Gen 1 RBY UU: The Kanto Swordsmen

[Vengeance417]

Hey, everybody! I only recently got in to early generation games such as ADV and now, Gen 1 UU, and I figured I'd give Gen 1 UU a shot by making a team that I'd like a revision for.

The Team:

Team Building Process:

I wanted a nice and fast lead that can spread paralysis and boom to give me initiative, so naturally, I started off with Electrode.

Next, I wanted two Pokemon that take full advantage of a paralyzed team. Charizard is an amazing late game SD sweeper against a weakened and paralyzed team while Nidoking was packing the fantastic coverage to finish the job. Nidoking also gave me a T-Wave immunity thanks to its Ground typing.

I wanted another Pokemon that can somewhat safely come in on Water types, or at least come in on those that aren't clicking Blizzard. Venusaur is my choice because of its access to Sleep Powder to temporarily put something out of commission, the always-critting Razor Lead and SD to combat those that resist its Grass type moves.

Lastly, Gyardos and Kadabra were added to the team. Gyarados once again took advantage of a paralyzed team and does tremendous amounts of damage on both sides of the offensive spectrum with its great coverage, and Kadabra provides me with a second fast T-Wave user and late-game cleaner.

Hypno and Mr. Mime were two T-Wave users that gave Nidoking ample amounts of trouble, and I still wanted an immunity, so I chose Sandslash as a replacement. It's the specially bulkiest Ground type other than Nidoqueen and it has a higher Attack stat than Nidoking and access to SD. Meanwhile, Articuno proved to be nearly impossible to come in on, so Dewgong replaces Gyarados thanks to its quad Ice resistance.

The Sets:

Electrode
- Explosion
- Screech
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt

Electrode is essentially a suicide lead most of the time, but there are times where I'd like to conserve its speed for things like Aerodactyl and opposing Kadabra and to even paralyze opposing Electrode. Its base 140 speed also means that Thunderbolt has a pretty high critical hit chance, which is neat. Screech and Explosion are last resort moves that are used when I don't need Electrode anymore so I can either dent something with high amounts of HP or pick something off. Either way, I get initiative.

Charizard
- Swords Dance
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam

My favorite Pokemon of all time, but that's not the real reason why I'm using him on the team. Charizard has proven to be a late game force to be reckoned with. It just sweeps through paralyzed teams with SD boosted EQs for water and rock types as well as strong Hyper Beams for securing the kill on weakened targets. Fire Blast is also a nice way to dent opposing Venusaur and do lots of damage to Articuno and even have a small chance to burn the likes of incoming Kabutops, Aerodactyl and Onix.

Sandslash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Hyper Beam

Charizard hates Rock Slide and Electric types, so it needs a partner that can stomach both. Enter Sandslash. Wielding a good Attack stat, nice bulk and access to the lovely EdgeQuake coverage, Sandslash has been a rising star of the team, with some lategame sweeps under its belt as well. It enjoys switching in on most Electric types and even catching Articuno by surprise with predicted Rock Slides, and also enjoys dealing with Paralyzed foes due to its naturally slow speed.

Venusaur
- Swords Dance
- Body Slam
- Sleep Powder
- Razor Leaf

While Sandslash is my main answer to Electric types, there's one Electric Sandslash hates switching in to: Surf Raichu. Also, Water types are difficult to deal with, so Venusaur alleviates both problems. For such a tanky Pokemon, it has decent speed, allowing it to outpace Blastoise, Kingler, Kabutops and Poliwrath and force them out, where Sleep Powder is used to put something to sleep on the switch. SD and Body Slam help it muscle through the many Grass resists that make up RBY UU.

Dewgong
- Blizzard
- Surf
- Body Slam
- Rest

Dewgong is a secondary Water resist that quad resists the Ice coverage that scare away about half my team, and is the switchin to the water types that will most likely click Blizzard. It is also a reliable Articuno switchin, something I desperately needed. STAB Blizzard does a ton to the tier, OHKOing Dragonite and Ground types with poor special stats. Surf hurts Fire types while Body Slam does neutral damage to opposing Waters. Rest allows me to heal Dewgong and continue to use it as a check to its switchins.

Kadabra
- Psychic
- Reflect
- Thunder Wave
- Recover

Kadabra is the last member of the team, and it's consistently the MVP. With one Reflect click, it's stupidly tanky while, at the same time, hitting hard and being incredibly fast. It has taken less than or a little more than half damage from most Hyper Beams with one Reflect up, where it can just click Recover or Psychic the next turn for free. It's essentially a copy and paste of the standard Alakazam set used in RBY OU, but it works just as well on Kadabra in UU from my experience. Its access to Thunder Wave also grants me a secondary user of the move when Electrode is down. A great Pokemon, for sure.

Threats:

Hypno pisses me off. Its very fat, has access to both Hypnosis and T-Wave, usually on the same set and I'm just at a loss with how to deal with it besides picking a sleep fodder and hoping for the best with Sandslash...

AgiliWrap scares me, but it'll miss eventually where I'll just destroy it with Dewgong, but if Dewgong's dead, then taking this thing out gets tricky.

Importable:

Electrode
- Explosion
- Screech
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt

Charizard
- Swords Dance
- Fire Blast
- Earthquake
- Hyper Beam

Sandslash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Hyper Beam

Venusaur
- Swords Dance
- Body Slam
- Sleep Powder
- Razor Leaf

Kadabra
- Psychic
- Reflect
- Thunder Wave
- Recover

Dewgong
- Blizzard
- Surf
- Body Slam
- Rest

 

[Ortheore]

I'm not too familiar with smogon's rby uu, but I've played a similar meta based on another site so with that out the way a few things stick out to me

What's your Moltres plan? I'm not seeing anything I'd consider a solid switch-in. The easiest way to fix this would be to run Vappy>Gong, which gives you a sturdy resist to both birds (as well as being a generally useful tank).

Electrode is just a terrible mon in general, it doesn't get any means of hitting opposing resistances, leaving it resorting to explosion, which is fairly weak. If it's a lead electric type you're after, I'd recommend Electabuzz, which still spreads para and has Psychic to hit things neutrally (also Haunter).

Is there any reason in particular for Venu as opposed to Bel? They both work fine, but Bel at least has the threat of running more diverse sets.

I wonder if this team could use more bulky pivot type pokemon, things that come in easily and just trade hits with things. Hypno springs to mind, I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. Could even go another water type lol. Probably Zard is the most expendable pokemon on your team, given that Slash provides Hypno help, Venu provides sleep and the meta should be infested with bulky waters anyway

 

[Peasounay]

I'm not an UU expert either but Raichu would probably be better if you want an Electric, I still wouldn't lead it though, Kadabra/Hypno do a better job at that. Sandslash is probably quite bad in UU since Raichu is the most common Electric and it has Surf, you don't cockblock Electabuzz either and there are a lot of grass/ice/water moves in this tier, so I'd drop it for Hypno which is close to mandatory. I support Ortheore on Vaporeon over Dewgong, Tentacruel is another good option too. I also agree with him on Victreebel which is all around better. You could try Moltres over Charizard too but that might lower the physical offense on your team.