drevance

I don't really mind starters being changed, as early game Fern wasn't something that was really dangerous - it was later when he became that way (at least in my opinion). I think that the Litten line would help improve Victoria. The water alolan starter I have no thoughts on, but I agree with you on Muk completely. (Aya having A-muk [and maybe Toxapex?] At least tears would be engulfed in her field) As far as Fern's team goes, around Shelly and afterwards there's a distinct difference in the teams of the rivals. Victoria before Shelly, Cain at Beryl Cemetery, Fern at uhhh the Grand Hall? Would a Scyther at the Trainer School be a bit much?

Very excited. I'm looking forward to playing this.

Aggron could be a potentially good swap for Pawniard, with its good defence and attack. It can be caught fairly soon.

Don't really care for em. If I get low IVs meh, no harm done. Natures are more important to me.

The run will be resumed once the spoiler lock is lifted, because frankly I don't want to spoiler code an entire post because I'm A. Lazy and B. don't like how it looks.

I forget if Emolga learns Acrobatics in time for that fight... I'd replace Donphan because just looking at it, it doesn't seem like it can carry weight in this battle. I second the Graveler recommendation and Dodrio. What is Ampharos doing when Scyther comes out? Paralyzing it could help. I had a Fearow for her and I found it lackluster and ended up swapping it out for Emolga/Dodrio. I really want to tell you to just burn the field, because Hardcore doesn't like to pull punches but you said you don't want to do that. If you have a trubbish trained up you could toxic spike em. Do you have Psyduck/Golduck? It would be useful for this battle, as would Dewgong if you got the Seel egg instead of Cacnea.

So does this mean that is replacing the books stack? Or is there a building at the CoM instead of just walking into it and being teleported to the first battle?

Capture tons of pokemans, make sure you are up to date on hidden abilities since they are more frequent, you can make any of the starters work so choose the one that suits you best! >:] I'd take time to talk to all the NPCs and just explore. Study up on field effects so you can effectively burn everything that Ame has carefully made to the ground turn the tide of battle into your favor. Light Shards are your friends. Don't be afraid to try new team members that you haven't used before, they probably will become invaluable! Above all, enjoy the journey!

Drev @ Flame Orb Type: Fire/Dark Ability: Defiant EVs: 100 HP/200 SpD/200 SpA Nature: Adamant -Helping Hand -Eruption -Endure -Mean Look

I don't have much experience but there are more fingers on my hand than times I had the AI mess up on me during my run of EP15 Hardcore. Think of Air Balloon to force repeated EQ spam by Terra, or Pyroar's typing allowing Qwilfish to only spam bubblebeam 90% of the time instead of 100% of the time. I'm not quite sure if that helps answer it. Granted there can only be so much that the AI can do.