RBY OU RBY OU Discussion

Discuss RBY OU here!

 

cool new formats and I think thinning it out from 9 to 5 casual tours per year is justified considering the shrinking numbers of participants in recent MTs. on the other hand, are you sure BO3 single elim is the way to go? we've had so many discussions over the format in the past 3 years and no other RBY tour with any actual significance runs a BO3 KO bracket. double elim would be much more beneficial for several reasons: it gives you more opportunities to play without going into exhausting BO5 sets every round, new players don't get shafted instantly by being matched against marcoasd, and last but not least it's easier to do since we've gotten rid of the season points which didn't work well with double elim.

 

The thought, or at least the hope, is that many players play more than just one tier and as such even if they're eliminated from one tournament they'll still be in another, as we'll have qualifiers going for all five tiers simultaneously. While it certainly sucks to get a really strong pairing and get eliminated in the first round of a tour, I think on the flipside double elimination would drag on for quite some time and really gunk up our tight tour schedule. I think as a general statement the feeling of things dragging on has been a problem on the past in PP and we're trying to be a bit more tight and efficient.

 

Well I want to discuss the meta.

I feel like any discussion on RBY has to start with the Reflect hegemony. I feel like people are really used to dealing with Reflect Chansey and that its popularity arguably peaked a while back. That said it's still a very popular variant that undeniably changes the way the game is played. In any case, ReflectLax I think shows no signs of slowing down. So how can we respond to it? Well, I'm not sure, but a few of the trends I've seen lately based on discussions and my (few) games against elite players are all fairly hostile to ReflectLax- the ones that spring to mind are the resurgence of Wrap, especially Cloy, and the rise of Sing Chansey.

Sing Chansey is something that people probably started running purely because sleeping Lax is soooo rewarding and it also serves a nice dual purpose of luring and shutting down the most dangerous Reflect user in the game. Even once Sing is revealed, there are so few things that can break Chansey that often opponents often have to risk Lax getting slept anyway- the alternative is to send in some passive, paralysed Recover or Rest user to stall it out, which is really exploitable.

The rise of Bel and Cloy has been one of RBY's most significant trends in 2019, and Wrap is inherently good against Reflect in general, since it prevents slower pokemon from setting up. Cloyster in particular is amazing against ReflectLax, as it comfortably walls Lax, especially if it lacks Hyper Beam (i.e. most ReflectLax), threatens Lax with STAB Blizzard, and prevents Reflect Chansey or whatever else from setting up with Clamp. Obviously, the issue with Wrap is that you're fighting a boring strategy with something that's also really boring... so idk, I still consider Wrap more interesting than Reflect, especially since stuff like Cloy seldom look to sweep with it.

Are there other potential solutions to the Reflect meta? Well, I don't know. The obvious candidate is Amnesia, but if that were the solution, we would've moved beyond Reflect long ago. Maybe we could take another look at Amnesia, but instead focus on new ways of supporting them so that they can actually live up to their theoretical anti-meta potential. Otherwise I don't really have much in the way of ideas. It's not an easy problem, which is why Reflect has been so persistent

 

The issue with Slowbro against ReflectLax is the potential to get frozen by Ice Beam (Lax'll get somewhere between 3 and 5 IBeams off if it doesn't have Amnesia, for 27.4%-41.3% chance of freeze). If Lax can't freeze, Withdraw Slowbro will always win (even against Body Slam Tanklax, by PP-stall - this is actually why I started running it).

 

When I make a new team I always run through a checklist of things that can can run amok if there is no check.

1. Wrappers. - Either the ghost, a fast mon as a 6th: Star, zam, jolt, or a rock to eat up all the wraps pp. The last of which is my absolute least favorite.

2. Ice wars- an ice type to absorb a few of the ice pps (mind games), Snorlax risking a freeze but to intimidate Chansey or a paralzed Jynx out.

3. Rhydon- basically eggs, or an unparalyzed reflect Chansey, cloyster works but will be predictable for rock slides after it's revealed.

