Master of the Maison - a Pokemon Dynasty

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Through 15+ years, 6 generations of games, and over 700 monsters, the Pokemon franchise has remained popular with fans of all ages. In my opinion, the main reason for this is its mix of simplicity and complexity. Its turn-based combat does not require any sort of fast-twitch coordination, and "beating the game" in the traditional sense of defeating the story's final boss trainers does not require excessive amounts of strategy or level grinding from your party, but playing at a high level against other players requires equal parts preparation in creating a team able to handle any number of possible strategies and a poker-like amount of bluffing/prediction throughout the actual match.

Similarly, the Pokemon themselves strike that same balance, staying away from hardcore amounts of skill tree/crafting-esque min-maxing, while maintaining plenty of opportunities for customization once one understands some of the game's inner mechanics. This dynasty will chronicle my attempts to crack the most strategically taxing challenge the single-player mode of the game has to offer, the Battle Maison.

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The Battle Maison challenge, unlocked after completing the main story mode in Pokemon X and Y version, consists of trying to put together the longest winning streak against a series of random opponents. These battles are more difficult than any against the in-game opponents you'll encounter for a variety of reasons, most notably because you can't just grind your Pokemon to be a higher level than your opponents'.

However, the battles are much easier than you'd find against competent human opponents because 1) the AI is much simpler (we're a ways off from having a Pokemon version of Deep Blue) and 2) the Battle Maison trainers can use hundreds of different Pokemon, many of which are strictly outclassed by the Pokemon most often used in competitive settings.

As a matter of fact, it can be quite elementary to put together a team of the most overwhelmingly powerful Pokemon allowed that has about a 99% chance of winning any given match. Against actual people, the best of the best players typically win 80+ percent of their matches. However, if you're trying to win hundreds of battles in a row in the Battle Maison, it's inevitable you'll run into some of the game's random luck elements that will bring your streak to a crashing halt. Minimizing your exposure to luck presents a unique teambuilding challenge that requires optimization of every single element you have control over.

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As part of Pokemon's "something for everyone" appeal, you have your monsters that are supposed to be cute like Pikachu as well as ones that are supposed to look super intimidating and badass. Underneath all of that, a Pokemon's usefulness in battle is based on these factors, which I'll try to quickly bring you up to speed on using this example:


1.Type. A Pokemon can have 1 or 2 out of the 18 possible types, and all attacks have a type as well. This operates on a Rock-Paper-Scissors type of system where all attacks have a x0, x0.5, x1, or x2 damage multiplier against a certain type. When a Pokemon has two types, an attack's effectiveness is multiplied against both of those types. For example, Fire-type attacks are super effective (x2 multiplier) against Ice-type Pokemon and not very effective (x0.5 multiplier) against Water-type Pokemon, so a Fire-type move against a Water/Ice type Pokemon would do normal (x1) damage. Additionally, attacks that are the same type as the user receive a 50% damage bonus.

2. Stats. Each species of Pokemon has a base value for each of the stats listed (HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed). While this gives a general footprint, there's a lot of variation introduced through individual values (the Pokemon equivalent of genes, all of these are optimized for both my Pokemon and the opponents' in the Maison, so I won't go into too much detail there), natures (which raise one stat and reduce another by 10%), and effort values (essentially a limited amount of bonus stat points you can spend as you please).

As an example of the variation both within and among individuals, the Glalie in the screenshot above has the same base stat (80) for Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. As you'll see later, these stats can be modified (from a 0.25x to a 4x multiplier) by certain battle conditions. Additionally, Pokemon have Accuracy and Evasion multipliers, which all start out at 1x, that affect the likelihood of an attack connecting.

As far as how these stats are used in battle, HP is the old RPG standby; if you run out, you're dead. In addition to having a type, attacking moves can be either physical (the straightforward punching, hitting type of moves) or special (equivalent to elemental/magic attacks in other RPGs). Attack/Defense is a measure of a Pokemon's ability to dish out or take physical attacks, and likewise for the special counterparts. Speed is perhaps the most important stat for a turn-based RPG, determining which Pokemon gets to move first; if both Pokemon have the same Speed, the turn order is a coinflip.

3. Ability. These are passive traits that can take on any number of different effects. The best abilities can make Pokemon with mediocre stats among the most fearsome characters in the game, and the worst ones can completely neuter Pokemon with top-tier stats and attacks. Pokemon can only have one ability at a time, but some species of Pokemon can potentially have one of up to three different abilities which may significantly affect the optimal strategy to use against them.

4. Item. Each Pokemon is allowed to hold an item, which can confer offensive or defensive benefits. Item choice is extra important because using any of the potions or healing items that are prevalent during the story mode is prohibited in the Battle Maison, and no two Pokemon on your team may hold the same item.

After these four, each Pokemon can use up to four attacks. The aforementioned physical and special attacks can vary by their base power, accuracy, Power Points (the number of times in a battle they can be used), and side effects. They can also land critical hits, which deal 50% more damage while also bypassing any defensive boosts the target may have. These two categories combined are much smaller than the third category, status moves. Status moves are broadly categorized as any attack that does not directly cause damage, and can buff/debuff yours or your opponents' stats, afflict opponents with passive conditions, or introduce new field effects (such as summoning a downpour or extreme sunlight), to name just a few. Status moves are by far the most important category of attacks in the Battle Maison, since the diversity of Pokemon (and by extension, the myriad critical hits and rare side effects) you may face means that you absolutely want to limit the amount of hits your team members must take.

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As I alluded to earlier, bringing three powerhouse Pokemon and blasting away isn't the best strategy for the Maison due to the amount of imperfect information present in each match. While each possible opponent has a roster of Pokemon with known stats, items, and moves (compiled by other players here and here), there's no way of knowing beforehand which three Pokemon you'll be facing.

A few top-tier Pokemon are capable of making short work of the opponent's entire team all by themselves, but every Pokemon will run into nightmare matchups. The first monster you send out may have a good matchup against all three of your opponent's team members in a vacuum, but if it gets weakened enough by the first two Pokemon to get KOed by the third (or suffers from some unfortunate luck along the way), you might find youself with the tables completely turned if your remaining two Pokemon have a bad matchup.

A common countermeasure for this is to use a strategy that puts all your eggs in one basket, offering one or two Pokemon as sacrificial pawns to put your third in as good a position as possible to boost its stats to the point that it can singlehandedly take on the opposing team. No Pokemon is better at offering this support than Durant.



Compared to Glalie, we see that Durant (yes, Kevin Durant was a well-known commodity before this Pokemon was introduced) is much less well-rounded statwise. Its HP and special stats are abysmal while everything else is well above average. Its dual typing of Bug/Steel is quite nice defensively; it's only weak to Fire (but since both Bug and Steel are weak to Fire, Fire attacks get a 4x multiplier), and 9 of the remaining 17 types hit it for 0.5x damage or less). Its ability, Truant, is what makes it gamebreaking for the Battle Maison. Truant is what I had in mind when I mentioned that the worst abilities in the game can neuter otherwise outstanding Pokemon - every time the Pokemon with that ability attacks, it must spend the following turn sitting around doing nothing. So why would I want to handicap Durant with such a terrible ability?

That's where the move Entrainment comes in. Entrainment changes the opponent's ability to match the user's. Against another human, this is a pretty lame gimmick because your opponent can just switch to another Pokemon after one turn of sitting around doing nothing. One free turn for your own Pokemon can be extremely valuable, but it's often not worth the cost of sacrificing a teammate. However, the AI in the Battle Maison is extremely loathe to switch Pokemon under any circumstances, which you can abuse to the fullest.

Durant holds the item Choice Scarf, which multiplies the user's Speed stat by 1.5 at the cost of only allowing it to use one of its moves until it is KOed or switches out, to make it faster than any Pokemon encountered in the Battle Maison, allowing it to use Entrainment before being KOed. Once Durant has successfully saddled another Pokemon with the Truant ability, the path to victory becomes extremely clear. Just about every single Pokemon can learn the status move Protect, which renders the user invulnerable to any attack during the turn, but doesn't work when used multiple turns in a row. From the simple combination of using Protect on the turns your Truant opponent attacks and using a stat-boosting move on the turns it doesn't, lots of Pokemon are transformed into fearsome juggernauts. However, a variety of tactics can prevent your maximally boosted Pokemon from ravaging through the remaining two opposing team members:

Quick Claw - This item, when held, gives a Pokemon a 20% chance of moving first on a given turn regardless of its Speed. While this isn't a disaster on its own if your Pokemon can take a hit, a 1-2 punch of Quick Claw and a critical hit, unlucky side effect, or anything listed below will prove fatal.

Focus Sash - This item, when held, allows a Pokemon that has 100% health to survive an attack that would normally KO it with 1 HP remaining. In other words, Pokemon with this item are getting one hit in and there's not much you can do about it. There are a few obscure moves that hit multiple times in a turn that can work around this, but not many good Pokemon learn them.

