# Pastebin W4tFTdJR Here is the team: Starmie @ TwistedSpoon / Lum Berry / Mystic Water IVs: 31-6-31-31-31-31 EVs: 6 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe Ability: Natural Cure Modest Nature - Surf - Psychic - Ice Beam - Thunderbolt RNG'd by me on an Italian Leaf Green game -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For round 4, Starmie is used as a lead in order to deal with Greta's Heracross quickly as well for a good portion of the matches. A fantastic coverage with Ice, Electric and STAB Water & Psychic allows it to hit the mayority of the Frontier Pokemon for super-effective coverage. Surf dents Fire types like Blaziken, Typhlosion, Charizard, problematic Rock types like Armaldo and destroy Ground types like Rhydon, Donphan and Steelix. Psychic destroys Heracross, Machamp and Muk. Ice Beam for Dragons and Thunderbolt for opposing Water types like Gyarados, Milotic and opposing Starmie. TwistedSpoon raises Psychic's power and it raises your chances of landing the OKHO on Greta's Heracross: 252+ SpA Twisted Spoon Starmie Psychic vs. 104 HP / 100 SpD Heracross (20 IVs on all stats): 292-344 (92.4 - 108.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO Without TwistedSpoon, Starmie never OHKOs it, so its your best chance to take it down before it uses its Salac Berry and gets to OHKO you with Megahorn. Of course, you rely on an RNG roll, so there's always a luck factor. After beating Greta on Silver, you can replace for a Lum Berry as it prevents Starmie from getting paralyzed or frozen. On the Battle Arena you can't switch out and this is where the Lum Berry becomes quite useful. On the final round, I used Starmie at the last slot behind Salamence / Metagross, to adjust for Greta's Gold Party. On this case, you can use a Twisted Spoon again to power up your Psychic or a Mystic Water to make your STAB Surf hit harder against neutral targets. Max Special Attack and Speed are used in order to increase Starmie's sweeping potential and disappear half of the Frontier's Pokemon sets. The other half doesn't feel good when they face... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Salamence (M) @ Leftovers IVs: 31-31-31-5-30-31 EVs: 252 Atk / 6 Def / 252 Spe Ability: Intimidate Adamant Nature - Aerial Ace - Substitute - Earthquake - Dragon Dance RNG'd by CollectorTogami on Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If Starmie gets KO'd by a Grass or an Electric type, Salamence is able to take on Grass types and Electric types. If Starmie gets one or two kills, generally the AI's party becomes weak enough for Salamence to start a sweep. I haven't been disappointed from using Salamence as a back up for Starmie since it can either finish what Starmie left or start Dragon Dancing. As a bonus, it resists Reversal and combined with Intimidate, it severly weakens them allowing it to deal with Pokemon like Medicham or Heracross if they get through Starmie. On Round 8, Salamence is used as a lead to deal with Greta's Gold Umbreon and beat him down with Substitute. Substitute is an exceptional move on the Arena when used correctly. It can definitely change a game by blocking the AI's efforts to paralyze or burn Salamence while letting it Dragon Dance safely if its necessary. You can see on the video how effective it was against Greta's Umbreon who's unable to break the Sub on one turn (unless it gets a critical hit) and blocks its attempts of confusing Salamence, while it quashes its HP in return without fear of being confused. Aerial Ace is pretty crucial, I wouldn't even use it over HP Flying taking into account that its never-missing attribute means that Salamence can easily win on the Skill category (It judges your accuracy) by spamming Aerial Ace. Earthquake rounds the coverage for Steel, Rock and Electric types that resist Salamence's STAB Aerial Ace. Dragon Dance lets Salamence raise its Speed I went for max Speed & Attack, although a more bulkier spread might be more useful on Salamence to take the weaker Ice Beams from the likes of Milotic and Lanturn. I haven't really bothered on using benchmarks, although I haven't been disappointed from the sheer power of using max Attack. Leftovers are used to recover the lost HP from using Substitute increasing its survival. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Metagross @ Shell Bell / Lum Berry IVs: 31-31-31-11-31-31 EVs: 60 HP / 236 Atk / 2 Def / 8 SpD / 204 Spe Ability: Clear Body Shiny: Yes Adamant Nature - Brick Break / Explosion - Earthquake - Shadow Ball - Meteor Mash / Hidden Power Steel RNG'd by CollectorTogami on Pokemon Colosseum -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In case it comes down to the final member, I've found Metagross to be deserving of the last slot thanks to its great bulk, resistances and power. Steel/Psychic is a great defensive typing on Gen 3 with Metagross being able to hit hard with its titanic Attack. On the first slot, you should use Brick Break over Explosion when Metagross is on the last slot as otherwise you will be stuck with an useless move. On my case, I didn't made the swap