History LuckBasedMission / Pokemon

* In ''Platinum'', Beldum may possibly be even worse to catch than the [[OlympusMons Legendaries]]. As if the incredibly low catch rate AND [[SelfDestructiveCharge Take Down]] weren't bad enough, you have to wait for a swarm of them to appear, which could take days, possibly even weeks, so you'd have to be patient to even get the opportunity to confront one. This also means that if you miss out on the swarm day, or simply fail to catch one in time, you're boned and have to wait ''again''. Then they only appear on the route that causes constant sandstorm damage to most of your Pokemon. ''And'', since Beldum's only attack inflicts damage on itself, you could do everything right and it could still kill itself. Thankfully, the remakes make this slightly easier due to Beldum now getting Tackle instead of Take Down, but it's still the only move it gets, and due to the horrendous catch rate it has, it's very likely that it will be forced to Struggle anyway before you even CATCH the thing!

* Trying to get certain rare Pokemon from Hidden Grottos. Half the time it's an item you find, or a Pokémon you have/don't want.

* The Rental Tournament. In all the others you at least get to pick Pokemon you raised yourself and whose moves you already know. The Rental Tournament gives you a choice of 6 random Pokemon whose movesets and hold items are set and may not be very good (one possible Pokemon is a Simisage with no STAB attacks).

** Winning a Max Raid battle ''does'' become a luck-based mission if you play with the AI trainers, thanks to copious amounts of ArtificialStupidity, and especially with higher-difficulty bosses. There are a set number of trainers that can appear, each one has a specific Pokemon, and it's random which ones appear, so you could very well go up against a boss that has a type advantage over all three of the other Pokemon. That being said, sometimes you can strike gold with your AI trainers, like getting a Wishiwashi against a Charizard.
** Special shout-out to the special [[SNKBoss Mewtwo Max Raid Battles]] that was available for a short time, even on team. Good luck facing a Level 100 Pokemon with insane stats. At least the rewards are very good if you somehow managed to complete it.
* The Max Lair is substantially luck-based. The legendary Pokemon at the end is randomized each time[[note]]If you don't come back with the legendary, you can save its location and attempt to go after it again[[/note]], as are the Pokemon you are able to rent and find along the way. Even if you ''do'' make it to the legendary, an unfavorable team of Pokemon can easily fail and get booted from the lair. Playing with other human players, who may have saved the location of a desired Pokemon, and are generally smarter than AI partners, can be mitigate some of this, but don't expect a ton of help from AI partners. Albeit, even with AI partners you can still have a fair amount of success by simply planning your route to the legendary to focus on fighting and catching Pokémon that have an advantage against or resistance to it (in addition to going for battle items and healing berries). However, there is no guarantee the AI trainers will actually replace their rental Pokémon with these more advantageous ones.

* ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' has a few luck-based coliseums. In the first, you have a roulette wheel to determine whether you get to use one of your own Pokemon, or one of your opponent's far less useful ones. In the second, it's a 100-battle endurance match, where the roulette is used to determine if any of your Pokemon get healed. The roulette can actually be controlled with good timing, though, since it decelerates at a fixed rate rather than randomly, but learning the timing will require a few spins of it.

* The first Stadium game wasn't above using luck-based challenges either. The fourth battle in the final round of the Prime Cup throws the Gambler at you, who has possibly the most aggravating strategy of all the opponents you'll face; paralyze your Pokemon with either Body Slam or Thunder Wave so his mons outspeed yours, then spam one-hit KO moves nonstop. What makes this even worse is that his team is actually of varying types of Pokemon who are all pretty durable, and he's actually smart enough to switch them out when faced with a bad matchup. You could either sweep him effortlessly or get completely annihilated; it's all up to luck. And considering how Pokemon Stadium is with giving your opponents fantastic luck....

* The Gym Leaders section of the Pokémon World Tournament. You can only have three Pokémon on your person when battling, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to prepare for every possible type you'd face. You simply have to hope you encounter Gym Leaders favorable to the types you have on your team.

