Let's Play! Ardy Plays Pokemon Unite: Bottom Tier Version!

[Ardy]

Hello all!

So, I've been playing Pokemon Unite on and off since release, and currently its the main game me and my boyfriend play together, so I wanted to do a Lets Play of it because its exam season again and I need an excuse to not study. So without further ado, lets get into it!

The Game

So, if you didnt know, Pokemon Unite is a MOBA for mobile and Switch, and is probably the game that has made me the angriest in my life. Its pretty simple, you play on a map with 4 teammates and 5 enemies, all of whom are (usually) real other people playing the game. You knock out wild pokemon for experience and points, brawl with the enemy players to try to knock them out, and score your points in their goals. The team that scores the most goals wins. It sounds simple, but the reality is that this game is infuriatingly complicated with hidden mechanics and the like, which I will be explaining as they come up.
Nevertheless, its a relatively easy grind. While the matchmaking might have you infuriated, you only need around an average ~40% winrate to get from Beginner Rank (the lowest rank) to Master Rank (the highest rank) each season. So if this was just a normal playthrough, there wouldnt really be any challenge to it.

Now, when I originally started planning this challenge, I was considering just doing a Supporter only run. This would make me MUCH more reliant on my teammates, and make it so I couldnt just play every match like it was the same match, by ignoring my teammates and trying to carry by myself. While that might have worked a few months ago, back in September we had a balance patch release which MASSIVELY buffed Mr Mime, who was otherwise one of the worst pokemon in the game. Mime quickly rose to become a top tier pokemon, and as a Supporter that could EASILY carry bad teams, would make this challenge trivial. I considered just banning Mime from the challenge, but then the question arose of what I would do if, say, Eldegoss or Hoopa got similarly buffed and made the challenge trivial. Which is how I settled on the current challenge rules, which are...

The Challenge Rules

1. For me to be able to play a pokemon, they must meet the following criteria:
   1. If they are an Attacker, they need to be ranked at most C rank on the Unite DB Viability Rankings, OR be in the bottom 5 winrate of their class according to the Unite API Statistics
   2. If they are an Speedster, they need to be ranked at most C rank on the Unite DB Viability Rankings.
   3. If they are a Supporter or Defender, they need to be ranked at most C rank on the Unite DB Viability Rankings, OR be in the bottom 10 winrate of ANY class according to Unite API Statistics
   4. I can only play the All Rounder with the worst winrate.
2. I must stay upto date with these rankings, ie, if a balance patch releases between updates of this Lets Play, I must only use Pokemon that adhere to these rules. If I have no Pokemon that adhere to these rules and cannot obtain another, I must only use the lowest winrate Pokemon I own.
3. I will be playing as a free-to-play player, so I cannot spend real money in game to unlock pokemon or items.
4. If I personally feel like a Pokemon that is allowed by the rules would break the spirit of the challenge, I will not use it.
5. If I personally feel like a Pokemon that is disallowed by the rules would follow the spirit of the challenge, I will stick with the rules.
6. I will only play in Solo Queue, ie, I cannot play with predetermined team members. This is to ensure I cant cheese the rules by just playing a bad supporter while my boyfriend plays broken mons he uses very well.
7. Wherever possible, I must role-fill in a game that has no supporter or defender. The priority is Supporter > Defender because its much harder to carry with my support options. If those roles are already taken, I may use an attacker/speedster/all rounder of my choice instead.

With those incredibly unfair rules imposed, the time to begin the challenge starts now!

Except I couldnt actually play too much rn, so Ill post screenshots of the tutorial, along with the Pokemon I chose at the beginning of the game, along with a list of the pokemon I can play with right now, with a brief explanation of whether Im planning to buy them or not.

Episode 0: The Tutorial One

To start off, I make a new account. If anyone wants to friend me and play in Standard (not ranked) with me, feel free to do so!

Just some nice tutorial vibes here.

A little teaser of the gameplay if you havent seen it before.
And now, finally, the Choice.

Now this is a VERY annoying selection. Before the most recent balance patch, I could have chosen between Eldegoss and Pikachu, since the other three are pretty good in game. With the most recent patch, however, Eldegoss got buffed out of C Rank into A Rank on Unite DB. I dont personally agree with this, Elde still seems pretty meh to me and outclassed by other Supports, but regardless, I am left with the daunting inevitability of having to choose my least favorite pokemon in the game.

