I said I was going to shiny hunt... but I lied.

 

I deleted my save on Shield and downloaded Pokemon Sword because that was the game I wanted to start with. I just got eager to play Shield because of its exclusive... but that's a moot point. I decide to show off my highlights of my avatar, C.J., in Pokemon Sword. (Named after my nickname.)

I completed decimated Milo with a Gigantimax Butterfree which I caught. It was a 1-star raid so I was surprised to catch it.

On the other hand, I failed to snag a Gigantimax Sandicobra, which had a better catch rate. It was 3-stars, though, so I am not angry. I know the Gigantimax forms have a worse catch rate due to their power, so it's not a stink in the coffee for me.

I later caught the event Gigantimax Drednaw at a 2-star raid. Yeah, the Max Raids were dragging me into a spiral of decadence. LOLZ.

Speaking of Drednaw, Milo gave me the weapon to kill Nessa's Drednaw with, and I used a Gardevoir(which I ditched later) to get the win. I had a Toxiticity but I didn't feel like using it.

I wanted to use something else on Kabu's G-Max bug, but I realized that I would be stuck in 2-star raids forever if I didn't advance the story so I just spammed Inteleon's Snipe Shot. I had animations off so it wasn't as awesome as the last time gyms. :(

Also,  I ditched my starter much later. I reworked my team and it ended up being a team of old Pokemon. Not a single 8th generation Pokemon was in my final story team because none of them worked well or looked right to me. I wanted to try out Alcremie and Polteageist but found that pure-types do not work in a team where I had other items in mind...

Namely, my favorite of all of them, Mawile! I know that Mawile's weak but Crowned Zac needs a rusty blade to be the same Steel/Fairy type and that pairing is really strong - only Fire and Ground moves can hurt it, and I used Mawile as my Pokemon Ultra Sun star player so I had to have it. One of the reasons I like Sword more than Shield.

I did use Galarian Rapidash to win against Bea. I didn't hack it in!

I got it in a Surprise Trade when I was trading random trash Pokemon, then went crazy and tried to hatch a Shiny Ponyta before I realized that Shiny Ponyta is lemon cream and I like cotton candy more. But I had only two boxes of the horses...

 

So I surprised traded almost all of them and ended up with a much fuller Pokedex.

I got five Dreepy, five Eevees, two fully evolved Pokemon(including an Avalugg, but also Bergmite) a few Shield exclusives, lots of Scorbunnies and a Japanese Grookey (so I don't need to trade with Shield)...

 

And even a German Machoke which saved me from having to capture that Machamp in the Wild Area. Now if only I could trade and get a Haunter... ;)

Oh, and I got not one but two German Charmanders! I bred one. Might Masuda it later. Leon will be so shocked when I take out his G-Max Charizard with my D-Max one. (Actually, I'm using Lanturn because Water/Electric plugs a few holes in my team.)

 

I did fiddle with the clock a tad to get the weather for Mawile once blizzards were available after getting the Fire Badge, but once I bred a new one I released the old one. The child helped me take out Opal's final two Pokemon as she had a  Mawile and Weezing. I had my Rapidash, Avalon, deal with the Weezing and then had my Chandelure take out Opal's Mawile. MY Mawile took out Togekiss and her giant wedding cake Alcremie.

Also, my favorite Alolan Pokemon got traded to me, Mimikyu! I was upset you can't spawn Mimikyu until post-game but some nice foreigner traded me his! Thanks for making my final member!

So yeah, it's all old classics for my team, no new Pokemon.

 

I did have a Scrafty for a little bit, and he did manage to win against Gordie's Rock team... but I ditched him for the Charizard. :(

Going to take a break and finish candy-up my newest members before I head down south to Spikemuth to deal with Piers. I'm going to probably briefly give my Charizard, Red Magnus(which was named after the Disgaea 5 character) Brick Break to deal with Piers and most of his team(my Flygon Sparx - yes, named after the Spyro character, I am going to replay the Reignited trilogy - can handle Skuntank easily), then we'll get everyone to Level 70 before facing Raihan. (I deleted my Shield saved before Raihan's gym.)

My current team:

1. Vileplume
2. Flygon
3. Mawile
4. Lanturn
5. Charizard
6. Mimikyu