Pokémon Crystal AI Tournament - Scientifically Ranking the Pokémon Crystal Trainers 

I can't believe you missed Janine's greatest win being her father, and Koga's greatest loss being his daughter.

Blue's Rhydon trolling Silver's Alakazam with fury attack, before deciding he's had enough messing around and using earthquake is the most Blue thing I've ever seen.

Over 600,000 battles, and Red never lost a single one. This means that, canonically, in the Gen 1 games, Red actually did it. He actually, literally, became the very best, like NO ONE ever was.

If you're wondering how Janine vs. Koga went down: Janine's Crobat nearly swept through Koga's entire team before falling to Koga's opposing Crobat, his last Pokemon. She then sent out Weezing and used Explosion to win the battle. It wasn't even close.

Red's "Greatest Victory: VS Red. Worst Defeat: VS Red" is one of the coldest fucking lines I've ever seen from a scientific project

Younger Joey is ranked #151, a subtle nod to him being grown in a lab to be the strongest trainer in the universe, just like Mewtwo

SPOILERS But honestly its very poetic that Blue bullies the entire Johto region, defeats Silver after mocking him with those fury swipes and as he walks away, smug in his victory, he meets his rival from all those years ago who goes on to humiliate him.

I love how the Swimmer Nikki battle stays running even as the other battles get replaced as the list moves up.

We need a level 50 only version now, we'll see how Red does if he can't have his level advantage

Alakazam: “I looked into the future, and saw 600,000 possible universes” Blue: “in how many do we win?” Alakazam: _“…none”_

7:30 the overly complicated arrow for "don't use this move" is hilarious

This really does put Red into perspective. He's gotten so good that he cannot lose to _literally_ anyone in his world, if he's trying. He must have gotten bored. And unlike us, he can't escape to a different video game.

The tournament ending with a Snorlax bullying the opponent is the most Gen 2 thing ever

I find it pretty symbolic that Blue being a "Ground gym leader", despite having a very diverse team with strong pokemon, has the greatest success with Rhydon.

These are easily the best subtitles I've ever seen in a video. Incredibly accurate text, very comfortable timings, blanking when talking is over for long enough, short blanking between repeated phrases to denote the repetition, and most of all, THE SUBTITLES ARE ACTUALLY MOVED OUT OF THE WAY OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON-SCREEN. And for a video that's over an hour long, no less! As a person who has audio processing issues who relies pretty heavily on subtitles, but who can also hear well enough to often notice tiny inaccuracies in transcription, this was an absolute delight. Thank you so much for putting so much effort into a part of the video most people will never see. It means the absolute world to me to see efforts like this being made, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. And on top of all of this, actually shouting out enbies and not treating it as a joke? What more could I ever ask for? Absolutely love these videos, can't wait to see what you put out next! Hopefully a level-equalized version of this like you did with Gen I? Whatever it is, I look forward to it!

It's crazy that in over 600,000 battles between Blue and Red, Blue never won one time, but I think the level difference is probably just too great. Also just the fact that Snorlax is such a tank and can heal with Rest. Smart AI indeed.

Having red and blue duke it out in literal purgatory was kinda a bittersweet end of their rivalry

Hearing Red's theme slowly build as you talked about fighting stronger opponents was actually hype as hell, let alone the fact that this somehow ended with Red vs. Blue.

I don’t even wanna imagine the after effects file, that slide ranking animation is really cool

Youngster Joey’s improvement is actually quite impressive. If he chose a Pokémon other than Raticate, he might actually have become a Pokémon ace trainer

Misty's performance against lance was impressive Also I had no idea that joey got hyper beam eventually his ratatta truly became top %

It's actually wild that Blue never won a single time in 600K+ battles. Like it totally makes sense, especially considering that it's basically a 5v6 because Pidgeot will get obliterated by Pikachu every time, but I really expected at least one god run among all those battles. Would be interested to know how close Blue came to winning during his best fight.

I actually didn't know that Gen 2 had rematches scaling beyond the first one, learning that Joey has 5 versions is honestly kinda mindblowing

The "no signal" using the unknowns was a great touch

This proves Youngster Joey's Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattata, since it beat Youngster Mikey's Rattata who is identical in level + moveset, but also a Pidgey on top of that. Truly, what a beast of a Rattata that is.

The sheer poetry of Koga's worst loss being to his own daughter

From hooking me up to the AI explanation, to making me giggle with each "HUH"'s Pokémon for the rival trainer, to the amazing editing and visuals, I cannot express enough how much I love this video, and all the effort that was put on it Also, gosh, the trainers swapping to the right on the BPM of the song ! Pure audiovisual candy XD

The way you set up the pan of blue to red with the music having begun to swell up long before....gave me goosebumps. Well done! Great video!

