How Easily Can You Beat Pokemon Sword & Shield with Only In-Game Traded Pokemon?

pokemon games always encourage trading with friends in order to complete the pokedex however what if that was our only way of constructing a team today we're going to find out how easy it is to beat pokemon sword and shield with only in-game traded pokemon basically put the minute i have access to my first in-game trade i can no longer use my starter and can only use the pokemon traded to me by npcs thankfully there's quite a lot in sword and shield but i think that the first and third gems are really going to be massive brick walls for me and that i'm going to have to grind to feel slightly confident rule-wise i'm not allowing myself to use items in battle the only exceptions here are that i need to throw pokeballs in order to catch a pokemon that's required for a trade and i'm allowed to use held items as well i'm also limiting myself to the base game trades so nothing within the isle of armor and i'm also not going to be using things like the digging duo or pokejobs in order to find certain items i need like evolution stones if there is an item that i'm looking for i have to wait until it's actually available as a findable item in the overworld i am allowing myself to use pokemon camp though since i need it to help boost friendship since there's two pokemon that need to evolve via friendship throughout this adventure i was also thinking about maybe taking away my ability to dynamax but i'm not masochistic enough yet let me know in the comments if i should allow dynamaxing in future sword and shield runs so i start off my adventure by picking grooky the best starter and naming him subscribe which you should totally do this leaves hop with sable the worst started to ever exist tell me i'm wrong in the comment section below we have our first battle with hop and we end up hot boxing in the slumbering wheel with some red wolf while trying to save obulu after meeting sonia the bae of the game and professor magnolia to get our pokedex and dynamaxx bangle we take the train to the wild area and we can finally start to work towards getting our first team member here i catch a bundle b and head to the moto stoke pokemon center to trade it for a squovet named cheekers at level 10. thankfully squovet's level does not match the level of the bundlebee we gave which was originally the gimmick in generations 1-4 generation 5 made it so that all tradable pokemon are at a set level and this is going to be a big saving grace for me with a particular pokemon that we get later on in the adventure squivet is okay it's not going to be great for us but its main appeal is that it has a massive hp stat when it evolves into green dent which isn't for another 14 levels however it does lose a lot of that potential tankiness thanks to it having a mild nature which lowers its defense to increase its special attack he's gonna be our only companion until we get to the first gym so i trained to level 12 since i know that we've got a bit of an onslaught of enemies coming up i need to be careful not to get too over leveled though because i don't want to risk squovet disobeying me if a traded pokemon gets a little too high leveled it'll disobey frequently until you get your next gym badge which raises the standard level that they can obey util normally this wouldn't be that big of an issue but traded pokemon receive one and a half times the experience so they'll be gaining levels more frequently which makes this challenge a lot harder i make it a priority to also shake every berry tree i see while grinding i'm not sure if i'm going to hold on to this move the entire game but squivet and greeting have a signature move called stuffed cheeks which has them eat their held barry to raise their defense by two stages which can help offset their lower defense stat however depending on how high our special attack is we might also be able to take advantage of belch a 120 base poison type move that only works the turn after we eat a berry it's super circumstantial and greeda doesn't even learn the move until level 55 but it could open up some type versatility amongst the team after the opening ceremony we're challenged by hop to another battle and we are at a severe disadvantage here he's already got half of his team by this point and i just have squovat i'm hesitant to go for stuffed cheeks because i know that his rookity has power trip a move that does more damage the more your stats are raised i don't have to worry too much about that right now though because his sabble hits like a truck and we do almost nothing thanks to wulu's growl i guess i have to go back to grinding i do a lot of my grinding in moto stoke though but i don't really have anything right now that gives me good special defense evs i do however fight a lot of choodle which give me attack ivs so maybe next time i can deal enough damage to knock out wulu in two hits another option that i have is learning stockpile and swallow at level 15 which boosts both of my defense stats as well as provides some really reliable recovery but if that doesn't work i might have to grind up to level 20 to learn body slam but then we risk being a level away from disobedience before we even get to the next route and we have a required battle other than hop coming up second round against hop and we set up some stockpiles but his wulu growls three times so when salvo comes out we do next to nothing we got past sabal but next out is rookity so i heal myself with swallow we do lose our defense boosts but he just kept on going for lear he pecked me once but that was it okay right after we hit that brick wall though we immediately hit another there's a girl on route 3 with a pan champ a fighting type with circle throw which easily two shots us at our current level second try we set up a stockpile but she just kept going for tackle okay finishing up route 3 we get to the first galler cave and cheekers is level 19 so i'm getting a little worried about disobedience towards the end of the cave we battle beatty who specializes in psychic types but thankfully we have bite so he's not that bad we do lose though because his gothia hit a little too hard with psy beam but second time around he's a lot easier we didn't do as much damage this time thanks to gothita going for tickle which lowers our attack in defense but we still made it out with a little bit under half our health getting to route 4 we catch the next pokemon for our trade a glorion meowth for a cantonian meowth named cash at turfield's gym he's level 18 with a timid nature it's another pretty bad nature since it raises his sky high speed and lowers our physical attack which is our best stat offensively meowth and persian aren't