolishwren

Badge/Gym Leader: Iono's Electric Badge
Elite/Regular: ELITE TEAM
Team: Tricia (Manectric), Cicada (Flygon), Carousel (Rapidash), Arty (Furret), Alessa (Absol), Razz (Infernape).
(All lv. 100)

Battle Details: From this point forward, RIP Heather's ability to just bazooka Gym Leaders' entire teams with x2 type weaknesses. ALAS. It was fun while it lasted! She actually likes a challenge though, so she's excited to start showing off a little more strategy. Unlike Bug and Grass, Electricity has exactly one weakness (Ground), and more than one of Iono's team are completely immune.

First things first-- Heather plans to come out the gate against Kilowattrel with Tricia the Manectric. Not only does she have the Lightningrod Ability (rendering any electric-type attacks against her useless), but she also knows Ice Fang to take advantage of Kilowattrel's Flying-type (which she's also resistant to, being an Electric-type herself! Double win!).

Bellibolt she also is coming prepared for, because she's encountered at least a couple of these cheap bastards in the wild by the time she gets to Levincia and knows about its ability. Against Mr. Gets-Stronger-Every-Time-I'm-Hit, she will bring out Cicada the Flygon, her only Ground-type. On top of being able to dish out super-effective moves, he is also completely immune to Bellibolt's super-charged Electric ones so he can hit it as many times as necessary without needing to worry about Electromorphosis. Problem solved!
On the off-chance that Bellibolt somehow knows something that could get the upper-hand against Cicada, Plan B is bringing in Alessa the Absol to use Will-O-Wisp and then stall with moves like Protect, Double-Team, and Taunt to avoid setting off Electromorphosis until its HP is whittled down enough to take out in one hit.

Out of the rest of the team, Mismagius is the only one she's overly concerned about due to its Levitate ability-- she'll have to take that one out without being able to lean on a type advantage. In lieu of that, she'll opt for type resistance/immunity instead-- Alessa the Absol and Arty the Furret can weather or wave off any sneaky Ghost-type attacks from Mismagius, and the Ground-type Cicada remains an option if Electric moves wind up being a problem.

For everybody else, Heather's picks for this Gym all have Ground-type moves like Dig (Arty), Drill Run (Carousel), or Earthquake (Razz).

Should Heather prevail, the victory will still be bittersweet: she will make the horrifying discovery that now that she's reached her late twenties, being in the company of hyperactive influencer teens like Iono now makes her want to climb over the field railing and fling herself into the ocean. Sad! To the retirement home with ye, Heather.


Badge/Gym Leader: Kofu's Water Badge
Elite/Regular: ELITE TEAM
Team: Godzilla | Feraligatr, Tricia | Manectric, Sunny | Togekiss, Hazel | Pikachu, Snitter | Silphally, Dayglo | Lanturn
(All lv. 100; Hazel is holding an Eviolite and Snitter is a Grass-type Silphally!)

Battle Details: UNLIKE IONO, Heather will probably bond with Kofu immediately-- she has a huge soft spot for goofy, extroverted old guys with catchphrases. However, this fondness will not save him from defeat on the battlefield. WATER GYM LET'S GOOOOOOO!

Just like in the battle with Iono, Heather plans to start with Tricia the Manectric (what can she say-- that double-weakness to Electric is just too tempting). Especially if it starts off by setting up Rain Dance (with or without a Drizzle ability), immediately setting the tone for the battle with a 100% accuracy Thunder feels like a power move.

Veluza's a speed demon, so Heather wants to make sure it doesn't just blitz everything to death before she can take it out. If Tricia is still in good shape (or even better, was able to squeeze in something like Laser Focus during the round with Pelipper), she can attempt Thunder Wave and try to hit it hard and fast. But if Tricia's hurting, Heather's best bet is Dayglo the Lanturn-- who will wait for Veluza to use Filet Away and then go for a super-effective Sucker Punch before it can take advantage of the boosted stats.

