Ash Ketchum
Merry Christmas folks! I'm a little late but it's still the 25th in my timezone so we're good! I have at least somewhat of a gift to give Smogon today. As I vaguely foreshadowed at the end of my previous RMT, there was one more RMT I had in planning. I've been shoving this team in everyone's faces for the past several months but now I've also decided I wanted to truly showcase this team.
Surprise surprise! I don't actually have much of a backstory behind this team specifically. In fact, I've already explained it all in Whatever It Takes. I really just built this as a comfort team to have fun and keep me chill while I was tryharding to make the ladder's first 90 GXE. I didn't expect this team to amount to much but ended up getting surprised by what it was able to accomplish. In hindsight, I did slap some pretty nasty teammates for the Pikachu, including sets I've invented that no one ever saw coming, so I can't say I'm too surprised by how far this team had gotten now. This team ended up making 43-2 and nearly 88 GXE by itself just 6 days after I made the first 90 GXE on the ladder. At the time, 43-2 was one of the most if not the most insane w/l record anyone had ever gotten on the Gen 7 Pure Hackmons ladder. A few people have gotten more insane win/loss records since, but I consider it to be very impressive that a Pikachu ended up making 43-2, especially within 1 month of Gen 7 Pure Hackmons having a permanent ladder and during some of the most chaotic moments the ladder had ever gone through. After a while, 90 GXE became more feasible for this team to accomplish by itself, so I just decided to go for it and use it as a great stopping point. I felt it was absolutely possible since it became easier for any team to reach 90 GXE several months after February than it was for me to make 87.9 GXE and 43-2 back in February (this is coming from the dude who made the ladder's first 90 GXE.) I also stopped playing on the account for several months in-between, so its deviation increased, making it not require many more battles to simply bump up to 90.
In case you're curious about elo, the highest elo this team reached as of this post was 1708, on a separate alt. I used this team to gain a pretty decent chunk of elo and ended up skyrocketing into the 1700s.
The account I used to reach 1708 with was Testing Team 001. This was back in March.
With that being said, I have bad news for those who hate seeing lengthy dialogue. You're reading from the wrong author. I'm Ransei. I found this post to be an opportunity to share my own experiences about my origin story with the Pokémon series. So without further ado, I have many short backstories to share about my early history with Pokémon!
I got into Pokémon when I was 10, in 4th grade in elementary school. It was late 2010 and Pokémon cards were being brought out everywhere. Every day at recess people kept trading and talking about Pokémon cards. This trend was inescapable. I even managed to get some Pokémon cards myself before I became familiar with the franchise.
I would carry around several random cards hoping to get involved in some sort of social interaction with someone wanting to trade. Out of the cards I've had, there were some I kept throughout the entire time before I got into the Pokémon games.
I don't remember most of the ones I've had, but here's one I do remember having prior to playing the games:
Weeks later, during some weekend (likely a Saturday) in November 2010, I went to a flea market and noticed Gameboy cartridge games were being sold. Looking at the stock of games I've noticed some nice ones. A bunch of GBA games were there, but what specifically caught my eye was Pokémon Sapphire. I didn't know what Pokémon was all about at time but it became immensely popular at the school I was in. I was well into video games, so because of this, I wanted to try out Pokémon Sapphire just to see how Pokémon was like in the games. It only costed $10 and I had a Nintendo DS Lite, so I was able to get the game. All the sudden I got hooked!
I would carry around several random cards hoping to get involved in some sort of social interaction with someone wanting to trade. Out of the cards I've had, there were some I kept throughout the entire time before I got into the Pokémon games.
I don't remember most of the ones I've had, but here's one I do remember having prior to playing the games:
I was a big fan of Super Smash Bros Brawl before getting into Pokémon. I absolutely loved that game. When I got into Pokémon, I learned that some of the Super Smash Bros Brawl fighters and even a Super Smash Bros Brawl boss were Pokémon. Lucario, who I initially thought sucked, became my first favorite Pokémon. I was sad it wasn't in Pokémon Sapphire however. Rayquaza easily became a contender to being my favorite as it was that epic giant green worm boss from Super Smash Bros Brawl. Fun fact, before I got into Pokémon, I'd only recognize Rayquaza as a Smash Bros Brawl boss. As a nine year old, I would look at its name and decide I couldn't even begin to pronounce it, so I kept calling it "Giant Green Worm" instead. I mean, it's green, it's giant, and it dug around like a worm in that game. It's weird because Rayquaza can't even learn Dig! I was super excited when I first learned that it was actually a Pokémon in Pokémon Sapphire. I overheard it in a conversation with some of the classmates I had, then I begged them to tell me where Rayquaza was at in the game... Fromt here, Rayquaza became my first every legendary Pokémon!
Being able to connect characters from Smash Bros Brawl into Pokémon made getting into Pokémon an even more enjoyable experience throughout the first couple of years of my time playing
Being able to connect characters from Smash Bros Brawl into Pokémon made getting into Pokémon an even more enjoyable experience throughout the first couple of years of my time playing
Before I joined Showdown I'd typically roam around through the Gen 3-5 games exploring as much as each region as I could, training lots of Pokémon to level 100, and battling a ton. I really loved battling, especially with powerful Pokémon. Around this time, I also watched a lot of the Pokémon anime, as well as some movies. I grew up being a huge fan of the fight between Palkia and Dialga from Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, watching many AMV (Animated Music Videos) YouTube videos of this fight alone. There weren't many animated fights between major legendary Pokémon at the time, so this really felt special. Kid me felt it was incredibly cool to see some of the most powerful Pokémon in the series fight each other, especially since they were the most directly responsible for defining the entire series and shaping up the World of Pokémon. The battle itself showcased how this was reflected by having reality start breaking as Palkia kept getting damaged. This fight alongside my experiences with Rayquaza from Super Smash Bros Brawl is what made me a really big fan of legendary Pokémon and a huge fan of the Anything Goes concept. Being able to wield Pokémon that supposably embodied the land, the sea, all of space, or all of time in the World of Pokémon made battles feel deeper, more exciting, and more epic to an 11 year old Ransei. I felt like these battles captured the full experience of what an ultimate Pokémon battle would be like, fights using who were all the best of the best, mechanically in the games and definitively in the worldbuilding of the series. I was disappointed in Pokémon champions like Cynthia for not following this despite coming across as :some of the most powerful trainers in canon" (In which they're absolutely not.) I started to really love Pokémon as a series, so I wanted to make the most I could out of my experience battling. I'd often play with friends in real life who had the same Pokémon games and we would battle off each other with lots of the coolest legendaries and mythicals around. We weren't exclusively using legendary Pokémon in each battle, but I was definitely that kid who loved spamming legendaries. Several months after getting into Pokémon, I was introduced to the Action Replay device. I used this to obtain Pokémon and events that were unobtainable, give myself maximum amounts of every item, and spamming rare candies on various Pokémon to give them a quick boost to level 100. Sometimes I'd do this, while other times I still legitimately trained many Pokémon to level 100 anyway, through normal means.
Generation 5 was the primary generation of main series Pokémon games I played during my time growing up as a kid. This was precisely because it was the current generation at the time I fully got into Pokémon. Generation 5 taught me what I liked about Pokémon games, what I didn't like about Pokémon games at the time, got me into further into Anything Goes battles, got me into Hackmons, eventually got me into Pokémon lore, and helped me learn what I wanted changed for the future of the series from Generation 6 onward. I'll be honest I felt very mixed about the games as I had a ton of problems with them, but at the end of the day it was still a Pokémon game with lots of activity going on locally, so I was able to bear through the era of Pokémon Black and White just fine.
