Mewbers: An Introduction to RBY Ubers
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Art by Zatqer.
Introduction
In RBY, Mew and Mewtwo set themselves apart from the rest of the Pokedex. Mewtwo cannot be found without completing the Indigo League and accessing the dreaded Cerulean Cave, whereas Mew is simply not accessible at all in the base game and could only be acquired via real-life events or one of RBY's many famous glitches. These extremely rare Pokemon are formidable, though, as they are the undisputed two strongest Pokemon in the first generation and the foundation for the Ubers tier! RBY Ubers is notable for having a surprisingly diverse array of viable Pokemon, as the centralization caused by Mewtwo and Mew opens up some interesting niches for Pokemon that are otherwise tiered very low. Today, we'll be introducing you, dear reader, to the first ever Ubers tier and the current metagame a full 29 years after the original release of these classic games!
Mewtwo and Mew, Too
When talking about this unique tier, it only makes sense to talk about the only two Pokemon originally placed in it and how they shape the metagame. Ubers features just about all of the classic OU staples, like Tauros, Snorlax, and Chansey, but Mewtwo and Mew centralize the tier around both dealing with them and enabling them. They also boast some of the greatest set variety in RBY, requiring players to scout their sets without giving up too much ground and forcing teams to pack multiple answers to them, such as paralysis spreaders and Explosion users. We'll cover sets later on as we talk about team archetypes, but for now, let's talk about the general traits of each Pokemon.
Mewtwo
RBY Mewtwo is notorious for being one of the most powerful Pokemon of all time, and it's not hard to see why. The original generation's mechanics were incredibly favorable to Mewtwo in a way no later generation would ever be again—the combined Special stat gave it ridiculous special bulk; Amnesia essentially functioned as two uses of Calm Mind and also quartered the foe's Speed again if it was paralyzed; Psychic had a 33% chance to drop Special; critical hits were based on Speed, giving Mewtwo an astonishing 25.4% critical-hit rate; Psychic-types practically had no weaknesses; and Psychic-type moves were only resisted by other Psychic-types. Add to this a plethora of great attacking moves—including Psychic, Thunderbolt, Blizzard, Ice Beam, and Fire Blast—powerful setup in Amnesia, instant 32 PP recovery in Recover, and a myriad of other options, such as Thunder Wave, Self-Destruct, Barrier, Flash, and Submission, and Mewtwo can be customized to fit any team, serving as a deadly setup sweeper, a dangerous paralysis spreader, a targeted assassin that removes the opposing Mewtwo, or a PP stalling nightmare with seemingly hundreds of turns to waste.
This isn't to say Mewtwo is without weaknesses and checks, of course, though those checks all have their own limits. Chansey is the blanket Mewtwo check that covers most sets, forcing Mewtwo to take paralysis if it wants to continue to attack it. In a few specific scenarios, some Mewtwo sets do not mind this and will eventually break through with Amnesia and Psychic by dropping Chansey's Special. Exeggutor and Slowbro each check many Mewtwo sets, so long as these Mewtwo sets do not pack Ice-type coverage or Thunderbolt, respectively. Both Exeggutor and Slowbro threaten paralysis, and Exeggutor also threatens Explosion against Thunderbolt Mewtwo, while Slowbro can set up Amnesia and proceed to stall Mewtwo out. Mew can also check paralyzed Mewtwo by using Soft-Boiled until it fully paralyzes and then setting up with Swords Dance in front of it, and Mew conveniently learns Thunder Wave to facilitate this. Paralyzed Mewtwo also has to fear many physical threats and Explosion users, like Tauros, Snorlax, Rhydon, and Golem, as well as Wrap users that can whittle it down into range of Hyper Beam or other strong physical moves. Thanks to RBY's Stat Experience system, all Pokemon have more bulk than in later generations, making it easier for foes to switch into Mewtwo as it sets up and threaten to paralyze it but difficult for Mewtwo to sweep until multiple checks are weakened.
With all that said, the best check to Mewtwo remains... itself. In the past, it was common to see two Mewtwo facing each other, hoping to get an Ice Beam freeze. However, more creative uses of Mewtwo have exploded onto the scene, offensively pressuring as early as the first turn or luring in opposing Mewtwo and Mew and forcing them to take paralysis. For example, some players have used a Mewtwo set consisting of Thunder Wave + Self-Destruct to lure and KO opposing Mewtwo, opening up the game for several Pokemon, including Slowbro, Rhydon, and Tauros; other teams use Mewtwo to spread paralysis to multiple foes, setting up for Tauros and Snorlax to use their powerful Normal-type STAB moves to break through. This has led to continued developments, as teams now have to account for the possibility that Mewtwo isn't the main threat, further diversifying the metagame.
