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I think rby articuno is awesome but I'll let other guys handle that.

in advance it used to be really sweet with a zapdos-esque ib/roar/restalk set cause stab ice beam threatens legitimately everything that doesn't get hit by spikes so it makes for some great shuffling. it also utterly shits on swampert/celebi and pressure is also cool. however it's borderline unusable now with the sleep talk nerf as it can't heal consistently and that is obviously an enormous thorn in its side (it does have heal bell which is extremely cool but idt heal bell restalk is too great an idea cause you just get set up on by everything with cm and are free for the steels). so, I think the only thing it's suited to do is something no other ice-type can:

Articuno @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 88 HP / 252 SpA / 168 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Agility
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power Fire/Grass
- Roar / Heal Bell

speed outruns bulky cele/zap/subcune/endpert/jolly ddtar pre-agil. anyway the idea is ohkoing spike-immune offensive pokes (mence aero zap gon; you don't ohko gar but you certainly smack it and it doesn't really hurt you too bad in return) makes endgame sweeps a lot easier since all (yes, all) the counters are going to be eaten by spikes so you really better get those layers down. also nice against claydol who wants to threaten your whole spikes operation.

fun calcs vs zap in particular:
252+ SpA Articuno Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 300-354 (93.4 - 110.2%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Articuno Ice Beam vs. 120 HP / 0 SpD Zapdos: 300-354 (85.4 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Articuno Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos: 214-252 (55.8 - 65.7%)
0 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 88 HP / 0 SpD Articuno: 205-242 (59.7 - 70.5%)
252 SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 88 HP / 0 SpD Articuno: 251-296 (73.1 - 86.2%)
252+ SpA Zapdos Thunderbolt vs. 88 HP / 0 SpD Articuno: 275-324 (80.1 - 94.4%) - absolutely minuscule chance in sand!!!!!!

and another big one: 0 SpA Gengar Thunderbolt vs. 88 HP / 0 SpD Articuno: 142-168 (41.3 - 48.9%)

hp fire if you wanna hit jira/meta (and Technically regice) or grass for suicune/starmie/not getting fucked around by swampert. roar racks up spikes and can be an emergency cm poke check. heal bell can also be used there because it's very unique and we all know how strong toxic is so it depends on team/preference.
 

Jorgen

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RBY: Strongest Blizzard, good at fighting Snorlax & Tauros, decent pivot into EQs aimed at Gengar or Rocks from those two. Blizzard is strong enough to 3HKO paralyzed Alakazams, of course forces Exeggutor to fuck right off, and of course being able to cheese for freeze against Chansey is a big part of its appeal too. Problems are Starmie and, to a greater extent, other Ice types, especially Lapras. Those dudes wall Articuno so hard, which is why it isn't standard despite strongest Blizzard being a huge selling point.

Articuno
-Blizzard
Pick 3 of:
* Agility (for shaking off paras & getting the jump on Tauros)
* Rest (for trying to stall out paralyzed Chanseys when going for freezes)
* Ice Beam (for going for freezes)
* Hyper Beam (for KOing low-health Chanseys)



GSC: It's pretty bad in GSC. Probably its best set is a stupid simple Sleep Talker that tanks Exeggutor like a champ & deals nicely with Nidoking too. But that's outclassed pretty hard by Suicune. A phazing support moveset is useful for mono-ice teams and its place on that gimmick team is probably its only true niche.

Articuno @ Leftovers
- Ice Beam
- Whirlwind
- Toxic / Reflect
- Rest

Hard to find a niche for something with such a sparse movepool, even if it isn't completely terrible per se.
 

Oglemi

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I've personally really liked reflect over either ice beam or rest in the last slot for rby to let it tank through Tauros and snorlax, tho it is hard to get both agility and reflect up effectively without giving the opp too much wiggle room.
 

Bongi

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I'm not really a gen 1-3 player so I can't say much about articuno in those.( I assume that's where it's shines the most with the absent of stealth rocks) However I can see articuno being used in oras with a sub, roost, freeze dry, hp ground set. Articuno can sub on many common oras threats such as Lando, Latis, amoongus, tangrowth, and scarf keld locked into scald. (I'm probably missing a few others) even with the ability to pressure water and ground types articuno extremely poor move pool coupled with horrible typing make it nothing more then a meme :(
 

Fakes

I COULD BE BANNED!
I think GSC Articuno is very underwhelming, since it doesn't pose a threat to anything not weak to Ice, whereas the walling is done much better by other Pokemon with a wider array of uses. Curse is its best (and only) bet to do anything at. The most beneficial outcome in battle is to sacrifice it to Exeggutor's Explosion, thus shielding more value Pokemon from the kill. It might sometimes be threating in the very late stages of the game, assuming Electrics have already run out of Thunder PP and Growl/Charm users are dead.


