 Pokemon Nuzlocs We finally took a deep dive down the rabbit hole into the world that lies beneath the surface of a standard Pokemon playthrough. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a Nuzloc is, essentially it's a set of rules imposed by a player on any main series Pokemon title to increase the difficulty of a standard playthrough. The basics are you can only catch the first Pokemon you encounter in any new route or area, you must nickname all Pokemon you catch and once a Pokemon wins you can no longer use that Pokemon and if you white out I lose all of your Pokemon the run is over. The rules you can apply vary from a standard Nuzloc to a hardcore playthrough but essentially the more rules you apply the harder the playthrough becomes. Keen to see how I could do in a Nuzloc challenge I dived in literally at the deepest end I could taking on Pokemon Emerald Kaisal, a Pokemon rom hack that is commonly agreed upon to be the most difficult hardcore Nuzloc in existence. I literally don't think I could have went any harder for a first time and yes this went as well as you'd expect. I had a number of failed attempts but this didn't put me off. I was loving the challenge and Nuzlocs through my way and even though it was a rough ride to begin with this only made me want to keep trying. After these failed attempts Chat suggested maybe I try something a little less challenging and with the recent release of Brilliant Diamond and Channing Pearl I thought this might be a nice game to tackle to try and get my first complete Nuzloc but I wanted to make it a little more challenging than just a standard Nuzloc. I always liked the idea of a sleeplock and as it was really something that would make it more challenging on me rather than the game itself this seemed a nice way to make it slightly harder whilst also not going so hard to start with a hardcore playthrough. So what is a sleeplock? Essentially it is a Nuzloc like we explained before but with a sleeplock you can't stop playing until you finish the game. So we are playing the standard Nuzloc rules, catch the first pokemon in every route or area, have to nickname every pokemon, if a pokemon fails it's no longer usable and if we white out I have to start the whole thing again. Because this is a sleeplock and the thought of potentially playing forever technically we could, if I lose at any point for my first time at least I didn't want to make this too difficult for myself. So we set a date and my pokemon Brilliant Diamonds sleeplock begun. I had no idea how this was going to go. Remember you'd not complete a single Nuzloc before doing this and the threat of literally playing for days if I had any failed attempts was something that was pretty daunting. I live in the UK and I'm telling you this for context which we'll get to later. I started the sleeplock at 4pm in the afternoon and this was definitely my first mistake but with that aside we set out on my first sleeplock. I started off a Lig Verity and picking Chimcha as a starter pokemon giving it the only suitable nickname possible. We picked up some supplies of the Sagan town pokemon and headed out onto Route 202 to get shown how to catch pokemon by dawn. Get given our first pokeballs and a journey begins. Knowing that we could only catch one pokemon per route I wanted to make sure I approached this sleeplock properly so it took full advantage of all of the different areas I had available at this early stage of my playthrough. Firstly we went back to Lake Verity where we encountered the god pokemon Bidoof. We managed to catch it and nicknamed it Arceus Junior. It became the first member of our party. On Route 201 our first encounter was a Starly which we named Hawkeye and on Route 202 where I hoped we encountered Jinx we instead had to settle for a cricket tot which we named Squeaker. The team was shaping up pretty nicely. We beat a bunch of trainers on our way to Jubilife City where we visited the trainer school to deliver a town map to our rival Barry. From here we did all the jubilife commodities, found the three gestures and got given a nifty watch from the president of the Pokech company. Before heading to Orbra we took a slight detour on to Route 204 where we managed to encounter a Shinks. Finally we had the pokemon that we wanted and named it Simba. We then went on to the caves in the ravaged path and caught a Jew dude who we nicknamed Jane Johnson or Jane Johnson as we didn't consider the nickname character limits whilst furiously mashing a. And with that we headed out to Route 203 for our first rival battle against Barry who we made quick work of with our Shinks. Our encounter on Route 203 was a Zubat. Chatnik named it Brock and it was sent to our storage box. We then continued through Orbra Gate or to Orbra Town and headed to the mine area to find Rourke. We snagged an Onyx as our encounter in this area named Snack, found Rourke and could finally take on our first gym leader of the run. Before we did we cautiously did some grinding on Route 2 or 7 to level up Chimcha to level 14 to evolve it into Monferno so I could learn Mach Punch. Whilst doing this we encountered a Machop which we named Moondah. Machop was sent to the box system alongside Zubat and Onyx and I'm sure these will come into play at some point through our playthrough. Feeling overly prepared we then took on Rourke which Monferno made quick work of with a combination of Parapunch and Mach Punch earning us the call badge against our first gym leader. At this point we were one hour and 30 minutes into the run and I was feeling pretty good. Our team was shaping up nicely and even though we might have been a little over cautious with our preparations for our first gym fight I felt things were going well and not won casualty so far. Next we faced some team Galactic Grunts. Two once again come to the aid of Professor Rohan and after this we made our way to Route 2 or 4 to Flamora Town. On the way we battled a bunch of trainers and Hawkeye as Starly evolved into Starravia. After picking up the spray duct from