* The "5 Maid Knockout Exact-Turn Attack Challenge" in the Pokémon Mansion. You have to beat five trainers in a row (itself pretty easy since they're all using one Clefairy each at level 25-33), but in an exact number of turns. The "luck-based" part comes from the fact that the total number is usually only one or two more turns, and ''every single Clefairy knows Endure'', so not only do you have to be able to knock them out, you have to hope they don't use Endure at the wrong time or it becomes completely impossible (and the little bit of control you can get is with Taunt, which can only work for the last match). Oh yeah, they also all have [[NoSell Magic Guard]] to stop poison or burns from KOing them if you manage to hit them with either one. Just to rub salt in the wound, what's actually worth taking this challenge for is the chance to fight one of two trainers holding a RareCandy (thus this is one of the only ways that item can be farmed) that you need Thief or Trick to get and have to use before the enemy destroys the item by using Fling. And you only get to take this challenge once a day. [[SaveScumming Hello, soft reset!]]

* The "5 Maid Knockout Exact-Turn Attack Challenge" in the Pokémon Mansion. You have to beat five trainers in a row (itself pretty easy since they're all using one Clefairy each at level 25-33), but in an exact number of turns. The "luck-based" part comes from the fact that the total number is usually only one or two more turns, and ''every single Clefairy knows Endure'', so not only do you have to be able to knock them out, you have to hope they don't use Endure at the wrong time or it becomes completely impossible (and the little bit of control you can get is with Taunt, which can only work for the last match). Just to rub salt in the wound, what's actually worth taking this challenge for is the chance to fight one of two trainers holding a RareCandy (thus this is one of the only ways that item can be farmed) that you need Thief or Trick to get and have to use before the enemy destroys the item by using Fling. And you only get to take this challenge once a day. [[SaveScumming Hello, soft reset!]]

* In ''Platinum'', Beldum may possibly be even worse to catch than the [[OlympusMons Legendaries]]. As if the incredibly low catch rate AND [[SelfDestructiveCharge Take Down]] weren't bad enough, you have to wait for a swarm of them to appear, which could take days, possibly even weeks, so you'd have to be patient to even get the opportunity to confront one. This also means that if you miss out on the swarm day, or simply fail to catch one in time, you're boned and have to wait ''again''. Then they only appear on the route that causes constant sandstorm damage to most of your Pokemon. ''And'', since Beldum's only attack inflicts damage on itself, you could do everything right and it could still kill itself.
* The Honey Trees. If you're lucky, you'll be able to catch Pokémon like Aipom, Heracross and Cherubi that can't be found anywhere else. If you're not lucky, you'll get Wurmples. On every single tree. Adding to the luck factor is that it takes six hours for a Pokémon to appear, and SaveScumming doesn't work as the Pokémon you will encounter is determined the moment you slather the tree. At least the level and gender ''are'' randomized before an encounter, though, making it a little bit easier, yet still frustrating, to catch that elusive female Combee. As an added batch of fun, Munchlax is found on precisely four trees, which require the use of a calculator and knowledge of a value found only by hacking shiny Pokémon to determine which of about a dozen are those trees. It's still a 1% chance once you know which trees it is.

[[AC:''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Shining Diamond and Brilliant Pearl]]'']]

** Winning a Max Raid battle ''does'' become a luck-based mission if you play with the AI trainers, thanks to copious amounts of ArtificialStupidity, and especially with higher-difficulty bosses. There are a set number of trainers that can appear, each one has a specific Pokemon, and it's random which ones appear, so you could very well go up against a boss that has a type advantage over all three of the other Pokemon. That being said, sometimes you can strike gold with your AI trainers, like getting a Magikarp with ''Hydro Pump'' against a Charizard.

* Also in ''Pokémon XD'' is a Battle CD where you use a Zangoose against a Cradily that uses Barrier three times to max out its Defense while you use Swords Dance three times to max out your Attack, the use Slash until you get a CriticalHit, which will bypass the Defense boosts and K.O. Cradily. The problem is that Slash has only a 1 in 8 of being a CriticalHit and you have a limited number of turns, meaning you can run out of turns without ever getting a CriticalHit.

** The Battle Palace. The player has to let the AI decide how their team with act and hope it makes the right choices (though this can be influenced by each Pokémon's nature and current health).

* [[BettingMiniGame The Game Corner]] in Mauville City, as per series tradition at this point.

[[AC:''[[VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus Legends: Arceus]]'']]

[[AC:''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Sun and Moon]]'']]

[[AC:''[[VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee]]'']]

* Max Raid Battles, if you decide to do this on your own and dealing with [[ArtificialStupidity computer-AI players using weak Pokemon]]. Stat modifiers can reset randomly. Due to your team's Pokemon being weak, the opponent can easily wipe them out using moves that hit all opposing Pokemon, wiping them out in 1 turn; you can lose the Dynamax battle in 2 or less devastating moves. If the opposing Pokemon has either Counter or Mirror Coat, you can lose your Pokemon in 1 hit.

