I’m going to be doing the bare minimum today. Maybe for the next few. As much as I love Pokemon, my headspace just isn’t into the high-level competition of double battles right now. So, this will be a compilation of a few days worth of Champions recruitment and very short notes of battle results. I’m focused entirely on quests at the moment. Without Archaludon my rain team is too underpowered and without Sneasler I can’t deal with a lot of the threats that have been beating me. 

On the other hand, singles is much more of an open game. So, that’s where I’m putting my energy for a bit. All I have left for weekly missions is winning one more battle without anyone going down, and sending fighting type pokemon into battle 5 times. I love Gallade, but I may give Kommo-o a shot today.

Our first recruit of the day was actually Espathra. I like this mon’s potential for Calm Mind into Baton Pass, while also softening up opponents with Lumina Crash. I just used a teammate ticket and a training ticket to make it right: Timid nature, Speed boost ability, and a move set of Lumina Crash, Baton Pass, Calm Mind, and Protect. This is great for a few of our Pokemon who are special attackers, great for singles AND doubles. So this was a nice pickup this morning.

I also put Aerodactyl on my rain team as another tailwind setter, as Kingambit is nice but Aero is just so incredibly good in this format. I had to give it a Lum berry because I didn’t really know what else to give it when Pelipper has a sash. For singles I swapped Mega Gallade out for Kommo-O, just to give it a shot. On the meta team, I swapped out both T-Tar and Kingambit for Mega Drampa and Rotom-Wash. Inside trick room, these are just much more versatile. I gave Rotom-Wash the choice scarf again and shadow ball. This seems like a non-bo for Trick Room, but as a lead and late-game option, I think this is fine. We’ll see.

As for the single battles today, I decided I’m bringing Kommo-O no matter what. The first game is a terrible matchup for it, but I go for it anyway. Right away Shadow Ball pays off on Rotom, although they do protect. Somehow they still outspeed Rotom with a choice scarf? Oh wait, this one has sitrus berry. Well our mega super bulk allows us to tank two sludge bombs and volt switch away the gengar. They bring Azu against Basc. They… belly drum and eat a stirus. Unfortunately, Last respects is 2 HP short and Basc goes down. Fortunately, we SHOULD be OK. Rotom is dead after an aqua jet, leaving just Kommo-O. Our dragon lives the Aqua Jet, and the game hinges on who the last mon is… It’s Charizard… which is not good. Yeah, this wasn’t a great game for us. And I wasn’t going to take such copious notes. But yeah, we lost. Oh well. Just unfortunate damage ranges and me forgetting the item on Rotom changes based on team not the initial build… As I said, I’m not really with the program recently. These notes are to show just how not in the mental space I am to play this game up to any reasonable competitive standard. Lots of personal stuff going on.

I bowed out to take the second recruit. Not a great selection, as we don’t need Farigarif or Skeledirge. Or Feraligatr. I do like the Torkoal here, and while I do have a shiny one on Violet, I don’t want to waste this opportunity. This one is much better trained than the last one I saw. It actually has Drought and Eruption, plus the very useful Earth Power. Easy peasy recruit. I take Rotom off our Meta Team and put Torkoal in as a Trick Room damage dealer that also sets up sun. Great stuff. Quiet nature is perfect, and Heat Wave and Protect are easy move set additions. The sun boosts both Drampa’s Flamethrower and Incin’s Flare Blitz, too. Good stuff, and a great counter for Rain or Sand Teams.

We lost that game because I forgot the item situation on Rotom. This time it gets the Choice Scarf back and Kommo-O takes Leftovers. Our Garchomp gets a quick claw. This is a better set up. I need to bring Kommo-O two more times for the weekly quest. Just quick notes for the next two: the 2nd battle was against the basic Charizard team we started with. Meowscarada One Hit KO’d their gengar. Now being dark type isn’t great with knock off disabled by cursed body, but we live Azu’s play rough, so bye bye Azu. Whims is an easy U-Turn. Kommo-O time. And they had dazzling gleam… Oh well, there goes the 3-0, bad move by me… fortunately I have Mega Dragonite with Ice Beam. So, we win game two. That should’ve been a 3-0 sweep but remember, I had to bring Kommo-O into battle for the mission. (At least i think that’s how it works.) 

And the next game I had to leave it behind regardless because of a horrible matchup… We had a slugfest between Whims and Rotom. A special defense drop really helped. My opponent suddenly went AWOL for a minute… letting their Whims fall before sending in their Mega Dragonite. Rotom was a worthy sac as Meowscarada could deal a lot to their mega, but it fell too. Not a good game for us. It was now our Mega Dragonite against theirs, and they still had one pokemon left. Ours either is faster or won a speed tie, because we ice beam them out of existence. What could Gengar do to us? Well, it has Icy Wind, just like ours. But we hit Draco Meteor… and they have a sash. Oh boy. They got a crit and beat us. Fuck that. The bad luck has returned. Let’s just go cry for a few seconds and just go back in. God, I’m still stuck in Great Ball tier 4… that’s how poorly I’ve been playing 🙁I still need a game for Kommo-O to do something AND a game where we don’t get murdered…

Of course, matchmaking took a bit after that… I’ve basically conceded this isn’t my day. But the next team was an interesting mix. Hisuian Samurott, Cofarfirgus, Manectric, Stunfisk, heat rotom, and Clefable. What an interesting selection. Did I bring the right mons this time or did I get pulverized by apparently being unbelievably bad at this game? Well, they timed out in team selection. How bizarre. Our Garchomp VS manectric lead was pretty nice for us. They were forced to switch to Cofragius. Will-O-Wisp sucks, because our damage is so badly nerfed. I’m forced to switch myself after a Sp Def drop into Kommo-O. They go for iron defense, which is good for me. I scale shot just to get the speed boost. Burn sucks, but this is OK. I have Flash Cannon here and Aura Sphere for their other mons. Lefties outpaces the burn. But flash cannon leaves them on 4 percent and there goes Kommo-O. Yuck. Clearly, this is NOT my day. And I don’t know the third mon. But at least we got the 3 battles for Kommo-O. They went into the tank again after Dragonite took out their coffin. It’s Samurott. Draco hits, but they have a sash. Fortunately, we have E-speed to take that out. And all that’s left is Manectric, which is great. Garchomp is still alive so we swap to get rid of the Sp Atk debuff from Draco. The spikes set by Ceaseless edge hurt, but they forfeit anyway. Obviously we had that. Not a clean win, but I’ll take it.

I didn’t intend on taking all these notes. But just so you see, I’m getting really bad damage ranges and having a couple brain farts didn’t help. It doesn’t help that I’m distracted by other things, too. Let’s do a third recruit thanks to those sloppy Kommo-O battles… I’ve decided he’s off the team. Not that he’s bad. Just not doing the job here. I was pretty happy to see an Armarouge. I spent the 2500 VP to just grab it and pack it away for now.

Still seeking that 3-0 singles or 4-0 doubles win… but I have three days left to do it, and the way today has started (both in game and out of game) it’s not gonna be today. I have Mongil Star Dive to grind… at least this session was a net-positive.