OU SPL X - RBY Discussion

[Aliss]

Approved by Lutra

Hey RoA! With SPL X underway, this thread will be used to discuss RBY related topics, whether it's about the players, general metagame trends, matches, predictions and so on. This thread will be updated frequently with each new week, player standings, and replays.

SPL Introduction
SPL Schedule
Auction Logs

RBY Player Cores:

Wi-Fi Wolfpack - The Idiot Ninja
Team Raiders - Hipmonlee, SoulWind
Dragonspiral Tyrants - Heroic Troller, Gilbert arenas
Alpha Ruiners - FriendOfMrGolem120, Pearl, Lavos, Luigi
Ever Grande BIGS - Nails
Circus Maximus Tigers - Kaz-Gasai, dice
Stark Sharks - Sceptross, Teddeh, Tamahome
Congregation of the Classiest - Bedschibaer, Genesis7, Earthworm
Cryonicles - Alexander., Veteran In Love, Obii
Indie Scooters - MetalGro$$, Ojama, Century Express

Power Rankings:
https://www.smogon.com/articles/splx-power-rankings

Player Standings:
Will be posted when available.​

 

[HML am]

Can’t wait for Sceptross to destroy the competition

 

[Heroic Troller]

https://www.smogon.com/articles/splx-power-rankings

 

[Amaranth]

Did some video analysis on my set against Metal, hope you enjoy and sorry for some bits of awkward pronounciation

 

[Bedschibaer]

So, since this has been pretty much dead I will try to revive it a bit and talk about the probably most interesting thing for me personally this spl: Exeggutor.

So for anyone who hasn't noticed, eggy usage has been surprisingly low for spl standards this year. Not incredibly low or anything, it's still the 4th most used mon but there is a serious dropback compared to the 3 normals. Here are the cumulative stats up until now, the last 2 weeks won't significantly change them.

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Snorlax            |  169 |  98.26% |  50.30% |
| 1    | Chansey            |  169 |  98.26% |  49.70% |
| 3    | Tauros             |  163 |  94.77% |  47.85% |
| 4    | Exeggutor          |  131 |  76.16% |  44.27% |
| 5    | Starmie            |  111 |  64.53% |  51.35% |
| 6    | Alakazam           |   79 |  45.93% |  53.16% |
| 7    | Rhydon             |   50 |  29.07% |  54.00% |
| 8    | Zapdos             |   35 |  20.35% |  31.43% |
| 9    | Jynx               |   21 |  12.21% |  57.14% |
| 10   | Lapras             |   18 |  10.47% |  27.78% |
| 11   | Cloyster           |   16 |   9.30% |  50.00% |
| 12   | Victreebel         |   14 |   8.14% |  57.14% |
| 13   | Jolteon            |   10 |   5.81% |  60.00% |
| 14   | Gengar             |    9 |   5.23% |  55.56% |
| 15   | Slowbro            |    7 |   4.07% |  57.14% |
| 16   | Golem              |    4 |   2.33% |  75.00% |
| 17   | Articuno           |    3 |   1.74% | 100.00% |
| 18   | Moltres            |    1 |   0.58% | 100.00% |
| 18   | Omastar            |    1 |   0.58% |   0.00% |
| 18   | Dragonite          |    1 |   0.58% |   0.00% |
| 18   | Persian            |    1 |   0.58% |   0.00% |

So there's a couple of things that I have noticed regarding this eggy usage. Obviously we have a very narrow pool of players to begin with so just changing out someone who uses standard stuff in 90% of his games to someone new who doesn't follow such strict frameworks obviously makes an impact. And this year we have a couple of players who do very "funky" stuff to great success, as well as a few older players going a bit out of the comfort zone on occasion. Another trend that I have noticed is non-dedicated wrap teams gaining on popularity and wins. Not just in this tournament but in general. I have actually been brainstorming on how both cloyster and vic are insanely good mons on their own, have been using cloyster a lot last year and tried making vic work for myself. I think like half of the players have used some form of that eggyless vic + rhydon team by now and it's really strong. It's probably one of the most optimized shells for vic I have ever seen, so kudos to whoever came up with that. I have also tried eggyless in general a couple of times in spl now and I am still kinda torn on my opinion on this, but I have seen some very strong sentiments towards and especially against exeggutor on various discord channels now. So I felt like a discussion on this could actually lead somewhere.