since I've already used my Explosion move tutor and for the purposes of this video, I wanted to do it continously without trading. Only use Explosion on the last round when lining up Metagross on the 2nd slot because if Metagross gets a kill and the AI is on its last Pokemon, you can seal the win with Explosion. Otherwise, be careful on how you time its use. Brick Break on the last slot, lets Metagross hit super-effectively Umbreon and Snorlax chpping way their HP pressuring them to Rest and not giving them a chance of attacking (They lose Mind points if they are forced to defend or recover HP). Earthquake rounds the coverage for opposing Steel types and Fire types that can threaten Metagross. It's worth mentioning that if you're stuck with Meteor Mash, Earthquake becomes your "safe" move to spam to avoid Mind points loss because of Meteor Mash's accuracy. Shadow Ball destroys Lati@s and Psychic types. Finally, if you can RNG a nice Beldum on Gen 3, go for Hidden Power Steel as Meteor Mash's 85% chance of hitting can really let you down on a crucial moment. Hidden Power Steel is 100% accurate, however, take into account its weaker damage output. Without a Choice Band, you'll be missing on a lot of OHKOs that otherwise Meteor Mash will score. (Seriously, don't use a Choice Band on this facility. Otherwise clap yourself when you get to face that Fearow who will laugh at your pathetic attempts of shaking something that's not in the ground). The EV spread is the same one I used at some point at the Battle Tower with Metagross. Didn't bothered to change it for the Arena: 204 Speed allows you to outspeed all Jynx sets letting you destroy them with Shadow Ball, Meteor Mash or HP Steel before they get a chance of putting you to sleep with Lovely Kiss. It also outspeeds Magmar 1, 3 and 4 which is huge for Metagross as you can smack them with Earthquake. 236 Attack EVs gives you the most of its offensive damage output while 60 HPs EVs are used to increase Metagross' bulk. I think the 8 SpD Evs were to reduce +252 SpA Lapras' Surf from netting a 2HKO on Metagross. Despite the Speed investment, Metagross is still fairly slow which is why Shell Bell becomes a good item on it, as Metagross will be recovering some HP if it moves last and when you take into account its excellent Attack, the recovery may be even bigger than what Leftovers can offer if you OHKO the opponent back. For Round 8, Lum Berry becomes useful in case Salamence gets down, preventing Metagross from being put to sleep, paralyzed or burned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Round 4: Starmie > Salamence > Metagross Starmie holds the TwistedSpoon to get a chance of OHKOing Greta's bulky Heracross. Round 5: Starmie > Salamence > Metagross Starmie uses a Lum Berry to avoid status. Round 6: Starmie > Salamence > Metagross Round 7: Starmie > Salamence > Metagross Round 8: Salamence > Metagross > Starmie Salamence is swapped as a lead to deal with Greta's Gold lead: Umbreon. With Salamence relying on Substitute to avoid status, Metagross comes as its back-up to ravage any lead Ice types. I'd recommend Explosion on Metagross here for Curse users that can beat Starmie in the back should Metagross fall. Lum Berry helps a lot against Greta's Gold party as Metagross can OHKO Gengar if it took sufficient damage from Salamence. Starmie is on the last spot to clean up the mess Salamence and Metagross leave behind which is not a bad spot. Since Starmie won't be exposed to more Pokemon on the last slot, you can use a different item on Starmie. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team's weaknesses: Of course, the team is far from invincible. It took me 3 tries to actually get to Greta both times without getting severely haxed in the process. Electric type leads are an issue as Starmie is usually unable to kill them in return and if they get a paralysis on Salamence, you'll be stuck on a bad position. Lati@s are also a huge issue as they can take Starmie's Ice Beam and fry it with Thunderbolt, KO Salamence since they are faster than it and leave you with Metagross stuck in as the last mon against the rest of the AI's party. Quick Claw and Focus Band users are a pain in the ass since they can flip the tables on you when they activate their item. On one of my lost runs I had the AI's Golem sweep my whole team after getting its Quick Claw activated 4 times (I ain't kidding). If Salamence leads, it has a bad matchup vs bulky Water types, specially if they carry coverage moves to hit Salamence super-effectively. The most dangerous one is Starmie since it outspeeds Salamence and OHKOs it with Ice Beam and if it gets lucky with critical hits, it nails Metagross leaving my own Starmie risking a speed tie. Swampert is also bad since it can just go for Ice Beam killing Salamence on the process and very possibly, forcing Metagross to explode on it if it haven't been sufficiently weakened. On a similar boat, Milotic leads are very bad as well since Salamence's and Metagross' Earthquake 3HKOs it, leaving Metagross weakened and Starmie potentially up against 2 Pokemon.