Reflections on 12/21/2010 Pokemon Battle Revolution Wi-Fi Battle

Okay, how did I manage to win in this lofty double battle against an online opponent named Nal? He had the following pokemon:

Dialga (Steel/Dragon)
Palkia (Water/Dragon)
Infernape (Fire/Fighting)
Empoleon (Water/Steel)
Giratina (Ghost/Dragon)
Garchomp (Dragon/Ground)

And my Pokemon team, the so-called elite team or known as Green Pearl as this team is made from the Pokemon teams from LeafGreen and Pearl versions, consisted of:

Palkia (Water/Dragon)
Kyogre (Water)
Articuno (Ice/Flying)
Gengar (Ghost/Poison)
Metagross (Steel/Psychic)
Gyarados (Water/Flying)

Note: The pictures of the Pokemon that follow are based on the order of the Pokemon that was on my team from top to bottom (i.e. picture of the first Pokemon after this list is Palkia, while the Pokemon shown at the end of the post is Gyarados).



Basically, what happened at the very beginning was this: Nal sent out Palkia and Dialga first, with Giratina and Garchomp as backup. I sent out Kyogre and Gengar to counter this combination, with Gyarados and Palkia to back them up. As you can see, Nal used all of his legendaries plus a pseudo-legendary Pokemon, while I used only 2 legendaries and 2 normal Pokemon for this battle.



In the beginning of the battle, my Gengar quickly successfully lulled Nal's Palkia to sleep with her Hypnosis move, while my Kyogre successfully and effortlessly endured Dialga's powerful Draco Meteor move, which also sharply lowered Dialga's Special Attack stat in the process. Nal's Palkia was then attacked by Gengar's Shadow Ball, but he woke up and then used Draco Meteor to kill my Gengar, which then greatly weakened his Special Attack stat as the same consequence as what happened with Dialga. Kyogre again survived another attack from a weakened Dialga (this time, with a Roar of Time move), as my Kyogre began to torture the latter with multiple Ice Beams to bring Dialga's HP to a low amount. That's when I had to get my own Palkia into the battle to replace my fainted Gengar.


Nal's Palkia, weakened from the Draco Meteor, then unsuccessfully killed my Palkia with a Spacial Rend move, leading to my Palkia retaliating with his Spacial Rend to instantly knock out Nal's Palkia, and another Ice Beam from my Kyogre on Dialga placed the latter on the verge of fainting while he had to recharge from that Roar of Time move. When Giratina came into the battle, my Palkia then instantly killed the former with another Spacial Rend move, while Dialga's energy ran out as he was knocked out by another Ice Beam from my Kyogre.



I thought I was able to win easily with Nal only having Garchomp left to carry out on the rest of the battle. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong. She was just too fast and she knocked out both my Palkia and Kyogre (who were both weakened with low HP after enduring all the attacks from Nal's Palkia and Dialga) with an Earthquake move. This left only my Gyarados to have to step into the battle in place of both of my legendaries.



I think I was very fortunate to bring in Gyarados, since he had the Intimidate ability that lowered Garchomp's attack to a huge extent. Because of this, she was unable to effectively take out my Gyarados with a Giga Impact. With this action, I seized the opportunity to power up my Gyarados with a Dragon Dance move, which boosted both his Attack and Speed stats. Then, Gyarados proceeded to quickly terminate Garchomp with an Ice Fang, as he became faster and more powerful than Garchomp from the Dragon Dance. I won this lofty battle very closely, with my Gyarados being the MVP who took down Garchomp on his own after Palkia, Gengar, and Kyogre all fainted in this battle.



There are lessons learned from this battle. Never use moves that weaken any of your stats unless you are truly able to win the battle regardless of stat reductions with this method or that you use these kinds of moves near the end of the battle. It is because of moves that weaken the user that pretty much gave Nal a huge disadvantage against me and eventually killed him. Not to mention, I didn't win this battle offensively. I won this battle defensively, as my Kyogre, Palkia, and Gyarados were all able to survive powerful attacks due to better defenses and/or ability. In this case, Palkia and Kyogre were able to survive all the attacks from Nal's Palkia and Dialga after they were weakened by their own Draco Meteor moves, as well as my Gyarados weakening Garchomp's attack stat with his Intimidate ability.