I still feel Exeggutor has an incredibly vital role in rby, I am just not sure if it's still mandatory to an extent as it used to be. First of all sleep is still the strongest status in the game based on availability and effect. And eggy is still the best sleeper. It just so happens that getting off sleep tends to be a harder task now based on how often your eggy is staring down a parad starmie and chansey. I am still a strong advocate that the sheer presence of sleep powder, especially with lots of restlaxes being the new integral defensive part of many teams, completely dictates how midgames are played. I personally am not sold on using a fully sleepless team, I have seen Kaz use fully sleepless already though, just embracing that the road of sleep will be blocked most of the time anyways.
The offensive potential of eggy tends to be more underwhelming in the midgame too. You see how popular Starmie is right now, especially as a lead. If parad it tends to ensure that the best eggy can do is trade. The later and the more broken up the game becomes the better Psychic from eggy is. On top of that it kinda seems that eggy has a bit of a problem of being forced to decide between breaking up a defensive and statused up core or get off sleep and try to open up the game that way. The offensive potential is definitely still there, I personally think based on trends in usage and lines of play it's getting harder and harder to maximize its potential in a game.
The defensive potential on the other hand seems to become more prevalent. I think it's somewhat safe to say that Reflect Lax is becoming or already has become the go-to Lax set. Eggy is in my opinion the best tool to force it out and prevent Lax from spreading around damage. At the cost of taking non-negligible damage itself though. Rhydon is also fairly popular right now and I personally am a bit weary to check it with Starmie, because switching into it is such a pain. Eggy is still the best thing to take beatings from Rhydon but needs work done beforehand to really switch the momentum for a player once again. When I drop Eggy I tend to make sure I get another solid backup plan for Rhydon and Lax.

Generally I'd say I consider Eggy a mandatory mon but it needs more work done for it and is of the big 4 the most replaceable one now. I still look for a really strong case to drop it, but it's also definitely the one with the least unique role. All of sleep, offensive and defensive utility can be performed by other mons, require different team shells though. I guess one of the real strengths of eggy is role compression after all.

What I am looking for is opinions on this matter from other players, especially ones that don't shy away at all from dropping eggy. (just tagging Nails The Idiot Ninja Kaz because they seem to do it the most often, but everyone is invited to give opinions on these questions.) Do you still consider Eggy a mandatory or mostly needed part of an rby team? When you drop Eggy, how do you approach teambuilding and what do you do to replace it? Why and when do you think it's smart to drop Eggy? Where does Eggy rank in terms of power level in the tier for you personally?

Jsyk, I understand that not everyone wants to share their secrets, especially with spl still ongoing but if you have some hot takes, strategies or opinions I'd love to hear about them and I am sure they'd be a good resource for everyone with interest in the rby meta.

 

[Amaranth]

for the most part I drop eggy when the sleep powder isn't needed, eg. i have another plan for reliable sleep. this for the most part means either sleep leads or a mid gengar / victreebel. i think exeggutor loses a lot of pressure/value when the sleep isn't a threat anymore bc sleep clause is already active, and he's just using psychic + explosion to pressure stuff. when there's a par chansey on the other side sleep clause isn't active but he's still only using psy+boom to pressure, so the whole switch-to-chans-turn-1 thing picking up steam also makes it less reliable. as you said it's still good for pressure on waking laxes and it's still a great mon (i mean it's got psychic + explosion + sleep powder + good stats and typing, it's pretty broken), it's just that it doesn't fit in some teams. meanwhile the big 3 genuinely fits every team because they cover so much stuff it's nonsense. with eggy, there are situations where it's pretty meh, so in builds that tend to find themselves in those situations i like subbing him out.

