OU GSC OU Discussion Thread

[Rezzo]

Hello GSC OU Gamers, this was my first year proper of getting into this tier and learning it to a decent level and I feel like dropping off a few sets that I've been running both in ladder and tournaments to pretty good success. They range from somewhat safe to smoking hot (depending on various factors, such as what kind of matchup you are expecting to land yourself into, etc.):

---


Alakazam @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Psychic
- Encore
- Fire Punch
- Recover

Zam has honestly earned a tonne of respect from me in the teambuilder. It's a lategame menace and forces a lot of ugly 50-50 situations for the opponent to confront, and this is especially powerful if you can reach these lategame stages unrevealed and come in on something like an anticipated Snorlax curse to encore. Your typical offence team is not capable of switching into such a fast psychic attack in the late game, and Snorlax can quite often be relegated to a momentum drain where it is either stuck rest looping or taking spikes damage, trying to shake off repeated encores.

Despite its subpar bulk it can emergency stall certain Pokemon such as Jynx and Vaporeon; Jynx in particular can be forced an ultimatum where it has to fish freeze Alakazam rather than Snorlax in the later stages of the game. There are some other Pokemon that you can super-duper-panic-button-'oh gosh I'm out of options' emergency stall; and non-crunch Tyranitar is fascinatingly one of these Pokemon. Admittedly, you must encore it into rock slide and risk your ~40% odds that you will not be crit before it runs out of PP. Start slamming him with fire punches every time you don't need to recover and fish for burns -- this seals the stall and allows you to win the matchup.

Oh, and never let Zam get paralysed.

---


Forretress @ Miracle Berry
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 26 Atk / 26 Def
- Spikes
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Explosion

I don't know how well-explored this set is but I don't think I've ever ran into it a single time, it's an anti-lead set where you pretty much always spike turn 1 and pray to your theistic deity of choice that the Snorlax/Exeggutor/Nidoking on the other side doesn't have a fire move. You otherwise have a great matchup into opposing Jynx/Eggy/Nido leads and have an emergency stop-gap towards the former to pave the way for some very aggressive teammates, something which Cloyster less great at providing. Don't even bother trying to catch an explosion onto Jynx if you are lucky enough to dodge a lovely kiss - just poison it or attack it so that it can't cause problems later on.

Speaking of which, don't expect to boom too often on this set, it's more of a luxury than a necessity (unless you're facing some fatty fat stall, then go wild!) but that's a good thing due to Forre's unique defensive offerings.

You probably don't need to worry about keeping the spike up, so try to build in such a way that you can take advantage of the passivity behind an incoming rapid spin.

---


Blastoise @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Reflect
- Rest

If you've encountered me in tournaments or know any of my ladder alts then you've probably ran into me using this. Earlier this year I was constantly meeting Tyranitar teams, so I improvised and came up with this Blastoise set. Quite simply, the idea is that Blastoise compresses the roles of Suicune and Starmie into a single Pokemon. When compared to Starmie, you land into a significantly better matchup vs Tyranitar for a somewhat worse one into Machamp. Essentially you can use it as an aggressive space-paver for Gengar to attempt to beat down and freeze stuff with Ice Punch.

Blastoise conveniently sits at a just great enough speed tier to hand the surf beatdown to opposing Cloyster. Reflect is mainly there to dissuade Snorlax counterplay, but it otherwise helps Blastoise get into a cute acting career where it does its best Suicune impression, so essentially supporting itself with taking attacks from Marowak & Machamp a little easier. Obviously you have the secondary upside of being able to continue checking these two with a teammate if an untimely crit ends Blastoise.

---


Meganium @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Razor Leaf
- Light Screen
- Synthesis
- Leech Seed

Less-tested than anything else I'm showcasing, but I know this set is used and has some seen some success. Would still like to mention it regardless, Meganium is a pretty interesting scout / status sponge as it's incredibly hard for most teams to 2HKO, and can pretty consistently force screens up as a method of resetting the opponent's momentum. Thus I think it best fits on stall teams that want to drumlax in the endgame, but I haven't experimented much outside of this concept.

Venusaur @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Light Screen
- Leech Seed
- Razor Leaf
- Synthesis

Same idea with different typing - a better Machamp / toxic check but worse Marowak / Eggy check. Venusaur urgently wants to be paired with Skarmory, and Meganium with Starmie. Pick your poison.

---


热蜗牛 (Magcargo) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Acid Armor
- Toxic
- Flamethrower
- Rest

Okay yeah fine, I am just completely fooling around with this one, but Magcargo does some absolutely hilarious stuff if you land the right matchup. Viable? Absolutely not. Usable? Definitely -- it's able to check mono + fire lax sets while keeping Skarmory and Forretress completely out of the field. Bonus points for being a somewhat decent Heracross check also.

Having to speed-tie Steelix is pretty awful though, and it's utter deadweight vs offence teams in general. But for stall vs stall matchups it ain't awful. Much more of a 'for fun' set.

-----​

I'd like to conclude by saying this tier still has plenty of room for innovation, despite how restrictive the teambuilder sometimes might seem. For each of these ideas that kinda works, I promise there are at least 3 or 4 that were completely terrible and discarded immediately. If someone as mediocre as me can get to 1500 on ladder using Pokemon as weird as these (not counting Magcargo, he's honestly just trash...) then there is definitely much more room for people to explore new ideas in this tier.

Thanks for reading and happy new year!

 

[Jorgen]

Hello GSC OU Gamers, this was my first year proper of getting into this tier and learning it to a decent level and I feel like dropping off a few sets that I've been running both in ladder and tournaments to pretty good success. They range from somewhat safe to smoking hot (depending on various factors, such as what kind of matchup you are expecting to land yourself into, etc.):

---


Alakazam @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Psychic
- Encore
- Fire Punch
- Recover

Zam has honestly earned a tonne of respect from me in the teambuilder. It's a lategame menace and forces a lot of ugly 50-50 situations for the opponent to confront, and this is especially powerful if you can reach these lategame stages unrevealed and come in on something like an anticipated Snorlax curse to encore. Your typical offence team is not capable of switching into such a fast psychic attack in the late game, and Snorlax can quite often be relegated to a momentum drain where it is either stuck rest looping or taking spikes damage, trying to shake off repeated encores.

Despite its subpar bulk it can emergency stall certain Pokemon such as Jynx and Vaporeon; Jynx in particular can be forced an ultimatum where it has to fish freeze Alakazam rather than Snorlax in the later stages of the game. There are some other Pokemon that you can super-duper-panic-button-'oh gosh I'm out of options' emergency stall; and non-crunch Tyranitar is fascinatingly one of these Pokemon. Admittedly, you must encore it into rock slide and risk your ~40% odds that you will not be crit before it runs out of PP. Start slamming him with fire punches every time you don't need to recover and fish for burns -- this seals the stall and allows you to win the matchup.

Oh, and never let Zam get paralysed.

---


Forretress @ Miracle Berry
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 26 Atk / 26 Def
- Spikes
- Toxic
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Explosion

I don't know how well-explored this set is but I don't think I've ever ran into it a single time, it's an anti-lead set where you pretty much always spike turn 1 and pray to your theistic deity of choice that the Snorlax/Exeggutor/Nidoking on the other side doesn't have a fire move. You otherwise have a great matchup into opposing Jynx/Eggy/Nido leads and have an emergency stop-gap towards the former to pave the way for some very aggressive teammates, something which Cloyster less great at providing. Don't even bother trying to catch an explosion onto Jynx if you are lucky enough to dodge a lovely kiss - just poison it or attack it so that it can't cause problems later on.

Speaking of which, don't expect to boom too often on this set, it's more of a luxury than a necessity (unless you're facing some fatty fat stall, then go wild!) but that's a good thing due to Forre's unique defensive offerings.

You probably don't need to worry about keeping the spike up, so try to build in such a way that you can take advantage of the passivity behind an incoming rapid spin.

---


Blastoise @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Rapid Spin
- Surf
- Reflect
- Rest

If you've encountered me in tournaments or know any of my ladder alts then you've probably ran into me using this. Earlier this year I was constantly meeting Tyranitar teams, so I improvised and came up with this Blastoise set. Quite simply, the idea is that Blastoise compresses the roles of Suicune and Starmie into a single Pokemon. When compared to Starmie, you land into a significantly better matchup vs Tyranitar for a somewhat worse one into Machamp. Essentially you can use it as an aggressive space-paver for Gengar to attempt to beat down and freeze stuff with Ice Punch.

Blastoise conveniently sits at a just great enough speed tier to hand the surf beatdown to opposing Cloyster. Reflect is mainly there to dissuade Snorlax counterplay, but it otherwise helps Blastoise get into a cute acting career where it does its best Suicune impression, so essentially supporting itself with taking attacks from Marowak & Machamp a little easier. Obviously you have the secondary upside of being able to continue checking these two with a teammate if an untimely crit ends Blastoise.

---


Meganium @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Razor Leaf
- Light Screen
- Synthesis
- Leech Seed

Less-tested than anything else I'm showcasing, but I know this set is used and has some seen some success. Would still like to mention it regardless, Meganium is a pretty interesting scout / status sponge as it's incredibly hard for most teams to 2HKO, and can pretty consistently force screens up as a method of resetting the opponent's momentum. Thus I think it best fits on stall teams that want to drumlax in the endgame, but I haven't experimented much outside of this concept.

Venusaur @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Light Screen
- Leech Seed
- Razor Leaf
- Synthesis

Same idea with different typing - a better Machamp / toxic check but worse Marowak / Eggy check. Venusaur urgently wants to be paired with Skarmory, and Meganium with Starmie. Pick your poison.