The Nintendo DSi Network and by extension, the Global Trade System online for Generations 4 and 5 Pokémon games, were very magical for their time. This was largely due to the exploits discovered in them. Sometime during mid 2012, when I was around 12, one of my childhood friends came across two particular websites. One was known as pokecheck.org. The other was known as pokegts.us. Both of these websites are no longer accessible. pokecheck.org was a complete bank where people could upload any Pokémon they had through the GTS into the website for many other players to download into their games. It was not meant for hacked Pokémon but many hacked Pokémon made it through anyway. The other site my friend discovered was pokegts.us. pokegts.us was the holy grail of online DNS exploits. The website was a server that allowed anyone who accessed it to create whatever existing Pokémon they wanted, give them any move, give them any ability, and give them max EVs for all stats! The Pokémon could be set to any level from 1-100 and were able to be shiny by choice. This was like the Pokémon Showdown teambuilder except instead of uploading your Pokémon to pokepaste, you would download the Pokémon right into your GTS in a Pokémon Black or White cartridge. All you needed was online access and to change the DNS code on your Nintendo DSi console. This worked for Generation 4 games as well, but I only did this with the Generation 5 Pokémon games because those were the games I had everything in, were the most modern at the time, and were significantly easier to pull this off in than Generation 4 games.
When I was introduced to pokegts.us, my entire perception of "battling with the best Pokémon" completely changed. I started creating lots of hacked Pokémon and then gave many of them away to my other friends. Next thing you know I was the one who started setting up Hackmons battles with my friends on official Pokémon Black and White cartridges! This created a whole new perspective in the way I saw Pokémon. Being able to use any ability and any move I wanted on any Pokémon allowed me to capture the feeling of having everything representing the Pokémon game I was playing far more than just spamming legendaries and mythicals ever did. It also created an environment where even non-legendary, non-mythical Pokémon could keep up with the powerful legendaries and mythicals! All the sudden, Spiritomb and Slaking were able to walk on the same floor as Rayquaza and Arceus, while being perfectly fine! With all this in mind, battling with Hackmons became my new favorite form of Pokémon battling. I had everything in my arsenal to make these matches truly feel at their most meaningful. The entire game, in all of its essence, was being utilized at once. Not just Pokémon this time, but a chaotic mixture of items, moves, and abilities! These battles carried the thrill of experiencing pure chaos in a video game in a way that was epic! I felt like playing with Hackmons would be the way to have full-on ultimate battles in a Pokémon game, where I could bring out the most of everything in its code!
Fun fact: Most of the Pokémon I hacked into my games were either given Wonder Guard, Color Change, or Illusion. Wonder Guard was for--well, obvious reasons. I was running Illusion because it felt like a really cool ability at the time, but also because I wished it allowed the user to transform into the target instead of disguising itself as the Pokémon on the back. This wish did come to life in the form of the Imposter ability, which was actually in Pokémon Black and White, but I didn't realize it at the time especially as it was unreleased iirc. I ran Color Change for similar reasons, but instead, I wanted Color Change to be an ability that allowed Pokémon to change typing based on the move they used instead of the move they were hit by. This dream about Color Change ended up becoming true in the form of Protean in Generation 6!
When I was introduced to pokegts.us, my entire perception of "battling with the best Pokémon" completely changed. I started creating lots of hacked Pokémon and then gave many of them away to my other friends. Next thing you know I was the one who started setting up Hackmons battles with my friends on official Pokémon Black and White cartridges! This created a whole new perspective in the way I saw Pokémon. Being able to use any ability and any move I wanted on any Pokémon allowed me to capture the feeling of having everything representing the Pokémon game I was playing far more than just spamming legendaries and mythicals ever did. It also created an environment where even non-legendary, non-mythical Pokémon could keep up with the powerful legendaries and mythicals! All the sudden, Spiritomb and Slaking were able to walk on the same floor as Rayquaza and Arceus, while being perfectly fine! With all this in mind, battling with Hackmons became my new favorite form of Pokémon battling. I had everything in my arsenal to make these matches truly feel at their most meaningful. The entire game, in all of its essence, was being utilized at once. Not just Pokémon this time, but a chaotic mixture of items, moves, and abilities! These battles carried the thrill of experiencing pure chaos in a video game in a way that was epic! I felt like playing with Hackmons would be the way to have full-on ultimate battles in a Pokémon game, where I could bring out the most of everything in its code!
Fun fact: Most of the Pokémon I hacked into my games were either given Wonder Guard, Color Change, or Illusion. Wonder Guard was for--well, obvious reasons. I was running Illusion because it felt like a really cool ability at the time, but also because I wished it allowed the user to transform into the target instead of disguising itself as the Pokémon on the back. This wish did come to life in the form of the Imposter ability, which was actually in Pokémon Black and White, but I didn't realize it at the time especially as it was unreleased iirc. I ran Color Change for similar reasons, but instead, I wanted Color Change to be an ability that allowed Pokémon to change typing based on the move they used instead of the move they were hit by. This dream about Color Change ended up becoming true in the form of Protean in Generation 6!
On June 15th 2014, I received my first laptop. As the Pokémon fanatic I been over the three years prior, I knew the first thing I wanted to do on the laptop was play Pokémon on it, perhaps online. I was searching to see if I could play any core series games, and found various emulation websites. I tried to download Pokémon Emerald on one of them, but the download turned out to be fake and I ended up getting many viruses on my first laptop... oops. I then resorted to a game called Pokémon Tower Defense, which was discovered by the same friend I had who found out about pokecheck.org and pokegts.us. After some time, by the next day, on June 16th 2014, I got bored of the game and left. As I was searching for more Pokémon games to play on my laptop, I noticed there was one major thing I kept ignoring. Pokémon Showdown kept popping up as the first entry on the Google search bar. After some curiosity, I clicked Pokémon Showdown from the search bar and went into the site, wondering what this game was all about.
After entering into Pokémon Showdown for the first time, one of the things I noticed was the "Choose Name" button on the top right. This website wanted me to create or log into an account. Despite how little I knew about the internet at the time, there was still one thing I certainly did know. If I wanted to have a username, I was to be aware that popular names in high demand were obviously taken by this point. 14 year old me was a fan of edgy names like "Shadow X", but I knew that name was obviously taken. I even jokingly tried to insert it, knowing hard and well that the account would be taken, and it indeed was! While doing this, I also formed a serious choice. For my 13th Birthday in 2013, I was able to receive Pokémon Conquest as a gift. I ended up really loving the game. Within several months, I decided to attempt 100%ing the game, which primarily required clearing all the stories, having all warriors and Pokémon registered in the gallery, and collecting all the perfect links in the game. By the time I entered into Pokémon Showdown in June 2014, Pokémon Conquest became my favorite video game and I was on the road to 100%ing the game. Despite Pokémon Conquest being my favorite video game at the time, I had long known from experience that the game was very obscure. Not so many people had it, and certainly nobody else I knew in real life. Many people have never even heard about the game. With how obscure Pokémon Conquest was as a video game, I figured it was incredibly unlikely for anyone to have taken and registered the name of the game's region. I booted up Pokémon Conquest and watched the intro movie to memorize the name of the region, ensuring I'd spell it correctly. I now fully acknowledged the region of Pokémon Conquest being named: Ransei. I typed the name "Ransei" down on the username box and hit enter. It worked! Just like that, I became Ransei on Pokémon Showdown! I then looked for how to battle and noticed a box with six question marks and the format titled above as Random Battle. My general response to this was "naw where can I build my own team?" I straight up denied Random Battle right away. There had to be a way to build teams in this sim right? Fortunately, I quickly discovered the Teambuilder after this. I went into the teambuilder and discovered that all the things introduced in Pokémon X and Y were on it. I had never experienced any part of Generation 6 Pokémon prior to entering Pokémon Showdown. This was my very first experience with playing some form of Generation 6 at all. From the trailers and marketing, I at least knew some things about it. Mainly the existence of Mega Evolution. With this, I decided for my very first team on Pokémon Showdown to be a combination of my favorite Pokémon at the time and basic Pokémon who had Mega Evolutions in attempt to test out Mega Evolution for the first time ever. When I was done, I found out the battle sim needed me to select a format to use my team under. I did not know what any of OU, UU, RU, NU, or Ubers meant. I noticed STABmons at some point since it was OM of the Month, making it high up on the formats list. I found the name STABmons funny since it implied it only allowed Pokémon who could stab and involved the Pokémon stabbing each other. The team I built was perfectly legal, with no abilities or moves a Pokémon couldn't naturally have. With this and Pokémon Showdown having so many formats, I knew at least one of those formats had to accept my team somehow. I just needed to figure out which. Thankfully, after not a long search, I discovered the format to accept my team was Ubers. The search was likely quick since Ubers was always near the very top left of the formats selection anyway.
