PokéFarm's March Breeder's Cup Recap or something

[NikolaTesla]

A place to discuss tactics plans and ideas for the March 2008 Breeder's Cup Challenge.

[Jhamin]

OK, I've now won two breeder's tournaments. Time to let everyone else in on what I have figured out about the metagame. :) Here is my team & Philosophy:

The number one thing I learned in the January Breeder's cup was that at this level the hit point/damage ratio is a funny thing. Barring criticals, it is almost impossible to one shot someone unless you have a stabbed super effective with a high power (90+). *But* you will likely do at least half their hit points with any high power move. This means three things:
1) you can probably expect to take a hit without dying, you cannot take two.
2) Speed is even more important than normal. There effectively are no walls at level 1.
3) You will only have time for a setup if your opponent allows you to with two turn attack moves.

Any strategy must either allow you to begin sweeping immediately or prevent the opponent from getting in an attack at all.

Silence
Gastly
Nature: Bold , Power: Levitate
Stats: 11/4/5/7/5/6
Moves: Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Thunderbolt, Shadow Ball
Strategy: I generally lead with Silence. This tourney did *not* use the sleep or evasion clause, so there was no reason not to sleep the entire opposing team. At this level and with no held items allowed, there wasn't much folks could do. This actually only worked 100% on Kay. Against everyone else I either missed a target or got outran by the opponent. (that 6 speed is about average at this level). I usually got at least one or two targets with hypnosis and then shadowballed the rest. If I lost anyone, it was usually Silence.

Evita
Abra
Nature: Naive , Power: Synchronize
Stats: 11/5/5/7/5/7
Moves: Psychic, Calm Mind, Light Screen, Shadow Ball
Strategy: Evita is the fastest, highest attack stat level 1 I could find. She was my special sweeper with Psychic and Shadow Ball. I had Calm Mind and Light Screen in case I got a chance to use them (like someone using fly or giga-impact) but it *never* came up.

Flax
Mudkip
Nature: Hardy , Power: Torrent
Stats: 12/6/6/6/6/5
Moves: Surf, Counter, Mirror Coat, Protect
Strategy: Flax is a gimmick Pokémon. If I knew what an opponent was going to come at me with, I would either Mirror Coat or Counter to reflect double the damage back. If I didn't know the other poke, I would protect to see what was coming. The relatively low speed of 5 was chosen to make sure the other Poke would probably go before I did. At this level most attacks were doing 50%-80% damage on one hit, so reflecting twice that was fatal to just about everything. Problem was, all I had after that was Surf combined with a slow speed. Flax was good for one use, after that I had to either loose her or switch her out. Generally, I opted to loose her. In my one loss, I ran into an almost identical Mudkip fielded by NikolaTesla. The difference was that that one had a healing move and it turned into the only stall battle I ran into in the entire tourney.

[BugCatcher6]

Basically I will recap my team, since I don't remember battles exactly he-he.

My lead was a Nidoran♂ named Erebus.
Basically I would lead with Toxic Spikes.
So next I would use Protect.
Protect would be to see if my opponent was attacking or if in the event Poison Point poisoned the opponent on the first attack, it would do a bit of damage.

If the opponent attacked the first or second round, I would use Sucker Punch.
If they did not I would go with Poison Jab. basically a weak and chance Toxic Stall.

After Nidoran would fall I had always planned on bringing out my Chimchar Cerberus.

The plan there was Fake Out first, that would flinch, cause damage, and let Poison take another point of HP.

After Flinch I would use Protect, there again more poison damage.
My Chimchar had Thunder Punch and Fire Punch, I figured any Water types would be a bit slower then Chimchar, so with Fake Out and Protect for poison damage, I would OHKO them. I would also mix in a few Protects to whittle down the HP.

My last Pokemon was a Squirtle named Hydra.
Again I would use Fake Out and Protect. I also had Aqua Jet and I knew a Water type would be needed since I figured I would see a lot of Rhyhorn, which I believe there were only 2 in the tournament.

My Squirtle's last move was Bite, because I looked at the base SPD of most Pokemon and one of the fastest was Gastly, I figured on normal occasions I would use the fastest, so maybe others would use it for a quick Hypnosis or Confusing type move. Only downside was Squirtle was not fast enough to use it he-he.

Another tactic I used this tournament that I would never use in a Gym battle is a double Protect. I am not a huge risk taker in battles, and with only a 50% chance to use Protect a second time, that was huge for me.

I managed to do a double Protect a few times. I believe against Snapperjack and T roo. I even managed to do a triple Protect, which is a 50% chance to use it twice and 33% chance to use it a 3rd time. I think I managed to use it against WestCoastNinja.