subbing eggy out does open you to a very tough question to answer, which is: how the fuck do i handle rhydon now. i'm not confident on my answer yet, but i mean, people have been playing a lot of zapdos for a while which is a near autoloss into rhydon, even builds with suboptimal rhydon match up can be good enough against the rest of the meta to be worth it

can't speak about sleepless because i haven't played around with it much but the idea doesn't excite me

i don't consider eggy mandatory, but i do still consider it the default sleeper. my power level rankings go big 3 > egg, mie > other stuff

 

[Hipmonlee]

For an example of my thought process when dropping Eggy: in my second game against TIN I used Mie, Lap, Tauros, Chan, Lax, Rhydon. But the plan here was to abuse Ice Beam Chan.

I could have Egg over either Rhydon or Lapras. But, from my point of view, the biggest threat is going to be enemy Snorlax. And quake Lax has been a little uncommon lately, so I figured it would probably be all normal or ice Lax. Lapras just seems like a better option to me.

Also if we get caught in a Chansey Freeze war Lapras gives me options for being a smartass.

[Edit] - One thing I forgot to mention, which was probably the biggest reason for having Lapras, is if you intend to Freeze Chansey, it's important that you have something on your team that takes advantage of the fact that Chansey is Frozen. And Lapras is probably the best option for doing that.

And then, Rhydon firstly gives me good cover against all Normal Lax, but also would an opposing Rhydon really be a bigger threat to this team than Zapdos? I think I'd rather have the Zapdos cover.

So I guess the other option would be leading with Eggy and dropping Starmie. But it hardly seems like something I could never do without. Plus I figured TIN would lead Eggy against me expecting Surf Mie at some point. So I wanted to get that cheap Blizzard and soften Eggy up for Rhydon.

I think the other game I dropped Eggy in this tournament I used Vic, so that one seems pretty straight forward.

But also I am just a contrarian dude, so any time someone tells me something is necessary, I am always gonna try to find a way to ditch it.

 

[Heroic Troller]

Exeggutor remains insanely good, the Psychic is super violent, Explosion is well supported by his decent attack and he has a good natural bulk as well. There is only one reason to drop Exegg and it is that you need space, the lead to sleep block/take is a total staple and the 3 normals are too good to go, leaving only two slots to have fun with. May it be for surprise factor or the need to taste different, something is clear: Exeggutor is excellent and can't possibly be a waste slot in any game just because he scares off any boom resist via Psychic and possess boom. Why is dropping it popular right now? Because people has yet to adapt to those teams and so beat them, once they do Exeggutor might return along side the big 4 in usages.

tl:dr incredible mon but not mandatory at the same time

 

[Nails]

eggy has no recovery and too often does nothing better than switching into hits a couple times before being forced into a sometimes well timed, sometimes awkward boom. it's still a 1 for 1 but you if put it on the team to get a sleep, pressure with psychic and boom when low on a full hp target you're going to wind up disappointed almost all of the time. it's not even great at checking rhydon, rhydon still makes progress at chipping it down every time egg is forced to come into an attack unlike with starmie. its typing is meh (psychic resist, ground and electric resists), it has a strong psychic that almost 3hkoes lax, it trades hits well with tauros just like every other special attacker. it's lots of good attributes that ends up as less than the sum of its parts. that sum is still high enough to see it see use on most teams but i think that its current usage is still a tad high (i've often said it ought to have 70% usage and i'll stick with that). eggy's existence is just way more punishable than any other rby staple.

i guess another way to phrase it is that eggy can consistently trade evenly but it too often struggles to gain advantage. it's just flat, and you can do better.

