OU RBY OU Discussion Thread

[unban1hkos]

Alright I suppose I was wrong in calling the 1hko ban a mod, but what I’m trying to say is compromises have already been made. Like the examples you gave of frz and dsinc mods. That line has already been crossed so saying that rby tries to be accurate to cart even though it isn’t seems odd to me.
You mentioned cartridge tours, I personally am unaware of how relevant cartridge is. I was under the assumption that virtually everything was done over sims but either way again that line has been crossed.

I agree that para is more common than the ghost or flying type but just because those paralyzed Pokémon don’t have to worry about frz doesn’t make them all safe they’re just opened up to new threats. Also in a scenario where 1hkos are an option ghost and flying types may be valued more than they are currently to compensate.

your point on Pokémon that Lear both types of 1hkos I have to say that as mentioned earlier picking up one 1hko can be restrictive to a move set, picking up two 1hkos would undoubtedly be restrictive. I was thinking of using a Tauros moveset as an example but I think Tauros may not even want to use 1hkos, blizzard and earthquake may just prove to be better options. Anyways what is important to take away from the interactive argument is that there is counterplay. It exists, there are checks, if there is interaction than you can’t objectively say it’s nothing but rng and disregard it.

And again I’ve suggested a limit to 1 per player per game so this idea that everyone is going to get swept is not what I’m taking about.

I do agree that a frozen Pokémon can be useful, I would say that taking an explosion or piviting in between attacks is a more relevant example. But this does not invalidatethe Point I’ve made about detrimental situation where you are force to take an attack on switch or give the opponent an opportunity to heal/set up. - and just briefly how realistic of an Option is thawing? Not even fire spin from moltres the most viable Pokémon to consistently carry fire types (I believe) thaws. In my experience a frz is a dead poke.

 

[Sevi 7]

Sorry, but what is the point of adding OHKO moves to the meta? What benefits do they add? It seems like you’re asking to add them because they exist. If they weren’t in the game already I don’t know anyone who would think that adding them would be a good idea at all.

 

[unban1hkos]

Sorry, but what is the point of adding OHKO moves to the meta? What benefits do they add? It seems like you’re asking to add them because they exist. If they weren’t in the game already I don’t know anyone who would think that adding them would be a good idea at all.

As I’ve pointed out multiple times this is not a singular argument in favor of unbanning 1hkos but rather a consideration of why frz is deemed acceptable but 1hkos are not. I really don’t want to repeat myself but you asked. The general reasoning is that 1hkos are not completely luck based there is built in interaction in the form of type checks and speed checks both things that the countering player can control. And as for potential benefits I’ve also touched on this but Again it would be to introduce new Pokémon into the format like a lead dugtrio or new approaches in threatening things that set up and sit like reflect snorlax. Thanks for not reading my posts.

 

[Acetylaldehyde]

to simplify an answer to your primary question:
FRZ is allowed because it is a secondary effect that happens when using most ice-type moves. It's an inseparable (w/o mods) part of a central part of the game.
OHKOs are banned because they do exactly one thing, and that one thing has been agreed to not add significant value to the game. Further, we can easily ban them w/o mods.

I'll reiterate Pea's point from here: if you want to change the status quo, you'll need to convince the community the game will be better for it (which will be hard to do, but likening it to frz is not an effective strategy). I'll not be engaging in this further, but you do you.

 

[bdt2002]

"I don't even know how OHKO moves work in RBY but let me tell you why I think they're competitive"

Can we not do this annoying discussion for the 30th time, peasounay was completely correct and there's nothing else to discuss. This would exclusively make RBY less competitive and less fun

Edit: Fixed the quote command, I think

Playing devil’s advocate in spite of saying I think OHKO moves are fine, I will iterate that I think Gen 1 (RBY) OU is in a relatively good spot right now, and that major changes like these, even if I would welcome them, probably don’t need to happen. Realistically there’s plenty of negatives from doing such a thing regardless of the amount of positives. I will also iterate that I haven’t been here on this thread for very long so I’m not caught up on what conversations would be taking place before I got here. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused. You guys should be good to continue your discussions now.

Another edit: In my defense I did say in advance my opinions would be horrible :)

 

[unban1hkos]

Hey look like I said I have no expectations of change, I just felt this was worth bringing up as it’s something I do believe, and I suppose I’m glad I at least got to voice my opinions even if to a tuff crowd. Last thing I’ll say before I leave you all alone is that the reasoning for not being able to mod when you already have doesn’t check out imo.

 

[NotVeryCake]

Who so you use CloyDon (Laxless) into? I've seen it about and tinkered about around with it but I still don't know what it does well into

 

[Amaranth]

Who so you use CloyDon (Laxless) into? I've seen it about and tinkered about around with it but I still don't know what it does well into

dropping lax only ever makes sense into scouts that are heavy on lax hate - if you're playing against super high icelax, backgar, and/or counter chansey, you may enjoy not having a snorlax and instead having mons that dunk on those sets (rhydon can use backgar and stoss counter twave chansey for free entry, cloy's safe vs icelax)

i'm not personally a big fan in general, but there exist scouts where it makes some sense

 

[Sevi 7]

Not really sure where to post this, but the ladder got updated so that those without GXE are removed. Enjoy actually seeing yourself climb again.

