Aaron Zheng posted some awesome teams for champions. Complete with rental codes, which unfortunately means you have to acquire all the pokemon and pay a bunch of VP to match the sets and training. But I’m getting lots of ideas. https://youtu.be/Du3AZ5dpIv4?si=hSNsp1AKXp6XxpaF

Wolfey also built an awesome team around Mega Froslass. This is on my long term wishlist. https://youtu.be/P3txtowxpeo?si=5n8ouMEUsrcPCgH5

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It’s now Saturday, April 11, the fourth day of Pokemon Champions being live. I’m suffering from insomnia, meaning I’m wide awake with barely two hours of sleep and needing something to put my mind to… what better use of these forced waking hours than to rework some Pokemon move sets?

Thus far, I’ve been pretty much going with what our recruits get. The movesets it seems are random, and the stat spreads also random, although they are always maxed out in two stats with the remaining couple points in a third stat. This is how we ended up with our very nonstandard Wash Rotom that’s extra specially bulky.  We aren’t changing that set for now. But what I do know is we need to fix Whimsicott and a couple other pokemon we have.

First off, Whims needs Tailwind and protect. So I’m dropping Leech Seed (too slow in this format) and Memento (despite being useful a couple times so far, why just sac such a useful Pokemon?) For now, I’m keeping both Moonblast and Giga Drain, but this could change.

I also want to use Gallade more effectively. I’m dropping Aqua Cutter for Psycho Cut, which may prove to be useful coverage. While it’s only 70 base power, it’s STAB and boosted by sharpness. It also doesn’t make contact, which can be an important edge case. Leaf blade can be dropped for protect. I need to put protect on more mons.

I’m thinking that we also need Mega Meganium AND Mega Dragonite on the team. Dragonite I’m keeping as is with Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Ice Beam, and Extreme Speed. Meganium badly needs protect, so I gotta drop something for that, and I’m debating if Synthesis is worth keeping despite getting the sun boosted healing always thanks to Mega Sol. I also need to decide if weather Ball or Earth power is better on our set, and I’m thinking the ground type coverage, as we’ve been pretty wrecked by Manectric lately. Also amazing versus Arcahludon. I also am keeping Gengar but swapping Sludge Wave out for Sludge Bomb. The spread move is great but hitting our own Pokemon here is terrible. 

So what’s our sixth Pokemon? Well, I love Azumarill. It may still be good here. I like Dragapult but I need to heavily rework its move set. I’m thinking of seeing what pokemon we recruit next. We could also use Mega Floette instead of Meganium; it’s already properly trained with both fairy type moves, protect, and calm mind. In any case we need something that can take advantage of tailwind or gengar’s icy wind. Frankly this should probably be Garchomp. I do have one in Violet that’s shiny. Having something that can rock slide, earthquake, and maybe dragon claw could be useful. We shall see what we spin this morning. 

All the other pokemon we have are really slow: Machamp, Drampa, Rhyperior, and Steelix. They really need a trick room setter or two. We need to wait on gardevoir from the warm up challenge and hope we can luck into a Farigarif. That would be an amazing pokemon for us right now. Or Palafin or Mega Starmie (the former pairs better with Meganium and the latter would replace Dragonite likely).

We shall see how this all pans out after I get some sleep. We’re in ultra ball tier now, so play time is over!

… 

I only got four hours of sleep. So, what follows today is going to be colored by sleep deprivation. One interesting thing I learned about champions, though. If you accidentally leave the game open, you have to close it for the daily goals to reset. ‘Cause you know, this game is made for kids! Now, who will be in the roster ranch lineup for this morning? No coupons necessary this time.

A very interesting lineup, indeed. We have Chimecho, a decent Mega option. Snorlax, which is the classic special bulk wall that can also dish out decent damage. Alolan Raichu is pretty decent. There’s Competitive Empoleon, a Pokemon I’ve considered using. Passimian is an interesting option. Espeon is adorable. Absol has an interesting moveset. We don’t need the Azumarill. Typhlosion is neat, but I have a better one I can bring in from my own games. (shiny too). And finally Gourgeist. So, pretty much all these Pokemon I can bring in better versions. Therefore, I think Competitive Empoleon plus 2500 VP is the pick here. It helps that as my fifth recruit, I get 2K VP to absorb a lot of that cost as a weekly vision. I’ll get another 2K when I log in tomorrow. I also finally rerolled my use of certain types of moves… I haevn’t used a single Bug-type move apparently. Instead I now have Grass-type moves to use 5 times to get 24 quick coupons. Yes, that means a free recruit! So we can get two extra recruits today if we’d like, and I may be doing just that! 

My Whims got Tailwind and Protect, which cost me 500 VP. Gengar got the Sludge Bomb switched in for Sludge Wave. Another 250 VP.  I also completely rebuilt my Charizard to serve as a Jolly Charizard X with Dragon Claw, Earthquake, and Dragon Dance. A cool 1250 VP if I didn’t use one of my 4 free training tickets. Meganium kept Earth Power and lost Synthesis for Protect (it’s just too good a move.) Gallade gets Psycho Cut (which also has a Critical Hit boost) and Protect. It could end up with Trick Room, but I’m keeping Swords Dance for now. Another 500 VP. That’s 1250 VP and a training ticket so far. I’m still close to 50K VP in the bank by the way. I also completely rebuilt my Dragapult. I went for a Focus Sash build that uses Hex, Draco Meteor, Thunder Wave, and Will-o-Wisp, and completely rebuilt its Ability (Infiltrator) and Nature (Timid). This is where the Training Tickets come in handy! That’s 2070 VP I saved.

Our team is now this:

Gengar (Cursed Body): Timid nature, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Icy Wind, Destiny Bond, with a Quick Claw.