Here's a replay of my very first team on Pokémon Showdown, as well as what I believe to have been my first ever battle on the site.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-131828604
I built two more teams that day. My 2nd team consisted of the last six Pokémon on the Pokémon Conquest gallery and my 3rd team consisted of a group of non-legendaries, primarily to test out more Pokémon introduced in Pokémon X and Y. I don't remember the 3rd team entirely but do remember the team had at least a Chesnaught.
I spent several hours being stuck in a default Dawn avatar and wanted to figure out how to change it. I eventually figured it out and when I did I also figured out how to register the account.
I registered "Ransei" as my first account on the same date I first entered into Pokémon Showdown. It would be June 16th 2014 and was in my timezone, but Pokémon Showdown now uses UTC+0 as of this post. I registered "Ransei" at night on an American timezone, so my registration date shows up as June 17th 2014 instead.
Here's a replay of my very first team on Pokémon Showdown, as well as what I believe to have been my first ever battle on the site.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-131828604
I built two more teams that day. My 2nd team consisted of the last six Pokémon on the Pokémon Conquest gallery and my 3rd team consisted of a group of non-legendaries, primarily to test out more Pokémon introduced in Pokémon X and Y. I don't remember the 3rd team entirely but do remember the team had at least a Chesnaught.
I spent several hours being stuck in a default Dawn avatar and wanted to figure out how to change it. I eventually figured it out and when I did I also figured out how to register the account.
I registered "Ransei" as my first account on the same date I first entered into Pokémon Showdown. It would be June 16th 2014 and was in my timezone, but Pokémon Showdown now uses UTC+0 as of this post. I registered "Ransei" at night on an American timezone, so my registration date shows up as June 17th 2014 instead.When I woke up on the next morning I decided to take a good hard look at the formats selection on Pokémon Showdown to see if there was anything I could recognize at all. I ended up coming across the name "Hackmons". Oh? The same metagame I was playing on Pokémon Black and White cartridges with my friends just a few years prior with hacked Pokémon?! This got me curious! I wanted to see if this was the same type of metagame or rather the same concept as what I played in battles against my friends back in the days of Pokémon Black and White! I used the 3rd Pokémon Showdown team I ever built and tested out one game of Hackmons! I remember during my first Hackmons game on Pokémon Showdown, I got destroyed by a Staraptor and the opponent was asking why I was using a fully legal team. My response was not verbatim, but something similar to the lines of "I just want to see what this game is like before I start." I got excited upon realizing that this truly was the very Hackmons I knew of and was familiar with! This one was based on Pokémon X and Y, but I was perfectly fine with this. I immediately jumped in and went all out trying to understand the Hackmons metagame as much as I could! I was a total noob! I KNEW this! I made my first ever goal on Pokémon Showdown be to become great at Hackmons! It was my time to be committed!
Throughout the following week I kept going from 1100s to high 1300s and tilting back down. Thankfully, as I reached high 1300s, I encountered great players on the ladder who were willing to help train me up to get better. In further pursuit to become great at the metagame, I was also left wondering if there was any sort of place where people could publicly discuss Hackmons. After asking a new friend I made on PS! at the time (s/o to Disciple_1), they invited me to the Other Metas room. I had never been in a room on PS prior to this and did not think the site had any staff members to moderate stuff... this really could've been useful for some games I've encountered. Seeing people in all sorts of ranks like ~The Immortal and # for Room Owners was pretty cool. Other Metas pretty much became my second home and go-to place whenever I joined the site. I started getting involved in discussions figured out what the whole room was all about. Apparently a lot of it had to do with people having their own ideas to create unique playable formats. I was interested, so I asked that same PS friend how I could make my own OM and they said I needed a Smogon account. This was how I ended up on Smogon. I made a Smogon account on July 15th 2014 in attempt to submit an OM format of my own. It took quite a while for me to navigate through Smogon properly, find the right places, and acknowledge the rules that existed...
I decided this part was relevant enough to bring up as it's part of what directly led to the re-emergence of Hackmons.
Several weeks after being introduced to the Other Metas room, I was introduced to Pokémon Showdown side servers. Side servers are different Pokémon Showdown simulators ran for more casual purposes by a smaller team of individuals. The individuals most of the time were usually unaffiliated with the main server and their staff. Traveling through active side servers felt like a magical experience of traveling through a Pokémon Showdown multiverse. Each server was like its own little world. These servers were really big during my first few years on Pokémon Showdown from 2014 until mid 2016. I happened to end up in many of them during those years. In these servers, I've learned the most notable difference between them and the main server was how auth ranks were granted. Many side servers handed out out staff ranks like candy. This resulted in me becoming staff, including Administrator, across many Pokémon Showdown side servers, all when I knew very little about policy and nothing about coding! These servers also came with many persistent trolls, so I was able to use put all of the commands I was given into effect start moderating. Moderator decisions tended to be harsher on side servers than on the main battle sim, so I ended up using the global ban command A TON, but also learned the differences of how servers were being moderated without much difficulty. This helped me learn how to moderate chatrooms and battle simulators over time. The experience I formed in moderating side servers, including on a global level, would end up translating to my skills in moderating multiple rooms on the main Pokémon Showdown battle sim, including Other Metas after I eventually earned my first Room Driver position on the main sim. From there, I've been involved in a lot of very chaotic moments during the later years and held the responsibility of fixing them due to my auth positions in specific places. That's largely a huge part of what led me up to becoming PS! main server Admin at one point.
Several weeks after being introduced to the Other Metas room, I was introduced to Pokémon Showdown side servers. Side servers are different Pokémon Showdown simulators ran for more casual purposes by a smaller team of individuals. The individuals most of the time were usually unaffiliated with the main server and their staff. Traveling through active side servers felt like a magical experience of traveling through a Pokémon Showdown multiverse. Each server was like its own little world. These servers were really big during my first few years on Pokémon Showdown from 2014 until mid 2016. I happened to end up in many of them during those years. In these servers, I've learned the most notable difference between them and the main server was how auth ranks were granted. Many side servers handed out out staff ranks like candy. This resulted in me becoming staff, including Administrator, across many Pokémon Showdown side servers, all when I knew very little about policy and nothing about coding! These servers also came with many persistent trolls, so I was able to use put all of the commands I was given into effect start moderating. Moderator decisions tended to be harsher on side servers than on the main battle sim, so I ended up using the global ban command A TON, but also learned the differences of how servers were being moderated without much difficulty. This helped me learn how to moderate chatrooms and battle simulators over time. The experience I formed in moderating side servers, including on a global level, would end up translating to my skills in moderating multiple rooms on the main Pokémon Showdown battle sim, including Other Metas after I eventually earned my first Room Driver position on the main sim. From there, I've been involved in a lot of very chaotic moments during the later years and held the responsibility of fixing them due to my auth positions in specific places. That's largely a huge part of what led me up to becoming PS! main server Admin at one point.