Articuno @ Leftovers
- Curse
- Hidden Power [Flying] / Frustration / Double-Edge
- Rest
- Whirlwind / Sleep Talk

HP Flying comes at the price of 16 HP, but is generally slightly stronger than Frustration against anything not Electric type in addition to hitting Exeggutor and Heracross super effectively. The Normal type moves have higher PP (power in Double-Edge's case), but fails to even touch Ghosts. Since opposing Roar/Whirlwind users are rarely the only things stoping Articuno from being a threat, Sleep Talk is another option that makes walling much easier.


ADV Articuno was severely nerved by the fixing of the Sleep Talk glitch 2 years ago, but can wake itself from its self-inflicted sleep with Heal Bell at the expense of its previous fourth move. Aside from BKC's Agility variant, this is likely Articuno only other option.


Articuno @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 248 SDef / 8 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Heal Bell
- Rest
- Roar / Haze / Reflect / Toxic / Ice Beam
- Sleep Talk

Roar diminishes both the loss of momentum caused by Articuno's passivity and the threat posed by most Calm Mind users. Haze is even better at dealing with the likes of Suicune or Celebi due to Pressure, especially if they are the last Pokemon, but forfeits ANY momentum. Reflect softens the impact of physical assault on Articuno's successor in battle, while Toxic generally scares things off and is its best shot at actually causing damage. Ice Beam makes Salamence, Aerodactyl, Zapdos and Flygon think twice about switching in and allows it to go toe-to-toe with Gengar. This kind of Articuno is best used with multiple Heal Bell benefiaries: Snorlax, Suicune, Zapdos, Skarmory, Swampert, ...
 

pasy_g

Banned deucer.
ADV OU
Articuno @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 104 SDef / 152 Spd
Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk)
- Hail
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic

Great defensive stats along with Pressure and miniscule offensive presence make Articuno a decent option for Toxic stalling. However, unlike Swampert arschloch and Skarmory Articuno won't regain any HP in Sand Stream which severly diminishes its longevity. Hail removes that problem and deals additional passive damage to all of OU, except for Regice and Cloyster. Unlike Sand Stream, Hail wears off after 5 turns, granting it decent synergy with Pokémon known to struggle in sand, such as Snorlax or Suicune.
 
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Sorry RBYers, but I'm gonna start using some GSC 'mons as well. We're getting low on good 1st gen choices and I'd like to save some for later weeks still~

And what better way to start GSC than with its best starter? Feraligatr's always lived on the outskirts of OU, never getting high enough in usage to be a top dog but always still lurking in the depths. Stiff competition is probably the biggest thing that's held it back, though a few tools have always kept it niche. So, what can it pull off that other offensive Water-types can't? Do any Pokemon make particularly good partners for it? From GSC to ORAS, how do we best utilize Feraligatr in OU?

 

Empo

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ORAS

@ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Ice Punch
- Crunch / Superpower

Thanks to its hidden ability Sheer Force, Feraligatr gets benefit from Life Orb without taking any recoil while getting the moves boosted, and can proceed to do some powerful damages with some nice moves; EVs are really standard, you can slash Jolly nature with the Adamant one, but it's your call, since with 280 speed (Jolly) you don't outpace lots of stuff, basically the 262 speed pkmns such as Breloom or Bisharp, while with Admant you rely on hitting harder. Moveset is really standard, because people usually don't run movesets different from this, probably Swords Dance over Dragon Dance, which is also an option. I like Dance more overall though, also because, even if Feraligatr is kind of slow considered all the other pkmn, you can outpace Manectric / Lopunny at +1, which is really nice. If you ever attempt to run the SD set, I highly suggest to run Aqua Jet as well, so you got a cool priority that combined with +2 Atk (after SD), can threaten a lot of stuff. Talking about the Dance set, Waterfall is the stab, Ice Punch is to nuke especially Dragon and Grass types which are both walled by its stab. Crunch is cool as well, I reckon this one can be slashed with superpower though, again, it's your call if you want to use Feraligatr.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
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GSC

Feraligatr @ Leftovers
- Hydro Pump / Surf
- Blizzard / Ice Beam
- Earthquake
- Screech

Gatr isn't great. It suffers from the starter's curse: good all-around stats (good for in-game playthroughs) but nothing stellar to let it stand out. Add to it the physical lean of its stat distribution and its lack of physical STAB and you've got it coming up short in loads of ways, just like the 10 character limit came up short for its name.