 

[Bughouse]

I'm not sure Eggy's usage is actually the biggest thing going on.

top 3 is basically unchanged from last spl.
Eggy is down ~15%.
Zam is down ~15%
Starmie is up ~30%
Jynx is down ~10%
Rhydon is up ~10%

Starmie seems the more salient point here. Eggy also has the worst win rate of any of the core RBY mons. Starmie has the best of the big 5 (if it's fair to call it a big 5 now? Usage supports it at least), though behind Zam and Rhydon. People are using Starmie more and they're winning more. People use what works.

I haven't looked into actual game by game stats to get the real rates, but this is a fair estimation if we assume usage is normally distributed. Eggy's winrate in games vs no Eggy would be around 26% and Starmie's winrate in games vs no Starmie would be around 54%. Which would you rather use?


I got my math wrong, but have now corrected it below.... It's actually a much simpler calc than I was originally using.

Pokemon win percent in games not vs itself calc:

winrate_total = ((usage * .5) + ((1-usage) * winrate_solo)

In eggy's case
winrate_total = 44.27%
usage=76.16%

In starmie's case
winrate_total = 51.35%
usage = 64.53%

Solve for Eggy's winrate_solo and you get ~26%.
Do the same for Starmie and you get ~54%.

Translating it further to an actual scenario, assuming normality there have been 86 games (172 teams) and in them Exeggutor has been used by both players ~50 times (100 total), one player only ~31 times (31 total) and neither player ~5 times. This amounts to 131/172 ~ 76% usage.

To achieve a 44% winrate, it needs to win in 58 of its 131 appearances. 50 of the wins come from Eggy v Eggy matchups, leaving only 8 wins from the 31 times it faces non-Eggy. 8/31 = 26%.

For Starmie, there have also been 86 games (172 teams) and in them Starmie has been used by both players ~36 times (72 total), one player only ~39 times (39 times total), and neither player ~22 times. This amounts to 111/172 = 64.5% usage.

To achieve a 51% winrate, it needs to win in 57 of its 111 appearances. 36 of the wins come from Starmie v Starmie matchups, leaving only 21 wins from the 39 times it faces non-Starmie. 21/39 = 54%.


Even if I remove the normality assumption and apportion the Eggy games as generously as possible for its winrate by reducing the number of Eggy v Eggy matchups, 131 uses in 86 games still requires 45 face-offs (90 total) + a max of 41 individual showings (sums to 86 games and 131 uses). Then Eggy, who has won 58 games, would win 45 of them from face-offs and the remaining 13 from 41 games. Even in the best case scenario, Eggy's winrate in games vs non-Eggy is 13/41 = 32%.

 

[Bughouse]

Also, fun fact, by this same logic as above, where we allocate games on a normal distribution to see a Pokemon's winrate not against itself, one would expect Tauros is 1-8 in the 9 games where only 1 person used Tauros. This is the apparent cause of Tauros's sub 50% winrate.

However, I suspect this is off by a wide margin due to people not revealing last mon Tauros in a number of wins where they never had to use it (making it look like Tauros lost to non-Tauros), as happened in these games:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-406620https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-420852https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-422452https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-424049https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-424238https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-424524https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen1ou-426074
If we assume all of these winners who didn't reveal their 6th mon had a tauros, then it goes from:

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| 1    | Snorlax            |  169 |  98.26% |  50.30% |

| 1    | Chansey            |  169 |  98.26% |  49.70% |

| 3    | Tauros             |  163 |  94.77% |  47.85% |

to

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| Rank | Pokemon            | Use  | Usage % |  Win %  |

+ ---- + ------------------ + ---- + ------- + ------- +

| 1    | Tauros             |  170 |  98.84% |  50.00% |

| 2    | Snorlax            |  169 |  98.26% |  50.30% |

| 2    | Chansey            |  169 |  98.26% |  49.70% |

 

[Hipmonlee]

| 8    | Zapdos             |   44 |  20.00% |  34.09% |
| 10   | Lapras             |   19 |   8.64% |  26.32% |

Anyone have any insight into these two? Cause that's just dismal.