- I got into Pokémon through the TCG being a powerful trend in the Elementary School I was in.
- Super Smash Bros Brawl was the first game I've ever experienced Pokémon in, which I didn't realize at first. When I did, it further help get me into the Pokémon series.
- I got into "Anything Goes" battles from my admiration of Rayquaza from Super Smash Bros Brawl and the many AMVs (animated music videos) of the animated fight between Palkia and Dialga from the movie Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai.
- I got into Hackmons through a friend's discovery of the DNS exploit and a server called pokegts.us that took strong advantage of it.
- I got into Pokémon Showdown through its persistence in showing up on the search bar when searching up a Pokémon game to play on my first laptop
- I got the name "Ransei" from Pokémon Conquest, assuming the game was obscure enough for the name of its region to have not been taken.
- Ransei was the first account I've ever went in on Pokémon Showdown as well as the first I've ever registered on the site.
- I got into moderating as a Showdown staff member through my experience earning global ranks in many Pokémon Showdown side simulators and carrying my experience onto the main sim.
- Super Smash Bros Brawl was the first game I've ever experienced Pokémon in, which I didn't realize at first. When I did, it further help get me into the Pokémon series.
- I got into "Anything Goes" battles from my admiration of Rayquaza from Super Smash Bros Brawl and the many AMVs (animated music videos) of the animated fight between Palkia and Dialga from the movie Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai.
- I got into Hackmons through a friend's discovery of the DNS exploit and a server called pokegts.us that took strong advantage of it.
- I got into Pokémon Showdown through its persistence in showing up on the search bar when searching up a Pokémon game to play on my first laptop
- I got the name "Ransei" from Pokémon Conquest, assuming the game was obscure enough for the name of its region to have not been taken.
- Ransei was the first account I've ever went in on Pokémon Showdown as well as the first I've ever registered on the site.
- I got into moderating as a Showdown staff member through my experience earning global ranks in many Pokémon Showdown side simulators and carrying my experience onto the main sim.
I'll also be explaining my history with Pikachu.
When I built my first Hackmons team on Showdown, there was one thing I already knew. I knew Wonder Guard was incredibly good in this game. I figured with the effects Wonder Guard carried that I could just give it to any Pokémon with a solid enough type combination and the Pokémon would be carried just fine. I already considered Wonder Guard to be so good that it didn't really matter what Pokémon I had with it, so I decided to be funny and give it to Pikachu. If I recall correctly, this Pikachu was the very first Pokémon I've ever built for a Hackmons team on Showdown. My oldest replays show me leading with an Imposter Magikarp, but I distinctly remember only adding that Magikarp in after playing some ladder games and recognizing the existence of Imposter from other people using it. I had the same idea with Imposter as I did for Wonder Guard, which was why there was a Magikarp with the Imposter ability.
Because Pikachu was the first Pokémon I ever built a set for in a metagame I would go on to lead and inspire contributors for, I would like to consider Pikachu to have been my starter Pokémon to the journey I've had on Pokémon Showdown and Smogon.
By 2015, Hackmons was reduced to an OMotM ladder on Pokémon Showdown, which it fortunately managed to get voted for at the end of January 2015. During the February 2015 ladder, I only sought one goal: To reach 88 GXE on the ladder. One of the players I most looked up to at the time estimated that around 88 GXE was the benchmark for where the truly great Hackmons players were at. As aforementioned, my first goal on Pokémon Showdown was to become great at Hackmons. Unfortunately I was caught in some shady ladder pact I didn't quite understand very well with multiple notable Hackmons players I trusted. (Showdown had an exploit that made it possible for players to tie on their own, even without anyone gaining or losing elo or GXE. The deal in this pact was to have us tie upon each encounter on ladder.) I didn't know this wasn't allowed since the exploit was so easy to pull off and it seemed innocuous to just tie but to be honest I also didn't get too involved in partaking in this as I was trying to avoid the top players as much as I could in fear of getting snaked on ladder. Yes, I somehow had that instinct. I made a couple of friendly ties on ladder and then 13 days into it, actually got snaked while tryharding to accomplish my GXE goal. This broke me and I started to tilt, even asking a top player who never even knew about this pact to tie with me when I was losing to them. This became a factor to how said top player ended up leaving Showdown for some time (before coming back a while later.) I kept getting tilted and ended up encountering another player who was a part of the pact but instead of drawing I just completely blew them over the dust. I became frustrated to the point where I decided I needed to stop for a bit. Part of the point of playing Pokémon was to have fun. I needed to not forget this. I was exclusively using Hopes and Dreams in the alt I used to tryhard for 88 GXE, but for comfort and to calm me down, I decided to go on a fresh alt and randomly build a team of none other than six Pikachu. I was to meme around on ladder with a whole team of Pikachu for the rest of the night and see just how far I could get with it. To my surprise, it made 16-0 right away before losing to what I found to be its biggest countermeasure in Mold Breaker Mega Gengar.
My next big moment with Pikachu after February 2015 was in OMPL IV. I was able to manage an OMPL team for the first time ever and needed to choose a name and a mascot. My co-manager went by the name Pikachuun, so I wanted to use Pikachu as the mascot to the team. I decided to use the term "Legendary" to address the side involving Ransei. When I saw Ransei as in the region of Pokémon Conquest, what I saw were the special legendary Pokémon in that game. The possible duality between Arceus and Shiny Rayquaza shown within the game and how that always fascinated me. This fascination even reached the extent of which this became a large part of what got me into Pokémon lore. I gave my first OMPL team the name "Legendary Pikachus", which became approved. My co-manager wasn't really active during the OMPL season so I pretty much did all the drafting and managing by myself, but what I ended up pulling was the most beastly team in OMPL history by that point, at least until OMPL VIII. I wasn't a major player in the majority of the OMs in OMPL nor did I have the experience to serve as a great support for teambuilding for them. However, there was one thing I did have that I believe was more valuable than anything else as a manager: a general understanding of the Other Metagames community. I wasn't a top tier player anywhere by any means but I'm confident that for a couple of years, I knew which players were truly on the top for each OM more than anyone else. I believe this was a major contributor to the consistency of my teams in OMPL tournaments I've managed, and leading a team with Pikachu as the mascot was the start of this. I've managed OMPL a total of five times and reached finals in four of them. The one time I didn't, I also didn't really take the tour seriously, because doing so sucked each and every single time anyway... In the very first OMPL I managed, OMPL IV, my team, the Legendary Pikachus, reached finals undefeated before suddenly losing to poor RNG in a critical finals match. It was unfortunate but I still look up to how wildly good that team was. I'm putting this here just as another part of my history with Pikachu in the Smogon/Showdown community.
