Gen 1 Let's use Venomoth! [UU]

[Plague von Karma]

With the RBY UU Spotlight Ladder coming up this month, I've been working on building a team using one of the lower-ranked UU threats, in part to help with my WIP analysis: Venomoth! Venomoth is an interesting one in UU since it's one of the few Double Powder Pokemon available. A lot of the big sleep-using threats are forced to use Hypnosis, and reducing reliance on it can allow for some interesting set exploration.

The Process

I went into this knowing full-well I was wanting to use Venomoth, so I started with it. It's not the kind of Pokemon you lead off with, as it only really has a good lead matchup with Hypno, which isn't the most common thing in the world. It wasn't staying at the top of the team on PS, that's for sure! The main objective is to build this team with Venomoth's role compression qualities in mind: you don't need Hypnosis here. Paralyzing Dugtrio is great too.

Every UU team needs Tentacruel, without it you're inhibiting yourself. May as well add it now to get a better perspective on what the team will look like. This would later become my lead for the fast Wrap quality, making it easier to get to Venomoth and sleep a threat. Tentacruel fulfils the bulky water niche for the team automatically as well, giving some much-needed defensive qualities as well. Tentacruel is immune to Toxic like Venomoth, but no threat of status makes the game state more questionable when bringing it in on that. I prefer the status threat.

Venomoth works pretty well with Dragonite since it's immune to Toxic and can threaten with status once it switches in. If I sleep something and it stays in, Dragonite can waltz on in and begin AgiliWrap. If the opponent is aware I'm using Dragonite and switches out in fear, that adds pressure for the rest of the game that I can exploit in different ways. If I paralyze something, that reduces the need for Agility later. This core works super nicely, and I enjoy it.

I really like the Tentacruel + Dugtrio core, since Dugtrio is among the best revenge-killers in the tier while Tentacruel can bring it in safely in numerous ways. Be it forcing out threats that can't handle its offense or pivoting it in with Wrap, Tentacruel can easily bring Dugtrio in. Once it's in and the opponent is in range for Earthquake, it's cleanup time. Dugtrio is immune to Thunder Wave too, which considering Venomoth's immunity to Toxic, gives me solid anti-status opportunities that I can profit heavily from.

I was initially considering Kadabra, but Hypno won out as this team needed more defensive backbone. They run virtually the same sets, only Hypno has to use Rest. It's not difficult to wake a Resting Hypno up since switching in on Wrap can let it burn sleep turns, and its bulk is just amazing. Besides that, it absorbs status really well, while Kadabra despises it. Overall, I think it was the right choice.

​

When testing with a friend while having both Kadabra and Hypno, I realized this team struggled a lot against Water-types other than Tentacruel. So to fix this, I replaced Kadabra with Electabuzz, which went over well: it's still faster than Tentacruel and can thus switch in on its Wrap to force it out, and deals with Water-types exactly as I needed. This tied the team together pretty nicely.

The Team​

Let's get into the team, then. I'm also taking the opportunity to show some PS-ified SW97 graphics I aim to use on a client mod. They're simply made transparent and put onto a PS canvas. Some are RB sprites with very slight differences or none at all though.

Tentacruel
Ability: none
- Surf
- Blizzard
- Wrap
- Rest​

Tentacruel is the lead for this team, with the fastest viable Wrap, amazing bulk and nigh-unresisted coverage that allows it to fit perfectly onto most, if not all UU teams. It is widely considered to be impossible to use a team without Tentacruel, and for good reason. Tentacruel can manipulate the game state pretty heavily, be it by forcing out threats that can't handle its offense or shutting down teams with Wrap. If your entire team is paralyzed or the fast team members are removed, Tentacruel is going to run rings around it. As a result, it's an automatic pick for the team. In the context of this team, I tend to lead off with Wrap and poke twice to see what the opponent wants to do and work with it later. I like to bring in Venomoth through the pivot on the 3rd Wrap turn to get an early sleep, but naturally, it's important to adapt to the situation if it's not favourable.

