I'm going to be up-front. This was far from my best season. I try not to change my teams after starting these runs, but my first team was outright abysmal. According to my notes, my original team only lasted through the first eleven matches and only had a win rate in the 40%s. The pie chart below has the overall percentages, and the counts underneath will show both teams.

This season exclusively allowed new Mega Evolutions. That gave me a much smaller roster to work with, though at least I didn't have to worry over held items for once. Didn't follow my normal strategy of having two "Chargers" to ead into Mega Evolutions, but it'd work.

This was the team I initially settled on. Magearna was my "Ol' Reliable" over the past few seasons, and in theory it should do the exact same thing as normal. Great typing, can take out Dragons without getting in harm's way, and bulky. The issue with Magearna is that everyone was either running Magearna, so tired of Magearna that they specifically brought Pokémon to fight Magearna, or both. Not fun.

When I went back to the drawing board, this is the team I settled on. The biggest issue with the team was that everyone was bringing a Fire-type to deal with Magearna, which meant that everyone had a hard counter to two-thirds of the team in the same Pokémon (Magearna and Lucario). I could have replaced both, but I figured I'd try replacing the Magearna first since that's the one people were immediately prepared for instead of taking the few seconds to process Lucario's typing to counter it.

Removing Magearna took out a piece of a very convenient Fairy/Dragon/Steel core. I pulled up Serebii's New Mega Evolution List and looked through everyone to find a replacement Fairy-type. Meganium was an option but was still weak to Fire, and Eternal Floette was an option that wasn't weak to Fire but had been meta relevant for a while (would people still have an instinctive answer to it?).

Then I remembered Base Clefable didn't have that Flying-typing, that was exclusive to its Mega form. Not to mention its Alpha Exclusive move was a Fire-type move, so if Clefable were about to attack a Dragon-type and I suspected they might hard swap into a Steel-type to counter, I could use a +Flame Thrower (hopefully with a Calm Mind boost too) instead. Or, if Garchomps were present and getting on my nerves, I could Mega Evolve and get a second immunity in the process that immmediately helps me.

Garchomp Z worked exactly as intended. Bigger Pokémon with huge destructive power. My wins and second place games were from over-relying on Garchomp Z's Earthquakes et al.. Definitely not a bad choice itself, and I would certainly consider using it again in the future. It does lose its Fairy-typing so its Aerial Ace lost its STAB bonus, but then it also wasn't as vulnerable to Ice anymore.

Finally, the Phantom Thief himself, Lucario Z. Lucario Z worked. Didn't really stand out much. Lucario Z's biggest issue was that it's pretty frail in both its Normal form and Mega Z form (regular Mega Lucario gained a bit of bulk, but was not an option this season). In a season where everyone has access to Mega Evolution, Lucario Z was a Pokémon that needed its Mega Evolution more than normal and still could have benefitted more.

Ver. 1
	Game	Me	P2	P3	P4
Rank Z	#1	6	1	6	7
Rank V	#2	7	3	3	6
Rank S	#3	6	1	2	5
Rank P	#4	7	6	2	2
Rank N	#5	4	5	1	7
Rank M	#6	1	6	7	0
Rank L	#7	4	3	5	7
Rank K	#8	11	0	3	DQ
Rank J	#9	6	3	2	4
Rank I	#10	7	0	12	1
Rank H	#11	3	5	3	5

Ver. 2
	Game	Me	P2	P3	P4
Rank G	#12	8	4	6	7
	#13	7	6	3	2
Rank F	#14	4	3	4	3
Rank E	#15	6	3	2	9
	#16	7	5	1	1
Rank D	#17	5	5	4	2
	#18	7	2	7	2
	#19	7	9	2	3
Rank C	#20	6	4	5	2
	#21	10	2	1	7
Rank B	#22	3	4	7	6
	#23	8	1	1	7
	#24	2	2	3	4
	#25	3	5	5	2
	#26	5	8	4	2

Probably the best thing about this team is that it gave me the opportunity to reflect on a team mid-season and make a hard change to it. Being able to admit something isn't working is a necessary skill and, even if it makes keeping track of statistics like this a bit awkward, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Obvious reflection, why in hindsight I thought it'd be fine to run two Steel-types is beyond me. Maybe I thought this wouldn't be as efficient of a season anyway given how limited it was (forty-four Pokémon, counting the Raichus as one and ignoring alternate forms)? Maybe I just got cocky? I'm not sure.

On that note, I do like how the team ended up in the end. I still feel like Lucario could have done more for the team, but it wasn't bad anymore. The new team at a higher difficulty level increased its total number of wins by almost 15%; it likely would have done significantly better than 60% had I started with it in the first place.

At the very least, almost all of the second and third place runs for Ver. 1 were close; those second place runs becoming first place would bring the total above 60%, and if those close third place games became first place games then this team would have placed closed to 70%. The biggest thing affecting this team's overall rating was just the lower number of matches to pull data from.