I guess for Zapdos the Rhydon usage was a little high, but I've got no real explanation for Lapras other than general variance.

 

[Jorgen]

I would guess it's the uptick in Starmie usage, as you generally wouldn't run both unless you're going for a full-on Blizzard spam team.

 

[Hipmonlee]

I kinda meant the win rate, rather than the usage. Usage wise I think it was getting squeezed by Cloyster and Articuno.

 

[Amaranth]

Lapras hates that switching Chansey T1 trend for starters, even if you explode Exeggutor on the paralyzed Chansey the opponent now has an unparalyzed Zam or Mie that they can use to completely fuck up your Lapras (GLHF hitting Sing in a 1v1 against those two). I think historically it's always been good because it was a sleeper who could outpace all the slow things and sort of break through the fast ones once they are paralyzed, but people trying to get their own Chansey paralyzed more urgently really poses a problem to this plan as Lapras now doesn't have a way to deal with either the lead or the Chansey so getting mileage out of him in that situation is nearly impossible.

As for Zapdos, I think it's mostly just variance. There has been an uptick in teams that drop Exeggutor and can afford a Zapdos check to put that match up on lock, which is surely a part of it, but I think Zapdos is still a top mon. I will say that I don't like the match up rock paper scissors it creates, I don't think it's healthy for the metagame to have a pokemon that puts the game at 70-30 in one way or the other from turn 1 depending on the teams brought, but tiering changes to RBY are something I'm only ever going to see in my dreams so that's a tangent I don't need to elaborate on

 

[Jorgen]

To call Lapras a "sleeper" is weird because Sing is so unreliable. It really should be more of a surprise tactic than a main reason to use Lapras, and if it's seen as the latter I can see how its win rate might drop as a result.

 

[Amaranth]

To call Lapras a "sleeper" is weird because Sing is so unreliable. It really should be more of a surprise tactic than a main reason to use Lapras, and if it's seen as the latter I can see how its win rate might drop as a result.

It's just a really bad pokemon without Sing. Would you rather have a water type with blizzbolt + normal move and confuse ray, or one with blizzbolt + recover and thunderwave, and access to psychic if you want, and a resistance to opposing psychics, and a base speed to outpace Tauros... you get the point. The only way he ever gets significant value is Singing a Chansey. Of course that's not reliable and he's not a proper sleeper, but that's why he has a 26% winrate - his best set is grossly unreliable.

Not a stretch at all to consider Cloyster the superior Water/Ice at this point.

 

[Nails]

Lapras suuuuuuuuucks

 

[Nails]

imagine being a water type whose main draw is that you have tbolt yet you still lose to starmie lmao

 

[Hipmonlee]

Dont exactly agree with that.

Against paralysed Starmie, Lapras wins about 80% of the time. Lapras only loses 1v1 to full health unpar Starmie. In that case Starmie wins only about 60% of the time (with psychic or tbolt its fairly similar).

As far as pokemon that exist in RBY go, Lapras is one of the best against Mie.

 

[Amaranth]

SPLX TEAM DUMP

I was originally going to post all of the teams I used but a lot of them are standard-ish so I figured I'd only share the at least somewhat innovative ones

Lead Chansey + Golem / Starmie / Moltres

Import

Used Week 1, Game 1 against Alexander, this is a really fun team. The idea behind it is that Sing Chansey gets rid of the opposing lead, Snorlax explodes the other Chansey, and then Moltres has free space to fuck things up, with Starmie covering the Lapras / Rhydons and Golem covering the Zapdos, exploding Starmies if the Zapper isn't there. Golem can also switch in on Rock Slides directed at Moltres which is cute I guess. Didn't work to perfection against Alexander but Moltres is a mon that's capable of big magic via Fire Spin, as shown in that replay, it generally tends to have very decent odds to make it out one way or another.
I played a similar version against Sceptross, Week 4, Game 2, with Articuno > Moltres. It similarly dunks on Snorlax and has an easier time against Zapdos/Rhydon but relies a hell of a lot more on the Chansey trade happening, which is why I was quite relieved to freeze it after failing to do so.

