I decided to take it easy today after taking the rest of the day off yesterday due to physical health ailments. We have some recruitment to do. I also happened to find a Manectric on Home that has previously visited champions. Curious to see what happens when I import it to my game. 

First order of business is to check out that Manectric, which doesn’t look like much, but I wonder if it got trained in Champions? Apparently, we need to be on the lookout for Pokemon that have already visited the game. And indeed, Voltenso (I think that’s italian HAS been trained. Sort of a weird spread: 17 points in Defense and Special Defense, then rest in Special Attack. It’s a Timid nature with the Lightning Rod ability. It has Thunder, Volt Switch, Hyper Voice, and Rain Dance. I just don’t understand the stat spread. This is a really good Rain Team support Pokemon! So you CAN get good Pokemon ready to go on Home! And I traded something random on the GTS for it, I think a random level 8 ninetales that came from GO. Welcome to the team Voltenso!

We do need to tweak her a bit though. Those points need to go into Speed. I’m also not sure if we should put Flamethrower over Hyper Voice. There’s no Hidden Power in these games so I think Rain Dance may actually be OK. We don’t have a Pelipper yet. This is a Pokemon we will probably use and saves us from having to recruit one. Less than 200 VP to fix the stats (the extra two points went into defense)

So, the Warm-UP Challenge is over, and we got 186,313th place… with a positive ELO of 1503 though! Yeah I only played a handful of battles. Now we have Gardevoir and ONE HUNDRED quick coupons. So, this Gardevoir has full HP and Special Attack investment. I think this is fine. It has Hyper Voice, Psyshock, Focus Blast, and Calm Mind. I’m not sure this is the best set. This looks like a perfect Mega to me. I’m gonna go buy the stones for both him (it’s a male Gardy) and Manectric… except, where’s Manectite? What is going on? Oh silly me… you get one from the Mega Evolution battle tutorial! I must already have it! 

So, it’s time to do a LOT of recruitment. We have FOUR extra free recruitments today, thanks to those coupons. First up, our free one for today. We get these options: Passimian (for like the fourth time), Hisuian Avalugg (I lost count), Bastiodon, Wyrdeer (neat to see that), Lycanroc (Midday form), Lemon Cream Alcremie (HOW CUTE!), Heliolisk, Mudsdale, Base Rotom, and Meowscarada. Hmm. None of these are really standing out to me. These are all low-tier mons outside of Meow, who we already have. I’m trial recruiting Passimian, because I like its moveset and Receiver is a very interesting ability – it copies the ability of a pokemon it defeats. It also has both Earthquake and Rock Slide. 

OK first of four free recruits from the Challenge. We see Hydrapple (I have a shiny one in Violet so I don’t need it here). Gourgeist, Pangoro, Flareon, AERODACTYL, ROtom, Leafeon, Politoed (also good), Emboar, and Simipour. I have a great Emboar already to bring in when I need it. Politoed is a great Pokemon. But AERODACTYL? Amazing mon, and I’m snap recruiting it for 2500 VP. I’m down to 44K VP, by the way; I’ve been getting a lot of achievements and the battle pass being stacked at the end with VP makes my choices a lot easier. The Aero needs MAJOR retraining but that’s OK.

Second free recruitment: Medicham (OK Mega), Hisuian Zoroark (cool Pokemon), Luxray, Decideye, Basculegion Female (would be an interesting pick but the Special Attacking version just isn’t as strong), Galarian Stunfisk (I want this to be good), Frost Rotom (I like this one), Krookodile, Sandaconda, and Manectric (who we don’t need.) The only thing wrong with this Frost Rotom is its stat spread and nature. I’m just gonna snap take it for another 2500 VP.

Third free recruitment: Espathra (good mon), Delphox (great mega), Lucario, Ninetales, Simpour, Slurpuff, Chandelure, Charizrad (we don’t need a third), Hydrapple, and Meowstic. This is actually kind of tough. Espathra is actually super good, but this one is trained badly and I can easily source one from Violet. I also have a Shiny Lucario from Violet. I adore Meowstic, but again, easy to source. The Delphox isn’t trained that great, but it has gotten to Master Ball as a Mega. So I’m gonna spend even more VP here and fix it later. Down under 40K VP for the first time in days.

As for that Mega Delphox set: it was Protect, Heat Wave, Psychic, and Substitute. I don’t know its nature or stat spread, though. (Someone on Reddit even specifically asked for that!)

Fourth and final free recruitment for today. Hydrapple (AGAIN!), Foretress (classic), Lycanroc (but midnight form), Mudsdale (again), Scovillain (this can be a good mega by the way), Salazzle, Dragapult, Skarmory, Jolteon, and Gourgeist (for the billionth time). This is basically a choice between Skarmory and Scovillain. The training is bad enough on the Scovillain (which I can easily source from Violet) that I’m just trial recruiting the Skarmory. This was a bit of a miss.

Also, yes, I have been looking for shiny pokemon which CAN appear on the ranch. None yet. Oh, and apparently, when you complete all the weekly missions they immediately reset! So we got both the daily 6 coupons AND the 2K VP for the 5 weekly recruits. Well, then, now we just need to take part in one Ranked battle!