---


热蜗牛 (Magcargo) @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
- Acid Armor
- Toxic
- Flamethrower
- Rest

Okay yeah fine, I am just completely fooling around with this one, but Magcargo does some absolutely hilarious stuff if you land the right matchup. Viable? Absolutely not. Usable? Definitely -- it's able to check mono + fire lax sets while keeping Skarmory and Forretress completely out of the field. Bonus points for being a somewhat decent Heracross check also.

Having to speed-tie Steelix is pretty awful though, and it's utter deadweight vs offence teams in general. But for stall vs stall matchups it ain't awful. Much more of a 'for fun' set.

-----​

I'd like to conclude by saying this tier still has plenty of room for innovation, despite how restrictive the teambuilder sometimes might seem. For each of these ideas that kinda works, I promise there are at least 3 or 4 that were completely terrible and discarded immediately. If someone as mediocre as me can get to 1500 on ladder using Pokemon as weird as these (not counting Magcargo, he's honestly just trash...) then there is definitely much more room for people to explore new ideas in this tier.

Thanks for reading and happy new year!

That's a pretty "old school" Forry set. The original idea was to use HP Bug to keep Starmie from spinning, but it seems you've re-appropriated it as a way to punish Jynx & Egg leads. Cool!

I love Magcargo here. Always had a soft spot for janky Snorlax checks, even if I was always too chicken/realistic to use them myself. Something about walling big bad Snorlax with a bottom-barrel Poke gives me the warm fuzzies.

Have you considered a Rest-less Blastoise set? Back in what is now ancient history, I messed around a tiny bit with a Surf/Zap Cannon/Rapid Spin/Roar set as a 6th on Explosion teams. This was before Golem was "discovered", though, so this use of Blastoise probably makes a lot less sense in modern GSC.

 

[hellpowna]

Good evening GSC lovers :)
it's been almost 6 months since I started playing this fantastic tier and indeed this is my first post and I hope it will be productive.
During this time I had the opportunity and the honor of being able to exchange ideas with many GSC players, trying to treasure every advice, and most importantly trying to steal the most competitive and innovative aspects of this game.
If the first two months were used to get to know the tier using teams that weren't mine, from the third month, I started to work bymyself.
I tried to capitalize on the advice and opinions of the most experienced players to create something more personal, trying to go out of the box.
and this came out:

thepirate (Tyranitar) Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Screech/Fire Blast/?
- Sandstorm
​

I'm sure someone in the past has already tried to use sandstorm in the competitive world.
Why that?
Let's start talking about Sandstorm: this move inhibits during 5 turns the use of Leftovers by the opponent and in GSC it becomes a considerable advantage in a battle.
Immunity to sand, huge movepool, monstrous stats, all these aspects make Tyranitar the ideal partner for this move.
But that's not everything.
Let's try adding spikes, this way we can maybe paralyze the most common checks/counters and the possibility of drastically reducing their defenses thanks to Screech, so that it becomes a real nightmare for the opponent that will lead him into a continuous switch situation and making him become a perfect victim of residual damage from spikes and sand, thus favoring our sweeper to clean up the game.
In the battle that you will see below (thanks to Mashing), we find ourselves in a situation where his team is constantly under pressure from this Tyranitar(even without spikes)
A battle where I have both control of the game, but at the same time I manage its timing.

click

My perplexity remains on the fourth move. Why screech is perhaps not the best choice.
At least..in this battle it definitely paid off, but I think other moves like Fire Blast/Roar could be good alternatives.
Thank you for reading and let me know what you think/how I could make it better :)

 

[Blaine500]

Good evening GSC lovers :)
it's been almost 6 months since I started playing this fantastic tier and indeed this is my first post and I hope it will be productive.
During this time I had the opportunity and the honor of being able to exchange ideas with many GSC players, trying to treasure every advice, and most importantly trying to steal the most competitive and innovative aspects of this game.
If the first two months were used to get to know the tier using teams that weren't mine, from the third month, I started to work bymyself.
I tried to capitalize on the advice and opinions of the most experienced players to create something more personal, trying to go out of the box.
and this came out:

thepirate (Tyranitar) Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Screech/Fire Blast/?
- Sandstorm
​

I'm sure someone in the past has already tried to use sandstorm in the competitive world.
Why that?
Let's start talking about Sandstorm: this move inhibits during 5 turns the use of Leftovers by the opponent and in GSC it becomes a considerable advantage in a battle.
Immunity to sand, huge movepool, monstrous stats, all these aspects make Tyranitar the ideal partner for this move.
But that's not everything.
Let's try adding spikes, this way we can maybe paralyze the most common checks/counters and the possibility of drastically reducing their defenses thanks to Screech, so that it becomes a real nightmare for the opponent that will lead him into a continuous switch situation and making him become a perfect victim of residual damage from spikes and sand, thus favoring our sweeper to clean up the game.
In the battle that you will see below (thanks to Mashing), we find ourselves in a situation where his team is constantly under pressure from this Tyranitar(even without spikes)
A battle where I have both control of the game, but at the same time I manage its timing.

click

My perplexity remains on the fourth move. Why screech is perhaps not the best choice.
At least..in this battle it definitely paid off, but I think other moves like Fire Blast/Roar could be good alternatives.
Thank you for reading and let me know what you think/how I could make it better :)

Sandstorm has definitely been used in GSC stall before with semi to good results (tho this is by far a niche option not explored enough imo) but attempting Sandstorm on Offense is a mostly untouched concept in the gen. In theory, you used could use it to help put things into range for booms along with spikes support but then it becomes a question of when to time your Sandstorms cause unlike Sunny Day or Rain Dance you can't reboot the turn count (you have to wait till it has done its 5 turns before going for it again).

You could go for something like this on Tyranitar: Toxic, Sandstorm, Fire Blast and Rock Slide. With the idea being that you Toxic the rocks like Golem & Rhydon (who don't usually carry rest), Fire Blast the steels that try to bypass poison & sand and keep your stab Rock Slide for Zapdos, etc while fishing for flinchs. Spikes support would punish the switchs and a Machamp on a team like this would help with dealing with Lax offensively given that Tar isn't going the curse route in this case.

Edited: You could also perhaps drop Toxic for either Earthquake or Pursuit depending on your needs. Earthquake in perticular would allow to punish Nidoking who doesn't care about Toxic or Sand and Pursuit would allow to punish switchs even more given that sand and flinches can make the oppossing side not want to stay in. However, in both of these cases Tar would then rely on teammates to spread Toxic for it to make these coverage options more appealing. Toxic makes the set more self reliant while the coverage requires more outside support to get right but can pay off royally if calibrated correctly. So these decisions are more of a team building consideration than anything else. Lastly, Roar is also something to consider because entry hazards combined with sand would make spikes shuffling hurt just that much more especially against mons that don't carry reliable recovery.

 

[twigster]

Good evening GSC lovers :)
it's been almost 6 months since I started playing this fantastic tier and indeed this is my first post and I hope it will be productive.
During this time I had the opportunity and the honor of being able to exchange ideas with many GSC players, trying to treasure every advice, and most importantly trying to steal the most competitive and innovative aspects of this game.
If the first two months were used to get to know the tier using teams that weren't mine, from the third month, I started to work bymyself.
I tried to capitalize on the advice and opinions of the most experienced players to create something more personal, trying to go out of the box.
and this came out:

thepirate (Tyranitar) Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Screech/Fire Blast/?
- Sandstorm
​

I'm sure someone in the past has already tried to use sandstorm in the competitive world.
Why that?
Let's start talking about Sandstorm: this move inhibits during 5 turns the use of Leftovers by the opponent and in GSC it becomes a considerable advantage in a battle.
Immunity to sand, huge movepool, monstrous stats, all these aspects make Tyranitar the ideal partner for this move.
But that's not everything.
Let's try adding spikes, this way we can maybe paralyze the most common checks/counters and the possibility of drastically reducing their defenses thanks to Screech, so that it becomes a real nightmare for the opponent that will lead him into a continuous switch situation and making him become a perfect victim of residual damage from spikes and sand, thus favoring our sweeper to clean up the game.
In the battle that you will see below (thanks to Mashing), we find ourselves in a situation where his team is constantly under pressure from this Tyranitar(even without spikes)
A battle where I have both control of the game, but at the same time I manage its timing.

click

My perplexity remains on the fourth move. Why screech is perhaps not the best choice.
At least..in this battle it definitely paid off, but I think other moves like Fire Blast/Roar could be good alternatives.
Thank you for reading and let me know what you think/how I could make it better :)

You might also try running Thief on a pokemon to steal a key target's leftovers. Nidoking, Eggy, Jynx and Gengar can all use it, and do relatively often.

Love the Sandstorm-Tyranitar connection. So iconic.

 

[Blaine500]

You might also try running Thief on a pokemon to steal a key target's leftovers. Nidoking, Eggy, Jynx and Gengar can all use it, and do relatively often.

Love the Sandstorm-Tyranitar connection. So iconic.

Nidoking it self could also be pretty interesting on Sandstorm Offense. A set such as: Ice Beam, Sandstorm, Earthquake and Lovely Kiss would extert a lot of pressure onto the opposing side, especially if spikes are down.


Lax would have to keep on coming in to try to absorb sleep only to get a lot residual dmg and risk freeze from Ice Beam instead or even a crit from Earthquake. The mindgames can really take their toll if done correctly.


