Gustav

ctrl+f "Gustav" turns up nothing and my own visual scan of the list also turns up nothing...but I got a notification for this. Am I just stupid?

I mostly agree with dlamb here. Is there anything you still want to accomplish with your current player, and is that a realistic goal? If you can answer yes to both of these questions, there's your reason to stick with it. There's no right answer and it all comes down to your own thoughts. If anyone here is trying to tell you there's a single right way to go, don't listen. I get that you're asking for opinions, but yours is the one that really matters.

7.4: Challenge Agatha Quick Claw on Poliwrath, Focus Band on Flareon and Gardevoir. 1. Poliwrath/Hydro Pump 2. Flareon/Fire Blast 3. Gardevoir/Psychic

Eevee gains 12 levels--and evolves into Espeon!--and you earn $335.

Lugia has been caught! I'm glad you got it after all. Electabuzz gains 1.5 levels and you earn $207.

7.3: Challenge Bruno Quick Claw on Poliwrath; Focus Band on Gardevoir and Flareon. 1. Poliwrath with Hydro Pump on Steelix/Dynamic Punch on Poliwrath 2. Gardevoir/Moonblast 3. Flareon/Fire Blast

7.2: Challenge Lorelei. It's Elite Four time! Quick Claw on Poliwrath if there's any question of who goes first when there's a tie in levels. If I get the first move regardless, I guess I'll save the berries and use the Focus Sash because I'm paranoid. Focus Band on Flareon and Gardevoir. 1. Poliwrath; use Dynamic Punch on Weavile and Hydro Pump on Mamoswine. 2. Flareon/Fire Blast 3. Gardevoir/Moonblast

You spend $1,050 on the above and head out to wherever it is you like to head out to to fish. Set A Magikarp lv 25 Squirtle lv 29 Squirtle lv 27 Set B Squirtle lv 30 Pidgey lv 30 Horsea lv 29 Set C Poliwag lv 30 Horsea lv 25 Poliwag lv 30

Wartortle gains 5 levels and Ponyta gains 1 level. You earn $359.

You earn $1,062.

"Jessie," you say to yourself, "we need to cook." Cook you do with Charizard leading off the battle and using Fire Blast on Karen's Zoroark. It survives, and hits you with Foul Play, but your next attack goes through just fine and you have yourself the first knockout of the match. Karen sends out Umbreon, equipping it with Wise Glasses to (hopefully) offset some of the Pokemon's characteristic weaker attacks. One Dark Pulse, and the score is evened up at one knockout apiece. So, you bring in your trusted Zoney M and Zap Cannon. Though Umbreon has lower attacks than most others at its level, its HP is going to be tough to get around. Coincidentally, the same can be said to some extent about Zoney M, so this is going to get interesting... Naturally, one attack from the next Pokemon in scores a knockout and gets both you and Karen down to your last Pokemon, but who's got the first move?

You catch Exeggcute on your second Great Ball. Koffing leads in with Self-Destruct, blowing itself up but dealing a hit to the first Exeggcute. You follow with Grubbin, who gets the knockout on the next move. The next Exeggcute comes in and uses Mega Drain...which isn't very effective. You hit back with Bug Bite, and Exeggcute uses Mega Drain again. You're still in it, and Exeggcute, with one more chance to make it work, uses... "It's Saffrin' time", you say as you head into Saffron City. There, you're met with... Eevee lv 28 Grubbin lv 30 Growlithe lv 30

It's ragin' time. You spend $1,080 on 6 Great Balls and head down to the lake. There, you find: Sneasel lv 27 Scyther lv 25 Sneasel lv 25 You throw your Great Balls at them in order, catching all of them with...exactly the number you bought.

You roll into Erika's gym with your own Grass-type in Ivysaur, who will use its Normal-type move to avoid the issues associated with such things. The Victreebell you're up against, though, is holding an Enigma Berry and has a Poison-type move in the bag. Though you've gotten the first move, Erika has already flipped the script as Victreebell is the one who picks up the first knockout of the match. For your second fighter, you send in Electabuzz, who elects to buzz--wait, no, it doesn't! Electabuzz uses Double Kick, and Victreebell is still in it! Victreebell counters with Leaf Blade, and Electabuzz survives and deals your first knockout of the match. That Leaf Blade has done a number on Electabuzz, though, and Erika sends out Leafeon to finish the job. You're down to your last fighter in Arcanine, while Erika has two left at full HP. Will the type difference be enough to get you a win?

Actually, that's Sylveon! I'll take care of that.