the Flamora Town's florist we head out onto Route 2 or 5 where we helped a young girl rescue her dad from the clutches of Team Galactic. We went to the Valley Windworks where a wild goose chase began to get a key from some other grunts bullying an old man in the forest before facing off against Galactic Commander Mars and rescuing the captured scientist. Oh and during beating up some Galactic Grunts our shinks evolved into Luxio. Our encounter at the Valley Windworks was Bweasel which we unfortunately hit with a critical hit. I don't like the crit though that is brutal so that is actually really frustrating meaning no encounter for this area. After healing up we went on to Route 2 or 5 and battled a lot of trainers also encountering another Bweasel where we managed to catch it this time and get redemption for the earlier encounter we lost. We named it Lifejacket. Route 2 or 5 led us to Eterna Forest where we teamed up with Cheryl we managed to catch a Badoo which we nicknamed Mystique, battled a bunch of trainers and finally made it to Eterna City. Before taking on the Eterna City Gym Leader we picked up the Explorer Kit from an old man. Oh and it's worth noting that as a Nuzlocke the underground is a strange thing to approach as you can literally have so many encounters if you count each cavern or cave as a new area which makes the game a lot easier. So we decided for this run each different entry point of the underground we could have at least one encounter for each of those. For example there are five areas in total with only four being available before the post game so we technically get one Pokemon if we want from each of these areas as we progress through the game. On our first trip to the underground our first encounter in the Rocky Biome was a Skorupi. We called it and named it Agent 47 which we replaced for Cricketoon in our party and yeah don't feel bad for Cricketoon. Next we make our way to Eterna City Gym made quick work of the Gym trainers and took on Gardenia to earn the second Gym badge. We then have our first encounter with Cynthia who gives us the TM Cut which leads us on to the mission to save the Turner City Bicycle Man from the Galaxy HQ building. We once again beat a bunch of Galactic Grunts before beating Commander Jupiter and then have our probably our closest call of losing a Pokemon as Monferno took the aftermath damage from the Stung Tank. Oh my gosh aftermath. We don't get hit by the poison though do we? Don't say we do. Don't say we do. That would be that would be like the worst. I don't think we do. I think that's over. Too close too close chat. With Galactic now once again stopped in their tracks we paid a visit to the bike shop and got ourselves a shiny new bike. At this point two badges down and a team of around early 20s Pokemon we hadn't taken a single casualty so even if we were three hours in I was feeling pretty good about the run so far. Now we make our way back to Route 206 on the bike path and make our way through Mount Coronet and have our first encounter with Galactic boss Cyrus before reaching heart home city again with no casualties along the way. We visit the gym and get told Fantina isn't home and find out from chat. For the last 15 years I've been playing this game wrong. First time I don't actually need to take part in a Pokemon beauty contest to progress the games. The amount of playthroughs I've literally done of this game in the past this one and remakes and thought that I had to do the contest so just get through the storyline is actually ridiculous so big shout out to you Chad. Anyway now that revelation's out the way we bumped into Barry for another battle which we win super easy and head out onto Route 209 where Jin Johnson and Jair dude evolves into Gravlar and our first trainer battle on this route. Mime Junior is our first encounter on the Route 209 which we managed to catch in nickname Miss Mime which we add to our party in place of Skrupy. We make our way into the Lost Tower where we battle our way through all the trainers to the top and on our way catch ourselves Ghastly which we name Rick Ghastly. Now when editing this video I realized that the Lost Tower doesn't actually count as a new encounter area it's still listed under Route 209 so technically we shouldn't be able to catch Ghastly as we already have a Mime Junior on this route. For me the Lost Tower as it is kind of based on almost like a cave and encounters in here are different to the ones outside which makes me feel like this is kind of okay but I'll leave this for you to decide. I see both sides here but during the playthrough until now months after we did this I didn't realize this happened. Anyway with the Lost Tower and Route 209 behind us we finally make our way to Solace in town which is essentially a quick pit stop at the Pokemon Center before heading straight onto Route 210 where we encounter a wild chancy which we knock out before I'm able to catch it so not encounter us on this route. We then move on to Route 215 battle a bunch more trainers and finally see Luxio evolve into Luxorib before we make it to Veilstone City. We are exactly five hours into the playthrough we have a nice party but only two gym badges so a long way to go. After a quick visit to the Pokemon Center we head straight to Veilstone Gym Hawkeye makes and such easy work of all the trainers as we try to figure out a path through the dojo style gym which sees Ghastly evolve into Haunter. Now at this point we realize our team may be a little underleveled for Meiline as she has a level 27 Meditide, 27 Machok and level 30 Lucario and although most of our team are between level 29 and 31 a new additions in Mime Junior and Haunter were no one near strong enough to take on the Lucario which could bulk up and really rip through our team. So at this point we decided to take a little tactical detour to the underground to grind our levels a little higher before taking on Meiline as we'd been burnt already under preparing for her in a previous Shining Pearl Nurse Lock we attempted. So after