For Feraligatr, Heather will be attempting ANOTHER power move by sending out her own Godzilla. No type advantages, we die like mon. Zilla is stacked with plenty of hard-hitting moves (Shadow Claw, Outrage, Body Slam, Crunch, Superpower) that should allow him to duke it out even without relying on STAB. If Kofu's Feraligatr ends up the victor, well, power move failed, but any of Heather's other picks can tap in and avenge poor Zilla.

The rest of the lineup (even Crabominable), she figures she's safe being flexible about-- unlike with Iono, she has more type advantages to mess around with. Snitter the Silphally and Dayglo the Lanturn both resist water and have a number of tricky moves to turn the tides in their favor (Attract and Confuse Ray for Dayglo, Scary Face and Metal Sound for Snitter) in addition to all the super-effective damaging ones. Same with Sunny the Togekiss-- her weakness to Ice-type moves might be an issue, but she knows Shock Wave and a variety of status moves (Sweet Kiss, Encore, Yawn, etc) to slow things down. Hazel the Pikachu will probably be more of a last resort if all the heavier hitters fall, but she's quick and has her Eviolite, so she'll be able to help out in a pinch.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved! x2

[behindblueskin]

Character: Keldor | behindblueskin
Badge/Gym Leader: Iono
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
► Takami
► Asama [Holding a cheri berry]
► Sunatchi
► Shidosanda
► Naganegi
► Kazaru

Levincia.

Ah, yes; Levincia. So much to see and do here in Levincia. If you're the kind of person who's really into the whole touristy thing, Levincia is the place for you. To Keldor it reminds him so much of the city Eternos—minus the fact that there's no palace here. Levincia is non-stop activity, and while he's used to that, it does make getting about difficult.

On foot, anyways.

Oh, sure. He has Asama and Takami to supply him with transportation, but Takami needs a rest from all the flying it's been asked to do, and Asama is kind of large, and given that it seems like every hour is crush hour, there just doesn't seem to be much point in using her to get about. It's not like riding her would do much to reduce the time spent traveling.

Which means that his first few days here will be spent on foot trying to find a place to stay that's as close to Levincia's gym as possible.

It's going to be a long walk...

But thankfully, he does find what he's looking for, so he checks into his room, then gets in some last-minute research regarding what he can expect to face in a day or two.

---

There's a big fight feel here in Levincia, even if it's only Keldor who can sense it as he heads straight towards the gym. Iono's reliance on Electric types means that Keldor's feeling rather confident in his team selecting prior to starting his Paldean gym challenge, as well as feeling that he's given said team a good rest, meaning that everyone will have the energy to keep up with Iono herself.

Kilowattrel

Kilowattrel. Keldor has one of these, so he knows just what this Paldean native can and can't do. He knows that its Ground resistance has given it other weaknesses; namely to Rock, so when Asama is sent out, Iono knows that Flying moves are useless here, and Electric isn't much better. Kilowattrel will be trying to Thunder Shock as much as possible, in the hopes that eventually, it'll cause a status effect. Unfortunately, Asama doesn't intend to make that easy, by sending Rock Slides and Rock Throws Kilowattrel's way. Those are some big rocks, and it won't be long before the bird is brought down to earth.

Electrode

And here comes another pokemon Keldor is familiar with. Of course, Keldor's Electrode is of the Hisuian variety, not a garden variety Kanto type, but the similarities between the two [plus his initial experience in meeting his Electrode] has taught him everything he needs to know about it before selecting its opponent. At level 100 it should know Magnet Rise, and since Iono suspects that Keldor has a Ground type with him, she'll be using it as much as possible to keep it safe, as Magnet Rise protects it from the one thing it's weak to. So no Digging for Asama. Not in this matchup anyways. Same with any moves that require physical contact, as who knows if Iono's Electrode has the Static ability or not. Keldor has equipped her with a Cheri berry, but he doesn't want to use it before he has to, so it ultimately comes down to ranged attacks in the form of Flame Wheels, Flare Blitzes and Rock Throws while trying to keep out of its way should it try to roll at her. If it does, Asama will just have to risk a Paralysis by Crunching it.