That said, a mixed Screech set is probably Gatr's best bet. Unfortunately, he gets direct competition from Golduck in this role, who gets access to Cross Chop (in addition to DynamicPunch, which Gatr also gets access to) and a much better SpA stat to work with. Gatr's Special Attack comes up short in a lot of ways (fun fact: Surf and Ice Beam only have 25% chances of 3HKOing Skarm & Zapdos, respectively, assuming you stay in to hit all 3 consecutively to boot), so the inaccurate Pump / Blizzard are first slashes to hit more feasible KO thresholds (especially important for things that are immune to Spikes). The physical move to be paired with Screech is Earthquake, the main thing Gatr gets that sets it apart from Golduck (in addition to its better Attack & Defense). EQ can beat up Raikou & Gengar on the switch (important checks that Golduck can struggle to deal with) in addition to being able to muscle past Suicunes and Vaporeons after a Screech. Pair it with Spikes to make the most of the opponent switching around to reset their Defense.
 

Foggi

Banned deucer.


Feraligatr @ Mystic Water/Wacan Berry
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 136 HP / 252 Atk / 120 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Aqua Jet

In DPP Gatr is not an amazing but it has some cool niches like access to SD + Stab Ajet aswell as having good bulk for sd sweeper and it can easily punch holes in teams if it gets the right support or it can break things up for other sweepers like Gyarados wich is in my opinion Gatr's best partner because they break eachother's counters. The item is up to person's preference but i like mystic water more because gatr lives tbolt from offensive starmie without big problems even without wacan berry and you can simply aqua jet weakened electric types after you set up your SD.
 

Century Express

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Personally, i'd only use SD Gatr in ORAS. I've had good experience with both sets (DD and SD), but even with a better firepower than Gyarados, DD Gatr lacks important resists / immunities (Gyarados at least can Intimidate Zard X Exca and resist Keld's both STABs), while Gatr provides 0 role compression. Unlike Azumarill and Crawdaunt, SD Gatr can punish regen Grass-mons more easily AND outpace Rotom-W / Zapdos / Tankchomp / slower Mew variants, which is nasty.

Super underrated 'mon, too bad it's very hard to justify its place in a serious team (usually i'd stick with Manaphy or Suicune to break some specific bulkier teams).
 

Oglemi

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Reviving this because I miss this thread, don't hate me Jellicent/Lutra



Starting off with the big bad mama herself, Kangaskhan.


With only slightly lesser stats than its main competition in Snorlax throughout the generations, Kangaskhan has seen competitive use here and there but to a very small degree, discounting Mega Kangaskhan of course. There's little wrong with the kangaroo, but overall its stats, typing and movepool are just not quite there, but maybe somebody knows something everybody else doesn't?

Remember to focus on trying to make it work in the OU environment!

 

Century Express

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GSC


Kangaskhan @ Leftovers
Ability: Early Bird
Happiness: 0
- Curse
- Frustration | Return
- Roar
- Substitute

Unlike Snorlax, Kangaskhan doesn't have an exceptional stat distribution nor a brutal movepool, but Roar is one of the main perks Kangaskhan has over Snorlax. Thanks to Roar and Substitute, you can turn supposed "checks" into complete fodders. Thanks to GSC mechanics, Roar (after a Curse) outslows phazers such as Skarmory and Tyranitar, while Substitute prevents Miltank and Umbreon from walling you, making it an dangerous (albeit risky) pick against defensive teams relying on the Skarmory + Growler / Charmer combo as their Snorlax answers (think of structures like Raikou + Snorlax + Starmie + Miltank + Skarmory + Marowak, or double electric teams featuring Umbreon + Skarmory + Cloyster as their defensive backbone). With Substitute, you can do some RNG fishing against non-Thunderbolt electrics, since HP Ice can't break Kangaskhan's substitute.