I did not get to test my team fully and it did perform the way I expected, but Toxic Spikes did not do as much damage as I had hoped. I don't know if it was because in most cases I only got 1 set of Spikes tossed out. Fake Out did not perform as well as I had hoped, dang Gastly. As well as Aqua Jet did not hit as hard as I thought a STABBED attack would. But all together, I was happy with my team.


EDIT: Wow Jhamin even has to right a better recap he-he.

[Kay]

I wonder if the dificulty level of the next breeder's challenge will go up because of us all discussing our tactics! Hehe.

Before breeding, I did some experimenting with level one pokemon and learned some things. Burns and poisons only do one damage per turn, pokes will faint after two good hits at most, etc.

One of the main things I considered when making my team was stats. The thing is, IVs barely make a difference at level one, but one stat point can make a huge difference, especially in Speed and HP. So I didn't bother with looking at IVs but I did check to see what the highest possible stats each of my team pokes could have, and bred each poke until I had those stats. :-P This definitely helped me out on more than one occassion in the HP area for sure, as I would be hanging on with just one HP left - had I not kept breeding to get a 12 in HP instead of 11, I'd have been KOed!

The other thing I considered was of course, type weaknesses. The main thing I wanted was a normal type because it only has the one weakness, fighting, and with the pokes that were available to this tournament, there weren't too many good fighting moves to worry about anyway. Then I also went with a pure dragon type because it only has two weaknesses. For my third I wanted an Abra due to its speed and special attack but I just couldn't figure out a way to breed any good moves onto it. So I went with Rhyhorn because of its high HP (13) and it's ability to learn a ton of high-powered moves.

For my moves I made sure to have a variety, and I wouldn't use anything with an accuracy lower than 85 or a power lower than 90. I tried to have every type covered with something it was weak to but honestly water was my weakness. I knew there would be several water pokemon in this tournament but I just did not have a way to get grass or electric attacks on to my pokemon without completely changing my entire strategy (I was out of electric TMs :( ). So I took a risk and decided to just chip away at any water types that were thrown at me with strong non-water, non-ice, non-fire moves.

I just wish for this tournament that I had realized the sleep clause were not in effect. I would have battled Jhamin differently when he whipped out a hypnosis on my Rhyhorn! I don't know that I would have bred my team any differently, though.

[BugCatcher6]

Before breeding, I did some experimenting with level one pokemon and learned some things. Burns and poisons only do one damage per turn, pokes will faint after two good hits at most, etc.


Not true. NikolaTesla's Toxic did 1 point the first round and 2 points the second round, so it gained in intensity as it was intended to do.

[Jhamin]

Very true, but a Toxic stall is still a 4-5 turn kill. I don't think that there are any pokemon at this level that can last that long. You are better off spending that turn hitting with an attack.

I had the same idea as Kay regarding stats. A one point difference is *huge* at this level, and my breeding experiments showed that it was not unusual to have a range of 3 points from the low to high in the same species.

(Oh, and as for breeding good moves onto an Abra, it's pretty easy. Just find a high level Alakazam to use as a father. Psychic and Shadowball are both TM moves for Abra. I got mine off the GTS & got lucky on the shadowball. I was planning to actually burn one on dad otherwise.)

[Kay]

Yeah, but I couldn't find a high level Alakazam on GTS and didn't have time to level one up myself. Real Life kept getting in the way... Stupid Real Life... :-P

And Buzz, I meant just poison in general, I wasn't talking about poison that gains intensity, sorry to have not been clear :)

[BugCatcher6]

Yeah, but I couldn't find a high level Alakazam on GTS and didn't have time to level one up myself. Real Life kept getting in the way... Stupid Real Life... :-P

And Buzz, I meant just poison in general, I wasn't talking about poison that gains intensity, sorry to have not been clear :)

Double Toxic Spikes is the same as Toxic.

[Pigen1]

Well My team was:
Totodile- Gladiator-Dragon Claw, Hydro Pump, Crunch, Slash
Abra-Hercules- Teleport(waste of space), Shadowball, Psychic, Focus Punch
Shinx-Socket- Protect, Iron tail, Thunder, Crunch

My Gladiator i didn't do much work on with the moves didn't know how to chain yet and when i did figure it out it was too late to work on him again. I wanted a water type cause i too thought i would see rock/ ground types and even fire maybe so i wanted a quick end to that. Kay i think was the only one that opened up with the Rhyhorn and she quickly switched him out for Bagon that got me all twisted cause i had no idea what to do against him. So that took care or my Gladiator. Then she brought out the Whismur another unexpected poke. ANd my silly self forgot that i had focus punch in my attack list and it would have worked cause she used a something that took two turns or it was a move that either missed or had no effect on my abra i don't remember all i know is my focus punch would have gone thru.

The i have my Hercules and i knew i needed him just for psychic that does good damage across the bored, and then i gave him shadow ball just in case i came across another Psychic type or even ghost type. The focus punch was me just messing with the chaining process. He did me good in this battle.

