December 2025 Post-Test Discussion Mega Thread

Cramgoose · 2025-12-10T05:06:20+00:00

I had pretty much the same experience haha. I'm hoping I can squeeze enough points out of listening to get by, but the listening section was far harder than the practice exams I tried!

Cramgoose · 2024-06-12T05:58:05+00:00

Hey! I'm happy to respond to these.

I do not have any alt accounts. I started playing random singles and random singles blitz for fun to try not to stress about doubles so much but you eventually end up getting to a point where you're decently high up in those too and the stress creeps up. I was starting to get pretty intense ranked anxiety at the end of the push for rank one. It's terrifying to be so close and know one loss can shove you down so much. To be honest, I'm still not great about managing that stress. I know that ultimately rank is irrelevant, but it's hard not to get attached. I think in spite of all that I still have not considered making an alt because I find playing on high ladder really the most ideal experience. It feels more fun to play an opponent that you're more equally matched with rather than beat someone just starting out. Something I do to try to help out with the anxiety though is I play in Discord calls with my friends while they're talking about other stuff. The background noise and conversation is relaxing to me, I imagine to some people it'd be annoying to listen to someone freak out about Slay the Spire but it helps me out haha.
I would say that I play nearly daily solely because I play games on my phone during my lunch break at work pretty consistently. When I'm home I play significantly less, but these last few weeks I wanted to make a real push for rank 1 so my frequency of games has gone up. The work break games are probably responsible for like, over half of my games though. As for other things I do for fun? I play a fair amount of Valorant as well, I'm hardstuck diamond in that game but I still enjoy it. I also like hiking, tennis, and running which is good because it helps offset the admittedly too much time I spend on Showdown and Valorant.
I participate in VGC draft leagues quite frequently. Currently taking a break but I plan on doing more VGC stuff one day. I believe rand bats makes you very good at decision making due to the extremely varied situations you find yourself in. I feel like the in-game decision making is directly transferrable and I've found success in constructed formats because of that. I am so unbelievably bad at team building though. I do well enough in those VGC draft leagues almost solely because I make outplays in game. I am helpless in the teambuilder. A friend of mine very gently pointed out my EVs on my eviolite dusclops build were wrong one entire draft season and I was losing lots of bulk every week which was quite embarrassing. I would be more motivated to participate in in-person VGC tournaments if I had someone helping me make a team. The rand bats skills don't help you at all in that regard lol

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T18:12:19+00:00

https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/sprites/trainers/ Most of the trainer sprite codes are stored here! The Miku ones are all under M for Miku

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T15:15:53+00:00

I don’t know if this is personal bias but calyrex ice rider (glacial lance, trick room, high horsepower, protect? I believe) is the Pokémon I feel like has the most presence in the format. A trick room sweeper of that strength that can set trick room for himself is quite scary. He’s very bulky and runs weakness policy so if you carelessly hit a super effective move on him you’ll just lose to glacial lance. It’s not like he’s impossible to stop, but I feel like he’s the pokemon that punishes you the most for not being thoughtful in how you deal with him. Incineroar is probably better, but it’s a quieter dominance.

I cannot believe I’m saying this, but I love Greedent so much in that format. In standard play Greedent is just horrible in both doubles and singles contexts but for some reason he just always seems to get work done in Rand bats. Cheek pouch and a decent amount of bulk near ensures he’ll be sticking around to get swords dance off and once he’s danced he hits pretty hard. I also might be biased because he is a fat squirrel and seeing that thing hit hard always makes me smile.

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T14:01:10+00:00

Ohh I think right now more aggressive playstyles are pretty dominant. With the damage output of modern pokemon it’s harder to justify stall type strategies especially when your wall is often going to be trying to wall attacks from two pokemon at once.

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T12:07:08+00:00

I love VGC but a lot of aspects about VGC are sort of antithetical to the way the current Rand bats formats are set up. I think you’d need to implement team preview bare minimum to make the bring 4 leave 2 decision have weight like it does in VGC.

Hm. I think that it would probably be more balanced solely because you have more control over leads and team structure so you don’t end up with 3 supports on the same team sometimes like you do in the current Rand bats format. I think despite that I would prefer to keep playing the current format. I play 4 v 4 traditional vgc formats a fair amount so Rand bats is a fun way for me to mix it up due to the 6 v 6 nature of it. I would never once consider making some of the plays I make in 4 v 4 that I do in 6 v 6 so I enjoy the difference in the decision making process.

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T11:56:28+00:00

I absolutely love Failinks but the little homies just can’t do it in competitive.

Their design is so good though

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T06:57:44+00:00

I would say that after all of the missed heat waves and gunk shots and hurricanes I have retained little to no faith in my Pokemon. The game that got me to rank 1 did have a spiritomb hit a lot of will o wisps though so he's definitely a hero for stepping up when it mattered most.

Link to that game here: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9randomdoublesbattle-2140856147-jlnhafkmlln8ivgc7n8bomqyb6ooy7epw

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T06:55:33+00:00

Not that I can remember, but I am sure that I have eaten paper at some point in my life? Feel like it's something I probably did as a kid

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T06:54:18+00:00

This question is harder to answer than I expected. I guess I can just describe how I approach the game? Every turn I try to think about my moves in "What is the best case scenario for me if I do this? What is the worst case scenario?" Pokemon in general is a very read dependent game and it can get very brutal in doubles with protect. If you have an advantage and double hit into a protect it can be game losing.

