DragonWhale
It's not a misplay, it's RNG manipulation
Approved by TDP and Jelli. This is a repost of the thread I posted in the USUM forum.
What is Battle Agency?
Battle Agency is a battle mode that is accessible by going inside the castle in Festival Plaza. In the Battle Agency, you're allowed to borrow one of the three random Pokemon shown in the monitor behind the receptionist, and recruit two other players in your Festival Plaza to form a team of three Pokemon. You then use the three Pokemon in a Single Battle.
Choosing your Team
First you will be asked to pick from three random Pokemon displayed on the monitor behind the receptionist. You will be able to check each of their stats before making your decision. The three Pokemon available will change after each round and at midnight every day, but you can keep the Pokemon you chose until you rank up.
After choosing your Pokemon, you then need to select two people you want to recruit for your team from your guest and VIP lists. If you are going to work with other people, it is strongly recommended you make them VIPs in your plaza as it allows you to still recruit them even when you're both offline. The Pokemon that you see next to them are the Pokemon that they selected in their game, and the rank indicates the level that the Pokemon will be. The rank and Pokemon of VIPs get updated when both the player and the VIP are online simultaneously. Every day at midnight or when you rank up, you will be asked to reselect your two partners. VIPs that aren't updated within the past three days are greyed out and become unselectable, so make sure you update each other consistently.
It is important to note that while you are recruiting other players' Pokemon into your team, all three Pokemon will follow your orders and will not be controlled by an AI like Battle Tree Multi Battles
Ranking Up
Every player is assigned a rank, starting at 0, which increases as the player progresses through the Agency. When a player ranks up, the rental Pokemon, as well as all the opponent Pokemon, will have their levels increased by 1. At rank 0 the Pokemon will be at Level 50.
One very important thing to note is that the level increase only applies to the one Pokemon that the player borrows, not the two other Pokemon belonging to the people you recruit. The two other Pokemons' levels are dependent on the rank of the player who rented them. This means if you have a high rank but your friends are still at rank 0, you will be facing higher levelled Pokemon with Level 50 Pokemon in your party, giving you a significant disadvantage. On the other hand, you can have people with higher ranks help you out by giving you Pokemon that are higher levelled than the opponent.
In order to go up a rank, the player needs to complete a certain number of rounds. Each round is three battles, and the round is complete when you win the three battles consecutively. Rank 0-9 requires 1 round, 10-19 requires 2, 20-29 requires 3, and so on.
When you rank up you will be rewarded Rare Candies. If you win against the boss that appears at the very last battle before reaching a rank multiple of 10 (i.e. third battle for rank 9), you will get a Gold Bottle Cap instead. You also get a ton of Festival Coins from participating in the Battle Agency, and the amount you receive incrementally increases as your rank increases.
Special Conditions
Once you reach rank 11, you will be notified of special conditions that are going to occur in your battles. One of these conditions are applied for the entire day and changes at midnight. All special conditions are weather or terrain effects and last for 8 turns from the start of the battle. It is therefore very important to keep these conditions in mind when choosing Pokemon for your team.
Rank 11+: Sun, Rain
Rank 16+: Hail, Sand
Rank 21+: Electric Terrain, Misty Terrain
Rank 31+: Grassy Terrain, Psychic Terrain
Rank 41+: Desolate Land, Primordial Sea, Delta Stream
TIPS!
The Battle Agency will slowly start to become nearly impossible to do on your own. You will eventually be at a high enough rank where only your own Pokemon can hold its own against the opponent, and the other two Level 50 Pokemon are not able to keep up, creating a 3v1 situation. It is strongly recommended to do this with other people. If you are having trouble looking for partners to help you, there are a lot of people that are climbing the Agency rankings in the Smogon Discord so join the fun!
In order for the VIP to update, both the player and VIP need to be online at the same time. If you look at it another way, the VIP will not update if one of you is offline. You can abuse this by going offline if you want to keep strong VIP Pokemon before the VIP changes Pokemon, or going offline before losing your good Pokemon so that your friends who have you as a VIP will be able to keep the strong Pokemon. This is important because there are only a handful of viable sets that consistently win battles, and so using this tactic helps keep the strong Pokemon in your party and ranks you up faster. If you want to share strong Pokemon make sure you don't rank up with them or else you will lose the Pokemon before you can share it. Do note that no matter how strong the base Pokemon is, its level will stay the same so it will slowly start to lose its effectiveness as you rank up.
Did you get three terrible Pokemon as your options? Don’t worry, there is a plaza shop that can help. The Switcheroo shop allows you to reroll the three Pokemon you choose from for 10 FC, a certain number of times a day. Don't forget your three choices also change at midnight.
You only need to win three battles consecutively. This is not the Battle Tree where using a 95% accurate move is suicide, nevermind 70%. Don't worry about using slightly riskier moves if you need to. The opponent Pokemon stay the same for that round for the entire day, so if you get haxed you will be able to try again very soon (unless you were insanely lucky to get to that point).
As stated above, the opponents are static until the next day, so you will be able to plan your games accordingly. Did an opponent use an unexpected Z-move that caused you to lose? Switch your strategy for it next time. You can also switch your own Pokemon mid-round by exiting and reselecting a new Pokemon, which allows you to counterpick your opponents to gain a favorable matchup.
The Battle Agency battles are like puzzles; the goal is to figure out a way to flowchart your battles. The AI are for the most part constant, so you can find a sequence of plays you can do to win consistently unless you are severely underlevelled or have a very bad matchup. If you are able to flowchart your first two battles in the round, you will have plenty of opportunities to hax your way through a difficult third opponent.