as great offensive threats as they used to be back in red and blue where speed stats determine critical hits but they can sort of make up for it thanks to their ability in technician which increases the power of moves under 60. we also get nasty plot which eventually makes our special attacks deal even more damage the only move that cash starts out with that's over 60 base power is last resort a 140 base power move that can only be used after using every other move in your moveset however i'm hoping that we can make good use out of swift which we got at the beginning of the game and that should be impacted by technician so i decided to get rid of scratch 3.0 since payday is the same power but we just get some more money out of it and looking back on it that joke was not as good as i thought it would be but we also grind cash up to level 19 on trainers that i didn't fight yet after we finish grinding we head for milo's gym and i'm honestly scared his two pokemon gossafler and eldegas are really tanky they might have the cotton down ability which makes us slower every time we attack them and they are really high leveled i might have to rely on the raw power of last resort as a powerful max strike in order to deal the most damage to elder goss i didn't fight any of the optional trainers in the gym because we're already super close to disobedience but let's see how milo goes first up is gossip fleur we out speed and hit with swift but it does a little under half and i panicked because then i realized that i never healed cash before the fight but cash got to level 20 and cheekers is just about to reach level 21 so thankfully we can send him out to fight eldegas without having to worry about disobedience i immediately dynamax and go for the max strike but unfortunately he is faster so he might be in a little bit of trouble elder goss's max strike does a ton and hours does absolutely nothing so i'm not really feeling too confident about this he goes for a max overgrowth which gives us a small progressive heal while we go for another strike hoping that we can outspeed him next turn but we're still too slow i'm hoping cash can take him out but he does not have a lot of health left elder goss hits us with a leafage which leaves us at one hp but ultimately cash went down let's try actually healing cash and trying that again second try on i start off with bite hoping that it flinches but no dice i go for payday afterward but round leaves us hurting a bit thankfully we're able to take it down with a swift and then were able to go for a really strong last resort on elder goss i didn't think it would do a lot due to elder goss getting tons of hp from dynamaxing but ultimately my plan here is to max guard on elder goss's last turn of dynamaxing to save some health on cheekers and then deal tons of damage on our last turn thankfully we outsped and do a truckload with max strike but magical leaf does equally as much thankfully we're able to out speed and take out ldgos this time and that gives us the grass badge with that our pokemon can go to a max level of 30 without disobeying us next i run to route 5 and pick up the baby toxil at the daycare as we're going to need that for a trade later on hop challenges as soon so i also grind up school vet to level 24 so that he can evolve before i try anything while grinding i made sure to catch him in chino for our next trade but i happened to also run into a shiny esper of all things it was literally the first one i ever found in this game so i'm super stoked that we found it full odds it sucks that i can't use it for the run but i'm definitely gonna put this thing in pokemon home after some grinding cheekers evolves into greeden and we already get to see the immense power he has as we battle hop he sends out wulu like he always does but now that we have cash with swift we don't really have to worry about his growls or high defense he's even faster than corvus squire as well so we can take him out before emo gex comes out he's incredibly easy though because for some reason he thought bind was the best way to take me out now we might have been a little over leveled for that but i really didn't want to take any chances given how tough that first rival battle was with just squovet once we reach hullberry i quickly book it for the backpacker at the picnic area she's looking for a mancino to trade for candy floss the cottony which is the grass and fairy type she's level 23 with a modest nature a great nature for once and the prankster ability giving priority to status moves such as growth and poison powder with a sunstone it's going to evolve into whimsicott it's not really an offensive powerhouse but it does get some pretty incredible moves such as moon blast energy ball and hurricane all at level one cottony is going to be our saving grace for this upcoming gym since it's a water type gym as well after finding nessa the other bay of the game we head into the water gym and begin the reign of tyranny that is candy floss the cottony and i also have a little bit of leeway here since the highest level that we can get to without having to worry about disobedience is 30 and i doubt cottony will get that high time to go up against nessa and honestly i am not worried at all candy floss is just about to hit level 24 to learn giga drain and i wholly plan on setting up growth before doing anything so i can one shot sweep everybody surprisingly we didn't take out goldeen after two growths but upon knocking it out we get giga drain and get rid of razor leaf arrow kuda is out next and it's also taken down with the giga drain and out comes her ace drednaw a water and rock type i am so confident in our damage output and since we're quite effective and we're pretty speedy i'm not even going to dynamax i'm feeling pretty confident yeah that didn't work out as planned so i send out greed and immediately go for the max darkness since it's our only neutral hit that we can go for dreadnought doesn't take a lot but i apply the same strategy i did with milo and max guard on his last dynamax turn to save some health and go for another max darkness right after sadly cheekers is taken out but thanks to max darkness lowering dreadnought special defense by two stages i can confidently go into cash and have him go for swift to take him out okay lesson learned cockiness will get you nowhere in pokemon challenge runs i'll keep that in mind for next time next we head into the second gallermine in order to find kabut the third gym leader but we get challenged by bead before we can make much progress celosus goes down after a few bites but sadly cash gets taken down by bt's gothida cheekers comes out to take her down though but hatana comes out and hits a cybeem but