4. Slowbro- starmie with tbolt. Joltdos. Eggs. Anything that explodes.

5.Weird snorlax sets- reflect with icebeam and rest. Or worse reflect with amnesia and icebeam.
Any combination of reflect without earthquake. Blizzard+tbolt+rest+amnesia
Snorlax can really just put you in a pickle really easily with off the wall sets if your early game moves aren't ideal.

Im finding personally that gengar is coming in handy more and more.
With the reflect lax and wrap games on the upswing Gengar can really be a thorn throughout the entire match. There is always a mindgame aspect to going for either body slams or earthquakes. And going for super obvious explosions. It's coming to a point for me where non lead Gengar is/should be more seriously considered. Gengar also completely shuts down Vicnite. Gengar even makes an ok check to slowbro with it's high crit rate tbolt/shade then boom.

I see problems with very popular (archetypal) teams such as starmie+goldon+big4.
With starmie as lead possibly subject to paralysis on turn 1, basically the only thing stopping a Vic sweep is tauros. You have to eat at least 2 turns of wrap before getting the upper hand in speed. Anytime that team is used it's just a prayer that Vic isn't waiting on you. Outside of Vic it's a really beastly team but I don't like going into a match on hope.
Even a paralyzed Gengar will frustrate a Vic to high heavens.

Any water/rock core team is desperate for a check to a surprise Vic attack.
Zam,bro,rhydon,Chansey,eggs,and tauros is a popular team. But once zam is paralyzed here we are again with only tauros for the speed check.
I hate nothing more than to realize in the early game that I'm going to do nothing but switch for 15-27 turns waiting for any kind of opening. I'm just saying. Gengar for prez in this upcoming season.

 

I think some of the archetypal teams still stand strong.
Zam star and 4. Star zap and 4. Zam Lapras and 4.
I think star don and 4 will continue to fade away. In order to get around inevitably running into Vic with starmie+don we will have to drop at least 1 big 4 in the team build for an insurance policy. The question is which one out of Chansey lax and eggs will you sack and can your place holder maintain a balanced team.

 

Yeah at higher levels of play, 6th slot Starmie gained a lot of traction and is more commonly seen. You look at the five big leads: Zam, Starmie, Jynx, Gengar, Jolteon; they all do fine in that role (well, Gengar not so much). But those last four are also very strong as sixth slot surprises, especially Starmie and Gengar. You have a powerful late-game cleaner that is likelier to avoid paralysis, and in the case of Gengar an easy switch into a lot of Normal attacks and any Snorlax without Earthquake. Both also alleviate a Slowbro weakness, and will more effectively do so when not exposed to the front lines.

I'd argue Starmie is still the best out of those as "last mon"; coverage, faster than Tauros, an extra thing that can switch into Rhydon, and all the other great qualities that make it Starmie.
A lot of good teams now tend to look like Zam or Jynx + big four + Starmie. In fact, you can take the tried and true staple of Zam + big four +Lapras; it plays mostly the same, but put Starmie on the end for extra punch. It's neat how this meta keeps changing after so long.

 

Yep... Just got stiffed on the ladder by a Gengar. Spent 200 turns trying to get around it. I had a reflect hyper beam lax. Couldn't pressure Chansey at all until Gengar was dealt with. Couldnt hurt anything actually. Our snorlaxs danced around each other and rested. It was one of those matches where the team played itself. All he had to do was stall me out. I was trying to slip my zam in on his Snorlax rest turns ate up 6 turns of sleep with no wake. Looks like were going to have to make earthquake great again on lax.

 

Eh, EQ isn't the only way to beat Gar with Lax. IB/Reflect/Amnesia/Rest mulches it just fine, and there's a bunch of others that work if you're willing to accept an Explosion trade or near-trade (which is an issue for EQ Lax as well, just a bit less of one).

 

That is true.
But objectively, that's not a great set and loses hard to waters.

Now I'm sure you know that (no sarcasm intended at all), but I wanted to clarify that for any new-ish onlookers that think it looks like an awesome lax set. Tanklax is the definition of "looks good on paper".