** It also brings back the exact-turn battle challenges from ''Platinum ''in the form of restaurants, although going a couple turns above or below the par will merely give you a smaller prize, giving you some leeway. The higher-level restaurants, though, will actively try to screw you up by throwing everything they can into defense. And the last one squares the whole luck factor by engaging you in rotating battles, in which the Pokémon you target is completely random. Fail too many guesses and you're guaranteed to get a dent in your wallet.

* The "5 Maid Knockout Exact-Turn Attack Challenge" in the (Sinnoh) Pokémon Mansion. You have to beat five trainers in a row (itself pretty easy since they're all using one Clefairy each at level 25-33), but in an exact number of turns. The "luck-based" part comes from the fact that the total number is usually only one or two more turns, and ''every single Clefairy knows Endure'', so not only do you have to be able to knock them out, you have to hope they don't use Endure at the wrong time or it becomes completely impossible (and the little bit of control you can get is with Taunt, which can only work for the last match). Just to rub salt in the wound, what's actually worth taking this challenge for is the chance to fight one of two trainers holding a RareCandy (thus this is one of the only ways that item can be farmed) that you need Thief or Trick to get and have to use before the enemy destroys the item by using Fling. And you only get to take this challenge once a day. [[SaveScumming Hello, soft reset!]]

* The Battle Pike of the ''Emerald'' Battle Frontier. Pick a pathway and hope it's a safe one. While there are guides who can give you an idea of what lies behind each door, they're not perfect. Oh, and there's little to no healing, so you'll want to avoid paths with battles as much as possible. No wonder your reward for completing it is the Luck Symbol...

* The Safari Zone. It's either catch the Pokémon instantly with the crappy Safari Ball (which you'll eventually swear is just a normal Pokéball painted over), or watch that Chansey with a 1% chance of appearing ([[MeaningfulName hence the Japanese name "Lucky"]]) run for the hills. Your only aid in helping with this? Pebbles/Mud that [[BlatantLies really helps raise the catch rate]] and make it easier for the Pokémon to run away, or Bait that makes it harder to catch the Pokémon, but lowers the likelihood of the Pokémon running away. Naturally, this is in every game before Gen V, and when it came back in ''OR/AS'', the setup is no different from finding/catching Pokémon anywhere else in Hoenn.

* No matter the generaton, catching any [[OlympusMons legendary Pokémon]]. Sure, you can give it status effects, whittle its health down to a sliver, etc., but thanks to having the lowest catch rates of any Pokémon, it ultimately boils down to "Will the game decide that I've caught the legendary before I run out of Ultra Balls/it runs out of PP and [=KOs=] itself with Struggle?" It helps that the catch rate is subject to [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate a lot of variants]]; [[http://veekun.com/dex/gadgets/pokeballs calculating them is possible]], but not guaranteed to suceed. Even in the optimal situation for catching one, most have a success rate of about 18%. Fortunately, scenarios where [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement you need to catch a legendary to proceed with the game]] give them a higher catch rate.

* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Platinum]]'', Beldum may possibly be even worse to catch than the [[OlympusMons Legendaries]]. As if the incredibly low catch rate AND [[SelfDestructiveCharge Take Down]] weren't bad enough, you have to wait for a swarm of them to appear, which could take days, possibly even weeks, so you'd have to be patient to even get the opportunity to confront one. This also means that if you miss out on the swarm day, or simply fail to catch one in time, you're boned and have to wait ''again''. Then they only appear on the route that causes constant sandstorm damage to most of your Pokemon. ''And'', since Beldum's only attack inflicts damage on itself, you could do everything right and it could still kill itself.
* ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' has a few luck-based coliseums. In the first, you have a roulette wheel to determine whether you get to use one of your own Pokemon, or one of your opponent's far less useful ones. In the second, it's a 100-battle endurance match, where the roulette is used to determine if any of your Pokemon get healed. The roulette can actually be controlled with good timing, though, since it decelerates at a fixed rate rather than randomly, but learning the timing will require a few spins of it.
* The Honey Trees in Gen IV. If you're lucky, you'll be able to catch Pokémon like Aipom, Heracross and Cherubi that can't be found anywhere else. If you're not lucky, you'll get Wurmples. On every single tree. Adding to the luck factor is that it takes six hours for a Pokémon to appear, and SaveScumming doesn't work as the Pokémon you will encounter is determined the moment you slather the tree. At least the level and gender ''are'' randomized before an encounter, though, making it a little bit easier, yet still frustrating, to catch that elusive female Combee. As an added batch of fun, Munchlax is found on precisely four trees, which require the use of a calculator and knowledge of a value found only by hacking shiny Pokémon to determine which of about a dozen are those trees. It's still a 1% chance once you know which trees it is.
* ''Platinum'' also has the "5 Maid Knockout Exact-Turn Attack Challenge" in the (Sinnoh) Pokémon Mansion. You have to beat five trainers in a row (itself pretty easy since they're all using one Clefairy each at level 25-33), but in an exact number of turns. The "luck-based" part comes from the fact that the total number is usually only one or two more turns, and ''every single Clefairy knows Endure'', so not only do you have to be able to knock them out, you have to hope they don't use Endure at the wrong time or it becomes completely impossible (and the little bit of control you can get is with Taunt, which can only work for the last match). Just to rub salt in the wound, what's actually worth taking this challenge for is the chance to fight one of two trainers holding a RareCandy (thus this is one of the only ways that item can be farmed) that you need Thief or Trick to get and have to use before the enemy destroys the item by using Fling. And you only get to take this challenge once a day. [[SaveScumming Hello, soft reset!]]
* In Contests in Gen IV, there is no way, repeat ''no'' way to beat the Master Rank unless you're incredibly lucky. And this is merely an improvement from the Gen III Contests, which were comparably worse due to jamming moves.
* A good chunk of the dungeons in the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games qualify as well. Purity Forest and Zero Isle South, for example. Not only did they have 99 floors, but you could not take any items, money or teammates with you, you could not recruit anything inside, your level was reduced to one and you were forced to save before going in, meaning that essentially whether you made it through or not depended on how quickly you could locate the stairs and what items you could find.
* A few rare trainers love using evasion-increasing moves like Double Team, which are actually banned in competitive play for being too luck-based. The worst offender is probably Janine in ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium 2'', whose entire strategy revolves around using Baton Pass with several layers of Double Team. And every one of her Baton Pass targets have either Swagger or Confuse Ray, dropping your percent chance of landing a hit to the single digits while she slowly tortures you to death with Toxic and blocking your escape with Spikes and Mean Look. Either you come fully prepared with a team that packs Haze and Heal Bell, or prepare for a ridiculously long fight.
* The first Stadium game wasn't above using luck-based challenges either. The fourth battle in the final round of the Prime Cup throws the Gambler at you, who has possibly the most aggravating strategy of all the opponents you'll face; paralyze your Pokemon with either Body Slam or Thunder Wave so his mons outspeed yours, then spam one-hit KO moves nonstop. What makes this even worse is that his team is actually of varying types of Pokemon who are all pretty durable, and he's actually smart enough to switch them out when faced with a bad matchup. You could either sweep him effortlessly or get completely annihilated; it's all up to luck. And considering how Pokemon Stadium is with giving your opponents fantastic luck....

* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness Pokémon XD]]'', there is the "Metronome Cup." You fight two Pokémon with two of your own. All of the Pokémon have only one move -- Metronome, a move that summons any other move at random. Winning or losing is literally and entirely based on luck. There is no strategy involved in the least. [[HilarityEnsues It's rather fun, however]].
* Also in ''Pokémon XD'' is a Battle CD where you use a Zangoose against a Cradily that uses Barrier three times to max out its Defense while you use Swords Dance three times to max out your Attack, the use Slash until you get a CriticalHit, which will bypass the Defense boosts and K.O. Cradily. The problem is that Slash has only a 1 in 8 of being a CriticalHit and you have a limited number of turns, meaning you can run out of turns without ever getting a CriticalHit.
* Voltorb Flip in the international versions of ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold/SoulSilver]]'' is basically Minesweeper with much more random guessing. While it is quite deep, some boards are really unsolvable, like ones with something close to "Sum 5/Voltorb 2" on every row and column. Boards like those always require 2 to 4 guesses, which translates to a 1/4 to 1/16 chance of winning, given perfect play. And there's always the chance of landing on a Voltorb on the first turn, even when the row says 7/1 and the column says 8/1 ... And a first turn Voltorb means back to Lvl 1.
** They have online calculators for Voltorb Flip. However, every one of them has a disclaimer that basically amounts to "Voltorb Flip is a Luck Based Mission. This calculator can only give you a reasonable idea of which tiles are safe."
** Like RealLife Casinos, Game Corners in general are a Luck Based Mission. Compared to the outrageously rigged slots in the other generations, Voltorb Flip is downright forgiving. Some actually preferred the luck-based slots, though, since it was much faster-paced and you could just buy casino coins if you were rich and impatient.
* How about any of the Battle facilities? You know, the Battle Towers, Battle Frontier, Battle Subway, Battle Maison, and Battle Tree? You have to win 49/100/170 consecutive times without losing once, and without any continues (and you can't save and reset, you get disqualified). And the game can be brutal about luck sometimes. Say, you meet an opponent with Brightpowder (held item that increases evasion) and one-hit KO move which hits 30% of the time. It's extremely common in the Frontier that both Brightpowder and the one-hit KO move takes effect. Sometimes 3 times in a row, and the matches are 3 vs 3. Say goodbye to your hours of winning. Oh, and the game does mock you if you lose, as if you played bad.