Unfortunately Kangaskhan can't do anything to punish Gengar | Missy switch-ins besides phazing, so pairing it with a Pursuit-user, and packing some resistances for Kanga's flaws (Double Normal + Tyranitar or Umbreon stacks a huge weakness against Machamp and Tyranitar) is a good starting point.
 
RBY


Kangaskhan (F)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Earthquake
- Counter

Nearly everything that Kangaskhan can do, Tauros can do better. Even Kangaskhan's Surf is a 2HKO on Golem and Rhydon much like Tauros's Blizzard already is. The big thing Kang can do to differentiate itself to these Normals is Counter opposing Tauros and Snorlax thanks to its nice physical defense. Earthquake lets you hit Gengar, Golem, and Rhydon for super effective damage.
 
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1533415324691.png

Kangaskhan @ Leftovers
Trait: Early Bird
EVs: 252 HP / 168 Def / 88 SDef
Careful Nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Rest
- Body Slam
- Disable
- Seismic Toss

whoa mama. a serious tank and 1v1 monster. this set abuses paralysis in tandem with 1 turn rests. seismic toss for damage. disable is a neat little trick to shut down strong stabs and cbers used to break it. 55% accuracy in gen 3 tho. it can also stop recovers. the special defense avoids modest zap 2hko and the rest is pumped into physical. normal typing is strong unless you're playing in the future of adv. pair with ttar and spikes for gengar and switch stalling.
 
RBY


Kangaskhan (F)
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Surf / Earthquake
- Counter

Nearly everything that Kangaskhan can do, Tauros can do better. Even Kangaskhan's Surf is a 2HKO on Golem and Rhydon much like Tauros's Blizzard already is. The big thing Kang can do to differentiate itself to these Normals is Counter opposing Tauros and Snorlax thanks to its nice physical defense. Your choice between Surf or Earthquake is based on whether you want to be walled by Golem and Rhydon or Gengar.
Kangaskhan needs earthquake to cover both Rhydon/Golem and Gengar, and also to test for counter on things like Chansey and Snorlax. Surf should be slashed with counter, since that is the only move it can replace.
 
Tbh I don't see any appeal behind Surf Khan, as Counter is its defining niche, and its one advantage in the Tauros matchup. Without that Tauros simply beats you 1v1, with the only consolation being that they'll have wasted half their Tauros' bulk on Khan rather than something more important. Idk, to me any prospective lategame sweeper needs to have some kind of edge in the Tauros matchup
 
Tbh I don't see any appeal behind Surf Khan, as Counter is its defining niche, and its one advantage in the Tauros matchup. Without that Tauros simply beats you 1v1, with the only consolation being that they'll have wasted half their Tauros' bulk on Khan rather than something more important. Idk, to me any prospective lategame sweeper needs to have some kind of edge in the Tauros matchup
Yeah, decided to take Surf off. At least EQ still hits Golem/Rhydon for decent damage on the switch.
 

Oglemi

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Next on the list: Machamp



Machamp's viability has fluctuated pretty violently over the years. I think most of us know what it does in GSC and DPP, but if people have cool sets they want to share there, I think we would love to see them. What I'm really interested in is the other generations though, is there a way to make a mon with 130 Atk work in every generation?

 

Machamp
- Submission
- Body Slam
- Hyper Beam
- Counter

teal discussed machamp paired with egg lead vs opps who predominantly use t-wave psychic leads + reflect normals during wcop. the idea here is that your egg lead will sleep the psychic in exchange for para, which 1) sleeps a machamp check 2) lets your para'd egg soft check opposing egg. machamp abuses the shit out of chansey and lax when it comes in vs recovery and won't struggle to generate a free turn. body slam for catching lastmon psychics and eggs, counter for general utility. ultimately, teal discarded this concept because of submission's unreliability and large recoil, but 130 atk + STAB that hits 3/4 big 4 super-effectively is nothing to scoff at.


in gsc, most champ options are already known, but i want to mention HP [Flying] + curse and 4 atks wallbreaker (cross / fire blast / rock slide / hidden power). HP [Flying] lets champ beat heracross and maintains a SE hit against egg, which is nice on some teams / vs certain opponents but you need to make sure to cover gengar well. dropping curse for a coverage move can be useful on a lot of offenses, especially those with para support; it breaks extremely well with opposing zapdos out of the picture and catches a lot of opponents by surprise.