cheekers is honestly just way too bulky even gelarian ponyta his newest member is incredibly easy i'm getting a bit concerned about cash though i might want to consider evolving him into persian before we fight kabu but i have some other things that i need to get done first we eventually encounter some team yell grunts but they're pretty easy aside from the fact that hop goes for the right moves on the wrong goddamn pokemon why is the ai so bad in this game eventually we meet kabu and we're supposed to go to moto stoke in order to prepare for the gym battle but i'm worried about it to be honest with you kabu has three fully evolved pokemon nine tails a very special oriented attacker arcanine one of the most balanced pokemon in the game and his ace gigantomax sent a scorch whose centefurno g-max move can do residual damage to my entire team so i decided to do some grinding and in the meantime cash evolved into persian his offensive stats aren't stellar but we do learn power gem upon evolution which i completely forgot about so now we actually have a pretty good answer to kabu's team it's a shame that it just doesn't get that technician boost though i also make sure to head to the dusty bowl to pick up a sun stone for cottony i doubt whimsicott will be useful for the fire gym but like i mentioned he does get hurricane which is a rather inaccurate but powerful flying type move that can come in handy after taking way too long to find a sunstone we're finally able to get whimsicott and i immediately b-line for the moto stoke pokemon center to have her remember moon blast hurricane and energy ball after entering the buddhu inn we're challenged by our third rival of the game marnie she leads off with krogunk which is pretty scary considering that whimsicott is quad weak to poison and cash and cheekers are weak to fighting types she's still pretty easy though after landing a hurricane on crow gunk and then moon blasting her scraggy and morpiko into oblivion we get to the fire type gym and i give cheekers and cash some citrus berries and let's see how kabu goes i lead off with cash as he leads off with nine tails who goes down to cash's swift and power gems next out is arcanine so i switch into cheekers not only does arcanine have intimidate though which lowers our attack by one stage he also has willow wisp which drops our attack by two more stages so from here on it's gonna take six body slams to take it out and we end up using our citrus berry cheek pouch combo a little earlier than expected arcanine finally goes down though to a bunch of body slams that didn't even paralyze once really really why could that not happen next out is sent to scorch and i decide to keep cheekers in so that kabu can burn off a dynamaxx turn i really need to be careful of his max flutterby though if persian gets hit by that his special attack is going to drop he does go for the centaferno though which really is not good i bring out cash and immediately dynamax for the rockfall and we don't have a lot of health so i'm hoping that we can take him out we thankfully get a critical hit and it just barely takes him out although we do set up a sandstorm just as i'm thinking i lost the sandstorm actually manages to take out center scorch i was astonished by that i really don't know what would have happened if we did not get that critical hit with three badges in tow i b-line straight for hammerlock and on my way i catch a miracus that i'll need for the next trade in the town of the fourth gym upon arriving we actually can get our next team member remember that toxil that we got on route 5 we can actually trade it in hammerlock for a togepi named snips at level 25. now he isn't great since it's a baby pokemon but once we can get it to toga kiss with friendship and a shiny stone this thing is going to do wonders for us plus it's got a timid nature just like cash which boosts our speed and lowers our physical attack and that is a perfect nature for a toga kiss the earliest shiny stone that we can get though is on route 8 right before the 6th gym so we've got a ways to go until we can get toga kiss right as soon as i get snips though i max out his happiness and evolve him into together it takes a while but thanks to a particular npc in hammerlock we can actually check togepi's happiness really easily so i do what any normal person would do and camp outside this kid's house and break in every time i want to check my togepi's happiness snips finally evolves but due to that friendship boost he gets an even higher amount of experience so i'm fully expecting him to disobey me at some point in this game whenever we need to grind next we head on to route 6 in order to pick up a gallerian yamask for a future trade and eventually arrive in stoweon side where we can get our next companion here we need to trade a miractis for an impediment named peepers which is actually shield exclusive you can still trade with the guy in sword but he's going to give you a hetero instead impetimp is going to be a great addition to our team it's got a great dark and fairy type and it has incredible stats all around it's also one of my favorite pokemon from this generation and i used it so much on my initial team in sword hetero is great too incredibly balanced other than its incredibly low speed stat peepers is at level 30 and has a brave nature which isn't the best but it does boost his physical attack which will become his best stat once he fully evolves into grim snarl plus he evolves in two levels and learns a far superior dark move than sucker punch upon evolving so i make that my priority and get morgroom before we can take on the next gem though we need to battle hop he changes his team up a bit here and starts off with cramaran i switch into cash and take two plucks but retaliate with a power gem as he goes for dive i didn't anticipate cash to live this so i switch into candy floss but unfortunately due to gulp missile we get hit and paralyzed since kramer ant had a pikachu in his mouth toxil goes down to cassius swift and candy floss takes out silicobra with a giga drain and drizzle with an energy ball okay gym time we should be fine here not only do we have two normal types that are immune to ghost moves and have a dark move each but we also just got morgrim which is going to help us out a lot as well even if you're doing this challenge in sword and you're fighting b you should still be able to easily breeze through her with snips candy floss and your hetenna in fact you might even have an easier time than i'm about to have starting off the battle against alistar he leads off with a gallerian yamask a ground and ghost type which easily goes down to an energy ball out comes mimikyu and i decided to switch into cheekers