Pokémon Masters EX debuts new Thorton's Freezing Frost Ultimate Battle, alongside new Legendary Gauntlet, and a pair of new Scouts

Pokémon Masters EX is today debuting the second of its Ultimate Battle challenges with the addition of Ultimate Battle: Thorton's Freezing Frost. Also dropping in-game today are the game's latest Legendary Gauntlet, along with a pair of new scouts.

Ultimate Battle: Thorton's Freezing Frost
Ultimate Battle: Thorton's Freezing Frost is the second piece of content to be added to the new Challenge the Strong content area. To access this Ultimate Battle, select the Side Area from the main Explore Menu, and then select Challenge the Strong. Players successfully completing Ultimate Battle: Thorton's Freezing Frost will receive 300 Diamonds as a First-Time Reward.

Challenge the Strong is a new kind of permanent battle content. These battles follow the standard three-on-three battle format, but have the new Ultimate difficulty level, which as the name suggests is a level of difficulty significantly above the difficulty of high level battles to date. These battles will require players to maximize the potential of their Sync Pairs, to have an excellent understanding of how to build their team for the best advantage, and understand the right time to use their moves in the most effective way. No exclusive rewards are planned for completing these Ultimate difficulty battles however, so it appears these will mostly be for bragging rights and some bonus diamonds.

To unlock Challenge the Strong and Ultimate difficulty battles, players must have completed the Champion Stadium Hard Lv. 1 for any region.

Epic Battle Event: Legendary Gauntlet
3 powerful opponents arrive in Pokémon Masters EX with the return of the Legendary Gauntlet. Functioning the same as past Legendary Gauntlets, players will use the sync pairs they have raised to battle through Entei, Uxie, and Tapu Bulu's Legendary Arena battles in succession. Players can use as many sync pairs as needed to complete these stages and rack up as many wins as possible. Once a sync pair has been taken into battle, however, they can't be used again regardless of the battle's outcome. Players can earn a variety of rewards by hitting certain win streak milestones, including BP Points, Move Candy Coins, a Guaranteed Lucky Cookie 12, and 1★-3★ Deluxe Lucky Cookies. This run of the Legendary Gauntlet will remain available until December 28th, at 9:59pm (PST).

• Entei is weak to Water-type moves. Entei sets permanent field effects, such as Physical/Special Damage Reduction, during the fight. It will also raise its critical-hit rate which can't be lowered due to Steady Aim passive skill, and its attacks will always have secendary effects due to its Hostile Environment 10 and On a Roll 9 passive skills. Entei last appeared in the 9th Legendary Gauntlet, held across May and June of this year.
• Uxie is weak to Ghost-type moves. While on its first HP bar, the Healthy Advantage passive skill reduces damage while Uxie is unaffected by status conditions; on the second bar, the Acute Senses passive skill reduces damage unless Uxie is affected by status changes (e.g., flinching or restrained); and both passive skills take affect when Uxie is on its third HP bar. Additionally, passive skills increase Uxie's resistance to a status condition or interference condition (flinching, confusion, or trapped) each time it recovers from one, until it becomes immune. On Very Hard difficulty, Uxie will also apply Special Damage Reduction to its side of the field while on its first bar and Physical Damage Reduction while on its third bar. Uxie last appeared in the 10th Legendary Gauntlet, held across August and September of this year.
• Tapu Bulu is weak to Flying-type moves while on its first and third HP bars, and weak to Poison-type moves while on its second. It activates the field effect of Grassy Terrain at the beginning of each HP bar and each time it uses its Sync Move; Grassy Terrain increases the power of Grass-type moves and restores HP when using a Grass-type move. Grassy Terrain can be countered by inflicting Poison or by using "interference" status conditions, such as flinching, confusion, or trapped, although Tapu Bulu will increase its resistance to the latter each time it recovers, until it becomes immune. Tapu Bulu last appeared in the 8th Legendary Gauntlet, held across March and April of this year.

Ranking results will be available between December 30th at 10:00pm (PST), and January 4th, 2024, at 9:59pm (PST), allowing players to see the in-game rankings of the top 100 longest win streaks from all players, as well as the profiles of players on the rankings, and the sync pairs they used to achieve their streaks. Players will also be able to confirm their own rank so long as they are within the top 5,000 places. These rankings are only for bragging rights, and do not award any prizes to those players who manage to make their way onto them.

Players should also note the following when playing this event:

• To participate, players must have completed Main Story Chapter 1: The More the Merrier (Normal) in single-player.
• Area info completion data will not be carried over to future Legendary Gauntlets, nor will they count for completion in the Legendary Arena

Battle Villa
The Battle Villa, a recurring event that allows players to use up to 9 sync pairs to progress through its stages, has reopened once again, and will be available for players to challenge until December 21st, at 9:59 pm (PST). Performing well in this challenge will allow players to obtain up to 2000 gems, as well as items to upgrade their sync pairs including cookies and lucky scrolls. To enter the Battle Villa, players must progress past Chapter 7: Where There's a Will, There's a Way (Normal) in single player mode.

Players who complete every hall in the Battle Villa will be able to skip certain halls the next time the Battle Villa opens. Halls that are skipped will still award first-time rewards, however any coin completion rewards, XP, and bonus awards will not be granted. Skipped halls also do not count towards any associations missions.

Sync Pair Scouts
Two new scout banners have started today alongside the launch of the latest Legendary Gauntlet, each providing trainers suitable to take into battle against Pokémon featured in the gauntlet.

5★-Select Type Scout
In this 5★-Select Type Scout featuring only Ghost, Water, Flying, and Poison-Type Sync Pairs, players can spend 2,000 paid gems to receive an 11x Scout, as well as an additional bonus selection of a 5★ Sync Pair from the limited pool. This scout can be used up to 3 times during the scouting period.

Triple Feature Poké Fair Scout
5★ Emma & Crobat, 5★ Sygna Suit Korrina & Marshadow, and 5★ Sygna Suit Blue & Blastoise are returning in a new Triple Feature Poké Fair Scout. As usual, 5★ Sync Pairs will have a 10% chance of appearing in this Poké Fair Scout, with the featured pairs having a higher chance of appearing than other pairs. The scout also includes a daily discount, where players can perform a single scout for x100 paid gems. Each daily discount can be used 1 time per day during the entire length of the scout.