Hello you goddamn stupid fucking mouse. Its worth noting that unlike every other evolution family in the game, Pikachu can not evolve in Raichu during a game. Horrible game design. I hate this stupid thing.

Thats about it for this update. Next update, me and Pikachu against the world.

Now, a list of Pokemon I can use currently, and whether theyre worth it or not:

Candidates

Blastoise is probably the worst defender in game at the moment, having a horrible early and mid game, and really only coming into its own once it reaches level 9, which is probably halfway through the game. Regardless, it is a solid option given its decent offensive prowess with the Rapid Spin/Water Spout build, although its 10k coin pricetag is giving me pause atm. Its also worth it to note that Blastoise is probably overdue for a buff, so I might lose a playable character very soon if I buy him.
Poor, poor, Buzzwole. He has a decent kit, and can put out some very nice damage, but unfortunately he costs 12k coins and has been buffed every patch since release, making him more trouble than he's potentially worth.
Cram is an intriguing option. At 8k coins, he's very affordable, and can do good damage. He's also been consistently nerfed, so the possibility of him rising anytime soon seems low. I would like something more reliable though, as Im not very familiar with his gameplay.
Now This Is Good. Crustle has a bunch of viable builds, is still C tier despite being recently buffed, and is the closest thing I could get to a carry. As a bonus, we get him for free, so I could buy him in the shop for 6k coins and then get a refund on him once we unlock him! Very solid choice, definitely a must-have.
As fun as this pokemon is, its horribly inconsistent from game to game, and relies too much on getting fed to put in work. The 10k price tag puts this issue to rest. Not a fan.
Stuns at level 4 are nice, and its damage output is middling enough for me to be able to justify using it. 10k is fucked up though.
Weakest early game of any pokemon on this list. Hard pass.
We get this for free almost immediately, and this is a great upgrade over Pikachu. Has two decentish builds, and is weak enough to make me struggle. Definitely a must-have.
10k is again hard to justify, but it is the most viable defender we are going to have access to anytime soon. Might be good for role-filling games when I dont want to play Crustle.
We get this for free, but even then I dont think its particularly useful. Zera is just bad in the meta rn imo. It does get nice iframes on Wild Charge, but it takes too long to get going.
this is getting a buff next patch, so not an option rn. Might be intriguing if shes still low tier after the buff, but for now I'll hold off.
One of the two Support options. Wiggly is much better get for a cheaper price tag, so Im not too interested, but his moveset is VERY unique and this one is probably the harder of the two to use. We'll see how it goes.
The best supporter we have access to rn. Sing + Double Slap is a disgustingly good combo, while still not doing enough damage for it to be considered a carry. Its unite move is one of the worst in the game as well, so thats a bonus for the challenge. Must have.
We get this for free, and its okay. I might disallow it just because it has carry potential, but Im undecided rn.
Take a pokemon with the best healing move in the game, one of the fastest charging unite moves, and give it a move that prevents dashes and a fair amount of escape options and you get...the lowest winrate in the game? Clefable is so strange. Its kit is so good, but its stats are just bafflingly bad. Add a 12k price tag and you have a recipe for disaster. Soft pass.

Rn our must haves are:


Pokemon I get for free:


Pokemon to consider buying:

Next update, we start our grind! Thank you all for having a look!

 

[Ardy]

Episode 1: Domo Arrigato, Mr Roboto

Upon logging in today, I was greeted with my free Slowbro license. Im still not sure if Im gonna allow myself to use him, but its a useful poke to have in the back in any case.

Additionally, I can unlock yet another pokemon for free, this time Alolan Ninetales.

Now, Alolan Ninetales is not good. Its not even decent. What it is, however, is better than Pikachu.
So lets take a dive into the gameplay of this great game.