Machamp @ Choice Band
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Cross Chop
- Focus Punch
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Ghost]

champ is kinda interesting in adv; the fat fighter / lefties attacker roles are done better by hariyama and it faces stiff competition from both cham and hera as a cb breaker. however, it has some unique traits that make it usable. 55 base speed is just enough to outspeed standard ddtar, it has much better bulk / resists than cham / hera respectively (can actually be a soft ttar check, secondary rock resist), and has just as much power as the other cb breakers with STAB cross chop (slightly stronger than cb medi brick break). in most scenarios, the speed and versatility of the other fighters is generally preferred to machamp, but there are some usable teams out there with this set.
 
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Enigami was experimenting with RBY Champ a while back and piqued my interest (although I never actually got around to trying it) by running Low Kick, the rationale being that the lack of recoil (also reliability) helped offset the reduced power (relative to Submission) vs Chansey and Lax, which I think is pretty cool, and in keeping with the theme of this thread.

Otherwise I can't think of much to discuss here. Champ has a really obvious niche, it's just it can't execute it because lol Psychics, also its bulk is merely average.
 

Triangles

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Machamp @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 176 Atk / 80 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 30 SpD / 30 Spe
- Bulk Up
- Cross Chop
- Rock Slide
- Hidden Power [Bug]

RSE Champ is best Bulking Up IMO. It's a bit quicker naturally than its closest relative, Hariyama, which means that you can outpace shit like Pert including Perts that creep quite a bit, non fast (by fast I mean skarm speed) Bliss, slow TTars, e.g. Pursuit or bulky Focus 4 attacks, and also Claydol, Quiet Mix Meta, and -Speed Cloys. The spread here hits 165 Speed which nicely creeps everything mentioned just there, all of which is sitting somewhere between the 140s and the low 160s. Max HP allows you to do stuff like soak multiple Tar hits, and tank special hits from Gar, Cele, Rachi, Mixmence, and Zap better. Rest goes into ATk to hit a jump point which is also an even number for boosting at +1. The speed gives it a niche over slowass Yama, while the bulk gives it slight preference over Hera and other fighters. As for the set, Bug is better than Ghost for the purpose of shitting on P Def Celebi. Typicallly I'd be thinking of Champ as an option for a strong breaker mon and secondary Tar stop on a heavy Magless physical offense. However Champ is not too good on the majority of teams as it's often gonna end up eating some fat hits because it's still pretty slow and Fighting is not a great defensive typing because it doesn't resist much.
ZF mentioned Yama as a better option for this kind of a thick boy fighter set because of its higher natural bulk and movepool versatility with Knock Off and WW. He may well be right, but I leave you with this question - Why not just run both?
 
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Oglemi

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How about this, a triple threat? Let's talk about Porygon, Porygon2, and Porygon-Z!



Porygon is one of those Pokemon with a nice movepool and ability, but underwhelming stats overall that has left it out of most serious OU teams. P2 has seen some usage through the years in ADV, but outside of that, seeing any of these three is a rarity in competitive play outside of UU in P2's case (and LC in Porygon's case). What do you guys think of the wacky duck?

 
ADV


Porygon2 @ Leftovers
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 HP / 148 Def / 108 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Recover
- Thunder Wave / Toxic

Porygon2's really cool in ADV. Trace allows it to wall Flygon and Claydol with Levitate and dish heavy damage back with Ice Beam, wall the Volt/Water Absorb mons like Jolteon, Lanturn, and Vaporeon, respectively, and most importantly, it counter-traps Dugtrio with a Traced Arena Trap. Pokemon that are vulnerable to HP Bug Dugtrio trapping, such as Celebi, Tyranitar, and Magneton make for excellent partners to this set as they appreciate P2's ability to turn Arena Trap against opposing Dugtrio.

The EVs in bulk are meant to avoid the 2HKO from Choice Band Dugtrio's Earthquake after Leftovers, and the rest goes to Special Attack investment and a modest nature to enable P2 to reliably take out the threats it wants to check.
 
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RBY


Porygon
-Ice Beam
-Tri Attack / Reflect / Thunderbolt / Flash
-Thunder Wave
-Recover

My favorite gimmickmon in RBY. Started using it with Flash under the alt Cancerduck with the idea of capitalizing on Snorlax's inability to break it 1v1 without Amnesia+Special Attack (Snorlax is usually AoA or Reflect) and annoying people with 3 things prone to obnoxious hax (RBY freeze, accuracy drops and paralysis), and it turned out to be surprisingly a lot better than one would expect. Big wall of text here, Porygon's my pet project in RBY and got lots of info to share.