I love that Hiker Anthony is just up there with all the gym leaders and the rival, terrorizing players with the best of them.

I've been excited for this since the last video in the series. No one makes anything like this on RU-vid and the editing just makes me think "wait, how did he do that?"

Joey’s top battle being in 151st place, which is also the number of Pokémon from the 1st generation while using a Pokémon from Gen 1, is almost poetic.

2:20 , the shift from "That would be stupid" to "The first routine is called "Basic"", genuinley made me laugh out loud for the first time this week, and after a rough day. Thank you

Damn, Karen Vs Bruno was such a hype fight. Wasn't expecting that at all

The one suggestion I would have for future iterations of this (especially if you do a L50 only version), would be to have a badge case in the trainer result cards, and give them a badge if they get one win against a gym leader. Since the goal of human trainers is to get to the E4 and beat the champion, it only makes sense to quickly display where this trainers are not just on raw strength, but in their road to the E4. Does the rival get ahead in medals, or behind? How many medals do gym leaders actually have?

Christ, I can't even imagine how much work not just the programming was, but also the recording and EDITING of this video. Incredible job.

2:04 10 AI Move Selection-Routines • Basic 2:29 (aka “don’t spam status moves after they take affect”) • Setup 2:44 (aka “prepare for battle before attacking” • Types 2:52 (aka “choose super-effective moves”) • Offensive 3:21 (aka “Keep damaging the opponent”) • Opportunist 3:27 (aka “adjust strategy during the battle to maximize chance of victory.”) • Aggressive 3:33 (aka “do most damage every turn.”) • Cautious 3:43 (aka setting up a status move and then attacking) • Status 3:52 (aka choosing not to use moves which do not effect the opponent) • Risky 3:56 (aka “Go for The KO”) • Smart 4:09 (aka “think then respond accordingly”) *Implementing The Battle System* 11:12 12:36 The Disassembly Process of Video Game Code. 14:38 Meaningful Memory Addresses. 19:07 “Close enough, that’s good enough for me.” *The Pokemon Battle Tournament - How it was created* 19:12 *The Tournament Results* 21:41 23:25 F-Tier: Bug Catcher Don. 24:00 F-Tier: Youngster Joey 26:28 D+ Beauty Girls 27:22 C-: Youngster Joey 28:40 C: Youngster Joey’s Raticate 31:44 B-: Youngster Joey 32:20 B-: Smart Gym Leader Whitney 35:45 B: Lea & Pia 36:46 B+: Hiker Tim’s EXPLOSIVE 🧨 Team 37:21 B+: Youngster Joey’s Best Raticate 39:15 B+: Nikki’s 3 Seels 🦭 🦭 🦭& Dewgong 41:10 A-: The Karate Master 42:12 A-: Gym Leader Jasmine *The Top 27, aka The A+ Trainers of Pokemon Crystal* 43:37 A+: The 27th Best 44:05 A+: Brock, Kanto Region’s Pewter City Gym Leader *The Sweet 16-Single Elimination Bracket* 44:44 Who of the Top 16 will win The Top 16 Tournament? 49:28 Lance vs Clair 53:10 Round 2, The Quarterfinals 57:36 The Semifinals 59:37 Rival ??? vs Leader Blue 1:02:06 Congratulations to The Pokémon Crystal Champion. 🏆 1:03:44 S+ Crystal Champion vs Legendary Trainer Red 🏆 1:07:19 The Great Red 1:08:56 The Blue-Red 637,788 Battles. 1:09:47 Red is The S++ Super Final Boss Champion of Champions. 1:12:00 Thanks and Shout Out

Youngster Joey is truly a pokémon master. He purposely went for rank 151.

After all this time, it’s back Can’t wait to see how Youngster Joey does, I bet he wins the tournament

Saw the ending fight coming from a mile away. "Hey, I heard you became champion again while i was away, Blue. Strongest trainer in the world and all that, right?" *PTSD ensues* "Well, guess what? Your old rival is back!" Bruno and Misty's performance was top notch, but i wasnt expecting youngster Joey to do so well.

I mean, the editing is so impressive on it's own... The zooming and huge fields of battles, it's art on it's own never mind the amazing maths and coding, seriously.

It is a little unfortunate to see Cooltrainer Reena glossed over despite being the highest ranked generic trainer, but it's a minor point in the grand scheme of things. Excellent video.

I love that you not only fully captioned this video but placed the captions so they aren’t covering important info. You’re really committed to every last detail!

