Monthly Battle Rally #2 Poison Upgrade (9,050 Points) - Pokémon Masters EX

Poison boost, could be better but could be worse. Poison was a troubled type for a long time. James was able to ward off Poison-weak stages for a while during the stall meta era of early Champion Stadium, but after J&J 2021 would not introduce any Poison Sync Pairs and 2022 only had four, with only Fall Iris being a real standout for the time due to Poison Zone (and even then she was just a worse Lucas). DeNA made it their mission in 2023 to fleshout the Poison type. The standout Offence centric pokefairs to the four Variety Scouts (50% chance for a freebie Poison type btw) to the two later Lodge Supports, Poison became a real type. It's not on top of the meta but it's a definite improvement from where the type was, now it's about in the middle, only missing a truly universal synergetic Support for the big 4 damage dealers of the type.
0:00 1. Strike + Tech
This seed could result in a repeat or another pattern, either result leads to another Strike + Tech stage so I decided to save my other two for later. Chose to expend Rose since he has the least utility. Jessie is the defacto worst Striker in the game so yeah she's easy fodder for this weak stage.
1:30 2. Tech + Support
And the seed is an exact repeat to the 1st video, alright that's kinda cumbersome. Chose to use my newly upgraded Dojo Gloria here along with Variety Selene, the two have Physical attacking synergy. James can tank decently for a bit, it was his claim to fame back when Champion Stadium Master Mode dropped after all.
3:30 3. Support + Field
Time to bring in the easyc carrier of this session, Geeta. In retrospect I could've saved her for later but it would be a much cringer runthrough if I did that. Marlon is a cheap tank and Gloria still has her Support role leftover so she made a decent 3rd here. She's also added offence and gauge to this team. Bought a Defence debuff upgrade because those are pretty good, it's not as splashable as some others but it can work for what I had in mind for later.
5:06 4. Field + Sprint
The repeat act of expending Event Victor and Riley at the first Field/Sprint stage you see. Had to use Rock Slide DPS Geeta, I didn't adjust grid so she ended up missing a few times which was a bit clunky. She still carried regardless, this stage might've been threatening had I not used Geeta early.
7:40 5. Sprint + Strike
Using SS Gladion here because Rei can handle more Sprint + Strike Ultimate Battles if need be. Geeta has to hard switch to "tanking" here as she has better defences. Could've used a faster Grass striker here like Lodge Gloria so the gauge would be less cringe. Alola gun go pew pew.
9:40 6. Strike + Tech 2
Awful gauge fight incoming. This is what happens when you chose to have two Strikes with Tech EX instead of Techs with Strike EX. I did the bad 5,000 paid gem no guranteed Pokefair scout for the Water + Fairy High Score event to upgrade SS Lysandre, kill me over it. Anyways this was an okay fight. Finally get to use Geeta's B-Move to delete the stage since she won't be boosted anymore after this.
11:45 7. Tech + Support 2
Got one of the hardest Rally stages, being Anabel from the 2023 Summer event. This stage has a lot of harsh gimmicks, for one you need to status Anabel to even do damage, second she is Physically bulky with a Steel weakness so few things are realtively good against her. Third, she does a crap ton of damage. After some time I threw in the towel and bought the funny item which drops all enemy stats, for what it's worth I still got more points for doing this instead of chosing the medium stage I think. And I still lost SS Steven to a Giga Impact! Maybe the Selene + Gloria team is just better (it is). I don't remember why I chose Koga for this.
14:50 8. Support + Field 2
IT'S BRUNO AND HIS STUPID ONIX AGAIN. I got 2/5 Ball Guy from Mix, he's the best Poison Support I have so might as well use him now as there's no Support stages after this. SST Red and SC Selene LOVE the defence debuff upgrade very much. Ball Guy also stands to benefit from SST's instant AOE Paralysis being able to buff defences with Acumen and Stotic Clear Smog on grid.
17:10 9. Field + Sprint 2
No Poison boost on a very harsh stage, should be a problem right? Well when there's a flinch there is a way. All three Main Characters here are flinch warriors, all three also debuff defence out the wazoo so they could quickly stack debuffs and keep the enemy pinned down. Chosing the right 50 points upgrade matters if you can make it pop off successfully like this.
19:47 10. Sprint + Strike 2
Darach's Ultimate Battle, interetsing. My approach here was to quickly beat it down with Rei and Paulo, the sprinter splinter buddies. Darach's gimmick isn't too threatening with the right team, here I had to kind of balance Fighting Zone's short time along with Sandstorm's time, aka spamming the hell out of Sync countdowns. Rei was the defacto GOAT maximising the defence debuff upgrade, granted I had 4 which is more then normal.