Was Wulfric’s Base Abamasnow battling at the same strength lvl in both of its battles with Ash?

[Genaller]

Pretty straight forward question. In the first battle Wulfric’s Abamasnow was easily overwhelmed by Hawlucha getting KOed by 2 Flying Presses and 1 Hi Jump Kick whereas in the 2nd battle it was able to easily overwhelm Talonflame, be competitive with Base Greninja and even tank nearly a dozen hits from Master Ash-Greninja (all of this was before Mega Evolving).

My answer is no. My evidence would be that after Abamasnow beats Talonflame Serena seeming surprised says that “Abamasnow had no trouble keeping up with Talonflame’s speed at all” to which Clemont says “It skillfully used Ice Shard to block any escape routes” and more importantly “This is what Wulfric is like when he is playing for keeps”. The last line indicates that Wulfric is battling at a(n) (unquantifiably) higher lvl with Abamasnow compared to the first battle. A possible counter is that this line meant that Wulfric was battling at a higher lvl with Abamasnow relative to Avalugg since in the 2nd match Avalugg does not use Ice Body; however, taking context into consideration the “playing for keeps” line was given in response to Serena’s surprise regarding Abamasnow which would only be the case if Abamasnow’s battling capabilities didn’t line up with how they were in the first battle ergo Clemont’s statement is in-fact comparing Wulfric’s battling prowess with Abamasnow relative to what it was with Abamasnow in the first battle.

As another piece of evidence I point to the relative visual depiction of Abomasnow’s Ice Shard attack in both battles.

First Battles

Second Battle

Notice that the speed lines that are ever present in the 2nd Ice Shard are seemingly completely absent in the first. The point of such speed lines is to convey greater speed and intensity in the attack ergo we can conclude that the 2nd Ice Shard must have been (unquantifiably) more powerful overall (would deal more damage on impact) giving further support to the claim that Wulfric was battling at a higher lvl with Abamasnow overall in the 2nd battle than in the first. On a final note it should be noted that gym leaders can alter the capabilities of their Pokémon (you could call it a “battle range”) at will in order to provide an appropriate challenge for challengers of different lvls and even attributes like durability (aggregate damage taken per strike) can be altered by how a Pokémon braces itself for an incoming attack.

So do you think my evidence is sufficient to justify my conclusion?

 

[blizzardblaze]

Yeah, Wulfric's Abomasnow clearly was holding back with it's speed and power during the first battle, and didn't even mega evolve to take on Hawlucha easily, and was easily dispatched by Hawlucha by using Flying Presses(which is 4x super effective). It didn't even use it's full speed to avoid any of hawlucha's moves, but it did use it's full speed when it was fresh and hadn't spent any energy in the rematch against Ash when battling his Talonflame, who had a massive type advantage, who had exhausted itself in it's rematch against Avalugg. In that battle against Avalugg, Talonflame had exhausted itself by getting hit by Stone Edge when being a bit reckless, getting hit by Avalanche before using Flame Charge to minimize the damage, and using Flame Charge multiple times to boost it's speed, but Abomasnow had no problems with keeping up with it despite the speed boosts that Talonflame had. Plus, Ice Shard was quick enough to track down Talonflame, and then Abomasnow was quick enough to jump up in the air and finish off Talonflame with a 4x resisted hit from wood hammer.

The difference in skill, speed, and strength was also shown quite clearly from the first and second battle, as Abomasnow battled quite evenly against Greninja(post training after the first battle) and tank some hits before Greninja went into the mastered Ash Greninja form. After that, Abomasnow couldn't really keep up with ash Greninja's speed unlike Talonflame, so it had to Mega Evolve to get up to a similar level as Ash Greninja. All in all, I think that Genaller's evidence is quite sufficient.