JhenMohranMH3
Random Art Guy
I'm going to make some sort of mini-guide to lc here. I had played RBY LC before PO even implemented it, and I think I can say that I have come to understand and grasp the LC metagame decently well. I haven't counted, but I have won like 18 of my 20 last LC matches, and I can tell you most of them weren't won with a superior play, but rather, with a superior team, mind you. From what I've read in this thread, I've seen that most of what has been said here are kind of speculations mostly, and the main problem is that a lot of inferior Pokemon are being hyped up, making them look as good as the top tier Pokemon, which consequently leads to the "inferior" teams I've just mentioned. From here, I'll try to arrange things a bit and try my best to explain what I know about the exciting RBY LC metagame!
Oddly enough, LC is very similar to OU in one basic thing: In both metas, you have 3 pokemon that are basically mandatory in any team (Staryu/Exeggcute/Diglett in LC and Tauros/Snorlax/Chansey), another Pokemon that is close to mandatory (Abra in LC and Exeggutor in OU), and a bunch of other good/usable Pokemon with which you fill the remaining slots of the teams. However, about 75% of the Pokemon available are inferior and not really worth using unless you want to gimmick.
Staryu: It's the best sweeper in the tier, as there is nothing really able to switch into it. If you look at the other Pokemon there is always something in the metagame able to handle them. Diglett falls to 3HKO Exeggcute, Pikachu also has a lot of Exeggcute issues, Poliwag runs into Staryu problems, Voltorb is handled by Diglett/Exeggcute/Rhyhorn, Meowth is handled by Gastly, Doduo by the odd Rhyhorn and doesn't reach 18 speed anyway, Gastly has a lot of issues with Abra/Exeggcute/Digglet/Pikachu/Voltorb. And Psychic-types can be handled by themselves. But Staryu is an instant threat no matter the scenario. It is the Tauros of OU (kinda). As for the movepool I've found Thunder/Thunder Wave to be the less situational fourth slot moves. Recover can work against Poliwags trying to play around Staryu's HP I guess, or when your opponent tries to pivot with a sleeping or a slower Pokemon (but then you'll have to predict it and not kill it in the switch-in if it was in range). Not that the last slot matters much anyway. Having said that, the fourth slot is also the place for Hydro Pump/Ice Beam if you want either. Dropping Surf makes no sense really considering how extremely situational the other moves are.
Exeggcute: Hard to say which is #1 if Staryu or Egg, but either way, Egg is another Pokemon you should always use. It can handle half the metagame on its own. Digglet, Pikachu, Voltorb, Gastly and Rhyhorn, all fall to 3hko Exeggcute and are 2hkoed by Psychic back or threatened by status (rhyhorn 3hkoes with slide but it's slower than egg anyway). In general, between these 5 and the psychic-types most teams fall to have more than 2 pokemon able to 3hko egg. Egg sleeps (and it's the best LC pokemon at it) and explodes. There is basically no reason not to use Egg. Also, use it carefully; dont always, say, switch it into abra and eat a thunder wave and over 30% damage just to sleep it early on. Egg will often by the reason why Digglet doesn't sweep you. This changes things a lot really. If you don't have egg, digglet is really like a faster staryu against you; everytime it switches in, if it can beat your active Pokemon, you'd be forced to sac something. Having Egg can make your Pikachu more useful for example, instead of,: ok, now pikachu kills Pokemon A, now Diglett kills something of mine.
Diglett: It's the fastest Pokemon in their along with Voltorb, which is also good, but can be dealt with better than Diglett. There is probably a small gap between Staryu/Egg and Diglett in terms of general usefulness, but Diglett is basically another mandatory Pokemon as well. As far as moveset goes, the 4th slot is really a filler, but I like Body Slam and Sub best (sub for when the opponent tries to pivot, but keep in mind that a sub puts you in diglett's and abra's range). Don't even try toxic though; if it sucks in OU, guess how good it is in a meta that is 4x faster.
Abra: Probably not included in the mandatory Pokemon list, but still, what I've found is that when I consider which pokemon I could use over it, I think okay, none is better than Abra. So in the end, I always use it. Fro what i've seen in the usage stats Counter needs more love btw, its very situational, but less so than Mimic or Substitute or whatever. Reflect is a waste of time in LC though: it doesn't come close to halve the damage from physical atatcks due to the mechanics of the damage formula, and in LC everything goes too fast anyway.
And from here is where you pick the last two. The higher you see a Pokemon in this list, the better I've found it to be, but as long as you don't pick something that isn't here, you'll be generally good to go. You'd be gimmicking if you don't do that, think of Raichus and Flareons in OU. I like gimmicking though, but you get the point.
Pikachu: I've found it to be the 5th best Pokemon in LC. Worst thing is definitely Egg, and to an extent Diglett, but the later is KOed by Surf+QA with good prediction (and as long as i have egg, i dont have to sac pikachu or another pokemon if diglett gets safely into pikachu). Pikachu can't afford to switch into Staryu though, but if you can get it into a well predicted tbolt or after staryu kills something, then that's good. Always stick to Twave+Quick Attack.
