The Road to the Pokemon League

***** SPOILERS WITHIN THIS BLOG *****
(or works as a walkthrough, whichever way you wanna look at it)

FROM THE JOURNAL OF SINNOH REGION POKEMON TRAINER: ZED

*** JOURNAL ENTRY: 12 July 2007, 10pm ***

FINALLY, after 59 hours and 16 minutes of going through the Sinnoh Region, I emerged from Victory Road to arrive at the entrance to the Pokemon League.

Here's the Team I brought with me for my Pokemon League challenge:

Torterra - Lv. 51 (evolved from a Turtwig received from Professor Rowan)
Moves: Giga Drain, Solarbeam, Crunch, Earthquake
Luxray - Lv. 52 (trained from a Lv. 4 Shinx)
Moves: Thunderbolt, Shockwave, Crunch, Leer
Staraptor - Lv. 48 (trained from a Lv. 4 Starly)
Moves: Fly, Defog, Aerial Ace, Wing Attack
Infernape - Lv. 48 (evolved from a traded Chimchar)
Moves: Flamethrower, Rock Smash, Rock Climb, Strength
Empoleon - Lv. 48 (evolved from a traded Piplup)
Moves: Surf, Waterfall, Blizzard, Cut
Gengar - Lv. 44 (evolved from a hatched Gastly)
Moves: Hypnosis, Mean Look, Spite, Dark Pulse

I was levelling up Gengar so that I could catch the 3 legendary pokemons of the lakes. I had originally planned to bring Lucario with me to my League Team, but decided to see if Haunter would be a better choice since having a 2nd Fighting/Steel type on my team leaves me at a bigger disadvantage against multiple-types, compared to having the Ghost/Poison combination (which my other pokemon don't have).

I have been training the first 5 pokemon on my team from the very beginning of my pokemon journey, while training multiple pokemon (such as Gyarados, Haunter and Lucario) for the 6th slot. I had to use some of my Rare Candy, HP Up, PP Up and TMs in order to get some of the pokemon above the way they are. Also, I gave all of them items to boost some of their attacks, except for Gengar who has the Exp. Share for levelling purposes.

Even though I was advised to NOT attempt fighting the Elite Four + Champion until ALL my pokemon reached at least Lv. 55 or higher, I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. Anyway, if I lost (the correct phrase was "when you lose" as my brother pointed out when I told him I was attempting to battle the Elite Four with the team above), my pokemon could always use the experience.

So after using up my money on all the Hyper Potions, Revives and Full Restores that I could buy, I went in.

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ELITE FOUR, FIRST BATTLE: Aaron

Aaron used mostly bug-type pokemon, which were easily killed with 1 or 2 hits from Staraptor's Aerial Ace, or Infernape's Flame Thrower. But the Drapion (darn combination type), fainted them a lot of times before I thought to try using Torterra's Earthquake. Torterra's high Defense/Sp. Defense stat helped make the job easier.

Beat him quite easily, thanks to Staraptor. Whoopee!

NOTE TO SELF: I noticed that Aaron had Full Restore at his disposal whenever I knock the opponent pokemon's HP into the red. I should assume that the other trainers must have the same, and must be wary to try to KO the opponent as quickly as possible.

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ELITE FOUR, SECOND BATTLE: Bertha

Again, thanks to Torterra, I was able to survive a barrage of attacks from Ground-type pokemon. Since my Grass-type moves on Torterra were a bit slow, I had to use up a lot of Hyper Potions before I could knock out her pokemon. Empoleon's Surf was a BIG HELP, provided it didn't get knocked down by the opponent's Earthquake attacks. Bertha's Hippowdon was the hardest to knock down, took me a good 10 to 15 minutes.

But I beat her!!! :)

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ELITE FOUR, THIRD BATTLE: Flint

Flint's supposed to have Fire-type pokemon, but I guess due to the lack of fire-types in the Sinnoh Region, he had the most diverse team. Empoleon took care of the Fire-types with Surf, provided he got to attack first. Infernape took care of the other 2 pokemon in Flint's arsenal, while Torterra and Luxray had a Crunch of the Drifblim. Torterra needed the experience points, but I switched out because it kept attacking second; Luxray's speed allowed it to use Crunch before Drifblim could attack.

I won, I won, I won! It took a while, but I won! Took a relieved breather.