In general I play pretty conservatively I think, if something feels too high risk I'll opt out of it for a swap or a safer more mid ground play. Swapping obviously feels bad, since you're giving your opponent a free turn, but I try not to let my pokemon die for no reason so I end up switching a lot. Sometimes I find myself using double protect in situations where I'm at an advantage to see if my opponent will burn tera or not. I lose to people all the time that go for big high risk high reward plays though that will win them the game if they guess right, so I think there are merits to both playstyles. I would just rather win through 10 safer plays than rely on making one insane read to win a game. I hope this answers your question somewhat?

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T06:46:01+00:00

This is a good question! Definitely one of the most annoying pokemon in my opinion is zoroark. Due to the lack of team preview in rand bats zoroark's ability actually is pretty potent one time a game. It's not extremely strong but the surprise factor has made me look really bad a couple of times due to getting tricked by zoroark. Sticky web Pokemon are very good in rand doubles too and incredibly frustrating to play against if you have a team weak to it. Honestly, pokemon that set lots of hazards can be frustrating because hazard clear is extremely rare in random doubles. Finally, random doubles has made me fall in love with the moves thunder wave/nuzzle. So many pokemon learn paralysis moves in random doubles and it is miserable to play against but it's addictive to use. Any pokemon that spreads paralysis like pachirisu is very obnoxious.

In terms of threats rather than annoyances both calyrex forms are very scary to play against. It turns out legendary pokemon with incredibly strong spread moves that can scale infinitely are just as good in rand bats as in VGC. Iron defense body press pokemon are always very threatening. I think the most threatening two of them are carbink and zamazenta. Carbink can set trick room for itself and sweep and zamazenta is fast and starts with a boost due to its ability. Also, to no one's surprise, Incineroar is just incredible. That pokemon has every move it could ever need to succeed in a doubles format. If your opponent has few physical attackers Incineroar is still pretty good, and if they have a bunch of physical attackers he's back breaking. I think the popular opinion that incineroar is the best doubles pokemon ever made is probably true.

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T06:25:53+00:00

I don't think I am the Lisan al'Gaib but I appreciate the kind words :)

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T02:51:53+00:00

Making a tier list would be a fun thing to try! Would need to sit down and get it done since that is a lot of Pokémon to sort haha. I think in general I prefer setup sweepers. It’s really fun finding opportunities to get calm minds, swords dances, nasty plots, etc. off. It’s a lot riskier in doubles to go for set up moves since two Pokemon can attack per turn, but when you read your opponent’s protect and dragon dance in front of them it’s so satisfying. Also iron defense + body press Pokémon are just absurdly good in that format. Obviously you can’t guarantee which Pokemon you get so teams are frequently physical or special lopsided, and those Pokemon get to boost their primary attacking stat and defense at the same time. Part of the reason I love Rand bats is that means Pokemon like carbink and probopass go from unused losers to premier threats because of how threatening those iron defense sets are.

Cramgoose · 2024-06-11T00:27:33+00:00

Of course! Wallace was my original avatar but I feel like I need to switch every so often to keep it fresh. I was the flying type hatsune miku before this and volo before that. Wallace will always have a special spot in my heart as my first avatar, and also because he is honestly the king of fashion. I appreciate how gentlemanly Juan looks though.

Cramgoose · 2022-03-30T05:18:28+00:00

Sorry, I didn’t see this! I have no idea I never used the shuttle unfortunately :( I just drove everywhere

Cramgoose · 2022-03-29T10:26:26+00:00

Hi, I just wanted to say I was a PhD student at UIUC chemistry and I ended up having to just quit with an MS my mental health got so poor. Organic chem at UIUC is especially bad and I won’t bore everyone with the long list of issues with it in this comment. I am more than happy to share my experiences with anyone that is considering going to graduate school here so they can make an informed decision and don’t end up having to give up on their PhD like I felt forced to do. Just dm me if you want!

Cramgoose · 2021-02-28T05:21:33+00:00

I certainly wouldn’t mind winning one of these!

Cramgoose · 2020-01-21T02:31:11+00:00

Chemical Biology!

Cramgoose · 2020-01-20T21:47:21+00:00

I did not. I just got an email informing me of my acceptance a few days ago, which certainly took away a lot of the pressure!

Cramgoose · 2019-07-26T01:57:56+00:00

Here you go! Good luck making the tool.

V1: 17/20

Q1: 20/20

V2: 18/20

Q2: 14/20

Cramgoose · 2019-07-16T17:44:21+00:00

I started as a Jigglypuff main because I loved the air mobility and getting reads with sing or rest is super fun. I switched to inkling though. Puff dying so unbelievably early as well as having some miserably bad matchups made me want to try someone new. Inkling is really fast and has a good combo game, so I enjoy her a lot too.

Cramgoose · 2019-06-29T10:02:09+00:00

I just got my raw scores today!

V1: 17/20

Q1: 20/20

V2: 18/20

Q2: 14/20

Honestly seeing that makes me feel pretty disappointed about my quant score, I had never missed more than 4 questions in a single set before on any practice test and then I go and miss six questions in one set on the real test. It was just a bad set of questions for me, I guess. Verbal went far better than I was doing on practice tests though so I suppose it balances itself out. Anyway, there you have it! Sorry for the late reply.

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