When I saw episode 17 was out I immediately wanted to play a run with the new grass starter, Rowlett. I intended to do a Grass mono-run but then I ran into a shiny Pidgey as soon as the game started. I catch it and see that it has 30 SpA IVs, perfect for a Mega-Pidgeot. I then thought about doing a Flying mono-run but Rowlett loses it's Flying type with evolution. That's how I decided to do a full bird team.
I ended up having a blast playing this and found the game lends itself pretty well to this type of run. There are 3 bird starters to choose from: Rowlett, Piplup, and Torchic, and you can immediately catch a Pidgey, Hoothoot, and Spearow. Getting through the first gym is a bit rough due to its Electric type but luckily Spearow and Hoothoot both evolve right at level 20 to take on the gym.
In the early game I swept entire teams with Echoed Voice on my Tinted Lens Noctowl, and even gave it a Metronome once I got a few stickers. Other weak pokemon such as Unfeazant and Aromatisse made brief appearances on my team and I had fun figuring out how to make a team with such limited options.
There were a few notable power spikes that came just in time when the battles were starting to get really rough. I've never been happier than when I got to Beryl Ward and got to add both Talonflame and Dodrio to my then sad-looking team. I also replaced my Fearow with a shiny one I found (sorry buddy). Soon after I got Murkrow, (the future MVP of my team) and it actually looked like I had something that could work. Once I made it to the forest it was birds everywhere and I even got a few special attackers like Chatot, Oricorio and Swanna to round out my team.
The next notable development was when I got my Piplup from 7th street. I decided then that I had enough birds to make 2 full teams, one for each starter. This had me bringing back some of the birds I'd cycled out of my main team and once again I had a lot of work to do to figure out how to make something out of the weak birds. Now I've gotten to the end of Ep 17 and I have two very powerful teams to show for my efforts:
Team 1 - Decidueye Squad
Team 2: The Bubble Band (Some rain synergy)
Honorable mentions: Noctowl, Fearow, Aromatisse, Dodrio, Toucannon, Chatot, Swanna
I'm looking forward to Torchic eventually becoming available so I can start a third bird team. I've already got a few birds ready including Skarmory, Xatu, Braviary, and Mega Altaria (when that happens).
Overall this was a fantastic run. My only complaint is that every single Pokemon that you ever face in any double battle knows Rock Slide. And the rest know Discharge. I wish I kept a tally of how many of my poor birds were murdered with these foul methods because it would be in the hundreds.