Venomoth
Ability: none
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Psychic
- Mega Drain​

Venomoth is here for one reason: Double Powder utility. Sleep Powder with Base-90 Speed allows Venomoth to serve as the fastest viable user of Sleep Powder in the tier, and with Stun Spore access in addition to this, it's very effective in enabling the rest of the team. It can't be used as a lead due to poor matchups there, which is sad, but that's ok considering how easy it is to bring in from the lead situation if you're using Tentacruel. Being able to switch in on Toxic when using Dragonite is super nice too, giving Venomoth an important point of entry to threaten status from there. It's pretty rare to see Venomoth not sleep something, and being able to paralyze the switch-in is great too. Using the data from Tentacruel's Wrap pokes at the start, as well as general game stuff, I can tell if I need to pressure with Psychic instead too, as not everyone wants to switch immediately when a Pokemon is slept. It's common to see people try to be cheeky with burning sleep turns in front of Exeggutor, for example. Overall, I really like Venomoth and will probably ladder with it a bunch. I think it may even be underrated.

Hypno
Ability: none
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Seismic Toss
- Rest​

Normally Hypno will use Hypnosis, but since I have Venomoth, it isn't necessary. As a result, I can play around with Hypno a good bit. I really, really wanted to bring Counter, but Seismic Toss is really important for the inevitable Hypno mirrors. It also makes winning against Hypnosis + Thunder Wave ones a lot more consistent if I've sacked something for sleep already. Hypno's bulk, in addition to Thunder Wave, makes paralyzing teams fairly easy and I don't think this team would function without it to be honest. Generally, Hypno is a big part of the defensive backbone of the team.

Electabuzz
Ability: none
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Seismic Toss​

Electabuzz is one of my favourite Pokemon to use, and finding out the team needed it made me pretty happy. Electabuzz can switch in on Tentacruel's Wrap, take the Wrap turns and force it out once it's over. This is crucial, as it often leaves the opponent open to paralysis, allowing me to spread it and pressure with damage once that song and dance has been played a few times. It tends to invite Dugtrio though, so fishing with Psychic beforehand is helpful. Seismic Toss is mainly filler but helps with Hypno...but Electabuzz dislikes paralysis, so it's very replaceable. It's an area I'm pretty unsure on with the team, so if anyone has suggestions, I'm open to them.

Dugtrio
Ability: none
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Slash
- Toxic​

Dugtrio is solid. Just when you think you're in a bad spot after an important Pokemon has gone down, you realize they're in Dugtrio range, and suddenly everything is ok again. Dugtrio aids in the effort of avoiding paralysis and lets me pivot around with that in mind, which is great since its damage output is high enough to force a lot of paralysis inducers out as well. The last moveslot is pretty much always free, so I included Toxic to let me dig myself out of a potential Wrap sweep from Dragonite, which causes it to take more damage than it deals and thus relegates it to Blizzard spam or something. Never leave home without it. Dragonite is still threatening if it takes the Toxic, but hey, anything is better than waiting for an upwards of 32 turns for Wrap jank to finally end.

Dragonite
Ability: none
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Wrap
- Agility​

Venomoth and Dragonite work pretty well, as I've established, so let's explain Dragonite. Dragonite functions as the main cleaner for the team, though it can always work mid-game through Wrap pivoting and spreading paralysis. As a result, it's deceptively flexible to a newer player, and I encourage experimenting with Dragonite in different game states when learning the tier. Dragonite fits amazingly into this team, and if it is banned - since some people are pushing for that, myself included - adapting this team may prove difficult. Originally I had Thunder Wave instead of Thunderbolt, but the entire team already pushed paralysis well and I needed some more backing against Water-types. Hypno's staying power, Electabuzz's speedy Thunder Wave and Venomoth's utility made it largely obsolete in the paralysis department. This makes it less reliant on AgiliWrap to be effective as well, in the case it gets poisoned.

Conclusion

RBY UU is a surprisingly varied tier despite being centralised around Tentacruel (and to a lesser extent Hypno), with a variety of team archetypes you can play around with. The tier has a lot of potential exploration available and the community has been surprisingly active for the past bunch of months. I enjoy this team a lot and think it can be taken a good bit further than my caffeine-fueled mind has. I'm very open to suggestions on how to better it!

Pokepaste for zoomers

Importable for boomers

Tentacruel
Ability: none
- Surf
- Blizzard
- Wrap
- Rest

Venomoth
Ability: none
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Psychic
- Mega Drain

Hypno
Ability: none
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Seismic Toss
- Rest

Electabuzz
Ability: none
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt
- Psychic
- Seismic Toss

Dugtrio
Ability: none
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Slash
- Toxic

Dragonite
Ability: none
- Blizzard
- Thunderbolt
- Wrap
- Agility