Mew
Mew never gained the same level of infamy as Mewtwo, but it's just as much of a must-use Pokemon. Sporting every single TM in the game as well as Transform, Mew loses out on Amnesia but gains powerful options like Swords Dance, Explosion, and Earthquake, and it also has instant recovery in Soft-Boiled. Its base-100 stats may be mediocre for later generations, but in the olden days, this was enough to make it very bulky and relatively threatening offensively. Mew is typically used as a physical attacker and support Pokemon that can threaten out Mewtwo, force paralysis progress, and even sweep late-game after a boost or two. Reflect and Transform open up some other niche avenues for it, allowing it to serve as a strong physical wall or to set up Reflect and steal boosts from opposing Mewtwo and Mew, PP stalling them or even turning their setup into a reverse sweep. Of course, Mew also has excellent special coverage that can lure and snipe foes, such as Blizzard for Rhydon and Exeggutor and Thunderbolt for Cloyster and Starmie.
Mew, similar to Mewtwo, is often checked by paralysis and Explosion, but it has some additional weaknesses thanks to its middling base 100 Speed and lack of immediate damage output compared to Mewtwo. Tauros outspeeds it and can be immensely threatening, and many Mew sets find themselves outright walled by Gengar, Rhydon, or Flying-types, as Mew struggles to fit more than one or two attacking moves without giving up powerful options like Soft-Boiled, Swords Dance, and Thunder Wave. As a result, Mew is more often considered expendable and a way to make progress to enable other threats, though it's still incredibly threatening in its own right; +2 Explosion will take out anything bar Rock- and Ghost-types, and Mew's physical damage output after setup often lets it take out multiple targets or force Explosion to get it to switch out.
Tier Dynamics
RBY Ubers plays much differently from RBY OU, with a much greater emphasis on setup moves and exploiting one of the foundational glitches in RBY: the stat reapplication glitch. In short, if a Pokemon is paralyzed or burned, then when the opposing Pokemon uses a stat-changing move—either through boosting its own stats or lowering its foe's stats—the paralyzed or burned Pokemon receives the Speed or Attack drop again. This allows for powerful plays when two paralyzed Pokemon are on the field; suddenly, Amnesia functions sort of like a super-powered Quiver Dance, and Swords Dance looks like a better Dragon Dance. This also enables opportunities for allies; for example, one could use Mew to slow down the opposing Mewtwo, enabling a paralyzed Snorlax to outspeed it and threaten Self-Destruct. This is one of the most powerful ways to continually threaten the two Ubers with ostensibly weaker Pokemon, and it leads to high usage of moves that don't see much use in RBY OU, such as Leer or Tail Whip on Tauros and Rhydon, Screech on Persian, and even Sand Attack on Jolteon. Speaking of Sand Attack, the sheer power of Mewtwo makes accuracy-lowering moves a legitimate form of counterplay to it as it sets up, particularly after it's paralyzed, leading to sets like Flash Mewtwo, Sand Attack Jolteon, and even Kinesis Alakazam to exploit the reapplication glitch and force switches.
Of course, the tier is also centered on setup moves because Mewtwo's Amnesia and Mew's Swords Dance are incredibly potent threats. Whereas in RBY OU, much of the focus is on Psychic Special drops and getting Tauros and Snorlax in to make progress, while here, much of the focus is on preventing Mewtwo and Mew from getting free setup turns, as +2 Mewtwo can deal upwards of 50% to Mew, one of the bulkiest targets in the tier, and outright OHKO various targets, notably threatening Blizzard- and Thunderbolt-weak targets with an OHKO. While Mew deals significantly less damage, physical damage is also much harder to stonewall in RBY, so allowing it to set up can be a fatal mistake. This has led to a rise in Thunder Wave on Mew and Mewtwo, exploiting this pressure to force paralysis onto more targets to eventually allow an allied setup sweeper or physical attacker to sweep. The prevalence of setup moves also makes Explosion and Self-Destruct central parts of this tier. In the first three generations, the turn ends immediately when a Pokemon is KOed, so self-KO moves can deny setup and recovery, making this one of the strongest ways to force out Mewtwo and Mew once they've been paralyzed. For example, Snorlax's Self-Destruct deals a minimum of 78% to Mewtwo, leading to a win-win situation when Snorlax gets in against a paralyzed and boosted Mewtwo; either it exits and loses its boosts, or it takes a huge hit and can promptly be taken out by the next Pokemon.
