Battle Palace Guide

In the Battle Palace your Pokémon fight on their own: you can’t choose moves, and each Pokémon’s nature decides whether it attacks, defends or uses support moves. Palace Maven Spenser is the 21st battle for the silver Spirits Symbol and the 42nd for the gold. Winning here is about building Pokémon whose nature and moves agree with each other.

How the Battle Palace works

You enter three Pokémon, choose Level 50 or Open Level and Single or Double Battles, and fight seven battles per round. Once a battle starts you don’t give commands. Your Pokémon picks its own moves every turn.

How it chooses:

1. Every move falls into one of three groups. Attack is any damaging move (plus anything not in the other groups). Defense is moves that target the user, its side or the whole field: Protect, Recover, Rest, Swords Dance, Calm Mind, Reflect, Substitute, weather moves and so on. Support is non-damaging moves aimed at the opponent, such as Toxic, Thunder Wave, Hypnosis, Leech Seed and Taunt, plus Counter and Mirror Coat.
2. Each turn, the nature picks a group. Every nature has its own odds for Attack, Defense and Support.
3. The odds change below half HP. Some natures turn aggressive when hurt, others turn defensive or start spamming support moves. The game shows a message when this happens.
4. If the Pokémon has no move in the chosen group, it uses a random move instead, but there’s a 50% chance it “appears incapable of using its power” and wastes the turn.

That last rule is the one that loses streaks. An all-attack Pokémon with a nature that likes Support will skip turns.

The Battle Palace natures explainer has the full table for all 25 natures.

Rules and bans

Three different Pokémon holding different items, and no Mew, Mewtwo, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza, Jirachi, Deoxys or Eggs.

Palace Maven Spenser

Spenser is the last battle of your 3rd round (battle 21) and 6th round (battle 42), in Single Battles only.

	Silver (battle 21)	Gold (battle 42)
1	Crobat (BrightPowder), Adamant	Arcanine (White Herb), Hasty
2	Slaking (Scope Lens), Hardy	Slaking (Scope Lens), Hardy
3	Lapras (Quick Claw), Quiet	Suicune (King’s Rock), Hasty

• Silver: Crobat is a nuisance with Confuse Ray, Double Team and Toxic alongside Fly. Slaking hits hard with Earthquake, Shadow Ball and Brick Break but also has Swagger. Lapras has Ice Beam, Confuse Ray, Protect and the one-hit KO move Horn Drill.
• Gold: Arcanine has Overheat and ExtremeSpeed, Slaking adds Hyper Beam and Yawn, and Suicune uses Blizzard, Surf and Bite with a King’s Rock for flinches. Both Hasty natures lean hard into attacking once they’re below half HP.

Slaking’s Truant ability makes it skip every other turn, which is worth planning around: a bulky Pokémon can take the hit and punish the rest turn. Full sets and counters will be on the Palace Maven Spenser page.

Strategy: choosing natures and moves

The best natures for the Palace

Natures that attack reliably whether healthy or hurt are the safest choices:

Nature	Attack % (healthy)	Attack % (below half HP)	Notes
Hasty	58%	88%	Very aggressive when hurt
Hardy	61%	61%	Steady, no change
Docile, Naive, Quiet, Quirky	56%	56%	Steady, no change
Adamant	38%	70%	Cautious early, aggressive late
Sassy	88%	22%	Strong early, turns to Support when hurt
Gentle	18%	90%	Rarely attacks until hurt

For a sweeper, Hasty and Hardy are excellent: they attack most of the time and don’t fall apart when hurt. For a defensive Pokémon, pick a nature that favours Defense, such as Bashful (58% Defense at any HP) or Calm (50%, rising to 62% when hurt), and give it recovery moves.

Neutral natures (Hardy, Docile, Serious, Bashful, Quirky) don’t boost any stat, but in the Palace they can still beat a “better” nature that wastes turns.

Fill every group your nature uses

Since a turn can be wasted when the chosen group is empty:

• If a nature has a real chance of picking Defense, give the Pokémon at least one Defense move: Protect, Substitute, Rest or a setup move.
• If it picks Support often, give it a useful Support move such as Toxic, Thunder Wave or Leech Seed.
• Only an all-attack moveset is safe on a nature that almost never picks the other groups.

Building the team

• Pokémon that are good at everything they’ll do. A Pokémon whose attacks, recovery and status moves are all useful copes with any choice.
• Avoid situational moves. Moves like Dream Eater, Focus Punch or Counter get used at bad times when the Pokémon is picking for itself.
• Bulk matters. You can’t switch out of bad matchups, so Pokémon need to survive the turns their nature wastes.

Common mistakes

1. Using your Battle Tower team unchanged. Good competitive natures like Modest or Jolly can be poor Palace natures. Check the Attack odds first.
2. All-attack movesets on Support-leaning natures. Jolly picks Support 60% of the time when healthy; with no Support move, half of those turns can be wasted.
3. Relying on setup. You can’t choose when to Swords Dance or Calm Mind, and the AI may never use the boost well.
4. Ignoring one-hit KO moves. Spenser’s silver Lapras has Horn Drill. A Sturdy Pokémon or a fast knockout removes the risk.
5. Forgetting the HP switch. A Sassy Pokémon is a great attacker until it drops below half HP, then mostly uses Support moves.

BP rewards

BP is paid per round of seven. Spenser’s rounds pay 10 BP extra.

Round (Singles)	1	2	3 (Spenser)	4	5	6 (Spenser)	7	8	9	10
BP	4	4	15	5	6	16	7	7	18	8

Spenser returns every three rounds after the gold. Double Battles pay 5, 5, 6, 6… with no Brain. Both settle at 15 BP per round after round 25 (25 with Spenser). See the Battle Points guide for what to buy.

FAQ

Can I choose moves in the Battle Palace?

No. Your Pokémon chooses its own move each turn based on its nature, and the odds change when it drops to half HP or below.

What’s the best nature for the Battle Palace?

For attackers, Hasty or Hardy. They attack most turns and don’t become passive when hurt. For defensive Pokémon, Bashful or Calm, paired with recovery moves.

Why does my Pokémon sometimes do nothing?

Its nature chose a move group it has no moves in. It then uses a random move, but half the time it wastes the turn instead. Give it at least one move in each group its nature uses.