Egg Lead + Starmie / Rhydon

Import

Used Games 2 and 3 of Week 2 as well as Game 2 in Semifinals, I think this is by some margin the best egg lead build out there. Very similar to Jynx+Mie+Don Eggyless builds, you just use a different sleeper with a lot more upside thanks to Explosion and Stun Spore but also a few more risks due to the crappy match ups against Blizzard leads. Not much to say about it, it plays quite intuitively, Egg to boom Chansey or if it fails Lax has you covered, could make a switch to boltbeam chansey + reflax I guess, since Alakazams will be sleeping anyway.

Jynx Cloy Zam and Jynx Gar Articuno

Watch this video

Mie MidGar Zam

Import

This one is for when you're scared shitless of getting Victreebel'd, hence I brought it Week 6, Game 1 against FOMG. Gengar + unpara'd BackZam really keeps you as safe as you can get against it, playing Gengar + no Reflects is risky business if you happen to find eq laxes and this team doesn't love facing Zapdos either but they're both outplayable and a lucky Victreebel in the right match up just isn't, so. Be aware that you're playing shitty backzam and gengar when you load this, but at least you don't have to worry about getting wrapped

The Toxmen

Import

This team isn't very good due to its Zapdos match up but I love it everywhere else. Used Week 6, Game 2. Lead Eggy gets annoying psychics out of the way, Toxic will always land on Chansey (Lax hits it on reflect, Chansey hits it on boltbeam), from there Cloyster and Moltres become incredibly dangerous. Toxic Cloy gets it on Starmie too which frees up Agility -> Fire Spin Moltres to clean through it as well. Very fun and quite good if you're willing to gamble on no Zapdos and you know what you're doing. Snorlax is a bit of a headache to deal with since he can Rest off the Toxics easily, hence the Counter on Chansey

Quadboom, three booms edition

Import

My Quad Boom team from last year but with Starmie over Cloyster, used Week 9, Game 2. Can easily switch Eggy or Gengar to the lead slot depending on what you expect your opponent to do. Three booms and a sleeper generally find a way to make way for BlizzBolt Starmie to clean up the endgame, Gengar prevents Lax from becoming a problem, that's about all there is to it really. Obviously it's a gengar team so it's risky if your opp brings eqlax, and obviously it's a back mie team so be very careful in case of Zapdos.

Overall I really dislike the current state of RBY. I loved Sing Chansey when I was the only one spamming it and grabbed free wins all over the place, but people noticed and started using it themselves which means we now find ourselves in mirrors or pseudo-mirrors where the player who wins is (A) the one with the upper hand in the opening due to lead choice or sequence, or alternatively, (B) whoever wins the 50/50 mirror. Now normally I'd be happy to break away from this and find something that beats this type of thing, but Sing Chansey just doesn't have many great answers, Jynx builds do well against it but Jynx comes with her own flaws in literally every other match up and I'm tired of playing rock paper scissors in the teambuilder. As if Water > Rhydon > Zapdos > Water wasn't enough, now we also have Traditional > Jynx > Sing Chans > Traditional. Get me out of this nightmare, I'm off to DOU, but I think something needs to change and with the imminent removal from tours of RBY it might be time to wake up and do something about this metagame, we're lying to ourselves if we say it's completely fine, if you apply tiering standards of any other tier to RBY you wouldn't be playing what we are playing right now

 

[Heroic Troller]

Nothing to worry about, Zapdos has been the most dominant thing for a while and this spl people started hard preparing for it (it still won a lot of games when no Jolteon/Rhydon), and Lapras was dropped more often to answer the Exeggutor's disappearance from sight, swapping a good 1v1 mu for one bad (or at least even) did not help. I believe this is just a trend and thing will restore a bit later once we figure out the best ways to handle them