Belibolt

Now here is a pokemon Keldor doesn't know much about, but if Iono's using it, then he knows what type it is, and so Asama [paralysed or not] is recalled, and that look on Iono's face tells Keldor some very important information about this particular frog. Nothing it knows can protect itself from Ground attacks, and the only thing it might have to inflict a status effect is its ability, and if Keldor plays things smart, status effects won't be too much of a problem, as most of its moves will be useless [or worse] against the reptile thief. To start off, Sunatchi starts off with a Sandstorm before Digging down, safe in its knowledge that Bellibolt will be taking damage from it as the Krookodile prepares to unleash a mighty pair of Earthquakes that has everybody shaking.

H-hey! Take it easy with your enthusiasm!

Luxray

Luxray is a pokemon that Keldor has encountered regularly in his time in Johto, even if he has never caught one. That's why Sunatchi is still out there, despite the fact that Luxray has the ability to see through solid objects. It might be able to see Sunatchi coming if it tried to launch a sneak attack from under the ground, but it won't be able to use it when an attack can hit from all sides. So Sunatchi will just have to fight a more honest fight instead. No problem. With Moxie now in effect after his victory over the Bellibolt and powering up his Attack, as well as his Ground typing protecting him from Luxray's only status-inflicting move, he can send a Sand Tomb its way, then charge in with Bites and a Crunch, and then finally shake things up again with Earthquake.

Electivire

It's the last of Iono's type specialty pokemon in the form of an Electivire, and Sunatchi just can't wait to get started. He's feeling pumped now, and as such thinks he's got this one locked up. A Low Kick from Electivire, though, knocks some sense into him, so once he's thrown up a Sand Tomb and a Sandstorm, he dives back down into the tunnels he's dug in order to exact some revenge in the form of—you guessed it—an Earthquake.

Mismagius

The previous two gym challenges here in Paldea has Keldor expecting Iono to send out something that's not of the Electric type, and when Mismagius floats out, he's not surprised in the least. Not surprised enough to recall Sunatchi either. Yes, it's got the means to avoid being harmed by Ground moves, but Sunatchi is Ground/Dark, so it doesn't matter if Sunatchi can't use them. He has plenty of Dark moves to hit with, and wouldn't you know it? A pure Ghost type is weak to Dark. So, after Sandstorm is once again in effect to help whittle away at Mismagius' health, the Krookodile will be using his teeth to Bite and Crunch his way into a Foul Play to win the day.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[behindblueskin]

Character: Keldor | behindblueskin
Badge/Gym Leader: Kofu
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
► Takami
► Asama
► Sunatchi
► Shidosanda [Holding Sitrus berry]
► Naganegi
► Kazaru

Ordinarily, Keldor would be taking his time in-between battling gym leaders. Though he's been in this world for two years now, he hasn't yet collected all of Johto's badges including Whitney's, and it may be some time yet before he makes his Kanto bid. But his time in this part of the world has a hard limit to it, and he'd rather get the gym challenge out of the way before relaxing with his pokemon in this sprawling region than procrastinate and leave things to the end. So here he is, a few days after his battle in Levincia, in the city of Cascarrafa, with all its elevators and desert sands outside that sometimes blows in.

Strange place to put a Water type gym, but there you go.

Pelipper

Flapping out first is Kofu's Pelipper. A Water/Flying type with a mouth to rival a Gulpin's. Which is something you'd think Keldor would use his Hisuian Electrode on first, but because of the fact that Shidosanda is part Grass type, Keldor is not going to risk sending it out just yet, as Pelipper has plenty of Flying type moves to use on its opponents. There will be other Water types for Shido to play with, and Keldor would like to wear down Pelipper with his Roaring Moon, Takami. Since Takami only has one super effective move it can use against the Pelipper, Keldor will have it use Bite to sink in its teeth, then Jaw Lock things into place, and then follow up with a Thunder Fang to show that big mouths are not necessarily better mouths. Now that Keldor has weakened it enough, Shidosanda will be sent out to give a pair of Discharges to discharge Pelipper out of the battle.