Sturdy - This ability grants the same effect as Focus Sash, but it can be bypassed by using a Pokemon with the ability Mold Breaker.

Lax Incense/Bright Powder - These items, when held, increase a Pokemon's evasion by 10%, so even if your attack normally has 100% accuracy, you can still miss and leave yourself vulnerable. This can be counteracted by using moves that raise Accuracy.

Good old-fashioned defensive toughness - since the Pokemon you're using has to devote at least two moveslots to Protect + [stat-boosting move], there's a pretty good chance you could end up facing some defensive behemoth that can take what you're throwing at it. With so many possible combinations of Pokemon types, in addition to some defensive abilities like Flash Fire (immunity to Fire moves), Volt Absorb (Electric), and Sap Sipper (Grass), not too many attacks have zero Pokemon that are immune to them. Even if you use a second type of attack that offers nice synergy, that leaves you lacking any way of patching up your defenses to take a hit in case Quick Claw et al. show up.

[sterlingice]

I'll be reading

I know a little bit about this scene but mostly vicariously as I never had the patience to EV and level grind.

SI

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Originally Posted by sterlingice

I'll be reading

I know a little bit about this scene but mostly vicariously as I never had the patience to EV and level grind.

SI

The nice thing is that most of the Pokemon I use work perfectly well with "standard" EV spreads (the maximum number of points dumped into 2 stats) but yes, that stuff is enough of a grind that I make sure to have carefully thought through how a Pokemon will perform before committing to all the breeding, EVing, and such. Luckily, I've bought so many Rare Candies with Battle Points from the Maison that the leveling part is trivial

I'll try to upload some interesting battle videos for you (and anyone else that has a 3DS). Unfortunately, the easiest way for non-3DS users to view them would be for me to record the battle videos with my own camera and then upload it to YouTube, but I'll think about that if there's enough demand.

[sterlingice]

Also, the poker analogy is interesting as I hadn't thought about it. With walls, sweepers, etc, I just thought about it more as a cascading rock-paper-scissors with the cascading part being pretty darn important.

SI

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Since no one Pokemon possesses the perfect combination of attributes necessary to overcome all potential obstacles I listed (duh, otherwise making a good team would be way too easy and not worth writing about), it becomes a matter of determining an tolerable amount of risk.

For an effective Durant partner(s), this much is absolutely necessary:

*Protect - pretty much every single Pokemon learns this, so not a limiting factor. Needed to become invulnerable to attacks from the Pokemon with Truant

*Stat Boosting - The more stats that can be boosted, the better. Defense and Special Defense boosts are probably the least important due to the potential for critical hits to render them irrelevant. Boosting either Attack or Special Attack, depending on the moves you're going to use, is crucial for powering through Pokemon that would normally offer heavy resistance. Speed is essential to make sure nothing can touch you before you fire off an attack, but keep in mind that a Pokemon with a Quick Claw has a 20% chance of making any speed advantage useless. Raising your Accuracy helps eliminate the potential for an attack to miss due to Bright Powder or Lax Incense, but not many moves boost that stat. Lastly, having boosted Evasion can be nice, but opponents can still get lucky and hit you.

Dragon Dance - Boosts Attack and Speed one stage (maximally boosting a stat requires an increase of 6 stages). This is probably the most straightforward route. The Pokemon that learn this move tend to already have pretty high Attack and Speed stats, so six Dragon Dances will push them into overkill territory.

Quiver Dance - Boosts Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed one stage. This is the only move that boosts both Special Attack and Speed. Unfortunately, only 8 Pokemon learn this move, and they're all Bug types. Bugs have two main problems: 1) seven different types resist bug moves, with quite a few commonly-seen type combinations doubly resisting them and 2) six different Pokemon seen in the Battle Maison can have an ability (Soundproof) that grants them an immunity to the most common Bug-type special attack, Bug Buzz.

Shell Smash - Boosts Attack, Special Attack and Speed two stages while reducing Defense and Special Defense one stage. An extra speedy way of boosting all the major offensive stats, but the defensive drops mean you'd better be able to one-hit KO everything, or else you'll be KOed in return. Distribution of this move is limited as well, with fewer than a dozen Pokemon capable of learning it.

Hone Claws - Boosts Accuracy and Attack one stage. Notable for being one of the two moves that boosts Accuracy. The lack of Speed boosting can be offset by combining Hone Claws with one of a few increased priority moves, which allow the user to always move first (unless a faster opponent is also using a priority move). Hundreds of Pokemon can learn Hone Claws.

Calm Mind - Boosts Special Attack and Special Defense one stage. An inferior version of Quiver Dance, but many more Pokemon learn Calm Mind. One downside to using special attacks in the Maison is that all methods of getting around Pokemon with Sturdy and/or Focus Sash (multi-hit moves and Pokemon with the ability Mold Breaker) are physically oriented.

Coil - Boosts Attack, Defense, and Accuracy one stage. Sounds awesome, but only 5 fully-evolved Pokemon can learn it, and all 5 attack using a type that several Pokemon are immune to.

Acupressure - Boosts a random stat two stages. Only 7 Pokemon learn this, but it's got everything you can possibly need. The main problem's the randomness; as you'll see, it's not always possible to boost your stats for the 21 turns necessary to boost all 7 stats to the max. A fully-Acupressured Pokemon isn't unbeatable, but it's close.

*Attacking power - You want to be able to cover as many Pokemon as possible with a single move. Only 7 of the 18 attacking types have 0 Pokemon that are immune to them: Flying, Steel, Dark, Ice, Fairy, Rock, and Bug, so a Pokemon with one of those types (to grant those moves the 1.5x bonus) in combination with the ability to boost its stats would be optimal. However, the quality of moves available for a certain type make a difference too, as illustrated by Bug Buzz. Rock can also be ruled out as a primary attacking type, as none of the strongest Rock-type attacks have 100% accuracy.

*Staying power - Ideally, the boosted Pokemon will not have to take any hits, but luck won't always pan out that way. While boosting your defensive stats can help, it's not always a failsafe thanks to critical hits and OHKO moves such as Sheer Cold, Guillotine, and Fissure. These moves have only 30% accuracy, but can automatically KO you regardless of your defensive boosts. There are a couple stopgap measures against this - the item Focus Sash and the move Substitute. Substitute takes away 25% of your Pokemon's hit points to create a decoy that blocks almost every status move thrown at it and prevents you from taking any additional health damage until it's broken. With proper prediction, this can be an extremely helpful move. Pokemon with the ability Infiltrator ignore Substitutes, so it's not always better than a Focus Sash.

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With all that said, here are some of the most reliable team members I've used (images courtesy of the website Smogon):

Cloyster

The combination that makes Cloyster so deadly is its access to Shell Smash, the move Icicle Spear (physical Ice attack, 100% accuracy, hits 2-5 times each turn, 25 base power per hit), and the ability Skill Link (all multi-hit moves always hit 5 times). Shell Smash transforms it from a physically defensive tank with mediocre stats elsewhere to an absolute speed demon. For a Pokemon to survive Icicle Spear's 5 hits, it's going to need to resist Ice (which Water, Fire, Steel and Ice types do) and have extremely high defenses to boot. Cloyster doesn't want to take any hits at all, and uses a Focus Sash as insurance for any unlucky misses or Quick Claw activations.

For the 4th move (besides Shell Smash, Protect, and Icicle Spear), Cloyster has a couple options for the rare occasion it won't be using Icicle Spear; Rock Blast is a Rock-type move identical to Icicle Spear, but with 90% accuracy, and Surf is a special Water attack with 90 base power and 100 accuracy. Rock Blast can take out just about any wall that would survive Icicle Spear, but the accuracy may leave you out to dry at the worst possible time. The main benefit to Surf is its ability to expedite battles against a lead Pokemon that boosts its Defense when Cloyster is setting up.

Mega Gyarados


Like Cloyster, Gyarados is another one of the original 150 Pokemon. It's traditionally been one of the stronger Pokemon, but Mega Evolution, a feature introduced in the most recent installments of the series, takes it to another level. Certain Pokemon holding a special item (in this case, a Gyaradosite), gain the ability to trigger a one-time transformation each battle into a new Mega form that may have higher stats, a new ability, and even a different type combination.

Mega Gyarados's ability Mold Breaker allows it to bypass Sturdy and abilities such as Storm Drain and Water Absorb to hit every single Pokemon with a Water-type move. The best physical Water move it gets is Waterfall (80 power, 100% accuracy, 20% chance to make the opponent flinch and not move if slower than the user). With Dragon Dance, Substitute, Waterfall, and Protect, it can hit nearly as hard as Cloyster while maintaining good defenses. For example, if Cloyster got unlucky and took a hit, it'd only have 1 HP remaining, leaving it vulnerable to any Pokemon with a priority move, while Gyarados's Substitute would keep it at high enough health to take a second hit if need be. One drawback compared to Cloyster is the fact that Waterfall makes contact with the opponent. Certain Pokemon have defensive abilities that have a chance of triggering when an opponent makes contact with them. Static has a 30% chance of paralyzing an opponent making a contact move, Flame Body has a 30% chance of burning, Poison Point has a 30% chance of poisoning, and Effect Spore has a 30% chance of either paralyzing, poisoning, or putting you to sleep. These status conditions can shut down Gyarados (or any Pokemon) before it gets going.

