Hello lads, I just won the RBY GC 2020 and I'm here to share the teams I spammed the most through the early rounds - Semis and Finals I counterstyled a lot more to try to gain every little edge I could, but for everything before that I hardly even looked at replays, so I needed stuff that had strong match ups across the board - this is what I used in those earlier games, and it's very good stuff for people who are looking for generalist builds.
This is what I defaulted to all tournament and it did well for me, I wish I had any future meta calls to add at the end but I really don't know where we go from here. Things don't feel super stable rn and we won't have an SPL to stabilize them, so I dunno if we'll ever return to having a predictable meta of any sort. The only safe staple that everyone seems to agree on is Mie Cloy Jolt, everything else is up in the air and down to personal preference, and as I said earlier I didn't really do much heavy metagame study for this tour, so I don't really have "the answer". There were times in the last couple years where I felt like I had a complete read on what was and wasn't viable. This is not one of those times, but if I won GC that probably means some of my ideas are alright. I'm just also saying that, for all I know right now, a very specific Lapras build could be sleeper OP and I have no idea about it.
Take these teams with a grain of salt. They're winners, they stomped through CPL and GC, but I'm not gonna be surprised if a slight meta shift happens and I have to toss half of them in the bin. Until that happens though, enjoy
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Gengar + Sing Chansey has stupid good synergy for the early stages - not sure when I came up with it but I've been spamming it for the last 6 months or so and people are starting to catch up to its secrets so I might as well share it. Gar destroys all Jynx teams with no backup sleepers, and baits Psychic from Zam/Mie for a pretty clean Sing Chansey entrance in those match ups. Team is kinda bad once people figure out that the line is to Exeggutor on Chansey T1 so I've been hesitant to share it but I'm already seeing other people pick the Gar+Chans sleeper duo up for themselves so clearly I'm not gonna hide this much longer. And yeah you could try to read the Eggy switch T1 and Hypnosis but like, good luck trying those mindgames blind on the first turn of the game. There was a long period of time where I was able to use this and ride the sleep advantage to a win very comfortably though, and you might also be able to do so against less experienced players or players who don't expect the Sing Chansey coming in.
Another cute perk of the combo is allowing Chansey to run TWave over Counter, since you got your EQless Lax match up covered already with big Gar. Other sets are just standard generalist stuff to ride the sleep advantage against the biggest possible match up spread as safely as possible. I probably wouldn't bring this against a top player anymore because even if I get the sleep off there are many chances to get their sleeping mons awake on my passive recovery dudes, but that requires finesse and expertise in Bull Wielding so it's a fine bring against newer players and/or unknown quantities.
Gengar + Sing Chansey has stupid good synergy for the early stages - not sure when I came up with it but I've been spamming it for the last 6 months or so and people are starting to catch up to its secrets so I might as well share it. Gar destroys all Jynx teams with no backup sleepers, and baits Psychic from Zam/Mie for a pretty clean Sing Chansey entrance in those match ups. Team is kinda bad once people figure out that the line is to Exeggutor on Chansey T1 so I've been hesitant to share it but I'm already seeing other people pick the Gar+Chans sleeper duo up for themselves so clearly I'm not gonna hide this much longer. And yeah you could try to read the Eggy switch T1 and Hypnosis but like, good luck trying those mindgames blind on the first turn of the game. There was a long period of time where I was able to use this and ride the sleep advantage to a win very comfortably though, and you might also be able to do so against less experienced players or players who don't expect the Sing Chansey coming in.
Another cute perk of the combo is allowing Chansey to run TWave over Counter, since you got your EQless Lax match up covered already with big Gar. Other sets are just standard generalist stuff to ride the sleep advantage against the biggest possible match up spread as safely as possible. I probably wouldn't bring this against a top player anymore because even if I get the sleep off there are many chances to get their sleeping mons awake on my passive recovery dudes, but that requires finesse and expertise in Bull Wielding so it's a fine bring against newer players and/or unknown quantities.
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Like the other Gar+Chans, but this time you're not sitting back scratching your balls for 200 turns autopiloting, you're trying to actively break with your other goons. Articuno SMACKS most Rhydon teams, Zapdos SMACKS most back Mie teams, and for teams that pack Cloy+Jolt there's TBolt Tauros teched in to eat some ass there as well. I guess this is Lapras weak but lol does that pokemon exist anymore? Counter over TWave because you'll want to boom your Gar on Chansey to open for Cuno, so a semblance of Lax match up is needed there. Your defensive Cloy check is scaring it with Gengar, exploding Gengar on the inevitable Chansey, and never allowing Cloy to hit the field again. This team realllllly hangs on getting the first sleep and snowballing with 1 for 1 trades very quickly, take your foot off the accelerator for a turn and you'll realize you don't have switchins for many situations. I love piloting this thing, big shoutout to Lapras for disappearing and allowing this to exist.