a little grinding and also some trades with our friendly chat to evolve Haunter and Graveler into their respected final evolutions a team looked like this. Monferno, level 33 Luxury, level 33 Staravia, level 32 Golem, 31 Mime Junior, 28 and Gengor, 29. I also attach a spooky plate to Gengor and fistplate to Monferno as well as some healing berries to the rest of the team to help with firepower and longevity. I felt ready to now take on Meiline and her obnoxiously strong fighting types. We led in with Staravia and managed to one hit kill the Meditide with Wing Attack before it's able to get the light screened up and it's worth noting coming into this match this was my biggest concern if we miss a knockout here the whole match becomes way harder to manage but thankfully with Meditide dropping we are able to cycle in Luxury on the match up and get the intimidates off and not have to worry about that screen support. Then we switch straight back to Staravia get a second intimidate whilst also avoiding the incoming bulldoze from the match up on the field. From here we are able to take it down get a couple of wing attacks off we take a minus two rock tomb pretty comfortably and that's be the next turn to knock out the match up. Now next comes in Lucario I'm super concerned about the bulk ups I can to an extent keep its attack stat in check by cycling intimidates but I have to be careful whilst doing this. I lead out with Golem who I need to try to get a bulldoze off with onto the Lucario so I can ensure the rest of the team can speed it after the drop. I managed to get the bulldoze off while Lucario bulks up the bulldoze does over 50% so at this point I'm thinking it's more than likely going to drain punch the next turn to pick up the knockout whilst recovering a bunch of its health. It's a risky play to bring in Gengor at this stage because if it metal claws I lose it but I decide to make the play and it pays off as Lucario drain punch and I get a free switch in which after the bulldoze speed drop onto the Lucario Gengor now at speeds with the spooky play attached and no light screen in play I'm able to knock out the remaining health Lucario has with hex. This seemed very straight forward but honestly at the time this was a really intense match to go into knowing how easily the Lucario could cut through our squad but we managed to do it get a third gym badge beat meleon and all without losing a single pokemon. With that done still more to do in Veilstone we helped dawn with some team galactic grunts before heading to pastoria city catching a ponytail nickname ferrari once at pastoria city we soon realised our party has no grass type to help out against a pastoria city gym. We do have luxor here but knowing crash awake has a quagsire we can't really rely on it to deal with this ground water type we need some better options with this in mind we fly back to twinleaf turn and head to the underground where we managed to catch a rosellia and nickname it majestic before heading back to take it on the gym. We managed to deal with all of the trainers in the gym pretty easily with our current squad and before we get to crash awake our star area evolves into star raptor. Knowing crash awake leads with the garrados we send in luxoray first to make easy work of that rosellia deals with the quagsire in one hit and luxoray comes in to deal with flotel. We probably prepared a little bit more than what we needed to for this one but again we gained our next gym badge and all without losing a single pokemon along the way and as an added bonus our monferno finally evolved into infernip. With four badges down and four to go we are at about seven and a half hours into our playthrough making it around 11 30 p.m my time. As we leave pastoria city we have our token match against barry which luxoray single-handedly deals with next we ran into another galactic grunt on route 213 before being prompted to visit the group of cyduck on route 210 by synthia. After curing the group of cyduck synthia asks us to deliver a package to celestic town on a way we evolve mime junit into mr mime or miss mime eventually get there and beat up another galactic grunt meet cyrus again and get shown around a creepy cave with drawings on the wall by an old lady i mean synthia's grandmother. Now with that airing out of the way fantina has now returned to the gym and hearth home so we proceed to challenge her with our current squad of luxoray level 39 golem 33, rosellia 33, infernip 37, star raptor 36 and gengo 34. fantina wasn't too difficult to deal with luxoray handled the drift blend pretty well we were able to position golem in against her gengo to get a bulldoze off and star raptor made quick work out of our mix magius and that was gym badge number five and again without losing a single pokemon up to this point we're sitting at 8.5 hours now and 12 30 am my time with only three more badges to go now as we can use surf our journey continues to kanalav city since synthia paid us another visit after beating fantina we head out to route 218 and head to kanalav city where we take on barry once again after this pretty straightforward match we head straight to kanalav city gym and take on byron now byron can be tricky as his bronzo can set trick room up which makes the slowest pokemon on the field the fastest for five turns and as beast team are pretty slow and bulky most of our team would be in an awkward spot if you managed to set this up my only way to try and prevent this was having my gengo use its 75 percent accurate hypnosis on bronzo to put it to sleep and hope it give us enough time after that to knock it out before was able to get the trick room up not having something like taunt here really kind of hurt us so we go into this battle we go for our hypnosis and of course it does miss and the trick room was set so now our main goal is to try and stall out these trick room turns and not take knockouts or too much damage in the meantime we managed to hit our second hypnosis onto the bronzo despite being confused through confuse