Boring Gameplay stuff

Every pokemon can only have two moves at any given point. You get two weak moves to start off with, in Alolan Ninetales case its Icy Wind and Powder Snow. Moves in this game usually follow in on logic from the main series games, but can add their own spins to certain moves as well. In this case, both Icy Wind and Powder Snow are just simple ranged moves that do damage.
As a pokemon levels up (by defeating wild pokemon or enemy players) those two moves will get replaced, and each time, you have a choice of two moves to replace them with. When ATales gets to level 4, she can learn one of Avalanche or Dazzling Gleam, for instance, and when she gets to level 6, she can learn either Blizzard or Aurora Veil.
Using a move puts it on cooldown. For example, if I use Avalanche with ATales, I cannot use it again for 7 seconds as it charges back up. While your moves are charging up, you can use basic attacks, which are just weak hits that all pokemon have access to. Melee pokemon will usually punch or kick or headbutt for their basic attacks, while Ranged pokemon will usually use some type of elemental blast (in Ninetales case, its a small icicle). Basic attacks turn boosted after theyre used a certain period of time, and these boosted attacks do more damage (though not as much as moves) and usually have a side effect (in Ninetales case, every third basic attack is a boosted attack that slows the opponent for a second).
Also, around the midgame, usually around level 8 or 9, every pokemon unlocks its Unite Move, which a very powerful move unique to that pokemon that has a very long cooldown. This cooldown can be shortened by killing enemies, scoring, or killing wild pokemon, but even then its rare to have your unite back up in less than a minute.

Now with all that exposition done, I'll be commenting on a Pokemons moves and unites as I play them. No use to give a huge dump on every move Im gonna use at the start of the Lets Play.

I go ahead and clear all the tutorials that I have access to. This gives us a decent influx of cash, which will be useful later this update.

Crustle and Wiggly, the two pokemon I have my eye on, are 8000 coins. We only have ~7500 rn. No worries, we will be able to pick them up shortly.

With all that done, lets head into a Unite Battle!
We cannot currently play Ranked mode. You need to have 5 unite licenses before you can enter ranked so that its impossible that you have 0 pokemon you can play (since there are 4 other teammates, and two teammates cannot use the same pokemon). This isnt a biggie, we will unlock Venusaur soon, and even though we cant use it, it'll serve for us to be able to enter Ranked.
You can play Standard, since in Standard, four pokemon are provided by the game for free each week to test out and prevent a situation where a player cannot select any pokemon.

Now, the first game you play on an account is ALWAYS going to be a bot match, which means there are no human players. In addition, its impossible to lose the first game you play, the enemy bots will just surrender if you start losing too badly. With that in mind, and the knowledge that Im not going to be able to use actual good pokemon this playthrough, I decided to have fun with this free win and play an insanely busted Pokemon, Gengar, since its free this week.

Gengar is a VERY pokemon with its Shadow Ball / Dream Eater moveset. Shadow Ball does good damage, but what makes the moveset so good is Dream Eater. Dream Eater puts a pokemon to sleep. Once it has done this, it can be used again, causing Gengar to teleport behind them and do damage. When this teleportation occurs, Shadow Ball cooldown is drastically lowered, allowing it to be used very soon after Dream Eater a second time. Then, to cap it all off, if Gengar manages to get a KO on an opposing pokemon (not wild pokemon), Dream Eater immediately comes off cooldown. This thing is a combo monster, and its amazing.
Not much to say about this game, since it was a bot game. I went in the Jungle Path to begin with. There are three lanes in the game, Top, Bottom, and Mid. Since the map this game was played on is not the map thats available in Ranked, I'll explain more about the differences between Lanes when I finally unlock that. Suffice it to say that Mid Lane, or Jungle, is the most experience rich area of the map, and is usually reserved for your highly offensive pokemon to level up very fast and help out with one of the other two lanes. You can see in this game how a level lead due to jungle caused a snowball effect where I was outlevelling and two-shotting everything in the lategame.

We win the game by a landslide, getting 19 kills and dealing almost 100k damage. Its very unlikely we'll be seeing numbers as impressive as this for the remainder of this playthrough.

Winning our first unite battle gives us access to the Beginners Challenge, which is little more than a way to just farm coins for the first week of the game. Im not complaining, though, as completing all this brings us up to 10000 coins, which is more than enough to buy our first pokemon.

