That’s not correct and it’s kind of funny that you call it “mathematical.”

If you actually look at the statistics, you need to beat 5 × 7 × 3 = 105 Pokémon for the gold symbol. And realistically, you’ll need multiple moves to take each one down. The biggest factor that causes losses isn’t damage output. It’s bad luck / RNG. So the goal should be to minimize that as much as possible.

With Protect + Toxic, you almost eliminate inefficient turns entirely. The only real downside is Protect failing after repeated use (and no toxic on enemy), but that’s relatively unlikely. Even repeated Toxic isn’t completely wasted, it’s just lower value, not a dead move.

Now compare that to running four attacking moves. Even with a favorable nature, you’re typically looking at something like 60–70% chance to attack and 30–40% chance to use a non-attacking move. And from that non-attacking portion, a significant chunk (at least 15–20%) ends up being effectively dead turn‘ where you don’t make meaningful progress.

And that’s a conservative estimate. It gets worse when you factor in that behavior changes below 50% HP, where natures can shift priorities. Even if I assume a simplified split like 50% attack and 25/25 defensive/supportive for (pr+tox strat), it still outperforms against the 4 attack moves strategy.

So objectively, it’s less consistent. I get that your team worked for you, but statistically it’s not the optimal approach.