Gotta Train 'Em All Part 1 - Elite 4

A few hours ago, I Shuckled my way right by Lance, and my rag tag team have been registered as Hall of Fame Pokemon.

I'll spare you the grizzly details of how I blasted by all the members of the most powerful trainers in Johto, but I'll give you some of my final reflections on the team.

Golduck - became my favorite member of the group; high Sp Atk; solid stats all around
Magcargo - great Def and Sp Atk; a bit on the slow side, abysmal Atk; double weak to water
Jumpluff - started out great, but lost usefulness over time; only good against water/ground/rock
types; high Speed, Def and Sp Def
Hypno - pretty much all Sp Def; other stats lacked quite a bit; still OK as a Psychic type
Arbok - poison type made him tough to use against a lot of trainers; best Atk of any team
member; did not learn much to exploit high Atk; teach it Earthquake
Shuckle - the man. Def and Sp Def well over 250 at lv 45; Toxic and Swagger to wear out the
target, Withdraw to compensate for raising opponent's Atk, Bug Bite to steal berry

There it is. Looking back, I'd definitely use Golduck, Magcargo and Shuckle again, given the ability to teach Shuckle Toxic.

For our next team, Wes and I will use Chikorita, Wooper, Voltorb, Spearow, Stantler and Diglet. Should be fun. Watch for that in December. There's too many games coming out for us to keep this going this month.

Speaking for which, I'm picking up Mario vs Donkey Kong tomorrow. Watch for the review.