I discovered last night that Mega Floette is one of the best pokemon in champions. It’s locked behind 15 reward battles in the infinity royale in ZA. What fun. I grinded from 8 to 11 last night and got sick of it. So, that’s going on in the background. I don’t plan on using it any time soon, but I wanted to point that out. This morning will be all about the Warn Up challenge and seeing who else we recruit after getting the free Gardevoir, who may factor into our future plans, too. 

Before Emily and I go to the store, I want to get in my recruit and at least a couple of the warmup challenge games. Let’s see what happens. Notably, we will have Whims on our team because I didn’t want to withdraw and submit a new team again. We should be fine, especially as we only need to play three games. It is a warm up after all. 

One interesting thing I should point out is that you can easily get a free reroll worth of quick coupons every day. You get 6 just for logging in. As it is, I had to use one coupon this morning since I was 37 minutes short of cooldown (I woke up kind of early). Fine with me. The selection today: Stunfisk, Bannette, Vanilluxe, Golurk, Dragapult, Excadrill, Castform, Ariados, Furfrou, and Rampardos. I think Dragapult is the easy pick here, although I love that Banette has the title Early Riser, and it’s one of my favorite mons. I paid the 2500 VP for the Pult. Its moveset is kinda meh, but I can fix that later. Not a bad start to today. Notably, once you recruit once a day, you get another 6 coupons. I like this system. You get another 12 for a ranked battle, which obviously we are going to do later. Kind of the point of the game.

OK, so the Warm Up Challenge is actually only double battles. This is fine, as we’ve had a LOT of success in the VGC format lately. In fact, I think having Whims here is solid.

Our first matchup isn’t the best: Meganium, Skarmory, Pelipper, Garchomp, Talonflame, and Basculegion. (Can’t wait to use my shiny Talonflame from ZA…) So we went Rotom, Whims, Dragonite, and Azu. Whims is actually not bad here. They lead Talonflame and Pelipper, as expected. So Volt Switch on Talonflame and Leech Seed on Pelipper. Let’s see what they do. Talonflame sets up Tailwind, and Pelipper immediately KO’s Whims. As expected. But Talonflame is down so it’s 3-3. Decent trade. Dragonite comes out and Rotom then switches back in. Meganium comes in. I’m assuming this is their mega. I go for Volt Switch on Pelipper, as unfortunately the leech seed didn’t do a dang thing. Yeah, Whims probably should’ve switched immediately… my bad. Dragonite is going for Ice Beam on Meganium. Hurricane doesn’t do much to Dragonite, and the Meganium doesn’t evolve, just uses Dazzling Gleam. We bring Pelipper to sash, which is why I wanted to use leech seed. Good idea, bad execution. Meganium takes a boat load, and FINALLY the leech seed procs, taking down the Pelipper! So it DID work out, ah ha! Their last mon is Basculeegion. We ice beam again on Meganium and go for Play Rough on Basculegion. They decide to Mega now? Hmm. They use protect. Bascuelgion eats a berry to go back up to 54% after Azu’s play rough. Last Respects murders Azu. And Meganium uses Solar Beam… yeah, this was another loss to Mega Meganium. Three times I’ve faced it. All three times I’ve lost. Could I have played that better? I think bringing Gengar over Whims was the better choice. I lost 16 ELO points for that loss. Not the end of the world. 

We’re running back the same lineup against another rain team, but this one has Palafin, Golurk, Dragonite, and Sylveon. No Pelipper. They lead Dragontie and Palafin. Not good against my Whims and Rotom! Whims does a decent chunk on Dragonite but Palafin gets off the flip turn. I didn’t realize how fast that pokemon is. They bring in Gengar, which takes a volt switch for decent damage, but it has a sitrus berry. Dragonite ice beams Whims into oblivion. Whims is NOT good in this challenge… Anyway, I mega dragonite and go for ice beam on the other dragonite. I use shadow ball from Rotom on Gengar. We both have Mega Dragonite, and their gengar uses protect. I’m OK with this. Thankfully, our Dragonite is either faster or we won the speed tie. HUGE KO. Their next mon is Golurk, so Ice Beam is good for that too. Golurk does protect, but this is OK. Their gengar uses icy wind, which crits Dragonite, and the speed drop is unfortunate. But their gengar is down. So it’s now Hero Palafin vs my Dragonite, Rotom, and Azu in the back. So I go Shadow Ball on Golurk and Draco on Palafin. Rotom lives the Wave Crash and shadow ball does a boat load to golurk. Draco Meteor absolutely annihilates Palafin. We lose Dragonite to Ice Punch but this is OK. Azu is fully healthy. We win thanks to priority Aqua Jet. They do protect, but this just delays the inevitable. Our first win of the day. We got back to 1501 ELO with that win. OK, let’s get in one more before errands. 