Lastly comes the team featured in this RMT. As aforementioned, the reason I built this team was to take a break and keep me chill and calm while in my attempt to tryhard for the first 90 GXE on the ladder. I did not end up in some huge ladder fiasco or snaking incident as I did in February 2015, I just felt incredibly stressed out. I wanted to go back to memeing around and having fun for a bit. Pikachu piqued my curiosity for some time prior since the environment of Gen 7 Pure Hackmons seemed like it would be a place for Pikachu to thrive very well on paper. I figured this was my time to put it in practice. I wanted to build good support around it to have Pikachu work as well as it could and not have to worry about suffering many random losses, but I didn't expect for this team to turn out low-key insane on the ladder.
Because Pikachu was the first Pokémon I ever built a set for in a metagame I would go on to lead and inspire contributors for, I would like to consider Pikachu to have been my starter Pokémon to the journey I've had on Pokémon Showdown and Smogon.
By 2015, Hackmons was reduced to an OMotM ladder on Pokémon Showdown, which it fortunately managed to get voted for at the end of January 2015. During the February 2015 ladder, I only sought one goal: To reach 88 GXE on the ladder. One of the players I most looked up to at the time estimated that around 88 GXE was the benchmark for where the truly great Hackmons players were at. As aforementioned, my first goal on Pokémon Showdown was to become great at Hackmons. Unfortunately I was caught in some shady ladder pact I didn't quite understand very well with multiple notable Hackmons players I trusted. (Showdown had an exploit that made it possible for players to tie on their own, even without anyone gaining or losing elo or GXE. The deal in this pact was to have us tie upon each encounter on ladder.) I didn't know this wasn't allowed since the exploit was so easy to pull off and it seemed innocuous to just tie but to be honest I also didn't get too involved in partaking in this as I was trying to avoid the top players as much as I could in fear of getting snaked on ladder. Yes, I somehow had that instinct. I made a couple of friendly ties on ladder and then 13 days into it, actually got snaked while tryharding to accomplish my GXE goal. This broke me and I started to tilt, even asking a top player who never even knew about this pact to tie with me when I was losing to them. This became a factor to how said top player ended up leaving Showdown for some time (before coming back a while later.) I kept getting tilted and ended up encountering another player who was a part of the pact but instead of drawing I just completely blew them over the dust. I became frustrated to the point where I decided I needed to stop for a bit. Part of the point of playing Pokémon was to have fun. I needed to not forget this. I was exclusively using Hopes and Dreams in the alt I used to tryhard for 88 GXE, but for comfort and to calm me down, I decided to go on a fresh alt and randomly build a team of none other than six Pikachu. I was to meme around on ladder with a whole team of Pikachu for the rest of the night and see just how far I could get with it. To my surprise, it made 16-0 right away before losing to what I found to be its biggest countermeasure in Mold Breaker Mega Gengar.
My next big moment with Pikachu after February 2015 was in OMPL IV. I was able to manage an OMPL team for the first time ever and needed to choose a name and a mascot. My co-manager went by the name Pikachuun, so I wanted to use Pikachu as the mascot to the team. I decided to use the term "Legendary" to address the side involving Ransei. When I saw Ransei as in the region of Pokémon Conquest, what I saw were the special legendary Pokémon in that game. The possible duality between Arceus and Shiny Rayquaza shown within the game and how that always fascinated me. This fascination even reached the extent of which this became a large part of what got me into Pokémon lore. I gave my first OMPL team the name "Legendary Pikachus", which became approved. My co-manager wasn't really active during the OMPL season so I pretty much did all the drafting and managing by myself, but what I ended up pulling was the most beastly team in OMPL history by that point, at least until OMPL VIII. I wasn't a major player in the majority of the OMs in OMPL nor did I have the experience to serve as a great support for teambuilding for them. However, there was one thing I did have that I believe was more valuable than anything else as a manager: a general understanding of the Other Metagames community. I wasn't a top tier player anywhere by any means but I'm confident that for a couple of years, I knew which players were truly on the top for each OM more than anyone else. I believe this was a major contributor to the consistency of my teams in OMPL tournaments I've managed, and leading a team with Pikachu as the mascot was the start of this. I've managed OMPL a total of five times and reached finals in four of them. The one time I didn't, I also didn't really take the tour seriously, because doing so sucked each and every single time anyway... In the very first OMPL I managed, OMPL IV, my team, the Legendary Pikachus, reached finals undefeated before suddenly losing to poor RNG in a critical finals match. It was unfortunate but I still look up to how wildly good that team was. I'm putting this here just as another part of my history with Pikachu in the Smogon/Showdown community.
Lastly comes the team featured in this RMT. As aforementioned, the reason I built this team was to take a break and keep me chill and calm while in my attempt to tryhard for the first 90 GXE on the ladder. I did not end up in some huge ladder fiasco or snaking incident as I did in February 2015, I just felt incredibly stressed out. I wanted to go back to memeing around and having fun for a bit. Pikachu piqued my curiosity for some time prior since the environment of Gen 7 Pure Hackmons seemed like it would be a place for Pikachu to thrive very well on paper. I figured this was my time to put it in practice. I wanted to build good support around it to have Pikachu work as well as it could and not have to worry about suffering many random losses, but I didn't expect for this team to turn out low-key insane on the ladder.
tl;dr
It appears time and time again has Pikachu been there for me to serve as the comfort Pokémon for when I was facing struggles on the Hackmons ladders or even just being a noob. Pikachu was even who I'd consider to be my starter Pokémon for Hackmons and by extension, my entire journey on Pokémon Showdown. Literally my first partner Pokémon for this stuff! It's great and I love Pikachu for all that. What's also amazing is how Pikachu just so coincidentally happens to be the mascot of Pokémon and the face of the anime alongside a now incredibly inspirational trainer by the name of Ash Ketchum, who I'll bring up later.
Teambuilding Process
I needed a Pikachu for this to work.
/
Most Gen 7 Pure Hackmons teams need 2 Wonder Guards in order to be good and Mega Gyarados was considered one of the top Wonder Guards at the time I built this team. I figured Mega Gyarados would be a harmless addition to serve as a blocker of OHKO moves. What's more is, Mega Gyarados could also sweep pretty well at the time. Several months later, the metagame got further development and I realized Ash Greninja was overall better for the job, so I ended up replacing Mega Gyarados with Ash Greninja. I already gave this team the name "Ash Ketchum" because of Pikachu reminding me of him and his influence. Ash Greninja being added afterwards simply came off mere coincidence, blending in perfectly. This team was now clearly in some resemblance to Ash Ketchum. Ash is a Pokémon Master who is capable of befriending any Pokémon in the World of Pokémon, so when you place his two most notable Pokémon together on the same team, rest of the Pokémon here don't have to matter for this theme imo.
I wanted to have fun. My idea of fun was to create a set on the caliber of a Totem Boss fight from Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Mega Mewtwo X could just push buttons and go brr without having to worry so much. I'll explain some more below.
One would expect I'd place Zygarde-Complete as the defensive wall instead of Mega Steelix, as it has shown in almost every other USUM RMT I've made. However the reason I have Steelix here instead is quite ironic. Despite the point of this Pokémon being to serve as a wall, I figured the strategy I came up with here would be helped by the wall having notable weak points, allowing it to get KOed more easily. The key was for Mega Steelix to decently wall most threats, but then suddenly Tailwind against threats proven to be too extreme to handle, sack Mega Steelix, then punish those extreme threats with a Tailwind-boosted Light Ball Pikachu. I also have it as the Imposterproof for both Mega Mewtwo X on this team, which Zygarde-Complete cannot successfully manage because one of the Mega Mewtwo X carries a move that specifically targets Zygarde.