We buy Wigglytuff. Since I'll get Crustle eventually, and Wiggly struggles more than Crustle due to its relative frailty and lack of escape options, I decide to pick it over Crusty for now.
Wiggly has possibly the most annoying kit of any pokemon in the game. At Level 4, it unlocks its first move, which is either Rollout or Sing. Sing activates an area around Wigglytuff for 2 seconds, and enemies that stay in this area too long will be put to sleep and be unable to move for 1.5 seconds, and will also have reduced defenses for 1.25 seconds. Rollout is a VERY fun move Im excited to use this playthrough, as it just transforms wigglytuff into a ball that rolls and stuns opponents while doing damage to them. If you hit a wall, you bounce off and the duration of your Rollout increases. Its very hard to use but very, very, very, fun.
At Level 6, it unlocks its second move, which is either Dazzling Gleam or Double Slap. Both are just damage moves, with Dazzling Gleam having consistent damage, while Double Slap hits anywhere from 3-5 times. Double Slap needs atleast 4 hits to outdamage Dazzling Gleam, which would already make it more worthwhile, but to hammer the nail in, at Level 10, it upgrades to Double Slap+, which changes the range to 4-6 times instead, making it guaranteed to outdamage Gleam. Clearly the superior option.
Wiggly suffers from having a pretty bad unite, however, as it only gives Wiggly and its allies a shield while making it immune to status effects. It has its moments, but I find myself rarely using her unite.
Now lets take her into a game.

Unfortunately, this game also turned out to be a bot game. I ended up taking our Jungle after our Jungler (Talonflame) ended up being too stupid to clear it consistently. Nevertheless, Wiggly put in a lot of work, with Sing + Doubleslap annoying the shit out of the AI Machamp and Eldegoss. I did die a fair few times, however, highlighting how much of a downgrade this is to something like Gengar, who, despite having WAYYY lower defenses, did not die a single time in the first bot game.

We still end up with 12 kills and 66k damage, outdamaging our entire team, though this is mostly due to how bad the enemy AI is. Once we start facing players who know what theyre doing, Wiggly might be in trouble.
And thats all for this update! Im going out for dinner, so I couldnt really play much more than this. I hope you enjoy, and I'll be back later this weekend with more! Have fun everyone!

 

[Ardy]

Episode 2: Hell Is Other People

Hey everyone! I decided not to do this run over the weekend because there was a balance update yesterday and I wanted to see who got buffed before making any purchasing decisions. Anyways, lets get into it!

We have access to two more days of missions, and the rewards from these are pretty good. More money is always a good thing, and, though its not relevant to this playthrough, I really like the clothing rewards too. Fits the fall aesthetic really well.

We also get the Potion, which is our first (and rn, only) Battle Item! Battle Items are just items you can use in battle that go on a cooldown when you use them. Potion is the most basic one, and honestly one of the most situational. It could be useful for some Crustle builds for this playthrough, but I dont see us using it too much once we unlock the better ones.

We load into a game, and its not a bot game! You can tell because theres no way the game would generate a bot with the username xxxurmomz. Anyways, even though we should be rolefilling with a Defender, I dont actually have any defenders rn. So Im just gonna say Wiggly is a defender for the purposes of this battle.

And holy shit do I instantly miss the bots. As you can see from the above pic, I chose top path with Machamp, but Charizard, who CALLED BOTTOM LANE, decided to run top instead, causing me to need to go bottom and miss out on EXP on the time I spent tracking through center. After that, our entire team would just...go to one place for some reason, leaving the other lane COMPLETELY undefended. You can see it happen twice in the game above. Also, when our enemies are not bots, it ends up highlighting Wiggly's failures. Bots will rarely gang up on you or push when they're low health, while even the most basic player will usually know to do that, and when we're wiggly defending against 3 people, there's basically nothing you can do, because Wiggly is the ONLY supporter with 0 healing in its kit. It doesnt even get spell vamp or lifesteal or anything. Yeah, its pretty obvious why this thing is low tier. Regardless, with a clutch Zapdos kill, we win in a VERY close game.

What the Fuck Is a Zapdos

So I really should have mentioned this last update, but I didnt for whatever reason.
Every game has 3 boss pokemon that spawn, depending on the map. One spawns in the top lane, one in the bottom, and one in the middle. The one in the middle only spawns once, when theres 2 minutes left in the game, and usually gives the biggest reward for KOing it. For this map, the middle boss is Zapdos, and whichever team KOs it makes the enemy teams goalzones undefended, which just means you can instantly score no matter how many points you have to score. Couple this with the fact that all scores are worth double in the final 2 minutes, and winning Zapdos is usually game over for your opponent.

We somehow still end up with the most kills on our team, and 77k damage. Pretty good for the worst support in the game.