Also, since posting here last, I haven't seen Gengar much at all. Which does make some sense; every good team has a way to deal with it (whether than includes EQ lax or not), and there's better overall 6th-slots with strong STABs to abuse.

 

Water + Chansey can usually stall it out of its attacking PP, and Cloy's pretty solid due to the double threat of Clamp and freeze, but the others aren't so flash on their own, particularly if they have to switch in. Bro straight-up loses unless it also has IB and freezes first (and nobody uses IB on Slowbro).

IB Tanklax isn't necessarily the best Lax set for a given team, but it's actually pretty scary. I don't think I've ever used it, but I have gotten swept by it on multiple occasions (and not with teams that you'd think were super-weak to it).

EDIT: Bro has a bit of a chance with Psychic. It's a complicated matchup (speedtie + specfalls), but my eyeball of it is that the chance is low.

 

so was there ever an outcome to the vote jw

 

Hi all, I was thinking the other day and I was wondering about the potential of fast FSpin leads as a gimmick in the current meta, specifically Ninetales, Rapidash and Charizard (albeit to a much lesser extent in the case of the latter due to its weaknesses)

My reasoning was that if you want to ensure that your Chansey absorbs para and not the opponent's, they might be a solid way of baiting TWave, since they would otherwise be a prime target. Meanwhile, they have favourable matchups against all sleep leads bar the rare Gengar, either outright murdering the sleep lead, or whittling it down with FSpin to set up for a teammate to come in.

I would jump right in, start testing this and tout this as the future, but I'm not sure they'd amount to more than a gimmick- staying in with a Fire lead against a para lead is such a terrible play that the switch becomes obvious, which means that baiting para might not work in practice. Meanwhile even if they were to try to punish the para lead for attacking rather than paralysing, I'm not sure they'd have enough bite to bother it, especially against Star.

Anyway, I thought I'd float the idea, since it was interesting enough

 

Hey everyone, taking an interest in the ways of Gen 1 again due a little thing I'm doing in my personal tine involving learning how to play an imported Red cart. A question I generally have is there a master thread/post anywhere that explains the Icarus level fall that Golem experienced in the last several months?

I can certainly see the stance for Rhydon getting the edge these days due to higher ATK and being much better with Subs, but I was just expecting Golem to just have it's role changed to more defensive styles, like an increases in Fire Blast variants or such. Instead I see a role gap that is less like the one between Victreebel and Venusaur these days and more like Vic and Vileplume.

 

I personally don't see any merit to running FB on Golem ever, and I don't really think it lends itself to defensive playstyles. More to the point, I don't think Golem is at all better suited to defensive playstyles than Don, in fact I would argue that the opposite is true. Don has better attacking power and Sub, sure, but it also has better bulk, whereas pretty much the only (substantial) niche Golem has over Don is Explosion, a move that KOs the user, which doesn't really lend itself to defensive play unless an Amnesia user gets out of hand. Golem's Explosion I think makes it better suited to offensive teams imo.

That said, to attempt to explain the chasm separating Don and Golem's viability, the first thing to note is that aside from Golem's Explosion, Don's superior attack really matters against multiple top threats, including Lax and Chansey- Golem's EQ falls short of crucial xHKOs, and just generally is less effective at pressuring Rest/Recover users. Furthermore, if you're choosing GolDon for your team, you're often doing so to leverage their anti-electric utility. In order to effectively counter Zap, which is obviously something kept to lategame, it's a bit of an incoherent strategy to be discarding your counter via Explosion.

 

Golem is better than Rhydon - he can switch into Rhydon's rock slide taking minimal damage and out speed Rhydon for a 2HKO with EQ. This makes Golem a better partner for Zapdos/Moltres than Rhydon. And the constant threat of explosion inflicts psychological warfare on your opponent. Dropping Golem to NU was a colossal mistake. One day the world will wake up to how good Golem really is and Rhydon will be a laughingstock.

 

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