ray and take down the bronzo on the next turn with a hex stelecs hits a field next so we switch out gengo to star after to get the intimidate onto the field while stelecs set up the sandstorm to stack residual chip on our side of the field next we switch into luxe ray to land another intimidate while it thunder fangs for not too much damage i tried to pivot in rosellia the next turn which takes way more damage than i expected from a minus two earthquake i definitely forgot to factor in the soft stand boost the stelecs is getting from its held item the trick room ends and we managed to get a giga drain off but are then forced into switch out the next turn as another earthquake even after giga drain recovery would be enough to knock us out we bring in star after and get another intimidate on the stelecs taking it down to minus three is the gyro balls for a little bit of damage at this point a stelecs is around 55 half a thought that a close combat would be enough but the stelecs barely hangs on to get another sandstorm because of the close combat drops we decide to switch star after out to luxe ray once again taking its attack to minus four with intimidate as it uses a full restore i switch straight out to star after again to land another intimidate as it goes for a gyro ball then switch to rosellia who can now take the minus five attacks from stelecs a lot better than it did in the first place we get a giga drain off and knock it out next byron brings in his level 39 basuron a switch to infernip and get super lucky with a flame wheel burn which sets up a close combat the next turn nets me the match again without any casualties next up we go on a whole new side quest with the professor barion dawn i first head out to leg vala and take on galactic runs before challenging commander satan then leg verity to be commander mars and then finally make my way to find barry at lake acuity on our way we encounter a wild chingling on route 211 which we nicknamed jingle bells and this then takes us into mount carnet leading us to route 216 where we encounter a wild snover feel to catch it after knocking it out unfortunately but get a little redemption on route 217 with a wild medichamp encounter which we nicknamed coke zero don't ask it was the topic of chat at the time we eventually reached snow point city and head straight to the gym to take on kandice which to be honest with infernip was one of the easier gym leaders we had to take on in this run medichamp could have been a little tricky but we avoided a rock slide on our gengo which meant a shadow ball was an easy knockout before infernip killed a bomber snow we managed to get our seventh badge 10 hours into our run and still not having taken a single knockout on any of our pokemon next up we head back to lake acuity where we could access now after beating kandice and come to barry's rescue we get there a little bit too late as barry lost to commander jupiter and before we can take revenge of our rivals she retreats to the galactic hq we head straight to veilstone city neck to the galaxy hq where we eventually take on cyrus and then commander satan before helping release the lake guardians next we hightailed after team galactic to mount coronet where we made our way up the mountain beating a number of brunts along the way now if we sidestep just a moment i was thinking about our end game against synthia after beating the elite four i knew we needed a fairy type to try and take on gore chomp and spurtoom both of which would be super problematic a new gore chomp had the yachi berry saw an ice type attack against it probably wouldn't pick up the knockout and knowing how difficult it could be to deal with especially if we got up a sword stance it was probably the most dangerous pokemon to potentially end our run i looked at all of the options that we had available to us before completing the game and there was one pokemon in the entire game i had access to during our playthrough that could do a job for us and that was clefable the problem was clefairy was a rare spawn on the higher floors of mount coronet so i had to pray on my way to stop and team galactic on these upper floors i could encounter one if we got a different encounter in here then the chances of getting clefairy were literally gone so with my encounter in mount coronet yet to happen i knew i had a small chance to catch one which could really make the difference in the entire run after entering one of the upper floors i started to try to encounter the one pokemon i believe would be able to save this entire run and i managed to get the encounter out of sheer luck we got the clefairy which would make such a difference at least in my mind for the final fight of this game we caught it and nicknamed it pixie and then carried on to the top of mount coronet the big job now was just making sure that we didn't lose clefairy on the way to the elude 4 or during the elude 4 so we had it for that match against synthia we take on the last galactic grunt and then take down commander jupiter and mars with the help of barry before taking on syrus one last time the syrus match wasn't too difficult with ruck luxeray pulling a lot of weight against his whack and berry garrados and then infernip helping clear everything else up before luxeray finished off his crowbat then on to dialgar which to be honest we kind of took the easy way out against dialgar and just masterballed it and then nicknamed it timmy before sending it to our boxes with tim galactic beat and the syno region save there was only one thing left for us to do and that was to get our last gym badge and take on the elude 4 before coming champion next we head out onto route 222 where we make our way to sunny shore city and our final gym badge at this point we have 12 hours into our playthrough which makes it around roughly 4am in the morning my time and now i'm really starting to feel super tired remember earlier when i said starting at 4pm was my first mistake well here it is in my head i kept asking myself why i didn't start this