Hey there, ADV community. I've been lurking around this thread for a while now, and I wanted to discuss a specific group of Pokémon that's been on my mind lately:
These five are what I've started to call the "Big Five Leads" of ADV OU (name pending), in no particular order. Whether you're
stuck playing low ladder
like me, medium, high, or top of the ladder, chances are that you're familiar with these five Pokémon. Since it's almost May anyways, I won't post usage rates here just yet (I plan on coming back to this post once the April 2024 usage rates are published), but for now, I would be willing to bet that at least half of all ADV OU teams run one of these five Pokémon in the lead slot, and that percentage could be even higher.
This is not to say that these are the only viable leads in the tier, of course, but any other lead matchup you'll come across was likely chosen with at least one of these five Pokémon in mind. As a more casual player who wishes to improve at the game, I believe it's worth it for newer players and even returning veterans to have an understanding of the dynamic between these lead options, why they are so viable, and how they match up against themselves and other popular lead options. The first thing that caught my attention with these five Pokémon was that there's no de facto
best or worst of the five. Instead there's this really cool rock-paper-scissors kind of situation where the best available options are still noticeably more viable than most other choices, but they help keep each other from getting out of hand, not too different from the famous Pikachu/Kirby/Captain Falcon triangle in competitive Smash 64.
You would think based off of typings, base stats, and Abilities that some leads should consistently win against other leads, but over time, ADV OU has developed into a diverse, colorful metagame where even these Pokémon can tweak their movesets, Abilities, and EV spreads to better matchup against other leads. What's more, each of these Pokémon does a great job at advertising part of ADV OU to newer players, and it's their flexibility in use in their roles that allows these five Pokémon to be the defining metagame forces that they are. Lead Zapdos, for example, looks like it has a pretty good matchup spread into the rest of this list as a fast, Electric-Type special attacker, but even without taking the Lead Tyranitar matchup into account, it can't just throw out Thunderbolts and Hidden Powers left and right without having to account for any anti-Zapdos tech the opponent might have, to say nothing of the possibility of your opponent having a Blissey or another special wall in the back. On the other side of the spectrum, Lead Salamence feels like it should have a poor matchup spread against the rest of this list, but it has the stats, Ability and movepool to contribute to lead matchups you would expect Salamence to lose more often than not.
I think it speaks to the diversity and viability of ADV OU's lead metagame that after a long time of trying to come up with something that has a strong matchup into all five of Zapdos, Skarmory, Tyranitar, Salamence, and Metagross, I simply couldn't. The closest I could come up with was this Gengar set I crafted, but even this feels a bit gimmicky:
Gengar @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 116 Atk / 216 SpA / 176 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Ice Punch
- Thunderbolt
176+ Speed EVs is a very well-known benchmark to allow Gengar to outspeed 252+ Speed base 100 Pokémon, and the attacking EVs were set up to guarantee a 2HKO on Zapdos after Leftovers and an OHKO on standard Lead Salamence spreads both with Ice Punch, as well as a 3HKO on uninvested Metagross leads with Thunderbolt. Substitute in the lead slot was an idea I had to try and fend off Zapdos's Thunder Wave as well as scout for potential Choice Band locks and to try and best aid Focus Punch, which at 116 Attack EVs still does enough damage from full to place Lead Tyranitar into KO range of Ice Punch or Thunderbolt after Leftovers, while also being just enough to hit Blissey for a 2HKO after Leftovers if Spikes and Sand are both up and Gengar hasn't been Intimidated or burned. That all sounds good in theory, but very rarely, if ever, does Focus Punch do as much as I want it to do, in the lead slot anyway, and on top of the Blissey calculation being extremely specific anyway, it turns out that Tyranitar just straight up beats you in the lead matchup if it's the Pursuit/Crunch set before you get any ideas of Focus Punching it in the face. As an extra bit of annoyance, you can even lose against Lead Zapdos even with Substitute if Ice Punch doesn't crit and Thunderbolt hits its 10% paralysis roll, or if the Zapdos is able to successfully SpeedPass into something that matches up well into you because of just how frail you are and how much you rely on Substitute to take any damage at all.