to set up some stockpiles unfortunately though i forgot that mimikyu has babydoll eyes which lowers my attack stat so as much as i don't want to switch i really have to so i switch into candy floss and go for two moon blasts to take it out next out is cursula the regional evolution of galarian corsala and i immediately switch back into cheekers to try out my same plan but it doesn't seem like that's going to work out either because i had a curse put on me i switch into cash and take it out with a bite but not after getting hit by a really powerful ancient power out comes gengar and i decide to keep cash in to go about my usual plan with cheekers thankfully i am able to out speed but just like i feared gengar hits a max ooze taking us out and raising his special attack in the process i can't switch into peepers candy floss or snips because they'll easily go down to ooze due to their fairy typing so i switch into cheekers dynamaxx and hope that i can live another ooze so i can use up my citrus berry we live on 30 hp and the citrus berry and cheek pouch combo helps us get to a comfortable 112 hp as a max darkness just barely takes it out gengar decides to go for a hypnosis though instead of taking me out with a venoshock so alistair is defeated okay so a lot of wrenches got thrown into my plan there but it was still pretty easy nonetheless i actually completely forgot that we have a fight against beatty right after the gym but i'm not too worried do ocean goes down to a dark pulse and hatred nearly goes down but it hits us incredibly hard with a dazzling gleam after a few false surrenders though she goes down next up is ponyta and i switch into cash and go for bite which two shots it and finally out comes gotharito which goes down to two bites as well after seeing bt get disqualified from the gym challenge and you know we also got a great view of sonia's southern region we learn a little bit more about galler's history and move on to my favorite location in pokemon sword and shield balan leia nothing really happens in the glimwood tangle on the way there though except for severe ptsd of watching that 24 hour live stream where all we got confirmation of was gallary and ponyta and they never properly announced impadem god damn it nintendo why'd you have to do my boy wrong like that first thing i do when i enter ballon leia though is head straight for the gym in order to trade our gallerian yeah mask for a unovan one at level 35 named masky it's bold natured so it boosts its defense stat while lowering its physical attack which is a perfect nature for a yamask and it's also one level away from evolving so i go train him up so that we can get a cophagus before we fight the fairy gym going into the fairy gym has me a bit cautious though i really don't have anything for fairy types since they're only weak to poison and steal moves the closest thing i have is teaching snip's steel wing but his physical attack stat is incredibly low so i'm not even gonna bother with that but i think we'll be successful here thanks to the quiz mechanic that opal implements into her gym for every question you get right one or two stats will get raised by one stage but for every question you get wrong one or two stats will be lowered by one stage time to battle opal and she starts off with her galarian wheezing so i lead off with masky and go for willow wisp and also combo it up with hex to do the most damage we answered her first question correctly and sharply raised our speed as we take out wheezing next up was maul while and i'm gonna just go for the exact same strategy here even though ma while isn't as much of a threat as it used to be two generations ago we answer her next question correctly which boosts our defense stats but togekiss comes out and there's nothing really stopping me from doing the same strategy but unfortunately air slash flinches us so we lose masking i send out cash as we get our next quiz question right which raises our attack stats however we he took a bit of damage from air slash so i use swift while opel sends out her ace gigantomax alchemy she knocks out cash with gmax finale which heals her in the process but i send out cheekers and dynamaxx i hate the fact that i have to use the same strategy as the other gems but if only someone would tell me to not use dynamaxing for my next challenge of certain shield in the comments if only anyways cheekers takes down alchemy after a few max strikes and a body slam as we enter route 7 we have another battle against hop and he switches up his team yet again he starts off with trevenant so i switch to peepers and take it out with a few dark pulses and a false surrender next up is snorlax and i'm not looking forward to this thing so i switch into masky to burn it he goes for heavy slam but i switch into cheekers since he's probably our best bet for defeating this thing in a timely manner after a few body slams snorlax goes down next up is heat more but i stay in with cheekers and paralyze him with body slam followed by another one to take him out bolton is out next but i still stick with cheekers even though crunch hits pretty hard thankfully our body slams hit harder and he goes down to two of them finally out comes hops ace agent double o terrible starter tell me i'm wrong in the comments and i switch to candy floss and take him out with an energy ball shortly after our battle with hop peepers reaches level 42 and evolves into grim snarl with this he learns the impedim line's second signature move spirit break a 75 based power fairy type move that lowers the opponent's special attack which does make peepers a lot tankier i also go to the move relearner and have peepers remember power-up punch a relatively weak fighting type move that boosts our attack by one stage each time we use it we have some absolute powerhouses on this team right now and there's still three more for us to get but once we get our next team member we need to start considering who to take off the team we finally get to route 8 and my top priority is finding a shiny stone so we can fully evolve snips and make him an absolute monster after evolving and teaching him orosphere and tri attack i also find a king's rock for him to help flinch the crap out of enemies on to route 9 and there is actually two pokemon here that we need to catch vanillish and snowme vanillish is for our upcoming trade in sir chester and snome is for the final trade of the entire game although it needs to evolve into frost moth so i make sure to capture it in a luxury ball to increase its base happiness once we arrive in cerchester i head straight for the man behind the food cart in the center of town to trade vanillish for a sock named blue bop at level 37. he's going to be a huge