Teambuilding in Gen 1

I found this article in The Smog about teambuilding but it doesn't seem very applicable to Gen 1. I've tried building around the big 4 and I've tried choosing a pokemon I want to use and building around it. However I still don't have a successful formula for making a balanced, working team. Is there a simple, formulaic way I can make Gen 1 pokemon teams?

I appreciate that there isn't much choice in Gen 1 when it comes to choosing pokemon. The number of leads is limited and the big four are pretty much essential, which only leaves room for one or two unorthodox pokemon. But that doesn't stop successful players from using UU pokemon like Porygon, Persian, Venusaur etc.

I found the 'SmogDex Teambuilder' (which doesn't seem to work) and have been using the damage calculator to work out which moves to choose. Is there something like this which can identify weaknesses in a team? For example I might not have enough pokemon on a team with thunderbolt etc.

I've been paying Gen 1 OU for a while now and have encountered some very talented, creative players. If you're out there please share your teambuilding secrets with me!
 
There is a very simple way to make a solid team in RBY OU:

Lead
Big 4
6th

Lead:

The three most common leads in order of commonality are Starmie, Alakazam and Jynx. They aim to trade status to help set up your mons in the back and absorb opposing status. More rarely you can have stuff like Exeggutor, Chansey, Gengar, Jolteon lead. Move selection depends on your team comp. Alakazam and Jynx almost always have similarish set

Alakazam Toss, Twave, Recover, Psychic (almost always)
Jynx: Lovely Kiss, Psychic, Blizzard (almost always) + Rest (generally)
Starmie: Recover, Thunder Wave (Always), then 2 of Blizzard, Psychic, Thunderbolt, Surf (some combos are not as valid as others)

Big 4:

How you move select the big four depends on the rest of your team composition. Sometimes you can use Victreebel or Cloyster or Gengar or even Alakazam/Starmie over Egg or even whackier stuff, but especially if you are newer or even if you are experienced you almost always want to use big 4 compositions, these comps work up to the top level.

Tauros is almost always the same though: Slam, EQ, Hyper Beam, Blizzard (you can run fire blast over EQ if you really want.......)

Need a reflect user IMO, Snorlax or Chansey, possibly both. That will inform that pokemons set, Raish Chansey or Reflect Rest 2 move Snorlax. Otherwise bolt beam Chansey or Beam Counter or sing if not reflect, You can run Amne or 4 attack/fish Lax with boom for example. Exeggutor almost always has Sleep Powder, Explosion and Psychic with either Double Edge or Stun Spore depending on team comp. Stun Spore can be good if you want paralysed mons for something like Rhydon in the back.

6th:

Your Ace in the Hole (that isn't Tauros). Common ones include Zapdos, Rhydon, Starmie, Alakazam, Lapras, Jolteon, Bro

Zapdos: Want ways of dealing with Rhydon in particular (Tauros not enough, stuff like beam chansey, starmie, ice beam snorlax etc.)
Almost always Tbolt, Drill Peck, Twave + Agility (rarely another move)

Rhydon: Chipping/Paralysing is really important, multiple Twaves or Stun Spore good, chipping Egg important and potentially trading tauroses
EQ Rock Slide Slam Sub

Starmie: Standard or 3 attack recover, nearly all of these are Zam + Mie, a solid all round comp that sacrificces some sweeping threat but has a lot of recover outs and is better vs. Tauros and opposing late game threats due to having an unparaed mie as check.

Zam: can run reflect over Toss if you want late game and kinda get into endgames where you can outlast your opponent

Lapras: I think its just solid but nothing special, secondary sweeper. Sing Blizz bolt Slam/Beam. You want to have boom on lax mostly so you can get rid of chansey, para chansey is the worst for this mon to face. Generally Zam Ras is your standard, Mie Ras too weak to Zapdos/Jolteon.

Jolteon: Similar advice to Zapdos mainly, tho Jolteon has a slightly different matchup spread and also struggles against Egg unlike Zapdos but does better vs. opposing Zapdos.

Slowbro: Almost Forgot Slowbro, actually pretty similar to Rhydon, Paralysing really important, also being solid vs. Zapdos last a big one or Starmie with Tbolt since this guy does get crit and dies whilst setting up in quite a few games on lower level I see. Amne always.

General Advice:

Really you want to theorycraft the gameplan and then make your team around that gameplan and preventing/disrupting others gameplans from working. Sometimes obviously cause its RBY and RBY has hax that wont work but think of stuff on a theoretical level. The 6th really determines what sort of win condition you are gonna have (Tauros BTW is always a win condition in every game). I like therefore starting when I am building from the 6th and working from that.

