One of my proudest Pokémon video game achievements is breeding a shiny Smeargle (nicknamed Escher, because I’m that kind of dork) in Omega Ruby, and raising it to become a ribbon master: a Pokémon that has earned every ribbon available to it in the games it could be sent into.

It wasn’t always easy. The ORAS contest ribbons required me to do some pretty convoluted things to Sketch the optimal movesets for each contest condition. (But that was part of why I chose Smeargle for this journey in the first place—one of the most flexible Pokémon, for one of the most wide-ranging challenges.) And for the Battle Tree in Sun/Moon, at certain points I was dual-wielding my 3DS in one hand, and a laptop in the other, with reference pages open to Bulbapedia’s list of Battle Tree trainers and their movesets.

But I persevered, and eventually, Escher’s collection was complete, and its summary screen became a thing of beauty.

Now, many years later, after several games that didn’t include Smeargle (Sword/Shield, Legends: Arceus) and thus couldn’t contribute to my ribbon quest, it’s finally time to pick back up where I left off. Smeargle is available in both Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl and Scarlet/Violet, which means a slew of new ribbons for Escher to be adorned with.

So, I just finished playing through Shining Pearl for the first time. (Yeah, I know, I’m a couple years late to the party!) I have most of the resources of the game available to me, along with 20+ years of supporting resources via the rest of my games and everything I have in Pokémon Home.

It’s time to begin.

BDSP adds only 1 new ribbon to the overall series, but there are a total of 3 (or theoretically, 4) new ribbons I can get for Escher, either because they were previously only available in games before Escher was born, or because they were from Sword/Shield which I had to skip. I’m going to start with the easiest ribbon and work my way up to the hardest.

Sinnoh Champion Ribbon

And what could be easier than battling the Elite Four? Okay, technically, battling literally any other NPC in the game would be easier. And that’s especially true for BDSP’s Elite Four teams, which have all been fully decked out with competitively viable movesets and held items and natures and IVs and EVs—for once, this series isn’t playing around.

I remember lurking on the Smogon forums a few years ago, when BDSP leaked shortly before its release date, and watching everyone fawn over the Elite Four’s rematch teams. Focus Sashes? Type coverage?? Cynthia eventually has a Level 88 Garchomp with a Yache Berry?!

Now that I’ve finally faced BDSP’s E4… Oh boy. Those fawning forumers were right.

These were some of the most challenging and fun E4 battles I’ve had in a long, long time. It didn’t help that my team was (intentionally) under-leveled the first time around. I was more appropriately leveled the second time around, when I brought Escher to face the E4’s first rematch teams—but I still went through a fair number of Hyper Potions and Revives.

Maybe one of these days I’ll actually try to balance my in-game teams, instead of naturally landing on “oops they’re all weak to the same types.”

Either way, I beat the Elite Four and Champion, and Escher obtained his first new ribbon in several years.

Twinkling Star Ribbon

Ah, contests. I was really into the contests in Ruby—made sure to beat all of them and fill up every museum painting—and again in Omega Ruby (uh, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have done any of this, lol). But I completely skipped contests in gen 4.

Maybe it was because they changed into a dress-up and dancing mini-game. Maybe I was just tired of contests by then. I don’t think I ever did a single Super Contest throughout any of the gen 4 games I owned. I might not have even made any Poffins. (What are Poffins? I only know ^P_O^K_éBLOCKs.)

Well, better late than never!

For the most part, the BDSP contests give the same ribbons as the ORAS contests did—the same Coolness Master Ribbon, the same Beauty Master Ribbon, and so on. But BDSP introduces a new category of contest that transcends those five conditions: “Brilliant Contests” for Brilliant Diamond, and “Shining Contests” for Shining Pearl. Beating either of those at Master Rank will give you the Twinkling Star Ribbon.

Ha, my Smeargle’s contest stats are already maxed out from Omega Ruby. This should be easy.

(Insert montage here of me comedically failing at the Great Rank Shining Contest, despite my fabulous stats and held item Red Scarf and my Ball Capsule completely decked out in Coolness stickers.)

… So, it turns out there are some very important details when it comes to doing well in Brilliant/Shining Contests:

• Max Sheen is pivotal. If you’re bringing up a Pokémon from ORAS, where eating Pokeblocks doesn’t increase a Pokémon’s Sheen (thus making it trivial to max out all contest stats), you’re going to need to feed it Poffins in BDSP to increase its Sheen.
• The only Ball Capsule stickers that matter for Brilliant/Shining Contests are the Show Master Sticker and the Champion Sticker—with the Champion Sticker being the better of the two in terms of Visual score contribution. None of the others contribute to your Brilliant/Shining score at all.

Well then. I guess I’m not done with the E4 after all. In fact I’ve barely even begun.

With the looming prospect of having to re-battle the E4 plus Champion twenty more times to get 1 sticker each time, I went looking for a Pokémon with the right type/moves/ability to breeze through those battles as quickly as possible. Thankfully, I wasn’t the first person in this position, and there’s an agreed-upon community solution to the problem of the BDSP E4 grind: Lv 100 Gyarados with Moxie, Waterfall, Earthquake, Ice Fang, and Dragon Dance.

Even more thankfully, I already had such a Gyarados in Pokémon Home, sitting unused for the last 13 years.

A week later, the E4 sidequest was finally complete for real. My in-game team rotation of 10 Pokémon had all been leveled up from the low 60s to the high 90s, and more importantly, I now had 20 Champion Stickers all glued onto the gaudiest Ball Capsule I could imagine.