We’re facing the artist formerly known as prince. We’re running back the same four, as Whims SHOULD have a better matchup here. It’s been bad so far. They lead off with Manectric and Charizard. I’m gonna volt switch the Zard and leech seed the manectric. Rotom tanks the thunder bolt, and I totally forgot about lightning rod on manectric… Yeah, this is an auto loss. How did I screw that up so badly? I just forfeited. That was embarrassing. This was three battles, so I guess I’m taking a break until we get back… what a horrible way to lose. We just didn’t have the right mons… how did I forget about that ability?

Anyway I won’t be getting back to champions for a while today. We have a lot of errands to make. So that’s how it goes sometimes. I may be really tired and make some dumb moves due to fatigue later… that will be why. 

…

It was a productive morning, yes. And now I am extremely fatigued. So please bear with me as I stumble through a few more games of the Warm-Up Challenge with a clearly unoptimized team.

I see a Manectric on the opponent’s team and immediately I’m getting flashbacks. Let’s see if a Whims and Gengar lead is a better option, with Dragonite and Azu in the back. They led Manectric and Lucario. I decide to go icy wind and Moonblast the Lucario. The Manectric is their mega, I kind of saw that coming. It gains intimidate, and also uses snarl. Well, this is a bad start. Wow, Mega Manectric may be really good in this format. Whims gets destroyed by Flash Cannon; should’ve thought about that. Clearly this is NOT a good matchup for me, either. I bring in Mega Dragonite and go for fire blast on the lucario. I also chose destiny bond on Gengar, since it’s at half health. They bring in Sylveon for Lucario, not great for me. Fortunately, Sylveon won’t get an attack against Dragonite, since I’ll just switch to Azu after the chip. Manectric then Volt Switches, interesting, for their Gyarados. This is a damn good team. I’m gonna switch out dragonite, after getting a lucky burn on sylveon, for Azu. Gengar goes down, and destiny bond didn’t proc (somehow Gengar got outsped). Well, I’m screwed. This challenge has gone BADLY! I don’t see myself winning this at all. Draco Meteor gets Gyarados pretty low, but yeah. Dragonite goes down and I accept my defeat. Three out of four losses. Yuck. They just had a better team than me here. Rotom wasn’t great here either. Wow, what a horrible day so far.

I’m considering not even playing anymore today. But considering the crazy luck I’ve had the first two days, I gotta play until I win. Rotom and Gengar will lead against this rain team. Perfect lead against Bascuelion and Pelipper. Gengar gets hit down to sash by Wave Crash but KO’s the fish with Shadow Ball. Pelipper smartly U-turns, fortunately hitting Rotom and not my 1 HP gengar. I brought Gallade this time, which is great against Hydreigon. I go for icy wind with gengar for speed control as Mega Meganium comes out. I’m 0-3 against this pokemon remember. Gallade murders the Hydreigon. Solar beam does a ton to Gallade. I decide to destiny bond gengar and gallade goes for leaf blade. Gengar takes Pelipper down with it. So that was a good trade. So it’s Meganium versus Rotom and Dragonite! With Meganium at 56% no way shadow ball and Ice Beam don’t KO. I FINALLY WON! Now I wish I’d switched out Whims for Mega Meganium… that Pokemon took a lot to bring down!

OK, let’s do one more. I want to at least get back to over 1500 ELO. After that, I’ll probably do some singles just to get some ranked action in before I crash and grind ZA Infinite Royale for Mega Floette…

OK ROtom and Gengar vs Rotom (regular) and Dragonite. I go for Volt Switch on Dragonite and Gengar uses Icy Wind. Speed control is really good, as we’ve seen. As I suspected, their Mega is Dragonite, actually only the second Mega Dragonite I’ve seen against me (I won the other time because mine won the speed tie). I bring in Azu, which honestly I should’ve brought in Dragonite. I switch Azu out after its berry for my own Dragonite. Unfortunately my second Icy wind MISSES their dragonite. So I lose Gengar for not much. My Mega Dragonite now needs to win a speed tie most likely. So I DID make the right move, at least. Rotom KO’s the other Rotom with Shadow Ball. Crazy how good that move is. And because of the first icy wind, I outspeed and Ice Beam the other mega into oblivion. Well, that was a nice come back. Here comes Beedrill and Snorlax. Being locked into Shadow Ball kind of sucks against Beedrill. So I just extreme speed the Snorlax. I still have Azumarill in the back, so I just need to chip down their health.  Shadow Ball brings Beedrill to ONE PERCENT! Low roll? I draco meteor to do a ton of damage to snorlax. And snorlax uses earthuqkae… to knock out their own beedrill? Uh, are they just conceding? My rotom did get poisoned, and it’s locked into an ineffective move so I bring Azu back out and draco meteor again. Azu holds on at 3 hp from snorlax’s body slam as my dragonite switches out to reset its -4 special attack. Azu goes for super power against Snorlax. And that’s good enough for the win. Phew. Again, Icy Wind wins me a game. I’m satisfied. Got back to 1503 and had a nice win. Now I’ll earn that Gardevoir and a ton of Quick Coupons I’ll likely never need.

Feeling extremely tired, I decided to be done for now. Those were two very nice wins. Time to go get Mega Floette.