We manage to scrape together another 8k, and I wanna play Ranked, so I head to the shop to pick up my fourth pokemon. Blastoise just got buffed, and so did Garde, so Im not gonna risk buying them. My choices, therefore, come down to Crustle or Cramorant. Since I need a Defender for rolefilling, and Im unfamiliar with Cram, Im going to pick Crusty for now. We get Crustle for free in 4 days anyways, and when we do, we get the 8k coins refunded.

So we get Crustle!

Crustle moveset things

Crustle has a really interesting kit. Most pokemon will have movesets where like if you pick one move, its highly recommended you pick a specific second move to combo with it. Not the case with Crusty. All of Crusty's moves are good, and they all combo decently well with each other. He's a highly diverse pokemon to play.
Crusty is strong from level 1, as its starting move, Rock Slide, does damage in an area and stuns anything it hits. Its useful for getting out of bad situations.
Its level 4 move choices are Rock Tomb or Shell Smash. Rock Tomb makes a walled off area in the shape of a U that pokemon cant walk through. The wall also does damage when it goes up and when it goes down, and causes enemies in its vicinity to move more slowly. Shell Smash works like it does in game, where it lowers Crustles defenses for 4.5 seconds, while boosting their attack, special attack(this is useless for this game) and movement speed. Its a REALLY good option if youre trying to run a speedy damage build on Crustle, and is way easier to use than Rock Tomb.
At level 6, its choices are either X Scissor or Stealth Rock. Stealth Rock is probably the weakest move in Crustle's kit, as it just sets up rocks in a small area that damage enemies and goes away after 4 seconds. It is nice because you can use Rock Tomb to block off enemies and then throw rocks in that small area and theyre forced to take the SR damage because they cant run away from it. Its also up for 4 seconds, and has a 5 second cooldown, so it has really good uptime, you basically always have rocks up somewhere. However, X Scissor is just REALLY good. It does damage infront of it three times, moving forward and stunning enemies with each cut, and if the final cut causes a target to hit a wall, it stuns for 1.5 seconds. And yes, the Rock Tomb wall counts for the stun. It also does a SURPRISING amount of damage for a Defender. You p much always wanna use X-Scissor, and Rock Tomb and Shell Smash is up to preference. I tend to lean towards Rock Tomb, because if you're going full damage on Crustle, theres just better pokemon to use for that role, but Smash has its moments regardless and is a strong option in any situation.
Lastly, Crustle's unite move is pretty good as well. It gives Crustle a shield equal to 40% of its HP (and you get another shield for 40% for 6 seconds) and damages enemies around you. This is better than Wigglys unite because 1) The shield is larger and 2) Crustle has better bulk than Wiggly.

Now lets take her into a game!

And we get a game where we have a supporter (mime) on our team, so I dont have rolefill Supporter and am free to use Crustle.

Right off the bat, we get a v nice moment with Rock Slide early on, where we prevent Charmander from killing our Absol by stunning it for long enough for Absol to get away. Later on, Charizard avoids getting killed by evolving (evolving gives it a brief immunity during the animation), but I end up getting the kill with a very cool Rock Tomb placement. We also get a kill on the Zeraora with X Scissor. Unfortunately, Crustle's failings become apparent later on. Crustle doesnt have too much in the way of offense unless its backed up by teammates, which means when my teammates leave me in enemy territory, I cant really get out, especially if Im not running Shell Smash. Even uniting did not help my situation. We also get a funny moment where Slowbro unites me for a whopping 0 damage since I'm standing on my base when he does that. We end up getting Zapdos, and score, and I get a Nice Moment that does not matter in the last couple seconds of the game by saving our Garchomp from death with a well placed Rock Tomb.

This marks the first time in this run that we dont have the highest damage on the team. A testament to Wiggly, or a critique of Crustle? I will say though, this game was not as close as the last one. We were winning throughout the game, getting Zapdos just hammered the nail in for our enemies.

We level up and get Venusaur for free though. Venusaur is one of the best pokemon right now, but thats fine, because we just dont need to use it at all.

We also get access to held items. Held items are items you can equip that give you different effects, and you can hold 3 of them (although at level 5, you only unlock 1 slot). These can only be upgraded to boost their effects and the stats they give. Right now we just have Leftovers. Leftovers is by FAR the worst item in this game. its actually really sad. All it does is give you HP Recovery out of combat, but the rate of recovery is so low it amounts to basically nothing.