But yea, just slot lead + big 4 + last, add in moves and youll have an alright team probably as long as you keep what you need to watch out in terms of opposing pokemon/team comps in mind.
 
Last edited:
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!
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
Good post but some of this stuff is a bit incorrect.

Chansey is picked to wall specials. Alakazam is better at spreading status specifically because it can force chansey out with spc drops. If you don’t have a chansey, you don’t have a reliable way of switching into specials and stopping them spreading paralysis.

If you drop egg you have no good answer to rhydon. Vic is not a true rhydon counter. Bel cant switch in to rhydon, and rhydon is the second best Pokémon in the game at wasting wrap pp behind Gengar.

Dropping snorlax does not make you weak to opposing snorlax and Chaney automatically. Snorlax is walled by reflect chansey. Cloyster is the best snorlax switch in the game. There’s no defensive role lax fills that isn’t done better by something else, it’s just such a good Pokémon that it’s worth having on the team anyway.

Dropping tauros doesn’t necessarily make you weak to other tauros. A lot of meta Pokémon beat tauros 1v1. Dropping tauros means you lose the best revenge killer in the game. There are a lot of other Pokémon, such as swords dance sweepers than can sweep in similar end game situations to tauros, but none of them can come in mid game and provide the threat tauros does.
 
The "Alakazam/Starmie + Exeggutor + Normals + 6th" teams have proven to be the most consistent teams in RBY OU, but you can definitely have success with other builds as well. In fact, top tournament players have been increasingly dropping Exeggutor from their teams during the past couple of years. Exeggutor-less teams are naturally weaker to Rhydon, but they usually have a slight advantage against every other "standard" team. These teams should usually deal with Rhydon proactively, by making it difficult for Rhydon to come in and by making sure every other team member can properly threaten Rhydon. There have been a few instances where one of Chansey and Snorlax has been dropped, but I wouldn't suggest dropping either of them unless you have a very good reason to do. Last but not least, as bold as it may sound, never drop Tauros. You can find a variety of very good teams here: RBY OU Sample Teams.
 
If you want to be creative, you can definitely drop tauros. Tauros is often dropped for dragonite on wrap teams. Wrap itself has different sub-categories. You have the traditional wrap teams with bel cloyster and nite, where the goal is to set up nite. There’s toxic wrap teams, with almost every Pokémon being a wrapper and toxic being used a long side wrap. Then there’s the two wrapper teams, which normally run the cloy bel core, but keep tauros and a wall-breaker like rhydon, and use the free switches to get them in.

Outside of wrap, there are other non-tauros options. You can run a paralysis-heavy team, then instead of tauros you run venusaur/bel. The idea being that they scare out tauros with sleep powder then try set up with swords dance. Or you can sleep something earlier in the game, then use slowbro instead of tauros, who can try set up on the opposing tauros and sweep.

These are just a few examples. There’s a lot of ways to be creative in RBY whilst still being competitive, it’s just that these types of teams aren’t as consistent because they’re more gimmicky.
 
Last edited:
If you want to be creative, you can definitely drop tauros. Tauros is often dropped for dragonite on wrap teams. Wrap itself has different sub-categories. You have the traditional wrap teams with bel cloyster and nite, where the goal is to set up nite. There’s toxic wrap teams, with almost every Pokémon being a wrapper and toxic being used a long side wrap. Then there’s the two wrapper teams, which normally run the cloy bel core, but keep tauros and a wall-breaker like rhydon, and use the free switches to get them in.

Outside of wrap, there are other non-tauros options. You can run a paralysis-heavy team, then instead of tauros you run venusaur/bel. The idea being that they scare out tauros with sleep powder then try set up with swords dance. Or you can sleep something earlier in the game, then use slowbro instead of tauros, who can try set up on the opposing tauros and sweep.

These are just a few examples. There’s a lot of ways to be creative in RBY whilst still being competitive, it’s just that these types of teams aren’t as consistent because they’re more gimmicky.

Those wrap teams sound like fun! Where can I find more examples of gimmicky creative teams?
 

EB0LA

Banned deucer.
Those wrap teams sound like fun! Where can I find more examples of gimmicky creative teams?
I posted a couple of my best teams here... (both use partial trapping and don't use all big 4 mons)
https://www.pokemonperfect.com/forums/index.php?threads/rby-sample-teams.5818/

there will be more teams added there in the near future too. So that would be a good resource, along with the sample teams posted here in RoA, which the link was already posted above.