help for us for the remaining gyms and he also has an adamant nature which is perfect for him boosting his really high attack stat and lowering his abysmally low special attack stat plus he also has the ability sturdy which means as long as he's at full health he is guaranteed to live a fatal blow this is the other shield exclusive trade if you're doing this in sword you'll get throw instead they're both great fighting types but throw is a lot bulkier whereas sock is a lot quicker but with that it's time to make a very difficult decision blue bop is definitely going to be a go-to member for this team but who do we get rid of well if you've been paying attention then there's one team member who doesn't really do as well as their companions and that's cash he really doesn't have the offensive prowess to continue further on this game and we already have a normal type whose league's better in practically everything except speed so i'm sorry cash but you have been voted off the island thank you for your contributions to this team and to the adventure after that not so emotional goodbye i head straight to hammerlock and get evolving snowman out of the way after taking forever to get frost moth we decided to go to the ice gym and take on melanie the best bae in the game and she ironically starts off with the thing that we just evolved frost moth so i lead off with peepers knowing that it has a ton of special attacks one spirit breaking a sucker punch and it's down next is galarian darmanitan and with gorilla tactics which is basically a choice band as an ability this thing hits like a locomotive so i go into masky to burn it but we do get hit with a taunt so we need to rely on hex alone unfortunately two icicle crashes do a bit too much to us and our hexes do nothing i switch into cheekers and we actually hit a critical hit body slam for the ko thank god next up is ice cube and i'm going to try something risky here ice cube's ability lets it take at least one physical hit without taking any damage but if it activates its stats change from being very defensive to very speedy but if you attack ice cube with a special attack the effect won't activate so i go into snips and orosphere to take it out in a few hits last up is her ace gigantomax lapras its g-max move is an ice attack that automatically sets up aurora veil which is basically an ice type combination of reflect and light screen but i decide to let blue bop take this since i'm pretty positive he can out speed we dynamax and go for a max knuckle in order to boost our attack stat it does just about half as she goes for a max geyser and does way too much damage but thankfully we're able to take out the lapras with another max knuckle and beat a gym challenge with a strategy that's not relying on cheekers and max guarding thank christ soon after defeating melanie and getting clinical depression from having to move on from the girl of my dreams we have to battle hop yet again he starts off with his newly evolved dub wol who goes down to two aura spheres from snips however in the middle of that thanks to the king's rock we flinched which activated dubwol's steadfast ability allowing him to outspeed us before going down and hit us with a takedown next up is pin kirchen hop's newest member but he just sets up a curse so we take him down with two more aura spheres next up is snorlax and we switch into blue bop but we take him to a sliver of hp with brick break as hale does the rest next up is corvinite which is a steel and flying type so i switch into masky and burn it with a willow wisp and just immediately go for the hex combo we don't really have good coverage for this type so i might need to be updating our move sets soon last out is his abomination of a starter tell me i'm wrong in the comments and as always he would have easily gone down to an energy ball but i was an idiot and hit hurricane instead he hits us with a tearful look a really stupid move to have as a lizard james bond but he was still really easy after that we defeat more team yell grunts and upgrade our bike to ride on the water so i take the opportunity to fly back to professor magnolia's house and bike around behind her house to find an obstagoon which we're going to need for our upcoming trade on our way to spike myth we can't enter the town until we beat marnie again but she was an easy one-hit sweep after uncovering the identity of team yell scooby doo style it's time to go up against the first ever dark type gym leader piers but before we actually fight him if you talk to the guy sitting behind the computer in the stadium he's actually the next person we can trade with he'll trade you the cantonian mr mime that was blocking the path during the gym challenge for an obstagoon mr mime is decent all around a very good special attacker with great special defense and speed and you know it does have a calm nature which lowers our special attack to raise special defense it's pretty solid and it does also have the soundproof ability which gives it an immunity to all sound based moves like screech growl and snarl mimo who is the mr mind by the way could be a really big asset to the team but it's also a big flaw the fact that it's a psychic type is great psychic is an incredible offensive type but it's also the fourth fairy type that we get in this challenge and if you're playing this in sword you're already going to have another psychic and fairy type plus mr mime doesn't even get his regional evolution mr rhyme in this form so mimo i'm sorry but you never had a chance starting off the fight with piers he starts off with scrafty as i lead off with candy floss and easily take him down with a moon blast after taking a fake out next up is malamar but he actually hangs on with one hp from moonblast but another takes him out next out is his ace obstagoon which is actually the thing that we just traded for mr mime but has anyone else realized that he never sends this thing out last anyway we take him out with two brick breaks after him using obstruct and hitting us with a shadow claw last up is skuntank and i don't really have a lot of coverage for this thing so i go into cheekers he hits us with a toxic but we take him out when two hits we start to dive a little more into the actual story of the game where a lot of pokemon begin dynamaxing out of nowhere but our priority is to move on to hammerlock to take down the final gym leader ryhon he's by far my favorite gym leader because he has a weather gimmick for his team so while he is not entirely dragon types his team focuses more on weather while having an emphasis on dragon types i really wish more gym leaders did things like this he starts off with gigolith and flygon in order to set up a sandstorm i start