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Technically this is supposed to be with own mons, but I don't actually have 2 LCs at the moment, so I'll be renting one. Not anymore, my claim got approved, so I'm replacing it with my mon.
Sludge Bomb, Surf, Sludge Bomb
IF Pluffle uses Encore, THEN Dodge
IF Pluffle uses a damaging Grass-type combo, THEN Protect
Substitutions are an important part of ASB. Without them, the person ordering first would have even more of a disadvantage than they already do. Substitutions let you prevent the most threatening possibilities from harming your plans (for the most part). You can sub for many things: specific moves, eligible move clauses (a list of these can be found in the handbook, just CTRL+F "substitution classes" and you'll find the list relatively easily), chance rolls (e. g. "IF Sludge Bomb crits" or "IF Fire Blast burns"), or various situational and field effects (Trick Room is up, you are faster, sandstorm is up, opponent has <40 HP remaining, etc.). The last two there is no formal list of, but almost anything you can think of that fits there would be legal provided you know the information when you would act (this is not a requirement for the ones dealing with "IF (move or move class) is used/ordered"). This means substitutions such as "IF (move used on action 2) crits, THEN Psyshock on action 1" are not allowed. Here, I have determined that the two things most likely to interfere with my plans are Encore and Grass-type combos. Therefore, I have substitutions that will change my order set if you use one of those two. Now, you just need to respond to these orders. Next round you will get to try your hand at writing some substitutions of your own.
Okay, there's the first round done, if you have any questions about my reffing ask me. In most matches you would need to choose a pokemon at this point because of Parting Shot, but since you only have one option Sandshrew-A gets sent out automatically. You do, however, still need to equip an item to Sandshrew (or say you don't want to) and, because you used Parting Shot, you automatically order first this round (although you would have ordered first anyway because turn order alternates, with the exception of moves like Parting Shot, as well as switch phases).
So, it's your turn to order. Establish what you want to do, figure out what in my movepool could harm your plans, and sub for it. Some common sub targets are things like Taunt, Torment, Disable, Encore, Endure, Imprison, Damaging Evasive (D/E) moves, Protective/Evasive (P/E) moves, and dangerous damaging combos. Those are all things to consider, but obviously, if one of them isn't in my movepool there's no need to sub for it.
Okay, so there I tried to show you what happens when a sub is triggered, but instead you got to see that subs don't trigger if the Pokemon cannot act (and this is known at the start of the action. For example, this means sleep will do this and paralysis won't). If I had rolled 1a sleep instead of 2a, then I would have used Protect a3 and you would have used Swords Dance, preventing from you from blowing EN on attacking my Protect. Next, I will show you how switch phases work. The person ordering first has the opportunity to initiate a switch phase by saying they are switching out and saying who they are switching to (if it's the pokemon's first time in the battle, don't forget to equip it). Then, the person ordering second has the choice to counterswitch (switch their own pokemon in response to the first switch) or not. If you choose to counterswitch, you then order first. If you choose not to counterswitch, just post your decision and then the person who switched initially still has to order first. As you saw previously, self-switching moves (such as U-Turn) and phazing moves (such as Roar) do not cause a switch phase to occur.
Once again, if you have any questions about my reffing, just ask about it.
In future, make sure to check your opponent's abilities before ordering (and I should check my own, I have no idea why I subbed for damaging Ground-type combos when I have Levitate and your only Ground-type move is Earthquake. I'd like to say it was because I was trying to mislead you, but iirc that wasn't the case). Other than that, you seem to have (correctly) determined damage racing Nohface in this matchup is the best way to deal with Nohface, since you can hit it for SE damage in this matchup but not in the other one. Later on, when your pokemon's movepools are more full, it will be easier to deal with bad matchups, but with only 20-30 moves it's more difficult. Let's see if you can outdamage me this round. Don't forget to sub for moves I have that you consider dangerous!
Dodge is almost never the best course of action. The one exception I can think of is to make Encore fail. In cases when your opponent is not using Encore, other P/E moves (such as Protect, a universal TM) are always better because Dodge does not guarantee the move misses; it only reduces the accuracy by a set amount (in this case 51.8%, leaving Yawn at 48.2% accuracy). It also fails in the same conditions Protect does. It is not worth using an action for a chance of your opponent wasting an action and nothing else. Protect guarantees you both lose one action, which makes it better. Additionally, there are usually better courses of actions than P/E moves. If you Protect against an attack, your opponent can just repeat that attack or use a different one, meaning the loss of one action is meaningless. The most notable exception to this is combinations. Because combinations are extremely strong moves that require a cooldown of one action, if you Protect a combination you effectively cost your opponent two actions for your one.
Yeah, abilities are important. Levitate is one you might want to look at the text for, because it differs from ingame in that it does not give a complete Ground immunity. Info on abilities and moves (and everything else) can be found in the NDA, or if you go on our Discord we have a bot you can use to see the info you want without searching a huge spreadsheet for it. The latter option is much more convenient in my opinion, to the point where if the bot is down I'll wait until it's back up before reffing instead of using the NDA.
You subbed for Protect, so that if I use Protect you would not waste an action attacking into it. That worked; however, because you did not include "AND not consecutively" or "AND this sub did not activate last action" or "is under the effects of Protect", the sub activates regardless of if Protect works or not. You can see this in action 2. Another thing to note is it is generally better to sub for "Protective/Evasive moves" or "P/E moves" than just Protect, because the former covers moves such as Detect as well, whereas the latter does not. Additionally (and this is probably something I should have explained earlier), stat-boosting moves are much weaker in ASB than ingame, for 2 reasons. First, they increase/decrease damage by 2 per stage instead of multiplying by a fraction. This +2 is also not affected by type matchups. Secondly, and you see this at the end of this round, they decay. Each stat has a natural stage that starts at 0, but can be altered through abilities such as Intimidate or specific moves that state they alter the natural stage, such as Belly Drum. If the current stage is not equal to the natural stage and the stat boost was not changed at any point this round, it will decay by 1 rank towards the natural stage. This is why Nohface no longer has +1 Attack. Your Attack did not decay because you used Swords Dance, meaning it changed this round. Another thing to consider is energy. The second number below your pokemon is its energy (EN). Attacks cost EN and if this hits 0 your pokemon faints. Using the same move on consecutive actions increases its EN cost by 4, unless otherwise noted (for example, Encored moves do not undergo this increase). Energy can be recovered with the Chill command, which restores 12 EN. This is an important factor to consider in many battles.
Curse, Phantom Force, Meteor Mash
IF Night Slash A3 AND NOT in a combo THEN Phantom Force
IF damaging Dark-type combo, THEN Protect
See if you can respond to those orders. Keep in mind what I said about EN, both yours and mine. Check the EN cost of what I've ordered and what you plan to order. You also might want to have a look at the damage formula and calculate how much damage Night Slash will do.