Paralysis - a paralyzed Pokemon has its Speed stat reduced to 25% of its original value and also has a 25% chance of being "fully paralyzed" and not moving each turn.
Burn - a burned Pokemon has its Attack stat cut in half and loses 1/8th of its HP each turn. If Gyarados gets burned and then faces a wall that resists Water attacks, it may be KOed by Burn damage before it can KO the final opponent.
Poison - Poisoned Pokemon lose 1/8th of their HP at the end of each turn. With no other effect, this one is manageable.
Sleep - Sleeping Pokemon do nothing for a random (1-3) amount of turns before waking up and being back to normal. That's more than enough turns for something to KO you if you're unlucky.

Drapion

Drapion's stats are nothing to write home about, but its Dark/Poison typing leaves it weak to only Ground attacks. The main attraction here is its combination of Acupressure and Dark type attacks, which have no immunities. The ability Battle Armor, which prevents non-Mold Breaker Pokemon from landing critical hits on Drapion, is icing on the cake. When Drapion goes on the offensive, it uses the attack Knock Off (physical Dark type, 65 power, 100% accuracy, does 50% more damage and removes the item when used against a Pokemon holding an item). Knock Off is one of the best moves in the game, packing a decent punch while disarming any Pokemon that survives it. If Drapion gets completely boosted, you're golden, save for Pokemon with the ability Unaware, which ignores all of your stat boosts. Fortunately, only one Pokemon in the entire Battle Maison can have that ability. Drapion holds the item Black Sludge, which passively recovers 1/16th of its maximum HP each turn, so it can continually replenish its health to make as many Substitutes as necessary.

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Also, the poker analogy is interesting as I hadn't thought about it. With walls, sweepers, etc, I just thought about it more as a cascading rock-paper-scissors with the cascading part being pretty darn important.

SI

Yeah, it's more pronounced against another person when you don't know for sure which attacks or EVs the other Pokemon will have ("Did they just send out this Pokemon that my Pokemon normally beats because it has an uncommon move that will surprise me, or do they just want me to think that?"), but the most relevant aspect is that the RNG can create situations similar to when you get screwed over by the river card in Texas Hold'em even though you've made all the right moves beforehand.

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I'm gonna start chronicling my streak at battle 51, since this is the point that the difficulty bumps up and it's only possible to encounter the strongest trainers. I'll have Drapion and Cloyster backing up Durant; Cloyster will be the quick and easy option, while I'll bring out Drapion when more caution is needed.

For quick reference

Durant
Item: Choice Scarf
Jolly nature (+10% Speed, -10% Special Attack)
EVs maximizing HP and Speed
-Entrainment
-X-Scissor (physical Bug move, 80 power, 100% accuracy)
-Rock Slide (physical Rock move, 75 power, 90% accuracy, 30% chance of causing a flinch)
-Iron Head (physical Steel move, 80 power, 100% accuracy, 30% chance of causing a flinch)

Drapion
Item: Black Sludge
Adamant nature (+10% attack, -10% Special Attack)
EVs maximizing HP and Attack
-Substitute
-Protect
-Acupressure
-Knock Off

Cloyster
Item: Focus Sash
Adamant nature (+10% Attack, -10% Special Attack)
EVs maximizing Attack and Speed
-Protect
-Shell Smash
-Icicle Spear
-Surf

In the best-case scenario, battles will go down like this:

Turn 1: Durant uses Entrainment, the opponent attacks it
Turn 2: Switch in Cloyster as the opponent does nothing due to Truant
Turns 3-8: Cloyster alternates using Protect and Shell Smash to not take any damage.
Turns 9-11: Cloyster KOes the three opponents

In battles such as these, the victory is 100% in the preparation, so I'll only summarize the battles where some extra thinking is required.

Battles 51-60

Spoiler

51. standard victory for Cloyster

52.The first Pokemon out is Exeggutor, a Grass/Psychic type I must pay special attention to. Exeggutor will often use Trick Room, a status move that essentially reverses the turn order (making slower Pokemon move first) for 5 turns. It also has the move Explosion, an extremely powerful (250 base power) Normal-type move that also KOs the user. Trick Room followed by Explosion would allow the opponent to bring in another Pokemon that isn't handicapped with Truant, and I'd likely be "slower" than it and unable to boost stats thanks to Trick Room. Exeggutor is the main reason Durant has the move X-Scissor. Bug moves have 4x effectiveness against the Exeggutor, so it rather than Entrainment an easy KO.

The 2nd Pokemon out is Trevenant, a Grass/Ghost type. Trevenant has the moves Trick Room, Focus Blast (special Fighting move, 120 power, 70% accuracy, 5 PP, 10% chance of lowering Special Defense one stage), Energy Ball (special Grass move, 90 power, 100% accuracy, 10% chance of lowering Special Defense one stage), and Shadow Ball (special Ghost move, 80 power, 100% accuracy, 20% chance of lowering Special Defense one stage). Trevenant holds the item Iron Ball, which reduces its Speed by 50%; its MO is to set up Trick Room to become "fast" and start attacking. Since Durant can't do anything this turn thanks to Truant, I switch it out for Drapion. As I predict, Trevenant uses Trick Room on the turn I switched and is now faster than Drapion. Drapion's got a pretty good matchup still because it resists Ghost and Grass, meaning Trevenant only has 5 chances to do any real damage to it with the inaccurate Focus Blast. I choose Protect to make Trevenant use one of its Focus Blast PP and waste one of its Trick Room turns. Next, I use Substitute; Trevenant's Focus Blast misses first and after Black Sludge recovers some of Drapion's health, it has 144/177 HP remaining along with the decoy that can take a hit. I Protect and waste the 3rd Focus Blast of 5 and use Acupressure the following turn as Focus Blast breaks the Substitute. Acupressure boosts Special Attack this turn, so pretty useless. Trick Room's now expired, so Drapion uses Substitute again as Trevenant sets up a new Trick Room. One more Protect and Trevenant's all out of Focus Blasts to use. Energy Ball's the next strongest move it has, and it can't break Drapion's Substitute in one hit - that gives Drapion ample time to boost its stats over the next few turns. I decide to start attacking early once I pick up two Attack boosts, since the rest of my team is at full health to back Drapion up. Knock Off takes out Trevenant in one shot and does the same for Seismitoad, a Water/Ground type.

53. The lead Pokemon is Cradily, a defensively-oriented Rock/Grass type (the only Pokemon with that combination I'll encounter). This battle is only noteworthy because Cradily uses Protect the first turn; just as Protect makes me invulnerable to attacks every other turn, it prevents Cradily from getting Truant passed onto it. If the AI was smart, anything with Protect could take out Durant by using the same strategy of attacking every other turn, but Cradily can't do too much damage to Durant and eventually doesn't use Protect as I use Entrainment. From there, it's a routine setup for Cloyster, which takes out Cradily, Claydol (a slow, defensive Ground/Psychic) and Tangrowth (a slow Grass type with very high physical defense); Tangrowth holds a Lax Incense, so Icicle Spear had a 10% chance of missing, so I got "lucky" that time (even so, Cloyster would have had to miss twice in a row thanks to its Focus Sash). If I really needed to, I could have set up Drapion against Cradily without even needing Cradily to be afflicted with Truant, but there are several other Pokemon with the move Protect that can be more dangerous to my strategy.

54. Cloyster sets up, but the 2nd Pokemon is Bastiodon, a Rock/Steel type with high Defense and Special Defense and bad stats elsewhere. It may be the only Pokemon in the Maison that can't be KOed by +6 Attack Icicle Spear or Rock Blast, since it resists both Ice and Rock. Surf does enough damage to easily one-shot it, but one of Bastiodon's 2 abilities is Sturdy, so I may have to take a hit no matter what. This time, the Bastiodon is Sturdy, so it survives with 1 HP, but it used the status move Curse (Raises Attack and Defense 1 stage, lowers Speed 1 Stage), so Cloyster remained unscathed. The next Pokemon was Eelektross, an Electric type that Cloyster could have taken out even if Bastiodon had gotten a hit off on it.

55. Only thing worth noting was that the 3rd Pokemon was Talonflame a speedy Fire/Flying type that has a 50% chance of having the ability Gale Wings (Gives increased priority to any of the user's Flying-type moves). Gale Wings allowed it to use the move Brave Bird (physical Flying, 120 power, 100 accuracy, 1/3rd of the damage dealt is recoil for the user) to do heavy damage to Cloyster before it could move. If Cloyster didn't have a Focus Sash to prevent the KO, it could've been beaten.