challenge in the morning or early afternoon at least if i did that i would be way less tired right now but i guess looking back at it it was all part of the challenge and i'm pleased i did it how we did anyway this is just for context back to the game volcano is up next in sunny shore city and after finding him in the lighthouse we head to the gym where we did our final challenge now knowing that volcano leads with the raichu and it having surf i knew golem wasn't the best option here so i went with luxeray which could take the serfs pretty comfortably and to hit curl back with crunch once the raichu was down i had to next worry about the ambipom having fake out boosted by technician i switched to star raptor to drop the intimidate but it only went for the double hit the next turn i decided to stay in and restore the health of luxeray from the damage we'd taken from the raichu so it's set up for its encounter against the octillery later on this match but forgot that ambipom had access to thunderbolt which was probably the closest we'd come to losing a pokemon in our entire run so far and this was super scary moment oh my god that's brutal it's a crit as well that was too close that was the closest we've come to losing something tonight that is not ideal thankfully though we just hang on and are able to switch out to golem which pretty much walls everything ambipom has having access to only thunderbolt last resort fake out and double hit we earthquake whilst volknight hyperportions are around until we get a high roll to take it down to push through this tiny like bet that we've got we've got going on at the minute and we're going to be alright then we have octillery to deal with we switch in luxeray and while charge is a knockout and enough to take it down meaning we only have luxeray to deal with which we manage to vault switch out on from our own luxeray into golem and we take the iron tail whilst getting an earthquake off to knock out and take our final gym badge so there we have it we've got all eight gym badges with no casualties so far and up next is the elite four so we make our way to the pokemon league take on barry one final time and now our preparations for the elite four begin my first thoughts were to try and grab a garrados it would give us a solid water type whilst also a good switch in against sylvanas garchomp as well as giving us another intimidated cycle between it luxeray and store after unfortunately we pretty much exhausted all of our remaining counter spots where magical but garrados can spawn so made it pretty difficult to actually get one into our party so after forgetting about the garrados kind of settling on the team that we've got right now we need to do some preparations firstly we head out to the iron islands because I know that you can get a shiny stone there that will then allow us to evolve roselia into rosarade which is going to be such a key member of the team we complete the side quest with riley and pick that up which doesn't take too long here we go okay here we go mr quibbles how are you doing mate I hope you're well how are you feeling at this point in the stream after almost 15 late I feel I feel better than I did about half an hour ago I feel like I'm kind of my eyes aren't as heavy as they were so yeah I'm all right mate I'm all right but thanks for asking and appreciate it rosarade here we go next up I needed a moon stone to evolve clefairy into clefable now in bdsp the only way to obtain a moon stone are by digging them up in the underground or finding a wild clefairy which has about a five percent chance of holding one we mined a bunch in the underground with literally no luck and search for wild clefairy holding the stone with no luck at all I thought the whole strategy of clefable was dead in the water until someone in chat username krega i.e the hero of the sleep lock in other words offered to trade us a spare moon stone they had I don't know how this fits in with standard sleep lock and nuzlocke rules but we were nearly 15 hours into our playthrough at this point and it been 7 a.m my time with me being awake over like 24 hours at this point I felt it was okay so after evolving rosarade and clefable elite four prep is kind of coming to the start where we need to decide to grind up our levels and decide what level that we're going to go for with our team so our basic plan against most of the elite four was fine we had answers to most of the tricky pokemon we'd face along the way which we'll cover as we get into those matches but synthia was always going to be the most difficult of them all the idea was against synthia to use aquafable and set up cosmic powers in front of spiratum which didn't really hit us for too much damage and then this would allow us to use x special attacks to boost its attack while recovering through moonlight and then set up an entire sweep on the rest of her team it meant that we didn't take too much damage from god chump's earthquakes we were immune to its dragon claw we wouldn't take much damage from its poison jabs and moon blast would pretty much be a two hit kill on most things on her team so if we could get this setup at the start it makes that so much easier we do have a lot of ways to kind of back up the clefable strategy so we have double intimidate in the team and we have single ways to deal with her other threats with other pokemon that we have but if the clefable can kind of pull this off then it would be very useful so if the worst happens we do have other options plus gengar with dazzling gleam we could utilize to take down the god chump the first thing we do is head out to the underground to level grind everything up as we've come so far at this point it didn't really want to head in prematurely so we set a goal for each of our pokemon to be a minimum of level 65 and anything higher whilst leveling up the rest of the team would be a bonus synthia's highest level pokemon was her god chump at level 66 so this felt okay so at the 15 hour mark into our sleep block we enter the underground on our