 

[yeetmaster443]

Does anyone have any advice for how to get involved with tournaments to get better at RBY? I want to try to mix in some tournament play with my usual laddering.

Looking through threads about RBYPL V and Rising Stars II kinda confused me about the format of these things. Some questions I have:

- Are team tournaments a good way to start?
- Over how long of a period do tournaments usually last and what is the time commitment like? Would I be able to choose times that work for me to play my matches (I work full time)
- Any recommendations for stuff coming up that would be good for a first tournament?

Thanks so much!

 

[Sabelette]

- Are team tournaments a good way to start?

No, things like team tournaments and Rising Stars aren't good entry points and are for mid-range to advanced players. If you haven't played individual tournaments before you are almost certainly not going to get drafted for a team tournament or invited to an invitational like Rising Stars. What you want to look for is non-invitational tournaments like the seasonals, RBY Cup, etc. as well as play games with better players such as via the RBY Discord.

- Over how long of a period do tournaments usually last and what is the time commitment like? Would I be able to choose times that work for me to play my matches (I work full time)

Most individual tournaments you play 1 game per week and you schedule it with your opponent, so yes, you can give a set of times that work for you and coordinate with your opponent. Most individual tournaments are either single elimination (you play till you lose a round) or double elimination (you play till 2 losses). As a newer player you can probably expect to play 1-4 rounds of a tournament but that increases the better you get.

- Any recommendations for stuff coming up that would be good for a first tournament?

You're kind of in the team tournament season because RBYPL is the big RBY team tournament, but there's always RBY Fight Club for quicker, smaller tournaments year-round, I'd recommend that and also RBY Discord.

 

[yeetmaster443]

No, things like team tournaments and Rising Stars aren't good entry points and are for mid-range to advanced players. If you haven't played individual tournaments before you are almost certainly not going to get drafted for a team tournament or invited to an invitational like Rising Stars. What you want to look for is non-invitational tournaments like the seasonals, RBY Cup, etc. as well as play games with better players such as via the RBY Discord.


Most individual tournaments you play 1 game per week and you schedule it with your opponent, so yes, you can give a set of times that work for you and coordinate with your opponent. Most individual tournaments are either single elimination (you play till you lose a round) or double elimination (you play till 2 losses). As a newer player you can probably expect to play 1-4 rounds of a tournament but that increases the better you get.



You're kind of in the team tournament season because RBYPL is the big RBY team tournament, but there's always RBY Fight Club for quicker, smaller tournaments year-round, I'd recommend that and also RBY Discord.

Appreciate all the info and thanks for the suggestions!

 

[idkyyy]

As a ladder grunt that probably never plays a tournament

Generally the further away from the cartridges the less good things are
Sleep and freeze clause are fine because you could imagine them being like "house rules". Both rules are necessary because otherwise sleep is devastating and freeze could be devastating.
Freeze is fine as is, because no-one seems to run "freeze teams". It's more of a slight buff to a couple of ice types (eg Articuno sweeping ability is slightly enhanced, because you could crit or freeze something). Freeze teams are too inconsistent.
OHKO for me is kinda borderline. It allows situations where, say the game comes down to a 1v1 Tauros v Tauros, your opponent has 2% HP you have 100%, your opponent has a 15% chance to win (50% speed tie, then 30% chance of fissure landing). To be in a winning position like that, you can say that you earnt that by playing better, but it can just be taken away from you in a single move. Is that situation fair ? If the last mon is Dugtrio with fissure its basically one player wins at least 30% of the time ?
OHKO potential users Dugtrio already has like 23% chance at crit EQ which is significantly more consistent than OHKO. Dugtrio can't take hits though which prevents you from switching it in early. If we assume chip damage already, fissures payoff is marginally better than crit EQ.
Tauros looses coverage. Drop blizzard and you struggle more against Zapdos, drop EQ and suddenly Gengar is a problem.
Rapidash is notable for agility and 105 speed. It also can often die in 2 hits itself.
A lot of other pokemon at that point will struggle to take hits, leaving OHKO teams better than freeze teams (30% is higher than 10%). But if OHKO teams are good enough to use and by their own nature are inconsistent, then we get more randomness thrown into results, which is probably not a good outcome.

I do wish dig/fly were patched (like, turn one max evasion, turn two hit or turn one invulnerable, turn two move always completes but has higher chance to miss if paralyzed or something). There are mons that would appreciate it.
A couple of fire types that could then scare off ghosts - Arcanine, Ninetales
A couple of water types that could then scare off electrics- Blastoise, Golduck (lol), technically slowbro but who is doing that.
Ratitcate has a (finishing) option against ghosts
Aerodactyl, Articuno and Moltres appreciate a flying stab. Makes switching chansey in less brain dead of an option (because if you click fly when they switch, chansey takes significant damage, unless you double switch but then you are just giving up free damage).
Most imporantly Raichu can run fly/submission/surf/tbolt so it can hit bug/fighting/grass/ice/normal/rock/fire/ground/flying/water for super effective damage.