What is Battle Agency?
Battle Agency is a battle mode that is accessible by going inside the castle in Festival Plaza. In the Battle Agency, you're allowed to borrow one of the three random Pokemon shown in the monitor behind the receptionist, and recruit two other players in your Festival Plaza to form a team of three Pokemon. You then use the three Pokemon in a Single Battle.
Choosing your Team
First you will be asked to pick from three random Pokemon displayed on the monitor behind the receptionist. You will be able to check each of their stats before making your decision. The three Pokemon available will change after each round and at midnight every day, but you can keep the Pokemon you chose until you rank up.
After choosing your Pokemon, you then need to select two people you want to recruit for your team from your guest and VIP lists. If you are going to work with other people, it is strongly recommended you make them VIPs in your plaza as it allows you to still recruit them even when you're both offline. The Pokemon that you see next to them are the Pokemon that they selected in their game, and the rank indicates the level that the Pokemon will be. The rank and Pokemon of VIPs get updated when both the player and the VIP are online simultaneously. Every day at midnight or when you rank up, you will be asked to reselect your two partners. VIPs that aren't updated within the past three days are greyed out and become unselectable, so make sure you update each other consistently.
It is important to note that while you are recruiting other players' Pokemon into your team, all three Pokemon will follow your orders and will not be controlled by an AI like Battle Tree Multi Battles
Ranking Up
Every player is assigned a rank, starting at 0, which increases as the player progresses through the Agency. When a player ranks up, the rental Pokemon, as well as all the opponent Pokemon, will have their levels increased by 1. At rank 0 the Pokemon will be at Level 50.
One very important thing to note is that the level increase only applies to the one Pokemon that the player borrows, not the two other Pokemon belonging to the people you recruit. The two other Pokemons' levels are dependent on the rank of the player who rented them. This means if you have a high rank but your friends are still at rank 0, you will be facing higher levelled Pokemon with Level 50 Pokemon in your party, giving you a significant disadvantage. On the other hand, you can have people with higher ranks help you out by giving you Pokemon that are higher levelled than the opponent.
In order to go up a rank, the player needs to complete a certain number of rounds. Each round is three battles, and the round is complete when you win the three battles consecutively. Rank 0-9 requires 1 round, 10-19 requires 2, 20-29 requires 3, and so on.
When you rank up you will be rewarded Rare Candies. If you win against the boss that appears at the very last battle before reaching a rank multiple of 10 (i.e. third battle for rank 9), you will get a Gold Bottle Cap instead. You also get a ton of Festival Coins from participating in the Battle Agency, and the amount you receive incrementally increases as your rank increases.
Special Conditions
Once you reach rank 11, you will be notified of special conditions that are going to occur in your battles. One of these conditions are applied for the entire day and changes at midnight. All special conditions are weather or terrain effects and last for 8 turns from the start of the battle. It is therefore very important to keep these conditions in mind when choosing Pokemon for your team.
Rank 11+: Sun, Rain
Rank 16+: Hail, Sand
Rank 21+: Electric Terrain, Misty Terrain
Rank 31+: Grassy Terrain, Psychic Terrain
Rank 41+: Desolate Land, Primordial Sea, Delta Stream
TIPS!
The Battle Agency will slowly start to become nearly impossible to do on your own. You will eventually be at a high enough rank where only your own Pokemon can hold its own against the opponent, and the other two Level 50 Pokemon are not able to keep up, creating a 3v1 situation. It is strongly recommended to do this with other people. If you are having trouble looking for partners to help you, there are a lot of people that are climbing the Agency rankings in the Smogon Discord so join the fun!
In order for the VIP to update, both the player and VIP need to be online at the same time. If you look at it another way, the VIP will not update if one of you is offline. You can abuse this by going offline if you want to keep strong VIP Pokemon before the VIP changes Pokemon, or going offline before losing your good Pokemon so that your friends who have you as a VIP will be able to keep the strong Pokemon. This is important because there are only a handful of viable sets that consistently win battles, and so using this tactic helps keep the strong Pokemon in your party and ranks you up faster. If you want to share strong Pokemon make sure you don't rank up with them or else you will lose the Pokemon before you can share it. Do note that no matter how strong the base Pokemon is, its level will stay the same so it will slowly start to lose its effectiveness as you rank up.
Did you get three terrible Pokemon as your options? Don’t worry, there is a plaza shop that can help. The Switcheroo shop allows you to reroll the three Pokemon you choose from for 10 FC, a certain number of times a day. Don't forget your three choices also change at midnight.
You only need to win three battles consecutively. This is not the Battle Tree where using a 95% accurate move is suicide, nevermind 70%. Don't worry about using slightly riskier moves if you need to. The opponent Pokemon stay the same for that round for the entire day, so if you get haxed you will be able to try again very soon (unless you were insanely lucky to get to that point).
As stated above, the opponents are static until the next day, so you will be able to plan your games accordingly. Did an opponent use an unexpected Z-move that caused you to lose? Switch your strategy for it next time. You can also switch your own Pokemon mid-round by exiting and reselecting a new Pokemon, which allows you to counterpick your opponents to gain a favorable matchup.
The Battle Agency battles are like puzzles; the goal is to figure out a way to flowchart your battles. The AI are for the most part constant, so you can find a sequence of plays you can do to win consistently unless you are severely underlevelled or have a very bad matchup. If you are able to flowchart your first two battles in the round, you will have plenty of opportunities to hax your way through a difficult third opponent.