final stretch of the playthrough and this is where literally our first setback of the entire thing happens we had beat all eight gym leaders conquered team galactic and made our way through a number of rival and random battles without losing a single pokemon and an hour of grinding later while we were finishing leveling up our luxurray we faced down against a level 55 giraffe rig like all of the other giraffe rigs before this one we discharged with our luxury and to my shock it used miracourt to knock out our luxury oh no that is literally the worst thing that could have happened that is literally the worst thing that could have happened i can't believe that i can't believe that i cannot believe that taking our first death we were literally at the point where we didn't need to level it up anymore we were using it to level up other pokemon with the xp we were getting in our party and did not expect the miracourt to come out and all i will say here is i was devastated we played for such a long time luxury was going to be such a key member to our team for the elite four and like literally 15 hours of getting this thing prepared and it's just gone to the random giraffe rig i was absolutely devastated so 16 hours into the playthrough and it's 8am my time 25 hours of me being awake and i had lost probably the most important pokemon of the team and i was already finding it super difficult to stay awake and concentrate properly with this on top of that and the thought of going through another playthrough if we didn't manage to beat the elite four and synthia was really hard to kind of think about at this point so myself and chat tried to figure out a replacement in our party of six we talked about garrados again it was suggested we fish in the snow point underground as it was the one of the few areas we had on our encounter table left but then we figured out the hard way that you couldn't actually fish in the underground the issue was at this point replacing luxury was nearly impossible it really acted as a pseudo dark type with crunch it had a pivot with volt switch offered strong electric attacks which were great against things like melodic of synthia's and it had intimidate as well so nothing really kind of came close to like equaling all of those markers we had for it in the underground right now after realizing that we couldn't actually fish in certain areas so the magic hop wasn't really a goal we finally decided rather than trying to replace luxury with another pokemon to use our first encounter in this area on a luxury that appeared so on snow point underground we eventually find one and were able to catch it at level 52 luxury had intimidated thankfully which although was a setback put us back on track eventually so now we had all of us six selected we started the level grind again which we had a little bit of help speed the process up as another user and chat offered to trade me a bunch of lucky eggs which massively cut down the time needed to level everything up and a big shout out to who did that no names needed here but you know who you are even with the lucky eggs though we still spent another two hours at this point grinding up our team two hours later we sought out our items and move sets and on 18 hours into the playthrough we were finally ready to head into the elite four the current team as we enter is star raptor level 67 clefable 68 rosarade 66 gengar 65 inferno 68 and luxury 62 right okay friends let's do it first up we have elite four member aron his team consisted of dust hoax heracross vest between beautify and drapeon the only tricky pokemon i felt aron had were his heracross which had a flame orb to proc its own guts ability this could become problematic of left unchecked and his scope lens sniper drapeon which even after intimidated cycling couldn't get the drops with the higher chance of landing critical hits we decide to lead off into the match with our star after and brave birds straight into the dust hoax which we knew would be a one hit kill next comes in his heracross now this is something i should have checked but the heracross is a jolly nature so i was unsure if our star after would add speed or not i worked out if we had at least 16 speed EVs invested into star after we would be able to outspeed the heracross and this is something we should have gained throughout our playthrough but being unsure about this at the time and made the decision to stay in a little more difficult i eventually decided to commit to star after and went for an aerial ace and as heracross was four times weak to this flying type attack it would be enough to pick it up if we underspent the heracross though we risk being knocked out from a rock slide but thankfully the worry was for nothing as we moved first and picked up a clean one hit kill beautiful i came in next and then vesper queen which both dropped a brave birch which helped self proc our own wiki buried to gain some nice health back and then drapeon hit the field as aron's last mon we switch into luxurator land a key intimidate then switch straight back to star after baiting the incoming earthquake it had as drapeon is now in minus two attack we then took some time to heal up our pokemon whilst avoiding any high chance critical hits we then proceeded to aerial ace three times in a more comfortable position to pick up the knockout and take our first victory against aron although a little stressful at times this was a nice match to ease us into the final stretch of our playthrough and a bonus that we hadn't taken any more casualties next we had bertha her team consisted of quaggsire sudu wudu golem wishcash and hipadon we led in with our roza raid and we had an easy knockout on the quaggsire with giga drain wishcash hit the field next which carried the rindo berry meaning it would halve the damage of a giga drain it also had ice beam which could hit us in return for super effective damage but doing the calculation beforehand we knew we had a high chance to pick up the knockout even through the rindo berry so we decided