The match up vs Zapdos also imporves quite a bit as well going from a 75.5% for a 3HKO with Ice Beam to actually guaranteeing the 3HKO after sandstorm damage. Mind you this is simply from raw numbers, if you start landing crits or even pick up the freeze in the middle of your sandstorm shenanigans it's game over. Which is funny to think about because Sleep Talk Dos is usually favored against Nido but sand ever so slighty tips the scale into the other direction.


Egg actually becomes a 2HKO with Ice Beam after spikes & sand are factored in and Nido can eat 1 Psychic in return to make it happen.


Champ is yet another one that interestingly goes from a 4HKO -> to a 3HKO after spikes & sand.

These are only a few quick calcs but the potential is definitely there for Offense to see use out of Sandstorm in the current meta imo.

 

[xFactorymade]

Hey Everyone,

So I've been playing gen 2 (and gen 1) for a while now and have been getting a pretty good feel for what, and how, people tend to be play. I've also been watching some interesting videos from people like Reverend, Big Yellow, BKC, and so on to find more niche and forgotten strategies for these older metagames. One such strategy, which I'm surprised is not WAY more common, is the use of Porygon2 as a fairly consistent check (and possible exploit of) various Snorlax sets.

Now I'm sure I'm not the first one to think that they have found the magical new "100% win, EZ hard counter" to GSC Snorlax, and that is certainly not what I'm saying here either. What I would like to propose, however, is that Porygon2 is a surprisingly reliable option for keeping Snorlax in check without needing to dedicate a team slot to a more passive phaser.

Before looking at Porygon2 vs Lax in gen 2, however, let's take a look at how Porygon vs Lax goes in gen 1 and then compare that to Gen 2.

In gen 1, porygon is a pretty terrible pokemon, which has rightfully earned it's place in NU (where it isn't even that good). Despite this, Porygon has managed to carve itself a somewhat gimmicky, but moderately effective, niche as a counter to the number 2 pokemon in the OU metagame (Snorlax). While Snorlax is not nearly as dominant in gen 1 as it is in gen 2, it is still the number one pokemon for being able to 1v1 just about any pokemon in the game, and as such, is used on about 99% of competitive gen 1 teams. To briefly summarize how Porygon functions, it switches in to Snorlax and PP stalls it with moves like tackle and recover until the opposing Snorlax either switches out or self-destructs, effectively stonewalling Snorlax from being used by your opponent while still preserving your Snorlax in the back for later use. This strategy is surprisingly effective against alot of Snorlax sets, since Porygon is immune to body slam para. I'll link a video outlining how this works below.

Despite having alot of flaws (such as being a fairly dead pokemon/setup opportunity against amnesia Snorlax), the effectiveness of this strategy has earned Porygon a legitimate niche in gen 1 OU play, typically landing it somewhere in the C/D tier. Porygon's biggest problem, however, is that, if it can't effectively stuff Snorlax, then it is a dead teamslot, and also that it has no ability to further capitalize on forcing a Snorlax to switch even when it does force it out.

Now let's look at what has changed between gen 1 and gen 2 for both Snorlax and Porygon.

Snorlax:

Buffs:

-Special split improved Lax's special defense by 55
-Sleep became more favorable, no longer requiring a full wake up turn, which improved the power of rest and made Lax's speed less of a hindrance (and even a benefit, in many cases)
-Gained access to sleep talk, allowing Lax to remain threatening while asleep
-Gained access to curse, allowing Lax to become an even more threatening tank/brawler and giving it sweeping potential
-Double edge was buffed
-Body slam was indirectly buffed, due to the removal of the status bug with normal types
-Gained access to belly drum, making lax even more unpredictable and threatening
-In addition to special buff, amnesia nerf makes it even harder to bowl over lax on the special side, while curse makes it hard to threaten on the physical side
-Gained access to lovely kiss, allowing even more options to status and mix-up potential
-Self-Destruct and explosion received buffs, giving Lax even more offensive potential
-Clamp and other partial trapping moves no longer prevent the effected pokemon from fighting back (cloyster is a pretty solid lax check in gen 1)
-Gained access to leftovers, which is particularly advantageous to Lax, as he is bulky and has high health (and leftovers is a % based heal)
-Crit chance is no longer speed dependent, meaning that Lax is both better at dishing out crits and is less likely to be cheesed by them himself (due to his speed tier)
-And many more smaller/niche buffs, which would take too long to list

Nerfs:

-Lost access to special sweeping potential due to amnesia nerf
-Is now more vulnerable to being statused (para'd) due to the indirect buff to body slam
-Steel type was added, which is most notable (in the case of Lax) in the form of Skarmory
-Phazers were added, making it harder for mons like Lax to set up and act as bulky sweepers (and as we all know, Snorlax never did a setup sweep ever again...)
-Hyper beam no longer avoids recharge drawback on KO, pretty much making the move a useless gimmick
-(Double edged sword) self-Destruct and explosion received buffs, making Lax more vulnerable to being blown up, especially because of its speed tier
-And a small handful of other smaller nerfs, like Machamp getting good fighting stab

Let's look at what Porygon(2) got:

Buffs:

-Stat buffs: An additional 10 special attack from the special split and an additional 20 in all stats from the Porygon2 evolution, allowing Porygon to not hit like a wet noodle with normal stab on the physical side and allowing it to have respectable power on the special side with its bevy of special attacking moves
-Gained access to curse, allowing it to keep up with other curse users and even sweep in its own right
-Like other mons, gained access to leftovers; however, since Porygon(2) tends to be a more defensive mon, this is generally more advantageous to Pory than other mons
-Received a buff to double edge and an alternative normal stab in the form of return, which has no drawback and more PP (useful for stalling)

Nerfs:

-A number of the nerfs to normal types that effected Lax also impact Porygon(2)
-Like Lax, is now vulnerable to body slam para; however, unlike lax, Porygon(2) is way more vulnerable when para'd and tends to not run rest to recover from it
-Entry hazard were added, making it

Now, seeing the disparity between these two lists might make you might think "Wow. Well I guess there's no way that Pory is keeping up with that!"

If you are thinking this, then here's where I'd argue that you are wrong.

Relative to the role of "stuffing lax", Porygon gained and maintained the following relevant tools:

Gained:

-Curse allows it to not only keep up with Lax, but out-benefit it, due to how the defense vs attack thresholds work for Pory and Lax, respectively (i.e. Pory takes less damage when both Lax and Pory are at max curse stacks than at baseline)

-20 base defense (and special defense), making it better at taking lax's attacks from baseline, which most critically, offsets much of the benefit Lax received from the double edge buff (recover out heals double edge when on equal curse stacks)

-Leftovers allows Pory to offset damage from crits, meaning that lax needs several crits in a quick succession BEFORE running out of PP. Pory typically gains about 7-11% + lefties (~15% a turn, on average) a turn while being double edged and double edge has a max range of 93% on a crit, which means that (after leftovers leaving you at about 13-14%), it will take about two full turns to be safe from another max range DE crit (13-14% + 15% x 2 = 43-44% gained after two turns - Pory needs to make up 44% health deficit to be completely safe from two max range crits). (Note: Snorlax loses HP, meaning it will often need to take a break from double edging)

-Leftover also means that Pory can heal up passively while matching Lax's curses, meaning it can doesn't fall behind

-Lax can no longer burst down a Pory with hyper beam after several lucky crits (without the risk of being phazed and giving up a move slot for a terrible move)

-Return means that Pory is able to find a balance between PP/health stalling and dishing out offense (instead of the tackle PP stalling of gen 1). This also means that Pory can capitalize on switches more as well, especially after cursing up.

Maintained:

-Has access to ice beam, which now deals more damage with Pory's improved special attack (but does not perma-freeze the opposing pokemon). This is especially relevant, since it allows Pory to have an 81.5% chance of freezing the opposing Lax (if all PP are used). Lax has to get a lucky crit while you are damaged to do this, but Lax can't continually double edge due to PP limitations (24 DE vs 32 recover) and HP limitations, meaning that they have to correctly predict when you won't recover AND roll a 1/16 chance vs your 1/10 chance to freeze (which also rolls first).
-Recover still has high (32) PP and outpaces all of Lax's standard, unboosted offensive options
-Out speeds Lax, which is a bit of a double edged sword, but is mostly good, as it allows it to switch in and immediately start healing off the damage

Nerfs:

-Way more vulnerable to body slam para now. This is not all bad though, since it can help with PP stalling in some niche cases (due to 1/4 compounding chance to not use PP, offsetting rest stalling). Body slam is also far less threatening, especially on crits. In general though, this is not a desirable situation for Pory to be in, but can be exploited in several way. Notably, since body slam does less damage and para already makes you slower, you can risk cursing up immediately and relying on leftovers to make up the difference. This way, you can rocket straight up to max curse stacks, where you go from a likely 4 HKO (w/o spikes) to only a possible 5 HKO, meaning that your opponent still mostly relies on crits to take you out (1/4 para in to 1/16 crit = 1/64 - only accounts for single crit instance) or para hacks ((1/4)^4 = 1/256).

-Spikes makes switching in to a Lax attack more risky, as a double edge critical hits have a 41% chance to KO on switch in. This isn't that bad, as we are talking about a 6.25% chance into a 41% chance, which then gives you a free switch in on an non-cursed lax.

The Standard Porygon2 Walling Set:

-Return
-Curse
-Ice Beam
-Recover

Brief Discussion on Lax set Matchups and Team Options:

Team Options:</p><p></p><p>Gengar: Provides a backup and/or free switch out on lax sets which Pory has scouted for only normal attacking moves. It can also be used if Pory does go down (or gets slept) and the set looks like it could be mono-attacker, though this is typically a bit of a desperate move. Gengar can also use a desperate hail-mary hypnosis or explosion to handle lax, depending on the game state and your team options.