 

[The Faz]

As a ladder grunt that probably never plays a tournament

Generally the further away from the cartridges the less good things are
Sleep and freeze clause are fine because you could imagine them being like "house rules". Both rules are necessary because otherwise sleep is devastating and freeze could be devastating.

I do wish dig/fly were patched (like, turn one max evasion, turn two hit or turn one invulnerable, turn two move always completes but has higher chance to miss if paralyzed or something). There are mons that would appreciate it.

I don't know what you mean by cartridge or house rules.
Banning moves like OHKO or Dig/Fly are like house rules - "Don't bring X move to the tournament"
Modding the game so specific moves or mechanics work differently isn't a house rule, it's a mod. You can't do these changes by everyone just agreeing to do it; you can't reasonably house rule freeze clause. I am aware of recreating the battle up until that point, but that's not really something you would actually do in a irl cart tournament.

Weird post

 

[idkyyy]

I mean if you played freeze clause without mods surely if it occurred would you not just restart an entirely new battle at that point ? I mean if I was organiser I would play it like that and as a player just accept that as the best solution. Same goes for dig/fly glitch.

 

[Amaranth]

really enjoying the cloy + don or bro + don experimentations going around lately
it feels like a strong concrete punish to the zap+don heavy scouts (like 30%+ zapdos and 30%+ rhydon in the same scout), which are otherwise quite hard to exploit. i don't love playing into the rock/paper/scissors of electric / ground / water, so i'm happy that you are now allowed to play rock paper AND scissors all at once if you really want to

a few key points for people looking to try this style (dropping lax, and sometimes also tauros, to fit rhydon + cloy/bro):
you have no snorlax. enemy lax and chansey will both be trickier than usual to handle for this reason, but you do have tools.
handling lax: any refrest lax can be handled with the combo of cloyster (eq/ib laxes) + rhydon (hb/boom). getting a twave on lax will always be more comfortable, but you should be OK with them two. rest rhydon is recommended in this sense, but not strictly necessary - maybe you can fit a counter chansey for the mono normal laxes to relieve stress from rhydon. 4atk lax from your opponent can be rather annoying, it's probably one of the harder points to shore up without your own reflax. it can't heal so it's generally limited in how much it can do, but it's hard to stop it from trading for 1.5 mons in many situations, and if you don't know what the opp has in the back you can pick the wrong 1.5 mons to give away and get yourself in huge trouble
handling chansey: mono stoss chansey is ripe for rhydon abuse, and the threat of pp stall with your own chansey should be leveraged against boltbeam. another tool to pressure chansey is highly recommended, whether that's a zam or a rest tauros or something else
handling enemy psychics: this is another spot that can be exploitable, as cloy+don both melt to basically all zams and all starmies from a defensive perspective (slowbro is not much better other than exploiting psyblizz mie). you're going to want to make sure you have some options to protect chansey from the exeggutor explosions - that means something else that can switch on eggy reliably. if you have time to spread paralysis to set up your cloy+don for success it's all good, but if your chansey is removed quickly before it can do that, you will have trouble against the fast psychics - they hit you hard and they move before you do. don't be afraid to leverage your tauros to take them down if you have to.

the fundamental core is essentially just (bro or cloy) + rhydon + chansey, and it generally holds everything as long as the rest of your team accounts for the issues described above. you have 3 slots to cover the weakness to enemy psychics, to enemy chansey, to fit a sleeper (unless you want to run solo sing chansey, which is definitely possible), and ideally to run a tauros (it's very very good) - there are tons of combinations that work so you can have a lot of fun

these structures are a good idea when:
* opponent overly gimps their own lax to defend against yours - they won't have much use for reflect rest against no snorlax. heavy usage of low pressure snorlax sets (near 100% reflect+rest, and high presence of eq or ib 4ths) can be an indicator you should load this kind of style
* opponent loads a lot of zapdos. this team has a rhydon, and getting doubled on by tauros is not as threatening as usual because you also back it up with a cloy/bro that can hard switch relatively comfortably, so the mu vs most zap teams is crushing. this is another huge use case for a structure like this.
* opponent does not load a lot of back starmie. this is especially an important indicator for cloyster variants, but slowbro also wants to look at starmie usages a lot (heavy psyblizz mie in the back can be exploited)
* opponent loads a lot of rhydon. cloyster generally has a field day, and you will usually carry another strong rhydon answer or two in your remaining slots (starmie egg tauros and so on). this is not a super super positive mu but definitely leans in favor IMO

these structures are a bad idea when:
* opponent loads a lot of non-reflect snorlax. you will have a very hard time stopping a lax with complete coverage from dismantling significant parts of your core before going down
* opponent loads a lot of back starmie, especially thunderbolt starmie, and especially in combination with exeggutor - you usually only have a chansey for this
* opponent loads a lot of alakazam - it can be really really scary as twave + go lax is not an available line, and depending on the rest of your team you will likely have very little tools to stop it
* opponent has a gardening hobby (not a particularly serious consideration given the current extremely low usage of vic/venu, but the team is really slow and really weak to grass)
* opponent likes lapras (i think he's kind of back but that's a different discussion to have)