56. The first Pokemon out is Unfezant, a nondescript Normal/Flying type.. or so I think until it uses Protect the first turn. Since the Unfezant in the Maison doesn't have that attack, it tips me off that I'm actually facing the Pokemon Zoroark, a Dark type with the ability Illusion (disguises itself as another team member). I keep Durant in to take Dark Pulse (special Dark, 80 power, 100% accuracy, 20% chance of causing a flinch) from Zoroark, which deals heavy damage despite not hitting super-effectively as Durant does nothing the next turn. On turn 3, Zoroark doesn't use Protect, electing to KO Durant with a second Dark Pulse after Durant uses Entrainment successfully. To play it safe (because I know the Unfezant that will show up later holds Bright Powder), I set up Drapion. Zoroark is coincidentally another Pokemon whose most damaging move against Drapion is Focus Blast, so the rest of the battle is routine.

57. standard until the 3rd Pokemon Lapras, a Water/Ice type with an very high HP stat, shows up. Lapras takes 0.25x damage from Ice moves and can potentially have the ability Water Absorb (immunity to Water attacks, and 25% of maximum HP is restored when hit by one), so it walls Cloyster like none other. It's one of the more annoying battle Maison Pokemon, so I'll break its attacks down in more detail:
Perish Song a status move that gives each Pokemon on the field a 3 turn countdown until they are automatically KOed. Beating this typically requires a switch to something that can do heavy damage, but...
Block - prevents your Pokemon from switching out, unless the Pokemon is Ghost-type, has a Substitute or holds the item Shed Shell.
Body Slam a Normal-type physical attack with 80 power, 100% accuracy, and a 30% chance to paralyze the target.
Rest recovers all of a Pokemon's HP at the cost of making it fall asleep for 2 turns

Lapras also holds the item Chesto Berry which provides a one-time instant awakening for falling asleep. When it shows up last it's not a problem; in this case it used Body Slam (which didn't paralyze Cloyster) followed by Perish Song, and during this time Cloyster took it out with 3 Icicle Spears. However, it can be a pretty big pain if I run into it as the 1st or 2nd team member.

58. standard victory for Cloyster

59. standard victory for Cloyster

60. standard victory for Cloyster

Battles 61-70

Spoiler

61. standard Cloyster victory

62. standard Cloyster victory

63. The lead Pokemon Goodra, a Dragon-type with good all-around stats and high Special Defense, KOes Durant the first turn with Fire Blast (special Fire, 110 power, 85% accuracy, 20% chance to cause a burn), so I play it safe and set up Drapion. Setting up doesn't make me use too many of the 16 PP I have for Substitute because Goodra's strongest move against Drapion (the 130 power special Dragon attack Draco Meteor) has the side effect of lowering its Special Attack two stages. After using Acupressure 16 times, Drapion attacks Goodra with Knock Off, which it survives with under 20% of its health. Usually it KOs, so I know to use Acupressure a couple more times to get another Attack boost. Next up is Bastiodon once again. Drapion doesn't KO, but Bastiodon's Rock Slide attack misses thanks to Drapion's boosted Evasion and the 2nd Knock Off does it in. The third Pokemon is Sylveon, a Fairy-type with high Special stats. Even though Fairy resists Dark-type attacks, Drapion's boosted Knock Off is still strong enough to take it out in one hit.

64. standard Cloyster victory

65. First Pokemon out for the opponent is Chandelure a Fire/Ghost type with extremely high Special Attack. Durant uses Entrainment before being roasted by Chandlure's Heat Wave (special Fire, 95 power, 90% accuracy, 10% chance to cause a burn). Since the trainer I'm up against is a specific class (Punk Girl) that mostly uses Fire, Poison, and Dark types, I decide to set up Cloyster anyway because not many Pokemon on this trainer's roster give much trouble. No shenanigans on the 2nd and 3rd Pokemon, as Skuntank (Dark/Poison) and Toxicroak (Poison/Fighting) are dispatched by Icicle Spear.

66. standard Cloyster victory

67. standard Cloyster victory

68. The first Pokemon is Floatzel, a speedy Water type with low defenses. Its Attack stat is mediocre, but the item Life Orb (30% damage boost to all attacking moves at the expense of 10% of the holder's health each time it attacks) mitigates that. It uses Protect the first turn to fend off Entrainment and then uses Waterfall to take a little less than half of Durant's health. On the third turn it uses Protect once again, and I'm faced with the possibility of letting Durant get KOed without crippling Floatzel if the next hit does slightly more damage than the first. I switch to Cloyster, and Floatzel's Waterfall does little damage thanks to Water types resisting Water moves and Cloyster's naturally high defense. Cloyster then uses Shell Smash after taking a Low Kick (physical Fighting, power ranges from 40 to 120 depending on how much the target weighs), 100% accuracy. Even though Fighting moves are super effective against Ice, Cloyster survives with 18/126 HP and takes out the frail Floatzel with a +2 Icicle Spear the following turn. The 2nd Pokemon is Leafeon, a Grass type with high Defense and good Attack. Cloyster can KO the Leafeon with Icicle Spear, but Leafeon's Quick Claw gives it a 20% chance of being able to strike first. Fortunately, this doesn't happen. The 3rd Pokemon, Escavalier, is a very slow Bug/Steel type with high Attack. Cloyster can't KO it at +2 since Steel resists Ice, but it's more than done its job to clinch this battle. Icicle Spear does about 50% to Escavalier, which then takes Cloyster out. Durant is able to use Entrainment on Escavalier, and then I bring in Drapion to alternate Protect and Knock Off to finish Escavalier off.

69. I face a lead Golem (slow Rock/Ground with good physical and bad Special stats). Golem's got Explosion, so once Durant uses Entrainment, I try to bring in Cloyster to set up as much as possible before it takes itself out. However, Golem uses Explosion the first turn Cloyster uses Protect. Now it's essentially 3 on 2 with Cloyster out against Aerodactyl. Aerodactyl's Rock/Flying and is one of the faster Pokemon in the game with 130 base speed. It holds the item Choice Band which gives a 50% boost to its Attack stat at the cost of restricting its ability to change moves. I know Stone Edge (physical Rock, 100 power, 80% accuracy, increased chance for a critical hit) is coming, so Cloyster uses Shell Smash. Cloyster survives with 1 HP thanks to Focus Sash, and outspeeds Aerodactyl the following turn to KO it with Icicle Spear. Pokemon #3 is Hariyama, a Fighting type with high HP. Hariyama's got an increased priority move (Bullet Punch, physical Steel, 40 power, 100% accuracy), so it finishes off Cloyster before it can move, but that's no biggie as Durant can then come back in and use Entrainment to let Drapion safely KO Hariyama.

70. This battle's against one of the Veteran trainers, who exclusively use rare "legendary" Pokemon which tend to have higher stats. After Cloyster sets up, the 2nd Pokemon is Cobalion, a bulky Fighting/Steel type that's able to survive whatever Cloyster can throw at it. It survives +6 Icicle Spear with about 1/4th of its health remaining and retaliates with Focus Blast to bring Cloyster to its last hit point. Fortunately,after Cloyster finishes off Cobalion, the 3rd Pokemon Cresselia is unable to exact revenge.

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Battles 71-80

Spoiler

71. Standard Cloyster victory

72. Standard Cloyster victory

73. Standard Cloyster victory

74. Standard Cloyster victory. The first Pokemon, Latias (fast Psychic/Dragon type with good Special stats) holds Bright Powder, but Durant didn't miss Entrainment.

75. Standard Cloyster victory

76. Standard Cloyster victory (that's more like it! These dicey battles are usually much rarer)

77. A Veteran's Thundurus (fast and powerful Electric/Flying type) takes out Durant with Thunderbolt(special Electric attack, 90 power, 100% accuracy, 10% chance to paralyze), so I set up Drapion. Once fully boosted with Acupressure, Drapion takes out all three Pokemon in one hit; the third Pokemon (another Electric/Flying type, Zapdos) held a Bright Powder which was useless thanks to the Accuracy boosts Drapion had.

78. The first Pokemon out is Eelektross, which I've mentioned before. Eelektross has the move Flamethrower (special Fire, 90 power, 100% accuracy, 10% chance to burn), so it KOs Durant on turn 1. I still set up Cloyster because this trainer is a Roller Skater, whose rosters of Pokemon tend to be filled with fast but defensively challenged Pokemon, few of which resist Icicle Spear. Surely enough, the final two Pokemon are both Flying types weak to Ice moves; Cloyster needs only 1 of Icicle Spear's 5 hits to KO them.