* The Battle Pike of the ''Emerald'' Battle Frontier is unashamedly one. Pick a pathway and hope it's a safe one. While there are guides who can give you an idea of what lies behind each door, they're not perfect. Oh, and there's little to no healing, so you'll want to avoid paths with battles as much as possible. No wonder your reward for completing it is the Luck Symbol...
* ''Stadium 2'''s Challenge Mode is probably the worst offender. The game is already [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard heavily rigged in the computer's favor in every match]], but Challenge Mode makes it worse by forcing you to use 6 randomly generated Pokémon that are almost guaranteed to be complete crap, and then use them to fight the (much better) random Pokémon the computer gets in 4 difficulty levels. The description of the mode says "This mode tests your ability as a trainer", but it would be more accurately described as "This mode tests your ability to resist carpal tunnel syndrome from how many times you'll have to reload the game upon getting a terrible team".
* The Vermilion City Gym could also count. In order to deactivate the electric gates blocking your path to Lt. Surge, you need to flip a pair of switches. What the game ''tells'' you is that they're placed randomly, and that the second switch is always next to the first. What the game ''doesn't'' tell you is that only half of the cans can even contain the first switch, and not ''all'' adjacent cans are necessarily eligible to contain the second switch. What the game ''can't'' tell you, because it's due to a programming error, is that the top left can is almost always one of the options for the second switch, even though it's not adjacent to any of the options for the first switch. So, yes, there's a tiny chance of looking in the top left can twice in a row and finding both switches.

* The Dream World from ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' was intended as a successor to ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'''s Pokéwalker in that it's an alternative means to obtain Pokémon and items for your game. While it did do that, it preferred to send players to random locations rather than letting the player pick the location to explore for themselves, and you could only take ten steps each visit before leaving and Pokémon would stop coming to you after so many visits in a day.
* Trying to get certain rare Pokemon from Hidden Grottos in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2''. Half the time it's an item you find, or a Pokémon you have/don't want.
* Breeding in any game, if you aren't an [=RNGer=]. Getting one aspect isn't too hard. You can control inherited moves easily as long as your breeders don't level up too much in the daycare (before Gen VI) and getting the right nature is easy with one parent holding an Everstone, and with only one or two abilities, it isn't hard getting the right one, but getting all at once can be aggravating.. And good stat parents help your IV chances but do not guarantee good stat offspring. Even worse is trying for shiny Pokémon. The Masuda method of using one parent from a foreign language game helps, as does Gen V's and VI's Shiny Charm, but the chance is still low. Arceus help you if you're breeding for shiny, good stats and correct nature all at once.
* [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Gen VI]] introduces Wonder Trade. You offer one Pokémon, and you get a random Pokémon in return. You won't know what you get until it comes. It could be anything from a [[OlympusMons legendary]] to a starter to a ComMon to anything in between.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' is literally this on Max Raid Battles, if you decide to do this on your own and dealing with [[ArtificialStupidity computer-AI players using weak Pokemon]]. Stat modifiers can reset randomly. Due to your team's Pokemon being weak, the opponent can easily wipe them out using moves that hit all opposing Pokemon, wiping them out in 1 turn; you can lose the Dynamax battle in 2 or less devastating moves. If the opposing Pokemon has either Counter or Mirror Coat, you can lose your Pokemon in 1 hit.