these structures CAN be a good idea when:
* opponent leads a lot of lead jynx+gengar - you can afford to load lead tauros and cover these two match ups pretty dominantly in a way that nothing else really does. regular structures generally cannot afford lead tauros, this is a pretty unique way to be able to fit it and find nice positive MUs
* opponent leads almost exclusively zam/mie - you can also go the exact opposite way and lead sing chansey in a lot of these structures, and teams like these are more than happy to get an easy early sleep because they don't usually have great lines to get it later



i think these structures have a chance to swing the pendulum back on a lot of recent trends from the last couple years - zapdos has been quite dominant in 2024, and rhydons are naturally high as a counter attempt. alakazam has fallen out of favor for quite a lot of players, and is a massive pain to handle without a snorlax to bully it. 4atk lax is seen as a relatively niche option. as long as these things are true, this style should be able to survive and do quite well.

i'd also like to give credit where it's due - Excal has been spearheading laxless cloydon for much longer than anyone else in the top level scene, and Gefährlicher Random's recent brodon and consequent variants (probably with help from Serpi too i'm guessing) have really shown its consistency and flexibility. epic stuff, well done

 

[BeeOrSomething]

Random teams I used throughout the year + miscellaneous thoughts
notes: not ordered, a couple pastes have minor changes I have made since I used them that I feel are better

vs Luthier, RBY Cup Round 5

https://pokepast.es/a2506d0d40232a44
Cloy Don team with Alakazam as the special wall rather than Chansey and Zapdos as the lead. Zap + Cloy + Don covers a ton of matchups and Alakazam is more powerful than Chansey, though you could certainly use Chansey instead like Amaranth has done.

vs M Dragon, RBY Cup Round 6

https://pokepast.es/b9f35fe5ad6f286b
Zap lead + Egg Zam is a solid combo I built with a few times since it's quite good and the last is flexible (the above team is also one though with Cloy Don as well). This one has Dragonite because I wanted to use it since it seemed to match fairly well into the meta. AmneLax because it pairs well with Dnite for muscling through other Lax and forcing para on the special attackers. When I played M Dragon I used Agility, but since then I swapped it for twave.


https://pokepast.es/27dca807d78487a9
The Hypno escapades. I wanted to try out Hypno because I thought it was cool and could do something. It's similar to Jynx but it has twave in exchange for losing to Jynx and taking more from ice moves. I started with the core of Gar + Hypno + Zapdos and went from there. AmneLax to punish other Snorlax and to try and muscle through Starmie without exploding. 4 attacks Egg because it helps against Rhydon and I didn't feel like I needed a status move.

vs Eeveeto, RBY Cup Semifinals

https://pokepast.es/67f773ded287187a
Pretty much the exact same deal as the above team but with Cloyster instead of Exeggutor. This was the first version of the team until shortly after I also figured Egg would work pretty well too, which is the version I used against M Dragon. Against Eeveeto I chose Cloyster because of his penchant for gimmicks and cause I wanted to try it out.

vs Gastlies, RBY Summer Seasonal Round 6

https://pokepast.es/975d04df233727ec
Bit of a gimmicky team that just goes full in on enabling an ice-type takeover. Jynx to sleep lead Starmie. Cloyster to punish slept Starmie or to explode on it. Alakazam for special walling, Zapdos backup, and trying to force status on other Starmie. AmneLax to try and force paralysis on Starmie and to kill shit. Articuno as the ultimate end game mon for after the 3 other pokemon with ice moves have done their stuff.

vs Emma, RoAPL Week 6

https://pokepast.es/735d52fe4a00a7ec
Bit of an unusual variation on Mie Egg Don since I thought it would be good but I didn't want to use the standard version which I had been using all year (including multiple times earlier in the tour). Single sleep variant with Stun Rest Egg and Sing Ice Chansey to sit on things and Boom Lax to explode Tauros.


https://pokepast.es/f0287bee14a86ac7
I really wanted to use Porygon because I thought it was extremely funny and Emma had been using a ton of Boom and Eq RefLax, so I did. Fairly normal Zam Egg + Big 3 core for good offense and a reliable early game. Tbolt as filler move on Pory cause never know when it might be needed for Starmie or Cloyster, and I had Rest on Lax so it didn't matter too much if I threw it into Chansey (hence why no Double-Edge). The Lax set is the real fun part. Counter deals a big blow to Tauros and other Lax without having to explode, but if needed I had boom anyways for bull as well as for Zapdos, and then Rest last for Chansey.

vs Isza, RBYPL Week 2

https://pokepast.es/3fe6a4e7fd9cf151
Zap lead + Egg Zam team featuring Articuno as the cleaner and this time with Counter PhysLax rather than Amnesia because of Tauros. Not too much special on this team asides from the Reflect on Cuno, which I want to highlight. I think it's a great option on standard Cuno that can sometimes really save your ass against an exploding Snorlax or a Tauros clicking Hyper Beam, but Ice Beam would work fine too. Using Cloyster over Cuno also works great and is sometimes better, and I have done that before. I've also used Jolt over Zap and it works fine too.