But thats fine, because we can buy more!
We pick up Choice Specs and Attack Weight, and get Scope Lens for free from the Beginners Challenge.

Attack Weight is REALLY good. It gives you a permanent buff to Attack when you score, upto 6 times. At level 1, each stack isnt worth that much, but 6 scores gives us a +36 attack. Crustle has the third worst attack of any Physical based pokemon, and the damage calculation for X Scissor is (188% Atk + 3 x (Level - 1) + 140), which means even a boost of 1 to our attack is counted almost double, so 36 extra attack does go a long way.
We give Wiggly and AloTales Choice Specs, which boosts the damage of their moves by an extra 30% of their special attack once every 8 seconds.

Also, we unlock a new map, Theia Sky Ruins! Since this is the map we're gonna be playing in Ranked, I'll explain it in detail here.

Map Things

So, Theia Sky Ruin is MUCH larger than the other map, which means movement speed and dashes are very important here, for getting around the map quickly. This is key because Crustle is the only pokemon we can use rn with either of those things. The boss pokemon are as follows:
Top Lane: Regieleki. It will first spawn when 7 minutes are left in game. Once Eleki is knocked out, it becomes a member of your team and walks towards the nearest opposing goal zone, attacking enemies in its way. If Eleki manages to get to the goal zone, it will make it undefended like Zapdos would. Once its knocked out, it will respawn 2 minutes later.
Bot Lane: Regice/Regirock/Registeel. One of these three spawns randomly when 7 mins are left in game. When theyre defeated, they give a buff to the team that defeated it. Rock gives a defense buff for 90 Seconds, Steel gives an Attack buff for 90 seconds, and Ice heals every three seconds for 90 seconds. Once its knocked out, a random regi will spawn 2 minutes later.
Mid Lane: Rayquaza. It will spawn when 2 minutes are left in game. Defeating Ray gives all members of the winning team that are alive a shield. This shield makes scoring faster, and scores can not be interrupted by enemy attacks or hinderances while the shield is active. Also, while the shield is active, damage done to enemy players is boosted by 40%.

Rayquaza is a much more manageable wincon than Zapdos, because theres a way to counter it: break the shields before they get to the goalzone. In addition, if only one person is alive when Ray dies, once theyre killed theres no buff for their teammates. Zap would allow players to spawn in after zap was KOed, and run to the enemy goalzone and score for free. Nevertheless, Ray is still a very strong option for a struggling team.

I really wanted to do a Crusty game to show off Attack Weight, but unfortunately rolefilling rules require me to use Wiggly. Im just now realising how annoying this fucking run is going to be.

I dont have much to say about this one. Our team played okay, not too bad, and we bullied the shit out of their gardevoir.

And we're back on the most damage done route.

And we unlock Ranked!

Thats gonna be all for this update, folks. See you next time!

 

[Ardy]

Was in New Hampshire for thanksgiving and the internet was shit so I had to wait 6 days to post this update but here it is!

Episode 3: Offense Galore

So, last time we left off, we had JUST unlocked Ranked Battles, which is where the main focus of this playthrough will be. Lets take our good boys and girls into Ranked.

So Ranked has a bunch of different ranks. You start in Beginner rank, and then progress to Great, Expert, Veteran, Ultra and then finally Master.
Beginner to Expert have 3 subranks, Veteran has 4 subranks, and ultra has 5 subranks. For every battle you win, you get 1 diamond. Every 3 diamonds lets you advance a subrank. Losing a battle makes you lose 1 diamond. You cannot lose diamonds in Beginner Rank or Master Rank.
Anyways, lets get started!

I really wanted to play something other than Wiggly, but sadly rolefilling rules required me to play it in the first battle.
Note: I fucked up the editing of this video, so the first and second clips are shuffled around, but I only caught it after uploading so yknow. thats y'alls problem now.

Now this game was a bot game (infact I think 60% of games in Beginner rank are), but even then, the bots on my team were baffling. Several times during the game my Gastly would just be hanging out somewhere in the enemy jungle for no reason, my venusaur would just stop moving and not do anything, and my greninja seemed to be on a mission to not score a single goal. Despite that, this was a good game. We bullied the mime and garchomp, and easily claimed our first diamond.

Wiggly Supremacy has not been shaken yet.