I theoried up a version with Jolteon over Zap too, think it might be better but it's not heavily tested. Match ups are pretty similar all around, Eggy + back Mie is rare nowadays so you don't need a mon in the back to beat both as much as you used to. And no Jolteon's main draw is not checking enemy Zapdos, we don't do defensive checking here, it's to outspeed Tauros while still shitting on waters. In fact, fuck it, might be better to use the old fashioned Pin Missile Jolt here even. Really untested stuff but hey, it's out there if you want to try, and the Zap version works
edit: oh yeah I noticed that my paste here has HB Zap because I was feeling quirky and epic. agility is fine, hb is a Cool Tech to snipe chanseys and zams sometimes and it comes into play a bit more often with these kinds of offenses - you don't need the agility cleaner zap as much since you also have cuno to agility clean, but yeah both moves work just fine, agility is the staple for a reason
Like the other Gar+Chans, but this time you're not sitting back scratching your balls for 200 turns autopiloting, you're trying to actively break with your other goons. Articuno SMACKS most Rhydon teams, Zapdos SMACKS most back Mie teams, and for teams that pack Cloy+Jolt there's TBolt Tauros teched in to eat some ass there as well. I guess this is Lapras weak but lol does that pokemon exist anymore? Counter over TWave because you'll want to boom your Gar on Chansey to open for Cuno, so a semblance of Lax match up is needed there. Your defensive Cloy check is scaring it with Gengar, exploding Gengar on the inevitable Chansey, and never allowing Cloy to hit the field again. This team realllllly hangs on getting the first sleep and snowballing with 1 for 1 trades very quickly, take your foot off the accelerator for a turn and you'll realize you don't have switchins for many situations. I love piloting this thing, big shoutout to Lapras for disappearing and allowing this to exist.
I theoried up a version with Jolteon over Zap too, think it might be better but it's not heavily tested. Match ups are pretty similar all around, Eggy + back Mie is rare nowadays so you don't need a mon in the back to beat both as much as you used to. And no Jolteon's main draw is not checking enemy Zapdos, we don't do defensive checking here, it's to outspeed Tauros while still shitting on waters. In fact, fuck it, might be better to use the old fashioned Pin Missile Jolt here even. Really untested stuff but hey, it's out there if you want to try, and the Zap version works
edit: oh yeah I noticed that my paste here has HB Zap because I was feeling quirky and epic. agility is fine, hb is a Cool Tech to snipe chanseys and zams sometimes and it comes into play a bit more often with these kinds of offenses - you don't need the agility cleaner zap as much since you also have cuno to agility clean, but yeah both moves work just fine, agility is the staple for a reason
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The double sleepers reduce your count of Actually Useful pokemon to 4 and a half (Exeggutor is half a pokemon really), but it guarantees you're never gonna fall too far behind from bad opening match ups, so it's nice and safe against players that you know you can beat in a 4.5 vs 5. Lax explodes bc it's a Jynx team and it will be switching on Bull a lot, also because it will need to trade with Zapdos sometimes. I repeat: do not bring this team unless you know you're better than your opponent. You load this when you think you're not gonna lose unless you're in a 30-70 type of bad match up. This team has none of those, and it has a lot of 40-60s. But if you're confident you can hit your Eggy boom safely and make that joke of a mon trade evenly, then yeah, this is fine.
Can you believe we used to run egg in every team btw? Insane
The double sleepers reduce your count of Actually Useful pokemon to 4 and a half (Exeggutor is half a pokemon really), but it guarantees you're never gonna fall too far behind from bad opening match ups, so it's nice and safe against players that you know you can beat in a 4.5 vs 5. Lax explodes bc it's a Jynx team and it will be switching on Bull a lot, also because it will need to trade with Zapdos sometimes. I repeat: do not bring this team unless you know you're better than your opponent. You load this when you think you're not gonna lose unless you're in a 30-70 type of bad match up. This team has none of those, and it has a lot of 40-60s. But if you're confident you can hit your Eggy boom safely and make that joke of a mon trade evenly, then yeah, this is fine.
Can you believe we used to run egg in every team btw? Insane
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Troller is a fucking animal for coming up with this build. Christ this is so powerful. Remember 2019 when everyone had Victreebel and it won games solo, but then people started running fast stuff and keeping it from paralysis, meaning your Vic went nowhere? Ok good, now there's a Dnite and a Zapdos to force paralysis on them, so Vic can take over games again.
It's wrap, you'll be forced to hit them 85s and whatnot, but if anyone still fancies their Rhydons in current year, here's a team to murder them. And the Zapper covers basically every other match up. Also one where you cannot take your foot off the accelerator for one second, but if you do it well this team is SCARY
Troller is a fucking animal for coming up with this build. Christ this is so powerful. Remember 2019 when everyone had Victreebel and it won games solo, but then people started running fast stuff and keeping it from paralysis, meaning your Vic went nowhere? Ok good, now there's a Dnite and a Zapdos to force paralysis on them, so Vic can take over games again.
