RBY LC ! (Red/Blue/Yellow LC)

In this post, I want to encourage you all to at least give RBY LC a try. Most of you would hate gen 1 metagames for reasons such as: "gen 1 is all luck because crits" or maybe "hyper beam is op" or even "trapping moves are broken" but in the RBY LC metagame, it's different. The Base Speed of Pokemon isn't too high, so critical hits will not happen as often as they would in RBY OU, the only Pokemon that gets Hyper Beam is Dratini, and trapping moves are banned, as well as set damage moves. Finally, the metagame is very offensive so this metagame is very fun once you get to play it.

Now, Omastar42 and I spent hours doing research on the viability and movesets of pretty much the majority of the Pokemon in the RBY LC metagame and we've found out which are viable, which are completely useless, and which are really good. I'll go ahead and list these here now... (These are basically viability rankings, although less complex, as it's divided into only 4 categories)

Strong: These Pokemon are very solid in the metagame and have few weaknesses.
Abra, Diglett, Exeggcute, Gastly, Pikachu, Poliwag, Ponyta, Slowpoke, Staryu


Viable: These Pokemon are very good but their weaknesses are notable, which hinders their viability a little.
Bellsprout, Bulbasaur, Clefairy, Cubone, Doduo, Dratini, Drowzee, Geodude, Grimer, Horsea, Koffing, Machop, Mankey, Meowth, Omanyte, Rattata, Rhyhorn, Shellder, Tentacool, Voltorb


Niche: These Pokemon aren't very good but they have notable niches that could justify their use if you want to use them.
Charmander, Ekans, Goldeen, Growlithe, Kabuto, Krabby, Magnemite, Nidoran (M), Paras, Sandshrew, Seel, Spearow, Venonat


Useless: These Pokemon are simply useless and shouldn't be used on any type of team, as they're completely outclassed by something else.
Caterpie, Eevee, Jigglypuff, Magikarp, Nidoran (F), Oddish, Pidgey, Psyduck, Squirtle, Weedle, Zubat


Now, I'll be going into moveset details some other time, so you can all understand why we both "tiered" the Pokemon into its respective section, but for now, you can use these as a way to guide yourself into using Pokemon that are good.

tl;dr this post has accurate viability rankings so you don't have to look for the good shit yourself
 
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The above list looks alright, but there are definitely some questionable things in the "Viable" category that I'd drop to "Niche."

Bellsprout and Bulbasaur are sort of in the same boat here. They both get hard stopped by Egg and are OHKOed by Psychic the majority of the time, they're outsped and 2HKOed by Diglett's Earthquake, they barely survive Staryu's Blizzard and are KOed by Surf shortly after, they also get 2HKOed by Poliwag's Blizzard, they take Pikachu's Thunderbolt for the same damage as Exeggcute despite the slightly higher Special (although they do tank Voltorb's slightly better), etc. All in all, they just seem pretty outclassed by Exeggcute due to Egg's better physical bulk, Earthquake/Psychic resistance, and arguably better STAB. I guess they can work, but they're definitely niche since I personally think you shouldn't be wasting a teamslot in RBY LC on a Pokemon who overlaps so much with one of the best in the metagame.

Cubone looks pretty starkly overshadowed by Diglett. Blizzard to 2HKO Egg and the ability to generally survive two Earthquakes from opposing Diglett are both cool traits, but a slightly weaker Attack stat combined with very low speed make Diglett overall so much better.

Dratini just seems outclassed overall by Clefairy. Clefairy has all the cool moves Dratini does along with higher Special, greater bulk, and no common weaknesses (Dratini has to worry about Blizzard). Outspeeding the 13s is about all it has over Clefairy.

Geodude is passable I suppose since Explosion at least makes Egg think twice about switching in, but otherwise it's completely outclassed by Rhyhorn, and it's not like Rhyhorn is a stellar choice anyway.

Grimer looks pretty bad, honestly. Weak STAB, poison status is even worse in LC than in OU, super slow (even slower than Egg, which is bad), dies to Psychics and Earthquakes, etc. It has a strong Explosion, I guess? Koffing is the same way, although at least it speed ties Egg (not that you'll find yourself in that matchup often anyway).

Horsea is definitely a worse Staryu. Less speed, no recovery, loss of Thunderbolt/Thunder Wave, all in exchange for slightly higher Defense and...SmokeScreen?

Shellder is pretty similar to Horsea, although at least it has Explosion to set itself apart from Staryu. Would be a lot better if Clamp were allowed, but without it, there are much better choices. I kinda feel the same about Wrap-less Tentacool. It has lots of power, but it would be way better if it had 18 Speed. The Earthquake and Psychic weaknesses certainly don't help here. That said, Omanyte kinda has similar problems due to its own Earthquake weakness and the fact that it doesn't even resist Water STABs, not to mention the speed problems.

Machop and Mankey both have Psychic problems, bulk problems, and speed problems. They offer little that other Pokemon can't do better, and their Fighting STAB is rarely going to be useful.

I've kinda had a soft spot for Rattata since it has the strongest Quick Attack in the tier (tied with Eevee), as well as Blizzard and Super Fang over Meowth, but Meowth's 18 Speed, STAB Slash, and slightly better bulk make it the better choice overall.

So basically all of these Pokemon have problems with Speed (remember, 18 speed is the key benchmark, and anything slower needs something significant to set itself apart), weaknesses to common attacks, and/or competition from other Pokemon that make them more niche choices. They're all generally usable, but I wouldn't rank them among some of the other Pokemon you have listed there simply because they have more significant flaws/less notable perks.

Everything else looks solid, though. I agree with Crystal's earlier analysis that RBY LC viability basically consists of the top 3 Pokemon (4 if you count Abra among Diglett, Staryu, and Exeggcute), followed by a big group that includes basically everything you have in the "Strong" and "Viable" categories that I haven't mentioned above (obviously with varying degrees of viability). Then you have everything else ranging from niche to bad to basically unusable. I think if you took the stuff I mentioned above and put it into a new category between "Viable" and "Niche," you'd have a pretty decent list.

EDIT: There are also a couple of changes between "Strong" and "Viable" I'd personally make. Ghastly, for instance, is quite overrated from my experience. It can absorb random Explosions and counter Meowth/check Staryu decently, but otherwise it has no STAB, it's weak to Psychics and Earthquakes, gets stopped by Egg unless it Explodes, and it falls just short of that magic 18 speed benchmark, which kinda sucks. Outside of countering Meowth and absorbing the odd boom, it basically puts something to sleep if Sleep Clause isn't already active, maybe checks Staryu once, and then hopefully blows up on something useful. I'd definitely drop it to "Viable." Same thing for Ponyta. It capitalizes on Egg switch-ins to Diglett and such nicely, and 18 speed is always nice, but the fact that Staryu switches in so easily really hurts it because you definitely don't want to give Staryu an easy switch if you can help it.

For more tips and stuff, you can check mine and Crystal's posts on the previous page, as well as the post on SPPF that Crystal linked to. Obviously, if anything I say contradicts something Crystal says, take his word for it since he's more experienced in this metagame than I am (although I have been playing it for a good while myself).
 
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Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
Here's a really good resource (I'm from the RBY community generally so I know where to find this stuff :3)
http://rby2k10.proboards.com/thread/311/rby-little-cup-rules-tiers
pikachu <3

Also my server http://bam.psim.us/ is now supporting it both with a ban on partial trapping, and alternatively with a ban on dratini (the main difference is probably the viability of ponyta I've gathered, but since you do it differently to PO, and both places have similarly sized playerbases afaik, I've implemented both!)
 
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