Veluza

Oh, hey; here's that pokemon that had freaked out a bunch of people about a month ago. This side-spliting fish has got to be one of the most bizarre things to have ever been found in this strange world, and this is Keldor's first encounter with it. As well as his first time seeing the move that distressed so many recently. Improvements to stats are understandable, but surely there are less disturbing ways to go about it? Kofu seems used to it—he is from Paldea, after all, and doesn't seem to be particularly bothered asking his own Veluza to reduce itself to a half-skeleton. Understandable decision—Kofu wants his pokemon to be able to withstand Shidosanda as much as possible, but... Ugh. Keldor may rethink his distaste for such an ability, given how much easier it is to evade the Electrode's Grassy Terrain-powered Bullet Seed, but it's like playing dodge ball where you're the only one left on your team, and enough of them are hitting. Speaking of balls, there's one the Veluza won't be able to dodge; namely a pair of Energy Balls that'll blow what's left of the fish out of the water.

Feraligatr

There's a big grin on Shidosanda's face when Feraligatr steps out. Pure Water and weak to both of its typings, and Kofu knows it. This is the elite level, however, and that means Shido can't expect to have an easy go of it. Still, we intend to tilt things in our favour, using another Grassy Terrain to start with, since the previous one will be unlikely to still be in effect. Now that its Grass moves are powered up, it's time to Charge up its Electric moves—we intend to hit as hard as possible here, even if it means risking Feraligatr's moves like the one thing it has that the Hisuian Electrode will be weak to: Ice Fang. That's OK. We planned for this, and now it's time to get some vengeance and rock and shock Feraligatr's world with an Energy Ball and a Discharge.

Go find another ball to chew on.

Wugtrio

Three down, three to go as we begin the second half of the battle. Wugtrio might be all Water, but it does have access to Ground moves. Fortunately, being part Grass type means that what would normally be super effective against a regular Electrode now just deals regular damage. But even regular damage at this point can still knock out a pokemon that hasn't switched out for two and a half rounds, so it's now Takami's turn to fight. Now, being a Water type, and thus something that isn't really bothered by Fire moves, you'd think that there's no reason to use Sunny Day. But Sunny Day can still hurt, as it weakens Water moves severely. That done, it's time to wear down the Dugtrio look-alike using Bites, Dragon Claws and then finally a Thunder Fang or two to send Wugtrio back into its hole.

Clawitzer

Here comes Clawitzer—likely the last of Kofu's specialty type pokemon, and that look of confidence on its trainer's face tells Keldor that this won't be as easy as he might initially think it'll be. With Mega Launcher as its ability, and having access to Heal Pulse means that what might otherwise be a short fight can turn into a mini war of attrition. Just when you think you've got things in the bag, Clawitzer can undo all the damage you've inflicted and you're back down to square one. Kofu chose wisely with this pokemon, and once again Takami goes for a Sunny Day to weaken the enormous-clawed pokemon's Water moves as much as possible before beginning its efforts to just hit Clawitzer with Thunder Fangs. No sense in bothering trying to whittle down its hit points—Clawitzer will just regain them anyways. Hopefully that'll be enough to send the shrimp eventually packing.

Crabominable

This is it. The last of Kofu's pokemon and the one pokemon left in the way of Keldor getting his badge. Sure enough, Kofu's last pokemon is something other than a Water type. Namely, something that is part Ice, and so it's time to tuck Takami away, as Dragons don't do Ice very well. Or at all. Keldor will need to choose Crabominable's opponent carefully. It won't be Asama—Asama's Fire moves will hurt, but with a weakness to Fighting that'll result in a double knockout. And half his team has an Ice weakness. That means it's Naganegi who gets sent out. Despite being a bird, it's a pure Fighting type. Meaning that Crabominable can't hurt her as much as she can it, and the Sirfetch'd isn't wasting time getting into battle mode by Sand Attacking, Leering and Iron Defending to weaken her opponent and strengthening herself. Stats lowered and boosted appropriately, it's time to make cake out of Crabominable by assaulting it with Rock Smashes and Brick Breaks, before putting stars in its eyes with a Meteor Assault.