Zapdos/Flyer: In addition to just being an overall amazing pokemon, Zapdos does have some synergy with Gengar and Pory, allowing for a backup option when things go wrong. If you fail to freeze a lax set which has both earthquake and a normal stab which both still have PP (typically due to rest stalling), then you can either do a little dance between Gengar and Zapdos in drain the remaining PP of one of the moves, or to bait them to use the wrong type of move in order to then whirlwind out the Lax with Zapdos, or get a free hypnosis attempt with Gengar (which can then be phased out with Zapdos or another phaser). Skarmory is another option, but if you are running Skarmory, then dedicating a team slot to Pory is a bit questionable.

Raikou/Zap-Wall: Something that can prevent Zapdos from exploiting the Pory switch in whenever Lax switches out. Just as it is important to prevent Lax from getting opportunities, it is also important that we don't just trade this for Zapdos opportunities.

Cloyster/Spiker: Less mandatory than the above options for the team comp, but a very strong option in its own right that can synergize due to some of the forced switches and reduced enemy team options (due to Snorlax typically being walled out).

Lax Set Matchups:

Mono Attacker CurseTalk: Either stay in for the freeze gamble or switch out to Gengar to wall Lax and force a switch which you can capitalize on (likely with hypnosis, but ice punch can be good for a Zapdos switch in, which seems to be quite common.)

Toxic Mono Attacker Curse-Lax: Gengar is immune to toxic, so same as above. In the extremely unlikely case that they are running earthquake instead of normal stab, then Rest Zapdos will be able to capitalize as well. Pory can't handle toxic, but can usually put up with poison (though it does making walling curse Lax ALOT more dicey, but in this matchup, that is not an issue).

Lovely Kiss w/ Rest: Same as above. Gengar if normal, Zap if they are running a weird EQ set.

Lovely Kiss w/ (presumed) Self-Destruct and EQ (no curse): Cloyster can be a decent switch in to this, but you can also bait with your own Lax and then switch to Gengar. This set tends to be tricky to play around in general, but has the least risk of outright winning the game on the spot if played properly. With Gengar, a slept Pory, and another defensive pivot, you have good odds to avoid a 2 or 3 for one and can cause them to just throw away their queen piece on a Pory boom.

Standard DE-EQ-Curse-Rest Set: This can be dicey when have enough sense to rest stall you and you fail to freeze with icebeam or crit with return on rest. In these instances, they will typically only have a few PP left in each of their attacking moves, meaning that smart play with Gengar or Zapdos can either drain one of their coverage options or allow you to do a sneaky phasing and/or sleeping option. This is obviously not ideal, but you have to realize that this is about a 1/5 roll where the other 4/5 rolls you usually absolutely ruin the opposing team (due to stuffing Lax and leaving you with a cursed up Porygon). This also doesn't happen against many other sets if you have Gengar waiting in the back. Coming from experience, this very rarely loses you the game with smart play, as people tend to play the same when it comes to the switching shenanigans and phasing/sleep attempt.

Body Slam Standard Set (BS-EQ-Curse-Rest): Probably the worst matchup, but can be exploited due to the PP savings and lower power level of the attacks. Typically, this is only an major issue if you get terrible para luck (especially when cursing up, but also in general with crits) and get crit or para'd soon after switching in. The main issue with this set is not when they stay in and trying to win the 1v1, but when they have enough sense to switch out early after paralyzing your Pory. That being said, once a Snorlax set like this gets revealed, Lax is alot less threatening and you will have already prevented the initial curse up. While Pory will mostly be out of commission for handling Lax, he can still get value in the late game against a more passive mon or can get some chip damage in on a Zapdos before going down. Admittedly, when played properly by the opponent, this is one of Pory's weakest matchups; that being said though, he often still achieves the roll of scouting the enemy lax and getting the initial force out, or otherwise just wins the curse/stall war.

Drum Lax: Typically not an issue. Will typically wall lax at baseline for a while and if the opponent decides to belly drum, then their lax will have to take a return and avoid a crit, and even then will be on too low of health to easily re-enter the battle (more-or-less achieving the roll of keeping lax out of the fight). If they decide to stay in and rest, then the opposing Lax can either be chased out with boom, phased out, or just beaten down to prevent it from getting more than 1 kill (if your boom and phaser are down, which is when drum lax tends to strike). Drum lax is less of a singular threat and more-so a late game win condition for stall and they typically can't risk losing him or being unable to use him due to a Porygon, so Porygon often will still help to keep him out.

Conclusion:

As long as you make sure to not play recklessly with Pory and keep him at full health (switch him out when other things switch in; unless he is cursed up, but even this can be questionable at times if Lax is still alive), then he achieves the same function has he does in gen 1: keeping Lax at bay (only with more payoff from keeping lax out and more benefit from him sticking around afterwards (alternative curse sweeper)). Porygon2 is not the perfect Lax answer and should not be treated as such. What Porygon2 is, is an option to manage the most centralizing offensive and defensive pokemon in the metagame without having to give up an offensive team slot and allows the rest of your team to play defense/offense against the opposing team without having to worry about the threat of Lax tearing apart your team or sweeping you, and consequentially allows you to keep your Snorlax out of curse wars which could more easily lose you the game.

I also think that Porygon2 in should not have the same tiering rank in gen 2 as Porygon does in gen 1. Porygon2 arguably does much of what gen 1 Porygon does, but better, and gets more value out of the gamble (since gen 2 Snorlax is the most centralizing and versatile pokemon in OU history vs Gen 1 Snorlax just being very, very good). Porygon2 also has way more ability to capitalize, assist the team, and even sweep once the opposing Lax is down, making it far more viable than gen 1 Porygon is or ever was. I think that if people play Porygon2 the same way gen 1 Porygon is played (a dedicated Snorlax wall), then people would likely have more success with Porygon2 and his potential would be realized a bit more.

Let me know what you all think. I've played Pory a good bit on ladder up to the high 1400 ranks and can say from experience that he does very well. I'm sure I could do better than that if I played more, but I'm pretty semi-casual when it comes to competitive pokemon and just don't have the time to regularly break 1500 elo with different teams (I prefer variety and experimentation). Feel free to point out any shortcomings with Pory and I'll do my best to respond where applicable.

RBY Viability (2021):

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/rby-ou-viability-rankings.3685861/

Big Yellow RBY Video on Porygon:

Reverend Niche Video:

 

[EarthTraveler413]

With the GSC seasonal winding down to the last few fights, I'd like to post this slightly creative set I made during the tour.

i hate starmie (Tyranitar) @ Leftovers
- Pursuit
- Crunch
- Protect
- Fire Blast / Rock Slide / (coverage)

Are you sick of stall? Do you hate Starmie making it impossible to keep your spikes down? Do you wish there was a way to just pin down and take out that stupid starfish? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you might be interested in Protect Tyranitar.

Starmie Surf vs. Tyranitar: 205-242 (50.8 - 60%) -- 36.4% chance to 2HKO after Leech Seed recovery

Starmie was set to base 100 HP for this calc and leech seed was added to simulate 2 turns of Leftovers recovery. As you can see, this is not a favorable matchup for Starmie, and on the other side:

Tyranitar (set to base 60 HP) Crunch vs. Starmie: 188-222 (58.2 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leech Seed recovery
Tyranitar Crunch vs. Starmie: 188-222 (58.2 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Tyranitar switching boosted Pursuit vs. Starmie: 188-222 (58.2 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Thus, this set allows Tyranitar to have a good chance of Pursuit-trapping Starmie.

Turn 38 of this replay best illustrates how this matchup should go down (unfortunately it didn't get the KO because I failed to pull the trigger on it xP but the trap was successfully set)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen2ou-687073

Fire Blast was my preferred coverage move due to hitting Skarmory and Forretress, improving its anti-stall matchup, but of course things may be different for your team.

 

[bdt2002]

I spy with my little eye, a GSC OU thread that I feel like posting on. GSC has a lot of mechanics I enjoy as a more casual fan (RBY has some of those too, but that's in combination with other game balance problems), so I hope you don't mind me wanting to join in.

With the exception of the occasional Baton Pass shenanigans, I honestly think GSC has one of the more solidified OU tiers in its current state. I'm the kind of guy who does want some parity in my competitive games but will actively encourage the presence of some characters (or in this case, the Pokémon on your team) being significantly stronger than other options. My reason for thinking is way is because the existence of stronger threats relative to the rest of the metagame can give newer players an easier time catching up to experienced players while still encouraging metagame development around those specific characters. I can understand why some people might find a pro-disparity philosophy unhealthy in the context of competitive Pokémon tournaments, but I feel like an OU (or any other tier, for that matter) where every Pokémon in the tier is equal in viability to each other has its own problems that are potentially far greater.

In this way, one of the things that caught my eye with GSC early on was how it handles special attackers- generally speaking they're less viable than they were in RBY because of the Special Defense stat being introduced and options for boosting Special Attack being far more limited. I've heard several people give GSC Snorlax crap for how easily it stuffs most special attackers, but as a casual fan, I have to wonder. Would a metagame without Snorlax that indirectly buffs special attackers be healthier than the metagame we have now? Everyone knows how good Snorlax is, but very rarely do you see people actively pushing for it to be banned. This is because the shake-up to the tier's identity would make tournaments almost unrecognizable and force players to adjust their strategies.



