Faced with Aiden's incoming voice chat request, Caitlin hesitated for a moment before pressing the accept button.
As Aiden had said, reviewing the match alone wouldn't be very effective.
From the opponent's perspective, it was easier to spot her own vulnerabilities. Moreover, seeing how confident Aiden appeared, he clearly had some tricks up his sleeve and must have identified issues in her lineup.
Soon, a sweet female voice echoed through Aiden's live stream.
"Good evening, Aiden."
Although their relationship wasn't particularly good due to Cynthia, Caitlin maintained her noble lady persona in the live stream and greeted him proactively after connecting the voice chat.
[??? Such a cute voice, Caitlin is so adorable!]
[I've long disliked Azure; even bullying cuties like Iono and Caitlin, you've done all sorts of bad things!]
[Huh? Wait... Why does Caitlin call Teacher Azure by his name directly? Could they have known each other before?]
[It's not impossible. Didn't Teacher Azure supposedly live in Sinnoh before? Caitlin is from Sinnoh too and is our champion's good friend...]
The audience quickly shifted their focus to strange angles, and the barrage density soon surpassed the peak during the previous battle.
Indeed, whenever there's a cute girl, these barrages immediately become much more active...
Seeing this, Aiden cleared his throat and promptly steered the conversation back:
"Long time no see, Caitlin."
"Now that the main character has appeared, let's deeply review the Trick Room team you used earlier."
Aiden casually confirmed the fact that they knew each other, which wasn't really worth hiding since their seats were next to each other during the Dragon-type Master Tournament. The old viewers probably wouldn't believe they didn't know each other anyway.
Of course, today's focus was obviously still on the renovation plan for Caitlin's Trick Room tactics.
"Alright."
After replying with one word, Caitlin first raised her confusion—
"If I had known you would use Venusaur and Charizard, should I not have recalled Gothitelle?"
In Caitlin's view, she recalled Gothitelle at the start to avoid the side effects of Yawn, which gave Aiden the opportunity to deploy his lineup.
Perhaps she should have been more decisive and trusted her bond with Gothitelle?
Even if it fell asleep, it still had at least one chance to act.
And sleep was actually a very mysterious status condition; waking up at any time was possible.
"Hmm… Hard to say."
Aiden revealed a confident smile and quickly explained:
"If you caught other teams with insufficient firepower, this could work, but for the Sunny Day team, breaking through Gothitelle and Bronzong's durability is quite easy."
"Whether it's Torkoal's Flamethrower or Overheat after triggering Sunny Day weather, or Incineroar's Knock Off, they pose a significant threat to Gothitelle."
"Even if you stubbornly stayed and opened Trick Room, relying solely on Bronzong still couldn't block the output."
Yawn itself served as a deterrent to opponents. Even if Yawn wasn't used and a direct Flamethrower was used to pressure the HP line, Caitlin's side would still be very troubled.
Torkoal was both a weather setter and had certain control capabilities, while also having explosive output.
How could there be such a perfect weather setter!
"Sending out Gothitelle at the start easily leads to a stall situation. Even if you lock the opponent's shadow, it's still difficult to handle your own side."
"So my suggestion is—postpone Gothitelle's appearance, first probe the opponent's specific lineup, then find an opportunity to lock the field and break the deadlock."
Shadow Tag was indeed a powerful ability, but the usage of each Pokémon with this ability varied.
For example, the extreme case of Wobbuffet in singles could force the opponent into a guessing game, very thrilling, and it was once a banned existence in unofficial rules.
Mega Gengar's usage was more suited to Caitlin's thinking—it was a high-output stationary cannon, and with its speed, it could mostly secure the initiative.
Moreover, it had signature moves like Perish Song and Destiny Bond; in most cases, it could at least trade one-for-one, truly terrifying.
On the contrary, the common Gothitelle was slightly awkward, lacking in output and speed, leaning more towards a Trick Room support role in doubles.
It could cooperate with attackers to control the field or pair with Perish Song to form the classic "Shadow Tag Perish Song" system.
