The first three safaris I hand picked… but then the other three I did random, in the spirit of Nuzlocke challenge. Given that other people handpicked theirs AND used methods to get desired natures, I probably shouldn't have.
What I ended up with
metamario-pikachu,
fana-ninetails
RuNa-ditto
chrissie- jigglypuff
porecelainpot-gogoat,
crossword-pumpkaboo
Ninetails I was lucky enough to get drought on, and it became my main very fast. Its performance has made me like the mon quite a bit more than I used to, and I would probably try to use one in-game in the future... if not for the fact drought is HA and so it won't ever have that wild. I gave it a flame plate, and with weather out it had one turn solar beam, (Great counter to most of the things that went against it) really powerful fire attacks, and I messed with a few other things along the way, eventually giving him a dark attack. Tyranitars and their sandstorm summon, which two different people had, gave me trouble. Early on I had flamethrower AND overheat as moves. Flamethrower for normal use, and overheat when I reeeally needed something dead and was willing to take the stat drop. Later I split the difference and replaced both moves with fireblast, because it split the difference in attack power, and didn't have the stat drop... but it DID only have 85% accuracy. That turned out to be a HUGE mistake, and the lower accuracy turned out to be a huge problem because on at least one occassion, it missed its very first attack, died its first turn, and then my whole game was thrown off. The timing on the weather screwed me a bit. I would sometimes switch it out, then plan to switch it back in and reactivate the weather... but do it a little too soon. Maybe if it had sunny day I could have controlled that a bit better.
The pikachu actually came with a light ball. That impressed the heck out of me, so I opted to keep it as a Pikachu instead of evolving it. But, fast though it may have been, it was a fragile little glass canon that could not take a hit. At all. From anything. And even with lightball doubling its attack, I still don't think it was able to actually kill anything. Raichu might have been able to tank a hit and been more useful overall. (Funny thing about doubling the stat... that's AMAZING at level 100... but at 50 it merely catches it up to other things. Azumarill's Huge Power is the same way.) I also misjudged its speed in at least one fight... it should have been faster than the opponent... but I hadn't realized dragon dance raises attack AND speed. Raichu could have maaybe tanked the one hit, but probably not.
Gogoat and pumpkaboo well, were both grass types. I tried to create synergy with the ninetail's sunny day. Gogoat had synthesis to heal a ton, and pumpkaboo I gave a fire attack. Synergy didn't work out well though, because the sun just didn't last long enough and ninetails tended to keep the momentum of its own weather.. and generally when I was switching from ninetails it wasn't to one of them. Gogoat tanked pretty well with absorb and leftovers though, and did great once he was setup... but one game I was just sort of trapped in by layers of spikes so was hesitant to switch out, and completely suffered against Skarmory. I kept increasing its attack, but it just could not do ANY damage, even after like 6 boosts.
Ditto. I was lucky enough to get imposter ditto. However, initially I just had powder on it, which I thought increased Ditto's speed. It does... but not the transformed version. So I grinded for a choice scarf and had that by my fourth battle, and Ditto worked okay then, but well, I didn't know the enemy move sets as well as I maybe should have, so locked into one choice of move I didn't always make the best choice.
Wigglypuff. I... just didn't know what to do with it.Its stats suck, trademark sing has awful accuracy, its most prominent use as a Wish passer is breeding move only, Tried playing around with hyper beam, and the only fairy move it had access to... but even against dragons Puff's stats just weren't there. Smogon doesn't even have an entry for it, they just say "Use clefable instead, its better in every way."
I had a massive weakness against spikes, because I had no rapid spinner... and against poison, as three of my mons were weak to it, and aside from goat, I had no real way of healing after it was inflicted. (Also real problems with steel types. Even through I had two monsters with fire moves.)
Overall, Ninetails was amazing, often taking three mons by itself. Ditto worked okay once I got him the item, but I'd already lost three matches by then. Gogoat did reasonably well, but if I'd realized sooner his synergy wasn't working I would have replaced synthesis with something else and gotten him more coverage of some sort.
My other three mons were pretty much worthless. If I were to do it again, I'd evolve the pikachu, try something completely different with the pumpkaboo (Maybe leech seed/substitute/toxic stall) and... I don't know what I could do to make Wigglytuff better. Its stats were awful, its moveset is awful, and without breeding it couldn't make use of the one really good thing it had, HP. I could have maybe done a sleeptalk set with it?