This is genuinely one of, if not the most impressive RU-vid video I've ever seen. Maybe I'm too much of a newbie at CS still, but I'm trying to imagine just how many hours went not only into the lengthy simulations, but also in the impeccably edited video. I am in awe!!!

The level of editing detail and visual quality in this video and its predecessor is absolutely unreal. Thanks for some of the best long-form RU-vid content thus far.

A couple details I particularly loved: the consistency of referring to Silver as "Rival _Heuh??"_ and the fact that the trainer cards are always flipped to the beat of the background music!

Wait they'll use accuracy lowering moves if you use rollout/fury cutter, thats actually kind of cool

That Red reveal was perfect. Perfectly timed to the music, beautiful cinematography, i literally cried

It made me really happy that you committed to using they/them for Eusine the apparently nb icon

As someone who never had mystery gift or friends growing up, Cal being top 16 does me good. And the fact he contested against Elite 4 members was even better.

The description of how the AI gives me new respect for difficulty hacks where the AI is hyper intelligent. EDIT: OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS, THX SO MUCH FOR 500 LIKES!!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️ I'M GOING TO EXTREMELY OVERHYPE THIS BECAUSE I HAVE NO INTERNAL SENSE OF VALIDATION AND BASE ALL OF MY SELF WORTH IN THE OPINION OF STRANGERS!!

Honestly this video, the game itself, and the manga really do a great job at showing how cracked some of these teams are. These trainers must be extremely proud of their Pokémon.

44:45 Love how Koga’s worst loss is against his daughter 😂

Damn you had me big time at the end thinking Blue finally won after ~600k attempts. I was pumped to see the ridiculous amount of good luck he had to get to finally win. Great video man this was top notch

I just want to say thank you so much for running this tournament! I've spent countless hours being excited for this and creating predictions this past year. Also, I want to thank you for making your code super easy to follow and use! I have never coded in Python before in my life, but I was able to figure out how to run custom battles, and, if anyone reading this is interested, plan to make compilations of interesting battles from the hash ID's from this video, as well as custom double elimination tournaments of collections of trainers using completely new battles in the coming weeks and months as well (not trying to self promote, just want to help the super fans like myself enjoy more fun!)

Its really cool how much effort they put into the "Smart" AI.

I don’t usually comment on RU-vid videos but I can’t help myself here. This is one of the most beautifully put together videos I’ve ever seen on this platform. The premise is excellent but the execution and editing went far beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined. Top, top tier. Great work!

I like that Janine's greatest win is Koga. She surpassed her father but is still a gym leader while he is the elite 4

The red fight is truly a ridiculous gap to overcome. I wonder if he would've actually been beatable in HGSS? The gym leaders DO have rematch teams there, which aren't quite at Red's level, but I think the pokemon they use are better. I also would assume that gen 4 would be significantly harder to run this kind of tournament for, not only because of the more advanced battle system and more obfuscated source code, but also because of the blisteringly slow pace of gen 4 battles, so I'm not expecting that anytime soon. Great video though! These are always a treat to see.

1:07:50 You remember that scene in the first Yugioh movie where Kaiba has a simulation play him vs Yugi countless times trying to find some way that he can win?

Crying, shaking, throwing up, because Cooltrainer Reena wasn't able to pull off the underdog win in the sweet 16

I can't believe Misty nearly pulled out the win against Lance in the top 16 tournament! Absolutely nailbiting; I love watching these videos, so much time and effort went into them and I hope you keep making them in the future! (Gen 3 will likely be an absolute treat!)

Each of the Top 16 battles seems like a good puzzle to figure out how to win as the underdog as a player VS AI, especially Sabrina VS Koga; if only the Pokemon that are helpless against the powerful Alakazam weren't the only ones left to take it on at the end if only Forretress has exploded on it, etc.

Having Blue and Red fight their way through every possible Battle Tower trainer would be a great follow-up video. Same with the future generations.

This video… the flowchart animations, the subtitle placements, the way you show recordings of the battles up top while ranking them. Absolutely incredible.

1:08:00 this was a huge "you can't beat the system, kid" moment. I had an existential crisis once he started to talk about how many times they fought.

6:57 ah yes, the best move to lock an opponent into: Aeroblast Blue's worst loss was to...Leader Blue That's pretty impressive actually, to have a 100% non-mirror winrate. edit: I am aware of Red, I finished the video after making this comment

You should consider using the Bradley-Terry estimation model for player strengths, rather than Elo - it grants the same data (probability of a player winning a match against another player) but is order agnostic. The Wikipedia page on it has a well defined algorithm for calculating that is decently fast.

The most impressive videos are ones that leave me asking "How the heck was this edited?!". Very nice job, Piman.