Hearing Aiden's words, Caitlin thought this made sense and stopped fixating on this point.
Aiden quickly spoke again:
"Actually, I think your understanding of the Trick Room team is already very good. The only problem now is..."
"A single-type lineup is very hard to synergize, especially the somewhat awkward Psychic type!"
Aiden earnestly voiced his thoughts.
It wasn't that he harbored any bias against these types; what he said were objective facts.
Just looking at type matchups, Psychic wasn't particularly strong offensively, extremely weak against Dark types, and its defensive performance was only average.
The characteristic of Psychic was that it had many powerful auxiliary moves, like Trick Room, the two screens, Hypnosis, etc.
Having such a type as an auxiliary greatly expanded one's move pool.
Of course, some Pokémon without the Psychic type could also learn a bunch of these moves...
Like Grimmsnarl, with its Dark/Fairy typing, not only could it freeload the two screens but also possessed Prankster, a god-tier ability for auxiliaries.
With Caitlin's innate strong psychic abilities, her Pokémon could receive a noticeable power boost in real combat, securing the Elite Four position for her was definitely not a problem.
But if Caitlin wanted to go further, relying solely on her old Psychic-type companions wouldn't be enough.
Among the Unova Elite Four that Aiden knew, besides Martial Artist Marshall, Ghost-type expert Shauntal and Dark-type specialist Grimsley were very effective against her.
Forget about Dark types; as soon as she encountered Shauntal, who excelled in Ghost types, she immediately became docile!
"…"
After being pointed out by Aiden, Caitlin fell into silence.
The reason she configured such a lineup was simple: most of these Pokémon were ones she owned, requiring no additional learning cost to use.
Additionally, in real combat, she could temporarily enhance their strength through her psychic powers.
This alone made her more inclined to choose Psychic-type Pokémon.
Not to mention that each of them had the ability to open Trick Room, which could also serve to confuse opponents.
But at the same time, as Aiden said, a single-type lineup had significant disadvantages in synergy.
While Caitlin was pondering, Aiden quickly seized the momentum and continued:
"What's the core philosophy of a Trick Room team?"
"In my view, the strength of a Trick Room team lies in giving some powerful but slow Pokémon the possibility of stably gaining the initiative, which is extremely terrifying."
As he spoke, Aiden reopened the team editor and placed the Pokédex information of Torkoal and Reuniclus in the center of the screen.
"Can you see anything?"
Aiden quickly smiled and posed a question to the audience.
[Aside from being particularly slow, it seems their base stats in other abilities are pretty decent?]
[Now that you mention it, excluding speed stats, isn't Torkoal just a little pentagon warrior?]
[So Reuniclus has such good stats? Good output, excellent bulk, just a bit lagging in speed...]
[But as Teacher Azure previously mentioned, when speed is low to a certain extent, it's no longer a disadvantage. The strength of Pokémon with this kind of stat distribution in a Trick Room team is truly terrifying!]
[Even late bloomers might not be much stronger than them, I'm not being delusional rn right?]
After some time under Aiden's tutelage, the overall level of the audience gradually improved.
Thus, they quickly discovered what Aiden wanted to show them.
"That's right, this is where the strength of the Trick Room team lies."
After a slight smile, Aiden continued speaking.
"By using Trick Room to turn the absolute disadvantage of speed into an advantage, even someone as slow as Torkoal can stably gain the initiative and fully display its combat power."
"And besides the auxiliaries responsible for opening Trick Room, the requirements for other attackers are actually already very low."
"If we don't limit ourselves to Psychic types, using Pokémon like Torkoal, Rhyperior, or even faster attackers for rescue operations is also possible."
"In short, just make good use of each Pokémon's advantages, and anyone can play a Trick Room team!"
Upon saying this, the barrage instantly lit up.
[Got it, I'll assemble a Trick Room team with my supreme understanding and play ranked matches. If I lose, blame Teacher Azure for teaching me wrong!]
[Master, I understand, as long as I can open Trick Room, it counts as a Trick Room team!]