It's wrap, you'll be forced to hit them 85s and whatnot, but if anyone still fancies their Rhydons in current year, here's a team to murder them. And the Zapper covers basically every other match up. Also one where you cannot take your foot off the accelerator for one second, but if you do it well this team is SCARY
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Straight from 2016 baby, this team still has it. Unlike other 2016 teams, this one has a Zapdos to turn on the counter-aggression when you fall behind, so if you get a poor opening and end up sleepsacking Zam, you can Sleep Powder right back + immediately explode + play a 4v4 from there with BoomLax and Zapdos to drive it home. If they have rhydon their mie is likely asleep so you can win that one with Tauros - unless they're jynx mie rhydon type stuff, in which case you have to force Jynx down with the double edges first, which is slightly shaky but definitely doable, so the rhydon match ups aren't dreadful either, though ofc you'd rather not face it. TBolt Tauros is also viable to shit on Cloy+Jolt builds which otherwise can give trouble, especially if you like to boom your Eggy early as I do. Not much to add, what a classic
Straight from 2016 baby, this team still has it. Unlike other 2016 teams, this one has a Zapdos to turn on the counter-aggression when you fall behind, so if you get a poor opening and end up sleepsacking Zam, you can Sleep Powder right back + immediately explode + play a 4v4 from there with BoomLax and Zapdos to drive it home. If they have rhydon their mie is likely asleep so you can win that one with Tauros - unless they're jynx mie rhydon type stuff, in which case you have to force Jynx down with the double edges first, which is slightly shaky but definitely doable, so the rhydon match ups aren't dreadful either, though ofc you'd rather not face it. TBolt Tauros is also viable to shit on Cloy+Jolt builds which otherwise can give trouble, especially if you like to boom your Eggy early as I do. Not much to add, what a classic
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Really not a fan of Rhydon now that people are keeping their Mies healthy and unparalyzed, however this one still forces em to sleep with Jynx LK in most games, so this build keeps Rhydon playable. Once you put Jynx and Rhydon in the builder the other 4 come very naturally. Mie moves could change, Psychic > TB is probably good. The rest is probably obligatory, 4th on Lax can be whatever too I suppose, but boom is nice to force down Reflect Chanseys that don't want to be paralyzed.
Honestly don't think there are many other Rhydon builds that actually work anymore, people will keep their Mies safe a lot and the LK threat is the only move out there that actually forces them to be crippled early on.
Really not a fan of Rhydon now that people are keeping their Mies healthy and unparalyzed, however this one still forces em to sleep with Jynx LK in most games, so this build keeps Rhydon playable. Once you put Jynx and Rhydon in the builder the other 4 come very naturally. Mie moves could change, Psychic > TB is probably good. The rest is probably obligatory, 4th on Lax can be whatever too I suppose, but boom is nice to force down Reflect Chanseys that don't want to be paralyzed.
Honestly don't think there are many other Rhydon builds that actually work anymore, people will keep their Mies safe a lot and the LK threat is the only move out there that actually forces them to be crippled early on.
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If you've not seen this team by now you have to be living under a rock, but I'm doing a sort of recap of all the teams I think are good to load into an unknown opponent atm, so this has to go in. It's so good I honestly don't think I need to say anything. You all know what it does. I like this over the Alakazam version because disrespecting Zapdos is asking to be murdered. Cannot believe the amount of players who disrespect Zapdos and load up mie+cloy+zam lol, seriously don't risk that match up. But yeah this team is good and everyone knows it, tbolt bulls can ruin it but there's very little else that outright beats it. I honestly saved the best for last, this team is nutty. Obviously risky with the sleep game at times, having only one sleeper and relying on a good T1 to send it in, but it usually gets the job done
If you've not seen this team by now you have to be living under a rock, but I'm doing a sort of recap of all the teams I think are good to load into an unknown opponent atm, so this has to go in. It's so good I honestly don't think I need to say anything. You all know what it does. I like this over the Alakazam version because disrespecting Zapdos is asking to be murdered. Cannot believe the amount of players who disrespect Zapdos and load up mie+cloy+zam lol, seriously don't risk that match up. But yeah this team is good and everyone knows it, tbolt bulls can ruin it but there's very little else that outright beats it. I honestly saved the best for last, this team is nutty. Obviously risky with the sleep game at times, having only one sleeper and relying on a good T1 to send it in, but it usually gets the job done
This is what I defaulted to all tournament and it did well for me, I wish I had any future meta calls to add at the end but I really don't know where we go from here. Things don't feel super stable rn and we won't have an SPL to stabilize them, so I dunno if we'll ever return to having a predictable meta of any sort. The only safe staple that everyone seems to agree on is Mie Cloy Jolt, everything else is up in the air and down to personal preference, and as I said earlier I didn't really do much heavy metagame study for this tour, so I don't really have "the answer". There were times in the last couple years where I felt like I had a complete read on what was and wasn't viable. This is not one of those times, but if I won GC that probably means some of my ideas are alright. I'm just also saying that, for all I know right now, a very specific Lapras build could be sleeper OP and I have no idea about it.
Take these teams with a grain of salt. They're winners, they stomped through CPL and GC, but I'm not gonna be surprised if a slight meta shift happens and I have to toss half of them in the bin. Until that happens though, enjoy
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