Thanks
Ika Ika Musume! That certainly covers the basics.
I probably made myself sound like a complete noob - I'm not, I can make a standard team and (sometimes) have an elo of over 1500. But I feel very limited when making a team - like you said it's basically a standard lead, big four and something in 6th. I'd like to be more creative. I've been beaten by teams consisting entirely of UU pokemon, and while that may be a reflection of how skilled my opponent is (or how unskilled I am) I'm certain there are ways to play gen 1 using unorthodox teams.
For example, when I make a team I try to ensure it's balanced in regards to ice/electrical attacks. I also feel like always using the big 4 can leave my team slow or lacking pokemon with physical attacks.
Is "lead + big four (sometimes minus Exeggutor) + 6th pokemon" the only way to make a team? Are there any unusual strategies I can employ? Any advice/theories/ideas greatly appreciated!
Well the ladder is one thing, but I think there is a large gulf between getting 1500 on ladder which is relatively easy to do for a top player or can be done by a decent player who puts in the games and the highest levels of tournament play. I can't say I am at the highest levels of Tour play, but I can get to the top of the ladder itself relatively easily due to there being quite a lot of bad players using bad teams or not understanding macro there.
I can't talk about UU teams themselves, there are teams in which you can use lesser used pokemon in specific niches. Full UU teams? That sounds like that guy was memeing most likely. If you are losing to a full UU team with a solidly built Big 4 team, unless you got haxed, you probably need to work on your gameplay or you were just playing a god of the game. For a start, UU teams really struggle with Tauros if you are playing it well. The problem with full UU teams and hugely deviant teams is that Snorlax/Chansey/Tauros are probably needed on 99% of teams and your team gets too many holes if you don't have these pokemon.
I'll give specific reasoning why below:
No Snorlax means instantly your team is weak to Chansey, since Snorlax is the number 1 way of pressuring Chansey. Yes you can pressure with Don or Tauros but these things cannot switch into chansey reliably (or at least a lot of chanseys). You can switch in an Alakazam too, but Alakazam invites in Snorlax on potential free turn which you don't want at all. Arguably you are also weak to opposing snorlax, but thats a whole other kettle of fish.
No Chansey means you struggle to status spread since Chansey is the best Paralysis spreader in the game, it is the best Starmie switchin in OU, the safest Chansey switchin, the best Lapras Switchin, the safest psychic switchin, one of the best Lax checks/baits depending on the set etc. To give a common situation that happens in games, you get a special drop on one of your pokemon from Psychic from opposing zam/mie, without chansey you get boned, chansey + zam/mie adds you that security without having to take unrecoverable chip on Egg. Its basically just a safety net and rock.
No Tauros means you are weak to opposing Tauros since you lose the tool of trading tauroses, which makes their tauros an even bigger threat than it already is. There is nothing that can sweep nearly as well as Tauros other than perhaps zapdos in a game where it has great matchup, you can use budgets like a Kang or a Clef but to compare them to the Bull is insulting.
Egg you can just about trade in since losing Egg means you are a bit weaker to Snorlax and to Rhydon and to Tauros, but you need to know what you are doing. Victreebel/Cloyster can fulfill part of those roles, generally you want a Jynx lead or Sing Chansey since you want sleep every team. Victreebel is more about getting in on free turns, pivoting/chipping with Wrap, para spreading, getting to late game razor leaf/wrap sweeps. Cloyster is a decent switchin to Lax/Tauros, still has boom, has clamp as a pivoting/chip tool and spamming blizzard to get freezes is good.
Also of note, certain members of the big 4 keep lesser used pokemon in check (like Chansey helping vs. Moltres/Articuno), tho Alakazam/Starmie are generally the main culprits as to why UU pokemon aren't seen much, due to their blistering speed tiers and the inability of a lot of lower tier mons to really deal with fast psychic/starmie coverage and reliable recovery.
It isn't the only way of making a team for sure, but it is the most consistent, there's good reason for that.
Asides from general RBY stuff, you can aim specifically to freeze opponents pokemon with most pokemon having blizzard/ice beam, boom spam is kinda a thing and getting rid of key pokemon (generally Chansey is the prime target) and then aiming to sweep with an unorthodox threat in the back like Moltres/Articuno. You can run unorthodox SD sweepers like Kingler or Kabutops or sandslash too, generally with sweepers the same Twaving happens but they have a different but inferior matchup spread. Asides from that, you can also technically run stalls with like Porygon as your snorlax check or you can even run wrap spam with multiple wrappers (2-3) in the back. Theres a lot you can do, more than I've mentioned here and a lot of the stuff I mentioned isnt that good tbh, a good place to look for top level unorthodox strats is SPL replays, sometimes you can see interesting stuff there and trends.