There's actually a second special wall that I feel a similar way about but want to collect some opinions on. Historically, Ho-Oh's been referred to as the worst of the five GSC Ubers, often being seen as less viable than Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, sometimes Celebi, and is even agreed to be worse overall than OU titans Snorlax and Zapdos. People have discussed unbanning Ho-Oh and Celebi in the past many times before, and while those tests have always wielded... interesting results, I want to know what the more experienced playerbase would think of the idea of just Ho-Oh with no Celebi included. In those older tests I mentioned, part of what made the pair so hard to break was that Celebi checks some of Ho-Oh's weak points. Without Celebi around to indirectly buff Ho-Oh's viability on offense and defense, it definitely seems like Ho-Oh could provide a healthy mixture of utility against the rest of the tier. Of particular interest to me is Ho-Oh's matchups against Baton Pass teams- as you might expect, their physical sweepers hate the idea of Sacred Fire burns, while many of the best Baton Pass users struggle to break through its defenses in the existing GSC Ubers metagame. All the while, GSC OU would be gaining a more reliable way to spread burn status in a generation lacking both 30% Fire Blast and a move like Will-O-Wisp, and the cherry on top is that Ho-Oh could still be checked effectively in most of the same ways it is in GSC Ubers. What do you guys think?

 

[BeeOrSomething]

I spy with my little eye, a GSC OU thread that I feel like posting on. GSC has a lot of mechanics I enjoy as a more casual fan (RBY has some of those too, but that's in combination with other game balance problems), so I hope you don't mind me wanting to join in.

With the exception of the occasional Baton Pass shenanigans, I honestly think GSC has one of the more solidified OU tiers in its current state. I'm the kind of guy who does want some parity in my competitive games but will actively encourage the presence of some characters (or in this case, the Pokémon on your team) being significantly stronger than other options. My reason for thinking is way is because the existence of stronger threats relative to the rest of the metagame can give newer players an easier time catching up to experienced players while still encouraging metagame development around those specific characters. I can understand why some people might find a pro-disparity philosophy unhealthy in the context of competitive Pokémon tournaments, but I feel like an OU (or any other tier, for that matter) where every Pokémon in the tier is equal in viability to each other has its own problems that are potentially far greater.

In this way, one of the things that caught my eye with GSC early on was how it handles special attackers- generally speaking they're less viable than they were in RBY because of the Special Defense stat being introduced and options for boosting Special Attack being far more limited. I've heard several people give GSC Snorlax crap for how easily it stuffs most special attackers, but as a casual fan, I have to wonder. Would a metagame without Snorlax that indirectly buffs special attackers be healthier than the metagame we have now? Everyone knows how good Snorlax is, but very rarely do you see people actively pushing for it to be banned. This is because the shake-up to the tier's identity would make tournaments almost unrecognizable and force players to adjust their strategies.



There's actually a second special wall that I feel a similar way about but want to collect some opinions on. Historically, Ho-Oh's been referred to as the worst of the five GSC Ubers, often being seen as less viable than Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, sometimes Celebi, and is even agreed to be worse overall than OU titans Snorlax and Zapdos. People have discussed unbanning Ho-Oh and Celebi in the past many times before, and while those tests have always wielded... interesting results, I want to know what the more experienced playerbase would think of the idea of just Ho-Oh with no Celebi included. In those older tests I mentioned, part of what made the pair so hard to break was that Celebi checks some of Ho-Oh's weak points. Without Celebi around to indirectly buff Ho-Oh's viability on offense and defense, it definitely seems like Ho-Oh could provide a healthy mixture of utility against the rest of the tier. Of particular interest to me is Ho-Oh's matchups against Baton Pass teams- as you might expect, their physical sweepers hate the idea of Sacred Fire burns, while many of the best Baton Pass users struggle to break through its defenses in the existing GSC Ubers metagame. All the while, GSC OU would be gaining a more reliable way to spread burn status in a generation lacking both 30% Fire Blast and a move like Will-O-Wisp, and the cherry on top is that Ho-Oh could still be checked effectively in most of the same ways it is in GSC Ubers. What do you guys think?

Lax-less OU has been tried. Pretty much everyone hated it. When the best all around special wall is removed, you know what takes its place:

Ho-oh would not be very healthy. It is extremely, extremely bulky, with a large Hp and physical defense stat and extremely massive special defense, as well as the absurdly broken 32 pp recover, it would be immensely difficult to reliably removed when backed up by a strong defensive core. Even though its known as a special wall, it still takes physical hits remarkably well due to its lack of weaknesses on that front asides from rock (iirc), gsc mechanics, and recover, and can just whirlwind out any cursers and recover off any damage easily the next turn.

 

[bdt2002]

Lax-less OU has been tried. Pretty much everyone hated it. When the best all around special wall is removed, you know what takes its place:

Ho-oh would not be very healthy. It is extremely, extremely bulky, with a large Hp and physical defense stat and extremely massive special defense, as well as the absurdly broken 32 pp recover, it would be immensely difficult to reliably removed when backed up by a strong defensive core. Even though its known as a special wall, it still takes physical hits remarkably well due to its lack of weaknesses on that front asides from rock (iirc), gsc mechanics, and recover, and can just whirlwind out any cursers and recover off any damage easily the next turn.

I definitely agree with the Snorlax and Blissey part. It definitely helps that Snorlax isn’t extremely passive in most matchups, allowing for a combination of offensive and defensive utility in one team slot.

As far as Ho-Oh is concerned, maybe I need to do some calcs research but I can see where you’re coming from about this bird being extremely bulky- arguably too much so when Sacred Fire burns make it take even less from physical attacks than usual. Options for dealing with Ho-Oh in a metagame that already has Snorlax, Zapdos, Cloyster, and ongoing issues with Baton Pass sounds like a lot to take into account in a game where you only have six team slots. But see, this is why it’s good for an inexperienced player to try and collect opinions. I would expect most other GSC players to have a similar response.

 

[Jorgen]

Odd take: I unironically think the main problem with them is that their raw stats just completely invalidate Nidoking. Naturally, this extends to things like Gengar, Exeggutor, and in Ho-oh's case, Jynx. But in my head it's called the "Nidoking line" - Pokemon which are good enough to hang when there's one and a half Ubers in the tier (Snorlax and Zapdos), but not good enough to deal with 2+ hyper-statted Pokes with decent movepools running around.

Now, a metagame that replaces Snorlax with one of Celebi or Ho-oh could be a fun experiment. But I don't think you can have 2+ of these guys.

 

[cyrtie]

I think what Jorgen said sounds like a fun idea to try Gen 2 OU but with Ho-Oh instead of snorlax(ho-oh because its more fun than celebi) now I dont know if this is a good idea but it might shake things up and make more people interested in this metagame, it can be done on a separate ladder just to test how it would be more just as a fun thing, I know I would be intrigued by it. But I can't make a judgement over this since I haven't dabbled much in this metagame

 

[Vileman]

I am here to talk about the God Dog


Jolteon @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 14 HP / 28 Atk / 26 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Water]
- Growth
- Baton Pass

To anyone who has talked to me in the past months about gsc, it's no secret i've been spamming jolteon a Lot. Personally i think this is by far the best set for it. The coverage allows you to pressure any phazer (think skarm, steelix, golem...roarkou is bad so I ignore it mostly. You can just pressure it into sleeping), so that makes baton passing a lot easier for jolteon compared to vap, espeon, and others.
The ideal scenario for jolteon though is to actually be the late game cleaner after baton passing. Usually if you manage to bp to zapdos, you can break through snorlax (or at the very least leave it in jolt range), who is usually what stops jolteon in any offense team given its amazing speed tier.

I suggest anyone who is hesitant to just give it a go. Here is the team i've mostly used it on, it's just the Big 5 + jolteon last. Again, i feel it's speed tier really sets a niche for it as both a baton passer and late game cleaner as being faster than zam, starmie, gengar, etc, can really make a difference.

 

[Jorgen]

I am here to talk about the God Dog


Jolteon @ Leftovers
Ability: No Ability
IVs: 14 HP / 28 Atk / 26 Def
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Water]
- Growth
- Baton Pass

To anyone who has talked to me in the past months about gsc, it's no secret i've been spamming jolteon a Lot. Personally i think this is by far the best set for it. The coverage allows you to pressure any phazer (think skarm, steelix, golem...roarkou is bad so I ignore it mostly. You can just pressure it into sleeping), so that makes baton passing a lot easier for jolteon compared to vap, espeon, and others.
The ideal scenario for jolteon though is to actually be the late game cleaner after baton passing. Usually if you manage to bp to zapdos, you can break through snorlax (or at the very least leave it in jolt range), who is usually what stops jolteon in any offense team given its amazing speed tier.

I suggest anyone who is hesitant to just give it a go. Here is the team i've mostly used it on, it's just the Big 5 + jolteon last. Again, i feel it's speed tier really sets a niche for it as both a baton passer and late game cleaner as being faster than zam, starmie, gengar, etc, can really make a difference.

Thoughts on Thunder on GrowthJolt? It needs 2 boosts with Tbolt vs just 1 with Thunder to threaten a 3hko on Lax, although when it 2HKOs you back, that does seem like an awfully hollow threat. The other thing might be para procs on RoarKou, but it seems most people nowadays (rightfully imo) hate to forego RestTalk on Raikou, and it ain't like Tbolt has a 0% chance of paralysis. Any other rolls/situations I'm missing?

