After the best morning I could’ve asked for in Pokemon Champions, it’s time for Great Ball tier doubles. Let’s get wrecked. Seriously, I’m expecting to get crushed.

And here’s a competitive team right away.Incin, Politoed, Whims, Dragonite, Gengar, and Sneasler. The middle three are shiny. We bring Wash, Azu, Dragonite, and Gallade. I’m thinking it’s a Mega Dragonite mirror. Their Whims goes for tailwind and dire claw wrecks Azu, unfortunately. We do get some recovery with Sitrus. Rotom and Azu double and kill Sneasler. That Whims is an issue. Incin comes out. I double the incin, expecting the fake out on Galade. Interestingly they moonblast azu not gallade. We double incin, which has sitrus and Gallade survives the Whims moonblast as expected. Incin goes down. We bring in Dragonite, they bring in Gengar. Wash is gonna come in for Gallade and Dragonite is gonna mega and ice beam whims. As expected their mega is Gengar. I love that white sprite. This is gonna be close. Multiscale helps against moonblast.  Whims down with ice beam! We then double gengar, which only gets off a sludge bomb before shadow ball brings it low, drops its special defense, and Dragonite finishes with a 100 percent accurate ice beam (I didn’t want to miss Draco Meteor). We win! 322 VP!

Next up is a competitive rain team. We bring in basically the same mons as before. Archaludon and Pelipper are up first. I’m expecting Pelipper to protect so I double Arch with Azu and Rotom. Pelipper actually went for tailwind, so maybe the volt switch on that would;’ve been better. And the bridge murders my poor Azu. Yeah, I made a mistake. They withdraw Pelipper into Sinistcha which fully heals Archaludon. Electro shot is too much for gallade. This is a loss. I’m getting destroyed. Kinda expected this to happen. Arch in the rain is too much. Dragonite and Rotom don’t have the tools to win this. Draco Meteor from Archaludon. I’m about to just forfeit. We got murdered. 4-0 sweep… I decided to just stay in and take the loss. What a brutal end to my winning streak. That lead is just too much. My team doesn’t have an answer for that combo. Our progress to the next rank fortunately didn’t take that big of a hit. We just take our pitiful 32 VP (I should’ve just forfeited) and move on.

Next up is Incin and Meganium vs Azu and Rotom. Not a great position for me. I decided to just double the incineroar. They actually withdraw Incin for Kingambit and Mega evolve Meganium. This is the first I’ve seen this combo. Meganium goes for Solar Beam, which charged immediately? Um, I didn’t see that coming. I might be toast. This is looking like back to back losses. Can Mega Dragonite get me back into this? Well, they withdrew Kingambit (intelligently) to save it from death. Mega Dragonite did a ton of damage with Ice Beam. Gallade Sacred Swords Incin into nonexistence. Dazzling Gleam from the half-fairy type Meganium hurts. Their last mon is gengar. Their gengar has a quick claw unfortunately, so icy wind is gonna kill me. Gallade went down and likely my chances of making a comeback. Dragonite didn’t get another attack. I forfeited. That was another bad loss. I decided to quit for now and regroup. What the hell happened? (You still get VP, 41 in that case, by the way.)

Clearly the power level skyrocketed. I was not mentally prepared for that. I’m gonna take a break for awhile. But I’m thinking that we have to change up our team. Whims hasn’t been useful at all lately. Charizard X may be the answer, as Dragonite clearly just didn’t have a prayer in that matchup. And I learned about Mega Sol, Mega Meganium’s signature ability that makes for the instant Solar Beams. Alright we will try one more battle. One more loss and I’m done until later today, though. I have a feeling we will be doing a lot more forfeiting in this tier…

Right away, we get a perfect matchup for Charizard X. Gardevoir and Heracross come out against Charizard and Heracross. Rotom gets a ton of damage on Gardy and Flame Charge hits Heracross. The Bois gets down spikes and dazzling gleam doesn’t do much (I’m not Mega evolved yet). Cross goes down and my Lizardon is at +2 speed. Shadow Ball finishes Gardevoir. We’re up 4-2. Corviknight comes in and so does Drampa. I decide to double the corviknight but I underestimate how much flare blitz would do. Unfortunately that blanked my Rotom’s turn. I decide why not mega evolve and switch out rotom for Azu. Finally that 2K I invested is gonna pay off! Outrage boosted by Tough Claws! BYE BYE! Yes, Dragonite may have been fine there, but X proved its worth! And lots of achievements! I updated my style finally for another achievement. We’re going for a fifth battle. Can we come out ahead? If we win, I’m gonna spin for another new teammate. If we lose, I’m gonna go cry. Not really. This has been a good day so far in Champions.

It’s Armarouge, Machamp, Victreebel, Greninja, Hydreigon, and Steelix. We’re actually bringing BOTH megas this time, Gallade, and Wash. I think either could be good here. Can Rotom hit Hydro Pump against Steelix? I have Gallade for Hydreigon. Oh, it’s Mega Steelix? Rotom hits! And the Steelix has Sturdy I’m guessing? Either way, awesome! Earthquake kills Galade but it took Hydreigon with it. Dragontie is good here. Rotom is gonna go for Hydro Pump on Machamp because why not. Dragonite is gonna Mega and go for Extreme Speed to finish Steelix. We’re up 3-2. Bullet Punch does nothing to Dragonite and Hydro does over half to the Champ. Rotom has Champ locked in, the Greninja is up to Dragonite. Unfortunately Dragonite doesn’t tank the Ice beam. I thought I’d outspeed, but I forgot how fast Greninja is. Fortunately, Wash hits a THIRD hydro! So it’s two versus one. Can Charizard finish this with Rotom? This is gonna be close. Apparently I underestimated Greninja. Well, we live surf. And rotom finally missed hydro pump. The one downside of Choice Scarf. Charizard didn’t get another hit of Outrage off. And Rotom missed again. Well, it was about time, wasn’t it? And it missed a THIRD TIME! We have two uses left… we are gonna lose to three straight misses? Had just one of those hit, we would have won already… Now it’s too late with Dark Pulse critically hitting… wait, WE LIVE AT FIVE HP AND HYDRO KNOCKS IT OUT! HOLY MOLEY! WASH! YES! THREE MISSES AND WE STILL WIN!?!?

And oh my God we got a Meganium. From the battle pass. Wait, that means… 2K VP later, we have Mega Meganium! Yeah, I’m playing that over Charizard X. Holy crap. OK, recruit time! Bonus pokemon!

We are using 20 tickets. Because why not, we have like a billion of them. And the first choice is Garchomp? Excadrill? Rhyperior? These are all so GOOD! But for me it’s between Excadrill, who’s fast, and Rhyperior’s who’s slow. However, Rhyperior is MUCH harder to obtain and hits harder. I’m taking Rhyperior. No idea how I’m using it yet, but I’m ticketing it.

I just have to say: WHY IS ROTOM WASH SO GOOD!? It misses three times in a row with Hydro Pump, then gets cut down to 5 HP, and then finally decides, hey I’m gonna hit now. Absolutely destroys a Greninja at half health. Just, wow. I’m beside myself with my luck.

Also I caught a Litten this morning on GO. I’m eventually going to bring in my shiny from Scarlet and Violet, but still… this has been an exceptionally good day despite getting absolutely destroyed twice in doubles. I’ll be back later. And we get to play with the same Mega Meganium that wrecked us earlier!