https://pokepast.es/4d0d6240766c465c
Variation of Jynx Egg Mie with Counter Chansey and BoomLax to fuck up Snorlax for Tauros and Starmie and Rest Boom Egg to sit on non-Blizz Starmie, block Rhydon for Chansey and Snorlax, and blow up other Chansey so that BB Mie can have an easy time cleaning.

vs 48, RBYPL Week 4

https://pokepast.es/5bd2eb4c8372453a
Similar to the Zap lead one I used against Luthier. I had built this team prior to RBYPL and I thought it was pretty cool. Gengar makes the team much better against Jynx leads and provides an extra explosion, which Alakazam likes.


https://pokepast.es/f7a9f0f75702ef35
Really awesome variant of Gar Egg Lap I built for 48. Essentially, the idea is that when playing against Jynx leads, you can explode your Gengar and then bring in Lapras to use Sing in case they have an Exeggutor they're sending out, with Lapras actually outspeeding their Egg unlike your own Egg. Reflect Chansey helps against Zapdos and Snorlax, the latter being especially important if you play a Jynx team since you're exploding your Gengar. Since I was using Gengar and Reflect Chansey, I figured I could get away with a cool lax set, so I want with Amnesia Lax since it could get through Reflect Lax and it would have an easier time getting paralysis onto Starmie for Egg and Lap. Lapras also helps with covering Cloyster.

vs Aliss, RBYPL Week 7 & vs Cake, RBY Circuit Champs Round 1

https://pokepast.es/d1d14925521db60b
Heavily inspired by the team Serpi used against me during week 6. I wanted to try out Cloy Don again since Aliss was using a ton of Zapdos, but with BlizzBolt mie for her relatively low Chansey use. Threw Tauros in lead cause I wanted to save Starmie and Chansey for the back, and Tauros lead is something I've never used before and matches well into sleep leads and Alakazam.

vs Aliss, RBYPL Week 7

https://pokepast.es/968ca304109fece6
Inspired by a different team Serpi used against me in week 6. Very similar to the one above but with Slowbro rather than Cloyster and with Chansey in the lead and Tauros in the back. Slowbro can be a really potent cleaner or it can be an enabler of BlizzBolt Mie by forcing Lax to attack it and breaking through Chansey. Didn’t actually get to use this one though cause I had this slated for game 3 and I won in 2.

vs Torchic, RBY Summer Seasonal Round 4

https://pokepast.es/4f4a857df288916a
Team that hits really hard with special attacks and Hyper Lax. Counter Chansey is great here and the team makes very effective use of it. Zam can clean well after Chansey gets exploded, frozen, or other and it helps vs Zapdos.

vs Nicole, RoAPL Week 5 & vs Sceptross, RBYPL Round 1 Tiebreakers

https://pokepast.es/10d0ef2596586eba
I ripped this from a replay where I saw Yazu using it to demolish a Mie Egg Don because it did it pretty effortlessly, and it turns out it's also pretty good against Mie Egg Zap too. Both Nicole and Sceptross are fairly notorious for using these two teams a ton, so I used it against both when I played them. It's pretty cool, and the team overall enables Articuno very well and it feels like a great use for the mon.

Miscellaneous - Ctown/Ctown-inspired teams that I've used a lot and really like

https://pokepast.es/fe72de15ffaea164
One of my favorite teams and imo the best variation of Gar Egg Cloy. Quad boom is an extremely threatening chain to deal with and the team naturally screws over most things Rhydon. The booms also help a ton against Zapdos. The real sauce here is the Sing Chansey. It helps a ton in the opening lines so that you don't get destroyed by any slightly lucky PsyBlizz Starmie or Alakazam. In other lead matchups where you can safely get sleep off with Gar or Egg, Sing can put in huge work late game when they've let their sleep sack (and ideally Chansey too) die because they don't think you have another sleep move after Gar and Egg die or get slept.


https://pokepast.es/9c34f1cd8c211a3f
第二十五夜 built this one for Ctown (who had only ever used Jynx Mie Zam if he brought Jynx) and showed it to me cause he thought it was good. He was right. The standard version with BBChans RefLax is also fine but this one really brings out the offense. Very classic combo of Cloyster and RefChans (that I believe was popular around 2020-2021 or so?) which work really well together and PhysLax is like a beautiful bowtie that really makes for a great core of 3. Jynx is also great to enable Cloyster if you land into a Starmie lead, and Zapdos is a very strong late game powerhouse against most teams that are more resilient against Cloyster.


https://pokepast.es/d922bfc20cc76f41
Now, of course, we can't have Ctown without his signature version of Zam Egg Zap, Reflect Chansey + PhysLax. This team just works so great and so cohesively, and I've used it a shitload. Zam Egg Zap + Big 3 is probably the best 6 in the meta, or at least was shortly ago. Zam starts it off by spamming paralysis and even threatening to break through Chansey, and then Reflect Chansey carries on the twave spamming duties. Reflect Chansey's also great here for forcing out Snorlax and/or Rhydon, and it can force paralysis on and rests from the former too, which is great for Zapdos and your own Snorlax. It can also give Egg chances to get into the game, and with smart play you can force Sleep on something or snipe a kill with Hyper Beam, or you can just explode. Zapdos + Snorlax + Tauros is also just a really powerful combo for late in the game when you've spread paralysis and it's a ton of fun.