to stay in and commit to the play and it paid off as we picked up our second knockout pretty easy onto wishcash next came in sudu wudu we had a good chance to pick up the knockout on it with giga drain although we were a little cautious if we missed the knockout it would be able to revenge kill us with head smash coming off its adamant nature so rather than take the risk we switched into luxe raid to get an intimidate off and then pivoted back to roza raid with a vault switch the damage took sudu wudu down to about 50 damage which then allowed roza raid to come in taking the minus one attack head smash comfortably and getting the giga drain off for the knockout golem was next up for bertha we used the same tactic as we did against sudu wudu and switched in luxe raid to land an intimidate whilst also baiting an incoming earthquake from it as we switched straight into star raptor to land another intimidate and put an attack down to minus two the next turn we felt we were safe enough to switch into infernip as stonage was likely to come out from the golem but this kind of backfired when it landed a critical hit on us and we took far too much damage and in awkward spot now we decided to bring in clefable as golem was already weakened from the intimidates we decided to cosmic power up in front of it which would help us better deal with the hippodon in the back thankfully whilst doing this the heavy slam didn't land a critical hit allowing us to set it by defenses and pick up a knockout onto it with ice beam hippodon came in its birth as final pokemon and with two ice beams it meant we were able to get our second victory moving us on without taking another casualty along the way pixie's done well in that battle we heal up our team and then prepare for our next match against elite full member flint which we decided to lead with star raptor and give it a chest or berry which will then allow us enough room hopefully to take the hypnosis heal the status condition and knock it out before it being able to land a second one also identifying that luxury was our main option against drippling and it having willow isp we attached a roustberry on it to alleviate any burn status that could potentially come out from that pokemon with that team ready to go we went into our next match leaving off with star raptor we land a key intimidate onto the predominantly physical attacking rapidash we do get a bit lucky here where we avoid an iron tail was landing a brave bird which actually picks up the clean one hit kill onto rapidash the chest or berry really never came into play but i still feel like it was the right play at the time next comes in steelix we switch the luxurier to get an intimidated and switch straight into infernive which really walls the entire steelix moveset only having access to iron tail crunch thunderfang and firefang we use this time to set up our attack stat with power up punch until the steelix fades lowpony comes in next and goes down to a single mac punch and then drift blend falls to a plus four flare blades definitely a little overkill here flint final pokemon infernive comes in next and rather than risking a speed tie and losing our own infernive where we decide to switch the star raptor get an intimidate off and then go straight into luxurier to land a double intimidate we then vault switch with our own luxurier whilst taking it close combat comfortably and bringing gengar to finish it off with a shadow ball flint was down and we were another step closer to finishing this run so far without any casualties to note lucian was up next and our final elite four member before sylvia his team was made up of mr mime giraffe rake medichamp alakazam and bronzog i was conscious that the mr mime had light screen and reflect i wanted to try and knock it out before i was able to get those set up especially considering its held item was a light clear item which extended the screens on the field to eight turns rather than the normal five gengar was probably our best chance to do this we looked at this and as long as mr mime didn't have max speed ivs we would be able to outspeed it with gengar and our own shadow ball had about an 81 chance to knock it out depending on how it was ab trained the risk here was if we didn't outspeed it and it did go for the psychic first it would be able to clean out a gengar before we were able to do anything but with the small chances here knowing that the mr mime was bald nature and it had trick room there's probably a little bit more slur and bulkier we decided to commit to the gengar play and let it into lucian's mr mime and in the first turn we did in fact find out that we outsped it and landed the shadow ball but just missed the knockout allowing mr mime to set up the light screen the next turn we tried to pick up the ko but lucian used a full restore and the shadow ball only did around 40 damage meaning the next turn we would miss the knockout and go down to a psychic we decided to switch integral fable at this point and use the time to stall out the light screens by setting up our own cosmic powers we managed to get three cosmic powers up during the barrage of psychic attacks from mr mime and pick up the knockout with a few moon blasts as the light screen fades next comes in alakazam now knowing it has nasty plot and the moon blasts would at least be a two hit ko here we decided not to give it room to do this and switched into luxuri it went for a future sight rather than anything else as we crunched and picked up a clean knockout next came in medichamp so we switched straight to star actor which outspeeds and actually gets the brave bird off before it's able to do anything so that was a nice easy knockout drafford came in next and at this point it only felt right to pull luxuri back onto the field to claim some redemption for its lost brethren from earlier in the playthrough drafford sets up a trick room as we take the future sight hit from earlier set up by the alakazam as we crunch for around 60 percent damage next turn we heal up with a full restore