Watch for Rolling Rocks: Golem's Fall from RBY OU

By Plague von Karma. Released: 2021/06/15.

Introduction

Ever since the inception of Pokémon Red and Green, Rhydon and Golem have been considered to be the best Rock- and Ground-types in RBY. Their resistances to Normal-type moves—and an outright immunity to Electric-type ones—make them ideal checks for many Pokémon that would otherwise run rampant, such as the mighty Zapdos. Plus, the abundance of Normal-type attacks makes them excellent choices for the purpose of resisting them. As if this wasn't enough, their physical attacking prowess, backed by STAB Earthquake, the strongest physical move in the game with no drawback, gives them strong offensive potential. However, if you've been playing RBY recently, you may have realized that Golem doesn't see much use anymore despite being talked about fairly frequently whenever Rhydon is mentioned, even frequently being referred to as "GolDon" in discussions regarding them. Why is this?

Well, Golem wasn't always in Rhydon's shadow. In fact, at one point in time, it was the other way around. Without further ado, let's have a detailed look at what led to the demise of Golem in RBY OU.

Rhydon VS Golem

Rhydon	Golem

HP: 105	HP: 80
ATK: 130	ATK: 110
DEF: 120	DEF: 130
SPC: 45	SPC: 55
SPE: 40 (7.8% Crit)	SPE: 45 (8.78% Crit)

Before we get into things, let's review the two options that have been used for over two decades.

Generally, the two Rock-types have a simple purpose: prevent Jolteon and Zapdos from making progress, absorb Hyper Beams and Explosions, and hit extremely hard with their physical moves. It's a fairly important role considering how deadly these threats can be. They're also fairly slow and often ask for quite a bit of paralysis support, which is partly why the status is so common in high-level play.

On a surface-level, it's a bit difficult to tell which is better. Rhydon has much higher HP and Attack stats but lower Defense, Special, and Speed stats. This higher Attack stat has some relevance, including very high damage against would-be check Exeggutor, which simply fails to wall it after switching in twice. In addition, while Golem does seem to have the advantage defensively when comparing stats, Rhydon's HP makes it effectively better; considering this through a bit of math, Rhydon is 21.15% bulkier on the physical side and 7.38% bulkier on the special side compared to Golem. As a result, all Golem has is Speed, which does enable it to win one-on-one versus Rhydon, as well as giving it a bit more volatility with a higher critical hit rate: 8.78% chance versus a 7.8% chance. However, the utility outside of this leaves much to be desired outside of simply muscling past other Rhydon.

So, with this in mind, why was Golem used? Well, here's the big reason: Explosion.

Golem's Explosion is the second most powerful physical attack in the game, just behind Snorlax's Self-Destruct, in part due to its halving of Defense during damage calculation. It hits ridiculously hard and is of the few ways to outright OHKO Chansey without boosting your stats. With a critical hit, Golem's Explosion will OHKO almost any Pokémon in the game. Without it, most Pokémon will drop if they've taken any amount of damage. Explosion's utility makes Golem almost incapable of losing utility even when paralyzed; there's nothing saying it can't Explode on any given turn. As a result, in metagames where threats are less bulky, Golem is excellent for one-for-one trades, making it a very common pick on teams that rely more on Explosion. Furthermore, even if the Explosion failed to KO an opposing Pokémon, RBY mechanics make the turn end upon the user fainting, so it's a free switch in for Golem's teammate. This normally meant bringing in Tauros to keep up the pressure with its notoriously strong attacking prowess. Prior to 2016, Golem saw very high usage in major tournaments, with 20.27% usage in SPL VI and 15.25% usage in SPL VII. While it dropped a tad, it was still extremely healthy usage overall, and it didn't seem like it would change.

What changed?

In late 2014, a user by the name of Crystal_ made a startling discovery: in RBY, Pokémon cannot be burned, frozen, or paralyzed by moves of the same type. Due to this rule, for example, Thunderbolt can't paralyze Electric-types. Furthermore, it also means that, famously, Body Slam cannot paralyze Normal-types. It later turned out that this mechanic was intentional because, in Pokémon Stadium 2, Earl's Pokémon Academy has a full article dedicated to announcing the change for Generation 2! So really, you could say this was more of a rediscovery. While initially seen as a small change, it turned out that this would have a formidable impact on the metagame, with it slowly but surely changing to a point where it became much bulkier. Soon enough, Reflect Chansey and Snorlax exploded in usage for their ability to stave off the spread of paralysis from Body Slam and wall physical attackers incredibly well.

Prior to the changes, RBY's metagame was a bit more diverse, with a much larger OU tier. For instance, Pokémon like Articuno, Dragonite, Hypno, Persian, and Tentacruel were OU tiered at certain points in time. Chansey and Snorlax also weren't seen on every team. This naturally meant that the metagame was a lot less bulky, which is what allowed teams featuring Golem to work. The eventual shift to a bulkier metagame, however, meant that staying power became much more favored among players, but this would be a slow metagame shift. Said shift would soon thrust Golem into an odd conundrum: it wants to Explode to take out a big threat and enable its teammates, but it alsoneeds to stick around longer to counter Zapdos and Jolteon when late-game is approaching. Considering the inferior defensive utility of Golem compared to Rhydon, it would soon become clear that Rhydon was simply the better option. Furthermore, Rhydon's offensive potential was much higher, possessing the most powerful Earthquake in the game, which also meant it's the best physical attack without drawbacks or setup. This enabled it to 2HKO Chansey, potentially 3HKO Slowbro, and even have a chance of 2HKOing Starmie. As if its ability to 2HKO non-Reflect Chansey wasn't enough, Rhydon's HP allowed for 103-HP Substitutes, allowing it to tank a Seismic Toss for free and get more hits in. Besides this, a few other niche options such as Leer and Rest were also used effectively by Rhydon. Golem couldn't do any of this, and to make matters worse, it couldn't really adapt to these advancements either. Its Attack made its Earthquake incapable of fulfilling any of the aforementioned KOs, and its HP wasn't high enough to make Substitutes exceeding the 100-HP threshold to handle Seismic Toss. Still, it should be mentioned that despite the changes Crystal_ found, Golem was still considered so relevant over Rhydon, that the latter was considered to be a Pokémon that could drop to UU, and some communities even experimented with this.