Yes, a second Mega Mewtwo X! Fun right? Well actually, I had a separate reason. If I wanted Pikachu to work, I needed to act extremely bloodlusted towards Focus Sash. I figured Mega Mewtwo X would be the best for the job. This resulted in a brand new unique set at the time made for the sole purpose of having as many Focus Sashes broken as possible.
My second Wonder Guard being the best Wonder Guard Pokémon in the metagame and my favorite Pokémon of all time? Mindless Ransei add. I did not think it would be smart to add anything else as a Wonder Guard during this time anyway, either due to it potentially creating poor synergy with the Water/Dark Wonder Guard Pokémon or just, having lost to proper Fissure sets more times than I'd like to admit while running Fissure-weak Wonder Guards during the ladder's most turbulent times.
The Team
Pokémon (Pikachu) (M) @ Light Ball
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Whirlwind
- King's Shield
- Spectral Thief
- Baton Pass
Just like every Pokémon episode during the first 8 generations, Pikachu is the star of the show. It can only really do one thing effectively if at all. Turns out, this game gives Pikachu a solid niche. When given Light Ball, the Attack and Special Attack of the Pikachu doubles. Pikachu's offenses in itself are so low that a Light Ball wouldn't be able to save it in Pure Hackmons, however the boosts it gets through Light Ball persist upon transformation! Imposter allows Pikachu to transform into any Pokémon in front of it without the need to waste a turn or worry about transforming first. If Imposter Pikachu transforms into let's say, a Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X, the Imposter Pikachu gains double of the attack of Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X, making it extremely difficult for anything on the opposing side to switch into. This potentially makes Pikachu a massive threat in plenty of battles. The same doubled offense boost applies to any other Pokémon Pikachu transforms into--Kartana, Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, Mega Mewtwo X, you name it. It otherwise copies the rest of their stats fully, with the exception of HP. For this reason, it's important to maximize the HP. This set goes ahead and maximizes the rest of the stats too, since there's no liability in doing so and Pikachu could make the most of the four moves it has set for itself if it's unable to transform with Imposter for some reason. Transform and Imposter are usually blocked by the opponent having a Substitute up or the target having the Illusion ability. Since Pikachu is frail, the set is mostly defensive, and the most powerful offense threats in the metagame tend to be physical attackers, it's also best for Pikachu to get a Defense-boosting nature like Impish.
Move Descriptions
Whirlwind: Forces the target out, which helps especially if they were behind a Substitute because it generally means someone wasted their HP and has to waste more HP in order to get another Substitute up. This also helps Pikachu's chances of being able to really transform on the next time it switches in.
King's Shield: Sometimes when your opponent is behind a Substitute or carries Illusion, you just want to scout to see what they do first. A protect move is nice here, but since Pikachu is a very frail Pokémon, lowering the target's Attack whenever possible benefits Pikachu's chances of surviving in future turns.
Spectral Thief: Useful move for Imposter users since a Pokémon with Substitute or Illusion very often has some sort of stat-boosting move. Spectral Thief can take advantage of this by stealing their stat boosts whenever applicable, harshly punishing the target.
Baton Pass: Move to help Pikachu escape to a separate teammate and even be able to pass stat boosts it took from Spectral Thief. This team's Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X or Ash Greninja would especially really love to have those boosts.
Greninja-Ash @ Pixie Plate
Ability: Wonder Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Shell Smash
- Photon Geyser
- Dark Pulse
- Judgment
Sometimes Ash Greninja helps battle alongside Ash Ketchum; other times it's chillin in a Pure Hackmons team helping Ransei out. Ash Greninja serves as a Wonder Guard unit to block the threatening No Guard Pokémon in the metagame, as well as serves as a soft sweeper when given the ability to do so thanks to its defensive merits as a Wonder Guard. With Wonder Guard, only super effective moves or moves with Mold Breaker effect could hit, so Ash Greninja holds an opportunity to set up on most things. Timid Nature and Pixie Plate are great because Ash Greninja's biggest feat is being able to outspeed and threaten the best offensive unit in the metagame, Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X. The Pixie Plate gives Ash Greninja's Judgment a Fairy-type, which not only works for those pesky opposing Mega Mewtwo X, but also helps to Imposterproof this Ash Greninja, allowing it to successfully take on the absolute best Pokémon in the metagame, Chansey... most of the time. Other than that, just like all the other Pokémon on this team, this Ash Greninja's stats are fully invested in mostly just the stats it utilizes.
Move Descriptions
Shell Smash: Move allowing Ash Greninja to boost its Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by 2 stages each. Ash Greninja usually has issues with power output, so this move really helps it a lot. Also helps Ash Greninja outspeed opposing Pokémon holding Choice Scarf.
Photon Geyser: This is a Mold Breaker move designed to break past Wonder Guard Pokémon who wall this Ash Greninja otherwise. It's also useful to help Imposterproof Ash Greninja as its Dark-type is immune.
Dark Pulse: Really solid STAB move which especially helps against Doublade, who otherwise walls this whole team, as well as the Wonder Guard Pokémon who resist Psychic, such as Meloetta, Mega Slowbro, and Dawn Wings Necrozma. It otherwise does consistently decent damage to most opposing threats and holds that sweet 20% chance to possibly land a flinch.
Judgment: When paired with Pixie Plate, is Fairy-type. This helps break down Chansey, Mega Mewtwo X, and sometimes even Zygarde-Complete, the three best Pokémon in the metagame. It could also be useful for opposing Dark-type Wonder Guard Pokémon who are weak to Fairy, such as Mega Sableye, Mega Gyarados, Hoopa-Unbound, or other Ash Greninja.
Totem Mewtwo X (Mewtwo-Mega-X) @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Photon Geyser
- Extreme Evoboost
- Sunsteel Strike
- Icicle Spear
My goal with this team was to have fun. You know what my idea of fun was? Running a Totem boss fight of a set. I wanted to make this on the caliber of one of those Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon boss fights. I needed to draw out the full potential of Mega Mewtwo X in order to accomplish this. I went full-on Colress mode on this mon. All I wanted was to push buttons and watch Mega Mewtwo X go brr. It worked. I made a Totem boss fight into a Hackmons set. Mega Mewtwo X is the most powerful hitter in the game. Huge Power helps it hit even harder, allowing it to break virtually anything it wants. Adamant Nature maximizes the effectiveness of its physical moves, which it largely favors over any special attack. Mega Mewtwo X overall also values an Attack-boosting nature over a Speed-boosting one in this generation. It's not using Special Attack at all, so any and all Special Attack investment was completely removed. Last but not least, it carries a Leppa Berry because this Mega Mewtwo X was given a double-omniboost of a move it would usually be able to only use ONCE. Now it could use the move AGAIN thanks to that berry. This helps Mega Mewtwo X gain what's either a x3 stat omniboost or the chance to restore its omniboost if the boosts were removed.
Move Descriptions
Photon Geyser: This is Mega Mewtwo X's flagship move in the metagame. It unleashes powerful damage with STAB + 100 base power and breaks through any defensive ability, including Wonder Guard. With Extreme Evoboost, almost nothing properly walls a Photon Geyser from this Pokémon.
Extreme Evoboost: Totem Boss fights in Pokémon are well known for their stat boosts. The later ones in the game tend to get an omniboost, with the final one in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon getting a double omniboost. Extreme Evoboost gives Mega Mewtwo X a double omniboost just like what the final Totem in Pokémon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon receives.