I hate the E and have hated it from the beginning. I'm on board with many others in this thread in that I want it GONE and could go on for a while about exactly why--anyone with BoG access can confirm that the E-related threads are filled with a lot of "is this really necessary" from me. To address some points: We rolled with only the VHLM and VHL for a long, long time. If you take a look at the S75 draft, you'll see why a lot of expansion was needed very quickly--one YouTube ad got out of hand and we were flooded with new members. You'll click on people who were drafted after #100 overall and see that there are still some in that territory who made it up. VHL teams simply couldn't handle it, and neither could VHLM teams (some were completely filled up). This is also the first I'm hearing that any of this had to do with COVID, and with how inefficiently discussion moved on it, it was hardly a knee-jerk thing. Simply expanding both leagues (by a lot) wouldn't have been the right choice because either: You now have to sustain those numbers, which will be a lot harder to do (and purposely larger recruitment drives might lead to another similar situation); or, You accept that it's unsustainable and just figure you're going to nuke some teams at some point. Remember, if you lose 5% of your members in a 10-team league, you're missing out on a total of half a team--and if you list 5% of your members in a 20-team league, you miss out on a whole team. And that really means something in a bigger league where a tanking team will have more people to tank to. With more opportunities to buy and sell, you'd actually see far more boom and bust in a league like that (referring to the VHL specifically. The claim that the VHLE somehow is leading to boom and bust in the VHLM is 100% false for different reasons). I'm also going to say that if you were met with zero engagement on your team, that's much more an issue with your team and much less an issue with a league that that team isn't even in. Much like we had just two leagues for a very long time, the VHLM cap was also 200 TPE for a long time and that worked fine. If there are teams that don't support their players, that's something that should be evaluated in any league. I'm also going to say that the league (from my point of view) faces a bit of a dilemma at the moment. Let's assume that we want to get rid of the E--we can't just flip a switch and do that right now, because where are you going to put all those players? We still aren't down to where we need to be to do that. The options right now are either: Keep the E in place as a permanent fixture, which I hate, and live with it Purposely plan recruitment (or lack thereof) to naturally reduce the size of the member base, risk making the entire VHLM an inactive wasteland, make every draft really weird and top-heavy for a really long time, and make the dynamic really weird for whichever new members do join as the ones who stick around through this will be more established high earners while newer members or lower earners will be more likely to disappear, all while we weigh the ethics of that in the first place I will say that if the league ever does drop down to the point where we can get rid of the E and move back to the way things were, I'd be 100% on board with that. We just aren't there at the moment. Finally, and also related to the above, I've been yelling for YEARS at this point that the goal of recruitment team should be to sustain the size of the league rather than grow it--and this is since before the E was even conceptualized. The drive that hyper inflated the S75 class happened immediately before the trade deadline as some sort of stupid point that recruitment could recruit hard enough to keep up a larger league and I still can't get over how much that's messed with things. We need to plan recruitment smartly and make sure it's working as intended and in a way that actually helps out...and also for years, I've never received much clarification on what exactly the plan is for recruitment. I hope we're on the same page as far as sustainability over growth goes (and I like to think so as I haven't had any huge problem with it recently), but the information that's out there isn't as much as I'd hope.

7.1: Challenge Giovanni. Quick Claw on Gardevoir, Oran Berry on Poliwrath, Focus Band on Flareon (though I hope that won't be necessary). 1. Gardevoir/Moonblast 2. Poliwrath/Hydro Pump 3. Flareon/Fire Blast

I just want to point out that Focus Band on Poliwrath has now worked twice in a row and I don't think it's affected the outcome either time.

I've dreamed of the day where I can do this to the fantasy guy. @BarzalGoat SKIPPED I select G - Bubbles Utonium and the draft is done whenever the DQ team is finished up.

You catch Elekid on the third try. Magnemite knocks out Pichu--both Magnemite and Ekans gain 1.5 levels (and Ekans evolves into Arbok!). Dratini doesn't know Aqua Tail--its evolutions do but it does not. How would you like to handle the second battle?

You earn $896 at work, and proceed to blow all your money on an HM and 12 Pokeballs. In Cerulean Cave, you find: Growlithe lv 27 Elekid lv 25 Pichu lv 28

You finally get that research grant you've been waiting for! You earn $969.

For my last action of the day, I'm going to do something I've been building up to all game... ...it's time to lay a beatdown on Blaine. -Quick Claw on Gardevoir. It would normally get the first move anyway but this negates Arcanine's ability to get the first move with Extreme Speed. -Focus Band on Poliwrath. -Oran Berry on Flareon. 1. Gardevoir/Psychic 2. Poliwrath/Hydro Pump 3. Flareon/Fire Blast If I win, I get my last role-specific VP!

You catch Zorua with one ball, and Ponyta with two. You take out Alakazam and bring out Magnemite for the levels. It gains 3 of them, and you earn $133.