Are you sure Naganegi is Timid?

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[nightyorb]

Character: Riz Gukgak | nightyorb
Badge/Gym Leader: Tulip / Psychic
Elite/Regular: ELITE TEAM
Team:
Hangdog the Silvally (lvl 100) holding Persim Berry (Cures Confusion)
Grum the Honedge (lvl 100) holding Occa Berry (halves damage of one super-effective fire type move)
Nasha the Galvantula (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (heals 30HP)
Chit the Sableye (lvl 100) holding Sitrus Berry (heals 30HP)
Crab King the Klawf (lvl 100) holding Persim Berry (Cures confusion)
Asfel the Shedinja (lvl 100) holding Focus Sash (allows it to survive one 1hit KO)

Battle Details:


vs Farigiraf

Starting off, Riz will bring out Hangdog the Silvally.

Silvally is a steel type, meaning it is weak to Fighting, Ground and Fire. It's immune to poison and resists... a heck of a lot of types, honestly, but most important for this battle is that it resists Normal and Psychic damage.

Farigiraf, meanwhile, is a normal/psychic Pokemon with a weakness to Bug and Dark attacks.

Overall, for this battle, Riz isn't too worried with the damage Farifiraf might do; much of its moves are ones that Hangdog has resistances to which limit the damage that they can do. What he is really worried about is Farigiraf's ability to confuse Hangdog leading to him attacking himself. To counter this, he's send Hangdog into the fight holding a Persim Berry, to cure any confusion. Of course, this will only work once, so Riz is going to try and work fast. Thankfully, Farigiraf doesn't have a move that will 100% inflict confusion, so who knows, maybe the odds will be in Riz's favour.

Riz will start off this battle using Crunch. This dark type attack, not only hits Farigiraf's weakness to dark, but it can also lower its defence. Hopefully repeated applications of this move will lower Farigiraf's defence to the point where a X-scissor can take it down.

That said though, Riz has Explosion on stand-by, just in case. He'd rather go for a draw than have Hangdog lose.


vs Gardevoir

For the next match-up against Gardevoir, Riz has chosen his Honedge Grum.

Gardevoir is a combination Psychic/Fairy type. This means it is weak to Poison, Ghost and Steel attacks. It's move pool is also dominated by Fairy and Psychic moves (shocked)

Honedge meanwhile is a ghost/steel type, which means it is immune to normal attacks, and resists fairy and psychic ones (as well as several other types). Honedge is weak to fire, which Gardevoir has one attack of, which is a bit of a pain, but hopefully not enough that Riz cannot overcome it. However, in order to compensate for it, he's equipped Honedge with an Occa Berry, which halves damage from any super-effective fire type attack.

Starting off, Riz is going to have Honedge use Swords Dance to boost its attack by two stages. At this point, he assumes Gardevoir will either use a minimally effective Fairy or Psychic move, or if this gym leader knows their stuff, will use Gardevoir's one fire attack, thus activating Honedge's Occa Berry.

With its attack boosted, Riz'll have Honedge use Shadow Sneak. This ghost type attack not only targets Gardevoir's weakness, but it also has a +1 priority, so as long as Gardevoir doesn't also use a priority move, it should go first (this to compensate for Honedge's abysmal speed stat)

The play here is essentially to keep using Shadow Sneak to move first, so hopefully Honedge will be able to take down Gardevoir before Gardevoir can take down Honedge.