Miscellaneous - 2 other teams I want to talk about shortly

https://pokepast.es/543126c113ea5c63
I have a few versions of Jynx Egg Zap in my builder but this is by far the one I've brought the most and maybe even the only one I've actually used in tour? Unsure. Anyways, I'm a big fan of Counter Chansey on Jynx teams since Snorlax is a mild and inescapable issue, and it works great to help Eq Lax actually do things (and Tauros) in Rhydon matchups where Zapdos struggles. Drain Egg helps provide a threat to back Mie and is good against Rhydon matchups.


https://pokepast.es/c502ae01684e388d
Great hybrid build between Jynx Cloy and Egg Cloy, complete with Ctown-style RefChans PhysLax. Not too much to say that I haven't already about the other similarly built teams, but unfortunately, I've barely used this in tour. Think it's an awesome team though.

A couple final random thoughts:
- Gengar should be BoltShade unless you have a really good reason not to. Egg is too important and Tbolt makes Gar a real mon for later in the game if it doesn't get slept or die right away in the lead
- BBMie is pretty great rn which I wasn't expecting since I used to hate it
- Properly built Cloy Don teams are quite cool and good
- Egg is fantastic and I think I used it like 85-90% of the time roughly
- Reflect and Counter Chansey are underused
- Cloyster on big 3 is definitely good and should be used
- Mie Egg Don is the only reliably good Don + Big 3 team
- Zapdos is amazing
- Back Zam gets too much hate

final s/o's to Amaranth and 第二十五夜 once again.

 

[Peasounay]

Hi, I've been checking out the various OU analyses, and I think some of them are a bit outdated. After a quick scan, here's what I've observed:

• Articuno: this analysis feels outdated. Ice Beam should not be slashed with any other move. Double-Edge is bad because using it even once vs anything makes Tauros much more likely to kill with x2 Body Slam + Hyper Beam. There are other instances where this matters too, though I can't recall them right now. Rest is useless too since Articuno's job isn't to wall anything. Overall, I think this analysis could be improved, and I may take it on at some point.
• Dragonite: The analysis already states that it’s outdated (written in 2012), but I’d add that TWave + Agility is among the common sets now, so Hyper Beam could be slashed alongside one of these.
• Golem: The analysis really oversells Golem. At this point, it's well known that Golem isn’t good and should only be used for very specific reasons beyond just "it can explode." A revamp would be helpful, with a clearer comparison to Rhydon, maybe with bullet points and damage calculations. That said, I'm not sure who's going to feel motivated enough to tackle Golem of all things.
• Rhydon: While Rock Slide is still the most common 4th move, I think Rest and Leer are common enough to warrant more than just a mention in OO, especially compared to what other Pokemon have listed in that section (more on that later).
• Slowbro: I haven’t used Slowbro much recently, but can we really justify using Psychic over Surf in the current meta? It might help against Cloyster and Victreebel, but you’re generally trying to avoid those matchups anyway. Psychic is better against Starmie too, but since you’re likely to face Starmie, it’s probably better to plan for it some other way rather than giving up Surf. I feel like you lose too much by dropping Surf, but I’m genuinely curious about other opinions.
• Tauros: Rest is common enough that it could be added to the Other Options section, especially given that Stomp and Double-Edge are mentioned.
• Zapdos: It’s never mentionned as a potential lead.

Unfortunately, now that the holidays are over, I won’t be able to help much with this. However, after going through these analyses, I have a few questions:

- Do we really need to fully revamp an analysis when we want to make updates? For example, Rhydon seems like it just needs a few quick changes. What’s the process for that?
- Could we display the date an alaysis was written? Seems quite important.
- Do we know how often these analyses are actually read? It’s hard to gauge how much newer players rely on them, especially given the team threads and other massive ressources available these days. Obviously, we need to keep the analyses up-to-date, but knowing how much they’re consulted could help prioritizing efforts. Updating them all on a regular basis requires quite a bit of work.
- For a single Pokemon, there are sometimes multiple analyses across different tiers. Wouldn't it make sense to default to the OU analysis when someone lands on a Pokemon page? This could help new players avoid getting confused and ensure they don’t end up using the wrong set.
- Along the same lines, would it be possible to implement a tier filter on the dex pages? This could make it easier to find the relevant analysis without scrolling through a bunch of NFEs when you're specifically looking for OU.
- What’s the policy on listing Other Options? Many of the moves presented are downright bad (Mimic Jynx, Light Screen Zapdos, Mega Kick and Double-Edge Snorlax). It’s fine if the intent is to immediately explain why a move that could look appealing isn’t used, but if we’re listing potential viable options, a lot of these should probably be scrapped. For example, there’s no point in mentioning Double-Edge or Sky Attack Moltres—if you’re going to drop one of its four standard moves, you might as well not run Moltres at all.