off with candy floss and peepers and focus on both of his pokemon at the same time going for energy ball on gigolith and spirit break on flygon after taking a steal wing flyon goes down but giggles sets up stealth rocks and out comes sandaconda i go for giga drain with candy floss but santa conda protects itself a fall surrender finishes off the gigalith and now it's time for rihann's ace his gigantomax duraladon i'm gonna bank on him attacking candy floss while peepers goes for the spirit break on doralodon which fortunately he does unfortunately duraladon uses max steel spike to raise his defense as santa conda goes for glare to paralyze grim snarl i decided to switch into masky to see if we can go for the burn hex combo but i try to sucker punch the sandaconda and it protects again but thankfully we are able to burn the doralodon so i bring out blue bump next and immediately max guard to burn off his last turn of dynamaxing a max knuckle takes out anaconda as another hex takes out duraladon after trekking through route 10 we're finally able to make it to winden and get our final team member there's an artist here who's willing to trade his duradon named linear at level 50 for a frost moth doraledon as we know from our recent match with ryhon is a force to be reckoned with incredible stats all around except for its lackluster special defense the only problem is that linear is adamant natured which boosts his physical attack and lowers his special attack the fact that his two offensive stats are 30 base points apart really bothers me but i'm gonna have to deal with it regardless but this means we have yet another tough decision to make who do we leave in the box in order to add linear to the team and this was such a difficult choice for me to make because every team member that we had held their own weight and contributed so much to the team aside from mr mime granted you know i could switch the team members in and out whenever i need them but i mean come on this is a youtube video i need the drama in order for you guys to roast me in the comments section our best course of action here i believe is to box masky our cophagus as much as it pains me to do that there's really no benefit to having a ghost type on our team when we have grim snarl [Music] before we go to the semi-finals i do a small bit of grinding as we search for some tms in order to give ourselves more coverage here's everybody's levels and move sets i think for where we are we'll be okay but leon's ace is a whopping 10 levels above us and i'm kind of terrified to go up against him but that's not even my biggest worry we'll get to that in a little bit the start of the semi-finals begins with our final match against marnie her lightburdens crafty goes down to one brick break and moon blast and next up is toxic croak i switch into linear and take it down with two stomping tantrums after getting confused by swagger i decide to withdraw linear and go for snips because i want to save him for marnie's ace snips takes down toxic croak with an air slash as blue bop learns close combat and we can finally get rid of low sweep which we have never used after a spark morphico goes down to a spirit break and last up is marty's ace gigantomax grim snarl i'm hoping that linear can one out speed and two survive a few hits and knock him out with some max steel spikes steel spike just barely gave us the knockout again can somebody type in the comment section how many times we've almost killed somebody because we just barely knocked them out i'm so curious as to how many times that's happened but a second steel spike took him out moving us on to the next match against hop pop starts off with his dub will as always so i lead off with snips since orosphere tears right through it and it goes down in two hits next up is pin kirchen so i go into cheekers and go for stomping tantrum i replaced swallow for this move but i might get rid of bite to relearn swallow there's a fun combo that cheekers can do where you can try to swallow take that in whatever context you'd like and then go for a stomping tantrum to double its attack power snorlax is up next but it easily falls to blue bop's close combat and then out comes corvinite but my best answer that i have for him right now is peepers with fire punch he goes for steel wing which hurts pretty bad but we do hit a critical fire punch and take him out with a sucker punch afterward last out is his intelion and honestly too bad it's not a gigantic max intellion because i actually like gigantomax intellion the most out of the three golarian starter gigantomax forms but he easily goes down to candyfloss's max overgrowth allowing us to move on to the finals round might i add i love this character development for hop notice the camera panning behind him as he stomps the ground and waves his fist in defeat you took away his chance to battle his brother that alone was so emotional and really made me appreciate hop as a rival right after that though we have to go search for leon at rose tower nothing really happens here until the big fight against oleana of all people and we're greeted with one of the best songs in the game [Music] what a bop oleana starts off with frost last so i start off with peepers and take her down with two false surrenders after getting burned next up is selazal so i send out linear and go for a stomping tantrum as incinerate does a truckload to us for a base 50 power fire move next up is milotic so i switch into candy floss to hit it with a few energy balls as she sends out serena so i switch into snips and go for air slash to take it easily down last out is her ace gigantomax garbodor which i always thought was a hysterical pokemon to add to her repertoire since she has all these other pokemon that are very elegant looking i think it's supposed to symbolize the pretty on the outside ugly on the inside motif and it suits oleana so well i switch into cheekers dynamax and go for the max quake we do a ton as her max quake does nothing and i gotta admit i have really underestimated cheekers he has been way too good for this playthrough and i thought that he was gonna be terrible it's finally time for the finals in our league challenge and first up is beatty who actually interrupts the whole thing in order to challenge us as the next fairy type gym leader i know his ace is a gigantic max hatterin so i want to make sure i keep doraldon healthy by that point so i start off with peepers as he starts off with mawwhile it's a bit risky here since he has play rough but fire punch takes it out thanks to a critical hit gardevoir is up next so i do decide to actually switch into linear here and go for a flash cannon surprisingly we out speed but we barely miss the ko again