79. Standard Cloyster victory

80. Standard Cloyster victory

Battles 81-90

Spoiler

81. standard Cloyster victory

82. standard Cloyster victory. The 3rd Pokemon, Spiritomb, a slow Dark/Ghost type with decent stats elsewhere, is noteworthy as another rare priority move user. Its Sucker Punch is a physical Dark priority move with 80 power and 100% accuracy, with the catch being that it only works if the target is preparing to use an attack rather than a status move. Spiritomb didn't use Sucker Punch this time and got KOed, but if the 2nd Pokemon had done any damage to Cloyster, Sucker Punch could have finished it off.

83. standard Cloyster victory

84. standard Cloyster victory. Durant was KOed turn 1 by a critical hit Focus Blast from Psychic/Fairy Gardevoir that it'd have survived otherwise.

85. my opponent leads off with the Pokemon Espeon. Espeon is the only other Pokemon besides Exeggutor (see battle 52) that requires me to use X-Scissor rather than Entrainment with Durant since Espeon can potentially have the ability Magic Bounce, which reflects all status moves targeted at it back to the user. Luckily Espeon is a Psychic type and weak to Bug, so X-Scissor takes it out in one hit. The Dark/Ground Pokemon Krookodile comes out next, and since Durant's locked into using X-Scissor I switch it out for Drapion. Krookodile hits the incoming Drapion for about 30 damage with Low Sweep (physical Fighting, 60 power, 100% accuracy, lowers the target's Speed one stage). I want to switch back to Durant so it can use Entrainment, but first I use Protect with Drapion to get a better idea of what Krookodile might use. Krookodile uses Earthquake (physical Ground, 100 power, 100 accuracy). While this would do a ton of damage to Drapion, it can't KO Durant even with a critical hit, so I switch Durant back in and use Entrainment. Cloyster sets up and wins from there.

86.standard Cloyster victory

87. Durant is KOed by Fire-type Typhlosion's Lava Plume (special Fire, 80 power, 100% accuracy, 30% chance to cause a burn), so Drapion sets up. The final two Pokemon are both things a boosted Cloyster could have handled without a problem. That would've saved a few minutes of set-up time, but better safe than sorry.

88. I face a Hex Maniac trainer (users of Ghost and Psychic types). Drapion can eat these from breakfast since Knock Off hits Ghosts and Psychics super effectively and Dark types are immune to Psychic attacks, but I choose to set up Cloyster because it's faster. The 2nd Pokemon that comes out is Mismagius a Ghost type that uses a similar annoying strategy involving Perish Song to the Lapras seen in battle 57. Mismagius holds Bright Powder, but the 10% opportunity for it get lucky doesn't come to fruition, and Cloyster ends up unscathed.

89. standard Cloyster victory

90. The lead is Bastiodon, which uses Curse a few times as Cloyster sets up; without Sturdy, it's helpless to Surf. The 2nd Pokemon is Carracosta, which Cloyster really doesn't like to see. Carracosta is a Rock/Water tortoise with low Speed and high Defense. It survives +6 Icicle Spear, and it has a 1 in 3 chance of having Sturdy to prevent Surf from KOing. Carracosta can actually beat Cloyster straight up if it survives the first turn and hits Cloyster with Rock Slide since it can then follow up with the priority move Aqua Jet (physical Water, 40 power, 100% accuracy). This time, it doesn't have Sturdy so Cloyster gets by it without taking a scratch. If a trainer who can possibly have Carracosta has a first Pokemon that does a lot of damage to Durant, I make sure to set up Drapion instead.

Battles 91-100

Spoiler

91. Standard Cloyster victory

92. Standard Cloyster victory

93. Another Hex Maniac Trainer who led with Metagross, a Steel/Psychic with good all around stats. Metagross can be a problem because it has Protect, but this time it only used Protect on the first turn before letting Durant use Entrainment on turn 3. From there I set up Drapion for the victory.

94. Wow, the scariest battle so far! I faced a Veteran trainer, and one key difference between Veterans and other trainers (besides exclusively using legendary Pokemon) is that their rosters can consist of multiple versions of the same Pokemon. While in the battle before I knew which moves, item, etc. the Metagross had immediately upon seeing it, you may take a turn or to figure it out against Veterans. The Zapdos this trainer led with was a variant that I hadn't seen often, and it used Detect (identical to Protect) on the first turn. Oh shit, this was quite unexpected because the AI will just about always attack Durant when it's capable of getting a KO (and this particular Zapdos with Detect also carries Heat Wave, which definitely would). I switch out Durant for Cloyster on the incoming Heat Wave, which does a little bit over half, and keep Cloyster in to sacrifice it and bring in Durant once more with the hopes Zapdos doesn't use Detect again. Phew, it doesn't, but I'm not totally out of the woods yet. I have to be much more cautious when setting up Drapion because Zapdos also has the move Volt Switch (special Electric, 70 power, 100% accuracy, switches the user out). Normally once Drapion sets up a Substitute it can use Acupressure every turn rather than alternating every other turn with Protect since once its defenses are boosted, opposing Pokemon can't do enough damage to break the Substitute, but allowing Zapdos to use Volt Switch too soon could have left Drapion unprepared for the non-Truant Pokemon that switched in. I have another team better at dealing with situations like this, but I'm saving it for later

95. Standard Cloyster victory

96. The lead Pokemon is Carbink a defensive Rock/Fairy type. It has Explosion, so hopefully it holds off on using it until after Cloyster's boosted its stats. Thankfully it does, I'm assuming because it also has the move Power Gem (special Rock, 80 power, 100% accuracy), the AI was enticed by how much damage it could potentially do to Cloyster, with its Rock-type weakness and already-low Special Defense. Everything after that was fine

97. Standard Cloyster victory

98. Standard Cloyster victory

99. Standard Cloyster victory against a Veteran. The 2nd Pokemon, Latios (the Dragon/Psychic brother to Latias, except more offensively inclined), held a Lax Incense, but Cloyster didn't miss.

100. Eelektross KOed Durant with Flamethrower on turn 1, so I set up Drapion. Ursaring (normal type with great base 130 attack and meh other stats) came out 2nd. It was able to move before Drapion thanks to its Quick Claw, but Cross Chop (Physical Fighting, 100 Power, 80% accuracy, increased chance of a critical hit) couldn't break Drapion's Substitute thanks to Defense boosts. 3rd Pokemon was no problem after that

[nol]

If I'd reached this milestone for the first time, a character would have given me a rare item (and then another item at 200 in a row). That's pretty much it for acknowledgement from the game, but hopefully I can keep going above and beyond that on this documented streak.

Battles 101-110

Spoiler

101. Standard Cloyster victory

102. The 3rd Pokemon was Metagross, which is another member of the elite club that can survive an attack from a boosted Cloyster. Fortunately, Metagross likes to use a strategy revolving around the status move Trick (switches items with the opponent). Metagross holds a Toxic Orb, which afflicts the holder with a special type of Poison status that increases in damage over time. This is normally a decent strategy because Metagross, as a Steel type, is immune to Poison itself and can pass on the status itself. However, against Cloyster it just gets taken out in two hits so there's not any time for the damage to build up.

103. Standard Cloyster victory

104. Standard Cloyster victory

105. The opponent's lead, Shuckle, is one of the goofiest Pokemon in the game. It's a Bug/Rock type and has by the highest Defense and Special Defense base stats of all Pokemon (230) but its other stats are 20 and lower. What this means is that it's completely reliant on passive effects from the moves Toxic(90 accuracy, gives Toxic poison status), Sandstorm (summons a weather condition that increases Rock types' Special Defense by 50%, damages all non-Rock, Steel, or Ground Pokemon by 6.25% of their health each turn, and activates certain abilities for 5 turns), and Wrap (physical Normal, 15 power, 90% accuracy, prevents the target from switching for 4-5 turns and deals damage equivalent to 1/8th of the target's max HP each turn). Luckily, Substitute blocks all these passive effects, so Drapion gets to boost its stats worry-free against Shuckle and proceed to smash everything with Knock Off. The 3rd Pokemon is Probopass, a Rock/Steel with high defenses and potentially, the ability Sturdy. This one does have Sturdy, but the attack it uses misses thanks to Drapion's boosted Evasion stat.

106. The Veteran trainer's lead is the Latios with Lax Incense, but Entrainment hits on the first turn and the two remaining legendaries get taken out by Icicle Spear.

107. Standard Cloyster victory

108. Standard Cloyster victory

109. Cloyster's set up and the 2nd Pokemon out is Barbaracle. This Rock/Water type resists Icicle Spear, but still has a very good chance of being KOed by it when Cloyster's at +6. However, Surf does every time, which helps Cloyster stay unscathed for Empoleon. Empoleon's Water/Steel, and since both of those resist Ice, it takes 2 maxed out Icicle Spears to bring it down. In its one turn to attack, Empoleon uses Surf, which would KO Cloyster without a Focus Sash despite being not very effective, showing you how weak Cloyster's s Special Defense is at -3.

