Looking back over the history of Pokémon battles, starting from Generation II, hazard setters have truly been a case of "eight immortals crossing the sea, each showing their own powers."
And among all of them, Skarmory stands out as an especially outrageous existence.
Not only can it set both Stealth Rock and Spikes, but its excellent resistance typing combined with extremely high physical defense also gives it absurd staying power on the field.
And if you add Roost's terrifying recovery on top of that…
With three layers of Spikes and one layer of Stealth Rock laid down, the opponent's Tsareena could only stare helplessly.
"Skarmory, Roost!"
Under Qingyu's command, Skarmory landed in the virtual arena to rest, its HP instantly recovering back to full.
[You've already stacked all the hazards—how are you still saying this isn't a stall team?][The opponent is really just scraping damage like this, it's cracking me up!][That's what Poké Ball rank is like.][Streamer, can you stop bullying us lower-rank brothers already? Hurry up and climb to Ultra Ball and fight Gym Leaders!]
Qingyu's play was basically the textbook opening for hazard strategies, so it was completely within the chat's expectations.
They enjoyed watching the opponent's "feeding" plays while tossing out their usual snark.
So far, everything looked normal.
No one in the entire stream noticed that Qingyu's tightly suppressed laughter was about to burst out.
If this were Steven's style of play, this was the point where Skarmory would start being truly disgusting.
One Whirlwind, sending the opponent into an Infinite Tsukuyomi loop—forced switching again and again, slowly dying to the hazards under their feet.
Even Elite Four members would struggle against that.
But to Qingyu, that classic hazard + phazing style was still far too slow.
"Skarmory, Brave Bird!"
Skarmory, soaring high in the sky, dove straight down at extreme speed. The sheer power of this Flying-type move was absolutely no joke.
The opponent's so-called "waifu team" had no safe switch-ins at all. They could only give up Tsareena, desperately throwing out a High Jump Kick in a last-ditch effort.
And, unsurprisingly, it dropped on the spot.
[??? Where's Whirlwind? Why aren't you following the script?!][Is this damage even legal? Skarmory shouldn't be able to one-shot Tsareena…][Wait—don't tell me you're actually running an offensive Skarmory?!]
The chat quickly realized something was off.
Qingyu just smiled faintly and said nothing.
As the opponent recalled the fainted Tsareena and threw another Poké Ball, Qingyu immediately followed up with another command:
"Skarmory, Brave Bird again!"
The next Pokémon to come out was Lopunny.
The moment it hit the ground, the hazards covering the opponent's field activated.
Spikes dug into Lopunny's soft feet, while Stealth Rock scraped it on entry. Together, they instantly stripped away nearly half of its HP.
Before the opponent could even react, the second Brave Bird came crashing down from above!
Lopunny didn't even have time to make a counterattack—it collapsed straight to the ground, knocked out cold.
The viewers were completely dumbfounded.
[Holy crap—Skarmory can be this violent?!][Tanky as hell AND hits this hard? How does such a cool Pokémon even exist?!]
Three layers of Spikes were brutal for grounded Pokémon, and Stealth Rock only amplified the damage.
Add Brave Bird on top of that, and the opponent had absolutely no room to fight back.
[But Brave Bird hits hard, sure—but the recoil hurts like hell too. Even Skarmory looks like it's barely holding on.]
As the chat pointed out, powerful moves always come with risks.
Brave Bird dealt massive damage, but its recoil also reflected damage back onto the user.
After taking Tsareena's full-powered kick and eating recoil from two Brave Birds, Skarmory's HP was already in the danger zone.
That said, for Skarmory, this still counted as "healthy."
Because it could simply Roost back up while the opponent switched.
That was Skarmory's true scumbag strength.
However, Qingyu still didn't give any new commands. Instead, he waited until the opponent threw their third Poké Ball—then ordered another Brave Bird.
Same recipe.
This time, Primarina came out, immediately eating a full serving of hazards. Under the relentless bombing of the steel bird, it went down together with Skarmory in a mutual KO.
[Huh? Streamer, what are you doing? You just threw Skarmory away?][Even though trading one for three is insanely profitable, you could've played it cleaner, right? Did Coach Roost get impatient?]
Skarmory's pressure was completely maxed out. With hazard support, three Brave Birds secured three KOs—an unquestionable MVP performance if the team won.
But Qingyu's decisive sacrifice of it was still hard for the chat to understand.
Qingyu didn't bother explaining. He seized the timing and sent out his next Pokémon alongside the opponent.
His choice was Metagross, Hoenn's pseudo-legendary, facing off against the "witch" Hatterene—a very favorable matchup.
The score was now 3–1.
With both a numbers advantage and full control of the field, victory was basically guaranteed as long as he didn't do anything stupid.
Just like the previous Pokémon, Hatterene was heavily damaged the moment it entered, losing a large chunk of HP before the fight even began.
"Metagross, Meteor Mash!"
Qingyu shouted the command with high energy.
Metagross accelerated sharply using magnetism, its twin steel fists tracing brilliant silver arcs through the air.
Steel beats Fairy—type matchups so basic even elementary schoolers in this world could recite them.
Combined with Metagross's terrifying offensive power, this punch should've been more than enough to delete a half-HP Hatterene ten times over.
"YA★DA★ZE!"
As victory seemed within reach, Qingyu clenched his fist and growled.
But just as Meteor Mash was about to connect, Hatterene's figure vanished from the spot.
"NANI?!"
A 90-accuracy Meteor Mash missing?!
[Playing cursed tactics comes at a price—streamer's luck no longer exists!][Looks like the opponent's a Psychic-type specialist. That Teleport was way faster than the others.][If only the streamer had a facecam—his expression right now would be priceless!]
Qingyu froze for a moment, then quickly recovered.
"It missed—but that's fine."
"If one punch doesn't hit, I'll just throw another!"
When quality isn't enough, quantity makes up for it.
"There's no way my Metagross is going to miss Meteor Mash forever. The moment one connects, Hatterene can't take it!"
Under Metagross's relentless iron-fist assault, even with desperate evasive maneuvers, the little witch was eventually caught and taken out.
The next Pokémon, Gardevoir, fared no better—also going down to a single heavy blow.
The dying struggles of two Psychic-types were nothing more than tickles to Metagross.
The score quickly became 5–1.
By this point, the opponent's mentality had completely shattered. Their final Pokémon, Meowscarada, gave up on defense entirely and actually tried to brawl Metagross head-on.
The result, naturally, was a clean GG.
Final score: 6–1, a total stomp.
If Qingyu's tactics had been any less aggressive, it might've even been a perfect sweep.
Only when the huge Victory sign popped up on the stream screen did the viewers finally snap out of it.
They suddenly understood what Qingyu had meant by "my tactics are different."
[Holy crap—so hazards can be used to chip HP and enable pure offense too?!][This is way too violent. Please calculate the opponent's psychological trauma area!][Yeah, setting hazards at the start feels constipating as hell—but the match ended even faster than yesterday!][Those opening hazards probably accounted for like one-third of the total damage. That's insane value…][This actually works. Feels super efficient for climbing ranks, doesn't it?][This is what "sharpening the blade doesn't delay the woodcutting" really means! (arms crossed)]
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