Poliwag: #6 was a tossup between Poliwag and Meowth, but I picked Poliwag since everybody seems to like it more. It's main problem is definitely that once you throw sleep, Staryu will give you a lot of problems. (plus lets be fair, 60% is inaccurate in a meta where everything is hit, hit and die). At least Poliwag will put Staryu in Diglett's range which is never a bad thing and free up Egg's sleep duty most of the times. Amnesia is overhyped tbh. Poliwag is basically 18 speed+sleep+water-type, but theses three are extremely good things despite having low stats. It 2hkoes egg thats a good thing too.
Meowth: What I like about it is that it hits basically everything for good damage, and, 18 speed. Okay, gastly handles it, but gastly is a mediocre pokemon anyway. What I don't like about it? That it doesn't hit for VERY good damage. It falls to 2HKO egg. It doesn't OHKO anything. Still, a mini-staryu in the sense that your opponent can't really play around it, usually ensuring I can trade it with whatever Pokemon i want to.
There is a pretty relevant gap here. Using more than one of the Pokemon from the list below is not recommended. None of the Pokemon below should have over 20-25% overall usage with the possible exceptions of Voltorb and Drowzee.
Voltorb: 19 speed and at least Explosion makes Egg/Diglett think twice about switching in. The best possible thing to deal with Staryu. The best possible scenario for Voltorb i'd say it is stoping Staryu once and exploding into egg, or into diglett in the switch-in. Rhyhron shuts Voltorb down completely, but rhyhorn is pretty bad anyway.
Drowzee: It's not bad actually. Good overall stats (bar speed), works well against abra and egg. Can take two surfs from staryu and threaten with twave+psychic. Gets hypnosis too. Very slow though. Imprtant note: Drowzee could maybe be used as a replacement to Abra, but NEVER as a replacement to Exeggcute. Tripling up in psychics is prefectly fine.
Slowpoke: Probably the next best Pokemon i'd say. It's good vs Abra and Egg, in a similar way than Drowzee is. It hits them harder, but also takes more damage from Psychics (almost 3hkoed by abra). Gets blizzard for egg though, but that means either no amnesia or no psychic. It twaves and Psychics Staryu unlike the other amnesia user, Poliwag, which is nice. Not that Amnesia will work regularly anyway. Overall a usable Pokemon once in a while.
Doduo: 17 speed really ruins it. Had it had 18 speed it would've been near Meowth and Poliwag at least. But 17 speed means that it's outsped by almost everything and tbolt/blizzard weaknesses don't help. Plus, it's walled by Rhyhorn. Still hits everything else hard, even harded than Meowth including a SE DPeck for Eggs.
Gastly: koed by Psychic, koed by eq, 17 speed, no stab. These are pretty bad standards. It has good things going for it such as dealing with meowth pretty well, and it's decent vs staryu too; you can actually switch into a surf and make staryu think about what to do. It sleeps with Hypnosis, and expldoes, but has a lot of matchup problems. If you want to actually do something other than induce sleep (which can be done with egg anyway), you'll have to explode Gastly. Kinda like Voltorb, with Hypnosis and Psychic/Drain at the cost of not ouspeeding anything not named Egg/Slowpoke/Drowzee, no electric stab and psychic weakness. I'd put Voltorb over it. Gastly is a very mediocre pokemon all in all. In the borderline between "usable" and "inferior" Pokemon.
Rhyhorn: Has horrible matchups. Okay, lets say my team is Staryu/Egg/dig/abra/pikachu/meowth or poliwag, standard, right? Then all of these either OHKO Rhyhorn or beat it 1on1. Not good as you see. What's good about Rhyhorn is that it completely walls Doduo and Voltorb, but these two aren't Staryu and Diglett anyway. You may think, what if I paralyze stuff? You will sometimes get to paralyse Abra or Egg, but something else? hardly ever. LC is way too fast. I wouldn't actually have included Rhyhron in this list had not it been as hyped up as it is now.
And I think that's all I have to say. Thanks for reading! Of course, you are free to use the team you fell like, but keep in mind that like in every other meta, there good/usable pokemon and bad pokemon. Plus, since it is very difficult to outplay your opponent in a meta as fast as lc, team quality makes a very big difference.
Btw, maybe I also have to add that Ponyta is good under po conditions, but with wrap moves working as they should, fire spin becomes very unrelaible, and ponyta becomes a mediocre-bad pokemon (near rhyhorn/clefairy i'd say). Shellder is also decent with bugged clamp (still, comparable to gastly overall, not better than that), but pretty bad otherwise. Also don't use Toxic please...
P.S. What are all these Thunders doing in the OP? (!) With the possible exception of Gastly, if you want to use Thunder, you'll have to run both Thunder and Thunderbolt. Come on, it is better to forego Mimic on Voltorb instead of relying on a 70% move everytime.
Wow!
Awesome stuff man, i think my team is now definately sorted out
Not really sure about pikachu though and Voltorb should be a lot lower down. Voltorb is basically just a fast exploder imo and so isnt that useful if everyone has the sameish team. But i see kinda about pikachu actually as useful prio. Gastly is quite good for Pikachu i have found so maybe Gastly should be a little bit higher on that list as it is an exploder wall, which is a BIG bonus imo
overall very helpful, well done man!