as she hits us with a dazzling gleam which takes us to below half and this was exactly what i was worried about i don't know if linear will be able to survive a hit from hattering now up next is galarian rapidash so i switch into cheekers and we take it out with two body slams and then finally is gigantomax hatarine i switch back into linear and immediately go for a steel spike i know we're guaranteed to attack first since hattering is incredibly slow but i'm hoping that we can take it out in one hit but like guard of war we just barely missed the ko as she takes us out with a max flare we're gonna be okay though because since she's at low health i can go into peepers and take her out with a sucker punch the finals actually start now and our first battle is against nessa her golisopod and seeking are one shots thanks to critical air slash and energy ball and then up next is pelipper so i switch into snips to go for the ancient power as he sets up a drizzle now funny story as a kid i never read pelipper correctly so i always called him pleaper and i'm pretty sure i had an email address that was like pleaper 91 or something like that anyway ancient power takes out pelipper thanks to a critical hit and i switch into candy floss for barracuda i go for a giga drain to heal all my health after he hits us with an ice fang and finally out comes her ace dreadnough who can now gigantomax candy floss i know that you have had a vengeance festering in you for so long a grudge that you have been bearing against this snapping turtle that somehow outsped you and took you down it is time for your revenge go candy floss lay waste to his existence we're not making the same mistake as last time okay we got this max overgrowth takes out the dreadnaught and we can move on to the next round against alistar alistar has a drastically different team the second time around but the entire battle was just a one-shot sweep with peepers his gigantomax gengar did hit us with a max ooze that left us at 48 hp but a max darkness took him out easily finally we're up against ryhan and his team is also completely different this time around he starts off with a torque hole so i start off with cheekers and take it out with a few stomping tantrums cheekers did fall asleep though due to yawn so he's not going to be much use to us for the rest of the battle next out is tertinator so i switch into snips and go for a few ancient powers to take him out gudra and flygon are both one shots with peeper's spirit break as reihan sends out duraladon and giganta maxes i switch into blue bop and we both exchange max knuckles until we can get the ko we can finally move on to fight leon and end this challenge or so you'd think here's where the story really comes full throttle at you so our fight against leon needs to be put on hold for a little bit we need to find zashian and zamazenta to help prevent the darkest day but first we need to take down chairman rose before doing so i finally go and have cheekers remember swallow so we can try out that stomping tantrum combo chairman rose starts off with a scavalier so i start off with peepers and take him out with a fire punch as he sends out berserker but he just goes down to one swallow stomping tantrum combo ferrothorn also goes down to a fire punch but cling clang nearly takes out peepers with a gear grind so i switch into linear and take it out with a stomping tantrum finally out comes rose's ace his gigantomax copper raja he hits bluebot with a powerful max mindstorm but two max knuckles take him out and we can move on to fighting the antagonistic legendary if you will eternitus eternitus is pretty tough he's got a lot of powerful moves and has great coverage but i think my best course of action here is to go for cheekers and do the stomping tantrum combo he hits us with a flamethrower and cross poison but stomping tantrum does a truckload to him we go down to a dynamaxx cannon though and honestly my only other answer to eternitis is linear but even he went down to a dragon pulse i switch into snips but even he isn't fast enough to out speed eternitus thankfully he does go for flamethrower though so i can take him out with an air slash now we're up against eternamax eternitus and this plays out just like a max raid battle but this one's going to take a long time because of how busted eternitis is in this form to put things into perspective eternamax eternitus has a base stat total of 1 125 so his stats are pretty damn high but we have zashian and zamasunta helping us out now so i'm hoping that we don't lose too many team members zashian gives us all an attack rays with howl while zamasunta sets up a light screen hops double goes for a double edge but it does absolutely nothing and the legendary wolves each go for their signature moves and they're going to be the reason we make it out of this fight alive honestly because they do double damage to dynamaxx to pokemon zamasunta takes a massive max flare as our stomping tantrum does quite a bit to eternity hops dub wool goes down to a max worm wind which drops our attack stats but then eternitis resets our stat changes thankfully after a few turns cheekers barely hangs on from a max worm wind to take out eternity with a body slam that was wild but we've got a championship to win leon is insanely tough and he's said to be one of the toughest champions in the franchise understandably so his starting pokemon is aegislash and really my team is not fit to fight this thing at all my best course of action is to teach blue bop fire punch and hope that aegis starts off with a king shield so that i can set up with a bulk up thankfully that's exactly what happens and we almost take him down with a fire punch as he hits us with a shadow ball i risk going for the fire punch again fearing that he might king shield but he doesn't out next is haxorus so i send out candy floss to moonblast him since i'm confident in our ability to outspeed him but again we just barely miss the ko as he takes us out with a poison jam that's not good candy floss was my answer to his seismotone i decided to switch into snips as leon uses a full restore but we miss the air slash as leon demolishes us with iron tails i was feeling pretty bad about being over leveled by this point but now i do not feel bad at all this is tough i switch into peepers to take him out with some sucker punches and then out comes cinderace which was the score bunny that we didn't choose at the beginning of the game he doesn't have a lot of great moves so i decide to switch into cheekers to go for the striking tantrum combo as he does hit pretty hard with acrobatics tantrum barely misses the ko though again but we're able to actually avoid his pyroball and take him out with a