 

[Vileman]

Thoughts on Thunder on GrowthJolt? It needs 2 boosts with Tbolt vs just 1 with Thunder to threaten a 3hko on Lax, although when it 2HKOs you back, that does seem like an awfully hollow threat. The other thing might be para procs on RoarKou, but it seems most people nowadays (rightfully imo) hate to forego RestTalk on Raikou, and it ain't like Tbolt has a 0% chance of paralysis. Any other rolls/situations I'm missing?

I'm not really big on 3hkoes with jolteon as it's quite frail anyways, and thunder misses makes those 3hkoes already pretty unlikely to happen on the first place

I'd rather spam tbolt to get stuff in range (the more you do it the more chances you have to crit as well) than try to get lax to 3hko range, miss n lose x.x

 

[bdt2002]

I started looking into GSC OU again very recently, interested in the offensive shift that the meta has experienced over the last year or two. I understand that a… certain other post I made doesn’t really add anything to that outside of personal preference, so I wanted to take a look at things a bit more objectively this time as opposed to subjectively. With that being said, there’s a few Pokémon I want your opinions on.



There may be something I’m missing here, but on the current trajectory of the meta, I simply don’t see Zapdos as a top-tier Pokémon anymore, or at least not a unanimous Top 3 along with Snorlax and Cloyster. This opinion ultimately comes down to role compression and matchup spread. While it naturally hits harder than Raikou and Jolteon, they’re both also faster than it and have their own advantages. Raikou makes up for Zapdos’s Spikes immunity with better special bulk, and Jolteon can pull its own underrated shenanigans thanks to Growth, Baton Pass (a move Zapdos wouldn’t get access to until Gen 3), and even higher Speed than either of the legendary Electric-Types. I wouldn’t call these other Electric-Types world beaters or anything, especially not Jolteon, but it feels like in practice, Zapdos’s Spikes immunity is starting to mean less relative to the other options when teams are relying more and more on high Speed to back up their offensive pressure. In this way, Zapdos’s struggles with the special walls rising in popularity to counter some of these threats, as well as Zapdos being slower than its competition and lacking an actual Electric resistance, has started to catch up to it. Don’t get me wrong, Zapdos is still a really good Pokémon, I just don’t think it’s Top 3 caliber in this meta anymore.



In contrast to Zapdos, I think Tyranitar is absolutely incredible in a metagame dominated by special attackers being paired with Self-Destruct and Explosion users and Starmie as the main Rapid Spin user. Tyranitar is especially helpful against most Zapdos variants, Gengar, and Jynx especially if Sleep Clause is already active. Tyranitar’s role compression of being a Pursuit user that also resists Normal is something almost any team archetype can find a use for, and in practice Tyranitar itself is able to put its wide movepool and high stats to use in keeping up with faster paced offensive teams and slower balance squads alike. Being one of the better checks along with Golem, Rhydon, and the Steel-Types to MonoNormal Snorlax doesn’t hurt anything either. Aside from matchup spread, Tyranitar’s other assets continue to be useful- Fire Blast for Steel-Types, Ice Beam for extremely specific targets, Roar because… well, it’s Roar, we all know how good phazing can be in conjunction with Spikes, you get the picture.



You know how people are always going on record saying defensively inclined Ice-Types are bad because of their lack of resistances? What if I told you that offensive Dark-Types have historically had a very similar problem? Thankfully, Umbreon’s emphasis on bulk pairs very well with Dark being a better defensive type than offensive, and I feel like there’s some untapped potential with this thing in spite of its passive nature. Said passivity isn’t great when other teams are starting to stack offensive threats like a pile of poker chips, but what’s caught my attention isn’t Umbreon’s bulk, but rather how it can use its unique talents to support the offensive threats that fill this scheme fit on balance teams. Everyone talks about Growth + Baton Pass on Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Espeon, but Baton Pass in conjunction with Charm is able to act as a stifle to physical attackers and a slow pivot in a way that few other Pokémon can match in GSC. I personally hope to see more of how Baton Pass Umbreon can help leverage balance team’s matchups in this meta against strong physical wallbreakers that are being paired with the fast, special sweepers Umbreon has historically done good against on its own.

 

[Vileman]

Some...interesting takes in there

There may be something I’m missing here, but on the current trajectory of the meta, I simply don’t see Zapdos as a top-tier Pokémon anymore, or at least not a unanimous Top 3 along with Snorlax and Cloyster. This opinion ultimately comes down to role compression and matchup spread. While it naturally hits harder than Raikou and Jolteon, they’re both also faster than it and have their own advantages. Raikou makes up for Zapdos’s Spikes immunity with better special bulk, and Jolteon can pull its own underrated shenanigans thanks to Growth, Baton Pass (a move Zapdos wouldn’t get access to until Gen 3), and even higher Speed than either of the legendary Electric-Types. I wouldn’t call these other Electric-Types world beaters or anything, especially not Jolteon, but it feels like in practice, Zapdos’s Spikes immunity is starting to mean less relative to the other options when teams are relying more and more on high Speed to back up their offensive pressure. In this way, Zapdos’s struggles with the special walls rising in popularity to counter some of these threats, as well as Zapdos being slower than its competition and lacking an actual Electric resistance, has started to catch up to it. Don’t get me wrong, Zapdos is still a really good Pokémon, I just don’t think it’s Top 3 caliber in this meta anymore.

Yeah no, Zapdos owns. Good enough speed tier, soft checks half the meta, a thunder crit can turn a game around... yeah raikou and jolteon have some advantages over it (i am the #1 jolteon (and raikou!) stan after all so i would know) but i feel you're overlooking at zapdos advantages. The spike immunity is huge as you get some crucial survivability by getting that 6% back rather than losing 6% when switching in, you have key resistances to fighting and ground immune which are Huge (steelix/golem can only boom you, machamp needs rock slide, nidoking has to spam ice beam..), and again the power difference is quite crucial when the best mon in the tier is snorlax, only him and raikou can"safely" switch into it p much, while switching into raikou and jolteon can be a bit more safe with stuff like ttar, eggy, hera, etc.

All in all, yeah no zapdos is still as good as ever imo

In contrast to Zapdos, I think Tyranitar is absolutely incredible in a metagame dominated by special attackers being paired with Self-Destruct and Explosion users and Starmie as the main Rapid Spin user. Tyranitar is especially helpful against most Zapdos variants, Gengar, and Jynx especially if Sleep Clause is already active. Tyranitar’s role compression of being a Pursuit user that also resists Normal is something almost any team archetype can find a use for, and in practice Tyranitar itself is able to put its wide movepool and high stats to use in keeping up with faster paced offensive teams and slower balance squads alike. Being one of the better checks along with Golem, Rhydon, and the Steel-Types to MonoNormal Snorlax doesn’t hurt anything either. Aside from matchup spread, Tyranitar’s other assets continue to be useful- Fire Blast for Steel-Types, Ice Beam for extremely specific targets, Roar because… well, it’s Roar, we all know how good phazing can be in conjunction with Spikes, you get the picture.

Yeah ttar is amazing, not much to add here other than the fact that people have started to use curse sets more is great, its a big ass threat to most teams and it can make you have to pick a sack very easily. Mixed sets are still great, screech has been catching on (that accuracy is Ass though), so big danger all around.

You know how people are always going on record saying defensively inclined Ice-Types are bad because of their lack of resistances? What if I told you that offensive Dark-Types have historically had a very similar problem? Thankfully, Umbreon’s emphasis on bulk pairs very well with Dark being a better defensive type than offensive, and I feel like there’s some untapped potential with this thing in spite of its passive nature. Said passivity isn’t great when other teams are starting to stack offensive threats like a pile of poker chips, but what’s caught my attention isn’t Umbreon’s bulk, but rather how it can use its unique talents to support the offensive threats that fill this scheme fit on balance teams. Everyone talks about Growth + Baton Pass on Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Espeon, but Baton Pass in conjunction with Charm is able to act as a stifle to physical attackers and a slow pivot in a way that few other Pokémon can match in GSC. I personally hope to see more of how Baton Pass Umbreon can help leverage balance team’s matchups in this meta against strong physical wallbreakers that are being paired with the fast, special sweepers Umbreon has historically done good against on its own.

Here i just dont see the vision. Say you do run charm + bp... then what? You last moves are gonna be pursuit moonlight? Any status now means its dead, youre still not doing damage to anything (free invite to spin/get spikes up/rest up your weakened mons/set up growth eevelutions, etc which tbh are Always an issue when using this mon) so at best you maybe trap gengar if it doesnt force you to moonlight before you get some actual damage on it
Ive found umbreon to not be very good outside of being a firelax check and maybe trap gengar, which again if you switch in it gets plenty of chances to para/freeze/crit you, even moreso if spikes are up, so it doesnt even get the job done half the time

 

[bdt2002]

Yeah no, Zapdos owns. Good enough speed tier, soft checks half the meta, a thunder crit can turn a game around... yeah raikou and jolteon have some advantages over it (i am the #1 jolteon (and raikou!) stan after all so i would know) but i feel you're overlooking at zapdos advantages. The spike immunity is huge as you get some crucial survivability by getting that 6% back rather than losing 6% when switching in, you have key resistances to fighting and ground immune which are Huge (steelix/golem can only boom you, machamp needs rock slide, nidoking has to spam ice beam..), and again the power difference is quite crucial when the best mon in the tier is snorlax, only him and raikou can"safely" switch into it p much, while switching into raikou and jolteon can be a bit more safe with stuff like ttar, eggy, hera, etc.

All in all, yeah no zapdos is still as good as ever imo

I had a feeling someone would bring this up, and that’s why I’ve prepared a counterargument. Yes, Zapdos is able to switch in easily and soft-check many things. Yes, the Spikes immunity is huge for any Flying-Type, especially for one with the offensive toolset to take advantage of Spikes being set on the opponent’s side on offense.

