I had some difficulty coming up with a suitable battle style to use for the second round of the championship tournament. I really liked my music hall idea, but as I was typing it up, I came to the conclusion that it was just too complex for a second-round battle. After some angsting, I decided to scrap it and come up with a new idea that was simpler. I started typing it up... and it was way more complicated than the music hall one.
At that point I resigned myself to never being able to come up with a simple battle idea ever and went with the music hall setup. I thought this one was just too fun an idea to waste, though... (Unnecessary flavor in little text; there's enough to read as it is.)
2vs2 Single
DQ: 3 Days
Cap: 40%
Banned Moves: None
Arena: The Hax Subway
In every region, there is one battling facility that draws the best of the best trainers to its halls, offering the toughest fights around. Though housed in diverse locations and offering up a variety of prizes, these venues all have one thing in common: the house always wins. Everyone knows this, everyone complains about it, and everyone... plays the game anyway, at least if they want that shiny choice scarf they can't find anywhere else. In Unova, that place is the Battle Subway.
When scoping out where to hold their tournament in Nimbasa City, TCoD ASB league officials were naturally drawn to the bustling hub of Unova's transportation industry and, of course, the capital of its battling scene. All in all, it seemed to have everything the league was looking for: plenty of name recognition, a ready-made audience, and all the infrastructure necessary to host a substantial number of high-energy battles. There was just one problem.
Namely, it's just not all that fun to face off against that rhydon that triggers its quick claw three times in a row and downs your entire team with horn drill. Sure, you can win sympathy points from your friends on the internet when you complain about it, but at the end of the day you're still left gathering your dispirited team together and running through fifty-something battles to get your streak back to where it was. This is a problem that the Battle Subway shares with all of its ilk, and the league wasn't about to let its tournament be ruined by the shady practices of the subway's trainers.
That's why the TCoD League demanded that if the Battle Subway wanted its business, it wasn't going to show any of its normal hating on the visiting team, oh, no. Instead, it was going to give TCoD's trainers a taste of that power, the utterly unlawful rigging that makes the subway's trainers to unholily lucky. And the Subway's officials, unwilling to let such a large contract slip through their fingers, reluctantly agreed--or at least appeared to.
In this battle, good luck is absolutely assured. Your attacks will not miss. You will get that lucky flinch, burn, or timely stat-boost. You won't have to suffer that full paralysis or terribly long sleep. Your pokémon's focus band will activate. Life is good, right? Well... almost.
Out of spite, the Battle Subway's officials have set things up so that, while your luck is assured, it is fleeting. Attacks with secondary effects will always have those effects trigger--but only the first time they occur! And yes, your prankster sableye might be able to put your opponent's pokémon to sleep instantly and without fail with hypnosis--but good luck sending it under a second time. A complete enumeration of the effects on battle are as follows:
- Attacks cannot miss. For an attack with less than 100% accuracy, its energy cost is increased by 1% for every 20% of accuracy that must be added to bring it up to 100%, rounded up (thus 3% extra energy for zap cannon, 2% for blizzard, and 1% for meteor mash). If a pokémon's accuracy is lowered, all its attacks cost 1% more energy per two levels of reduction. If a pokémon uses double team, the opponent will always miss with its next attack (unless it's something that wouldn't miss, like aerial ace), but hit with the one after that and cause the clones to fade.
- Attacks with secondary effects always have those effects trigger--but only the first time the attack is used. So, flamethrower always burns and ancientpower always raises all stats--but only the first time the attack is used. After that, there is no chance for the secondary effect to occur. Note that secondary effects only trigger if the attack successfully strikes the opponent (or the opponent's substitute), so if the opponent protects against your ancientpower, you've lost out on your opportunity to get the stat boost for the rest of the battle. All attacks with a secondary effect with less than a 100% chance of occuring cost 1% extra energy the first time they are used, regardless of whether the effect is actually gained.
- Likewise, abilities and items with a variable chance of activating always activate once, at the first opportunity, and never again.
- Sleep always lasts two actions. A pokémon can only be put to sleep once per battle. Likewise, a pokémon that becomes attracted will attract-fail twice in a row, then be cured and immune to attraction for the rest of the battle. A frozen pokémon will thaw after two actions and cannot be frozen again later.
- A confused pokémon will hurt itself at the first opportunity, then be cured of confusion and unable to be confused by an opponent for the rest of the match. Self-inflicted confusion, e.g. by petal dance, still occurs after the attack's end, but a will always hurt itself once and then snap out of it.
- A pokémon can only be flinched once per battle.
- The first move that a pokémon makes at an elevated critical hit domain (e.g. an attack like psycho cut or any attack for a pokémon with superluck) will be a critical hit and cost 2% more energy. However, a pokémon may only score one such critical hit per battle. Attacks that always cause a critical hit, like frost breath, still always cause critical hits.
- Paralysis still causes a 75% speed reduction, but a pokémon will never be "fully paralyzed," and the condition does not fade.
- A pokémon may use only one OHKO move per battle. OHKO's always hit, always deal the damage cap's worth of damage, and cost energy equal to half as much damage they deal, plus the penalty for their accuracy increase.
- Attacks with variable durations always last for their maximum duration.
- Multi-hit attacks always land the maximum number of hits as though the user had the skill link ability.
The battles take place in subway cars. At first blush there's nothing special about them: a nice spacious aisleway to accomodate the battling, rows of unwelcoming plastic chairs along each wall with rings to hold onto swinging above each. Everything in the car rocks, bounces, and sways in time with the clacking of its wheels on the track.
These battered old bits of public transportation are tougher than they appear, though--so tough, in fact, that they can survive a lickilicki's explosion with hardly a scratch. Rumor has it that, a couple of years back when a trainer's machamp managed to put dent in one of the seats, the train's janitors presented her with a trophy. These cars only look like those that run on subway tracks in other regions; in reality, they are highly portable state-of-the art battle chambers, not only able to resist the worst that powerful pokémon can throw at it, but provide any conceivable conditions they could require, from generating simulated weather to providing faux rocks for a painful stone edge attack.