110. Same Typhlosion from battle 87, same Drapion setup after Durant is KOed.

Battles 111-120 - won them all, but lost the writeup.

Battles 121-130

Spoiler

121. I faced one of the rare non-Veteran trainers who can use more than one variation of a Pokemon, Chef Andrei. Andrei's teams are themed around the move Hail (creates a weather condition that knocks off 1/16th of non-Ice Pokemon's maximum HP each turn for 5 turns. Also activates certain weather-related abilities and makes the attack Blizzard [special Ice, 110 Power, 70% accuracy, 10% chance to freeze the opponent solid] have 100% accuracy), and are predictably chock-full of Ice-type Pokemon. Andrei's first Pokemon is Cryogonal, an Ice type that also knows the move Explosion. Fortunately, Cryogonal holds off from going kamikaze and allows Cloyster to set up all the way and KO the remaining members.

122. Faced a Hex Maniac and set up Cloyster. The 2nd Pokemon was Mismagius, and Cloyster didn't miss. The third was Spiritomb, which could have finished Cloyster off if it had taken a hit against Mismagius. Thankfully I didn't get unlucky and was able to achieve a standard Cloyster victory.

123. A lead Chandelure KOed Durant with Heat Wave, but I went and set up Cloyster afterwards because the trainer was a Punk Girl who didn't have too much that could hurt Cloyster. The 2nd Pokemon was Tyranitar a Rock/Dark monster with low speed but formidable stats otherwise. Even though Cloyster KOed with Icicle Spear, Tyranitar's ability Sand Stream (automatically summons a Sandstorm) dealt passive damage at the end of the turn, nullifying Cloyster's Focus Sash. The third Pokemon was Krookodile, which couldn't touch Cloyster.

124. The first Pokemon out was Politoed, which has a 1-in-3 chance of having the ability Drizzle. Drizzle is to the move Rain Dance (summons a heavy rain for 5 turns. The rain activates certain abilities, boosts the power of Water moves by 50%, reduces the power of Fire moves by 50%, makes the move Thunder [special Electric, 110 power, 70% accuracy, 30% chance of paralyzing] have 100% accuracy). While Politoed's Special Attack stat isn't the highest, its Hydro Pump (special Water, 110 power, 80% accuracy) attack had enough multipliers from matching Politoed's Water type and the Rain boost to KO Durant. I set up Drapion, and the 2nd Pokemon out was Quagsire. Thankfully the 2/3rds chance that Quagsire wouldn't have the ability Unaware was in my favor and Drapion was able to easily KO it and the 3rd Pokemon thanks to its maxed out stats.

125. Venusaur, the Grass/Poison starter Pokemon from the original games, led off against Durant. This Venusaur is somewhat similar to my Drapion, holding a Black Sludge and having the moves Substitute and Protect. By protecting turn 1 and using Substitute turn 2, it completely blocked Durant from using Entrainment on it. This wasn't a big issue because Venusaur's other two moves are designed to slowly wear the opponent down. Leech Seed is a status move with 90% accuracy that removes 1/8th of any non-Grass type's HP each turn and gives it to the user. Sludge Bomb (special Poison, 90 power, 100% accuracy, 30% chance to poison) doesn't concern Drapion too much because Drapion's immune to being poisoned and resists Poison attacks, while Durant is completely immune to poison. Therefore, I just had to switch around between Drapion and Durant until Venusaur didn't hit Drapion with Leech Seed; after that, Drapion could completely set up thanks to Substitute blocking Leech Seed.

126. Standard Cloyster victory

127. Standard Cloyster victory

128. Everything went as planned until Lapras showed up 3rd. When it was out, it used Block, Rest to recover its HP, and then Body Slam twice, but Cloyster didn't get paralyzed by Body Slam and it survived with 3 HP remaining to take out Lapras. If Lapras had gotten the better of Cloyster, Drapion could have finished it off without breaking a sweat.

129. Standard Cloyster victory

130. Standard Cloyster victory

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Battles 131-140

Spoiler

131. This one was against Pokemon Breeder Ina, who uses a roster of just 18 different Pokemon, but can use any one of 4 variants of those 18. The water-type Samurott she led off with had all the right moves to foil Durant. It used Detect the first turn to block Entrainment and then KOed Durant with Hydro Pump. Fortunately, Drapion is faster than Samurott, so it was able to use Substitute and Protect until Samurott used all 5 PP of Hydro Pump and then begin to use Acupressure to set up for the victory.

132. Standard Cloyster victory.

133. Standard Cloyster victory.

134. Blaziken KOed Durant the first turn with Flare Blitz, but I took my chances and went to Cloyster anyways. Cloyster didn't end up taking any damage as it took out Blaziken, Cradily, and Bastiodon (no Sturdy this time) in one hit.

135. Standard Cloyster victory.

136. Standard Cloyster victory.

137. Standard Cloyster victory.

138. The lead was Spiritomb, a Ghost/Dark type whose only attacking move is Sucker Punch (physical Dark, 80 power, 100% accuracy, increased priority that only works if the opponent is using an attacking move that turn). Since the trainer was a Hex Maniac and Spiritomb could do nothing to Drapion once it set up a Substitute, that's who I went to this time.


139. The opponent's lead Glaceon can be one of the more annoying Pokemon to go up against. Glaceon's an Ice type with mediocre Speed but good defenses and a high 130 base Special Attack, and especially concerning is its combination of Detect and the Bright Powder it holds. This time, it used Detect the first turn, used Blizzard the 2nd turn, and KOed Durant with a 2nd Blizzard on turn 3 as Entrainment thankfully connected; if Blizzard had frozen Durant before or if Entrainment missed I likely still could have set up Drapion by stalling out Blizzard's 5 PP, but having Truant on Glaceon made it much easier.

140. Talonflame KOed Durant with Flare Blitz, but the trainer was a Roller Skater so I was OK with setting up Cloyster, and it breezed through the match.

Battles 141-150

Spoiler

141. Set up Cloyster but the 2nd Pokemon was Donphan, whose Quick Claw activated to hit Cloyster with Stone Edge and bring it down to 1 HP. Cloyster was able to KO the 3rd Pokemon with Icicle Spear without any further damage.

142. Standard Cloyster victory.

143. The lead Pokemon Granbull, a generic Fairy-type with pretty mediocre stats, took out Durant with Fire Fang. I played it safe and brought Drapion in 2nd.

144. Standard Cloyster victory.

145. Faced a Veteran trainer whose first Pokemon was Articuno, an Ice/Flying type with well-rounded stats. This Articuno had the status move Reflect, which halves all damage the user's team takes from physical attacks for 5 turns, so I had to take my time with Cloyster so I could KO Articuno on the turn Reflect's protection expired. The third Pokemon was Registeel, which required 2 Icicle Spears to KO, but could only do meager damage back with Earthquake.

146. The lead, Noivern, a speedy Dragon/Flying type, KOed Durant with Flamethrower but I went ahead and set up Cloyster. Don't remember if it was a trainer that made Cloyster a 100% safe choice, but Cloyster took out everything without incident.

147. Arcanine, a Fire type with above-average stats all around, took out Durant on the first turn using a Fire move that was not Flare Blitz, which the most common Arcanine variant uses against Durant. This tipped me off that it was a non-standard trainer since I wasn't paying close attention before the battle began, so I played it safe and set up Drapion. Had I seen that the trainer was Punk Guy Puck, whose Pokemon can all possibly have the ability Intimidate (lowers the opponent's Attack by 1 stage), I'd have known that setting up Cloyster would have been safe and much quicker.

148. Standard Cloyster victory.

149. Standard Cloyster victory.

150. Standard Cloyster victory.

Battles 151-160

Spoiler

151. Standard Cloyster victory.

152. Standard Cloyster victory.

153. The lead Pokemon was Glaceon, and the first three turns played out identically to battle 139. However the trainer I was against (Ace Trainer Jai, who specializes in Pokemon with high Special Attack), didn't have anything that could stop Cloyster, so I set it up for the quicker victory.

154. Standard Cloyster victory.

155. Standard Cloyster victory.

156. The lead here was Skuntank, which is one of the worst Pokemon to face as a lead. It is the only Pokemon in the Battle Maison that knows Explosion and can also one-hit KO Durant (with Fire Blast). Once I bring Cloyster in, I'm pretty much at the mercy of when it decides to use Explosion on me. Luckily, it uses other attacks this time and allows Cloyster to use its 3 Shell Smashes to max out its stats and sweep through the rest of the team.

157. Pyroar, a Fire/Normal type with good Speed and Special Attack and bad everything else, KOes Durant with Overheat (special Fire, 130 power, 90% accuracy, lowers the user's Special Attack two stages). I set up Cloyster anyways and it doesn't take any hits this battle.

