RBY OU How to counter the Reflect Chansey+ReflectRest Snorlax meta teams?

[lord of the crabs]

It seems that almost everyone is running Reflect+Ib or Reflect+Stoss Chansie and Reflect+Rest Snorlax on the ladder nowadays.

Starmie lead with Psychic is of course quite decent as Chansey's usually dont have TBolt and it forces switches with the spec drops and prevents Snorlax from resting. But it has created this situation where the double Reflect meta teams often lead with (often TBolt) Starmie themselves to counter this. And even if they don't, it's not like Starmie alone can do all that much.

Gengar can stall out Snorlax's who drop EQ, but the meta teams lead with Starmie or Alakazam and it's not like Gengar can kill a resting Snorlax or a Chansey with Reflect up. And a decent portion of the ReflectRest Snorlaxes still run EQ.

Are there any really cheesy and strong counters to these teams? Maybe some team built around a Slash user, or multiple Amnesia users or something? I don't care if it loses to everything else, I want something that really counters these cancer meta teams.

 

[IronGattsu]

Some things you haven't mentioned:
- Fishing for Tauros crits vs. Reflect Chansey is very much viable, especially if the Chansey is pre-paralyzed. I have both won and lost several matches based off of Tauros critting through Chansey's Reflect.
- Zam does pretty good against both Reflect users, but especially against late-game Snorlax. Switch it in when it goes for Rest, and fish for Special drops + crits. Snorlax doesn't have its characteristic Special bulk of later gens in Gen 1.
- Persian is very underrated late-game (to the point of definitely being OU-viable), imo. It does really well against pre-paralyzed Chansey as well as a pre-weakened Snorlax. Honestly, I don't know why Persian hasn't gotten more usage with the rise of Reflect users.
- PP-stall Chansey vs. Chansey. You can fish for Ice Beam freezes in this scenario too.
- If they bring out ReflectLax early-to-mid game, you can try to do a Snorlax ditto and trade, even with FishLax; Self-Destruct KO's at 37% with Reflect up. Obviously, you have to be careful that your opponent doesn't see the SD coming, and ReflectLax still has an advantage over FishLax overall, but still.

Reflect isn't exactly over-centralizing, let alone over-powered - as you said, it's just kind of cancerous, since breaking through often requires a degree of luck. But then again, that's just RBY in general.

 

[lord of the crabs]

Some things you haven't mentioned:
- Fishing for Tauros crits vs. Reflect Chansey is very much viable, especially if the Chansey is pre-paralyzed. I have both won and lost several matches based off of Tauros critting through Chansey's Reflect.
- Zam does pretty good against both Reflect users, but especially against late-game Snorlax. Switch it in when it goes for Rest, and fish for Special drops + crits. Snorlax doesn't have its characteristic Special bulk of later gens in Gen 1.
- Persian is very underrated late-game (to the point of definitely being OU-viable), imo. It does really well against pre-paralyzed Chansey as well as a pre-weakened Snorlax. Honestly, I don't know why Persian hasn't gotten more usage with the rise of Reflect users.
- PP-stall Chansey vs. Chansey. You can fish for Ice Beam freezes in this scenario too.
- If they bring out ReflectLax early-to-mid game, you can try to do a Snorlax ditto and trade, even with FishLax; Self-Destruct KO's at 37% with Reflect up. Obviously, you have to be careful that your opponent doesn't see the SD coming, and ReflectLax still has an advantage over FishLax overall, but still.

Reflect isn't exactly over-centralizing, let alone over-powered - as you said, it's just kind of cancerous, since breaking through often requires a degree of luck. But then again, that's just RBY in general.

I want to try Persian, have you had good success with it? And what kind of team would you build around it to really win as hard as possible vs these teams?

 

[magic9mushroom]

Solutions that don't like Tbolt Starmie: Cloyster, Slowbro, maybe Kabutops?
Solutions that don't care about Starmie: ReflectZam, weird-4th Zam

Note that Starmie can be blown up by e.g. Golem or Exeggutor, and that opponents will often allow it to take sleep.

 

[Ortheore]

If you're looking for a single pokemon "counter" then Cloyster is probably your best bet imo, since it's obviously good against Lax, while it can also use Clamp to stop Chansey from setting up as you switch into something better. It can even wall mono-IB Chansey and potentially Rest off paralysis, but that's far from an ideal solution, since para still sucks and Rest is also not ideal, especially since any team with mono-IB Chansey will likely have a strong response to Resting Waters.

More generally, I think utilising, countering and just generally playing around Reflect is a defining strategic point in RBY. If you don't have a plan for it, then you shouldn't expect to win. Reflect Chansey only really loses if you outstall it, or if you have Bro. Usually outstalling means using your own RestLax, thus bolstering the Reflect Normal hegemony. The real target should be Lax, since raw special power can force it out and Rest is exploitable. Once you've forced Lax to Rest the main thing is to force it out and punish it as hard as possible for trying to reenter and wake... easier said than done. I honestly think it's more about how you play around it than using any specific pokemon.

Electrics I think are worth noting in that they're powerful enough to force out a Resting Lax and are also very capable of breaking through Chansey with the right combination of luck and predictions. Can't really switch in until Lax Rests though

 

[IronGattsu]

I want to try Persian, have you had good success with it? And what kind of team would you build around it to really win as hard as possible vs these teams?

I've had decent success with it, yeah. This is a team that worked pretty well for me on ladder: RBY - Persian Core 1

It's definitely not fully-optimized - I mean this team struggles quite a bit against bulky waters, since forgoing Chansey is pretty unorthodox - but I do find it quite fun to play. You generally want to run Persian alongside Tauros, even though both of them fulfill similar niches - having a 2nd "mini-Tauros" in RBY is definitely quite nice.

Generally, stacking a bunch of physical attackers onto a team does give you good odds against Chanseys of all movesets. However, if you want to "body Reflect Chansey harder" or something, I suggest you modify this team a bit. Run Alakazam or your own Chansey, maybe switch Snorlax to a Reflect variant, etc.