But with that being said, Zapdos being easy to bring into the field isn’t this Pokémon’s problem. In my opinion, being able to actually do something once you’ve entered the battle is just as important as hitting the field safely. A Top 3 caliber Pokemon should be able to do both consistently throughout the course of a game, and when it’s not exactly hard to stack Zapdos checks since every team runs Snorlax anyways, and because Zapdos itself can sometimes be left wanting for offensive potential when Whirlwind phazing isn’t an option depending on the set, I just can’t see Zapdos as impactful in this meta as Snorlax, Cloyster, Gengar, and Raikou. Heck, at one point I had Zapdos ranked even lower (at 6th) than I currently do, but I admittedly eventually decided that was too low.

Here i just dont see the vision. Say you do run charm + bp... then what? You last moves are gonna be pursuit moonlight? Any status now means its dead, youre still not doing damage to anything (free invite to spin/get spikes up/rest up your weakened mons/set up growth eevelutions, etc which tbh are Always an issue when using this mon) so at best you maybe trap gengar if it doesnt force you to moonlight before you get some actual damage on it
Ive found umbreon to not be very good outside of being a firelax check and maybe trap gengar, which again if you switch in it gets plenty of chances to para/freeze/crit you, even moreso if spikes are up, so it doesnt even get the job done half the time

Here’s the thing about Umbreon- it’s not designed to be a catch-all defensive check to opposing threats on its own. It’s meant to be a crucial support piece for defensively inclined team structures that appreciate the specific things Umbreon brings to the table compared to other bulky walls. Charm remains a staple part of Umbreon’s game plan, and we’ve all seen how impactful a slow, bulky pivot can be. If Umbreon can’t check many things on its own, thats completely fine if it can instead support its teammates that are able to take on Umbreon’s bad matchups. The reason this is so important is because the pivot itself must also have strong longevity to perform its role for the team, something that Umbreon’s pure Dark typing and high defensive stats can accomplish consistently with the help of team support already featured on most GSC archetypes such as Rapid Spin and the occasional Heal Bell. Umbreon + Starmie also deserves a mention on this post, as Starmie can not only use Rapid Spin to clear Spikes for Umbreon, but also appreciates being able to be pivoted in via Baton Pass against specific targets like Machamp and the bulky Rock-Types.

 

[RealJester]

Of the OU mons, Zapdos switches into and immediately generates offense vs 2/3rds of the metagame. While you argue that it doesn't make immediate progress, its Thunder is the strongest unboosted special attack in the tier, forcing limited counterplay in the form of Sleep Talk Snorlax and Raikou. Non-Sleep Talk Lax must burn a turn before switching out if it wants to come in on Zapdos with a spike down because it'll just die if it doesn't. Stall hasn't just shifted away from Roar on Raikou because of the need for answering threats packing sleep like Jynx; it's because a single rest from Raikou can rapidly shift the tide of the game to a double-switchfest between Snorlax and Zapdos on Skarmory and Raikou (rests which are easily generated from Zapdos's own ability to para off of thunder or t-wave). The thing that makes Zapdos so imposing is that its defense is offense and vice versa; the more it switches in, the more it forces rests. The more rests it forces, the more things can safely switch in and the further ahead the Zapdos user becomes in terms of making progress. You also cite Cloyster, Raikou, and Gengar as being more impactful in the meta. All of these mons are fundamentally defined by their relationship with Zap. It's the poke that Raikou most worries about checking, the cleaner in the back on every offense team that makes Gengar such a potent trade machine, and one of the two spikes-immunes in OU (again, note that it is the most effective answer to the other one, Skarmory) while also being a fantastic abuser. Modern GSC fundamentally revolves around the spikes war; its significance cannot be overstated. There's a reason why Golem has nearly unanimously become a top 10 poke on the VR, and why Cloyster itself has usurped Raikou's third place. Zapdos's offense with a spike down is so immense that offensive teams need to pack exploders like Cloyster and Exeggutor to get the jump on it before it cleans house. And yeah, if you still find the offense lacking, you can just run Whirlwind to tear through offense and stall alike with some well-timed predictions.

If you struggle to realize how much Zapdos does on a game-to-game basis, both offensively and defensively, I'd recommend watching any high-level tournament game, and also playing some more with it for yourself. In my eyes, its consistency paired with its potential peak qualifies it as on par with Snorlax as the strongest in the tier.

(P.S.: Umbreon is really only good for enabling Snorlaxes with mono-normal coverage on stall)

 

[zf]

Of the OU mons, Zapdos switches into and immediately generates offense vs 2/3rds of the metagame. While you argue that it doesn't make immediate progress, its Thunder is the strongest unboosted special attack in the tier, forcing strong counterplay in the form of Sleep Talk Snorlax and Raikou. Non-Sleep Talk Lax must burn a turn before switching out if it wants to come in on Zapdos with a spike down because it'll just die if it doesn't. Stall hasn't just shifted away from Roar on Raikou because of the need for answering threats packing sleep like Jynx; it's because a single rest from Raikou can rapidly shift the tide of the game to a double-switchfest between Snorlax and Zapdos on Skarmory and Raikou (rests which are easily generated from Zapdos's own ability to para off of thunder or t-wave). The thing that makes Zapdos so imposing is that its defense is offense and vice versa; the more it switches in, the more it forces rests. The more rests it forces, the more things can safely switch in and the further ahead the Zapdos user becomes in terms of making progress. You also cite Cloyster, Raikou, and Gengar as being "more impactful in the meta". All of these mons are fundamentally defined by their relationship with Zap. It's the poke that Raikou most worries about checking, the cleaner in the back on every offense team that makes Gengar such a potent trade machine, and one of the two spikes-immunes in OU (again, note that it is the strongest immediate to the other one, Skarmory) while also being a fantastic abuser. Modern GSC fundamentally revolves around the spikes war; its significance cannot be overstated. There's a reason why Golem has nearly unanimously become a top 10 poke on the VR, and why Cloyster itself has usurped Raikou's third place. Zapdos's offense with a spike down is so immense that offensive teams need to pack exploders like Cloyster and Exeggutor to get the jump on it before it cleans house. And yeah, if you still find the offense lacking, you can just run Whirlwind to tear through offense and stall alike with some well-timed predictions.

If you struggle to realize how much Zapdos does on a game-to-game basis, both offensively and defensively, I'd recommend watching any high-level tournament game, and also playing some more with it for yourself. In my eyes, its consistency on a game-to-game basis paired with its potential peak qualifies it as on par with Snorlax as the strongest in the tier.

View attachment 547386

(P.S.: Umbreon is really only good for enabling Snorlaxes with only normal coverage on stall)

Excellent post mr Jest

I can tell u have been Studying under Mr BKC, and clearly have elevated ur understanding of the tier…. Excited to see season 2 of SPL player jester… i have an inkling it will be a breakout season…

 

[cherryb0ng]

This is a discussion thread so I have to accept the fact that we won't always be seeing the metagame the same way. That said, I really strongly suggest that before you make a post you at least try to verify what your saying.
For instance this take is just an example of the information being misrepresented to you, hence why you claim that Zapdos is not a top-tier pokemon:

(I don't find it outrageous that someone would claim Raikou is a better Electric than Zapdos. If that works for you then great!)

There may be something I’m missing here,

evidence mostly... I mean if you say something controversial you should try to back it up. (Okay I'm being nitpicky and I apologise.) Moving on.

But it feels like in practice, Zapdos’s Spikes immunity is starting to mean less relative to the other options when teams are relying more and more on high Speed to back up their offensive pressure.

This comes across as strange. You are making it sound as though Zapdos isn't the second fastest pokemon in every single game being played (if not the fastest). You realize that the only Pokemon faster than Zapdos that it has to worry about are Raikou, Gengar, Jolteon and Alakazam. The usage of the latter two, while they certainly increased, is not so high and they are terrified of being paralyzed (Jolteon also isn't that good a wall).
The difference however, between Raikou Jolteon and Zapdos, or those other special attackers is that Zapdos doesn't need much setup to be effective at what it does. Raikou needing to be Sleep Talk all the time in today's meta means that it lost one of the only other thing it had going for it and now Zapdos proves being an even better phazer than it for offensive purposes.

In this way, Zapdos’s struggles with the special walls rising in popularity to counter some of these threats,

No significant changes that suggest there is this "rise in popularity" of special walls, unless of course you mean sleep talk Snorlax. But isn't the "rise in popularity" of special walls a problem for Jolteon and Raikou also?

SPL XIV overall usage

SPL XIII overall usage

SPL XII overall usage

What are you talking about? What special walls? Can you make an examples or do I have to be petty because you can't be bothered to consider that Zapdos is the only Electric Pokemon that can 3HKO Snorlax, the best special wall? It's not like Blissey is on the rise and taking the meta by storm. Raikou usage is actually lower than years before (SPL 9, 10, and 11 had an average Raikou usage of 39%).

As well as Zapdos being slower than its competition and lacking an actual Electric resistance. has started to catch up to it. Don’t get me wrong, Zapdos is still a really good Pokémon, I just don’t think it’s Top 3 caliber in this meta anymore.

This is actually a fair point. Zapdos's lack of Electric resistance is one of the few things that holds it back. But the immunity to ground more than makes up for it, denying opportunities for Golem or Steelix to do anything to it besides using Explosion or other sets.