[No wonder Azure liked bringing along an Indeedee in Doubles for a period of time, turns out it was for this reason, hidden so deep...]
[That makes sense, if encountering a team that's obviously faster, opening Trick Room to reverse the initiative doesn't that blow them away?]
Caitlin, currently connected to the live stream, didn't pay attention to chat's banter.
Her focus was on—
What Aiden said was absolutely correct!
Adding absurdly slow Pokémon like Torkoal to the Trick Room system not only leveraged Sunny Day weather for more advantages but also ensured a more stable initiative.
Just like her predicament earlier in the battle, if she used Trick Room at the start, she couldn't even find anyone on her team faster than it…
And this was already after deliberately slowing down her team. Switching to other normal lineups, seeing Torkoal with both Trick Room and Sunny Day boosts, wouldn't they be completely stunned?
Caitlin felt a wave of realization.
She realized she had been a bit too narrow-minded before.
Though it was something anyone could think of, without an outsider's reminder, she might not have realized it.
In fact, many Gym Leaders and Elite Four trainers were like her, having achieved good results in developing one attribute and subconsciously preferring to use those Pokémon.
But if the goal was to become a champion trainer, overcoming the weakness of over-reliance on a single attribute was necessary to break through the Elite Four.
Besides a certain often-negligent coordinator participating in contests but possessing terrifying strength, the Hoenn proxy champion, she hadn't heard of other single-attribute champions in this era...
Currently still the head of the Battle Frontier, she inherently had the ability to command various Pokémon.
Once she understood this, the optimization ideas for her lineup suddenly became crystal clear.
More importantly—
Aiden's ideas were useful not only in the game but also applicable in real battles.
Whether it was herself, known as a Psychic user, suddenly pulling out a Pokémon of another attribute or changing formations on the spot to use a lineup targeting the opponent's attributes, unexpected effects could be achieved.
After broadening her perspective, Caitlin's eyes instantly brightened.
"I see…"
Caitlin muttered to herself.
Although reluctant to admit it, she…
Had indeed learned something useful from Aiden.
No wonder so many trainers from other regions were also following his live streams.
It seemed this guy wasn't entirely useless!
At first, Caitlin was undoubtedly very resistant to donating to Aiden and even connecting with him.
But after genuinely learning something…
Hmm, true satisfaction!
Even through the screen, Aiden could clearly feel Caitlin's mood had significantly improved, and her tone seemed more lively.
Regarding this, Aiden only smiled faintly.
This way, the relationship between the two of them had somewhat eased, right?
Subsequently, he quickly spoke again, adding a few sentences:
"Actually, choosing the Trick Room setter and auxiliary in a Trick Room team is also very particular. Bronzong is certainly a good choice, but there are other excellent options."
"For example, Indeedee, relatively common in some regions, has the hidden ability Psychic Surge, which lays a Psychic Terrain upon entering, nullifying most of the opponent's priority moves."
"Besides opening Trick Room, female Indeedee can also use Follow Me, helping teammates tank."
"With Follow Me, the Trick Room setter appearing alongside it can safely open Trick Room ignoring Taunt, quickly completing its setup."
"Of course, the main reason is that it also has the Psychic type, making it quick for you, Caitlin, to get used to, and even capturing one in real life is a good choice."
"As for other choices like Oranguru or Farigiraf, they're also relatively conventional."
Aiden spoke a lot, leaving not just the barrage but even Caitlin momentarily bewildered.
She knew a bit about most Pokémon, but specifics like abilities and learnable moves were obviously less clear.
No wonder everyone called him Teacher Azure; he knew much more than ordinary trainers.
Wait… hadn't he been a trainer for less than half a year? Did he memorize the entire Pokédex?
No, memorizing the entire Pokédex wasn't difficult for psychics like her who had developed their mental abilities to a certain extent, but organizing internal memory into knowledge points instinctively like Aiden did, she definitely couldn't do that…
So how did Aiden achieve it?
This question soon lingered in Caitlin's heart.
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