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ELITE FOUR, FOURTH BATTLE: Lucian

My brother swears he hates this trainer. I quickly figured out why. His Psychic-type pokemon were mostly combinations in REALLY HIGH LEVELS (think Lv. 59 to 63), so they couldn't easily be killed with a fast Dark-type attack. Alakazam is a very fast pokemon with high Defense/Sp. Defense stats too, so my Luxray took a real beating, plus most of my turns were used on Potions (otherwise Luxray would faint and I wouldn't have a strong Dark-type attack anymore). Bronzong is a monster, since it could easily knock out Infernape with a Psychic attack. Thank goodness Flamethrower almost always takes the first turn. And it was after multiple revives of Luxray and Torterra before I finally figured to use Staraptor on the Medicham. Medicham was a bit faster than Staraptor, so I had to keep Staraptor's HP up all the time to survive the attacks.

I had the hardest time with Lucian, I think he kept me occupied for about 30 minutes, but yes I still won. At this point, I have used up about 15 Hyper Potions/Full Restores and maybe 8 revives. But OMG, I survived! I couldn't believe it! I beat Lucian! Huzzah!

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POKEMON LEAGUE CHAMPION: Cynthia

I have to spend a lot of words on this part. This battle was heart breaking for me.

Being Champion obviously means she has the best-made team, on top of having pokemon 10 levels higher than mine. 5 out of 6 pokemon were combination types that had hardly any weakness, while the single water-type pokemon had such high HP and stats (both Attack and Defense) that it was a struggle surviving this round.

Her Spiritomb was immune to Dark-type attacks, so I just used Luxray's Thunderbolt on it. It should have taken me only 3 hits, but because of the Full Restore, I used up 6 PP on it.

Milotic is a monster Water-type that's faster than Luxray, sadly. Luxray kept fainting before I could get a Thunderbolt attack in.

My Infernape survived most of Lucario's pounding, but it was still quite a while before I finally got it with a couple of Flamethrower attacks.

Gastrodon was matched up to Torterra, and was pretty easy to beat.

I should mention at this point that Gengar (who was absolutely useless throughout the whole League battles was already fainted here, and I only had 2 pokemon in green HP levels while the others were either fainted or newly-revived). Ohh, good luck to me!

Garchomp is a Dragon/Ground type. I had Blizzard in my arsenal, but it's not that effective against Ground types so Empoleon wasn't much help. Surf was more useful here, but Empoleon is slower than Garchomp. Infernape kept fainting from Earthquake. Garchomp kept knocking out Torterra, Luxray and Staraptor BEFORE I could land an attack. On Garchomp ALONE, I used up about 10+ revives and about 30+ Hyper Potions. Guess how I knocked it down?

It ran out of moves, used Struggle, and knocked my Torterra and itself out from the recoil.

My adrenalin was up. I only had to beat 1 more pokemon, and I would be Pokemon League Champion on my 1st try!!! But... my one last remaining pokemon was Staraptor. Everyone else had already fainted. Staraptor had full HP though, so I was hopeful.

Roserade was the last pokemon to beat. As a Grass-type, it was weak against Flying-type... so all I had to do was survive till I could get the first turn of attack. I used Aerial Ace.

Unfortunately, fate decided to go in Roserade's favor, because Staraptor got KO'ed from a single, critical hit with an Energy Ball.

After 2 hours, 4 Elite Four battles, 50+ Hyper Potions, 10+ Full Restores and 20+ Revives, my Flying-type got beaten by a Grass-type.

Sucks.

...

...

...

On a happier note. What did I learn from my entire battle? I believe I put together a good team. I was only battling with 5 Pokemon (Gengar didn't get to battle at all!), I was only battling with Pokemon who had WAY LOWER levels than the opponent pokemon (granted I was surviving from Potions, hehe) and I was only one Pokemon away from becoming Pokemon League Champion on the first try! I think it was a fantastic experience for me! :) I guess I couldn't really expect to beat the Elite Four and the Champion with the Team I brought with me, but I was close, eh?

I brought my weary Pokemon to the Pokemon Center at the League Entrance. I'm happy to find they are recovering nicely and none of them were unhappy with me for losing. My pokemon still love me as much as I love them, and we WILL become Pokemon League Champions together! All our hard work and training will be worth it some day.

For tonight, I must rest and rethink my battle strategy. Tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, our Road to the Pokemon League will be complete.

*** END OF JOURNAL ENTRY ***