The level of editing and effort that goes into this videos will forever amaze me

With the commentary on exactly how these trainers' strategies played out for them, along with the very fitting Red moment, this felt like watching the anime or an animated special. A great story of 2 regions coming together for one big tournament, and trainer's personalities managing to shine through the code as they clash. Amazing job all around.

1:01:42 Well, I don’t think that the critical hit was decisive at all. More importantly, this video is awesome, it is so well-made. The technical details, the clear explanations, the beautiful 3D animations, the music, the storytelling… Everything is top-notch! I really thank you for giving us such an incredible video, I cannot imagine the amount of work involved.

This might be the greatest production quality and content on youtube. Well done.

I guess you could say the only reason blue lost is because Red was "on another level" It would of been interesting to see an outcome where you made their levels comparable, red has high 80 lvl pokes, blue has 50-60's if the level gap wasn't there could blue actually beat red and how many times

That ending isnt what i expected but its so crazy

This is absolutely incredible. The amount of work you put in.. staggering. Well done!

Pleaseeee run these with a level lock so as to compare their teams and AI and not the point in the game you meet them at! I'd be so excited for it

It cannot be understated that the editing in this is an absolute phenom. You're a beast at presentation, and while the subject itself is interesting, your delivery is what makes this RU-vid royalty

Blue's only chance was a meteor strike taking out Red, but unfortunately, it wasn't gen 3 and therefore there were no meteors to use.

I absolutely love the Pannenkoek reference and the amount of effort put into mashing up the Mario 64 File Select with the Gen 2 Elm Lab Theme!

This video is so high effort the animation , editing,the explanations, man i love it. Please make an Ai battle of the Champions Red,Steven,Cynthia,Blue,Alder i would love tto see it

I think Blue would actually clown Red on even levels, his team is better composed overall, but it's a little hard to say. It's interesting how there's such a distinct, clear 1st and 2nd place here, Blue never lost to anyone other than Red, and Red never lost, truly fitting.

Man, that Blue fake-out was SCREAMING for a call-back to the ending of RBY. "You are the Champion!....or you WOULD have been, except your rival got here minutes ago...."

I've rewatched this a few times already, and it is quite enjoyable. Honestly, the editing blows me away so much!

This is so much fun, both informative and entertaining. I love the editing when you go through the rankings, the way the cards move past on the rhythm of the music is incredibly statisfying

After some math Red’s actual ELO is 5451 if you are willing to use the one game he lost against himself. You also have to discount the idea that Blue is under rated significantly due to the fact there were not enough trainers who were good enough to accurately get his ELO as mentioned at the end of the video. In reality it is higher possibly significantly.

The B2/W2 ranking is going to be insane if you can make your system work on DS games

The production value and editing in this video is wild. Really great job- I enjoyed every second of it.

Thank you for making enjoyable content. Love the energy, statistics, and humor.

Absolute herculean effort, amazing video editing, greatest video I've seen all year. Take a bow sir.

your content is a bi-annual highlight. excellent concept, excellent execution, excellent visuals, and somehow, you made a 1h 13m video where the only thing that happens is you simulate computers playing pokemon battles engaging the entire way through. thank you for putting in all this hard work this was a treat!

Can I just point out that the shown replay of Swimmer Nikki has a code starting with "ezgg." Along with having the most toxic team to stall with 4 resters, has the most toxic replay code to boot. What a role model we should all strive to be like.

24:40 the way he pronounced "???" made me laugh, but it's also probably the closest thing we can pronounce names that are question marks without actually saying "question marks" in any form

That transition to Red's music and the inevitable final fight was so hype! Great video as always, keep up the great work and hope to see future gens eventually (even if they're much more complex...)

Really awesome video! I had no idea the AI in Gen 2 was so complex too!

The editing on this is absolutely glorious, the beat dropping on the background music when you decided to explain all the ai patterns absolutely killed me!

I love your work, best series on youtube, I was there when your released your first pokemon AI tournament and it has always been my favorite type of videos Please keep going !

it might take a while but I can't wait to see when you hit gen 5 and do the PWT

With the blue vs red fight it would be interesting if not painful to see what would happen if blue received exp from the fight to better reflect a human player running into the red brick wall

I was just recommended a few similar videos that did AI tournaments and it was incredibility frustrating when they just skipped over the AI completely. I felt those videos missed what is truly interesting about this exercise and I felt them to find yours and see if there had been an update from the the Red/Blue videos I enjoyed so much. Complex long winding discussions of systems is what I AM HERE FOR thank you.

This is crazy, man. Kudos for all the work you put into this!