In my opinion, being able to actually do something once you’ve entered the battle is just as important as hitting the field safely. A Top 3 caliber Pokemon should be able to do both consistently throughout the course of a game, and when it’s not exactly hard to stack Zapdos checks since every team runs Snorlax anyways, and because Zapdos itself can sometimes be left wanting for offensive potential when Whirlwind phazing isn’t an option depending on the set, I just can’t see Zapdos as impactful in this meta as Snorlax, Cloyster, Gengar, and Raikou.

You are entitled to thinking that Raikou is better than Zapdos. But it's simply not true that it is more impactful. I'm sorry. The fact that you don't see things the way I do is not wrong. However, the game we play is based on something that is less than arbitrary and we can somewhat make a science of what we do.
Every player notices that Zapdos can leave a far greater impact on the metagame than Raikou can. Zapdos is consistent. It's the most consistent pokemon in the competitive history of this franchise and there is a reason for this. It lends itself to a perfect combination of offensive and defensive play, while Raikou was only ever more impactful than Zapdos way back when it was relegated to this mostly defensive role, whille today it's a semi-defensive pokemon struggling to keep up with the offensive pokemon.



I'm sorry if I got heated with this. I'm usually not very good at this when I get triggered.

 

[bdt2002]

This is a discussion thread so I have to accept the fact that we won't always be seeing the metagame the same way. That said, I really strongly suggest that before you make a post you at least try to verify what your saying.
For instance this take is just an example of the information being misrepresented to you, hence why you claim that Zapdos is not a top-tier pokemon:

(I don't find it outrageous that someone would claim Raikou is a better Electric than Zapdos. If that works for you then great!)

evidence mostly... I mean if you say something controversial you should try to back it up. (Okay I'm being nitpicky and I apologise.) Moving on.

This comes across as strange. You are making it sound as though Zapdos isn't the second fastest pokemon in every single game being played (if not the fastest). You realize that the only Pokemon faster than Zapdos that it has to worry about are Raikou, Gengar, Jolteon and Alakazam. The usage of the latter two, while they certainly increased, is not so high and they are terrified of being paralyzed (Jolteon also isn't that good a wall).
The difference however, between Raikou Jolteon and Zapdos, or those other special attackers is that Zapdos doesn't need much setup to be effective at what it does. Raikou needing to be Sleep Talk all the time in today's meta means that it lost one of the only other thing it had going for it and now Zapdos proves being an even better phazer than it for offensive purposes.


No significant changes that suggest there is this "rise in popularity" of special walls, unless of course you mean sleep talk Snorlax. But isn't the "rise in popularity" of special walls a problem for Jolteon and Raikou also?

SPL XIV overall usage

View attachment 548177

SPL XIII overall usage

View attachment 548178

SPL XII overall usage

View attachment 548180

What are you talking about? What special walls? Can you make an examples or do I have to be petty because you can't be bothered to consider that Zapdos is the only Electric Pokemon that can 3HKO Snorlax, the best special wall? It's not like Blissey is on the rise and taking the meta by storm. Raikou usage is actually lower than years before (SPL 9, 10, and 11 had an average Raikou usage of 39%).




This is actually a fair point. Zapdos's lack of Electric resistance is one of the few things that holds it back. But the immunity to ground more than makes up for it, denying opportunities for Golem or Steelix to do anything to it besides using Explosion or other sets.


You are entitled to thinking that Raikou is better than Zapdos. But it's simply not true that it is more impactful. I'm sorry. The fact that you don't see things the way I do is not wrong. However, the game we play is based on something that is less than arbitrary and we can somewhat make a science of what we do.
Every player notices that Zapdos can leave a far greater impact on the metagame than Raikou can. Zapdos is consistent. It's the most consistent pokemon in the competitive history of this franchise and there is a reason for this. It lends itself to a perfect combination of offensive and defensive play, while Raikou was only ever more impactful than Zapdos way back when it was relegated to this mostly defensive role, whille today it's a semi-defensive pokemon struggling to keep up with the offensive pokemon.



I'm sorry if I got heated with this. I'm usually not very good at this when I get triggered.

If you're worried that you're going to upset me by speaking facts, don't be. We all know hindsight is 20/20, and even if I still hate myself for saying it, I know a lot of my takes are unironically terrible. (So much so that I even made an apology thread, but that's beside the point.) The main things I'll say in response to your post are twofold. For starters, as great as SPL stats are to have access to as a resource, not every player- or even all that many- are going to be participating in these kinds of events. This is not to say SPL players are bad or anything, because... well, just look at these guys, they're freaking insane. But by and large, Pokémon's playerbase consists of more than just diehard tournament players. Of course, when I say this, I also have to respect the opposite side of the coin which says the majority of Smogon's own userbase within the Pokémon fandom is composed of people who take competitive play much more serious than the average player. That brings me to my other point, where the idea of special walls rising in usage seems to be more of a projection than an actual observation. I had anticipated seeing special walls thrive following metagame trends favoring Pokémon like Starmie, Gengar, the Electrics, Jynx, and Nidoking to name a few, and while fringe checks to those Pokémon have showed up in more casual settings and on low ladder, the same can't be said for the top of the player skill cap, if that makes sense.

 

[Jorgen]

lol don't be afraid of having "bad" takes, people crave 'em as long as they're reasoned enough to be interesting.

Anyway Zapdos kicks ass, but it's easy to take its presence for granted, so I can see where the "Zapdos isn't actually that good" take comes from. Here's how I see it though:

Zapdos soft-checks everything, but isn't the same sort of concrete wall that Raikou or Skarm can be. You can break it. You can feel it in the 3HKO damage rolls that you can manage with Nidoking, for instance. You shouldn't need to explode on it to kill it. Yet you often need to do just that. It's like the Sprout Tower: It sways, but it is deceptively stable.

Zapdos is offensively quite scary, but more in the sense of applying consistent pressure and having lots of opportunities to get a game-breaking crit / fp. It doesn't have the "burst" button of an Exploder, its coverage isn't crazy, and it doesn't have setup. There are, however, two ways to break a steel beam: You may strike it swiftly, or you may place a really fat guy on it and wait. Zapdos is the latter strategy.

In summary, Zapdos' hook is its consistent high performance, even if its "peak" isn't that impressive on paper. This can go against our minmax gamer intuitions, but in a game as drawn-out and governed by the accumulation of incremental advantages as GSC is, Zapdos' low-voltatility return-per-match is quite valuable. It actually rivals Snorlax in this regard: Snorlax is better on defense, but on the flip side, Zapdos' offense is less matchup-dependent.

With that said, there are some teams where Zapdos is just a bad idea. Usually, these are hyper-offense builds such as 5 Exploders or AgiPass. Here, Zapdos' lack of "burst" just doesn't work. Additionally, people who run hardcore stall like to have brick houses on defense, and Zapdos, while quite sturdy, isn't quite a brick house. Zapdos is often nicknamed Thor, but it's more like Thanos in that it craves Balance. The more you deviate from that playstyle, the more replaceable Zapdos becomes.

 

[Jhonx~]

Hello, its my first time posting in GSC Forum and my first aproach into this gen competitively as well, I played GSC before for fun only and to help teammates to test or just learn the basics, started to focus in this gen for this GSC Cup when I advanced to r3 and had to face Pideous, then False, then Jirachee and last Malekith for quarterfinals but I lost terrible agaisnt Kith, now will focus for GSCPL since I liked GSC a lot, with nothing more to say as introduction I proceed to post the stuff I played, how I thought every round to reach to these ideas and my sight on actual metagame.

Round 1 and Round 2 in general.
for this two initial rounds I just played teams Im used to play, because I just thought im not a GSC mainer and I didnt had enough experience on the tier, so stick to my most played teams was the best thing to do being able to play around all matchups I could face and not lose easily if I see a tech or lure, first and most used team in all rounds is this Susciety Alakazam build he gave me long ago.

Alakazam BO - Susciety (click title for import)

This team is incredible easy to use for beginners, u just require basic knowledge of GSC and I had a lot of success because my natural playstyle is play offensively predicting the other player rythm and plays, Lax breaks easily and stay alive w Restalk, Cloyster comes in vs Lax and set spikes, press a lot w Toxic as always and the only diff thing I do, is play it risky instead boom when its about to die, I find boom with it when low health its very obvious while Surf its a risk not many players take, Gengar thief to remove Lax lefties or some electric while taking down something w DBond, Zapdos cuz u always need Electrics lol, Lix as Curselax counterplay or phys offense in general and Alakazam does the magic doing Encore vs setup, threat w SDef drops, if u play vs Ttar your Gengar will take down Tar using Dbond, Alakazam is fast af and good to me in general since Jynx teams are probably the most spammed ones, I ran this team in almost all my games during r1 and r2.

Round 3 vs Pideous
I started to scout this round because Pideous is not bad, I saw he liked to play Stall or Dual Electric in general, Dual Electric is an archetype really solid and hard to break, as someone who dont play GSC often this was a hard challenge but not impossible, after think a while I found Thunder Snorlax was a very good option because Thunder nukes Skarmory, Cloyster, hard damage Forretress and EQ Edge Boom just nukes anything else, searching for teams I asked ZiloXX and Raichy help and they gave me this strong squad (No import this time sorry)

This team features Boom Spam core with Thunder Lax to break Skarm and Cloy, the structure is meant to boom into electrics once Lax lure'd Skarm and Cloy, Lix Boom into Zap generally and Exeggutor into Kou or Zap as well, Raikou is good at pressing and maintaining the team alive working as pivot, Vaporeon last just sweeps since no Cloy and no electrics to prevent its gameplay.

--------------------------------

will continue later my process, droping this for the moment