If Gardevoir uses charm to lower Honedge's attack, Riz'll once again have him use Sword's dance. If Gardevoir puts Honedge to sleep using Hypnosis, Riz has a card up his sleeve in the form of Snore which can still deal damage to an opponent even when the pokemon is asleep (and might make 'em flinch)

Gardevoir has access to healing moves, but it is not the only one. Honedge does have Rest, and if Gardevoir heals, so will he. He doesn't have to worry about Rest putting Honedge to sleep due to the aforementioned Snore.



vs Espathra

Next on the list is Espathra, and for it, Riz has Nasha the Galvantula.

Espathra is a pure Psychic type, leaving it vulnerable to Bug, Gost, and Dark.

Galvantula is a combined Electric and bug type. She has no weaknesses Espathra can exploit, but she also doesn't really resist any of its moves.

Anyway!

Starting off, Riz'll have Galvantula use Thunder Wave to paralyse Espathra. With Espathra paralysed, not only will it be unable to attack from time to time, its speed is also greatly reduced.

After this, Riz'll have Galvantula continuously use Fury Cutter. This bug type move doesn't start off very strong, but it gets stronger with each consecutive turn it is used on. Hopefully with the paralysis working its magic, Galvantula will have time to build up to doing real damaging numbers without Espathra having too many chances of attacking.

If Espathra shakes the paralysis early, and Riz hasn't yet build up Fury Cutter to high numbers, he'll first reapply the paralysis via Thunder Wave, but if he's already hit at least twice (and therefore is doing 80 damage before adding STAB and Espathra's weakness), he'll skip the Thunder wave and just focus on Fury Cutter.



vs Gallade

Next on the list is Gallade and Gallade is... troublesome. Unfortunately, Gallade has a very wide move pool, with lots of different types of moves, which makes it difficult for Riz to pick a pokemon that Gallade doesn't have something good against.

The pokemon Riz, after much thinking, selected for this battle is -- Chit the Sableye!

Wait, Sableye? That pokemon that is famously weak to fairy type moves? What an oversight!

Except not.

On the first turn, Riz will terastilise his Sableye, whose tera type is Electric!

This means, as they battle, the balance of things will be thus

Gallade, a combination Psychic/Fighting type, with a weakness to Ghost, Flying and Fairy.

Sableye, now an electric type, with a weakness to ground, one of the few types, Gallade can't actually hit super-effectively.


This done, Riz will then have Sableye use Confuse Ray. This move will leave Gallade confused, which means that rather than attack, it may end up doing damage to itself.

With Gallade now confused, Riz will have Sableye use Nightshade, a ghost type attack which does damage equal to the Pokemon's level (which in Sableye's case is 100). And if Sableye's health is still looking good, he'll repeat this.

If Sableye's health starts looking iffy (Riz has equipped Sableye with a Sitrus Berry, which restores 30HP once), Riz'll switch to use Shadow Sneak. This move doesn't do as much damage as Nightshade, but it is a +1 priority move, so it will allow the slower Sableye to go first, which might make the difference between winning and losing.



vs Delphox

Against Delphox, Riz'll bring out his Klawf Crab King.

Delphox is a combined fire/psychic type meaning it is weak to Ground and Rock type moves (among other things. Meanwhile Klawf is a Rock type, meaning it has resistances against Fire moves. Unfortunately, it does still take regular amounts of damage from Psychic moves, but you can't have it all.

Or can you?

No, you can't.

Anyway.


Klawf is going to start off this battle with a Swords Dance to sharply boost its attack. Like Silvally, Riz has sent out Klawf holding a Persim Berry, so if the odds are against him and Klawf gets confused, he will be able to heal himself.

With his attack now boosted, Riz is going to have Klawf use High Horsepower, a ground type move which should target Delphox's weaknesses. He'll repeatedly use this attack, though if he becomes unable to use it any further, he'll switch to using Rock Slide, a rock type move with a chance of causing the opponent to flinch.

One important thing to note is that Klawf has the ability Anger Shell. This means that once his HP drops to half, he gets very very angry, which lowers his defence, but which further boosts his attack.

Unfortunately, Klawf has no way to recover HP, so Riz is just going to focus on dealing as much damage as he can as quickly as he can.



vs Florges

Now we come to the final opponent.

