Vs. Rihain

With the gates open and my 7th badge in hand, I made my way west for Hammerfell again. Apparently the plot has been happening behind my back: Leon has been running around defeating Wild Dynamax  Pokemon that have started appearing around the island. He told me not to worry about them and to challenge his rival Rihain for my 8th and final gym badge.

This task was straightforward: to defeat Rihain's three acolytes in Doubles battles. Luckily, Doubles is my specialty.

The Battle with Rihain was also a doubles match: Gigalith and Flygon up front and Sandaconda and Duraludon in the back.

Gigalith activated Sandstream, but I was able to take it and Flygon out handily. Duraludon and Sandaconda came in. Duraludon dynamaxed and started firing off Max Knuckles. These hurt my pokemon, but they also boosted my foe's attack. The damage racked up. The stat boosts racked up.

And...I lost.
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Honestly this hurts. My core was solid. My pokemon were strong enough...How could I have lost? I should be better than this, doubles is my THING. I ranked in the Sinnoh Cup. I've won tournaments.

I took a break from the game and took stock of what happened. I had control of the field until the very last two pokemon. I didn't have weather, but the weather didn't aversely affect my party. It all started to go down when Duraludon dynamaxed...

And then I finally got it. Up until this point, I have been viewing Dynamax as I did Z moves: I have been viewing the three Dynamax Turns as three turns of powerful attacks. I have been focusing on the damage. I should have been focusing on the effects. Duraludon was using Max Knuckle in order to boost its party's attack. The damage matters less than the effects.

If Duraludon could do it, then I could. I came up with a new strategy. Give Snorkle the Choice Scarf and have it Ice Fang everything--Rihain's pokemon all take either neutral or Super effective damage from it and it gets a boost from Strong Jaws. And Dynamax Mme.Trunks as soon as Duraludon hits the field to absorn MaxKnuckles and retaliate with Max Knuckles of my own. This will make Snorkle's Ice Fangs hit even harder.

I charged back in, filled with purpose. I came back out five minutes later with the eighth and final badge: the Dragon badge.

Vs. Piers

As soon as I entered Spikemuth, I healed my pokemon and then started to explore.  There was a big Team Yell presence here and I wanted to get the scoop on it all. I stumbled across a Team Yell grunt standing behind a kiosk, thinking it was time to buy some TM's or Ultra Balls. As it were, he was there to greet Gym challengers and my challenge for the 7th badge had just begun.

I guess we're doing it live.

Because I stumbled upon this gym challenge, I had to use whatever was in my pouch at the time.  All in all, I wasn't ill prepared considering what I could have had with me. I decided to teach Chirpy the TM U-Turn for the time being in order to adapt to the circumstances.

I made my way through the alleyways, fighting off Team Yell ambushes all along. And finally came across Piers, a grunge musician with an agressive hairdo. Without a Dynamax center, Spikemuth apparently doesn't bring in many gym challenge stadium spectators. That is why the town is so derelict. The stadium is an asphault pitch surrounded by chain link fences.

With the mood set, the match began. I led with Chirpy so that I could scout and U-Turn to an appropriate counter. I play with SET match rules, so switching out always costs me a turn (rather than playing under SHIFT options which ask you if you wand to switxh out qhen the opponent sends something else out) and pivoting with Uturn is an excellent way to do this without wasting momentum.
His Scrafty has Intimidate, which hurts, but I am able to KO it by monitoring my soeed to keep the damage of my foe's Payback in check.

His next pokemon is Malamar, who takes x4 damage from U-Turn since Psychic Types AND Dark Types are weak to it.

His Obstagoon is next. Since I have one of my own, I know what moves to expect and my first read is that it is going to use Obstruct. Obstruct has the same mechanic as Protect, but it also lowers Defenses if activated, so I decide to use Coil to get a boost to Attack, Defense, and Accuracy out of the turn whilst  I avoid the Obstruct Defense drop.  He can't use the move twice in a row to great effect, so essentially my goal was to boost and stall him out. I didn't know that it would be the Accuracy boost would be so useful in the end...

He defied my wxpectstions and used Counter. The next turn, he Obstructed my Bug Bite.

I'm having some trouble with my predictions apparently...