Yesterday went SO poorly that I’m going to see what the CPU thinks our team should look like with all the new recruits. The lineup is… interesting. We bring back Azu with a Sitrus Berry. Empoleon is here with Leftovers. Gengar is our first mega, and Charizard X our second. Passimian gets the choice scarf, and Glimmora gets the Focus Sash. Mind you I haven’t trained Glimmora at all and Passimian is a trial recruit. This should be a total mess. Thus, I’m gonna go to single battles just to test some of these mons out. We are stuck at the bottom of Ultra Ball Tier 4 at the moment in doubles anyway, and I want to make progress on these new weekly missions.

First up: Absol, Froslass, Corvinkight, Garchomp, Arcanine, Whimsicott. A starter team. Glimmora, Charizard X, and Empoleon look good here. Did we bring the right three, though? Froslass is not great against Glimorra. But the good news is Ice Punch does next to nothing and we get two layers of toxic spikes down. Frfosslass apparently is Choice Scarfed so that second hit did nothing and we get off toxic! Time to switch in Empoleon… damn Glimmora was good! OK the froslass isn’t scarfed; it used Hex. Flash Cannon time after we tank a Night Shade. We already know Empoleon is good, especially with Leftovers recovery. Absol gets toxic, and I go for flip turn. Time for Charizard X! I’m gonna mega and dragon dance in its face, what can it do? LOL IT USED TAUNT! Too late buddy. +1 Dragon Claw with Tough Claws and STAB, yeah, bye bye. And now it’s Whims, who gets poisoned. We have flare blitz. We win. Wow, that was too easy. Granted we are still in Great Ball tier from not playing singles at all, and it’s good to see we can get some easy wins here. We also get to claim a Steel-type achievement afterwards (thanks to Empoleon)

Let’s go again. This time it’s a SHINY Sylveon, Meowscarada, Alolan Ninetales, Azu, Dragonite, and Gardevoir. I guess Passimian will debut here, with Gengar as our mega, and Glimmora in the back. This is probably wrong, but we’ll see. They lead Dragonite. We rock slide with Passimian. Does decent chip but doesn’t flinch. EQ doesn’t do a ton though. So, bringing Glimmora was smart, long as it doesn’t EQ. It extreme speeds, which is great since now toxic spikes are down. I just sac Glimmora and get a second layer of toxic spikes down. It did the job, but I need this dragonite gone before I go into mega gengar. This physical dragonite is an issue. They do switch into Azumarill, who gets toxic. Do we get a clutch flinch here? Unfortunately not. So it’s a 1 v 3 now. Yeah, this is going badly. Good news is Azu is low. We mega and go for Sludge Bomb. Aqua Jet does more than I’d like to me before Azu goes down. Who’s their third mon? We don’t know and sludge bomb doesn’t kill. So we lose. Man Passimian wasn’t good there. I think I’m just returning it before we play again. All the progress we made from the first battle is gonzo. I blame Passimian for that loss. I quit out and returned it for nothing. Good thing we spent no resources on it but those 22 quick coupons. Oh yeah, because of the daily missions, we now have another free recruit. Let’s do it.

Our FIFTH (technically sixth) recruit of the day brings us: Scovillain, Maushold (great mon but I have one on violet waiting in the wings), Snorlax, Meowsitc, Incin (which we already have), Fan ROtom, Mimikyu, Glimmora, Gallade, and Kommo-O. This is actually a good selection. Ordinarily I’d take Mimikyu, but it’s yet another one I have in Violet that’s shiny (one of my few successful shiny hunts in that game.) I’m taking Kommo-O here and immediately paying for it. I do have a shiny Jangmo-o, but this one is already trained really well. I got lucky. Great pick there.

Without Passimian there to let the CPU hurt me, we now have an auto build team of Choice scarf Palafin (we know how good that is), Charizard X, MEGA Steelix, Focus Sash dragapult, Sitrus Drampa, and Leftovers Empoleon. I was thinking about Delphox, and it turns out that I don’t have the mega stone for it, because you have to transfer one from ZA. I do have a Delphox to do this with, fortunately, but I don’t feel like doing that right now. (People are super bitching about it and I don’t blame them, as I think it specifically has to be a Delphox from ZA specifically, not one you train up through Violet DLC, although I’m not sure.) I also don’t like this team it put together. I’ll give it one shot in Singles, though. Eventually, I will have a team for Singles and a team for Doubles. We’re getting there.

I don’t see a good matchup with this team here: Lopunny (likely mega) Snorlax, Garchomp, Aegislash, Chandelure, and shiny Gardevoir. We bring Palafin, Mega Charizard X, and Drampa. They lead with Garchomp, so I just go Ice Punch. They set up rocks, which is BAD for charizard. I did lock my dolphin into Ice punch but I’m okay with this. Hilariously, Drampa looks good now with Garchomp gone. They think a bit about what to bring in here. It is Lopunny. So I bring in Drampa and the rocks don’t do much. I was right that the Lopunny was a mega. Fortunately it went Thunder Punch. Unfortunately, they also have triple Axel. i don’t survive. Mega Lopunny is quite good. Well Hero Palafin, it’s time to Close Combat. Bye bye bunny. Drampa’s sacrifice was not for nothing. Now it’s Chandelure, which is bad due to the Choice scarf locking me into CC. I’m forced to switch. Charizard gets KO’d by Rocks and Shadow Ball. This is gonna be close. Is Wave Crash enough? Yes it is! And the recoil is massive but we still win. Phew!

I think that’s a good place to break for now. After I come back, we are going to look into building a rain team around Mega Manectric! If only we had a Pelipper…