RBY Ubers is often stereotyped to be just Mewtwo versus Mewtwo freeze wars, with the winning Mewtwo proceeding to sweep. This is not at all accurate to the tier, and in fact, Mewtwo wars are a last-resort option that players usually only engage in after making a mistake or exhausting all other options. That said, this matchup does happen at times, and it does have some interesting mechanics and glitches to it, such as overflow. Stats cap at 999 in RBY for the purpose of calculations, and at 1023 under the hood. Mewtwo has a ridiculous Special stat of 406 and, at +4, reaches a Special of 1218, significantly above this, but this doesn't cause problems by itself; additionally, RBY imposes a -1 penalty to stat boosts once a Pokemon's stat reaches 999, ostensibly preventing it from rising further. However, +2 boosts exist and bypass this, still gaining a +1 boost. This is relevant due to a problem with RBY's stat calculations—if a stat is dropped, such as by Psychic's secondary effect, and the resultant stat is still above 1023, it rolls over, subtracting 1024 from the stat and leaving the Pokemon severely weakened until the stat gets changed again. Now, normally this is no issue—if Mewtwo gets dropped to +3, it has 1015 Special, just under the threshold. However, this comes into play if Mewtwo is PP stalling with Amnesia—it boosts to +5, going significantly above the cap, and when dropped to +4, it "rolls over" to a mere 194 Special, at which point an opposing +4 Mewtwo can 2HKO it or even OHKO with Blizzard. This is why most Mewtwo carry Psychic, preventing Amnesia stalling in the Mewtwo versus Mewtwo matchup without significant risk. Mewtwo can lower its stats to 333 Special, often called "SafeTwo", to avoid rollover by reaching exactly 999 Special at +4, but this significantly reduces Mewtwo's damage output and special bulk until it boosts twice, so this is unpopular.
As noted previously, unparalyzed Mewtwo and Mew are popular wincons, but there are other methods of achieving victory that use these powerful Pokemon to break through teams rather than clean up. Slowbro, for example, is a secondary Amnesia sweeper that can take over the game after trading away Mewtwo and Mew for their opposing counterparts, and physical offense teams powered by Tauros, Snorlax, Rhydon, Persian, and even Sandslash can exploit paralysis to tear through the opposition. "Boom spam" teams function by taking out most opposing Pokemon and leaving just one or two powerful and bulky Pokemon in the back that can beat most targets one-on-one, such as Articuno and Moltres. Wrap teams, much like physical offense, rely heavily on paralysis but are incredibly scary once fast targets are paralyzed, using Dragonite and Victreebel to rapidly chip down everything. Finally, stall teams, while difficult to pilot in this tier, can completely stonewall foes in the right matchups, using unorthodox Pokemon and sets like Aerodactyl and Barrier Mewtwo to delay games and waste PP. We'll further explore all of these archetypes and typical Pokemon used on them below.
Archetypes in Ubers
There is a number of archetypes used to construct teams in RBY Ubers, generally centering around a specific style of play and wincon, such as enabling a Mewtwo sweep, setting up a physical attacker like Tauros to win, or simply walling threats so that they can't make progress. That said, teams are often flexible and will not stick purely to one of these styles, rather taking bits and pieces of two or more to create a team that can adapt and pivot to a different wincon as needed depending on the game's conditions.
Special Offense
Special offense is perhaps the most "classic" style of RBY Ubers and the first thing most people associate with this tier, focusing on Amnesia users like Mewtwo and Slowbro as wincons. This style often focuses on creating asymmetry by using Slowbro or Chansey to help stall out opposing Mewtwo's PP or using an Explosion user to remove special walls, allowing Mewtwo to quickly clean up if given one free turn to set up. In some cases, it involves a more aggressive Mewtwo, such as a Thunder Wave + Self-Destruct Mewtwo, to remove the opposing Mewtwo and leave Slowbro open to sweep. This style has somewhat fallen out of favor due to Slowbro's flaws and the passivity of many Pokemon typically involved in these setups, but it still has a place in the metagame.
Special offense isn't mutually exclusive with Pokemon and sets from any other archetype; it is very easy to slot in a Slowbro or focus on enabling Amnesia Mewtwo as a gameplan, and other styles like physical offense do a great job of helping to break through specially defensive Pokemon to help enable such sweeps. The main differentiating factor is which Pokemon you aim to enable with each style and which ones you need to remove in order to win. Special offense wants opposing Mewtwo and Chansey gone, as well as any Pokemon that can stop your sweeper of choice; this might mean Zapdos if you intend to clean up with Slowbro, or it could mean Slowbro or Exeggutor if your Mewtwo isn't running the coverage to remove them.