Now I am sitting at +1 atk, -1 def, +1 Accuracy. Also, he is a fadter pokemon than me. I need something big here and I get it when I get a lucky critical hit whislt hewhen uses counter next turn. I steal away the KO on a coin flip.

His last pokemon is his Skuntank. At +1 accuracy, I decided to risk a 50% accuracy Inferno. My luck holds out and I nail his pokemon burn it in one turn. this allows Centiscorch to shrug off a Sucker Punch and carry us to victory on 100 tiny legs.

Vs. Kabu

Team Yell greeted me to town in Monsoke City  and Marnie challenged me to a battle. She used a slew of Dark amd Poison types including a powerful Hamster poke.on called Morpeko which kept morphing between a cute forme and an amgry looking forme. It was able to take out nearly my entire team, but Trash was able to tank a hit from it and RETALIATE in the coolest battle conclusion ever.

She wished me luck on my third badge.

I decided to go with pure power on this gym matchup. My team has one very particular counter to Fire in Drednaw, but other than that, I am lacking. I decided to choose reliable pokemon that can take hits and cause heavy damage. Trash is in there as my revenge-killer. Stufful can debuff with Bulldoze. Zorro is my booster.

This challenge had a unique task before hands. Instead of solving a puzzle and battling trainers, my job was to earn points by catching pokemon. The other trainers would not be fighting directly against me, but rather making it tougher for me to weaken  and catch the pokemon. It was fun to be sure, but an unintended side effect of the task itself is that now I had Stuffy, Trash, Zorro, Drednaw, Litwick and Sizzlipede as my gym team.

 

Ninetales takes out stuffy, but he has done his job by lowering its speed with Bulldoze enough so that Trash can Retaliate and take it out in one clean hit.

Trash has to eat an intimidate when Arcane is switched in, so I move Zorro into position for some boosting and snarling. It doesn't mind the burn that it picks up.

Nasty-Plot boosted Snarl brings arcanine to critical health, but Thievul is KOed in the end. Now it is time for Trash to Retaliate again. Another clean KO.

Trash has done her job now, so it is time for her to rest. His final pokemon is Centiscorch, who seems to be the gym emblem itself. Trash fires off a Baby doll eyes and faints in one move.

Drednaw may be a much lower level, but he has Centiscorch in a mismatch.  As a Rock/Water type pokemon, it can tank anything that Centiscorch could dish out. Max Rockfall takes him out handily.

Vs. Milo

Pokemon Sword and Shield continue the trend set in Pokemon Sun and Moon of having a "task" to complete before the gym battle.  In this gym, the task was to herd 20 wooloo forward through several fields to unlock the path forward. I swear to god that everything about this game is designed to pump you up.

Bleppo the Dottler was able to make quick work of the Grass and Grass/Poison with its access to both Bug and Psychic moves. I'm getting sort of pumped about what its Stage 2 evolution is going to be like: Bug/Psychic is a new type combination if I am remembering things correctly.

I made it to the inner chamber and walked onto the field to challenge Milo to my first badge.

I led with Bleppo. Bleppo is remarkably bulky as a Stage 1 cocooned bug, so I figured that it would work as a good scout.

Milo sent in Gossifleur. I have experience with Gossifleur and I was able to take it out handily with Struggle Bug.

Milo's second and final pokemon was Eldegoss. Given the similarities in both name and form, I felt safe in my assumption that it was an evolution for Gossifleur. I felt confident in Bleppo's ability to take it out, but this is Cheeto's tale as much as it is mine, so I swapped in Cheeto for our very first Dynamax team-up!

Before I started Shield Version, I had decidedly negative feelings about Dynamax. I was on board with Mega Evolutions and I was in board with Z moves, but Dynamax was just the newest gimmick--and a lame one at that. 

I am still not sold on Dynamax, but the Kaiju matchup between Cheeto and Eldegoss was pretty cool to witness.

Pokédex:40/66

Current Squad:

Thwackey/Cheeto/lvl 19
Thieval/Señor Zorro/lvl 19
Chewtle/Snorkle/lvl 18
Corvisquire/Chirpy/lvl 19
Dottler/Bleppo/lvl 19

Stufful/Stuffy/lvl 16

On Rotation: Zigzagoon, Growlithe