158. Cloyster sets up, and the 2nd Pokemon is Leafeon. Its Quick Claw doesn't activate, which is nice because Honchkrow, the 3rd Pokemon, could have finished off Cloyster with Sucker Punch. Even if that happened, I could have used Entrainment on Honchkrow with Druant and won with Drapion, but combos like Leafeon/Honchkrow are why I'll take longer and set up Drapion at times if Durant is incapacitated.

159. Eelektross KOs Durant with Flamethrower, and this time I do set up Drapion.

160. Delphox, a Fire/Psychic, KOs Durant with Overheat. Again, I go to Drapion. Overheat's side effect of lowering Delphox's Special Attack means that Drapion rarely even has its Substitute broken while setting up.

Battles 161-170

Spoiler

161. The opponent led off with Venusaur. See Battle #125 for how that scenario plays out.

162. Flareon, a slower Fire-type Pokemon with high Attack, KOed Durant with Overheat. I set up Drapion with no difficulty.

163. Standard Cloyster victory.

164. The first Pokemon, Hippowdon, a slow defensive Ground-type, had the ability Sand Stream, so I switched to Drapion after Entraining to waste a few turns until the sandstorm wore off, then switched to Cloyster for an incident-free victory.

165. Emboar, a Fire/Fighting type, KOed Durant with Flare Blitz, but I set up Cloyster, and none of the remaining Pokemon could touch it.

166. A routine battle, but Lapras came out 3rd and took a little longer for Cloyster to KO.

167. Scrafty, a Dark/Fighting Pokemon with good defenses, led off. Scrafty knows Protect, and was relatively "smart" about when to use it, fending off several Entrainment attempts before KOing Durant the turn it finally got to pass on Truant to Scrafty. From there, I set up Cloyster because Scrafty takes 1/4th damage from Knock Off and the type of Trainer I was up against (Battle Girl) doesn't have many Pokemon that can hurt Cloyster.

168. Everything was fine until Avalugg came out 2nd. Avalugg is an Ice type with super high Defense, so Icicle Spear wasn't an option. It can potentially have Sturdy as an ability, but this time it didn't and Surf was able to KO it.

169. Leafeon came out 2nd, and this time Quick Claw went off and it took Cloyster to 1HP. Thankfully the 3rd Pokemon was outsped and KOed by Icicle Spear

170. Standard Cloyster victory.

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Battles 171-180

Spoiler

171. Standard Cloyster victory

172. Standard Cloyster victory

173. Standard Cloyster victory

174. Standard Cloyster victory

175. Standard Cloyster victory

176. Standard Cloyster victory

177. Standard Cloyster victory

178. An Empoleon (Water/Steel type) comes out 3rd. Cloyster has to take it out in 2 hits, and it takes a hit from Empoleon in the process.

179. Standard except for the one Pokemon with the ability Unaware coming out 3rd. Thanks to its ability, the damage multipliers from Shell Smash didn't affect Quagsire, so Cloyster needed 2 Icicle Spears once again.

180. Standard Cloyster victory.

Battles 181-190

Spoiler

181. Standard Cloyster victory

182. Standard Cloyster victory

183. Standard Cloyster victory

184. Standard Cloyster victory

185. Standard Cloyster victory

186. Standard Cloyster victory

187. Durant is KOed by Klinklang, a Steel type with the moves Toxic, Protect, Thunderbolt, and Flash Cannon. Klinklang blocked Entrainment two times using Protect before finally allowing the third attempt to go through - if one of the first two Thunderbolts had paralyzed Durant (19% chance), I likely wouldn't have been able to use Entrainment at all. Drapion sets up to be safe, and the first time it uses Acupressure, Special Defense is boosted. That frees it up to not have to use Protect, because Klinklang's attacks don't come close to doing the 25% needed to break the Substitute.

188. Standard Cloyster victory.

189. The lead is Claydol, a Ground/Psychic type that can use Explosion. It blows up when Cloyster has used just 2 of its 3 Shell Smashes, but that's still more than enough power to take out Claydol's teammates.

190. A Psychic trainer leads with Jynx. Jynx is an Ice/Psychic type with good Special Attack and really poor Defense. It can be troublesome for Durant because it will use Fake Out the first turn and then either Lovely Kiss (75% accuracy, makes the target fall asleep) or Blizzard the second turn while Durant has to loaf around because of Truant. If Durant is asleep or frozen from Blizzard (which can take it out in 2 hits despite being not very effective), it can't use Entrainment. Luckily, I've already gone over 3 of Jynx's 4 moves, and the 4th, Psychic (special Psychic, 90 power, 100% accuracy, 10% of lowering Special Defense one stage), doesn't damage the Dark-type Drapion. This allows me to switch in Drapion as Fake Out does almost no damage and then use Protect and Substitute until Jynx has used its 5 Blizzard PP and can no longer damage Drapion.

[nol]

Battles 191-200

Spoiler

191. Standard Cloyster victory

192. Standard Cloyster victory

193. The lead is Lickilicky, a Normal type with Explosion. Getting the 50% attack bonus to Explosion makes the attack so powerful that it even uses it on the first turn against Durant, which takes off a little over half of its health despite resisting the move. This puts me in a possible bind since the 2nd Pokemon, Gardevoir can now take out the weakened Durant on the turn it can't use any attacks due to Entrainment. I switch to Drapion, which takes heavy damage from Focus Blast, and sacrifice it so I can bring Durant in safely and let Cloyster set up for the win.

194. A Ninetales KOs Durant turn 1 and I set up Drapion rather than Cloyster.

195. Standard Cloyster victory

196. Standard Cloyster victory

197. Standard Cloyster victory

198. Standard Cloyster victory

199. Standard Cloyster victory

200. Standard Cloyster victory

Battles 201-210

Spoiler

201. Standard Cloyster victory

202. Standard Cloyster victory

203. Durant is taken out by a Flamethrower, and the trainer I'm facing has a few potential stops to Cloyster so I play it safe and set up Drapion. The Pokemon that came out 2nd and 3rd would have been dispatched just as easily by Cloyster, but oh well.

204. Glaceon leads off and uses Detect followed by Blizzard. Durant's 2nd Entrainment works, and Glaceon's 2nd Blizzard misses. That makes me more comfortable with going for the quick Cloyster victory, and the remaining two Pokemon are Eelektross (Icicle Spear KOs) and Metagross (takes 2 Icicle Spears but doesn't do any significant damage back).

205. Standard Cloyster victory

206. Standard Cloyster victory

207. Skuntank KOs Durant with Fire Blast, and Cloyster has to set up as much as it can before Explosion clears Skuntank off the field. The two chances Skuntak gets to attack Cloyster, it uses Fire Blast and Night Slash, so Cloyster is able to max out its offensive capability and KO the two remaining opponents.

208. Arcanine KOs Durant with Flare Blitz, but I set up Cloyster because the trainer's a Battle Girl.

209. The 3rd Fire type in a row, this time Emboar, lights up Durant for the first turn KO, but it's the same story as the battle before. Cloyster ends up unscathed.

210. Against a Veteran, I set up Cloyster and the 2nd Pokemon that comes out is Regice. It barely survives Icicle Spear and retaliates with a Focus Blast that would have KOed if not for the Focus Sash. Fortunately, the 3rd Pokemon is Zapdos, which Cloyster handles.

Battles 211-220

Spoiler

211. Typhlosion KOs Durant and Cloyster sets up for a quick victory.

212. Yanmega, a Bug/Flying type with good Special Attack, is the lead. Yanmega is one of the biggest threats to my team because of one of the abilities it can have, Speed Boost (increases Speed by one stage at the end of each turn). Yanmega can have 3 possible abilities, and one of them (Frisk, announces the item the opponent is holding) is broadcast at the beginning of the turn. This Yanmega doesn't have Frisk, so it's got a 50/50 chance of having Speed Boost. The reason Speed Boost can be so disastrous is that Yanmega also has Detect to block Entrainment. If it uses Detect on the first turn, it can deal over 50% to Durant on turn 2 while Durant loafs around and then be faster than Durant on turn 3 to prevent Entrainment.

Anticipating Yanmega will use Detect, I switch directly to Cloyster and my prediction pays off! Yanmega does end up having Speed Boost, so I use Icicle Spear for the KO after Yanmega's powerful Bug Buzz takes Cloyster down to 1 HP. Cloyster isn't set up, but it's well worth it to have that Yanmega off the field. The next Pokemon out is Tyranitar, and I just switch back to Durant to use Entrainment on it and then set up Drapion for the victory.


