#the pro strat of being so fucking irritating to fight both ingame and inuniverse

[zydeco-xylophone]

pokemon trainer au go weeee 1/?

So I started a platinum nuzlocke and my brain, doing as brains do, smashed my two latest special interests together. Basically, i tried to match the heisters’ respective aesthetics and perk decks. Side note I havent thought about pokemon competitively since like Kalos so forgive the inaccuracies. Also adding a bit of ‘pkmn can learn more than 4 moves’ for inworld flavor n fun.

First off is the man behind the scenes, the vape god himself, Bain. There’s not a lot to go on - we know he’s a hacker, used to be a robber himself, and the whole Kataru obsession. Think its safe to assume that his team would be OP as fuck with a side focus on ancient/otherworldly civilization. It was tough choice between Neheeyem, Sigilyph and Claydol for that reason.

Then we got Dallas, whose mastermind and crew chief perks make him a jack of all trades with an emphasis on support. Thus, a type balanced team with coverage and support moves. The Medic specialty here is represented by Clefable (hello wish/substitute/toxic staller), the Controller via Breloom (status and priority moves everywhere) and Sharpshooter by Kingdra. Braviary’s the closest i can get to his mask while Metagross is for communicating to Bain and the others. Yay psychic type telepathy! Arcanine’s there for rule of cool and sibling to Houston’s Luxray.

Meanwhile, Chains’ team can be summed up in one word: TANK. Big, bulky, powerful, if not spectacularly fast. Shotgunner is hard to convey, but Ammo Specialist is here via megaHeracross skill link ability. It was tempting to give him megaTyranitar as well but that felt a little bit too OP. Enforcer also gets rolled in with the general tank build because I got no idea how to convey it in poketerms. There’s not much strategy aside from the occasional Drain Punch - just going hammer and tongs with no boosting or status moves.

On the other end of the of the spectrum is Hoxton who was really hard to pin down. Instead of narrowing down each specialty I just chose to spread it across several ‘mons. Honestly, Intelleon could’ve worked to represent Gunslinger but I just don’t like its design. This is also where aesthetic played a lot as he got half a teams’ worth of Galar exclusives. Runnerups where Alolan Persian, Galarian Stunfisk and Theivul. Much like his skill deck, there’s not much in the way of being a team player. More likely to use moves that damage his teammates too.

It was really tempting to give Wolf nothing but canines for a team ngl. Alas, he only gets Mightyena I know it’s name is based on hyena but shhh. Sentries and the Engineer skill are rolled into one with Octillery, Breacher’s here with Electrode and the Oppressor’s fully auto specialty is represented with Ambipom’s skill link. Rotom would’ve been in here too but Bain already had one and I’m trying to do no repeats, also Porygon-Z’s glitchiness works better with Wolf’s whole backstory. Expect a lot of boosting moves and Baton Passing them around. Also paralysis/flinch combos.

Finally rounding this all out is Houston, whose whole thing is stealth and trickery. You just know he spams evasion boosting moves before going into anything. More specifically; Artful Dodger is represented here by Crobat (hello fellow toxistaller), Shinobi via Kaputops, and Silent Killer via Malamar. Luxray here is sibling to Dallas’ Arcanine and fits in with his stealth theming with it’s (canonical!) xray vision. booboo keys Klefki’s for general lockpicking and plenty of status moves.