Random Battles Randomized Battle Bond Greninja generation

[Tbolt]

What type of bug are you reporting? Random Battles

What is the bug?
Challenge Cup 2v2 (and perhaps 1v1?) gives a base forme Greninja that can have the ability Battle Bond. This is displayed in this Challenge Cup 2v2 battle, where my Greninja's Battle Bond did not activate when KOing my opponent's Flaaffy.

Replay in question:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9challengecup2v2-2274766635-ztq7knpph1n2ej2lwa3llddqr3piscfpw

Are you able to replicate it? If so, how?
I attempted to test this with Pac n cheese (thank you for testing BTW!) and these were the results:

"Control" replay: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen92v2doubles-2274772632-wiafxb9aszheqqq02dkcobpgc8vq12apw
Replay where my Greninja had lower happiness: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen92v2doubles-2274773700-bp8njh1utll1su3ak5du5hob1nykg4tpw
Replay where Slaking Terastallized: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen92v2doubles-2274774883-ypf5gll44pksgo1wqze818o6h4a75j0pw

In all three of these replays, Greninja correctly got the boost from Battle Bond. After getting stuck by this, I explored the Scarlet and Violet Mechanics Research thread and found this post:

Research Post in thread 'Scarlet & Violet Battle Mechanics Research'

Jul 20, 2023

If you were to hack Battle Bond on a non-bonded Greninja, would it keep its effect?

Greninja has to have a specific form and have the Ability Battle Bond for it to work. So if you hack Battle Bond on regular Greninja, taking a KO won't boost stats (or transform to Ash-Greninja in previous generations). If you give that specific form Greninja another Ability, it doesn't have a built-in Battle Bond either or something like that.

• DaWoblefet

• 

Inspecting the output of the !showset command for each of these replays, I noticed that the Challenge Cup 2v2 game gave me a base forme Greninja instead of a Greninja-Bond like the 2v2 Doubles games. This means that Challenge Cup can give a Battle Bond Greninja that cannot activate it. Regardless of whether or not this is intentional (after all, there are other Pokemon that functionally have no ability in CC), I feel like this should be fixed because then players won't be misled into thinking their Greninja will gain the Battle Bond boosts.