Pokemon Emerald custom starter rules

These will be the official rules until a tool is created that allows runners to change all 3 starters to a custom Pokemon with any gender, ability, nature, and IV spread. If you know of such a tool or have interest in creating one, please contact me!

RULES
- The timer starts at 4:15 on Route 103 in front of the rival. This allows you to save edit your starter and skip early encounters that are usually RNG manipulated away.
- Your starter must be used against every Pokemon defeated during the run.
- You may customize your starter to have any possible gender, ability, nature, and IV spread. Otherwise the Pokemon should be the same as if you encountered a random one at Level 5 (plus 17 experience points and 1 Speed EV).
- You may add any of these Pokemon to your PC storage: Zigzagoon (Level 3-4), Lotad (3-4), Marill (4-5), Abra (7), Taillow (4-8), Wingull (4-5). Add 30 seconds to your final time for each. You may not use these Pokemon in any way before reaching Rustboro City (e.g. no Teleport back to the lab). You may not catch any other Pokemon.
- You may give the rival either gender and any of the three starting Pokemon.
- Glitches are not allowed.
- Items are allowed in battle.
- Using other Pokemon in double battles is allowed (e.g. Shock Wave Castform).
- The timer stops when the screen fades to black in the Hall of Fame, after you defeat Champion.

WHY THESE RULES
- The speedrunning community has talked for years about creating a custom starter ROM for Emerald, but it's never happened. My low-tech solution is to use a save editor and then start runs after the first cutscene.
- Perfect or near-perfect stats are technically possible, but they require RNG manipulations that are tedious and difficult. Hacking perfect stats is a logical solution.
- Most Pokemon can save minutes by catching Marill or Abra, but these Pokemon can only consistently be caught using RNG manipulation. Creating and executing manips is tedious and difficult. Starting with these Pokemon in your PC is a logical solution. Disallowing their use until Rustboro makes sense because that's when most HM friends enter the party in a typical speedrun.
- Catching other Pokemon such as Pelipper would give an advantage to players who grind out tedious and difficult RNG manipulations. These Pokemon are also typically caught to help the main Pokemon win double battles, which goes against the spirit of a solo run.
- Disallowing items in battle means many good Pokemon can't beat certain boss trainers without hax or extensive grinding. Many Pokemon must attempt battles with a very low win rate to go fast. This adds artificial difficulty and is not in the spirit of a speedrun.
- There is little purpose to having Steven as the final boss for a run that allows items. The fight is almost always trivialized with X Defends, X Attacks/Specials, and Full Restores.