Let’s make this quick. I’ve been chipping away at gauntlet over the past week so this makes for a nice easy upload. Johto CS is very weak so adding 12.5K to it doesn’t change it as much as say Sinnoh or Hoenn where the enemies are stacked with passives. I recorded this earlier in the week I just didn’t find time to edit the video togeather. If I hadn’t done 10K Johto in the past I wouldn’t have done this video. This is for completion.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Round 1: Sentry Entry 4? Say no more
2:38 Round 2: The Hapu showcase
4:55 Round 3: Triple Tapu
6:24 Round 4: Quickestsand
9:28 Round 5: An oldie 2021 goldie
Round 1: Will
Parameter: Status Conditions
Basic stat drop centric clear. Despite not having many passive Johto CS was the first CS to really give bosses important passives which define how you play the stage. Koga is probably the most infamous example of it but Dark-weak Will (commonly a stalled stage back in 2021) has the extreme Sentry Entry 4… and that’s all he has going for him. When you combine two Dark Type defence de-buffers his only passive might as well be null and void. I think having Masked Royal Nuke and then Nanu nuke shows how different the two are. Lillie is here since I don’t often use Clefairy enough I feel plus she did release almost 3 years ago and I did spend 15,000 gems for her at launch.
Round 2: Koga
Parameter: Stat drops on faint
I wish I could tell you I thought of an interesting Hapu clear because I didn’t. We’ve humoured Hapu before with Naomi as the real Ground nuke/DPS with Hapu acting as a secondary striker. My biggest issue with Hapu is that her expanded Sync grid doesn’t do much to help her as all her nodes are seperated, you could make 4 grids and never feel satisfied with her output. She’s still the weakest of the Alola Sync Pairs. Once Naomi gets an EX there will be little reason to invest in Hapu. As for the clear this is kind of just “random bullshit go”, Johto CS being introduced as early as it was allows for silly teams like this where Hapu looks decent. Palentines Mallow is the bulky support of the clear buffing Critical Hit Rate and Kukui is on his standard defence drop/flinch duties. Speaking of Palentines Mallow should you scout her in the upcoming Seasonal Select Scout? I would if you own Winter Jasmine, Palentines Bea, Fall Caitlin and Fall Allister. If you don’t like any of the four I mentioned or don’t have other support favourites feel free to go for Palentines Mallow.
Round 3: Bruno
Parameter: Special Shield
I wanted to showcase triple Tapu a while ago. This is how DeNA invisoned you use the Tapus, since their Ocean Passives activate whenever an ally field effect is used it allows the Tapu units to gain + 3 of their PMUN, SPUN or Defence + Special Defence buffs when using three on the same team, with SS Lana gaining +6 PMUN as she is a striker. While it’s not as absurd as Triple 3rd Anniversary or Triple Galar Birds it’s fun to use see all the stacks show-up when the battle begins and the team is still pretty effective for most stages. Triple Tapu also allows you to enable Moonblast SS Lana, a mode which is otherwise less useful. SS Lana needs SS Hau specifically if she want to use Moonblast, SS Lana’s kit is formed so that she always lands a Crit as long as she’s using B-Psycho Cut or has Critical Sync. SS Mina can only buff crit by 1 stage so that means you are left to run SS Acerola as the crit buffer, which sadly means you can’t weap the benefits on an extended Fairy Zone. This clear could be optimised further but I just wanted to showcase the mode very quickly.
Round 4: Karen
Parameter: Sync in half
This is me trying to get as much out of Lodge Acerola as possible. I promise this is the last time I showcase this thing. Lodge Acerola was designed for extremely quick short term battles like this one. I think Lodge Acerola does her job decently and is still a decent asset to F2P players, just one that will go unused 90% of the time because she’s only really here to act as an accessible Alola Support. Olivia still nukes Rock-Weak stages very well so the fast clear is easy to do, though a Sync Grid Expansion wouldn’t be a bad idea for Anniversary if you’re listening to this random DeNA employee. Yeah not much to say here other than to validate Lodge Acerola more.
Round 5: Lance
Parameter: Faster Move Gauge + Stat Drops on faint
This team here is one I used back in 2021 to first clear Electric-Weak Lance in Master Mode. At the time I was using New Year’s Lillie every week as she was one of my few crit buffers and one of my first 3/5 5* supports who I also made EX. New Year’s Lillie is a unit I still find enjoyable although has SADLY fallen WAY off meta wise due to better Crit buffers being released. Sad. We could’ve gone SS Hau here but I’ve never regular Hau so he’s here. Him getting an EX was a big improvement to this clear as before it would require some clean-up post Sync. Gladion was mainly used as the clean-up boy after Hau nuked the center.