Genuinely cracked move that gives the Pokémon an omniboost. I'd argue that for Huge Power users, this is a better move to use than Shell Smash. This is largely for several reasons, being that in many cases, the immediate power you get off Huge Power alone allows the Pokémon to fulfill its main niche as an attacker. Not having stat buffs isn't a major loss to Huge Power Pokémon in most circumstances. The stat-boosting move is just there as an option for Huge Power Pokémon to finalize games more easily when they have the opportunity to. In addition, Unlike Shell Smash, Extreme Evoboost doubles the Defense stat as opposed to reducing it, making the Extreme Evoboost user significantly more difficult if not outright impossible for many opposing Pokémon to revenge kill once they get their stat boosts going. Shell Smash leaves Huge Power Pokémon more vulnerable to getting immediately KOed by a priority attack or any other attack depending on the circumstance. Extreme Evoboost fixes this. Last but not least, you don't need to use this move more than twice to win a game. You have one Extreme Evoboost by default, then a second one from Leppa Berry restoring its PP. As someone who has messed with Huge Power Extreme Evoboost Pokémon many times in this metagame so far, If you wasted both Extreme Evoboost uses, you misused the Pokémon in that battle. This applies to all Huge Power Pokémon with set up moves. With Shell Smash, if you are having to use Shell Smash on a Huge Power Pokémon more than twice in a game chances are your opponent is outplaying you pretty badly in order for you to be forced in this position and you're bound to lose your Huge Power Pokémon soon. Huge Power Pokémon also tend to be faster than the target, allowing Pokémon with high defensive stats to perform extra chip damage to take advantage of defenses lost from Shell Smash. Extreme Evoboost is better in situations where the Huge Power Pokémon can threaten opposing Prankster Haze Pokémon, rendering no other Pokémon able to stop Extreme Evoboost from decimating the game. Priority moves or Ice-type moves are great for this, making the use of Extreme Evoboost more justifiable.
Icicle Spear: Opposing Zygarde-Complete can be sent in and use Prankster Haze to clear Mega Mewtwo X's omniboost. Icicle Spear harshly punishes the Zygarde-Complete and ensures it never uses Prankster Haze again for the rest of the game by KOing it. This move also destroys all common Focus Sash Magic Guard Pokémon such as Mega Gengar, Deoxys-Attack, Kartana, and to a lesser extent, Mega Gardevoir. It otherwise just destroys almost any Focus Sash Pokémon if Stealth Rock isn't up for whatever reason.
Steelix-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Shore Up
- Haze
- Thousand Waves
- Tailwind
Many teams need a strong wall. For this team, Mega Steelix takes that role. Mega Steelix is used over Zygarde-Complete because I wanted to Imposterproof both Mega Mewtwo X on this team and make it easier for the opponent to KO under extreme circumstances in order to brutally punish them back with Pikachu. Mega Steelix is still around to wall most Pokémon, it's just that whenever the target boosts to overwhelming degrees or carries significant STAB moves the Pikachu could take advantage of, Mega Steelix becomes at its most optimal. This Pokémon's Steel-type makes it more vulnerable to Mega Mewtwo X as they tend to love running either Fighting-type STAB or Thousand Arrows a lot of the time. Mega Steelix also gets dropped by special attacks a lot more easily than Zygarde-Complete. My strategy was to run Tailwind when I anticipate a KO is coming, then use Pikachu in order to win. Mega Steelix should run Impish nature as it's not using Special Attack and it's not gonna be great at walling the best Special Attack moves in the game anyway. Physical Defense is where this Pokémon reigns king. Safety Goggles is present to ensure Mega Steelix keeps moving against most set-up sweepers as many of them carry Spore. Prankster is mandatory for this set as this team greatly depends on Mega Steelix being able to use Haze, Shore Up, and Tailwind faster than the offensive opposition could move. Lastly, its HP was dropped to 248 EVs to create an odd total # of HPs for the Mega Steelix to take slightly less passive damage from full.
Move Descriptions
Shore Up: Useful move that can recover Mega Steelix's HP by 50%. This move has an extra niche in being able to heal extra under sandstorm but since sandstorm is nonexistent in this metagame, Mega Steelix could realistically run any variety of 50% HP recovery moves. The Pokémon needs a 50% recovery move in order to consistently wall most Pokémon in this game.
Haze: If one anticipates it isn't the time to use Tailwind yet, either due to the opposing team having an Innards Out, having an Imposterproof, or your Pikachu getting KOed earlier on, Haze is necessary to immediately clear opposing stat boosts out. This is the biggest move on the team to help prevent unnecessary losses.
Thousand Waves: Waves is incredibly good for trapping opposing offense units who cannot properly damage Mega Steelix. They find out too late and the Mega Steelix can successfully 1v1 them with recovery + further Thousand Waves chip damage, and maybe additional Haze uses if necessary. It also helps Imposterproof this Mega Steelix and defeats any Mega Mewtwo X that does not carry a move useful against Mega Steelix.
Tailwind: Speed boosting move that acts as a surprise and gives this team's Imposter Pikachu a significant 1up advantage over the opponent after this move is used by Mega Steelix. Tailwind is usually used right on the turn Mega Steelix is predicted to get knocked out in. It could perhaps also be used midgame if you expect Mega Steelix and the next switch-in on your team to be super safe. Tailwind also occasionally allows this team's Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X to outspeed anything faster than what it normally is, such as opposing Ash Greninja, Mega Mewtwo X, Deoxys-Speed, and even Choice Scarf Pokémon such as Mega Rayquaza.
Mewtwo (Mewtwo-Mega-X) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Stealth Rock
- Taunt
- Light That Burns the Sky
- Extreme Speed
This Mega Mewtwo X only has one job--break SASHES! It was given everything it could to do its job effectively! It has Mold Breaker to bypass Magic Bounce to throw Stealth Rock and unleash Taunt, Focus Sash to ensure a 1-turn survival minimum against any attacker, letting it set up Stealth Rock, and Adamant Nature to maximize its damage output without sacrificing any important stat it's using. It's carrying maximum EVs in each stat bar Special Attack, since that's the most optimal way of doing this. I've determine that in order to make Pikachu work the best it could, being extremely anti-sash was the optimal way to go. This Mega Mewtwo X was designed to be an incredibly vicious lead for the team, so it's best of it's the first Pokémon sent out in most games. One may worry about the lack of recovery on this Pokémon but from experience, I was usually able to have this Pokémon last a good chunk of time in many battles and get it going to keep Stealth Rock up.
Move Descriptions
Stealth Rock: Designed to break sashes by having sharp pointy rocks dig into the target's HP each time they switch in. It also just works for casual chipping.
Taunt: Prevents the target from using Defog, allowing Stealth Rock to be kept in place. Can also prevent recovery moves and Substitute to allow this Mega Mewtwo X to break the target more easily. Just about any passive move there is outside Magic Coat can be shut down by a Mold Breaker Taunt.
Light That Burns The Sky: Sometimes you just want to nuke an opposing Pokémon's health with a 200 base power STAB move from this base 190 Attack behemoth. The strongest attack possible for this guy. I don't blame you. This lets Mega Mewtwo X be able to strongly threaten at least one opposing Pokémon in an average game despite primarily being used to set up hazards, switch back in, and stop the opponent from defogging hazards away or recovering their HP. I don't think there's much more a Mold Breaker Mega Mewtwo X without set-up moves could want in order to support this team.
Extreme Speed: Breaks either faster Focus Sash users like Deoxys-Speed or Dark-type Focus Sash users like Ash Greninja. Light That Burns The Sky gets blocked by Dark-types. Extreme Speed can also be a great move for revenge killing or finalizing KOs if the opposition survives Light That Burns The Sky or whatever other move your Pokémon used beforehand.