213. Mienshao, a fast Fighting type with low defenses comes out first. This is another troublesome lead for this team because Mienshao has Fake Out and High Jump Kick (physical Fighting, 130 power, 90% accuracy, the user loses 50% of its health if this attack misses). If Durant is unlucky, Fake Out followed by a critical hit High Jump Kick can KO it before it uses Entrainment. This time, Mienshao uses High Jump Kick on turn 1 so the Entrainment goes off successfully. However, this doesn't mean I'm completely safe. I have to set up Cloyster because Mienshao will quickly KO itself by using High Jump Kick against Protect. After 2 Protects and just 1 Shell Smash, Mienshao faints and Ampharos comes in. Luckily +2 Icicle Spear does just enough to KO without Cloyster having to take a hit in response. The final Pokemon is Glaceon; Cloyster does about 50% with Icicle Spear as Glaceon takes it down to 1 HP with Shadow Ball. Cloyster finishes Glaceon with the 2nd Icicle Spear, which wasn't a given since Glaceon holds Bright Powder to make going 2 for 2 just an 81% chance.

214. Standard Cloyster victory.

215. Standard Cloyster victory

216. Standard Cloyster victory

217. Standard Cloyster victory

218. Froslass came out 2nd against Cloyster and its ability Cursed Body activated as it was KOed, which meant that Cloyster couldn't use Icicle Spear for a few turns. Dusknoir, a slow Ghost type with high defenses came out 3rd. Cloyster's only remaining attack, Surf, did a little more than 50% damage as Dusknoir used Trick Room. The next turn, the now-faster Dusknoir (thanks to Trick Room) used Destiny Bond (if this was the last move used before the opponent KOs the user, the opponent is KOed as well) to KO Cloyster. Pretty funny way of taking out Cloyster, but it didn't affect the end result.

219. Metagross came out 2nd and barely survived an Icicle Spear to do a bit of damage to Cloyster. After Metagross came Slowbro, which also can take a +6 Icicle Spear. It KOed Cloyster, since it had taken prior damage from Metagross, but Cloyster did enough for Drapion's Knock Off to finish the job.

220. Standard Cloyster victory

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Battles 221-230

Spoiler

221. Almost identical to battle 219. A 1-2 punch of Metagross and Slowbro took out Glalie, with Drapion doing the last bit of damage to Slowbro with Knock Off.

222. Standard Cloyster victory

223. Standard Cloyster victory

224. Standard Cloyster victory

225. Standard Cloyster victory

226. Standard Cloyster victory

227. Standard Cloyster victory

228. Standard Cloyster victory

229. Another Mienshao lead. It uses Fake Out, and the subsequent High Jump Kick takes Durant down to 13 of 164 HP. Entrainment comes as Durant is KOed, and Cloyster is able to set up to +4 (2 Shell Smashes) before Mienshao KOs itself. Magnezone, a slow Steel/Electric type with decent defenses and very high Special Attack comes out next. Icicle Spear can KO it at +6 despite being not very effective, but falls just short at +4. Magnezone takes Cloyster down to 1 HP with Thunderbolt, but luckily Thunderbolt doesn't paralyze Cloyster and it's able to finish off Magnezone and the 3rd Pokemon without taking further damage. Drapion could have finished off Magnezone and this particular 3rd Pokemon (Mandibuzz a defensive Dark/Flying type whose only attacking move is not very effective against Drapion), but that could have been a scary situation.

230. Standard Cloyster victory

Battles 231-240

Spoiler

231. Standard Cloyster victory

232. Standard Cloyster victory

233. Muk leads off here. This Poison type has the dreaded move Explosion and the dreaded item Quick Claw. Put them together, and you have Muk using its Quick Claw to use Explosion on Durant before it can even move the first turn. Flareon comes in second, and I switch to Drapion as it uses Fire Fang and switch back to Durant because I know it won't use Fire Fang against Drapion. This allows Durant to use Entrainment and let Cloyster quickly dispatch the final two Pokemon.

234. Standard Cloyster victory

235. Standard Cloyster victory

236. Standard Cloyster victory

237. Standard Cloyster victory

238. The lead here is Forretress a Bug/Steel just like Durant but extremely slow and defensive. Forretress' only means of directly damaging the opponent is through Explosion, but it has three somewhat unique moves in Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and Stealth Rock. These attacks create hazards on the field of play that damage any of my Pokemon whenever they switch in. Spikes and hurt all Pokemon that don't have the Flying type or the Levitate ability, Toxic Spikes automatically poison all non-Flyers/Levitators that can be poisoned, and Stealth Rock can remove anywhere from 1/16th to 1/2 of a Pokemon's HP based on the effective Rock-type moves have against it. All three hazards make Cloyster's Focus Sash useless, so I bring it in after Forretress uses Toxic Spikes on the first turn in order to do as much damage with Cloyster before it succumbs to the poison damage. This time, Cloyster is able to set up to +4 before taking out Forretress in two hits. It KOes the remaining two Pokemon in one turn each. By the end of the rampage, Cloyster had only 2 hit points remaining.

239. Standard Cloyster victory

240. Standard Cloyster victory

Battles 241-250

Spoiler

241. Standard Cloyster victory

242. Standard Cloyster victory

243. Standard Cloyster victory

244. Standard Cloyster victory

245. Moltres KOed Durant with Flamethrower on turn 1, so I set up Drapion instead.

246. Standard Cloyster victory

247. Alakazam KOed Durant with Focus Blast on turn 1, so I set up Drapion instead.

248. Standard Cloyster victory

249. Standard Cloyster victory

250. Standard Cloyster victory

Battles 251-260

Spoiler

251. Standard Cloyster victory

252. Ninetales KOed Durant with Flamethrower, but I set up Cloyster anyway for a standard win.

253. Standard Cloyster victory, but the lead was Hippowdon with Sand Stream so I had to bring Drapion in for a few turns until the Sandstorm had died down.

254. Standard Cloyster victory

255. Standard Cloyster victory

256. Standard Cloyster victory

257. Standard Cloyster victory

258. Ace Trainer Jai's Chandelure KOs Durant with Heat Wave on turn 1, and I go to Cloyster. 3 Shell Smashes, 2 Protects, and 3 Icicle Spears later, it's a wrap.

259. Aggron came out 3rd and survived Surf with Sturdy. Alas, it used Taunt so Cloyster was scot-free the entire match.

260. Standard Cloyster victory

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I'm yadda yadda yadda-ing a lot here, but I won 563 in a row with this team before losing. If you've got a 3DS you can watch it in the Vs. Recorder with the code ANQG-WWWW-WWWY-QH7F, but I'm not going to go into too much detail other than to say that the unlucky scenario against a lead Mienshao (seen in battle #213) happened, which put me in a bind.

So that loss made me go to my next-level team, which is currently sitting at over 1000 consecutive wins. A YouTube video is being uploaded of battles #999 and #1000, so I hate to tease but I'll wait until that's up to help explain my new team.

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Here's the video:



From the battles before, a lot of my close calls were due to leads that, through moves like Protect or Fake Out or items like Bright Powder or Lax Incense, prevented Durant from using Entrainment.

With this team, I lead off with a Pokemon whose sole purpose is to render everything susceptible to Entrainment. Sableye is a Ghost/Dark type Pokemon with the ability Prankster, which increases the priority of all status moves. In other words, no matter how slow Sableye is, it will almost always move first if it's not using an actual attack. Sableye holds a Focus Sash to ensure it will survive a hit and be able to use at least 2 status moves on the opponent before it's time for Durant to come in.

While your Pokemon's levels are automatically decreased to 50, you're still able to use lower-leveled Pokemon. Sableye takes full advantage of this. At level 1, the AI sees Sableye as easy pickings, so opponents will abandon their status moves and use attacking moves to try to KO it. Against those leads with Protect, that means Sableye can use Taunt (prevents the opponents from using any status moves for 3 turns) right before it's knocked out to prevent the opponent from blocking Durant's Entrainment. Its other three status moves are Trick (switches items with the opponent, perfect for getting rid of Choice items or Life Orbs), Gravity (creates a field effect that decreases all Pokemons' Evasiveness by 2 stages for 5 turns; this allows Entrainment to always hit even if the foe has Bright Powder or Lax Incense), and Flash (decreases opponent's Accuracy by 1 stage, probably the most-used move).

Since I'm now using two Pokemon that can't damage the opponent, the 3rd one really has to pick up a lot of slack. Glalie is a lot like Drapion in that it can boost all of its stats. The main difference is that Drapion uses an attack (Acupressure) while Glalie boosts passively with its ability Moody (at the end of each turn, one of the seven stats randomly boosts 2 stages and another one drops 1 stage). In normal play, Moody is terribly unreliable - sometimes it allows the user to win battles he/she has no business winning, but other times crucial stat drops can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. However, thanks to Entrainment Glalie can stay on the field for enough turns to ride out any random fluctuations and end up with positive boosts in the stats it needs to secure victories. Glalie uses Substitute and Protect for the same reasons the other sweepers have and Frost Breath (special Ice type, 60 base power, 90% accuracy, always lands a critical hit) is its attack of choice. In its spare moveslot, I use Taunt. Taunt has two main benefits: aside from preventing any status moves from the opponent, it doesn't do any damage so Glalie can stay in and get more stat boosts against the Truant Pokemon.