The Fall

Considering the prior points, it's worth comparing Rhydon's and Golem's SPL usage stats to show the point where Golem truly fell apart. Initially, the changes to the mechanics were seen as notable, but the full scale was not yet realized until around 18 months later.

Tournament	Rhydon	Golem
SPL VI	6.76%	20.27%
SPL VII	5.08%	15.25%
SPL VIII	18.26%	4.56%
SPL IX	22.05%	1.57%
SPL X	28.88%	2.59%
SPL XI	23.31%	0.85%

SPL VI was in 2015, soon after the discoveries made by Crystal_. At the time, instead of dropping, Golem's usage rose, as Thunder Wave became a more common move than it already was to deal with the rising Normal-type usage, which prevented Body Slam from doing the work for you. Furthermore, players were in a more experimental period, as Tauros was seen as more powerful than ever due to not being affected by Body Slam's paralysis. This was a big point in Golem's favor, as getting Tauros in for free during this period was exceptionally valuable. This meant that Crystal_'s findings did initially hurt Rhydon; previously, it would more frequently fish for paralysis from Body Slam, which could let it gain leverage against many switch-ins. For example, if it was able to paralyze Tauros, it could follow up with a 2HKO with Earthquake. With the change to mechanics, this actually ended up giving Tauros a point of entry, as switching into Body Slam and threatening Rhydon with Blizzard, while risky, could make Rhydon a liability at times. Rhydon's staying power and superior one-on-one matchups had yet to see their full value until SPL VIII in 2017, where Golem's usage dropped off a cliff to a lower rate than even Rhydon's prior usage, swapping positions in a big way. In this year's SPL, SPL XII, Golem saw zero usage for the first time ever.

So, what was the context behind this? At the time, top players were analyzing Rhydon and Golem more to see whether Explosion was actually worth it, mainly on Pokémon Perfect. In these discussions, Rhydon's superior matchups were looked at more, most notably its potential to beat Exeggutor and paralyzed Starmie, and Golem would consistently fall short of such feats. It should be noted that Rhydon had been considered better on teams that didn't want Explosion for a while beforehand, but since the usage of Reflect Normal-types was rising, Explosion's damage mattered less, making these teams less viable. For example, with Reflect up, Golem couldn't OHKO Chansey with Explosion anymore, which was long and far one of its biggest feats. So, as we can see in the table, the answer to the Rhydon versus Golem debate became much clearer, with Golem fading into nearly zero usage. Even less viable Pokémon, like Sandslash and Articuno, were making appearances at higher rates come SPL XI; Golem had been all but forgotten, and soon enough, it dropped to UU, essentially swapping places with Rhydon.

The new discoveries regarding Rhydon's immense power would eventually trickle down to the ladder, where Golem experienced a steady decline.

(Source: PoryDex)

Prior to the decline, we can see Golem occasional experiencing enormous amounts of usage—peaking at 42.9% in June 2016, #6 overall—showing just how much some people valued it back in the day. Then, by June 2018, a year after SPL VIII where the two swapped positions, we see Rhydon quickly begin to overtake Golem in usage. Soon enough, Golem's usage dropped to around 6%, and while it fluctuates, it hasn't risen above 10% in over a year. The era of Golem was over, but its historic relevance—in tournaments and on the ladder alike—cannot be overstated.

Conclusion

The demise of Golem was quite a surprising one for many followers of RBY, but it made more sense as time went on. It eventually became outclassed due to a number of flaws coming back to bite it: worse bulk, worse offensive potential outside of Explosion, and a metagame shift that was not kind to it in the slightest. It was a slow realization, but this metagame advancement can be seen as a historic event in competitive Pokémon as a whole. Golem was used as a metagame staple for over two decades, and to see it finally fall is stunning. RBY OU is not the static tier many mistakenly wanted to believe it was, and metagame shifts continue to happen despite the heavy optimization.

Today, Golem is a rare sight in RBY OU, even in tournament play; it's simply seen as a suboptimal pick unless you seriously need that Explosion. Considering that Snorlax's Self-Destruct is more powerful, even in cases where Golem's Explosion looks enticing, Snorlax can simply compress the role and leave room for the superior Rhydon. Golem has mostly been relegated to teams centered around Explosion, which, in the bulkier metagames of today, are often seen as a stark deviation from the norm.

In more recent times, Golem had major issues adapting to its new home in RBY UU, unlike Rhydon, due to metagame shifts that have occurred there over the years. Its niche was far less relevant, as the Tentacruel-ridden metagame made its typing much less favorable, especially considering how slow it is. It saw minor use on teams that appreciated having the strongest physical attack in the tier—its Explosion—as it can OHKO Tentacruel and Hypno, which are often considered to be among the best threats in the tier. However, even with ample team support, it was often considered to be a liability. While it's recently dropped to the new RBY NU, due to the tier's current instability, its viability remains to be seen.

HTML by Ryota Mitarai.

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