Against Tulip's Florges, Riz'll bring out his Shedinja.

Florges will be terastilised for this battle, and become a psychic type, meaning it will have weaknesses to bug, dark and ghost moves.

Shedinja has the ability Wonderguard which means it can only be damaged by super effective moves (and things like weather effects and damage from status effects). The only types Shedinja is weak to is Flying, Rock, Ghost, Fire and Dark. Florges does not have any moves that can hit these weaknesses. Furthermore, it also does not have any moves that can inflict a status condition that injures a pokemon, nor can it set up any weather effects.

Meaning Shedinja is effectively completely safe from everything that Florges can do.

For his part, Riz'll have Shedinja use Confuse Ray on the first turn (just for the chance of Florges doing some damage to itself too), before he'll focus on using Shadow Ball, a ghost type move, until Florges goes down. He also has moves like Shadow Claw, Shadow Sneak and Bug Buzz, all super-effective moves, in case he runs out of pp for Shadow Ball.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!

[outofsynth]

Character: Min-Gi Park | outofsynth
Badge/Gym Leader: Water [Kofu]
Elite/Regular: Elite
Team:
- Ry [Plusle - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Killer Queen [Azumarill - lvl 100 - Zoom Lens]
- Purple Haze [Frosmoth - lvl 100 - Leftovers]
- Xanadu [Rillaboom - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Doug [Gastrodon - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]
- Rodeo [Alolan Marowak - lvl 100 - Sitrus Berry]

Battle Details:

Plusle vs. Pelipper

Plusle can only resist one of Pelipper's move types, but Pelipper does have a major weakness to electricity so that's something he wants to take advantage of. Even if it uses Soak to prevent Ry from getting STAB they're still going to be able to get some decent damage in. How they go about this depends very much upon Pelipper's ability. If it has Drizzle, then they will go straight for Thunder to try and avoid accuracy ignoring Hurricane. Yes, Ry resists, but a move that strong will still hit hard. And... well, Hurricane isn't the only move that has 100% accuracy in rain. It would be silly not to take advantage. If it doesn't have Drizzle then there's no rain on the field and they can take a bit more time. In this case, Thunder Wave will be their first move.

These ifs are going to be an ongoing theme for this battle. A lot of their strategy here is very reactive. For example, if it uses Stockpile, Swallow, or Roost then Ry will use Copycat. If it uses Spit Up or any status move that hasn't already been mentioned then he will use Encore. Locking Pelipper into any non-damaging move is fine since even something like Protect will deteriorate in effectiveness over time. This will let Ry Charge, Discharge, then Charge again in quick succession. If he manages to do that then Pelipper shouldn't be able to withstand much more damage, and Ry is charged up and ready to go.

In an emergency he will have his Azumarill come out and finish Pelipper off with Play Rough. He won't let it get to the point of Ry fainting just yet. He has plans for him later on.

Azumarill vs. Veluza

It comes at a big cost, but the fact that Veluza can boost its attack, special attack, and speed so much is a concern. It would be real nice if this Pokémon would sleep. For that reason, they're going to see whether or not they can successfully use Sing. Killer Queen is equipped with Zoom Lens, and being the slower Pokémon here she should get the benefit of increased accuracy.

If this doesn't work, Killer Queen's next move is Defense Curl. Veluza is a physical attacker with almost entirely physical moves, so this will offer just that little bit more protection than Aqua Ring. Then she will try Sing one more time. From there, success or not, she will use Trailblaze. Thanks, Brassius.

If she did succeed with the first attempt at Sing then she will go to Trailblaze, then Defense Curl, then back to Trailblaze again.

If Killer Queen goes down, then Ry will come back out. He will start with Nasty Plot, then use Discharge.

Frosmoth vs. Feraligatr

There is a small twist if Ry had to come out in the previous match. He will stay out, then use Baton Pass to pass his boosted special attack to Frosmoth. Otherwise, Frosmoth is coming straight out.