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Physical Offense
One of the most common ways to play RBY Ubers in 2025 is to use Thunder Wave and other paralysis-spreading moves to enable physical attackers to clean up with powerful moves like Self-Destruct, Explosion, Hyper Beam, and Earthquake. This style is known for being the origin of Thunder Wave on Mew and later Mewtwo, as players realized that the pair are incredibly effective at forcing paralysis onto their opposing counterparts, allowing for a more consistent style that gives fewer opportunities for foes to set up and sweep or get lucky with a freeze. Staples of this style are incredibly hard-hitting attackers like Tauros and Rhydon, which exploit paralysis well and can even go toe-to-toe with paralyzed Mewtwo. The main weakness of this archetype is that these physical attackers lack special bulk and can quickly be ruined by paralysis or just taking a strong hit or two, which can make entry difficult; the team might run out of gas if outpositioned more than once or twice. Teams heavily focused on physical offense tend to lose to Amnesia-focused teams once their physical threats are neutralized, but they are extremely dangerous early- to mid-game and often can take down setup-focused teams before they find their opportunity.
The main focus on these teams is to use incredibly threatening paralysis spreaders, such as Mewtwo, Mew, Zapdos, and Exeggutor, to force paralysis onto as many fast foes as possible, allowing physical heavyweights like Tauros, Snorlax, and Rhydon to punch through. Said teams often use Defense-lowering moves to help punch through Mewtwo and Mew by both weakening their bulk and reapplying the Speed drop from paralysis, keeping them slower even if they manage to paralyze the physical attackers in return. Articuno, while niche, tends to destroy physical offense teams, as it matches up well against Tauros, Snorlax, Exeggutor, and Rhydon, and it walls some Mew sets; some teams bring a Starmie or Cloyster to help insulate them against Articuno and provide some defensive backbone.
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Boom Spam
Perhaps the most self-explanatory way to play Ubers, "boom spam" is focused on, well, spamming self-KO moves to weaken and remove foes, allowing for a final Pokemon to cleave through the remainder. This is often some bulky and fast Pokemon, such as one of the legendary birds, which can clean up at the end after setting up Agility, but sometimes the plan is to set up a desirable one-on-one endgame, such as Thunder Wave Mew versus Mewtwo. This archetype has very clear strengths and weaknesses—self-KO moves almost always get value and insulate teams against bad luck, but matchups against Gengar and Rock-types can be difficult. Additionally, self-KO moves aren't at their peak strength in RBY, only having 130 and 170 Base Power here, so they rarely outright KO foes; this can allow a clever player to absorb two self-KO moves with the same Pokemon and quickly exploit their advantage. This means that boom spam teams can't just click Explosion over and over and move on, as they need to chip foes into Explosion range or paralyze them for teammates to follow up.
Boom spam teams typically apply obscene pressure while ahead or even in momentum, but they quickly fall apart if they fall behind for even a moment. Thankfully, these teams can take advantage of Mewtwo and Mew's absurd threat level to bait healthy foes into taking Thunder Wave and Self-Destruct/Explosion, as most teams cannot afford to disrespect them and risk giving free setup. Snorlax, while not a setup threat, is also extremely hard to stop, and calling the Self-Destruct turn incorrectly is often costly. The main difference between this archetype and previous ones is that boom spam usually entails four or five boom users rather than "only" two or three, fully focusing in on forcing a good endgame matchup between the last few Pokemon standing.
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Wrap
Perhaps one of the most infamous quirks of RBY's mechanics, Wrap and other partial-trapping moves are quite the annoyance in most tiers. For those unfamiliar, Wrap, Clamp, Bind, and Fire Spin function differently in RBY; if the move connects, it deals minor chip damage each turn and prevents the foe from using moves for 2-5 turns, though they are able to switch out; switching out causes the partial trapping move user to immediately reuse the move on the new Pokemon. This means that if the partial trapping user outspeeds the foe, it cannot act unless the partial trapping move misses. Thankfully, every Ubers team inherently has two Pokemon that outspeed every partial trapper, and most teams will have additional fast Pokemon like Zapdos, Tauros, and Gengar, helping to mitigate the threat. Wrap teams use extremely threatening Thunder Wave users, such as—you guessed it—Mewtwo and Mew to help force paralysis onto fast Pokemon, allowing teammates like Dragonite and Victreebel to relentlessly chip them with Wrap and force them out. Notably, Dragonite and Victreebel have status moves of their own to further spread paralysis, allowing them to sacrifice themselves to slow down problematic opposition like Tauros and Zapdos for another partial trapper to whittle down later. Wrap teams commonly support themselves with some self-KO moves and physical attackers to help weaken the enemy team's capacity to absorb chip damage; it is much harder to waste Wrap PP and survive the constant chip damage with only three Pokemon left, but relatively easy with six, and a strong physical attacker like Tauros can pivot in to finish off chipped foes, saving Wrap PP.