Also you can maybe scout teams from SPL and maybe get better ideas of which moves go better with what pair of mons etc. Or maybe just flat out steal a couple teams ;).

https://replaystats-eo.herokuapp.com/scouter/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-xi-replays.3658653/
 
Those wrap teams sound like fun! Where can I find more examples of gimmicky creative teams?
Don’t know where you’d find sample teams but I can tell you a wrap team I used to use:

Alakazam
Chansey
Victrebel
Cloyster
Rhydon
Tauros

The goal is to use the free switches the bel and cloy give to spread status and get rhydon and tauros in unharmed to blow holes in their team.

Zam is the lead to try paralyse their lead, because their leads can often be a problem for this team. It’s also the sleep absorber.

Chansey is just there to sponge special attacks, normally from starmies that switch into cloyster.

The bel set is double powder leaf wrap. It’s a mid game controller not a sweeper. How good (and lucky) you are with this Pokémon will dictate how the battle goes. If used correctly, it will take over the battle, spreading status and providing free switches. However if it gets statused it becomes almost useless, but it at least can often trade status with faster Pokémon like zam who don’t want to be paralysed against this team.

Cloyster runs rest to wall snorlaxes. I used to run explosion but never used it. In the reflect meta ice beam is probably fine alongside blizzard to freeze snorlaxes who keep resting on you.

I picked rhydon over lax because rhydon hits harder once their egg is gone, has more defensive utility, and because I have cloyster to deal with laxx

I used to run dragonite over tauros, but I found myself often using it as a support poke for free switches instead of sweeping with it. I decided to switch to tauros to get more immediate power, because most turns you’re only doing chip damage with this team.

That’s just one team. Bear in mind I used that before reflect meta, when 99% of chanseys were boltbeam, so it was easier to get cloy or bel in on it if you predicted correctly. It’s probably still useable today but a bit harder as reflect makes chansey harder to break through.
 
I posted a couple of my best teams here... (both use partial trapping and don't use all big 4 mons)
https://www.pokemonperfect.com/forums/index.php?threads/rby-sample-teams.5818/

there will be more teams added there in the near future too. So that would be a good resource, along with the sample teams posted here in RoA, which the link was already posted above.

Also you can maybe scout teams from SPL and maybe get better ideas of which moves go better with what pair of mons etc. Or maybe just flat out steal a couple teams ;).

https://replaystats-eo.herokuapp.com/scouter/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-xi-replays.3658653/
Those teams are awesome, please post more soon. How do I use the scouter?

As others have said, of the big 4 Exeggutor is the easiest to drop. Doesn't this make a team vulnerable to earthquake? Who can switch into Rhydon? Only grass types resist ground :blobthinking:
 
Adamantly disagree that a Reflect Normal of some sort is necessary (someone mentioned this earlier). Not disputing that they're really bloody good and the majority of teams will have one (or two) anyway, but I don't think they should be viewed as a requirement. You should be using them because they're right for your team, not just inserting them by default without considering why you'd use them in the first place.

Anyway, obligatory note that big 4 is solid and it's hard to go wrong with it.

With that said, I'm going to go ahead and dump some random thoughts and some roles that need to be covered.

Necessary roles:
Tauros
Sleep user
Paralysis spreader (even teams that are all-in on freezes should have at least 1 reliable paralysis spreader imo)
Sleep absorber (usually the lead)
Plan for dealing with paralysis (Chansey is number one, but there are plenty of options)
Something that beats Chansey (usually Lax does this)
Something to deal with physical attackers (must be able to tank EQ)
Something to deal with Psychic spam*
Something to deal with Electrics*
Something to switch into STAB Blizzard*
*Chansey is pretty effective at covering all three of these, though it's not a foolproof plan on its own
Lead. Needs to match up well against other leads, and usually be good at absorbing and/or spreading status

Sleep users and Tauros technically aren't necessary- you can get by without them. The issue is that they're so good that dropping them is never worth it imo. If you drop them, you're simply making your team worse- maybe not so much worse that the team becomes unusable, but it's still not an improvement. If I'm being realistic, Chansey and Snorlax are also in the category of being too good not to use, but I haven't updated my teambuilding heuristics to account for that. It's probably because their roles are so incredibly broad and they're merely really good at everything they try, whereas Tauros is basically flawless at what it does imo, it's just that it's more specialised, and so "what it does" isn't even close to being as broad as what Chansey and Snorlax do. This means that I never feel I can compensate for dropping Tauros, whereas the more nebulous roles of Lax and Chansey give me a lot more wiggle room to sub in other pokemon. Also it's fun designing weird teams.