Dragonite (Multiscale) Modest nature, Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Ice Beam, Extreme Speed with Dragoninite.

Dragapult (Infiltrator) Timid Nature, Draco Meteor, Thunder Wave, Hex, Will-O-Wisp

Meganium (Overgrow/Mega Sol) Modest Nature, Solar Beam, Dazzling Gleam, Protect, Earth Power

Gallade (Sharpness): Adamant nature, Sacred sword, psycho cut, protect, swords dance, with black belt

Rotom Wash (Levitatie): Modest Nature, Hydro Pump, Volt Switch, Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, with Choice Scarf.

I do want to put in Whims, but I think that it would take the place of Meganium here, with Gengar getting the Mega Stone instead. The speed control of Icy Wind and the cheese of Destiny Bond is just too good not to try again. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility I use Perish Trap in the future over Destiny Bond. And most offensive Gengar use Protect over Icy Wind, but the speed control just has won me a lot of games so far.

This is the team we are running for our run this morning. Our goals today: use five Grass-type moves and try to win more than we lose in double ranked battles.

Our first opponent has Sinistcha, Dragonite, Gyardaos, Frloslass, Sneaker, and Gartchomp. The first three for me were easy, Rotom Wash and Dragapult leads, with Dragonite in the back. But would I go Gallade or Gengar as the 4th? Well, their lead is Sneasler and Dragonite. As expected. Volt switch into Sneasler. Draco into Dragonite. Dragonite takes over half but eats a Stirus. Sneasler takes a ton too. I switch in Gallade here. Dire Claw not only badly hurts Gallade, it also Poisons. Their Dragonite sets up Tailwind and I’m on the backfoot here. I should’ve brought Gengar. Gallade never gets another attack because Sneasler uses fient. Dragapult does hang on from Dragon pulse thanks to sash. I get the Thunder Wave off on Dragonite. Rotom comes back in to Volt Switch. Dragapult is able to get off Hex and Rotom volt switches their Dragonite low. Unfortunately Rotom took a ton from Dire Claw. Dragapult goes down and I’m down to a low health ROtom and my Dragonite. Fortunately their dragonite is mega low and I can mega and extreme speed. I’ll lock my Rotom into Shadow Ball, but they still have both reserves fully healthy in the back. I’m in deep trouble. Rotom never gets another attack. Their tailwind is up, but it’s 1 v 3. I’m not going to win this. The good news is their Tailwind is gone, and I have Fire Blast for the Froslass. However, being a Mega, I’m not sure this will kill. Especially with Snow Warning. It apparently survives at 1 HP and Blizzards me. That was a bad loss. I just brought the wrong Mons there. I think that perhaps Gallade needs to come out for Whims. Since I’m now back to 0% progress in Ultra Ball tier 4, this is the time to absorb losses and figure things out.

However, since we got our daily 24 coupons, let’s immediately reroll our recruitment. We pay the 22 coupons and get these ten options: Dragapult again… Flareon… Paldean Tauros (the regular one), BASCULEGION! There’s also foretress, Arbok, Conkeldurr, Alakazam, Sharpedo, and a second Charizard (but not really well built to be our Charizard Y). This is such an easy choice. We go for the ghostly fish. I’m happy paying 2500 VP for it. While it doesn’t fit our team just yet, I want to bank it for when we inevitably get the right pieces. We swap Gallade out for Lum Berry Whims, and go for another run. We are close to a few achievements, so the VP we spent today is gonna come back real quick, especially if we can string together a few wins. That was just a bad matchup for our team. We can bounce back.

Let’s go Rotom, Whims, Mega Meganium, and Gengar They’ve got Froslass and Primarina, so no Dragonite or Dragapult this time. They lead Meowscarda and Frosslass. I set up tailwind and go for Shadow Ball on Froslass. This is yet another Mega Froslass team. Hopefully my speed advantage will help. Froslass takes over half. Whims gets wrecked by Meowscarada’s triple axel, but it was a worthy sacrifice. Unfortunately, Froslass has aurora veil. I’m not sure Gengar is that good here. But we have the tailwind. Gengar’s quick claw activates, which is great. Incin switches it for Froslass and Sludge Bomb does over half to Meowscarada. Rotom barely survives Flower Trick. We’re in a bad spot. But Quick Claw activates again for Gengar and I get off Destiny Bond. But we are down to just Mega Meganium as Gengar goes down to Knock Off, taking the Meowscarada with it. Another 1 v 3. Their snow is obviously still up, and I think so is Aurora Veil. They just have a superior team. Yet another horrible matchup. I use my slight speed advantage to Mega and go for Solar Beam against Primarina. But the matchup here is just so bad. Prim uses Protect so… yeah, this is bad. Incin uses Flare Blitz and Meganium is almost dead.I just forfeit, since Tailwind is gone. Yet another just horrible matchup for us. Both matches we just didn’t match up well. We need to rethink our whole strategy apparently.

It may be that in Ultra Ball, Dragonite is just going to get wrecked. That’s back to back Froslass teams. Our whole team just loses to it. Do we just keep going with the current team and just forfeit once they get a huge advantage? I don’t want to play that way. Feeling a bit deflated, I think we go back to the singles ladder; we’re still only in great ball there, just to get our Grass-type moves in and get some confidence and mojo back…

I decided for fun to let the AI build our team again. It keeps Meganium and Dragonite, plus Gengar. But it gives Gengar back the sash, gives Rotom Wash the Sitrus Berry, and introduces Empoleon with Leftovers. Dragapult is still here too, but with Lum Bedrry. The Empoleon isn’t trained ideally, but I think it’s good enough with Surf, Ice Beam, Flash Cannon, and Flip Turn for positioning. I decide to just give it a Modest nature for 500 VP.

To be continued… (this got long)