Audino-Mega @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Wonder Guard
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Defog
- Spectral Thief
- Shore Up
- Baton Pass
Mega Audino once again partakes a Ransei team. As usual, it's a Wonder Guard Pokémon designed to serve a defensive role to support this offense team. Wonder Guard is needed to work alongside this team's Wonder Guard Ash Greninja in order to properly manage opposing No Guard Pokémon. Wonder Guard also filters out any attack move that isn't Steel-type, Poison-type, Photon Geyser, or from a Mold Breaker/Teravolt/Turboblaze Pokémon. Mega Audino and other defensive Pokémon really love to block Spore above most other things, as it's a highly prevalent move in the metagame opponents use to build themselves momentum. For this reason, Mega Audino was given Safety Goggles here. This set is most optimal with Relaxed Nature with minimum Speed, including EVs and IVs in order to maximize Mega Audino's effectiveness in slow-pivoting with Baton Pass. Aside from that, the +Defense nature is great for potentially eating up more Sunsteel Strike hits or physical hits in general. It can even offer Mega Audino the chance to survive a Sunsteel Strike from many Mega Mewtwo X sets or a Searing Sunraze Smash from Mega Rayquaza and Primal Groudon. Last but not least, the 248 HP EVs are to make its HP stat odd, allowing it to take less passive damage from full HP.
Move Descriptions
Defog: I know this team wants to keep rocks up but there may be some times where the hazards on your side are more detrimental to you than what's on their side is for them. This is especially the case for if the opponent runs Toxic Spikes. Mega Audino can use Defog as an emergency exit against potentially fatal hazard stacks.
Spectral Thief: A lot of Mega Audino could use an attack move to prevent themselves from struggling against Taunt users. Because I went big on stat boosts on this team, I figured it would be fun to have Spectral Thief here in order to punish any Pokémon in front of Mega Audino who had their stats boosted, then Baton Pass those stats to either Ash Greninja or either of the Mega Mewtwo X.
Shore Up: Same deal as with Mega Steelix. Shore Up is a useful move that can recover Mega Audino's HP by 50%. This move has an extra niche in being able to heal extra under sandstorm but since sandstorm is nonexistent in this metagame, a wide variety of 50% recovery moves could realistically be ran in this slot. Mega Audino just has to make sure it has at least one of those in order to consistently take attacks.
Baton Pass: Like with Pikachu, Baton Pass on Mega Audino helps it pivot into a different teammate and even be able to pass stat boosts it took from Spectral Thief. This team's Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X or Ash Greninja would especially really love to have those boosts.
Checks and Counters
Mega Steelix - As this team's own Mega Steelix was built to Imposterproof both Mega Mewtwo Xs, it doesn't have a great way of handling opposing Mega Steelix. The best answer to opposing Mega Steelix is to gang up on it with Pikachu then finish it off with this team's own Mega Steelix in a PP stall war.
Doublade - Dark Pulse from Ash Greninja is this team's only hope against a team with Doublade. This team was built before I made Doublade more largely relevant in the metagame, so it wasn't built with prepping for Doublade in mind. If you can manage using the Ash Greninja well you should be alright at some point of the battle but losing Ash Greninja likely costs the game against Doublade completely. Pikachu - If an opposing Pikachu transforms into the Huge Power Mega Mewtwo X, this team may find a difficult time continuing to wall its attacks. A Mega Steelix can overcome it if it doesn't get unlucky with the amount of times Icicle Spear hits.
Mega Diancie - Once Mega Steelix is down, if Mega Diancie is active in battle this team could get steamrolled, as half of this team is weak to Fairy-type and Mega Diancie also tend to love running Sunsteel Strike. Pikachu may help if it's able to overwhelm Mega Diancie, but it's the only option.
Comatose Whirlwind - This team's only priority move is pretty weak most of the time and there's nothing with Magic Bounce or Magic Coat, meaning plays are forced to be more considerate in order for this team to serve a winning chance.
Shadow Tag - The majority of teams are gonna be checked by specific Shadow Tag Pokémon with the moves to directly counter them. This team is no exception, as it lacks Shed Shell and doesn't have many Ghost-types. Fighting Shadow Tag Pokémon forces this team to play more cautiously in order to avoid being trapped and destroyed. These Pokémon can easily get an edge over you if you aren't playing cautiously with pivoting moves.Conclusion
I felt Ash Ketchum would be a fitting name for this team due to Ash becoming one of the most inspirational characters in the Pokémon series alongside his partner Pikachu. Ash and his Pikachu served as incredible role models for many Pokémon players alike. They show the strongest connection between trainer and Pokémon in the series. Using this ability, they've expressed everything the series was ever about. The powerful bond--the bond between trainer and Pokémon Ash and Pikachu had allowed for Ash to accomplish every goal and solve every real ordeal he's ever came across, down to the point where he even managed to help and befriend Arceus. By what befriending Arceus of all Pokémon entails, in addition to the other major accomplishments he's made, such as overcoming Leon's Charizard with Pikachu, I truly believe Ash has become a Pokémon Master at this point. Being a Pokémon Master entails a trainer following the t game Arceus created for a human to experience--going out on adventures, gaining the ability to befriend all Pokémon, battling to become the very best like no one ever was, and discovering how the world of Pokémon works in order to understand the power that's inside. Accomplishing these things are what make someone a Pokémon Master by definition I believe and they're always what Arceus desired from the beginning. Arceus even expresses this very strongly in Pokémon Legends Arceus, where all it wants you to do is "seek out all Pokémon", then it battles you, you satisfy it, it rewards you with a copy/paste of itself as a Pokémon, then regularly emphasizes that you can rematch it an infinite amount of times. Beyond this, Arceus even sets up a battle facility challenge for you and encourages you to try it out, again further emphasizing that you can battle with it and what Arceus summons an infinite more amount of times, whenever you want. This entire process of it all starts with a trainer having a powerful connection with their Pokémon. Audino is my favorite Pokémon. I really love it for all the memories and experiences I've had with it throughout my journey in as a Pokémon fan. Seeing how Ash and Pikachu were like and what they've done, helping out many Pokémon and crossing boundaries in achievements an ordinary trainer and Pikachu would've never been able to cross, I looked up to Ash Ketchum and saw him as a source of inspiration I should follow upon with my connection with Audino. Zenith Mode and the mainline games helped with that a ton. The mainline games in particular constantly express the bonds a player has with their Pokémon acting like some form of currency in terms of power. The series has proven enough that a strong enough bond will allow a trainer and their Pokémon to achieve anything. Including but not exclusive to the ability to ease or prevent the pain of Mega Evolution, allow all Pokémon to unleash the full power of their attacks, reawaken the power of all things, overcome odds calculated to be impossible, break past the boundaries of time and space, overcome Arceus itself, and befriend all of Arceus's creations. It's no wonder Ash was able to do so much involving legendaries and how this was the main step someone needed to follow in order to be a Pokémon Master.
Replays
LOL I EXCEEDED THE 65,000 CHARACTER LIMIT AGAIN!
Well anyway that is all I have for you here. This was the only other RMT I had in planning. I don't have anything else in mind and I don't think I plan to find anything, as I've written everything I've wanted to say about my story with Pokémon. You can see it not only here but parts of it in Hopes and Dreams, Hopes and Dreams 2, and Zenith Mode, with other RMTs linked as extensions of such. The team here itself is quite fun to use and is pretty great when used well, being able to decimate the ladder and even high level players at times, as proven by the above screenshots. It's led me to realize Pikachu was actually kinda good in this metagame. It carried a shockingly high amount of games for me, you wouldn't believe it until you try! Take care, farewell, and once again, have a Merry Christmas!
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