Porygon is a highly specialized anti-meta Pokemon. Chansey almost completely outclasses it, and Sharpen is way too slow with too low of an initial Attack stat to try and utilize its one advantage over Chansey to sweep. With an Attack stat of 60 and Special stat of 75, it is very passive. It makes sense it was completely overlooked.

I found the key to using Porygon is using both it and Chansey together. It has one important purpose: wall Snorlax (provided it isn't AmnesiaLax) and prevent it from gaining momentum. Switching into and stalling Snorlax is a job Chansey can already do (though Porygon is slightly better at it because of a eensy bit of more physical bulk), but Chansey is often taking paralysis from sponging Special Attackers, which normally gives Snorlax the ability to come in and press the offensive.

With Porygon fresh in the back, typical Snorlaxes (all Snorlaxes but the uncommon Amnesia set) get nothing done even after Chansey can no longer wall it. Aerodactyl was typically used for this in the past, but has the problems of inviting Pokemon to come in freely on Rest (never a good thing in RBY OU), being incapable of KOing ReflectLax, and losing to Surf or the now fairly common Ice Beam Reflect Lax, whereas Porygon can eventually beat Snorlax with a freeze with Ice Beam, has Thunder Wave to cripple everything else that isn't a Ground-type (which Ice Beam takes care of), and Recover to ensure it remains healthy without giving the opponent momentum.

32 Recover PP means Pory can outlast Snorlax's attacks, and Ice Beam means even if Lax has Rest, it'll eventually get frozen if it sticks around and tries to duke it out. As a bonus, unparalyzed Porygon can switch into and wall paralyzed Tauros the same as unparalyzed Chansey can, so if the opponent is too bold with their Tauros or is forced to 1v1 a healthy Porygon (and Porygon's playstyle should have him in that state if things haven't gone bad), odds are the king of RBY is getting beaten by a pawn.

Ice Beam, Thunder Wave and Recover are mandatory. Ice Beam to make up for its lack of offensive power with the ability to freeze and to keep Rhydon and Golem from switching in freely, Thunder Wave lets it beat Tauros 1v1 and contribute in general by crippling things it can't deal with itself, and Recover naturally is needed for its defensive role. Tri Attack gives Porygon a bit more bite especially against Alakazam, Jynx and Chansey, Reflect can reinforce its physical walling capabilities, Thunderbolt helps against the Water-types that resist Ice Beam and don't take very much damage from Tri Attack, and Flash is for annoying the crap out of your opponent (more seriously, it annoys setup Pokemon like AmnesiaLax, helps to wall things out and can be used to reapply paralysis/burn stat drops -- can also help if the opponent brings Body Slam+Ice Beam Reflect Lax to gain advantage in a freeze war)

I've been experimenting with unorthodox defense-oriented teams in RBY OU for a while now centered around Starmie/Chansey/Porygon/Rhydon instead of the usual S4 to moderate success. Starmie and Chansey wall things on the Special side, Rhydon prevents the most common mixed attackers (Zapdos / Jolteon) from getting anything done while providing a means to push damage through and sweep if enough things are weakened/paralyzed enough, and Porygon ruins the typical Snorlax's day by taking over Snorlax walling duties after Chansey inevitably takes paralysis from being the Special sponge that it is. Last two slots are typically devoted to helping against Tauros and Rhydon. Tauros and Rhydon can't come in for free (3/4 of the core carry Thunder Wave for Tauros who is walled by Porygon/unpara'd Chansey if it takes paralysis, and all of them hit Rhydon for super effective damage) but are very scary for the core to switch in to, so it really helps to shore up those areas as much as possible. More Psychic resists help too to relieve Psychic pressure. Of course, Porygon can also simply be used as the 6th in a typical Lead+S4+Filler team, but that slot is usually used for hard hitters and Porygon hitting like a wet noodle against many Pokemon is sure to disappoint some.

tl;dr RBY Porygon is an odd duck that shines best when your opponent is running typical teams with a non Amnesia Snorlax which it walls, and is a key Pokemon in making a heavily defensive playstyle in RBY work. Just keep it shielded from status atleast until it's no longer needed for Snorlax/potential Tauros duties, cross your fingers and hope your opponent is bringing Pory's favorite Lax sets to abuse, and don't use it without Chansey.
 
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