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Battle Frontier

The Battle Frontier is a location, accessible in Emerald only, that houses seven Battle Facilities where the goal is to defeat Trainers and sometimes wild Pokémon without losing. Each Battle Facility has a leader, known as the Frontier Brain, who can be battled after the player has made some arbitrary amount of progress in the facility, without the player losing to any Trainer or wild Pokémon. Each Frontier Brain has two encounters in their facility. Winning the first Frontier Brain fight will give the player a Silver Symbol for that facility on their Frontier Pass, and winning the second fight will upgrade the symbol to a Gold Symbol. Winning all seven Gold Symbols will give the player a star for their Trainer Card. Additionally, achieving 100 wins in the Battle Tower specifically will allow the player to get a Gold Shield by talking to Scott.
The list of facilities is as follows:

• Battle Tower
• Battle Dome
• Battle Palace
• Battle Arena
• Battle Factory
• Battle Pike
• Battle Pyramid

Additionally, there are three Battle Tents in Hoenn cities that serve as miniature versions of some of these facilities. They use the same rules as these facilities, but the player only needs to win three battles, and enemy Pokémon and Trainers are drawn from a different list.

• Slateport Battle Tent - similar to the Battle Factory
• Verdanturf Battle Tent - similar to the Battle Palace
• Fallarbor Battle Tent - similar to the Battle Arena

Although each facility has different rules, there are some restrictions that apply to all of them.

• The player will not receive money, and their Pokémon will not receive experience. Instead, the player will receive BP, which is used as a currency for purchasable items and Move Tutors in the Battle Frontier.
• Set Mode is enforced.
• The moves Return and Frustration, when used by the opponent or rented Pokémon in the Battle Factory, will always have their maximum power.
• Losing a battle will reset the player's streak to 0. Turning off the game mid-battle, or mid-round without saving, will count as a loss and reset the streak.
• Pokémon encountered in battles will not be added to the Pokédex.
• Defeating a Frontier Brain will give the player 10BP on top of the value they would have received for winning that round.
• Trainers' Pokémon will always take their Nature, Item, moves, and EVs from predetermined 'sets'.
• Trainers' Pokémon that can have two Abilities will always have a random Ability. Trainers' Pokémon that can be male or female will have their gender randomly determined.
• Soul Dew will have no effect if entered.
• Some Pokémon cannot be entered altogether, and will never be encountered on an opponent's team:

Specific data about the mechanics of each facility are given on those facilities' pages. Here are some more general resources:

• Pokémon that can appear in all Battle Facilities
• Trainers, and associated Pokémon rosters, that can appear in the Battle Tower, Castle, Arcade, and Factory
• Smogon's original Battle Frontier records & discussion topic (lasted from 3 Jun 2012 - 11 Sep 2016)
• An attempt to create a Battle Frontier guide (lasted from 18 Aug 2016 - 23 Mar 2019)
• Smogon's current Battle Frontier records & discussion topic (started 28 Mar 2019)
• Actaeon's Frontier Assistant, which can be used to identify what potential Pokémon enemy Trainers can have, and shows their movesets
• turskain's damage calculator, with the possible opposing movesets built in

Pokémon

Static

Emerald

Pokémon		Level	Notes
	Sudowoodo	40	Requires the Wailmer Pail to battle.

Trade

Emerald

Player's Pokémon		Received Pokémon		Notes
	Skitty		Meowth	Meowth holds a Retro Mail.

Move Tutor Moves

The Move Tutors need to be paid in Battle Points (BP).

Credits & sources

• The Battle Frontier Max Stats Database, for the efforts of Peterko to identify the unique movesets, representing what is to my knowledge the English-speaking community's first attempt to uncover the deeper mechanics of the Frontier.
• The current Battle Frontier records topic, for linking to many additional resources collected in the time since the original records topic.
• Bulbapedia, for various facts such as the items available for purchase in the Frontier, facilities' basic mechanics, and the Battle Points received as rewards.
• Hozu's spreadsheet containing details about Trainers and Pokémon movesets, used as the source for my tables.
• The pret disassembly of Emerald, from which I gathered lots of my information on mechanics, wild Pokémon, and Battle Tent data.
• Various users on the Battle Facilities Discord, including Magpie, Mow, Wildcat, Valentino, and turskain, for answering various questions I had.