whilst taking a psychic and this sets up the next turn knockout with a crunch going for a full circle on the whole luxuri drafford arc i'm not gonna lie that is very satisfying lucian then sends in his final pokemon bronzog known as predominantly a physical attacker with earthquake payback enjoyable we take full advantage of our timid 8 users once again we first switch to star actor as we bait another earthquake coming in on our luxuri slot giving us our first attack drop onto the bronzong we then switch into luxuri and then back to star actor to put the bronzong down to minus three attack and eventually bring in infernip as the bronzong sets up trick room at this point after the trick room was set i worry about a potential earthquake critical hit onto our infernip from the bronzong and then us flare blitzing and going down to the recall damage so rather than take the risk here i switch out cautiously again to star actor and then back into luxuri after this to get the bronzons attack down even further at this point i then take a turn to heal luxuri up with a max portion and then go for the crunches the following turn while the trick room ends we just miss the knockout with our second crunch while he sets another trick room up but lucian decides to knock off the full restore the following turn and another crunch is able to take the bronzong down after we comfortably take an earthquake from the minus five attacking bronzong lucian was done and we only had synthia left with no casualties in the elite four going into our final test now synthia's team was made up of a level 61 spirit tomb level 60 rosin raids 60 gastron 63 lucario 63 melodic and level 66 garjump the whole idea was to lead into spirit tomb and cosmic power with confable to set up an entire sweep of our team with a combination of moonblast and ice beam but as we all know in pokemon plans don't always work out like we want them to so we set up our team healed up and head into our final match of this run against synthia having only taken one casualty so far in the entire thing at this point it was 11 am my time it'd be 29 hours and was ready for this to be over but also so scared of failing at this last hurdle meaning if we failed we would have to start this whole thing over again so here's how it goes we lead out as planned with confable and start to set up our cosmic powers she leads with the spirit tomb and goes for shadow balls we managed to get three cosmic powers set up but unfortunately take three shadow balls special defense drops along the way meaning our defense was buffed but as special defense wasn't exactly where we wanted it to be so against threats like rosarade which would come in later in this match we had to deviate from our initial plan we managed to land two moonblasts after this and pick up the knockout onto spirit tomb and next comes in the rosarade knowing that a special defense hadn't really got any boosts we didn't really want to leave the confable in against the rosarade and its powerful sludge bomb attacks especially when boosted by the expert ballot held so we switch straight into star raptor and go for a brave bird as its sludge bombs for around 50 damage as citrus berry procs here and we pick up the clean knockout with our own brave bird attack two down four more to go next comes in the melodic this gives us a chance to switch into luxe array and use the time we have while it's scalds to heal up our clefable and star raptor which are going to be really important for later in this match after a few turns of recovery we then vault switch out onto the melodic into our rosarade which is able to come in and knock out with a gigadrain synthios gastrodon comes in next and goes down to another gigadrain and then lucario comes in to take its place we switch into infernip and knowing it out sped goes straight for a flare blade picking up the knockout and leaving synthia with her only pokemon garchomp left we switch into star raptor to get an intimidate off onto the garchomp put it down to minus one attack and decide to brave bird on our first turn which we know will do around 50 damage so we don't leave a potential sword stance player from the garchomp unpunished it goes actually for a dragon claw and does over 50 damage while we brave bird and does a little less than we expected the next time we decide to switch to clefable thinking that garchomp probably goes for another dragon claw and if we guess right it means we get a free switch in which could help us close this match up i worry about a potential sword stance but in that scenario we would just have to play around with our intimidate users again to try and create a better opening for clefairy to come in and close this match up so we make the switch and garchomp actually goes for the dragon claw giving us the free switch into clefable and the opening we needed now on minus one attack we know we can take any of garchomp's incoming attacks either the earthquake or the poison jab we click into our final potential move of the game in moon blast and take a poison jab and say clefable take it super comfortably as the moon blast finally comes out and pick up the knockout as we beat the game we had finally done it we had finally complete our first ever sleep log challenge after 19 and a half hours of play the relief was overwhelming and my exhaustion immediately hit in with a mix of emotions knowing i had achieved something pretty epic at least in my eyes this was a crazy journey and only taking one pokemon death the entire run felt pretty good as well of course it would have been nice and better if we had done this without taking a single lost pokemon but all things considered i'll take this all day long so that's how we managed to complete our first ever sleep log challenge with only losing one pokemon along the entire 19 and a half hour run thank you so much for joining me along the ride of this challenge i really do hope you enjoyed the journey as much as i did and this definitely won't be the last sleep lock we do so until the next one friends