I might dump more thoughts later
 
It's hard to talk about every individual situation in RBY as there are multiple different situations. What is traditionally a "counter" changes based on the HP, Paralysis, the set, game state and many more things. A lot of what I have said is broad brush strokes and is just a general overview on how different pokemon interact with each other.

I don't think Alakazam is better at spreading status than Chansey, the main reason for that is what generally happens in the game. Zam will almost always get one paralysis off, vs. the opposing lead which is designed to take status. Eventually in the lead matchup what often ends up happening is that Snorlax will eventually come in and force out one of the the players leads as you are forced to recover. Again, this isn't every single situation, I can talk about switching into Chansey T1 and perhaps trading twave for sing or for an unparalysed starmie. Chansey can put the yellow colour on pretty much every single pokemon in RBY except rocks if you want to and can also spread freeze and sleep, Alakazam is generally struggling to do that once it is paraed. So its range of status spread is generally more merely due to the time and point of the game it spends on the field. Of course this isnt every game, every game is its unique microcosm but you can only really talk about broad brushstrokes with this sorta thing

I think Christos explains non-Egg teams pretty well, the basic premise is that Rhydon is pretty difficult to get in and if you are good at the game you can punish Rhydon switches super hard, crippling the opponents team even if Rhydon is a threat once it gets in.

With Lax, it is more that it does these defensive roles, whilst having offensive pressure. To compare Cloyster as a Lax counter to using a Lax or a Chansey and forcing Sleep -> Egg. One involves having a Cloyster on your team, where Cloyster isnt as good a pokemon which is far harder to wake up after a rest, easily chipped and is walled by Starmie even if Mie is paralysed.

Pretty much with Tauros, when the opponent brings out Tauros to KO a weakened pokemon of yours, you can always trade Tauroses. The fact you bring in your full health Tauros basically forces both players to stay in in the majority of situations since your pokemon might get 2HKOed to a Tauros slam crit or paraed and then you are in the same situation where you have to choose another pokemon, whereas you can bring out something like an Egg which perhaps would also do well vs. opposing Tauros but then they can just switch out into a paralysed Zam/Mie for example and bring back in tauros later in the game.

As for reflect pokemon, I don't think they are 100% neccesary but it definitely makes life a lot easier and for a basic team that works, Id consider it before running other stuff that requires more game knowledge. You can kind of run techs like Counter over reflect too for example or run Gengar or even Cloyster or porygon, but even in SPL where reflect isn't revealed every game (sometimes you arent gonna get lax vs lax or chansey vs lax or people are gonna go for early booms) your seeing both people reflect in over half of games, its that common.

The whole thing with dropping Tauros, Chansey and Snorlax is a bit silly. Yes, you can do it and it can win games. It just makes your team worse.
 
Last edited:
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, no one is going to give you their most exotic (and viable) RBY teams, because no one would want to publicly give away their tour strats :).

In general, Ika gave you very good reasoning as to why you'd want to gravitate towards the Big 4. Teambuilding in Gen I still follows the basic tenants of later gens: pick something you want to build around, and pick teammates that will help it succeed. In RBY OU, a lot of times that does mean using some (if not all) of the big 4. Every choice has a reason greater than "it's good!". This is how I tend to build most of my teams:
  • Pick one thing I want to try: it could be a UU mon, a certain set on something like Snorlax, or an OU mon that I rarely use.
  • If that particular one from the first point wasn't Lax, then 99% of the time Tauros and Snorlax are automatic additions afterwards. The lax set is usually made to complement the mon I'm building around.
  • Pick a lead. You have to decide if the mon you are building around needs para or sleep support more. And although your lead is your sleep absorber, build the team assuming you will get to use them a fair bit (since it's also really common they'll trade para with the opposing lead). So if the mon you picked needs help against Starmie and Zapdos, Zam is a good pick. If they don't have a ton of good opportunities to switch in, a sleep lead may be more beneficial, etc.
  • Have the last two cover any glaring weaknesses, and think about if you already have enough paralysis support. You know what roles are needed on a good RBY team, so make sure you're not missing any big ones.
  • Theorymon the hell out of it (although I bet you have a solid game plan by the time you're done building)
And don't be afraid to try UU mons. Just be a bit careful and realize that a fair amount of UU mons will work better in some matchups than others. For consistency's sake, the team may be objectively better off with something else. Laddering is about getting consistent wins, and safe strategies are good for that, so you'll see less creativity on ladder than tours. And in a series of 3 or 5 games, you may get a handle for what kind of strategies someone likes to use (or what they don't use), and then something like say Porygon or Hypno could be a good macthup-call against them.
 
