While I will continue playing this game, I’m taking a step back for a bit and just doing daily quests and a battle here and there for completing goals. I will say I acquired an Eelektross through pokemon home wonder trade and GTS shenanigans, so we have a future mega eelektross to enjoy. I’ll be still talking about recruitment developments but I’m not doing blow by blow battle accounts until I actually start making progress again. I’m kind of in a holding pattern because I got a lot going on behind the scenes and I’ve been battling both physical and mental health struggles. At least this game has given me something like a morning ritual, even if Mongil Star Dive has stolen away a lot of my attention for the time being.

So, the game has now been out for almost ten days. I maxed out the first battle pass and bought everything possible. Yet I’m still short some key Pokemon if I want to compete at a high level, apparently. Well, I finally got another decent one: Maushold, this one the rare family of four with Technician. Ordinarily you want one with Friend Guard, but this one could have its uses. I just used a teammate ticket and I’ll figure out what I want to do with the mice family later.

I wiped out my singles team and had the CPU auto build again. It built a team centered around Mega Tyranitar and Mega Manectric. Except this time I have Pelipper. Choice Scarf Garchomp, Leftovers Empoleon, and Sitrus Sinistcha round out the team. It’s not quite a rain team, but I like where this is going. Singles have been going badly, so I decided to try this team for a couple battles before I got a late start to today.

My first opponent was a Mega Froslass team. So you know how that went. At least Sinistcha knocked out the Mega with Shadow Ball from about 60 percent. Behind my tailwind I did try to make it close. But I never had a chance. My matchups continue to be extremely unfortunate. Yet another loss to start a day. 

I seriously feel like this season is a lost cause for me. I’m just not competing at a high enough level to get anywhere, and it’s really sad. The second game had lots of bad matchups AGAIN. I think this particular CPU team is just bad. Their Aerodactyl giving them tailwind just won them that game basically. Or did it? Well, had Empoleon not flinched to rock slide, Surf would’ve gotten both their Aero and Mega Meganium… I tried to salvage it. But Hyper Voice from Mega Manectric didn’t quite KO Meganium. So that was bad. I just couldn’t stall their tailwind turns. What this teaches me is that Aero is just really good. And I just didn’t have the firepower to come back. I forfeited and gave up for now. This team was bad, and I deleted it immediately. My luck was even worse. Horrible matchups. Bad damage ranges… and that extremely clutch flinch for them.

For when I feel like playing another time, I built a new singles team built around Charizard Y, based on the builds from Game8. It’s Charcoal Torkoal, Charizard Y, Choice Scarf Garchomp, Black Glasses Kingambit, Spell Tag Aegislash, and Focus Sash Meowscarada. Maybe I can at least start ranking up there later?

Before I took a break I did do one more recruitment though. There aren’t many pokemon I still need worth taking. But as a consolation for two horrible games with a team simply ill suited for this metagame… I got a Milotic! There’s a meta pokemon if I ever saw one! Take my teammate ticket! Like Maushold, I’ll fix it later. But this is a new Rain Team option…

… to be continued