Although Purple Haze's Ice Scales will help if Feraligatr does decide to use Hydro Pump, Feraligatr is mostly a physical attacker and it does have ways to drop her defence to boot. Because of this, she will be starting by using Snowscape and Aurora Veil to buy them some time even if their opponent does use Leer.

After that… Giga Drain. A move that Min-Gi has taught her especially for the occasion. Not only should it hit hard, it also has the added benefit of healing Haze up a bit too. She's also equipped with Leftovers in an attempt to keep her health nice and high ready for later parts of the battle.

If it's not going well, he will switch her out to preserve her health, bringing out Killer Queen who will use Trailblaze.

Rillaboom vs. Wugtrio

This one Min is expecting not to be too tricky. Wugtrio can mess with his accuracy and speed, but not really do too much to his health. Even neutral damage moves would take a bit to take him down. Just in case, Xanadu will be using Grassy Terrain to start.

After that, Drum Beating should make pretty quick work of it. If needed, he will be making sure Grassy Terrain stays up and using Giga Drain to regain health.

He really does not anticipate needing her, but if he somehow does go down then Purple Haze is on standby with Giga Drain.

Gastrodon vs. Clawitzer

Technically it will be Ry who's out for the start of this fight. Depending on how things went down earlier, Kufo may be able to guess where this is going. He will use Nasty Plot before Baton Passing to Doug, letting him start out with a boosted special attack.

For the early part of this, Doug is going to be using Mud-Slap. It's not going to hit for much damage, but it will decrease its accuracy. Min will have Doug use this twice, then use Recover to bring his health back up if he needs to. Doug is equipped with a Sitrus Berry, so he may still have enough health he decides to leave Recover for now.

Once Clawitzer's accuracy is low enough, Min will have Doug start using the more powerful Earth Power. He will be using Mud-Slap intermittently, especially if Clawitzer uses Hone Claws to increase accuracy again, and Recover to keep his health up.

If he runs out of Recover or his health is low enough that Min isn't sure it will be enough, Doug will use Memento. This isn't the ideal move, but he is very aware that Gastrodon doesn't have any super effective moves at his disposal, and he only resists Smack Down. Depending on who has the most health left at this point, it will either be Ry with Electro Ball, or Killer Queen with Play Rough.

Rillaboom vs. Crabominable

It probably seems like a strange choice to bring out a Pokémon with an ice type weakness when Crabominable has so many hard hitting ice type moves. Rillaboom has decent defence, but not enough for this. If he's unlucky, he could even be knocked out in one hit. This final match is, however, designed to be a battle done in stages. One thing he does have on Crabominable is speed, so he's here to set things up. If Purple Haze hasn't fainted yet, he will use Grassy Terrain first, followed by Noble Roar if he lasts.

If Purple Haze is no longer an option then he will skip Grassy Terrain, and use Drum Beating. If he can then he will use Noble Roar afterwards.

Frosmoth vs. Crabominable

If she has made it this far, Purple Haze will be coming out into Grassy Terrain. Kofu might guess that this is so she can take advantage of boosted Giga Drain, and that would be a safe bet. Crabominable will recover health from this terrain, but it doesn't make up for the extra damage she'll be able to pull off. Close Combat could take her out quickly, but at the cost of its defence and special defence stats.

Again, she is just one part of this plan. Ideally she will get more than one move in, but as long as she can hit once she's playing her part.

Alolan Marowak vs. Crabominable

Kofu can probably see the terastallization coming. Rodeo is losing his fire typing and becoming pure ghost. This lets him lose his water type weakness while keeping his immunity to normal and fighting moves. By now Crabominable should have lowered health, and potentially some combination of lowered stats. This lets Rodeo go straight to Thunderbolt to finish things off. This is move number three that's been taught just for Kofu. Rodeo's not a special attacker by nature, so hopefully what damage has been done already alongside the fact it's super effective will tip this for them. If not, the plan is for him to keep at it until Crabominable does faint.

[indigo_league]

Badge approved!