By the way, I’m not sure if this is the right thread for these questions, but I wasn’t sure where else to post. Thanks!

 

[BeeOrSomething]

Hi, I've been checking out the various OU analyses, and I think some of them are a bit outdated. After a quick scan, here's what I've observed:

• Articuno: this analysis feels outdated. Ice Beam should not be slashed with any other move. Double-Edge is bad because using it even once vs anything makes Tauros much more likely to kill with x2 Body Slam + Hyper Beam. There are other instances where this matters too, though I can't recall them right now. Rest is useless too since Articuno's job isn't to wall anything. Overall, I think this analysis could be improved, and I may take it on at some point.
• Dragonite: The analysis already states that it’s outdated (written in 2012), but I’d add that TWave + Agility is among the common sets now, so Hyper Beam could be slashed alongside one of these.
• Golem: The analysis really oversells Golem. At this point, it's well known that Golem isn’t good and should only be used for very specific reasons beyond just "it can explode." A revamp would be helpful, with a clearer comparison to Rhydon, maybe with bullet points and damage calculations. That said, I'm not sure who's going to feel motivated enough to tackle Golem of all things.
• Rhydon: While Rock Slide is still the most common 4th move, I think Rest and Leer are common enough to warrant more than just a mention in OO, especially compared to what other Pokemon have listed in that section (more on that later).
• Slowbro: I haven’t used Slowbro much recently, but can we really justify using Psychic over Surf in the current meta? It might help against Cloyster and Victreebel, but you’re generally trying to avoid those matchups anyway. Psychic is better against Starmie too, but since you’re likely to face Starmie, it’s probably better to plan for it some other way rather than giving up Surf. I feel like you lose too much by dropping Surf, but I’m genuinely curious about other opinions.
• Tauros: Rest is common enough that it could be added to the Other Options section, especially given that Stomp and Double-Edge are mentioned.
• Zapdos: It’s never mentionned as a potential lead.

Unfortunately, now that the holidays are over, I won’t be able to help much with this. However, after going through these analyses, I have a few questions:

- Do we really need to fully revamp an analysis when we want to make updates? For example, Rhydon seems like it just needs a few quick changes. What’s the process for that?
- Could we display the date an alaysis was written? Seems quite important.
- Do we know how often these analyses are actually read? It’s hard to gauge how much newer players rely on them, especially given the team threads and other massive ressources available these days. Obviously, we need to keep the analyses up-to-date, but knowing how much they’re consulted could help prioritizing efforts. Updating them all on a regular basis requires quite a bit of work.
- For a single Pokemon, there are sometimes multiple analyses across different tiers. Wouldn't it make sense to default to the OU analysis when someone lands on a Pokemon page? This could help new players avoid getting confused and ensure they don’t end up using the wrong set.
- Along the same lines, would it be possible to implement a tier filter on the dex pages? This could make it easier to find the relevant analysis without scrolling through a bunch of NFEs when you're specifically looking for OU.
- What’s the policy on listing Other Options? Many of the moves presented are downright bad (Mimic Jynx, Light Screen Zapdos, Mega Kick and Double-Edge Snorlax). It’s fine if the intent is to immediately explain why a move that could look appealing isn’t used, but if we’re listing potential viable options, a lot of these should probably be scrapped. For example, there’s no point in mentioning Double-Edge or Sky Attack Moltres—if you’re going to drop one of its four standard moves, you might as well not run Moltres at all.

By the way, I’m not sure if this is the right thread for these questions, but I wasn’t sure where else to post. Thanks!

there's a feature on analysis pages for badged users where people can submit CMS requests for small edits/changes to get approved by a site content moderator, with regards to the part about rhydon/small changes as well as removing certain other options

 

[Sabelette]

- Do we really need to fully revamp an analysis when we want to make updates? For example, Rhydon seems like it just needs a few quick changes. What’s the process for that?

No, we should be able to get you access to suggest changes that someone can merge (that someone is probably Amaranth for anything OU unless he wants to delegate)

- Could we display the date an alaysis was written? Seems quite important.

Not presently but I can ask about this in C&C and see if that change can be implemented.

- Do we know how often these analyses are actually read? It’s hard to gauge how much newer players rely on them, especially given the team threads and other massive ressources available these days. Obviously, we need to keep the analyses up-to-date, but knowing how much they’re consulted could help prioritizing efforts. Updating them all on a regular basis requires quite a bit of work.

They’re read enough that I see lots of new people asking why people run X when Y is on the analysis, so they’re clearly reaching some people. As with everything I think diversifying resources reaches the most people, but we definitely should trend toward shorter analyses IMO. They also shouldn’t need frequent updates, ideally, we don’t have to catch every micro-nuance of the metagame, just the broad concepts.