Then i have my Socket (head hangs low) Not her fault, all my fault i should have had her with thunderbolt instead of thunder the acc. of thunder is horrible!!!! I looked it up after i screwed up my first battle against WCN. Socket was my lead poke and when thunder failed i was like "ARGH!" SO i switched up the game plan and put Gladiator in the front.

So that was basically it.

[T roo]

My idea for a tactic was to get a good balenced defender team. And make sure all of there weaknesses were covered and I had alot of unexpecte moves:wink:

Champion: Machop/Hp: 12/ AT: 6/ Def: 5/ Sp At: 5/ Sp Def 5/ Sp 5. Lonely nature. Low kick, Brick Break, Thunder Puch, Earthquake. Special Ability Guts

Chomper: Gible: 12/6/6/6/5/5 Hardy Nature. Tackle, Flamethrower, Dragon pulse. Special Ability Sand Veil

Nature: Seedot: 11/5/6/5/5/4. Relaxed nature Bide, Take down, Leech Seed, Worry Seed. Special Ability Early Bird

[NikolaTesla]

As I said in another thread I spent most of my time getting wrapped up in the minutia of moves. I'd say two of the three worked in synch with each other while the third, well I just thought it was neat.

DarkMatter
Gastly
Hp 11
Attack 5
Sp. Atk 7
Sp. Def 5
Speed 6

Substitute, Swagger, Mean Look, and Toxic

The concept was a simple one, confuse the opponent with swagger. Swagger worked out exceptionally well in the amount of damage it dealt if opponent was confused. After swagger I would use substitute to hide or mean look to trap them. Then I would use toxic (which worked much better on wild bidoofs and starlies) and wait it out until the opponent died.

After Dark Matter did his thing I'd switch in with

Jayne
Mudkip

HP 12
attack 6
defense 6
Sp. Atk 5
Sp. Def 6
Speed 5

Protect, Counter, Mirror Coat, Rest

The concept with Jayne was similar to Jhamin's use protect to feel the opponent out then once I got an idea for flavor use counter or mirrorcoat. The problem was Jayne was only good for one hit and if these didnt get a K.O. then I was in trouble. Hence rest, except without a chesto berry to wake him up it was quite useless. More often than not Rest was my downfall except in the stall match I had with Jhamin.

Last is the odd man out Hoppip. I made him for fun more or less and he didn't do much. Unless it was a water type and down they went.

Hoppip
HP 11
Attack 5
Defense 6
Sp. Atk 5
Sp. Def 6
Speed 6

The key with hoppip was speed and he didnt have it. I'd usually always open up with sunny day, combine with Chlorophyll and I was guaranteed to move first every time. Then I'd use a STABBED solarbeam, and quite often it would land a KO. In the event I encountered any other plants or birds I had Arial Ace which I used once. The rest of the time the Hoppip despite his awesomeness was trounced.

I had a wide range of victories and losses. I knew Jhamin was the man to beat, and when I did I think i got a little too cocky because Pidgen1 cleaned me out 3-0 followed by Kay 2-0. I was even enamored by SnappaJ's Charmander. IT pretty much single handedly devastated my team.

The whole battle though I didn't care for what type I was battling. Psychic versus Ghost no problem. Grass versus fire whatever. I really tried to persevere despite the odds. some times it worked some times it didn't.

All and all I had a lot of fun. I am still amazed that to my knowledge not a single person used a bird/flying type.

See you all next month!

[SnapperJack]

Zarn(Charmander)
HP12/Atk6/Def5/Sp Atk5/Sp Def6/Spd6
Flare Blitz, Crunch, Metal Claw, Dragon Rush

Zarn is from my first serious breeding experiment. I wanted to see how well he could do and I was very happy with how he did

Choo-Choo(Shinx)
HP12/Atk6/Def5/Sp Atk5/Sp Def4/Spd6
Ice Fang, Thunder Fang, Fire Fang, Crunch

The Shinx evo group is one of my favorites from D/P. I thought Intimidation would help him survive an extra hit or two, and I liked the verity of attack types I could give him. Plus the fact his only weakness is against ground attacks, and that’s only x2 damage made him seem like the perfect choice.

Bert(Ralts)
HP11/Atk5/Def5/Sp Atk5/Sp Def5/Spd4
Growl, Shadow Sneak, Confuse Ray, Hidden Power

I got lazy with Bert and it shows. I got Confuse Ray confused with Confusion, I should have bred for better stats, and I should have used one with Synchronize instead of Trace. After my battle with Buzz I knew I didn’t want to use this thing unless I had too.

My overall strategy? I didn’t have one. It wasn’t until after my forth loss that I said to myself to stop playing like a charging rhino start using my head.