Wrap teams are extremely matchup dependent and inconsistent; Wrap is the most accurate partial trapping move and still only has 85% accuracy. An early miss can completely ruin the gameplan, to say nothing of an opposing critical hit. Some matchups are absolutely brutal for Wrap teams: Gengar is a well-known counter, as Dragonite and Victreebel both do abysmal damage to it and can't chip it with Wrap, but several other Pokemon, such as Zapdos, Articuno, and Jynx, are also hard for these teams to handle, especially as the game progresses and resources deplete.
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Stall
The definite black sheep of RBY Ubers archetypes, stall has gone through several iterations, from PP stall, to bringing one or two niche Pokemon specifically to stop Mew and Snorlax, to using Barrier on Mewtwo to simply sit and wait for a freeze before playing the game as usual. Stall is a difficult way to play in any RBY metagame thanks to the critical hit formula simply not favoring "crit-me-not" tactics, but inventive players have found ways to frustrate their opponents' progress and wait for a lucky break like a freeze to flip the game on its head.
Very few teams fully commit to stalling out the opposing team; rather, it is typical that a single Pokemon will be employed to answer a specific common threat, such as Aerodactyl to wall most Mew and Snorlax sets, freeing up the rest of the team to target other foes. The stall archetype also includes a number of ideas that have extremely limited use in modern Ubers, such as Light Screen Chansey, Transform Mew, and Thunderbolt + Submission Mewtwo, but they are still included here for completeness. One of the biggest failings of fully committing to stall is that many of these niche sets are countered by their targets; Aerodactyl, for example, can be obliterated by Surf or Blizzard Snorlax and also struggles with Rock Slide or special attacking Mew, both of which are occasionally run as a response to Aerodactyl and other specific problem matchups. Other sets are simply too passive; Light Screen Chansey is a notorious do-nothing Pokemon that is extremely vulnerable to double switches, to say nothing of how poorly it fares once paralyzed. Current trends seem to indicate that accuracy-reducing moves are more popular and perhaps more successful as a stall method, as they can also cripple switch-ins rather than covering specific targets, they are less vulnerable to critical hits, and they reapply the Speed drop from paralysis.
That said, Barrier Mewtwo, aka Barrier2, has found success on teams that seek to enable it by removing problematic walls like Chansey and Starmie via Explosion, sleep, or raw damage. Once these are removed, Barrier2 can sit and wait for a freeze against opposing Mewtwo, since Barrier makes it very hard for physical attackers to break it without repeated critical hits; if the opposing Mewtwo has an Ice-type move, Barrier2 can intentionally take paralysis to ensure it can't be frozen while doing this. Barrier2 does struggle due to only having a single attacking move, but with the right support, it can sit in front of the hapless team and force a game-winning freeze or PP stall opposing Mewtwo with non-Ice Beam sets. Rest on already strong Pokemon has also been seen to counter or outlast sets that sacrifice coverage; Rhydon can often find chances to use Rest against Zapdos or attackers lacking coverage, and Zapdos's general bulk means it can trade hits and then use Rest against the relatively common Earthquake + Thunder Wave Mew.
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Wrap-up and Resources
RBY Ubers has undergone explosive development in the last few years and is now a highly interesting and dynamic tier that defies stereotypes. If any of the above info caught your eye, you'll be pleased to know that there are plenty of resources and tournaments! You can discuss the tier on both the RBY Discord and the Ubers Discord, find Viability Rankings, sample teams, and discussion in our RBY Ubers Hub on the forums, check the mechanics here, and join the many tournaments we host. RBY Ubers gets a Pokemon Showdown! ladder approximately once a year with a spotlight tournament accompanying it, but it also has a series of yearly tournaments—RBY Ubers Tournament is an individual tournament run early each year, and each RBY Grand Slam contains an Ubers Open, both of which also count toward RBY's Lower Tiers Circuit with a championship at the end of each year. On the team tournament side, each winter, the Ubers community runs a team tournament that usually contains RBY, such as the recent Ubers Winter League III, and Ubers Premier League and RBY Premier League also contain an RBY Ubers slot! There is also Ancient Lower Tiers Premier League, which has contained an RBY Ubers slot since its inception, so there are plenty of chances to play this tier both individually and as part of a team each year! We hope you'll come try it out.
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