>>35521375Well, we won. Though at a great cost.
In the end, I got impatient to end this and decided to just fucking go for the League even with one empty party slot. For the most part things went okay. Sauerkraut pretty much fried all of Lorelei's team - even Jynx was OHKO by a crit Thunderbolt. The fight against Lapras almost seemed like it would take a wrong turn when it knocked the 'Kraut into the red with Blizzard, but he managed to bring it down next turn. With Bruno my first thought was to leave it to Rav, but then decided to put Meatloaf at the front having the higher Defense. To my surprise, he handled himself well. Both Onix couldn't weather through Blizzard, and the Mons Chan and Lee fell to STAB Earthquake. He managed to soften up Machamp, but after being brought down to less than half his HP to Submission I didn't want to chance and sent out Rav to clean up. Agatha was rather uneventful with Mac taking the lead. Against Lance I had Rav at the bat - his movepool was diverse enough that he pretty much destroyed every dragon and dragon-like mon. (Though the fight started with me thinking I'd fucked up when he missed with Thunder, but Gyarados' retaliation with Hydro Pump fizzled out and thankfully Thunder hit the second time.)
The Rival battle went fast, but it was brutal in places. Sauerkraut OHKO Blue's Pidgeot and stuck in long to fuck up his Alakazam in two shots. Meatloaf made short work of both Rhydon and Arcanine with natural disasters. I was hesitant to swap out against Exeggutor, but then I remembered that this gen it doesn't have any actual damaging Grass or Psychic moves, so Rav kept Ice Beaming it between sleep spells from Hypnosis until he froze it solid. At this point I was feeling pretty confident about our chances that I left him in against Blastoise. Nidoking had always been among my favorite Gen 1 mons, always proving to be a bro, and I was certain this would be no different.
How wrong I was. (TBC)