- For a single Pokemon, there are sometimes multiple analyses across different tiers. Wouldn't it make sense to default to the OU analysis when someone lands on a Pokemon page? This could help new players avoid getting confused and ensure they don’t end up using the wrong set.

Well, no, it probably makes the most sense to default to the tier the Pokémon is actually ranked in, even if it has a niche in OU, so that people don’t get confused about where the Pokémon actually is ranked.

- Along the same lines, would it be possible to implement a tier filter on the dex pages? This could make it easier to find the relevant analysis without scrolling through a bunch of NFEs when you're specifically looking for OU.

This already exists, go to “formats” and click on OU and you’ll only see Pokémon with OU analyses.

- What’s the policy on listing Other Options? Many of the moves presented are downright bad (Mimic Jynx, Light Screen Zapdos, Mega Kick and Double-Edge Snorlax). It’s fine if the intent is to immediately explain why a move that could look appealing isn’t used, but if we’re listing potential viable options, a lot of these should probably be scrapped. For example, there’s no point in mentioning Double-Edge or Sky Attack Moltres—if you’re going to drop one of its four standard moves, you might as well not run Moltres at all.

Most of the terrible OOs exist on very old analyses and should definitely be replaced. I think traditionally we always write something there even if the Pokémon doesn’t have another option that’s useful but I do think it’s fine to just write “X move might look appealing but in this case it’s better to just use another Pokémon.

 

[Amaranth]

Yes if you guys want to submit small edits of some kind I will happily review and approve them without having to do full rewrites. As long as you have a badge (or special permission) you can make these submissions, then you can notify me on forums or discord and I'll merge your suggestions to the main article

 

[idkyyy]

I use these analysis as my jumping on point for working out what I want to do with a pokemon. For example when I saw rest listed as an option for Articuno I did a ladder run with it as a conventional sweeper then another with I guess "Bulky-Cuno". Yesterday I used RNG and landed on Persian to do ladder runs with and part of the analysis says to run it with Tauros so I started my team build with that in mind.

I think if the format was like "This is the classic set, any options listed here can be run in a tournament" then leave the other options for like "You can run these sets on the ladder and they do stuff but in a tournament setting it's probably not good"

So for Articuno we might have something like
General overview
Standard set or sets (In this case probably Blizzard, Agility, some combination of Sky Attack/Ice Beam/Double Edge/Hyper Beam) (Sweeper) (Some discussion of the nicheness of each of the 3rd/4th moves)
Other Options ("Bulky-birbo" - Reflect/Rest/Blizzard/4th attacking move - On its own Rest without reflect leaves Articuno liable to be KO'd while it is resting, while reflect without rest will generally be a wasted move as you will be unlikely to survive enough for it to pay off. The combination of the two moves results in a Tauros wall, which can situationally turn a game around. This set relies heavily on your opponent keeping physical attackers for the end game (Tauros) and you may find yourself making unfavourable early game trades to remove Articuno checks (Chansey, Starmie) etc. This set generally makes Articunos good matchups better but bad matchups worse and because the bad matchups are worse is not recommended for high level play.

And on Slowbro - I've always found the special drops against Chansey and Starmie to be more useful than the slightly higher damage from surf. Reducing the damage they deal to you is nice. As is being able to quickly kill a razor leaf user (even if that's niche). It belongs .... somewhere ....

 

[nicole7735]

Other Options ("Bulky-birbo" - Reflect/Rest/Blizzard/4th attacking move

This is pretty tangential but I think standard rest cuno should probably be ref rest agi ib as it's the one most able to actually take over endgames. Without agility paralysis becomes a pretty easy way to deal with cuno, and ice beam is a natural fit since the pp is relevant for a mon aiming to stick around and take on multiple foes. Cuno in general is pretty unexplored, I think the refrest set has merit in high level play but it's ofc hard for analyses to accurately reflect the meta when discussing such mons, and analyses also don't have to be perfect.

 

[Amaranth]

Another blatant thing is that nobody ever mentioned freeze fishing after sleep as anything that's remotely problematic or even any different than it's always used to be. If anything, the one really viable strategy to play for sleep then freeze - which was jynx into mono ice beam lax + chans bull mie jolt, Nails farmed kids for years using this - went massively down in viability as a result of higher Cloy popularity. The entire discussion revolves around current sleep meta encouraging ice moves to fly before any sleep moves are clicked, which is new and high variance, not much what happens after sleep lands because it doesn't take a genius to tell that para spreading is more consistent from that point onwards in a vast majority of situations

Also the "people talk about old meta highly because it's old" thing doesn't really resonate with my perception of things at all, maybe if you spoke to people who quit in the last couple years you'd get that sentiment, but I feel like most people are happy to embrace meta developments in this thread. Personally speaking my desire to innovate and bring RBY closer to a fully optimized state is a huge reason why I keep playing, and I know for a fact a lot of other people here are similarly forward thinking

So yeah I feel like you guys defending things that nobody (except maybe samy0w) is attacking

love the shoutout thanks buddy