Last edited:
It's hard to talk about every individual situation in RBY as there are multiple different situations. What is traditionally a "counter" changes based on the HP, Paralysis, the set, game state and many more things. A lot of what I have said is broad brush strokes and is just a general overview on how different pokemon interact with each other.

I don't think Alakazam is better at spreading status than Chansey, the main reason for that is what generally happens in the game. Zam will almost always get one paralysis off, vs. the opposing lead which is designed to take status. Eventually in the lead matchup what often ends up happening is that Snorlax will eventually come in and force out one of the the players leads as you are forced to recover. Again, this isn't every single situation, I can talk about switching into Chansey T1 and perhaps trading twave for sing or for an unparalysed starmie. Chansey can put the yellow colour on pretty much every single pokemon in RBY except rocks if you want to and can also spread freeze and sleep, Alakazam is generally struggling to do that once it is paraed. So its range of status spread is generally more merely due to the time and point of the game it spends on the field. Of course this isnt every game, every game is its unique microcosm but you can only really talk about broad brushstrokes with this sorta thing

I think Christos explains non-Egg teams pretty well, the basic premise is that Rhydon is pretty difficult to get in and if you are good at the game you can punish Rhydon switches super hard, crippling the opponents team even if Rhydon is a threat once it gets in.

With Lax, it is more that it does these defensive roles, whilst having offensive pressure. To compare Cloyster as a Lax counter to using a Lax or a Chansey and forcing Sleep -> Egg. One involves having a Cloyster on your team, where Cloyster isnt as good a pokemon which is far harder to wake up after a rest, easily chipped and is walled by Starmie even if Mie is paralysed.

Pretty much with Tauros, when the opponent brings out Tauros to KO a weakened pokemon of yours, you can always trade Tauroses. The fact you bring in your full health Tauros basically forces both players to stay in in the majority of situations since your pokemon might get 2HKOed to a Tauros slam crit or paraed and then you are in the same situation where you have to choose another pokemon, whereas you can bring out something like an Egg which perhaps would also do well vs. opposing Tauros but then they can just switch out into a paralysed Zam/Mie for example and bring back in tauros later in the game.

As for reflect pokemon, I don't think they are 100% neccesary but it definitely makes life a lot easier and for a basic team that works, Id consider it before running other stuff that requires more game knowledge. You can kind of run techs like Counter over reflect too for example or run Gengar or even Cloyster or porygon, but even in SPL where reflect isn't revealed every game (sometimes you arent gonna get lax vs lax or chansey vs lax or people are gonna go for early booms) your seeing both people reflect in over half of games, its that common.

The whole thing with dropping Tauros, Chansey and Snorlax is a bit silly. Yes, you can do it and it can win games. It just makes your team worse.
Zam is better at spreading para than chansey because chansey cannot get paralysis past the enemy chansey. You can always switch your paralysed chansey into theirs because paralysed chanseys cannot threaten each other.

Zam can actually force chansey out with spc drops and twave whatever switches in. Snorlax also isn’t as comfortable staying in on zam as it is on chansey because of psychic. This was one of zam’s original roles in the old meta before it became specialised as a lead.

Unllike chansey, there’s no Pokémon that can comfortably stay in permanently against stoss zam, which is why it’s the best at spreading para.
 
Is there a Gen 1 'threatlist'? I'd like to know which common gen 1 pokemon/movesets it's essential to be prepared for.
 
Nidoking (M)
Ability: none
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
- Counter
- Thunder
- Toxic
- Seismic Toss
Alakazam
Ability: none
- Skull Bash
- Psywave
- Recover
- Seismic Toss
Gyarados
Ability: none
- Skull Bash
- Thunder
- Mimic
- Body Slam
Gengar
Ability: none
- Explosion
- Psywave
- Metronome
- Mega Kick
Dragonite
Ability: none
- Skull Bash
- Thunder
- Mimic
- Razor Wind
Charizard
Ability: none
- Skull Bash
- Fire Blast
- Swords Dance
- Slash
Tell me what you think
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
As an art team, it's great. It really illustrates how Pokemon's message of being true to yourself and trying to win with your favorites can, in practice, be like bashing your head against a wall.

As a competitive team, it's not so good. The post above you already mentions the viability rankings and strategy pokedex. You could also join the Ruins of Alph PS! channel (or the discord server they advertise) if you want to discuss old gens in real-time and join regular tournaments.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top