body slam seismitoad is out but he hits us with a toxic as we hit him with a body slam i was really banking on paralyzing him but no dice we went down to an earthquake i switch into peepers to try and take it out with a sucker punch but it fails because he went for toxic again we take a lot of damage from earthquake but we take him out with another sucker punch dragopoldt is out next but thankfully it goes down one shot to a sucker punch as peepers goes down to poison i send out linear to hit leon's ace gigantomax charizard with a max rockfall this needs to knock him out or else we're done for he's faster which doesn't make me very confident and i'm pretty sure his max wildfire will take us out due to our abysmal special defense thankfully we do live on 44 hp as rockfall barely misses the ko again okay we're getting super close there so let me try leveling up a little bit with some rare candies that i have lying around and see if that makes a difference also since linear has pretty awful special defense i remembered to go to the lake of outrage in the wild area to pick up the assault fest an item that boosts our special defense by half while limiting ourselves to only using attacking moves no status moves i also give candy floss the pixie plate to boost its fairy type moves and i give cheekers a citrus berry not too sure why i haven't been doing that the entire adventure but okay ageslash actually doesn't go for a king's shield this turn but it hits us with a flash cannon but thankfully we do out speed and hit with a fire punch as haxorus comes out i go back into candy floss and thanks to the pixie plate we are able to take it out in one hit we're already looking so much better in this fight next up is cinderace so i switch into cheekers and use the stomping tantrum combo his acrobatics hurt a bit but we do heal up a considerable amount thanks to the citrus berry and cheek pouch combo what surprised me though is that stomping tantrum actually took out cinderease in one hit wasn't even a critical it must have been a higher damage roll from last time seismitoad goes down to one energy ball and dragopalt is out next but as we know he goes down to a sucker punch in one hit so out comes charizard i switch into linear again assault vest and toe and we go for a rock fall we take a bunch of damage from a critical wildfire but that one level did in fact help as rockfall gets the knockout we are officially the champions of the gala region but don't misunderstand we are far from over we still have the toughest rival battle to do i'm not gonna bore you with all the lackluster after game story so let's talk about why hop is gonna be incredibly difficult it's all because of zashian the legendary zashian in her crowned form yes sashian is a girl it does say in zamasund's pokedex entry that zashian is considered his sister has base 170 attack 115 defenses and 148 speed those are some pretty high stats but what makes it worse is zashian's ability intrepid sword which raises her attack stat by 1 whenever she enters battle so she's gonna be hitting me like a locomotive and i don't think i have any answers to her with crunch behemoth blade wild charge and close combat zashian practically has a move for every member of my team hop starts off with his dub wool so i use snips to hit him with an aura sphere we flinch him but that causes his steadfast to activate again allowing him to crit me with a double edge he gets taken out in the process but snips is hurt pretty bad intelion pincursion and snorlax all go down to one energy ball stomping tantrum combo and close combat respectively and hop's penultimate pokemon is his corbinite so i go into peepers to hopefully take it out with a few fire punches he swaggers us but i break through it and take him out in one hit finally out comes zashian i decided to go into blue bomb and go for the close combat since i believe that that will do the most damage overall but i'm going to need a critical hit to take her out in one hit otherwise she just sweeps my whole team i switched into linear after blue bop fell since i gave him a focus sash and went for a flash cannon sadly it did not take out zashian but i do have a plan since she used close combat that lowers both of her defense stats so i'm going to really bank on sucker punch from peepers to take it out we go for it and zashi and falls winning us the run guys that run was so much fun it was really tough in the beginning but it was really easy throughout actually until we got to those last two big battles those were incredibly tough to manage but honestly i'm glad that i did that grinding before the semi-finals because i definitely would not have succeeded in these fights if i hadn't i was also blessed with some really powerful teammates too i really did not expect grita to be as good as he was i was genuinely surprised at how much of a team player he turned out to be and i had anticipated that he was the worst and i was going to put him in the box after getting blue bob every member of this team was so critical to our success and each one played such a pivotal role in some way shape or form in our toughest fights except for milo he did nothing it sucks that we weren't able to use all of them in one big team but i'm glad that we had the team we did i strongly recommend you guys try out this challenge though whether you're a pokemon challenge veteran or looking for one to get started with it was a ton of fun to play and strategize around and it definitely made playing through pokemon shield that much more enjoyable for me if you guys enjoyed be sure to hit that like button down below comment on some runs that you'd like to see me do any game is up for a challenge run i i'm planning on doing a fire emblem awakening challenge shortly after this uh we'll see how long this video takes to get done though and don't forget to subscribe to my channel and ring the bell to get updated on whenever i upload a new video whether it be a challenge run a music education video a breakdown of my band's new releases i also do have a brand new discord server link is in the description and be sure to check out my twitch channel as well link to that is in the description as well thank you all so much for watching and i'll see you all in the next one

Channel: TheMurphination

Views: 409,598

Keywords: Music, Analysis, Educator, Video, Game, Pokemon, Sword, Shield, In-Game Trades, Challenge Run, Galar, Zacian, Zamazenta, Skwovet, Meowth, Cottonee, Togepi, Impidimp, Hattena, Yamask, Sawk, Throh, Mr. Mime, Duraludon, How Easily Can You Beat Pokemon Sword and Shield with Only In Game Traded Pokemon, TheMurphination

Id: 1Ipg62kUEeo

Length: 52min 34sec (3154 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 09 2021