Day 1: 12 Wins | 3 Losses

I faced a lot of very weak opponents. It was sad. A lot of them didn’t even have fully leveled Pokemon. Although, I did face a lot of very good trainers. Some put up very worthy fights. Others were wrecked. However, I would’ve had one more win if I didn’t get cocky. 

I am very pleased with the amount of Pikachu in the tournament. I am also very pleased with the amount of times I beat someone that use Swagger on one of my Pokemon (all). Also, the amount of battles you can play is upped so that’s great because I always thought ten battles per day was too limiting. I worked very hard to breed these Pokemon in a week and I want to use them. I had one or two rage quits that probably would’ve led to easy wins, but I digress.

Let me just say there has been a lot of hax this tournament. One time this opponent’s Electivire landed two Ice Punches and froze both times. Another time, an opponent’s Quick Claw worked in their favor far too much. Like three times in a match. I froze them once, though. Regardless, it would’ve been a completely different match if it didn’t activate on turn one. Not to mention I’ve gotten super unlucky with confusion from not only Swagger, but Signal Beam. At least I always hit under the Signal Beam confusion because if I lost because of that, I would’ve been super mad.

My strategies are working pretty well. Although, I’m starting to regret changing Minun’s item from an Air Balloon to a Sitrus Berry. It would’ve come in handy many times and the Sitrus Berry is not helping as much as I’d like. Also, I greatly underestimated the power of my Heliolisk. It’s pretty strong and I partner it with my Minun to get tons of Special Attack boosts. 

Things are a little harder than I thought they would be. Fighting Rotom and Eelektross on the same team is very difficult if I’m relying on Electivire to dominate their team because I have so much faith in my Entrainment strategy. However, it falls aparty too quickly. Too many loose links. Still, my numbers are pretty good. I can only complain about the people that didn’t level their Pokemon up to 50 and offer a truly exciting battle. It’s truly a shame.

Day 2: 18 Wins | 12 Losses (5 Wins | 10 Losses)

As you can see, today was significantly harder, which I like. However, today was also filled with hax. There was this one guy with an all shiny team that got a crit every single time on my Mega Ampharos. It was ridiculous. Another time, a crit determined the outcome again on my Mega Ampharos. I’m beginning to believe she has bad luck. Either way, I hope to turn it around tomorrow. Also, today, there were way less Pikachus. More cosplay Pikachus, but they don’t count towards the Pikachu goal so that sucks. Luckily, teams have been unique enough to the point I think Pikachu will be high on the list, but maybe not the top 3. The Light Ball, however, is a very disappointing reward for participating. I have so many of them from preparing for the competition. I would rather take the 1000 PokeMiles.

Day 3: 29 Wins |16 Losses (11 Wins | 4 Losses)

The final day. I had two disconnects because of my internet or something and I would’ve won the one, so that’s a big regret. One of the things I regretted earlier was my item choice for Minun, but the Sitrus Berry has been a little helpful. I still think it would’ve helped on Day 2 and I’m not aware of how significant the berry has been, but I think it came in clutch once. 

Once again, I get wrecked by hax from the a Japanese player. Two freezes from Blizzard. And he lands on at least one Pokemon each time. The Pokemon he misses is frozen and never defrosts. Completely insane. Not only that, but he also got constant crits on my Pokemon. I don’t understand why I have such bad luck against these people. Although, I have had some easy battles. So, I guess that balances that out.

As we know, the Electric-type is only weak to one type: Ground. As such, there will be people trying to exploit this weakness using Pokemon such as Electivire and Stunfisk. They seem to be the only viable Electric-type Pokemon that can use Ground-type moves. Electivire gets Earthquake via TM and Stunfisk gets a myriad of Ground-type moves and the Same Type Attack Bonus. These will be key Pokemon in the tournament. 

If you want to counter this, Emolga nullifies Ground-type attacks with its Flying typing. Then there are Pokemon like Eelektross and Eelektrik that have the ability Levitate that will also negate Ground-type attacks. Further more, there is the move Magnet Rise, which is found on some Electric-types that makes the Pokemon nullify Ground-type attacks for five turns. There is also the move Telekinesis. The only Electric-type that can use Telekinesis, which is similar to Magnet Rise, but you can pick a nonuser target  is Rotom and requires you to transfer it to Gen VI, but it might be worth it. Finally, there is the item, the Air Balloon, that will gran the Pokemon immunity as long as its item is available. It can’t be Recycled either. Just keep that in mind.

If you want to counter this counter, there is the move Gravity. Gravity makes all airborne opponents grounded and lowers their evasion by two stages. However, Gravity can only found on the Magnemite line. They’re good Pokemon, though, so it’s not that much of a drawback. However, it does mate he Magnemite line vulnerable to Earthquake even with Magnet Rise, or an Air Balloon. You could also use Trick or Switcheroo to give a Pokemon an Iron Ball to negate the opponent’s Ground immunity. Only Rotom gets Trick, but the Electrike line and Minun get Switcheroo. However, the speed halve and the loss of ground immunity for Rotom leave the Pokemon susceptible. Yet there is no indication that Rotom will be grounded, so it could be a good strategy to catch the opponent off guard.

As for strategy, I plan on using my usual strat of going ham and potatoes with damage. However, I do plan on mixing it up a little bit, but I’ll mention that later. For now, let’s talk Doubles strats. Now, It’s important to note that Electric-type moves are not very effective on Electirc-type Pokemon. Not tomention, moves that hit multiple Pokemon like Discharge are weakened in power. In addition, Electric-type Pokemon cannot be paralyzed (which is dumb because there are other sources of paralysis than Electric-type moves). However, this does not mean you should not run Discharge. Another use of discharge, other than AoE damage and paralysis is to partner the Discharger with a Pokemon with Lightningrod, an ability that some Electric-type Pokemon have. There are two other abilities that can utilize Discharge: Volt Absorb and Motor Drive. If the opponent doesn’t pick up this strategy and doesn’t run Pokemon with those abilities, you could secure yourself an easy sweep, or an everlasting tank. 

To counter this, I planned on using a Pokemon to disrupt the ability. There is the move Entrainment and Gastro Acid, which change and nullify the opponent’s abilities respectively. Entrainment can be found on Plusle, Minun, and Dedenne while Gastro Acid can be found on the Joltik line, and two-thirds of the Tynamo line. 

As per the usual moves like Protect will be useful. You could put it on almost everyone on your team. Then there’s the move Follow Me which disrupts Lightningrod, but can only be found on Pachirisu (But we’ve seen Pachirisu’s potential in Double battles). However, Follow Me will not work on multiple target moves like Discharge. But Pachirisu still has a lot of utility.

I just thought of this, but it’s a pretty big gimmick. If you use Soak, a move that turns the target Pokemon into a Water-type, you could super effectively hit the opponent. However, this is exclusive to the Chinchou line.It does synergize well with Discharge since the Chinchou line can get Volt Absorb. Just another strategy you could pull off.