That, plus a handful of Poffins to max out Escher’s Sheen, was enough for me to beat the Master Rank Shining Contest within a few attempts. Two ribbons down, only 1* more to go.

Tower Master Ribbon

Fuck the Battle Tower.

At best, the Battle Facility in every single Pokémon game is an exhausting grind into infinity, wherein eventually the smallest mistake will cost you everything. At worst, it’s an RNG-fueled misery engine, where the opponents are holding Quick Claw and using OHKO moves against you and also, you’re frozen and maybe confused at the same time.

The Battle Tower in BDSP is no exception. To get the Tower Master Ribbon in BDSP, first you must clear a 49-win streak (either singles or doubles) in the normal mode to unlock Master Class mode. Then, starting from Rank 1 and going up a rank every time you win the 7th battle in a row, you finally get the ribbon after beating Rank 10.

I remember how Ultra Moon’s Battle Tree’s 50-win streak took me multiple attempts over weeks, even with an optimized team. I’m not going to underestimate this challenge.

Instead, I’m going to cheese it with the most consistent-but-unfair strategy I could find: good ol’ FEAR and Trick Room:

Aron @ Berry Juice
Level: 1
Ability: Sturdy
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD / 0 Spe
– Protect
– Endeavor
– Attract
– Aerial Ace

Dusknoir @ Lum berry
Ability: Frisk
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 132 SpD
Relaxed Nature (+Def -Spe)
IVs: 0 Spe
– Trick Room
– Night Shade
– Brick Break
– Gravity

Hariyama @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 28 HP / 252 Atk / 116 Def / 112 SpD
Brave Nature (+Atk -Spe)
IVs: 0 Spe
– Fake Out
– Facade
– Knock Off
– Close Combat

Tyranitar @ Black Glasses
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature (+Atk -Spe)
IVs: 0 Spe
– Assurance
– Rock Slide
– Stomping Tantrum
– Protect

This strategy exploits the fact that in Master Class Doubles, you’re up against 2 trainers instead of 1—which means you can fully knock out one side before ganging up on the other. In an ideal match, Aron even survives until the end! Protect and Trick Room on turn 1, then Endeavor and Night Shade until target trainer #1 is dead (based on which one is more threatening in early-game vs late-game), then repeat for target trainer #2.

If there’s no priority moves, no multi-hit moves, no misses, no Sitrus Berries healing the opponent back out of Night Shade KO range—if nothing goes wrong, Master Class Doubles is a walk in the park with this team. Paradoxically, it’s a lot easier than regular class doubles—not to mention how much more Double Team there is in the regular class movesets.

I unlocked Master Class on my third serious attempt in regular class—each streak going further than the one before it, and therefore fueling my fury and my willpower to double down and keep going.

And then I managed a streak of 52 in Master Class on my first attempt, bringing me up to Rank 8 before Ace Trainers Donnie and Sasha managed to overpower me with their combination of super effective special attackers. But the wonderful thing about Master Class is that you don’t lose your Rank after a single loss. Sure, the streak is over, but it’s not about the streak anymore. I picked up the next day and blazed right through Ranks 8 and 9.

It was time for the real test: swapping out either Hariyama or Tyranitar in favor of a re-trained Escher, and taking on the final set of 7 trainers. I had been keeping a tally since Rank 6 of how often I needed to switch to Hariyama, Tyranitar, both, or neither. Tyranitar was the clear MVP between the two, thanks to the occasional Abomasnow whose hail would need to be reset. And so, Hariyama was yeeted back to the Box, and it was finally Escher’s time to shine.

… Or not. The moveset I spent days brainstorming for Escher (Fake Out / Spiky Shield / Spore / Foul Play) ended up not even mattering—he never once needed to step onto the field. And Tyranitar was only needed twice. After spending a week and a half doing dozens of tower battles every day, Rank 10 was child’s play.

I had learned all the tricks, all the gimmicks, all the cheap tactics the opponents might use. I knew which threats to prioritize, which to ignore, and when to take a risk or not. I had proven myself capable against Roark and Byron, Flint and Volkner, Cyrus and Mars (okay but in terms of lore, why the hell were those two allowed in the Battle Tower??), and finally against Barry and Palmer.

The Tower Tycoon and his son went down in a mere five turns, each mon fainting to the unstoppable juggernaut of Endeavor plus Night Shade.

And finally, I had my prize.

Looking to the Future

And that brings my Shining Pearl ribbon journey to a very successful end! In practice, at least.

As I alluded to earlier, there’s a 4th ribbon I could have earned in this game: the Master Rank Ribbon, obtained by winning enough online PVP battles to get into Master Ball Rank, and then by winning a battle within Master Ball Rank.

It probably would have been a lot more feasible to do that a few years ago, when BDSP was new. Is there even enough activity in it anymore to get up to the highest online PVP ranks if starting from scratch? Would the battles all be challenging because only the most competitive players are still actually playing it?

Luckily, the Master Rank Ribbon is also available in Scarlet/Violet—where player resources like rental teams are a lot more abundant.

It’s been a few generations now since I’ve done any real competitive team building or battling—not since Sun/Moon. But I’ve been looking forward to giving gen 9 competitive a shot, seeing how the metagames have changed in the last 5-6 years. Will I be able to adapt to the lack of Mega Evolutions and Z-Moves? Will I be able to grasp the intricacies of strategizing around Tera types?

So that’s the next leg of this endless Ribbon Master journey: bringing Escher into Violet to earn the handful of new ribbons and marks in there. Along with the not-technically-new-anymore Master Rank Ribbon, which I fully expect to be the most difficult ribbon yet.

I’m really, really looking forward to the challenge.