u/Gimpyfish892

My daughters and I are mostly Pokemon TCG fans, but out of curiosity my daughters picked up a pack of MLP to check it out.

I thought my eldest daughter picked up something “kinda neat”. Then I saw the rarity breakdown and how much they’re going for…

I shouldn’t be surprised, she’s also pulled the SIR Charizard (and rest of the evolution line), and shiny Pokemon seem to magically appear when she’s playing or watching me. I wish I had a quarter of her luck lol.

Gotta say that coming from Pokemon TCG, these cards are stunning. The holo detailing, layout and art are beautiful, and it’s fun seeing all the variations of each card. I’m not at all a MLP fan, but I have a feeling I’ll be getting into the hobby real soon.

After 16 months, several spots where I thought I was toast, nearly 3 days worth of playing, a divorce, nearly a whole ass school year being a single dad for my kids, and what feels like an eternity later: I have reached 5000 on endless!!

It’s been so long that I don’t remember my starters but I believe this is what I started with:

Hoopa: Mid game carry with some fun cheese involving magician and…

Tandemaus: Exclusively on the team to fuse to Hoopa, give Population Bomb, and gtfo.

Zacian: Solid early and late game carry

Vivillon: Lowkey the MVP of the run thanks to Prankster, Sleep Powder, and Powder. Being a red shiny helped

Buizel: Red Shiny points goes brrrrr.

Zigzagoon: Red shiny go brrr plus early game Pickup. Released it to make room for either Weavile or Machamp, can’t remember.

-

My best run before this was 2100, and truth be told I wasn’t prepared for much longer of a run. I wasn’t super familiar with the Metal Burst strat as well as the importance of Run Away and Sturdy. Thankfully was able to figure that out in the 2000s and fine useful fusions to do what I needed.

Population Bomb Magician Hoopa was as broken and fun as I predicted. Around 1500 it started to lack the power needed to be the carry for every battle, but I gathered up enough useful items to help the other carry’s take over. I didn’t have the heart to release it, and I wanted to keep Buizel for luck, so I ended up fusing the two.

Vivinacl could almost always solo Eternatus if the RNG gods blessed me with it picking Flamethrower a bunch. And if it didn’t, enough bars would be broken that Zacian could clean up easily with Metal Burst, that I got around 2000 and realized it’s very necessary beyond that. Ive gained a lot of respect for Vivillon from this run

Weavile and Machamp were red shinies that I found and kept for the sake of luck, but the gargantuan attack stat it had was able to grind out a win vs Eternatus a couple times in the mid game when I wasn’t properly set up with Zacian. Without Machavile being completely clutch, the run was dead at 1750. Weavile is one of my favourite Pokémon so I’m happy i was able to find a red shiny and include it here.

Sigilyph is simply the rotating 6th slot. Catch, loot items, repeat.

I hadn’t planned on Zacian being the Metal Burst carry, but that’s kinda how it worked out. Fused it with something to get metal burst, then fused it with Alolan Golem for Sturdy. Also fusing it gave me only 1 unfused spot, so I stopped getting the DNA Splicers which helped me collect Master Balls. Even at 5001, I still have 50 MBs.

For reasons noted at the beginning, this run started at a pretty tumultuous time in my life, and was a nice little brainless escape from reality. Once I got fairly deep in the 1000s, the run was kinda put on the shelf for months at a time, and I’d pick up the game again whenever there was an event that let me find more shinies. I also didn’t start using Run Away until around 2750, which in hindsight was awfully foolish lol

The run sat on 4400 for a while, and based on how recent battles with I expected the run to be dead, so it went back on the back burner for a while, but over the last week I had a renewed sense of wanting to see it through, and so I did, thinking I can at least close this chapter on a decisive note. But then the battles got easier, and 4400 became 4500, 4600,4700, 4750, and suddenly instead of looking forward to just reaching an end, I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel: 5000.

The fight itself was fairly easy. I prioritized finding HP Ups on Zaciam over the last few hundred floors, which made Metal Burst more deadly. Vivinacl started and used powder, salt cure, and sleep powder to soften him up, then switched into Sigilyph for the sac, which then gave Zacian the opening to fire away with Metal Burst.

I feel relieved, and also a heightened sense of wanting to see the run through to the very end if possible, and then continue my off and on quest of getting a ribbon for every Pokemon.

Anyway that’s my story, if you’ve made it this far thanks for reading! I know my team isn’t “optimized” so if you have any tips to share for the last few hundred floors I’d love to hear them. Idk if I’m ever gonna do another big endless run like this again, but I’m happy that I could give this run, which was originally just a way to get my mind off of some very dark happenings, a very happy and well earned conclusion.