Before we do the next game, i wanna talk about boost emblems. Boost emblems are certain tokens that you can assign to a character that boost their stats. Each token has a stat effect and a color effect. A stat effect is just a flat buff/nerf to a stat, for example +3 attack -4 defense. A color effect is more complicated, but essentially, every emblem has upto 2 colors. If you attach emblems of the same color, they give a much bigger boost than their stat boost, for example, attaching 3 brown emblems will give a pokemon an extra 1% attack (5 will give you 2%, 7 will give you 4%). Only 10 emblems can be assigned to a single pokemon at the same time.
Now, emblems are powerful, but we dont have any right now. Im going to keep rolling in these in the background, because Im looking for specific colors:
green and black for ninetales
brown and white for crusty
green and white for wiggly
Now, onto the next game!

Someone very kindly decides to play Mr Mime, so I can finally roll up with my attack weight crustle. Fear my power.

The game gets off to a horrible start. When youre stacking, you want to get your scores in at the very start of the game to get the most value out of your item. So the strategy is usually to kill 2 bunnelbys on your way to path, run immediately to the goalzone, score, and then try to kill their farm and score it. This strategy is pretty brainless, and when done right will usually net you around 4 stacks in under 30 seconds. I did not do it right, getting killed after only getting 1 stack and failing to secure any wild pokemon in the process.
In any case, we end up getting all our stacks in by 2 and a half minutes into the game, which is not ideal but not bad either. Crustle is just so much fun, guys.
At level 1, our attack weight isnt doing TOO much. I am noticing a little extra damage boost at max stacks, but honestly the true power of this item will be more apparent once we unlock the ability to upgrade held items. Right now Im stuck with only level 1 items and its honestly really annoying.
I also run into more of the same problems with Crustle: while rock tomb + x scissor is a great combo for enemy players, it does nothing to objectives like Regieleki. In this game, I had to wait a full 2 minutes for someone from my team to come to the top path and help me kill the stupid fucker cause I couldnt do enough damage by myself. Around 7.5 mins into the game, I get KOed when I get jumped by 3 members of the enemy team and cant get away fast enough, which led to me being dead when rayquaza spawned.
In any case, the game was not too bad, but noticeably more difficult than Wiggly. Crustle really needs help to put in work.

We still manage to keep our winning streak going. This game was also a bot game, btw.
Now, lets load into another game. If we win the next game, we'll get to the next subrank of Beginner class!

Holy shit we got a defender + a supporter so I dont have to rolefill. I immediately click the strongest attacker Im allowed to use, Ninetales, and get ready to rumble.

Ninetales moveset thingies

Ninetales has two different builds it can run, the fairy build, or the ice build.
The fairy build consists of picking Dazzling Gleam at level 4, then Aurora Veil at level 6. Dazzling gleam does damage and stuns, while Aurora Veil is a dash that ups defenses and boosts all basic attacks for a set time.
The ice build consists of picking Avalanche at level 4, then blizzard at level 6. Avalanche creates a wall of ice at the designated location, which does damage and freezes when something is shoved into it. Blizzard freezes and shoves enemies, while also doing damage over time at a designated location. pretty elementary synergy.
Although the fairy build is the stronger moveset, I decide to go with the ice build for this game, mostly because the fairy moveset works best with certain held items and emblems that I do not have at the moment.
Ninetales Unite Move just does massive damage in an area. Great unite.

Now, even though I called bottom lane, my idiot bot teammates decided to go 2 bot anyways, so I had to waste a bunch of time running through central area towards top path. Its all worth it though, as I secure farm as soon as I get there, and evolve quickly. My choice specs show their work, as I nearly oneshot the level 4 cinderace with my Avalanche combo. I manage to get some more KOs as my Zeraora heads to the top lane to help us out, and my score is hilariously interrupted by a wild bunnelby whose aggro was triggered via my snow warning passive.
However, this game also showcases why Ninetales is allowed in this challenge. While the Avalanche + Blizzard combo is pretty powerful, its on a long cooldown (9 seconds between Blizzards), and Ninetales is slow, squishy, and doesnt have any dashes outside of Aurora Veil, which in itself is a really small dash. This means that usually Ninetales is going to struggle to get more than 1 combo in during a teamfight, and can very well end up spending most of the match dead. Luckily we are playing with bots this game, so this did not happen, but holy shit is Ninetales Not Good right now.

Thankfully, we win, and get upgraded a subrank.
Thats all for this update, catch you all next time!